#with flowey and chara directly talking to you in certain moments

[iidsch]

Game theory or whatever but I was watching yet another gameplay of deltarune and when I read this line it pumped my brain juice

This happens right after the battle against Lancer ends. The segment starts with Ralsei telling Kris to think about what Susie is doing, which at first looks like a cool way to transition from one character to another, but these words made me think that maybe there's a second intention behind it.

One of the main themes Deltarune seems to be going for is the idea that the player controls the characters, sometimes against their will. Spamton's arc was about being controlled by an external force and wanting to be free, ultimately to his demise. Kris also looks pretty distraught after the battle ends, for reasons unknown. And In both endings, Kris rips out their heart and acts on their own - although we can still control the heart. Even in this scene you can't make Susie move or fight, as she does it by herself, but you do control the little heart. All of this points heavily to the idea that the player and the main character are different entities, that Kris is a vessel for us - represented in the heart - to play the game, but they retain their thoughts and are aware that they are being controlled.

And if you take all of that into consideration, this line takes on a different meaning. It doesn't look like a continuation of Ralsei's last line before the transition ("Close your eyes, and think about what she's doing now...), but rather the continuation of a completely different conversation he and Kris were having while you were not looking.

So what if... what if Ralsei telling Kris to think about what Susie is doing was not directed at them, but at you. What if they wanted you to look away so they could discuss something you shouldn't know about. Because they are aware of your constant presence, and that you're a threat to them, so Ralsei schemed a plan to have you leave them alone for a few minutes, and get the chance to talk, the two of them alone.

It is also highly possible that only Ralsei and Kris (as well as Spamton and Jevil) are aware of this. In the scene after Spamton NEO's battle, Susie comments that what just happened was really weird, and doesn't understand it at all, but Ralsei brushes it off, like we should just forget it and move on. Susie notices Kris's distress and asks them if they're okay. If you say yes, Ralsei once again tries to end the conversation, and if you say no, he hugs Kris and tells them to not worry too much. Whatever your choice is, Ralsei seems to not want to bring any attention to it, a very odd reaction to have after such a bizarre encounter.

This conversation, alongside Ralsei's line on the image above, makes me think that they know exactly what Spamton was talking about. They know there's someone controlling them, some omnipotent and omnipresent entity that escapes their knowledge. A threatening entity that is always watching them, so they have to come up with a plan in secret and hide their true intentions to be able to carry it out, and take down what seems to be the true antagonist of the game.

And that antagonist is you.

[the-river-person]

Worldbuilding Tangent Part 1

This is gonna be a post where I get sucked down a rabbit hole about the worldbuilding of the Underground. There are a some things I think are worth noticing. I’ve seen a couple fics and comics where people acknowledge the size of the Underground. But I don’t think we’ve really stopped to take a good look at it much, and I want to cause its fun. Please note that these are my own observations from the game and that It’s possible I might interpret what I see in a different way than others. Let’s start with just the Ruins and the city of Home. (plus some mentions of New Home. But its relevant.) We know that the Monsters were sealed away Underground and trekked across the massive cavern to where the Ruins are now, and they made a city called “Home”. The book in Toriel’s home says “Cavern’s” indicating that its a single cavern with the possessive apostrophe on the end instead of multiple caverns. A cavern is defined as a category of cave that is particularly vast and has formed naturally in soluble rock and grows speleothems (Cave formations like flowstone, stalagmites, stalactites, columns, straws, or drapery). I thought this meant there was only one single vast cavern until I came upon “The Glossary of Geology” which said that the word ‘cavern’ could either be used to talk about one single vast cave or a system of caves, chambers, and connected tunnels. This sounds more like what I see in the game, because we know that there seem to be large cave areas separated from one another and connected by tunnels and smaller caves. So we have a series of connected large caves and tunnels. The first of which we see is the Ruins. The ruins are supposed to be a small part of the ancient city of Home, where the monsters lived for a while after being sealed Underground. Why did they eventually decided to move back to the main entrance where they were first sealed? We don’t know for sure, but based on the timing, it might have been due to Chara. We know Chara fell down the same hole as Frisk does at the start of the game, because the flashback cutscene shows this and because Toriel returned Chara’s body there and buried it. Yet we also know that Asriel and Chara left the Underground through the only real entrance and exit available to them without a ridiculous amount of climbing... The one we find in New Home. One possibility is that Asgore built the city of New Home AFTER they died, but this doesn’t work because Asgore tells us that Toriel became disgusted with his actions and “She left this place, never to be seen again.” Since we know the place Toriel ended up was the closed off Ruins, then New Home would have needed to be built sometime before the death of the royal children, but after Chara’s initial fall. (there is the possibility that it was built before that. I have doubts that Asgore and Toriel would be letting little Asriel wander alone through a set of abandoned ruins, but you could make an argument for it depending on various possible circumstances). Anyway, you the player get to see the ruins as you follow Toriel and solve puzzles. And while they’re somewhat sizable, they don’t seem much like an ancient city, more like a couple of old streets, a park, or something like that. Perhaps a set of gardens since it appears to be set outside (will come back to this in a moment). Then we come to an area where we see the actual city of Home, inaccessible to the player. We’re on a balcony, suggesting that the city is at a lower elevation, and that the ruins we’ve been traveling through are much higher up, possibly part of a castle. The city itself is quite big, containing towers and domes and buildings of all kinds, stretching into the distance. Looking at the Ruins themselves, we know that they’re open air (as much as you can be underground). There are piles of leaves everywhere (despite there only being a single tree, suggesting that there are leaf bearing plants growing above or on the walls outside of the player’s line of sight. And beds of flowers grow in various places. Even the occasional pool, stream, or fountain makes its appearance in this area along with all of the puzzles (this stream could be the very source of the River we see later in the game with the River Person in his boat and Ice Wolf sending blocks of ice down to Hotland). Along with the addition of Toriel’s Home, which appears identical to the one in New home in almost every way, we might guess that this area is an upper area of the original Castle (or Royal Palace, whatever word works) and that it was probably an open air garden area for the Royal Family or others near them. Personally I feel like it could be a play area for the young Prince Asriel to practice at puzzling without his parents worrying too much, but I don’t know that there’s much evidence supporting this. Also there’s the more dangerous puzzles involving spikes, which might have been added later, but we’ve no way of knowing for sure (Didn’t Papyrus suggest that spikes were every child’s dream?). Toriel’s Home itself, much like Asgore’s Home at the end of the game, also acts as a guard to the main exit. An exit to the Ruins into the rest of the Underground, and later an exit from the Underground altogether. This sort of thing fits with the whole Boss Monster idea, which in traditional games act as threshold guardians. So in both cities, the King and Queen were overseers of the main door in and out of the city, placed directly in their living quarters. I have to assume that both are part of a much bigger castle because while they appear tiny when we actually play in them, there’s a scene in Waterfall where we get a good glimpse of the city of New Home and there’s definitely a big whopping castle there in the middle. So either Asgore and Toriel just...don’t live in the big castle (why would they build it?) or Asgore’s home is just a small part of the castle, the royal family’s living quarters. And since its identical to Toriel’s home in the ruins, which is elevated above the main city for unstated reasons, I think it might be reasonable to assume that it too is part of a large castle or palace and acts as the royal family’s living quarters apart from rooms where matters of state are dealt with. Though based on the rooms of various levels it could be a training ground, store rooms, or a set of different rooms that make up that level of the castle. The entire area of the Ruins and Home are populated by various small and weak monsters. Some of them being almost feral or wild in nature, while others appear to be there just to hide or make trouble. A Froggit tells us that Toriel was seen coming from the lower city itself with groceries, which makes it more or less certain that some sort of civilization is thriving in the main city itself, with  enough Monsters around for a working community and things like stores you can buy groceries from. Finally the end of the Ruins, reached by going through Toriel’s home and down to a lower level (which would put it back down on the same level as the city of Home and lower than the rest of the Ruins you travel through), is a large pair of doors with the Delta Rune on them. Beyond them is another long tunnel ended not by a door but by pillars and a wide open dark space occupied by Flowey and a patch of grass and bare earth. Most of the Ruins have the purple flooring, like tile or paved stone. Only the first area where you fall down and this area have this... open feeling. I suspect this area might have been a courtyard just outside the main castle doors but before the outer wall. And indeed we find a second set of ornate doors to leave through, entering out into the Snowdin Forest. The very first thing we see there is the doors we came through set in a very large and purple stone wall. We don’t see much of it, but we know that the Ruins are inaccessible to us and the rest of the Underground, so the wall must be either very tall, or might totally seal off the Home area from the rest of the caverns. It is certainly not a natural feature due to its color, the resemblance to the stonework of the rest of the ruins, and the stylized doorway of the same colored stone set in it.

[agentravensong]

Why Frisk, Chara, & Kris Being Non-Binary Is More Than Just a Headcanon

An UnderTale/DeltaRune Analysis

Since DeltaRune came out, I’ve been sucked right back into the Undertale fandom. Unfortunately, while I’ve seen tons of great fanart and interesting theories relating to the game, it seems the introduction of a third playable human character who isn’t explicitly male or female has also somewhat re-sparked the debate about whether the genders of Frisk, Chara, and now Kris are up to the player’s interpretation. 

On one side, you have people saying to just respect everyone’s headcanons about these characters, down to deciding their pronouns. On the other, you have people saying the three characters being non-binary is part of their thematic purpose in the games, on top of being positive canon representation for a rarely recognized group.

I fall into the latter camp, and this post will explain why. (WARNING: long and text-heavy post)

NOTE: This post was written in late 2018. Since then, I have made an updated version with additional points in Google Docs, which I then used as the script for a YouTube video. As such, this post should be considered an incomplete, though still sound, version of my argument. If you have the time, rather than continuing to read this post, please click the above link(s) to read the Google Doc and/or watch the video for a full understanding of the topic.

If you find yourself repeatedly coming back to this post for whatever reason, remember that my ask box is always open! I’d be more than happy to clarify my position :D

A quick definition to start us off: if a person is “non-binary”, it means that a person doesn’t see their gender as being exclusively male or female. Many non-binary people prefer to be referred to by the pronouns “they/them/theirs” instead of “he/him/his” or “she/her/hers”, since “they” is already a gender neutral pronoun.

 Also, just in case someone doesn’t understand this, a person’s gender identity is not necessarily related to who they are romantically or sexually interested in.

This post will be split into six sections of unequal length, with the focus progressing from literally interpreting the text to Toby’s intentions and the outside impact of having these characters be non-binary.

1. The basics: All 3 characters are referred to exclusively by gender-neutral pronouns in the games.

Let’s go character by character, shall we?

FRISK

It’s admittedly hard to find examples for this, since most of the time people are talking about Frisk in-game, they’ll be talking directly to them in second person. However, while looking through screenshots provided by the UnderTale Text Project, I found these:

Thank you, Alphys!

EDIT: Hey look, a more obvious example I somehow forgot about!

CHARA

All of the following quotes come from the character Chara was supposedly closest to in the entire Underground, Asriel. As you read, think about this: if Chara’s preferred pronouns were anything other than they/them, why would Asriel not use their correct pronouns here?

“Chara hated humanity. Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that.”

“When Chara and I combined our souls together, the control over our body was actually split between us. They were the one who picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village, they were the one who wanted... to use our full power.”

I’ve seen some people take Flowey’s mentions of Toriel in his New Home Genocide monologue to be confirmation that Chara goes by “she/her”, since he doesn’t refer to Toriel by name... even though Chara wouldn’t have been awake at that time, and when Flowey DOES talk about Chara in this monologue, it’s in second person, since he believes YOU are his old best friend. This misconception isn’t common, especially these days, but I figured it was worth addressing.

KRIS

Out of the three humans, I think Kris is the one who people are most likely to associate with a specific gender based on their name. But despite the theory videos and such you may have seen where people referred to Kris as “he”, this is not reflected anywhere in-game.

(Got these screenshots of DeltaRune’s code from this tumblr post) 

The lines in the first photo are what Susie says when she’s trying to break Kris and Ralsei out of prison, and you have the option to suggest to her which way to go. The second example. according to Kris’ page on the DeltaRune fandom wiki, is said by Ralsei earlier in the game, if you do not run to complete the clock puzzle to open the door right after reuniting with Susie. Unlike the first example, it is clear in this case that Kris is the only one being referred to. 

I remember seeing someone somewhere argue that Susie and Ralsei don’t know Kris well enough to know their “proper” pronouns. When it comes to Ralsei, I can see that argument... but did you notice that he knows both Kris and Susie’s names without asking? It seems he knows more than he lets on... and while Susie certainly wasn’t friends with Kris before this, the fact that they’re in the same class is enough for me to think she would have heard Kris be referred to by their preferred pronouns at least in passing by this point.

And that’s it. Frisk, Chara, and Kris are never referred to by other pronouns... with, admittedly, one exception:

Why does Chara use “it” for themself here? If I had to guess, it’s likely a combination of them being a ghost of their former self without a soul of their own (Flowey’s shown us how much your personality and sense of self is tied to having a SOUL) and the corruption from the Genocide run (remember that gaining LOVE affects a person’s mentality). They see themself as a demon, no longer a person. Whether that’s literally true to any extent or just how they feel after everything they’ve been through doesn’t really matter, I just wanted to cover this point before anyone else could bring it up. It’s not like it makes them not non-binary or anything.

To be clear, not all non-binary people go exclusively by they/them pronouns. Some prefer to go by masculine or feminine pronouns for their own reasons; some go by “neo-pronouns”, ones invented specifically for those who identify as non-binary; and some people go by more than one set of pronouns. However, in the case of Frisk, Chara, and Kris specifically, the fact that they only go by they/them pronouns makes them non-binary, and using any other pronouns for them would be incorrect (even if you have them go by they/them AND he/him or she/her).

Really, that should be enough to prove that the three humans being non-binary is canon. After all, you never have any of the other major characters in Undertale or DeltaRune explicitly state “I’m a girl” or “I’m a boy”. We know their genders because of the pronouns everyone refers to them by. Sure you’ll see gender-bends of those characters, but no one ever claims that those are on the same level of validity when it comes to canon as the actual canon.

But I know that isn’t enough for the people who came into this post disagreeing with the premise, so let’s actually get to countering some of their arguments, shall we? The main argument, of course, is that the humans’ are all meant for the Player to at least partially craft identifies for, including deciding which pronouns they use. But first...

2. Small Fish First: Other characters who are obviously not meant to be self-inserts use gender neutral pronouns.

...I want to cover the easier to counter idea that they/them pronouns are meant to just be, for lack of a better term, “placeholders”; the pronouns you use when you don’t know a person’s gender, rather than being valid permanent pronouns on their own.

If this were true in the case of Undertale and DeltaRune, you’d expect the humans to be the only ones referred to by these pronouns. They’re the ones whose identities are left ambiguous so the Player can project onto them, right?

But that couldn’t be father from the truth. In fact, the majority of the monsters you encounter in both games are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns (they/them and/or it), if any pronouns at all.

Now one might say, “But none of those monsters are really meant to be individual characters.” I get why you’d think that. But you’re forgetting at least one person...

Yup, Napstablook, despite what many fans have assumed from what I’ve seen, does not go by he/him pronouns, but they/them. And it’s not just in the narration either. Undyne does too in certain phone calls with Papyrus. ...Then again, she barely knows Napsta, and we see in DeltaRune that she defaults to they/them when talking about people whose gender she doesn’t know (specifically in that game, Alphys). 

But that isn’t my last example. One of the few people who was ever close to Napsta was Mettaton (before he became a celebrity). And what does Mettaton say after Blooky calls in to his final show?

What this proves is that Toby recognizes they/them pronouns as valid for an individual in his work, which I hope makes buying that he purposefully made all three humans canonically non-binary easier for skeptics to swallow (we’ll get back to whether he DID purposefully do that later).

But I’ll acknowledge that there IS a difference between the three humans and the other characters in the games who use they/them, due to their relationship with you as the Player. So with that tangent out of the way, time to diffuse the “everyone can have their own headcanons about the kids’ genders” argument.

3. Thematic Context: All 3 humans have moments of asserting their agency, and part of the game’s subtext is how they each relate to the Player, rather than them all being blank slates.

Again, we’ll go character by character.

FRISK

This section is, admittedly, the one with the least evidence compared to the rest. But here’s what we have, and it’s pretty obvious:

After this moment, as was shown earlier, the other monsters know Frisk’s name and will refer to Frisk in the third person with they/them pronouns. Now, consider this: If Frisk used other pronouns, wouldn’t they have corrected the monsters here? Sure Frisk don’t talk without being prompting much throughout most of the game, but considering how they just shared their name, something equally as personal as their pronouns, I don’t think it would feel too out of place here.

Alternatively, if Frisk’s gender was up to the Player’s interpretation, the Player could have been given a prompt to correct the other characters with the “proper” pronouns for Frisk. You could argue it would be pointless this late into the game, but couldn’t that logic apply to the reveal of Frisk’s name as well? In this case, the lack of such a moment speaks more to me than having such a moment would.

Now, I totally get why people would project onto Frisk up to this point in the narrative, including assigning them different pronouns. It wouldn’t be a plot twist otherwise. Even their design seems to lend to that, with the unrealistic bright yellow skin Legos and emojis have to make them more race-neutral, and their emotionless, unchanging facial expression (though it’s worth considering that most of the other character’s overworld sprites don’t change expression much either; I’m pretty sure Alphys’ overworld sprite keeps her dopey smile even when she’s talking about the depths of her depression and failure at the end of the True Lab section). And this actually works to UnderTale’s benefit through most of the game, making the connections you forge with the monsters feel more personal.

The significance of this moment is that it asks the Player to be willing to change their perspective. Throughout the True Pacifist run, you help Frisk to change the mindsets of the characters you come across; this is most obvious with Undyne, who has been raised to see all humans as the enemy, but comes to admit that at least “some humans are OK, I guess” after befriending you. Along the way, you learn that there’s more to these monsters than first impressions may suggest (again, Undyne being a great example). Now, the game is asking you to look deeper one more time, and presenting you with the challenge you’ve posed to all the other major characters: are you willing to recognize Frisk’s autonomy; to understand there is more to this person than you first saw?

EDIT: Hey, remember that screenshot from earlier where Flowey asks you to “let Frisk live their life”? He’s literally asking you to let Frisk be free and truly themself, rather than resetting and taking control of them again. So there’s some more food for thought.

CHARA

While you are the one who names Chara (the reason for which will be considered in the fourth section of this post), consider these points:

1. If the purpose of Chara’s entire character was meant to be just a reflection of you as the Player, then why give them a “true name” at all?

2. Chara’s backstory is integral to the setup of UnderTale’s plot, and provides a good amount of hints at their original personality, easily making them less of a “blank slate” for the Player to project onto than Frisk.

3. Chara makes a clear distinction between the Player and themself in their monologues at the end of the Genocide route. In case you forgot, here are some reminders.

First meeting:

“Your power awakened me from death.”

“My ‘human soul’, my ‘Determination’; they were not mine, but YOURS.”

“With your guidance, I realized the purpose of my reincarnation.”

“Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong.”

If you agree to ERASE the world: “You are a great partner.”

In the abyss:

“Interesting. You want to go back.”

“You want to go back to the world you destroyed.”

“It was you who pushed everything to its edge. It was you who lead the world to its destruction.”

“But you cannot accept that. You think you are above consequences.”

“Perhaps, we can reach a compromise. You still have something I want.”

“Then, it is agreed. You will give me your SOUL.”

Second meeting:

“You and I are not the same, are we?”

“This SOUL resonates with a strange feeling... You are wracked with a perverted sentimentality. ...I cannot understand these feelings any longer.”

“I feel obligated to suggest: should you choose to create this world once more, another path would be better suited.”

To say there is no connection between Chara and the Player would be unfair. I mean, if they hated humans their whole life, why do they end up taking out that rage on the monsters, the ones who were actually kind to them, in the Genocide run? Like Chara says themself, you guide them, teaching them definitively that “in this world, it’s kill or be killed”; and the influence you have on them is much more obvious if you subscribe to the Narrator Chara theory (but that’s a whole other can of worms).

Like with Frisk, Chara presents the Player a challenge, but in a more subtle way: can you recognize that YOU are at fault, rather than blaming your actions on a damaged kid who learns from your example and never got the chance to grow beyond their mistakes? And part of meeting that challenge is recognizing that Chara is, or at least used to be, their own whole person.

KRIS

Now we get to the really fun part. DeltaRune as a whole seems to be delving even deeper and more explicitly into the relationship between the playable character as an unwilling vessel and the actual Player than Undertale did. Outside of the prevalent message that “Your choices don’t matter” (which I’m guessing will end up more like the “kill or be killed” of this game rather than DR’s intended final moral), the main evidence towards this is how the game starts.

1. A red soul appears on screen when the unknown speaker (presumably Gaster) asks you if they’ve successfully connected with you. The soul is what you control throughout this sequence. The implication? The SOUL in this game is a manifestation of you as the Player. In fact, considering some of the Chara quotes I mentioned earlier, this could be true of UnderTale as well.

2. You spend time making a vessel, only for it to be discarded, because “No one can choose who they are in this world.” This lack of choice is actually foreshadowed when you choose which legs you prefer, since all but the last choice are the same. The game is pointing out right away how superficial these choices are.

3. The speakers says “Your name is...” and Toriel seemingly finishes the statement by calling out “KRIS!”

The message of points 2 and 3 combined is pretty obvious to me: we don’t get an empty vessel to put ourself and our ideas into in DeltaRune. Kris is NOT an empty vessel; they have an already established backstory and personality, which we get multiple hints at (mostly when going around town at the end of the demo).

The fact that you have to go through this creation process on every new file, even after beating the game, suggests it’s more than just a framing device, but directly tied to the game’s narrative and/or themes in some way. So, let’s keep this scene in mind as we look at Kris’ defining moment at the end of Chapter 1.

In the middle of the night, Kris is wrestling with themself in bed until they fall out. Their walk is very stilted and jerkish, reminiscent of a zombie, or someone possessed.

Kris opens and closes their hand a few times before digging into their body and pulling out their soul, their eyes blank. (Notice how this doesn’t seem to actually leave a hole in their chest or anything? Almost as if the soul was never a part of them in the first place...)

They go to the wagon and harshly YEET the soul into the cage (the flavor text for which mentions it has already seen a few crashes... has something like this happened to Kris before?).

Kris walks back to the middle of the room, as if to purposefully stand in the center of the DeltaRune symbol on the floor, then pulls out a knife from seemingly nowhere, and turns to the camera with a red glow in their eyes.

Now, I totally get why most people will immediately assume that Kris has been possessed by a post-Genocide Chara here. I’m pretty sure the visual similarities between this scene and the one that plays if you choose to stay with Toriel in a soulless pacifist run in UT are intentional.

But remember how we mentioned the red SOUL, at least in DeltaRune, is a manifestation of the Player? This is actually reinforced in this scene, because you’re able to move the SOUL back and forth within the cage.

We’ve been controlling Kris via that SOUL the whole way through the game, and now? Kris is done with us. THIS is their prime moment of agency in Chapter 1 - reclaiming ownership of their own body - and I doubt that it will be their last.

There’s a ton of other stuff I could mention about Kris, like how:

* they had their own save file, which you overwrite at the first save point

* multiple NPCs in the town will comment on Kris seeming more talkative or looking off today, because YOU’RE making them interact with people

* Kris’ ability to play the piano is worse than normal with you controlling them, according to the hospital receptionist

* the narration says Kris feels bitter if you throw away the one possession in their inventory, the Ball of Junk (”bitter” isn’t the emotion one would feel if they did this of their own free will)

or all the hints at Kris’ true personality as an introverted, codependent prankster. But that could be a post in itself. My point is that, if Frisk and Chara’s individualism from the Player was subtle in UnderTale, this is pretty straightforward, if you know where to look.

And if these three humans are all their own characters, then shouldn’t we consider what seemingly little we DO know for sure about them as canon? We all take their names to be canon, so why not their pronouns?

That’s the bulk of the argument done. But when discussing canon, there is one thing that always has to be considered:

4. Can We Know The Creator (Toby Fox)’s Intentions?

Well, not really.

Some may bring up the one tweet where Toby suggested to name the fallen human (Chara) “your own name” as evidence that you ARE meant to project yourself into these characters. 

However, I think you could just as easily argue that doing this ADDS to the impact of when Frisk, the character you physically control, confirms themself to be their own person with their own name, rather than a mold for you to pour yourself into. 

And though Chara does make it clear that they themself as a character are separate from you, the whole Genocide ending monologue does hit harder when the person reprimanding you for their sins, who describes themself as “the feeling you get when your stats increase”, shares your name.

While putting this post together, I came across this interview Toby did about Undertale back in September 2015, and took particular note of this section:

While this technically doesn’t confirm or deny anything either way, how hard would it have been for Toby to say, “Well the protagonist is meant to have their gender be up to the player’s interpretation”? I doubt he would have gotten more backlash for that then he would have for definitively saying that Frisk is MEANT to be non-binary (though I doubt that would have stopped people from making them male or female anyway).

Then again, the article does start with the interviewer saying this:

“I told Toby Fox to skip questions he didn’t find interesting, and boy did he take me at my word.”

So maybe he just didn’t have anything worthwhile to mention.

I can’t say with certainty that Frisk and Chara’s genders were never meant to be up to the Player’s choice, even after what I mentioned in section 2 (and I doubt Toby would want to make a statement on it at this point). Same with Kris, for now.

However, if the rest of DeltaRune ends up going in the direction I suggested in the previous section, I honestly would not be surprised if there’s a moment where Kris confirms they are nonbinary, as a show of agency and individualism akin to Frisk telling Asriel their real name. I wouldn’t really call it a “theory”, and it’s hard to speculate what the other chapters of the game will at all be like based on what relatively little we have... but I wouldn’t have mentioned it here if I didn’t think it had any validity.

5. Why Does This Matter?

Outside of the previously mentioned stuff relating to the games’ themes/messages about choice, agency, and individualism, there’s one big reason: representation.

How many games can you think of where there are any explicitly non-binary characters? How many where that character is a major one, who doesn’t get treated as particularity different from the others just on the basis of the pronouns they use? And how many of those games are even close to the popularity of Undertale in its hayday? Even expanding these questions to media other than just video games won’t net many more results.

For people who are striving for representation, seeing posts like “Just let people have their headcanons :)” can come across as the OP not understanding how much that representation means. Even worse, coming back to the point I made in section 2 of this post, it could be seen as the OP denying that being non-binary is just as real and concrete as being male or female (a problem which more mainstream representation of non-binary people would help solve!).

But don’t just take it from me. After all, as a binary cis girl myself (”cis” meaning not trans), I can’t speak generally for all the trans and non-binary Undertale and Deltarune fans out there. So allow me to link some posts which provide their perspectives:

This first post is from before DeltaRune was released, and mainly focuses on Frisk, but goes in-depth on the topic (and the OP provided me some feedback on my post, so if they see this, thanks!)

I came across this post just while scrolling through the DeltaRune tag about why this stuff matters to non-binary fans.

This post is specifically about how using they/them pronouns for the kids is preferable whether or not it’s literally canon.

Here’s another post from the same person covering some common counter-arguments.

And if the other posts are too long for you to bother reading after going through mine, this one sums up the point in one sentence.

I know some people flinch at the mere mention of the word “representation”. I know that some will argue you shouldn’t need to see representation of a group you belong to in a piece of media in order to be able to relate to the characters and/or feel validated yourself - because I’ve seen people make this argument. But, I mean, I certainly find it easier to relate to characters that I share traits with; that’s just how humans work. It’s probably the main reason why people assign different genders to Frisk, Chara, and Kris in the first place! Besides, who does it hurt to include more diverse characters?

Oh right, there’s the idea that “forcing” creators to include representation is bad for creativity or whatever. Well good thing that’s not what this is about! As far as I know, no one is telling Toby he has to ADD new characters to fulfill a quota; the characters in question (Frisk, Chara, & Kris) already exist in his work. The point of this post is to show that the three of them were MEANT to be non-binary from the start (assuming I provided enough proof to convince you), so people won’t continue to erase that representation. By making them binary cis boys or girls, you’re only taking away from the original text (and giving people more to “complain” about).

Honestly, what does one even have to gain story-wise from assigning different genders to the human kids? I can’t remember a time I saw where making them strictly boys or girls added anything to their characterization or opened up different story possibilities (I’m sure you could could up with a theoretical example, but compared to the endless fanworks that DON’T do that, they hardly make a dent). Speaking beyond just Frisk, Chara, and Kris, characters being non-binary shouldn't affect how you ship them. You can give such characters more overtly masculine or feminine designs/appearances, but still have them be non-binary and go by they/them pronouns (most people don’t naturally look androgynous after all). In a work with voice acting, casting someone with a more masculine or feminine voice to play a non-binary character shouldn’t stop you from portraying the character as non-binary either - just refer to them with the right pronouns! 

And if people who find your work continuously misgender your non-binary characters or ask what their “real” gender is, don’t let them get to you. You don’t need to respond to every such comment, but when you DO respond, clearly state that these characters are non-binary, politely correct the people who refer to those characters by the wrong pronouns, and, if worst comes to worst, block the people who won’t respect that. Before you (using “you” for the rest of this paragraph to refer specifically to my fellow binary cis peeps) can even think to argue “that sounds like too much work” or “it’s not worth the potential controversy”, remember that non-binary people in real life have to deal with this crap far more often than we do, and for them, it’s personal. If they can handle it, why can’t you?

Yes, Frisk, Chara, and Kris are fictional characters, not real people. But more representation of non-binary people in media helps others learn to understand and respect them, both in fiction and in real life. Honestly, it’s beyond time for people to accept that “they/them” aren’t “placeholder pronouns”, and the genders of people who use them aren’t up for others to judge. It’s just who they are, and really, how hard is that to respect?

If nothing else will convince you, think of it this way: if you’re not in the group being affected by a discussion like this, and you don’t care about the people in that group, keeping yourself out of the conversation saves everyone time and energy, without hurting anyone.

6. Conclusion

So, to briefly summarize this essay-length post’s main points:

1. Frisk, Chara, and Kris all go solely by “they/them” in their respective games, so having them go by any other pronouns is technically diverting from canon to the same extent that gender-bending any other character would be, NOT a valid interpretation of the original text. 

2. There are other individual characters in these two games, such as Napstablook, who are referred to by they/them pronouns, even by those who were close to them.

3. The three humans are all shown to be more than just blank slates for the Player to project themself onto, making the stuff which IS definitively said about them (specifically, their names and pronouns) canon parts of their characterization unless directly proven otherwise.

4. We can’t assume Toby’s intentions, but even if he didn’t initially make Frisk, Chara, and Kris gender neutral for the sake of giving non-binary people representation, many people have taken it as that. Thus, seeing others say that the humans’ genders are up for interpretation is interpreted as those people not respecting non-binary identities as valid on their own.

The one other point I can think people might bring up would be the idea that kids as young as Chara or Frisk wouldn’t identify as non-binary because they wouldn’t understand the concept. To that argument, I’d suggest looking up videos about people who realized they were transgender as kids. In general, if there are concepts in this post you didn’t quite get or agree with, research is your friend!

Speaking of which, as this post I came across in the DeltaRune tag yesterday pointed out, fun fact: “non-binary” is an umbrella term that still leaves some slight room for personal interpretation when it comes to the humans’ genders! To use myself as an example, I personally headcanon Chara as firmly agender, Kris as a a demi-boy (someone who only partially sees themself as male), and Frisk as genderfluid (meaning that their sense of gender regularly changes). However, despite the nuances in their gender identities, I only have them go by they/them pronouns, their canon ones, in my fanworks. Doing otherwise not only goes against canon, but can be considered misgendering, and thus should be avoided.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t make up ANYTHING about what Chara, Frisk, and Kris are like either. People have plenty of headcanons about the backstories and other quirks of characters like Sans, Undyne, Mettaton - basically the whole cast of both games - and there’s nothing stopping you from doing that for the human kids. I certainly have my own ideas of what Chara and Frisk’s lives were like before they fell into the Underground. The difference is that those are speculating on things not outright said in canon. But Frisk, Chara, and Kris going by they/them pronouns IS canon, and should be respected as such.

At the end of the day, neither I nor anyone else (not even Toby) can outright stop people from having their opinions about these fictional characters. But since I had some free time this weekend, I figured I could take a stand for something I care about relating to a fandom I’ve emerged myself in for the past few years. My main hope in making this post is that you’ll understand why certain people disagree with the seemingly righteous stance of “It’s all up to interpretation, just let people do what they want!”. And if you knew nothing about non-binary identities before, hopefully this was educational for you!

If you have any remaining questions or suggestions relating to this post, feel free to reblog with your feedback or send me an ask. Until then, this is Agent Raven, signing off.

[what-lovely-scales-fandom]

Asriel Knows About The Player

Obviously this theory assumes that there IS a player, so I'll start by linking the strongest evidence I've come across for that. If that didn't convince you, I don’t have anything that will, so this entire post is probably just gonna be a waste of your time. Otherwise! For starters I'd like to point out that goats knowing more than they let on is not a new thing -- Asgore reacts and agrees to your telling him that he's killed you multiple times already, meaning that somehow he knows about the human ability to control time. What exactly this means for him or anyone else is never gone into, but it's THERE and it raises a LOT of fascinating questions.

Asriel takes after his Dad in that way; we don't know for sure what or how much he knows, what it means or how he knows it, but there's some implication that he knows QUITE A BIT more than he lets on for most of the game. And we know that because in the final scene of the game’s True Pacifist run, there is a message from Flowey. It looks like it’s directed at Chara. It isn’t. It’s for Us.

A minor point first -- it's equally possible that this is not Flowey himself at all, but rather an out-of-character (literally rather than perjoratively) message directly to the player from the mascot of the game. That would also explain Asriel's practical joke right before the credits, which on its own is easy to dismiss as an out-of-character gag even if it DOES also offer further support for this theory. These could both be messages from the game itself that have nothing to do with Asriel or Flowey as characters; I don't have any knock-down point against that interpretation, and if you favor it, I can't beat your argument. All I can say against it is this: that interpretation means that these scenes don't give us any insight into Asriel's personality or place in the world. That makes them less interesting and valuable in my eyes.

Beyond that, the most obvious interpretation is that Flowey is speaking to Chara, the character, the fallen human, his best friend. After all, Flowey ends the speech by saying "See you later, [Fallen human's name]." That's the simplest explanation and the typically accepted one, but it's actually not particularly strong for a few reasons. First and foremost is the relationship between Asriel and Chara: in life, they were best friends. After death, Flowey spent literally years dreaming of Chara and longing to see them again. He latches onto Frisk as a substitute Chara for most of the game. Once he finally accepts that Frisk is not Chara, he says that Chara has been gone for a very long time. All of this tells us that A) Asriel has a strong emotional connection to Chara, and B) he thinks that they are dead. For him to suddenly realize that they are still around should be a DEEPLY emotional moment for him. As Flowey, his ability to feel love is gone, but the MEMORIES of love clearly have an impact on him, both with how he talks about Chara in the rest of the game and with how he talks about FRISK in this very conversation. He does have the line "Chara never was the greatest person," which complicates this a bit, but the fact that he keeps their locket and stays at their grave to water their flowers implies pretty heavily that Asriel still cares deeply about Chara even if he's come to think less of them in certain ways. Even if you take a different view of that comment and say that Chara is pure evil and Asriel has finally come to realize this, Flowey should be ANGRY or AFRAID during that final conversation, not bittersweetly empathetic. And even if you take his comment as a total rejection of Chara without implying hatred -- which is probably the weakest possible interpretation of that line even before remembering that the memory of Chara was what saved Asriel in the final battle, showing how powerful his feelings for them must be -- it still doesn't cover the even simpler problem that Asriel thought that Chara was dead and gone forever only a few minutes ago. How would seeing them again not be a surprise? How could he act like he was EXPECTING them? Why is his reaction to the reappearance of someone he thought long-dead so incredibly blasé? And most of all, WHEN and HOW did he realize that they were still here? Chara seems to be invisible to everyone except Frisk and a handful of ghost characters. How did Asriel figure out that someone was there with Frisk at all, much less who specifically it was? Did Asriel work all of this out offscreen in just a few minutes and we are never given even a hint as to how?

So Flowey wasn't talking as a mascot, because that's not interesting, and he wasn't talking to Chara the character, because that's implausible and unsatisfactory. The only one left he could be talking to is The Player. And that raises an even more interesting point -- he refers to us with Chara's name. And Chara's name isn't just Chara's name, it's also our handle on the world. The only identifying information we enter. After all, what most people see on their first run-through isn't "See you later, Chara." It's "See you later, [their own name, or handle, or a name that has some significant meaning to them]." Which means that most likely, Asriel/Flowey somehow managed to figure out that there is a Player, who was influencing Frisk's actions and helping them get the best ending, and that that Player's indentifier was the name Asriel remembered his best friend going by (sometimes their actual true name, but often not, and Asriel apparently has no reliable way at that point to tell the difference). This is something no one else in the game ever shows the slightest hint of realizing. Asriel has access to some truly unique information here.

There's something else Asriel knowing more general information about The Player helps explain: his newfound idolization of Frisk. Several people have pointed out that when Asriel says that "Chara wasn't really the greatest person, but Frisk, you're the kind of friend I wish I could've always had," he's clearly referring to their different decisions when faced with violent enemies -- how Frisk chose to spare the monsters while Chara urged Asriel to use his full power and kill the humans to protect himself. And several people have pointed out how these lines don't change no matter what you've done on previous timelines. Even a No Mercy route aborted at Sans simply out of frustration or a True Pacifist run marked by as much cruelty as possible -- constant insults, leaving Monster Kid to die, crushing the spirits of a handful of monsters -- doesn't stop Asriel from implying that he sees Frisk as an sweet-natured violence-hater. And this, along with Asriel's shifting from idealizing Chara to idealizing Frisk, makes perfect sense if he know about the Player; if you're looking for a new person to idolize, someone whose bad decisions and actions can all be blamed on an extradimensional being -- some justly, some not so much -- is the PERFECT choice.

Simply put, Asriel knowing about The Player answers enough unanswered questions, and the alternatives are unsatisfying enough, that I think this is a rare exception to the rule "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one." Instead, the answer is that Asriel/Flowey knows about The Player and speaks directly to them at the end of the True Pacifist run, using the only indentifier he can attach to them. The alternative interpretation that he's talking to Chara isn't IMPOSSIBLE, but with everything else we know about both characters, it doesn't quite fit.

(All this ALSO means that Chara, Frisk, and Asriel are the only ones who know about the player, which means Chara and Frisk wouldn't have anything to hide from Azzie to begin with and these three kids are TOTALLY a support group for each other who have no secrets from each other. Which I support SO hard like you don't even KNOW.)

[leonhaxor]

Hello, yes, welcome to a Deltarune Theory

So, we all know how Gaster was the royal scientist for King Dreemurr. Built his greatest creation, the CORE - which we know that is a massive power source - and that Gaster famously "fell into his creation." Most interpreters thin it's the CORE he fell into, but it's not exactly elaborated upon. We also know what whatever he fell into, he basically became a glitch in the system of UNDERTALE's reality.

Do we really know HOW his CORE works, though?

The CORE was Gaster's greatest creation. Which, as far as we ever knew, was an absolutely MASSIVE energy reactor that provided power to all of the Underground. These are the facts here. Judging by all the lava, it'd be safe to say the power source was geothermal in origin.

The thing is, as far as 'greatest creations' go, this seems a little bit... too mundane. Yes, it's massive. Yes, it looks like Shadow Moses and Hollow Bastion had a lovechild (the castle in KH1, not the variant with an actual town around it). Yes, the overworld theme there is a banger. But at the end of the day it's still a glorified power plant. To his credit, it's unknown how long it actually took him to make it, as well as the implied time period they were sealed away being at least around Medieval Times, if not further back.

But even then... what about the CORE could shatter Gaster's existence across time and space (assuming it was the creation at all)?

Monsters can die to a lot of the same things any other living being can die to. There might be certain allowances, based on what kind of monster they were. If the CORE was geothermal in nature, if a fire elemental was to fall into its workings... well, barring the "drop of water in an ocean" possibility, it's highly likely they'd survive intimate contact with such high levels of heat. A monster that may or may not be a skeleton, like Gaster is widely believed to be? Probably has a melting point.

With the heavy implications that his fall into the CORE spread his essence across time and space, and the specific attention to getting those details across... would a fall into a mere geothermal reactor, no matter how large, actually spread one's being across existence in such an anomalous manner? What would set it apart from dying in literally any other part of the Underground, where monsters turn to dust instead?

As we have seen in both UNDERTALE and deltarune, a Fall is an *incredibly important thing*. Chara/The First Human fell into the underground, arguably fucking up everyone as badly (if not more so) than the human wizards of old who trapped monsters in the Underground. The six human children that came after did the exact same thing, leaving only their SOULs and their gear behind for Asgore and Frisk, respectively, to use. Frisk... well, they too fell into the Underground, and gave us the means to interact with that world.

What do monsters call dying of old age in their culture? Falling down. You know who also did this by the time we're in Chapter 1 of deltarune? Gerson. There’s a book in the  The one person alive who knew what the delta rune was, and who has been getting an awful lot of mention for a dead turtle, but I'll get to that later. Note that there was a distinct difference in the way that it was described for Gaster - he “fell into his own creation,” but he did not “fall down.” Humpty Dumpty might have been pushed.

But the point is, Gaster's own fall is fascinating because like in the context of the human children's falls, his Fall marked a beginning of a story (most obviously, Alphys', but I'm not sure that's where it ends), and the context of an end (such as Gerson's fall in deltarune, and his posthumous reverence by the community that he was from, much like the Followers do).

...so, what exactly might be the cause for Gaster's non-existence, regarding the CORE itself? How exactly did any of that end up being relevant?

Let's talk about deltarune's story for a second.

Recall that the Knight has been referred to by Spade King in crimson text... which, if you recall, is rather similar in color to that of the human SOUL in Kris.

But what kind of creature could this Knight be, to fight the Spade King and instill such profound loyalty within this monarch? When he is so powerful, so cunning, so ruthless, as we see him in his boss battle (as well as indirectly, though his effect on the Darkners' Kingdom)? What if I told you... 

Ahem.

Jokes aside, we do have to consider what kind of monster this Knight would have to be, one with the power to create the Holy Fountains. One that we haven't actually seen onscreen, and have heard even less of than King. Except... we might actually have seen someone, or rather something, that DOES have ties with the Knight, or at least his ability to manipulate the Fountains.

Kris.

Or rather, their SOUL.

Or even more specifically... a SOUL that we simply control.

Let's walk back a bit from the stinger, and work our way from there.

Here's a picture from the final scene we have so far in the Dark World, specifically of the “fountain” that we encounter. 

If you are viewing this in-game, the pattern is constantly scrolling diagonally, along the same line but in different directions. If you pay attention to it, you'll see this strange symbol that looks like a chinese fingertrap with spades on the ends.

Now take a look at this picture from the vessel creation screen. It’s been taken from just before the other menu items appear, for maximum clarity. 

Note how, while there is a constant rippling effect from the center, not unlike water in a pool, we can clearly see that there is a shape being distorted.

One that bears a striking resemblance to that of the fountain itself.

Both times we see this pattern, texture, whatever you prefer calling it... there is a brief interval where we see it, before a *Red SOUL* is seen in the center of it. And, directly afterwards, we are shown a white light that encompasses the entire screen, before we are brought into the World of Light.

Curiously, in the earlier variant, the screen turns white from the center x-axis and outwards, where the second one turns white from the center y-axis and outwards. Not entirely sure of the significance of the differing choice in axis, but I think it has something to do with the context of each entry. The first is our entry into the game, or rather the prologue, while the latter is our entry into the epilogue.

I believe that the former is representative of the SOUL's entry into the CORE, while the latter is representative of it returning from the depths of the Dark World.

Yes, you read that right.

I believe that the entirety of this game take place inside the CORE.

Between the curious reactions to entering his name into either of the inputs, along with all of the references to sounds and words associated with him, most people think Gaster is the narrator in the opening sequence. Or Chara, according to @Squigglydigg's initial theories playing the game. But while that'd be interesting to explore, I'll have to go a third route for the moment, as I believe there is more evidence to back this idea up.

I might as well address the name input easter eggs before I go farther. Neither "Frisk" nor "Chara" happen to elicit any sort of unique response from the narrator whatsoever. If you name Gaster as the Vessel, the program soft resets. But if you name him as the Creator... it shuts down immediately, before you can truly enter the "R."

I believe that this narrator we are introduced to is actually a program designed by Gaster himself, made to oversee the CORE's operations.

If Gaster is named as the creator of this vessel, the program crashes. Note that this name is also used as that of the SAVE file's profile. As far as we know so far, the vessel's name is inconsequential. It's been hypothesized that this vessel will become relevant in later chapters, but it is unclear if and how it would actually be used.

My current thoughts as to what the creator has to do with this program... is that whoever is actually using the program is in some form of VR simulation. One that, as suggested by the cage at the end of the chapter, is meant to trap the player. I’ll get more into how it tries to do so in the next part of my hypothesis.

I haven’t forgotten about the "Chara" figure at the end of the chapter. I think this is actually a clue to the true identity of the Knight, or at least the World of Light's equivalent. Recall that the one in the Dark World is never seen, but is able to summon the Holy Fountains of Darkness. King, in his fight, has an odd hatred for Kris specifically, calling them the specific name of "Lightbringer" for the first and only time so far in the game. Picture the act of what the Knight *does*, bringing forth a fountain of shadows from the Earth. When Kris stands before that castle fountain, it erupts into light (and is presumably destroyed, but then again, we don’t actually see the aftermath of this action).

The Knight is implied to be obscenely powerful, in both conventional combat and enough to create dark fountains, enough to make King into a willing and eager servant. If we look back at UNDERTALE's genocide route, we see Flowey (who in terms of power and personality greatly resembles King) eagerly supporting "Chara" in their slaughtering of the Underground. And, by the time we have defeated Sans, we've made them into a truly unstoppable killing machine. Note how the Knight's colortext has a unique red and black gradient effect, representing their ties to the darkness while also bringing to mind the infamous red text that accompanied our player-made killer's thoughts. Thoughts laid out in simpler text rendering, but noticably brighter hue than that associated with the Knight.

Also recall the words of Seam the Shopkeeper, should you defeat Jevil. He heavily implies that Jevil is only a taste of what is to come, that later enemies will be even more powerful than that reality warping madman. In the world of UNDERTALE, what has proven more powerful than a human with high LV?

Apart from human error... not much comes to mind, honestly.

In the next part of my Game Theory(TM), I’ll be going over what I think Ralsei’s part to play in all of this really is, as well as what the CORE actually *does* to generate power for the Underground.

[quantumfeat72]

FOFUPTA Chapter 14

You Called out for Help...

Read on AO3 here

First chapter here

Next chapter here

Again, i would highly recommend reading on AO3 instead of tumblr.

[Sans]

“frisk?”  You knock on their bedroom door a few times, receiving no response.  “you in there, kid?” “Just a minute!” they call, and you think you hear shuffling of some sort through the door. You lean against the wall next to it and stare down at the plate of food in your hands.  “tori made quiche again.” Frisk says something you can’t make out, but they sound happy.  The door opens a second later and frisk comes out, a disgruntled-looking Flowey sticking his head out of their backpack. ...Aw, who are you kidding - Flowey is always disgruntled.  You hand Frisk the plate and they start eating while you head down the stairs.  “so,” you say, mostly just to break the silence, “you... planning on visiting chara’s grave again today?” Frisk nods and swallows before saying, “After the meeting.”  You walk in silence for a bit before they stop just short of the kitchen, resting their fork on their plate.  “Hey, um, Sans?” “yeah?” you say, taking the plate from them to put it in the sink. “Is everything okay with the, um... that man who...?” “oh.”  You glance at Toriel, who doesn’t appear to have heard them, before resting a hand on their shoulder.  “yeah, don’t worry.  he won’t bother us again.” Frisk nods shakily.  “Okay.”

You shut the door behind you while Frisk shrugs a jacket on and starts walking toward the bus stop.  Toriel follows close behind, eyeing the flower suspiciously when she thinks nobody’s looking.  You fall into step next to her, watching Flowey give grumpy directions as Frisk walks steadily forwards. They’re pretending nothing’s wrong, which is somehow worse than what they were doing in the underground.  You look back and forth between them and Toriel, who’s doing the same thing, and wonder if they each think they need to be strong for the other.  Or maybe Frisk is just being strong for themself. You were still angry when they came out of the underground, and you still wish you’d had a chance to ask Chara about everything yourself, but now...  You can’t stay angry at Frisk, not when they’re so different.  So... fragile. You chuckle a bit.  Chara must have meant a lot to them.  They did seem to have that effect on people. “Hey, Frisk?”  Flowey’s voice shakes you from your thoughts and you notice Frisk has stopped walking.  Toriel rushes up to them. “My child, what’s wrong?” You get close enough to see that they’re holding one hand over their chest, looking suddenly pale, muttering a hushed reply.  “It hurts.” “What?”  Toriel kneels to their level, getting ready to try to heal them.  “Where?” Frisk shakes their head minutely.  “My soul... it...”  They interrupt themself with a pained yelp, falling to their knees.  They start shaking, still clutching a hand to their chest. Toriel puts a hand on their shoulder.  “Frisk, please talk to me.  You can feel your soul?” “It hurts.” “I-” Suddenly, Frisk pushes her away and stands up, still hunched over.  “Chara.” “Frisk-” “I have to find Chara!” With that, they sprint in the other direction, towards Mt. Ebbot.  You hear Flowey frantically shouting at them before Toriel runs after.  You shortcut ahead of them and grab their arm.  “sorry, kid-” “I have to find them!”  They repeat, pulling harshly away from you. “okay, jeez, calm down.” “I need to get to Mt. Ebbot.” “you can’t run there.” “I have to-” “just give me a sec and we can take a shortcut, okay?”  Toriel finally catches up and you grab her hand before you can lose your grip on Frisk. You jump. Frisk pulls away from you as soon as their feet touch the floor of the ruins, running off in the direction of Chara’s grave without so much as a backwards glance.  They don’t even wait for Flowey’s instruction, seeming to know exactly where they are anyway. Have you gotten that predictable? “Chara?” they call.  You follow them into the room as they slow to a walk before reaching the flowers.  “Chara, can you hear me?  I’m here.  Chara!” You wait.   Time seems to hang still, until Flowey opens his mouth to say something and Frisk collapses into the flowerbed.

“Frisk!” “kid, come on.  wake up.” Frisk stirs just a bit in their mother’s lap, gripping her sleeve with their right hand.  You sit in front of them both and watch them open their eyes. “Frisk?”  Flowey pops up from the ground next to you.  “What happened?  Are you...?”  His eyes widen when they lock with Frisk’s and you look back at them, not seeing whatever Flowey just noticed. Frisk speaks with a hoarse voice, almost a whisper.  “Asriel?” “Chara,” breathes Flowey. “Chara!”  Frisk holds their chest, smiling.  “You’re back.”  They blink and hold up one hand, looking at it.  “Frisk, I...”  They stand up suddenly, barely stopping themself from falling as they stumble away from Toriel.  “We have to...” You share a look with Toriel and follow after them, catching up after they collapse again at the bottom of a staircase.  You kneel next to them and place a hand on their shoulder. “Kid, what’s going-“ The world stutters. You look up and see nothing but black.  You glance frantically in every direction until you see Frisk and... is that Chara?  They share a glance with each other before Frisk looks directly at you.  “Chara,” they say, “How did you bring him here?” “Don’t know, don’t care,” says Chara before they run to a certain part of the infinite blackness and wave frantically, managing to open... something.  Frisk sees what they’re doing and reacts immediately, pulling back on their arm. “What the hell are you doing?!  You’re the one who said we shouldn’t mess with it!” “That was before.  It’s the only way.” “Slow down.  What are you trying to do?” “There’s no time!  I have to erase it before-” “C H A R A” Chara freezes and you turn toward the direction of the voice. “Y O U   I D I O T.” Chara stands up and puts an arm defensively in front of Frisk.  Out of pure instinct, you step between them and the source of the voice. Gaster pauses as though noticing you for the first time.  “Sans?” he says, voice so much more staticky than you... No, you don’t remember it.  “uh, yeah?” you say, masking the fear in your voice, the edge of anxiety the form in front of you seems to cause, “have we met before?” Gaster only stares at you.  Something in his expression looks... vulnerable?  It doesn’t suit him.  You don’t remember him ever looking like that... ...What are you thinking?  You don’t remember him at all. ...Right? “you’re... wingdings, right?”  He has a name.  You always knew he had a name, but he never told you what it was.  You can hear his font now - an uppercaser, like Papyrus. No, he isn’t anything like Papyrus. “I am Doctor Wing Din Gaster.” “you have a surname?  that’s rare.”  Or is it?  You and Papyrus are the only skeletons you know... Gaster nods numbly.  “I took it after the war...”  He seems to remember something.  His expression shifts, and his body loses some of its form.  “Step away from the human.” he says. You flash a grin and take a step towards him.  “better?” “Get out of my way, Sa-”  He stops himself and stares down at you.  “Subject One.”

A memory: “When 1-S and 2-P - oh, that’s what he called us.” Alphys looks up from writing.  “Oh, ok.” You nod, and continue reading out loud.

You steady yourself and summon an attack behind you.  “here’s a funny twist: no.” Gaster throws an attack at you and you dodge easily, throwing your own back at him.  You’re still weak, but you have a few tricks up your sleeve this time.  He dodges all but one of them, which slides through his form unnoticed.

A memory: You attack Gaster with everything you have.

A bone nearly collides with your side but disappears before you can dodge it.  You look back up at Gaster, who is pretending it didn’t happen.  You hear Chara say something behind you.

A memory: “how long were you screaming while he drilled that thing into you?”

Your skull hurts.  You reach for it instinctively and step backwards.  Gaster summons another attack.

A memory: “you’re trying to fix me?”

Suddenly, Gaster freezes in place.  You hear Chara behind you.  “It’s working!  Do the next one!” You turn to see Frisk messing with the thing Chara had been poking at earlier.  You hear static.

A memory: “i regret it!  i regret killing gaster, okay?  it wasn’t right, no matter how horrible a person he was.”

“Sans?” Gaster looks so small now.  He never looked like that before.  The way he looks up at you, crumpled up on the floor, the fear so prevalent in his glowing eyes - you’d never seen them glow before - he almost looks like a monster.  Like a real person. “it was appropriate, i guess,” you think out loud, watching Chara and Frisk, “for someone with your ego to die in obscurity.”  You look back at Gaster.  “kind of ironic, huh?” Maybe it’s your imagination, but it looks like he smiles.  “I suppose so.” “looks like you failed again.” “It was always like this.  It was all for not h i n g.” “yeah,” you say, “but, hey.”  You summon a circle of attacks around him.  “at least we got a happy ending out of it.”

You stumble away from the save point and frisk stays on their knees for a bit, trying to steady their breathing. “Frisk!”  Toriel catches up and kneels in front of them, holding their shoulder.  “My child, what happened?  What’s wrong?” “It’s okay now,” Frisk says, almost a whisper, before reaching out to hug her.  Toriel melts into the hug, closing her eyes.  You watch them for a moment before you notice your phone buzzing in your pocket. You pull it out and answer.  “hello?” “SANS!  WHERE ARE YOU?” “oh, hey, pap.  we’re, uh, on our way.  sorry we’re late, heh...” “WELL, ACTUALLY...”  Papyrus trails off for a second before remembering himself.  “YOU ARE LATE, BUT THAT IS NOT THE REASON I CALLED.” “it’s not?  what’s up?” “DID...  DID YOU FEEL THAT, TOO?  JUST NOW.” “feel what?” “YOU DIDN’T?” “i never said that.  but you’re, uh, gonna have to be more specific.” “IT WAS LIKE... A MEMORY.” “...but different, right?  more like the feeling that you’re remembering something, with no real memory attached?” “YES, EXACTLY LIKE THAT!  SO YOU FELT IT, TOO.” “yeah.  kinda weird, huh?” “VERY WEIRD.”  Neither of you speak for a bit, and you wonder what caused it to extend to him.  “BUT!” he says, suddenly, “IT IS NO EXCUSE TO BE LATE.” “right.  don’t worry, bro.  we’re going tibia there as soon as we can.” Papyrus groans loudly and hangs up.  You head over to Tori and Frisk, who still haven’t stopped hugging.  “we’re gonna be late to the thing,” you tell them, and Toriel nods and picks Frisk up so she can stand without putting them down.  “come on,” you say, holding out a hand, “i know a shortcut.”

When the meeting is over, you come home to an especially disgruntled-looking Flowey sitting in the front yard. “oh yeah,” you say, “forgot about you.” “Clearly.”  Flowey scowls at you.  “You could have at least warned me.  I had to get back here on my own!” “you could have stayed in the underground.” “Bite me.” “Asriel...”  You both turn to watch Frisk - or, you guess, Chara - walk almost timidly up to the flower before kneeling to his height.  “Why are you here?  I didn’t think you would ever leave the underground.” “I’m your replacement.  Frisk paid me to be their seeing-eye-flower.” “Flowey, be nice.” “That wasn’t part of the deal, Frisk.  Besides, it’s not like you’ll need me, anymore.” Flowey pauses like he’s waiting for Frisk to correct him, but they don’t. “maybe you should stay anyway.” you interject. “What?” says Flowey, “Why?” You shrug.  “why not?  you’re already kinda part of the family.  and besides,” you glance pointedly at Toriel, “i think ‘asriel’ has a little explaining to do.” “Oh,” says Frisk, looking between the three of you, “did Mom not know about - oh.  Oops.  Sorry.” “Why don’t we have this conversation indoors,” says Toriel, walking past them to unlock the door.  “I do believe we have some pie left over.”

Pie makes everything better, is what you’ve decided, just now.  Frisk devours their slice with the vigor of someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks, only forcing themself to slow down when Toriel hands them another. She takes the explanation of Flowey’s real name with a kind of exhausted acceptance you’d think was impossible if you didn’t know her better.  When he’s done, she suggests a nap.  All of you could use a nap, she says, and the rest of you reluctantly agree.

That afternoon you dream about a color cube with Xs and Os on each side.  You dream of a bunny rabbit made from pillow fluff and the best marshmallow you’ve ever tasted.  You see hands with holes straight through the middle and a lab coat that spreads dramatically behind the monster wearing it.  You see a face you don’t recognize - a pair of glasses and an eye that never opens. He looks lost. You dream of a vast nothingness, a palpable black, a distorted view of reality.  You smell tobacco smoke and turn around to see a figure standing alone, facing away from you. His head is obscured by the darkness.  His coat is gone.  The inky blackness around him seems to concentrate into his form.  He turns to face you, but he doesn’t see.  He speaks, but you don’t hear.  You reach out to touch him, and his form scatters like wrapping paper in the wind. You wake up alone and struggle to remember any of it.

“hey, kid.” Frisk looks up at you from their game of chess - a hobby they picked up again as soon as Chara came back.  “Hi, Sans.” “can we talk?” Frisk moves a piece with their right hand.  “Sure.” You sit down on the opposite side of the board.  “about what you said in the underground...” Frisk holds their left hand over a bishop, tapping the top of it lightly before speaking.  “Let me guess.  You want to ask Chara about it?” “yeah.” They shrug and move the bishop.  “Alright.” You watch them to see if you can spot the difference when Chara takes control, but you fail to see the moment when it happens.  Their right hand hovers over the board, but doesn’t make a move.  “So... what exactly did Frisk say in the underground?” they ask. “...that it wasn’t all you.” “Oh.”  Chara puts both hands in their lap, wringing them nervously. “is that true?” Chara nods.  “Do you honestly think they would lie about that?” “well, one of you did.” Chara’s hands go still.  “It wasn’t their fault.  Do you know what would’ve happened if they’d just reset as soon as I stopped?” “what do you mean?” “You would have remembered.  You would have known right off the bat what they-  what I did.  I know you still get nightmares, but if it isn’t a true reset... everyone remembers it a little.” “so you’re okay with it?” you ask.  Chara doesn’t answer, instead moving one of their pieces on the chess board.  “why’d you quit?” “Because it was you.”  They sigh.  “I never wanted to beat you.  I wanted to see how much it would take before you fought me.  I wanted to know what your limit was.  That’s how it started, anyway.” Their left hand moves to the board, quickly positioning a piece before resting in their lap again. “I guess I got carried away,” Chara admits.  They avoid eye contact, instead glaring at the board.  “I never said this, but...  I’m sorry.” “...damn,” you say, holding back a laugh, “i’mma need you to prove you’re really chara again.  i mean.  admitting you were wrong and apologizing?  you gotta commit to this role, frisk.” They laugh, and you laugh along.  You aren’t sure which one of them takes a captured black pawn and throws it at you, but when you send it back and they catch it out of mid air like it’s nothing - you know it has to be Chara.  “I never did prove it was really me,” they say, placing the pawn on the board.  “Does that count as checkmate?” “nah, frisk can capture it.” “Not without putting their king in check though.” “nope, they still can.” “How?” You take the white queen from the captured pile and replace their pawn with it.  “like that.”