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findmeabowlofundertale · 4 months

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IT’S HERE, PART 5

MMMM the pacing and tone shifts are even worse but yknow what too diddly darn bad. As usual, this wasn’t meant to be so long, it got away from me, yada yada. But actually I’ve mentally worked out several plot things for… the distant future, and stuck some of them in here oh so cleverly. Like a sneaky snail. Ohohoho

…I am. So tired.

So I’ll probably edit this in the morning.

Edit: I did edit it.

Part 4 (prev), Part 6 (next)

- - - -

Alphys helped Asteri get Dr. Gaster to the couch. Despite Asteri being quite tall herself and therefore having furniture to match, he was even taller, and so his feet stuck off the one end. It didn't matter though, because he passed out almost immediately. (Despite his protests on the way to the living room.) That left the two women.

"I hope it's alright that you're away this long," Asteri worried aloud as they returned to the kitchen table. "I mean you don't have to stay, of course, but I assumed it might be a little strange to return to work sans your boss?"

"Eheh, yeah... O-Oh! But if you, um, want me to go, I can! If you wanted it to be, uh, y-you know... Just you guys? When he wakes up?"

Asteri gave a dry smile and quirked an eyebrow. "What reason, exactly, would I have for wanting it to be just the two of us?"

Alphys' face went red, and she looked anywhere but at the shapeshifter. "W-W-Well!! Y-You know! If you... wanted to… talk…. a-about anything...?" She glanced back to Asteri, who looked tired but amused. "I-I-I don't know!!"

"Alphys, I'm not going to bo-- oh my god I can't believe I almost said that. I'm not going to sleep with your boss. I barely even know him."

The lizard monster sputtered in embarrassment at her apparent transparency for a few seconds before managing words. "W-Well I don't know! Y-You guys were all- all blushy and stuff earlier!"

"Because there was an embarrassing misunderstanding!" Asteri objected. As if to illustrate, it seemed the heat in her cheeks was returning again. "Other than that, there were a couple moments of emotional vulnerability that were necessary but still uncomfortable given the low level of familiarity between us."

"...S-So you don't, um, h-have a... crush on--"

"I met him ONE other time, Alphys! Have you been reading romance novels or something?"

The way Alphys froze and the ensuing silence spoke volumes.

"...I mean, no judgement." A beat passed. "He's not into ME though, is he?”

“I-! I don't... think so? I think he’s, um, I think he’s just happy to have a friend.”

Asteri smiled to herself. “A friend, huh? I can’t say I ever expected the Royal Scientist to think of me as a friend.”

A few thoughtful seconds passed before Alphys spoke. “M-Maybe that’s— um. A-Actually, n-never mind!”

“What?”

“N-No, it was kind of, um, r-rude, I’m sorry.”

“Well now you have to tell me.” Alphys looked uneasy, so Asteri smiled. “I won’t be offended, promise.”

Alphys sighed in defeat and fidgeted with her hands. “W-Well maybe, um. M-Maybe y-you keep- keep feeling like that, because, um... Do I have to say this??”

“Yes. Now I’m really curious.”

Another huff of resignation, followed by an awkward groan. “M-Maybe it’s b-because you… only, um. Only think of him like- like that? A-As “the Royal Scientist.””

Asteri made a thoughtful noise and leaned her chin on her wing.

“W-WHICH IS LIKE TOTALLY U-UNDERSTANDABLE!” Alphys hurried to add. “I-I-It’s really in-intimidating! I totally freaked out when I first met him! H-He’s this big, important figure who-who’s been around forever, s-so of course you wanna be, um, r-respectful, and stuff. But… I’ve worked with him f-for the last year, um, a-a little more actually, a-and he’s… really nice. H-He doesn’t treat anyone like- like they’re below him. Actually, he kind of? Does the opposite? He’s always in-incredibly careful with e-experiments that involve anyone else, but if he’s doing it by himself, half the time he won’t even wear safety gear unless someone reminds him. H-He listens whenever anyone has any concerns, he brings in snacks, he never yells at anyone— a-actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seem him mad, e-except maybe at himself? Everything he does is f-for the good of everyone else, to take care of us all down here. B-But… He doesn’t, um. H-He doesn’t really… have anyone to… take care of him? N-Not that he needs t-to be taken care of! He’s a g-grown monster! Obv-Obviously…”

“No, I know what you mean,” Asteri murmured. “Being alive so long must be… lonely. If all you have is taking care of others...”

She thought back to how he had mentioned that nobody asked him about skeleton history, or culture. How excited he was to share. If she stopped looking at it all through the lens of academia…

“He just doesn’t have anyone to talk to about his life, does he?”

“W-Well! Th-There’s us at the lab. B-But, um… no. He doesn’t… really talk, um, very much, about his life outside work.” She was quiet a moment. “I guess, m-maybe that’s why he… makes it his life.”

Asteri exhaled and slowly lowered her forehead to the table. “God, that’s so sad.”

She wasn’t pitying him. She wasn’t. But that was sad, that a person who had lived so long could give so much and receive so little. But it weren’t as if their… friendship (it really felt far too soon to call it that) so far were based on pity, or because she felt bad for him. No, the core of all of this was that he was extremely enjoyable to talk with. He was funny, too. Kind. Patient above all, answering her questions and explaining things thoroughly without ever being condescending. Their conversation at the donut shop was what she imagined it felt like when two gears fit together just so. A meeting of the minds, so to speak. Because, if she thought about it, if she took everything he had said as completely genuine, then it had been just as enjoyable to him. Come to think of it, it hadn’t felt like a superior trying to teach her something, even though he had taught her a number of things. It had felt like how she remembered college being, when she and her classmates would piece things together as they learned. It felt bright like that, warm like that. Their excitement built off each other’s. For as much as she had learned, with the way he spoke to her, the way he treated her, she felt like she had contributed just as much. She never felt stupid. Silly, maybe, but never lesser.

It was such a pleasant conversation that had she reflected on it this much before, she likely wouldn’t have been able to resist trying to call him, or at least emailing him. Which was why it was better, easier, to tell herself that it wasn’t genuine, just like all her colleagues. What a mistake that had been. If she set aside the fact that both of them were academics, and imagined that conversation between two people regular people, it was unquestionably the beginning of a potential friendship.

“Alright,” Asteri decided, lifting her head from the table. “That’s it.”

Alphys startled, voice fluttering as she shifted nervously in her seat. “W-What’s- What’s it?”

Asteri sat up straight. “I’m getting this man some friends. And I’m going to be one of them!”

The two seconds of silence were too long, and her face flushed blue-green.

“Not… sure where the sudden resolution came from,” she mumbled, hunching inward slightly. “That was weird. Ignore that.”

“N-No, it was cool!!” Alphys insisted. “Y-You’re like an anime character….”

That got a questioning (though not judgmental) eyebrow raise from the shapeshifter. This time Alphys blushed.

“W-Well, um! A r-really common, um, th-theme! Is! The- The power of, um, friendship. P-Plus! Y-You’ve got the colorful, spiky hair! Well, um, sort of. A-And, um… Uh. A-Actually that’s… mostly it. S-Sorry.”

Asteri smiled. Alphys seemed like a very earnest person. She liked that. “Don’t apologize. I said at the dump that I’d like to hear more about anime once we weren’t busy. We’ve certainly got time now, if you’d like to tell me more.” She gestured with the tip of her wing to the DVD cases and manga on still on the table. “Do you know these ones?”

Alphys looked like someone had just given her the key to breaking the Barrier. Those were the sparkliest eyes Asteri had ever seen on any monster, ever. And the biggest grin she’d ever seen on anybody with skin. “O-Oh my god, really?” she breathed with audible disbelief. “You really want to- to hear about it?”

“Sure! You’ve certainly listened to me enough today.”

“OMG, okay! S-So first you have to know a little about um, J-Japanese culture! I don’t actually know too much, because I haven’t found a lot of intact DVDs, or manga that hasn’t been totally waterlogged, b-but here’s what I do know…”

⁂

For the second time in two months, Asteri had a conversation that lasted until nighttime. Unlike in New Home, where sunlight from the surface did come through the Barrier in some places and indicated night and day, here in Waterfall it was always dark, save for the perpetual glow of the water, crystals, and mushrooms. The clock, however, was indicator enough. In the last several hours, Asteri leaned about: Samurai and ninja, magical girls, the Japanese system of honorifics (which had derailed into an intense linguistic interrogation for a while before returning to the original topic), cherry blossoms and their symbolism, why the eyes in the art were so big (windows to the soul, apparently, and more expressive than the mouth; having met a skeleton, Asteri felt inclined to agree), and a handful of popular Japanese foods.

She had also indulged Alphys by shifting into her best approximation of a few of the characters the younger woman had shown her pictures of. Alphys had squealed so loudly the first time that Asteri was surprised it didn’t wake Dr. Gaster. She decided to pass on the opportunity to make a joke about sleeping like the dead, given that she wasn’t actually sure on the origin of skeletons monsters, but had heard enough rumors to realize it probably wasn’t in good taste.

“So, on the surface, there’s enough water in one place to completely separate an entire society from another?”

“Y-Yeah! I can’t even- I can’t even imagine. I wonder if the ocean is like the lakes down here…”

Asteri made a face. “Which lakes, the glowing ones? Because if it glows and it’s that big, it would be so bright at night.”

Alphys hummed pensively, trying to recall whether the ocean had ever glowed in any anime she’d seen. “I don’t… think it does? The water that glows here does that because, uh, b-because of microorganisms, partly, b-but mainly all the leftover magic from us monsters. The same with a lot of- of the crystal formations. Th-That’s why the water in the dump doesn’t glow much; it’s coming right from the surface. I don’t think, um, very much stuff on the surface glows at all, actually. E-Except like lights a-and stuff.”

“Hmm, so no glowing oceans then… Wait, hold on. Are you saying that the water and stuff here glows because of dead people?”

“WHA-?! N-NO! I-It’s j-just ambient leftover magic, l-like from when bullets d-dissipate, or f-fire magic! Monsters t-turn to dust when they die, e-everybody knows that!”

“Right, but what’s the dust, if we’re made of magic, and magic dissipates over time?”

Alphys blinked. “W-Well, we’re actually just mostly made of magic, there’s a little bit of ph-physical matter, so— Oh my god.”

Asteri raised her eyebrows.

“Maybe the water does glow because of dead people.”

The horrified look on Alphys’ face made Asteri snort. “Well, if that’s the case, if the dust is the physical stuff, but our magic just kinda evaporates into the atmosphere and that’s the majority of the ambient magic, then dead people are also why the crystals in the ceiling and mushrooms glow, right?”

“W-Well the mushrooms… have some natural bioluminescence, I think, but… y-yeah,” Alphys answered weakly.

“Then…” Asteri smiled, lopsided but sincere. “Then isn’t it kind of nice that everyone we’ve ever lost is still around us, still with us? Even in the “stars”?”

Alphys stared, mulling that over. Then, she slowly broke into a smile. “Y… Yeah. Yeah, that is kind of a nice thought.”

Asteri shrugged her wings. “I mean, I’m not a biologist. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s kind of what I like to believe.” She looked up at the ceiling of her house, as if seeing past it to the ceiling of the cave beyond it, and all the crystals embedded within.

“I-I’m going to ask about that, now. Th-There’s a few biology majors I share c-classes with.”

“Let me know if I’m right,” Asteri hummed. “But if I’m not, don’t say anything. Unless the truth is even nicer, somehow.”

“O-Okay! Will, um! Will do!”

The conversation returned to lighter things for a short while, until they heard a groan from the other room, followed by what might have been some sort of confused mumbling, then a soft thud. Both women rushed into the living room.

“D-Dr. Gaster! Are you okay??”

“Mmmmnnnghh…”

Alphys cringed slightly. “U-Um, we’re at Asteri’s house, remember?”

“Yeah, I should have left a lamp on in here,” Asteri apologized, wincing. “My bad.”

A couple seconds of almost tangible disorientation went by, then blue, slightly glowing hands appeared. “Since when are you on a first-name basis with Ms. Asteri? …And what day is it?”

Asteri chuckled as she found the light switch and flipped it on with her tail. “It’s the same—“

“You’ve been asleep for TH-THREE DAYS, sir!” Alphys flat out lied, doing a remarkably good job at sounding equally panicked and frustrated. “This is w-why you’ve GOT to take better care of yourself! W-We’ve all been so worried!”

Dr. Gaster immediately scrambled to his feet, eyelights flaring with yellow and purple as he gasped in abject horror. “It’s been WHAT?!”

“It has not been three days, it’s been a few hours,” Asteri corrected, sounding somehow both chiding and amused.

Alphys giggled behind her hands. She looked only a little remorseful.

His eyes faded back to normal. “Alphys…”

“T-To be fair, sir, I wouldn’t have been able to do that if you just slept every night.”

His cheekbones practically glowed red. Even so, he didn’t seem about to back down. “Every night?! That hardly gives me any time to work!”

“How about every other night, then?” Asteri offered. Both scientists looked to her like they had forgotten she was there.

“That does seem m-much more reasonable than what you do now,” agreed Alphys.

The skeleton crossed his arms, like he was sulking, and used the blue hands to sign instead. “I will consider it…”

“By the way, you’re welcome to call me by name as well, Doctor,” Asteri commented, recalling his waking question. “Just Asteri is fine.”

Though a bit taken aback at first, he soon broke into a smile, attempt at sulking already forgotten. “Just Asteri… In that case, please feel free to forego the honorifics on my part as well.”

She tilted her head. “Just call you… Gaster?”

He nodded. “I have told Alphys that she is free to do the same, but she insists. Some of the others at the laboratory do as well, but there is really no need for such formality. They know who I am.”

“I-It’s a respect thing, Doctor,” insisted Alphys.

He frowned slightly and blew air through his nasal cavity. “I don’t need my colleagues to call me “Doctor” to know that they respect me. Actions are far more important than words.”

Asteri smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Bold words coming from a man standing in a linguist’s living room.”

Gaster’s eyelights disappeared. If an exclamation point could be a facial expression, he would have had it right then. Alphys laughed into her hands. “She’s got you there, sir.”

“I meant—” He tried to backpedal. “Ms. Asteri, I meant no disrespect to your work! In the context—”

“Hey. Hey, relax. I’m teasing you,” Asteri cut in gently. “I’m not offended. I know what you meant.” His eyelights flickered back into existence. She smiled softly. “Sorry, I should probably go easy on that until we know each other better. I’ve been caught up talking to Alphys, so my tongue is a little sharp from the banter.”

“Oh.” He blinked, then slowly returned her smile. It was more grounded. The way he had smiled earlier today was excitable, like unraveling string, pulled taut and fraying. (Likely because earlier, he hadn’t slept yet.) But now it was softer. “I am relieved. I don’t mind the teasing, sometimes it just takes me a while to get the sense of it.”

“Having just woken up probably doesn’t help. But uh, about what you were saying before, I get it. About not wanting the people you work with to use titles. Words have power. So sometimes, it’s better to forego certain ones. They can be a shield, and if you want familiarity with someone, you can’t have a shield between you.”

“Yes.” Gaster straightened. “Yes! Exactly! That is exactly what I meant! How can we be fa— friends if they feel the need to restate their distance in every other sentence?”

Asteri didn’t miss the way he almost signed “family” instead of “friends,” and she doubted the younger scientist missed it either.

Alphys’ eyes widened at what he said. Evidently, she hadn’t realized he felt that way. “D-Dr. Gaster…” He looked to her, and she must have realized that she just called him “Doctor” again despite everything, because she flushed slightly. “Uh! I-If it’s— I mean, um, f-for me…” She shuffled closer and took a deep breath. “Y-You’re so nice to me! And! E-Ever since m-my dad… f-fell down, I-I’ve really missed talking with him. He always… always supported me. I used to, um, tell him about- about this kind of stuff. E-Engineering, and programming and…” She trailed off and shook her head, ignoring the way her eyes stung with the threat of tears. “H-He, um, he didn’t really get a lot of the m-more technical stuff, but he always l-listened. M-My mom was always busy, but-but he was s-so patient, and kind, a-and fun, and w-we were…”

She had kept trying to ignore the threatening tears, until it was too difficult and the emotion thickened her voice.

“We were really close,” was all she managed before her voice hitched, and she covered her mouth to swallow the feeling. “I-I’m sorry, th-this wasn’t supposed to turn into this!” She tried to hide it all with a laugh, and it did help her regain her composure some. “I-I-I didn’t mean to get a-all emotional, I just- I just wanted you to know that, u-um, I don’t k-keep calling you D-Doctor, and sir, b-because of… I-I’m not trying to, um…! It-It’s not that I…!” She swallowed the words she kept tripping over and screwed her eyes shut.

She took a deep breath.

“I-I can’t just call you Gaster b-because it’d be like calling my dad by his name!”

Alphys had her whole face covered with her hands. Gaster looked absolutely blown away. Asteri felt like she had just witnessed something extremely personal, but sensed that if she moved at all it would only draw attention to herself and make her presence more awkward.

Gaster stepped closer to the younger woman and gently set a hand on her shoulder. She peeked through her fingers, and he smiled at her, eyes full of hesitant warmth. “Alphys… You truly think of me like that?”

She nodded and glanced away, embarrassed.

But he beamed so brightly, so warmly, he looked like he might cry himself. His eyes burned green. “I have not had any family for a very, very long time. I have never wanted to overstep. But you are… like a daughter to me.”

They shared a meaningful look and then each made slight, unsure arm movements until they both managed to telegraph that the intention and desire for a hug was mutual. Alphys yelped slightly as she was pulled into it, evidently not expecting however it felt to hug a skeleton, but settled into it. Asteri smiled at the exchange. She had tried not to just stand there and watch, but it was difficult not to given the size of the room. It made sense why Alphys had had nothing but good to say about Gaster. Asteri didn’t doubt that it was all true, of course, but a young monster who was still grieving her father’s death, and subsequently found another father figure in her boss was bound to be a little biased. Not that this wasn’t absolutely tooth-rottingly sweet.

She glanced at the nearest clock. It was almost 8:00PM. Surely they were hungry; she certainly was. She and Alphys had only had a handful of snacks, they had been so busy talking. So while the two scientists hugged it out, Asteri slipped back into the kitchen and rummaged through her pantry and refrigerator to assess what she could make quickly. Gah, she really should have realized the time sooner. A box in her freezer caught her attention. Oh, that would work.

As she busied herself with dinner, she thought about her conversation with Alphys earlier about whether or not “the water glows because of dead people” and winced. Whoops. But… Alphys had seemed to appreciate her take on their loved ones who had died still being with them in the crystals and ceiling stars, and, yes, the glowing lakes.

She wondered how many people Gaster had lost.

A few minutes later, Alphys and Gaster stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, smiling. Asteri turned to greet them, but Alphys spoke first.

“Asteri I’m, um, I-I’m sorry… f-for almost crying in your living room. I didn’t- I-I didn’t mean to… do that.”

The shapeshifter turned and offered a reassuring smile. “Don’t sweat it, Alphys. It seems like you guys had a… good talk?”

They both nodded.

“You have been more than accommodating, Mi—” Gaster stopped halfway through signing “miss” and corrected himself. “Asteri. You tolerated me making a fool of myself multiple times, invited us to your home, made us tea, let me sleep on your sofa for—“ He checked the time— “almost six hours, and led me to having a touching conversation with Alphys. …Also in your living room. I cannot overstate my gratitude for your hospitality.”

Asteri smiled, a little shyly, and shrugged one wing, trying to be casual as she moved about the kitchen. Here went nothing. “Well, hey… what are friends for?”

His eyes widened, flashing pink. He went from surprised to touched instantly. “You would consider me a friend after everything?”

Her face warmed, just a bit, tail flicking slowly back and forth against the floor. “If you’d like to be.”

There was no misinterpreting a smile like that. “I’d be honored.”

She laughed, turning to rinse something off in the sink. “I don’t know if I can live up to being an “honor” to be friends with, but I’ll do my best.”

“Y-You’ll have to get better about sleeping if you’re going to start spending time with other people, you know,” Alphys murmured as she elbowed him. He chuckled guiltily.

“It seems so… Speaking of which, I am sure we have more than worn out our welcome. We should be on our way.”

Asteri turned all the way to face them and gestured behind her. “At least eat first. Please. I’ve got dinner in the oven, it’ll be done soon. I’m not going to make you two walk all the way back to the capital on empty stomachs.”

“Well, technically speaking,” Gaster began with a grin. Alphys groaned. “…My stomach is always empty.”

Asteri snorted a laugh. “You know what I meant. Sit, I’ll get the rest of that sea tea. It will be plenty cold by now.”

They did as asked, and made small talk as she finished cleaning up a few things.

“So, um, what are you making?” Alphys inquired.

“Just pizza. I had a frozen one. It’s just vegetables, I hope that’s alright.”

“Th-That’s fine with me!”

“Same here.”

As she pulled it out of the oven and set about cutting it, she started to wonder how, exactly, Gaster ate. Obviously with magic— monsters with less solid forms absorbed the food right after swallowing rather than have it go down their throat and into their stomach— not unlike herself. Sometimes her neck wasn’t even attached to her head or body. And her torso was in at least two separate pieces most of the time, more often it was in three. But how did Gaster even get to the swallowing step? She had never seen him open his mouth, even at the donut shop. It was like she happened to be looking away every time he took a bite. This time she was going to pay attention.

She dished up the pizza onto plates and handed it out, passing each plate to the table one at a time as her tail spanned the distance between there and where she stood at the counter. Once that was set, she finally sat down. Unlike when cooking with fire magic, the oven made food too hot to eat right away, so they had to wait. The anticipation was killing her. But they made conversation in the meantime.

“Now that everything has gotten sorted out,” Asteri began, looking to Gaster, “do you want to plan to get together again sometime? That way there’s no, uh… misunderstanding phone calls or the lack thereof?” She rubbed the back of her head guiltily with her wing.

“I would like that.”

“Maybe somewhere between here and New Home? That way neither of us have to travel the entire way.”

“I do most of my work at the CORE, or the laboratory in Hotland, so visiting Waterfall is no issue. I only ever go to the capital to meet with the king, or buy donuts,” Gaster explained.

Asteri and Alphys both gave him a look.

He looked back and forth between them and tugged at his collar. “And other… meals.”

“And to go home?” Alphys prompted.

Gaster’s cheekbones flushed with magic. “Yes, yes of course! Obviously that!”

“I am more than happy to meet wherever if it means not repeating whatever sleep deprivation led to you almost passing out at my kitchen table,” Asteri intoned.

He got even redder. “I… will endeavor to get more sleep. For the sake of friendship.”

She smiled contentedly. “Good. That’s all I ask.”

Alphys had started eating, so the pizza must have cooled off enough. Asteri took a tentative bite. Yes, perfect. In her peripheral, she saw Gaster move to pick his pizza up. Immediately, her eyes flicked up to watch whatever happened next.

…And then Alphys started coughing, which involuntary drew her gaze away. The other woman was fine, her sea tea just went “down the wrong tube,” fortunately. But when Asteri looked back to Gaster, his slice of pizza was all but gone.

Oh go figure.

She gave up after that. It didn’t really matter, and she was sure she would see him eat eventually. Just not tonight, apparently.

They set up a day and time to meet again. Alphys had her classes, but they hoped to include her another time. They also established that texting was likely the way to go for future communication, in order to eliminate Gaster needing someone to talk for him. With everything worked out, they finished dinner and Asteri bid the two of them farewell. She wished Alphys the best in her classes, and told Gaster to get some sleep, with the promise of meeting again in Hotland the following week. And then they were off, and that was that.

Now, after a pleasant but still long, emotionally draining day, Asteri could just rest. She was exhausted. Under the covers, she let the events of the day replay. The misunderstandings, especially, stood out, and she mentally patted herself on the back for getting through it all. Things like miscommunications were difficult, and required a lot of mental presence and fortitude to endure setting straight. If it weren’t for her parents, she would never have made it to this point in life. She missed them, but she thought of the comforting feeling of their magic around her and how she swore she felt it reflected in the stars that surrounded her here. She was grateful to her parents for many things, but today, she was especially grateful that they had inspired her to have so much

PERSEVERANCE

- - - -

NOTES:

HAHA YEEEEAAAAH, PERSEVERANCE! BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING! Bet you thought it was gonna be kindness, with all the green. HEEHEEHEE

Anyway, yeah, several things here will come back later. ALSO I’M SO GLAD THE NAME THING IS OUT OF THE WAY, it was killing me to keep writing “Dr. Gaster” in the narration.

The part with Alphys’, uh, thing with Gaster and her dad just sort of. Happened. Also I copped out on the pizza scene because I realized a way better point in the story for Asteri to see how he eats. Heheh. But yeah, no, I know the end is rushed, but I am SO TIRED, and I wanted to get this finished tonight, so… yeah. I’m getting a bowl of ice cream and then going to bed, it’s 12:30.

Oh also Asteri almost said “bone” at the beginning, that’s why she cut herself off and said “sleep with” instead, lol

#⁂ fic #Asteri backstory #gaster #⁂ gaster #seeker oc #asteri #seeker writes #*screams*#im so excited for where this story is going you guys don’t even know #long post #⁂

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28-yasha · 2 years

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勹"リﾉﾚ匕"一さん受けでワ亻言炎才氵"サ冫パロ・トレス※サングリとガスグリとフリグリとフクグリとアルグリとマフェグリとリバグリとAUサングリ(マスグリとベリグリとマダグリ)とパピグリとゴアグリ(BottomGriIIby/sansby/gastby/grillster/friskby/fukuby/alphby/muffby/riverby/papygrill/asgoby)

pixivに投稿しました。【UT】勹"リﾉﾚ匕"一さん受けでワ亻言炎才氵"サ冫パロ | 弥紗 #pixiv https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/100214952

※ Translated by Google and DeepL

Page ①

Gaster｢Fufufu ... You're already in my tricks.｣

Frisk｢What!!｣

Gaster｢I am Doctor Indecent talk Uncle.｣

Frisk｢Doctor Indecent talk Uncle!?｣

【Doctor Indecent talk Uncle】

Dr. Fearful hypnotic manipulator.

Gaster｢Those who are hypnotized by me will only be able to speak Indecent talk about Grillby!｣

｢I like to make everyone blurt out their proclivities and watch Grillby's embarrassment when he hears them...!｣

Flowey｢I can't help it.｣

Frisk｢Doctor! I want to be pampered by Mr. Grillby with big tits myself!｣

Flowey｢This one is just a Grillby male pecs lover.｣

Frisk｢Does Doctor think it's okay for Mr. Grillby to have poor tits?｣

Translation: Do you think you can beat yourself with such interesting✕ trivial abilities?

Gaster｢Of course not.｣

※ Uncle can understand Indecent talk language.

Gaster｢I run away because of the｣

Frisk｢You son of a bitch!!!｣

Page ②

Fukufire｢Wow, he came this way!?｣

Frisk｢!! Fukufire!｣

(Don't touch the doctor's beam!)

｢I want to touch Grillby's nipples!!｣

Fukufire｢What are you talking about, Frisk!!?｣

｢!｣

｢Mr. Grillby's dick! Grill dick!｣

Sans｢Fu Fukufire!?｣

Fukufire｢!?｣｢!?｣

Sans｢What's the matter with you, all of a sudden you sound like a school boy!｣

Fukufire｢Gu......Gri dick!!｣

Sans｢Fukufire!!!｣

Page ③

Sans｢!! Alphys! Have you seen Indecent talk Uncle!｣

Alphys｢Oh, sa...u............!!｣

Sans｢Oh, you've been had.｣

｢But now we have an emergency!｣

｢Tell me about it. Which way did he go!｣

｢What's up! Come on! It's for Grillby!｣

Alphys｢Ugh｣｢Ah...｣

｢Over there... then... I want to make... a lot... of Bottom Grillby doujinshis...!｣

Sans｢Seriously! If you make a Sangri book, sell it to me!｣

Frisk｢I want the bottom Mr. Grillby book myself!!｣

Alphys(Suddenly he walked into Grillby's, did the shiny thing and ran away.)

｢I love the sloppy Seme who sexually harasses Grillby and is in full deliriousness.｣

Sans｢Yeah, I can see that. That's me.｣

Murder sans｢Grillby's ass is all about big.｣

Swap sans｢Grillby is so erotic, he cares so much about him whipped body!｣

Fell sans｢I want to lick the neat Grillby's legs and be stepped on by them.｣

Sans｢Why are you guys here? Go home. I'll hit them later, one at a time.｣

Page ④

Muffet｢I want to splatter my sludgy spider silk all over Grillby's face, tits, and body!｣

Sans｢I really want to see that too. Absolutely extremely lewd.｣

Riverperson｢I am a beeeeep, but especially a beeeeeeep.｣

Sans｢Riverperson!!!｣

｢It is indeed Riverperson that is so obscene that it has to be foreshadowed. He is so different from you guys.｣

Frisk｢Shut up. Is it bad. I love Grillby's male boobs!｣

Fukufire｢Mr. Grillby's dick.｣

Sans｢Whatever it is, he's still around. Quickly...｣

Gaster｢Gaping, indecent talk waves!｣

Sans｢Shit! Damn!｣

Sans｢I want to make love with Grillby so sweetly. I call Grillby many times and caress him gently, and after taking time to get used to him, I slowly insert my cock into him and move my hips slowly. I slowly increase the speed of my movements while listening to Grillby's faint breathing.｣

Frisk｢Sans is reading Sangri's novel that he thought up in his head!!?｣

An extra

Mr. Grillby listening to everyone's obscenities.

Grillby｢……｣

Sans(Grillby is still cute and shy.)

Gaster(It's thanks to me.)

Frisk(Good job, Dr.)

Toriel(These people have no remorse at all...)

132 notes · View notes

realitymirage · 8 months

Text

Heya there!

Hello and welcome to Undertale: Reality Mirage! I'm happy you found this place... And I sure hope you enjoy your stay!

Now, I'm sure you're veeeeery confused... But not to worry! Your good friend Cicada will help you!

Let's start with the basics...

What is Undertale: Reality Mirage?

Undertale: Reality Mirage is a silly little AU of mine that follows one basic rule...

Every single Undertale AU is created by Frisk writing fanfiction!

Yup, you read that right! Our favorite little ambassador is now a pre-teen and does what most pre-teens do, writing fanfiction of their favorite people, of course! And since their favorite people are the monsters they saved… That becomes the subject of their writing!

And, with the assistance of their beta reader Chara and account manager Gaster, the three enjoy watching Frisk’s fanfiction play out through the use of Gaster’s newest creation, the ‘World Builder’! It takes the plot of Frisk’s stories and turns them into movies, so to speak.

Jokes aside, Undertale: Reality Mirage is a silly idea I came up with one day, the idea in mind is that Frisk writes fanfiction with Chara and Gaster, and they watch it like a movie.

There would be multiple ‘worlds’ for them to ‘watch’, each being my own take on a popular Undertale AU, such as Underswap, Storyshift, etc.

I plan on each ‘world’ to be a sprite comic, with the events leading up to and ending being in standard writing form.

What is the first ‘world’?

The first ‘world’ that I am working on is my take on Underswap. I do not have a name for it yet other than Underswap, sadly, but I do plan on updating the name soon!

So far, I’m still in the process of outlining the lore and characters and trust me, that is a lot of work to be done. However, I’m not giving up yet! I like to think I’m making good progress!

I will not be releasing anything relating to Underswap yet, as that is where most of the spoilers relating to this AU are. After all, you’re gonna find out everything about Undertale: Reality Mirage really quickly when it releases! I have no issues with sharing stuff like that.

Who is working on this?

So far, just me!

I’m Cicadawing! But you can call me just Cicada or Wispy, I don’t really mind!

I haven’t been in the Undertale fandom for long, but that doesn’t mean I’m not used to writing or making Undertale AUs! I’ve always been fascinated by the thought of taking characters people know and love and changing them around… Making them different in either easy-to-notice or hard-to-see changes.

My favorite Undertale AU is probably either Fellswap or Swapfell and the main AUs they’re from, like Underswap and Underfell! The vibes of them are just perfect…

My art skills are alright too, not the worst, but I wouldn’t call myself the best, you know? When I get enough art done, I’ll be sure to post previews! Anything to keep you all interested, haha!

My pronouns are he/him and I'm a minor, so please be wary of that!

I want to help!

Really? Already…? You haven’t seen anything… I haven’t even posted anything other than this so far!

Once again, jokes aside… I appreciate it, but as said before, not much is set in stone yet. I only have the basic concept of Underswap done… only Asgore’s character reference is fully complete!

In short, thank you for your enthusiasm, but I’m not accepting members of a team yet! Use that excitement you have to share this AU, that’ll help motivate me to keep going!

Oh, and… Sorry if this seems like I’m assuming people want to join. That’s not it, I just want to get all my question bases covered, so to speak!

Wait… Gaster?! Sans?! Papyrus?! Genocide AU?!?!?!?111

Haha… No. This isn’t a genocide AU at all.

In this AU, Gaster is a ghost that only Frisk and Chara can see. Frisk didn’t kill anyone during their journey since they did the pacifist route to achieve this ending.

And Sans, Papyrus, and all the other characters in Undertale aren’t really going to be present at all. After all, Undertale: Reality Mirage focuses on the friendship of Chara, Frisk, and Gaster, not anyone else.

That doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see your favorite characters, though. They might show up sometimes, but they aren’t going to be the main focus or anything.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to see your favorite characters! After all, this is all about seeing the differences in characterization depending on what AU they’re from!

I’m confused… What’s a ‘world’? Is Reality Mirage your take on Underswap…?

Apologies for the confusion! Allow me to clear some things up.

Reality Mirage is not my take on Underswap. However, they are related.

Reality Mirage can be thought of as a folder of sorts. Inside the ‘folder’ are the ‘worlds’. My take on Underswap is one of them. It can be thought of as an AU within an AU.

I have a question that wasn’t answered here! What should I do?

I will leave the ask box open for questions! I will respond as soon as I can unless I consider those questions to be spoilers! Otherwise, count on your questions being answered!

#undertale #undertale au #chara #frisk #gaster #wd gaster #Undertale: Reality Mirage #info #faq #fanfic #...kinda

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infernal-general · 1 year

Text

Unity

Song which started the whole story

Seal referencing to @thenextchapterbegins Lucifer sealing the gate, along with mentions of the aftermath of a civil war dash event with @avispatr

Striker - @strikers-saloon

Velvet & Vaggie - @winters-club

Charlie, mention of Gabriel - @infernal-feminae

Don - @wrxthfulguard

Blitzø - @rodeoblitz

James Norrington - @ashortdropandasuddenstop

Flora, mention of their story Technological Terror - @nebula-gaster

Zephos - @zephosthefaedemon

"Szerinted kibírja?" (Do you think it will hold?) Márta asked, glancing at the seal and the divine shine on the other side of it

“Biztos hogy nem. Mindenki legyen készenlétben.” (Of course not. Everyone be ready.) Rozália replied without thinking. It might have had a chance to work and not have the King's efforts in vain, if not for the Goetian king's civil war. He shattered reality and to properly retaliate, the General had to unleash both divine and hellish energy to stop it escalating even further. Yet her success was overshadowed by grief, the loss of the best marksman, youngest soldier in the army took an emotional toll on everyone.

"Csak…még soha nem voltunk háborúban nélküle." (Just…we never had been in war without him.) Aranka's voice was small, she hated to bring up such tremendous loss, especially upon witnessing the still raw grief flashing through the General's face

“Bízzatok Strikerben. Ha én bízok, akkor ti is.” (Trust Striker. If I trust him, then you should too.) It sounded almost like an order but an unnecessary one. They would've let her know if any had second thoughts regarding his capabilities.

Jancsi was the leader of the marksman division, despite his age he did his job brilliantly. Therefore Rozália asked the only person who came close to his talent in marksmanship and had experience with leading even though it wasn't this direct. And Striker accepted, not to replace Jancsi as he couldn't be replaced -he made it clear-, but to protect the legion, his people and after learning how the young soldier followed Rozy like a shadow to protect her blind spots; to shield her as well. And he definitely lived up to Rozy's unsaid expectations: thoughtful, great strategist, maximum potential with minimal risk, cover from every direction possible. She barely needed to chime into the conversation as he was explaining the plans, the backups to the division. The soldiers listened as if he was one of them, as if he had fought by their side for 174 years, his undeniable skills, mindset and personality won both their trust and love.

The only major change was that Rozália moved their positions deeper into the town for better protection, the numbers unfortunately had dwindled throughout centuries and she couldn't spare enough men to completely cover the snipers, they also needed to rely on the maze of a soon to be ruined town. The best case scenario would be the frontline division able to handle the swarms and slowly falling back little by little with each hour to not be completely overwhelmed. A breach could happen, she was well aware, that's why most snipers were placed deep into the town. Bright yellowish green eyes locked together with burning crimson, a wordless nod from Rozália reciprocated by Striker after a quick check of the current rifle he was testing.

“Safehouses and hospitals are all set.” she said finally, fixing one of her spiked dragon wing shoulder plates

"Mah Saloon?"

“Protected by a separate unit.” she replied to his concerns, the previous year still fresh in her mind “Promise you will be careful Desert Rose.” her stance stoic but unable to stop the desperation creeping into her voice

And the hybrid serpent only smiled while holstering a hellfire infused revolver. "Will ya?" He shot back gently

"They trust me. I am their dad in a sense, Ah believe that comes with responsibility I'm willing to take. For them and for ya. Ah know they are your family." Striker walked over his fiance, only to be pulled into a tight hug, his face resting against cold metal of her armor

“So are you.” and he didn't need to look up to know how magma tears clouded her vision

She didn't have time to rebuild the barren land where life was supposed to exist, the amount of labor work would've tired everyone out and she was convinced it definitely wasn't the last time they had heard from the Exterminators. So she built the first line of defense at the edge of the ruins, heavy shields dug into the ground with swords ready and her standing in front of them. No matter what, she was always the unofficial first the angelic butchers met and perished against. The empty land gave Rozália the perfect opportunity to use her fire more explosively without endangering anyone and even if it made the advancing more easy, they were out in the open. Easy targets.

Midnight. The light above the sealed crack grew brighter. She was doing her last check on the frontline, a few whispered words of encouragement, a squeeze of a shoulder. The light has reached Hell's ground. As now Striker was a vital member of the army, they agreed to ditch Hungarian, the language was extremely hard to learn, to speak, to understand especially in the chaos and they needed to sign each other lightning fast. She wasn't sure how well the Exterminators could understand their language, either way, the abrupt change would definitely throw them off at first. And even the most brief confusion, hesitation led to death.

A chill before battle slithered up her spine. The protective seal shattered in the next moment.

By now it was almost a routine. They won an hour thanks to Lucifer's sacrifice despite how weakened the ancient magic could've been; as if nothing happened the Phoenix army stood their ground unmoving against the pouring angelic horde. Talons screeched on concrete upon the first impact, roars of battle deafening compared to the previous tense silence, flashes of hellfire swords bright against the sea of gray and dull silver.

“Meatgrinder: open!” shields parted, allowing those at the front to slip through

“Close!” and they were separated from the rest, killed by the waiting warriors behind the front line.

No matter the strength of the assault, the soldiers couldn't be moved from their spot, forming a chain which couldn't be torn apart. The so simple yet effective strategy was working quite smoothly, the first hour passed as it was only minutes. Gunshots could be heard from the core of the town; the winged division not getting near their targets either. As discussed, the army began to descend to their next spot, allowing Miklós' traps, grenades to ensure a safe retreat.

Rozália noticed the angels had split, a large group wasn't chasing the insufferable soldiers but creeping away, towards Princess Charlotte's Hotel full of refugees. They realized questioning whenever she's mad or not is useless, the General probably is.

She took off after the horde alone, fire dancing not only within her blade but with her as well, culling the numbers enough to be noticed and surrounded. The bastards had hidden a mine in the barren land, she didn't even had to step on it, as it activated as soon as she was close enough, reacting to her increased cursed heat instead of pressure.

Reflexes quick enough to use the shield to protect her body from the white blast, but not from the shockwave throwing her off her desired path. Even with ears ringing from the fall, Rozália was already on her feet, fencing like a whirlwind, accompanied by occasional blasts of fire. Her shield lost and cracked, the direction she was forced at definitely wasn't calculated into the plan.

She didn't know much about the type of magic of protective barrier cast around the Hotel, furious crimson eyes darted wildly looking for an opening, a way out as the golden barrier was getting closer to her back. Rozália worried her Hellfire would erode or damage it, leaving the building and the refugees vulnerable to assault, charging into the silver sea with only a sword would certainly result in death. The angels took a few steps back, the action confusing her first until the guns drawn straight at her.

"Love, no! You can't!" Vaggie caught Charlie's arm as soon as she realized what she planned to do as they watched the events anxiously from the window

"Yes I can! They will kill her! And right in front of the steps of what should be a dream! A salvation." The princess declared fiercely, ready to lift the barrier for a moment to let the General slip through. She couldn't…she couldn't let anyone be executed in front of her when she had the power to save them.

"Cariño… I know." Vaggie sighed but refused to let go of her "She is more experienced in combat than you. There's a reason why she didn't cause an explosion or signaled for you to open the gates." She tried to explain carefully with a heavy heart, the protective barrier sat perfectly between infernal and holy, the balance couldn't be disrupted not by her nor by Rozália.

"B-but Vaggie, I still can…just a second." Charlie loathed feeling so powerless, desperation and anger steadily rising, she was Princess Charlotte Morningstar the Antichrist, how did Heaven dare to murder that woman in front of her, in front of the terrified demons inside?!

"Cariño look at me." The fallen angel pierced through her rage, a brief look at her shadow confirmed her horns had burst through at some point. With a heavy sigh and shame for losing her temper and almost snapping at her girlfriend, Charlie did as she said.

"That woman wants to die." Vaggie announced the unsaid suspicion "And wants to do so while protecting people. If she wanted to, I'm sure she could've burned alive those cabrones." But it would result in a weakened barrier. The moth pulled the shaking princess into her arms to soothe her.

"...I've failed." Charlie whispered into her shoulder, clutching her girlfriend tighter in her sorrow

"No darling, you didn't and never will. They failed." Vaggie leaned away enough to wipe her tears and attempt a gentle smile

"What do you mean?" The princess' lips were still trembling but the statement has caught her off guard

"She wants to die while shielding people. As a martyr yet again, only this time she won't be forgotten. Grant her freedom at last." The fallen angel was extremely grateful she could maintain her composure, to not give away how much the events sickened, devastated her. One life or hundreds of others plus the safety of her love? "Come here Carinõ. Don't look." Charlie allowed herself to be pulled close, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Part of her despite everything, agreed with Vaggie but it did not erase the pain and grief of losing a close friend at all.

How ironic that she brought a sword into a gunfight and it took her 172 years to lose at last. Rozália felt eerily calm, eternal peace was within reach; no possibility she could survive the amount of holy metal. They took their sweet time drawing out the last minute, no one knew she was here and she was in danger. She looked at each executioner individually with a small grin hiding triumph despite the outcome, Rozália will die how she wanted to and her name will be immortal.

The Hotel gates slammed open making her heart skip a beat, she whirled around and the angels held their fire in hope of getting inside the Hotel as well as finally getting rid of the General. Don rushed to the edge of the barrier, quickly calculating the situation. Disbelief at first. There was…no possible way the General didn't have a backup plan or an emergency plan or a group hiding nearby waiting to ambush. Raw shock when the demonic woman smiled at him so gently, as if it was goodbye. Don immediately turned in hope to sign for Princess Charlotte to lift the barrier, stopping in mid motion as her ashen hand slammed against the transparent golden wall. He cannot lose her, she was his mentor, his ally and protector of this ring. It was…impossible. He took a step closer, searching her face for any clues of what and how he should do, but she only shook her head no. Smoke steadily rising from the humanlike Sinner, it should be him out there, he should've fought alongside her the moment it was clear where and what the woman from the past stood for. And just like most, she's about to be executed. He was losing his battle with his complex, only when he looked into the stare of unblinking crimson eyes was when a whisper breezed past his tortured mind. Rozália wouldn't want this. This isn't why she trained, pushed him so hard for. People needed him. Her face softened at his realization, opening the gates even for a moment would be too risky, her fire could potentially destroy the whole barrier, endangering everyone inside. Don never thought that time when yet again he can't do anything to protect could come. But he will use everything she taught him to protect his allies during the next cleanse. The fire of determination earned him one last smile and the General bowed as a final goodbye, turning without fear.

Rozália stood facing the firing squad, chin up, shoulders to their full width. Don will carry on her teachings, her legacy. Striker, oh Striker…the thought of never seeing her love again ruined the glorious goodbye to this world, but she didn't falter. Even the lights of the streets dimmed as the angels took aim.

Don noticed first that besides her dying, something was also seriously off. The sudden darkness didn't come with the explosion of a generator like normally in every year, only the lights dimmed and died one by one. Out of nowhere an enormous bolt of lightning slammed into the center of the angels, disrupting their order and making the executioners hesitate in confusion. A cyan blur darted out of the shadows wielding twin sabers seemingly made out of electricity itself; the creature fenced her way through the remaining like the lightning she summoned. Rozália finally snapped out of her own trance and closed the distance between her and her almost killers, her own hellfire hussar sword flashing dangerously as it penetrated armor, passed through flesh with a dreadful sizzle.

The savior was taller and more lean than her, almost nothing alike yet they fell into an almost immediate synchron. An electric blue slash, a ducked crimson stab; a fiery whirl, a short distance teleport. A beautiful and brutal dance of swords with an unsaid relation running much more deep than a simple rescue from someone. And once the two women were standing in the pile of charred corpses, the cyan eyed one grinned, toothy and wild.

“Testvérem.” (Sister.)

“Döglöttem volna meg inkább.” (I would've rather died.) Rozália groaned once the momentary peace set in, much to Raia's amusement

The General casted a glance towards the confused Hotel Guard, shrugging lightly to convey she hadn't seen it coming either.

Back in the city, the sisters parted ways, Raia had seen someone from her past and Rozália needed to check on her army. Thankfully everything was going according to plan -so far at least-, she quickly fell back to the routine of war, not at all shaken after her brush with death. Bullets whizzed around her, precisely hitting their targets, protecting her current blind spot, a bittersweet feeling in her heart; Jancsi was the Guardian angel saving her from many literal stabs in the back. A half smirk as one of the angels managed to grab the furiously squirming Béla and threatened to drop weapons, trying to use their brotherhood against them.

“Strangely, it's not me who you should be afraid of. But their father.” Rozália smirked, two fingers slightly bent thrust towards the sky, then straightening to signal the serpent to shoot.

"Wha-" her head cocked to the side to allow perfect vision to the target, the Exterminator falling dead mid question

“Exactly what I was saying.” she chuckled and dove deeper into the town

Blitzø was having an absolute BLAST this year. He finally could utilize his agility, his shooting skills and dead motherfuckers everywhere!

“Blitz!!!” oh that voice was familiar, and probably the only one you want to hear during this day

"Oh hi Rozy look at all the limp dicked dead fuckfaces!" He posed proudly with a still smoking barrel

“Blitz!!” her roar was louder this time, making his expression falter, his brows furrow; seriously what was her problem?

A string of curses as she picked up a piece of broken sidewalk and threw it right towards the confused imp. His eyes widened and immediately ducked under the projectile, only starting to yell once she was within hearing distance. "What the everliving fuck is wrong with you?? Why was this fucked Captain America stunt necessary?! I shot them!" Blitzø whipped his tail in irritation of being almost decapitated, not noticing the now corpse behind him

“But they are NOT FUCKING DEAD!” Rozália yelled back pointing at the slowly standing up Exterminator Blitzø swore he shot a moment ago. And his thoughts were confirmed by the obvious hole in the armor.

"...what in the tittyfucking Christ-" before he could say anything more, the woman snatched even his gun, but before he could protest she handed it back but…it was different. Warmer and glowing.

“Don't just look, fucking shoot!” Rozy shouted, snapping him out of the momentary surprise

"Alright alright, you're really fucking insufferable on this day." He rolled his eyes and did what he would've done regardless: shot the approaching Exterminator in the head

"Care to explain what just happened?"

“Hellfire infused weapons. One of the very few sure ways to permanently kill an Exterminator. Go to the sniper division and ask for Striker, he will assign you to a position-”

"Wait wait Striker is in your army?? And he has a division? Why oooh because you two, you know" Blitzø smirked as he repeatedly did the suggestive vulgar hand gesture, despite the throbbing vein on her forehead.

“Not because of that. Because he is a bloody great marksman and can coordinate people. Which I know you also can do but not on such a large scale. We're in a fucking war. So for everyone's sake put aside your dick measuring contest with him.” the General snapped, sure Blitzø could retort, if what she said wouldn't have made sense. Somewhat.

"Mine is bigger anyways." He shrugged nonchalantly "But hey, how did you know I will duck the rock you chucked at me?" He asked the leaving woman who only turned with a slight grin as an answer.

"Remind me to get life insurance when I'm near you." Blitzø groaned after the vanished warrior

James Norrington was the unluckiest soul of the 18th century. Previously he was too humble to fully embrace this view but as time went on and the form he had taken after his death all pointed towards the fact. Now here he was, in the middle of the yearly cleanse without shelter or bottle of rum, the usual safehouse for this day was full, according to the demons guarding the door; of course he was only told after paying for the space.

During these times he was grateful he still kept his sword and practiced somewhat daily. At least one thing stayed with him from his life which he was great at and enjoyed. Keen instincts helped him to stay away from trouble but also sensed someone, something, was following him. The feeling was also accompanied by a sudden blast of nostalgia and he didn't pay attention once before he turned. The street was swarming with holy butchers waiting for prey; the other group pouring from an another street forced him deeper into the trap. Of course he was afraid, but it never had stopped him from pulling his sword out in one fluid motion with teeth bared.

Thankfully he was still as great as he was in his prime, despite the amount of rum he dumped into his body. But James also knew a lost fight when he saw or participated in one. He will not be an easy kill, if he's to be murdered the second time, he will make them fight for it. Graceful, swift, with perfect footwork, angels fell to his feet before they could bury their sword or spear into him. James felt alive. As if he was back on the deck of the Endeavour, fighting off the terrors of the seas; until that light of so thought heroism was also snuffed out, just like his hope when the horde seemingly replaced itself with each of them cut down. The streetlamp lost its light above him, leaving him in darkness in an alley full of murderers. With his back turned he felt his second death rapidly approaching, he whirled around to stall it, only that a thin, cyan blue blade was already sticking out of it from behind.

The body had fallen, revealing the creature who…felt too familiar but surely it couldn't be. There wasn't much time to think though. The newcomer unleashed a torrent of electricity, a second sword materializing in her grip as she began fencing as well. For a few moments he only could watch in shock, two steps per second, fencing style akin to a whirlwind, graceful precision and he only had seen one person -besides himself after years of practice after witnessing it- capable of tossing one blade up and being fast enough to deliver a full slash instead of a stab.

He couldn't stay on the sidelines, especially after the possibility and matched her brutal pace. They twirled, parried elegantly, professionalism on James' part, lethal grace accompanying the electricity demoness. When swords weren't enough, she summoned bolts of lightning, as precise as her stabs; the last angel in the alley fell after a flawless riposte performed by both of them at the same moment.

Her height had decreased since the fight had started, her glowing eyes darkening from bright blue to impossibly vibrant green. Her swords dissolved after she was done, walking out of the alley filled with corpses, leaving a familiar feeling behind. At the entrance she stopped and glanced back at the hound. A smile growing more and more wicked in every second passing, lightning materialized around her, the lines taking outlines of a pirate captain coat and a tricorn hat with one single feather. She tipped the hat with a toothy grin, sharp fangs lining her mouth before the shapes disappeared and he was left alone with the sure confirmation. The Hungarian Devil was alive and -obviously- in Hell with him. Yes, James Norrington definitely and desperately needed a bottle of rum.

The heart of the war was now within the city, never ceasing gunfire protected the ones fighting on the ground, the routes to the hidden hospital, occasionally giving civilians caught in the disaster enough time to slip away. The front line was still heroically holding out, but no one could predict Marcell out of everyone leaving his post.

"Flower please this is dangerous!" He pleaded with the gleefully cackling Velvet running through the battlefield, trying, testing her magic

"Come on Marcy! It's more fun that way." She giggled, always so serious soldier. She would've bet he wouldn't know what true fun is even if she explained to him

"I will get you any doll you want, please go inside!" He tried again after chopping off an approaching angel's head with one swing of a longsword

"You ruined it!!! I wanted to make it into one! Why can't you understand?!" Velvet whipped around angrily, sometimes having a father figure wasn't fun at all. Yeah she can get injured but she doesn't feel it! And she was almost certain she can control even holy blood, but he would just not leave her alone at peace to figure out!

Marcell was torn inside, he needed to return, his unit needed him but…he never thought he would have the chance of calling an another young girl his daughter. He couldn't lose her, she was family no matter what she said. A faint, unmistakable click of a grenade reached his ears in the chaos. Right at his daughter's feet. He didn't think, he acted on impulse shoving her as far as he could; blinding white light filled his vision, the explosion was deafening from the minimal distance. She was safe, was his last thought as his unconscious battered body hit the ground meters away.

The earth shattering roar of agony tore through the whole battlefield; Rozália was late to contain the explosion or to take it herself instead of Marcell. She couldn't speak as she fell at his side, his blood rapidly running through her fingers from a possibly nicked artery. She howled again, deafening and hopeless; Jancsi died barely a month ago, she was not ready to lose an another pillar of her life. He was still alive as he hasn't turned to ashes, the General desperately trying to stop the bleeding: cauterizing the wound doesn't work because he carries a flame from the Hellfire. Her makeshift bandage had little to no effect in slowing the blood flow.

Time stopped for a few moments as Velvet watched the only man that ever truly cared for her flew away like a limp toy. Her rage was more silent than Rozália's, she was done playing around: Exterminators started to bleed from every orifice as the witch sinner unleashed her powers for daring to hurt her adoptive father. The confusion mixed panic helped the sharpshooters and front line soldiers alike, able to reinforce their ground. They couldn't think about Marcell. No; that would've been too devastating and their focus was still demanded.

She was cautious when approaching the kneeling General and her dying father…there was a way, for her there should be. Marcell's blood was also a special case, she couldn't just use blood magic but energy as well to press against the most severe wounds she deemed life threatening.

"Holy shit this place is a mess, Rozy- Rozy!" The naga woman quickly slithered through the debris to make her way to the woman and- oh she could recognize the man

"He's not dead right??" Flora asked and immediately regretted as raw Hellfire eyes snapped up to her "Sorry I didn't think before talking, you know sometimes I do that anyway Zephos, yes ZEPHOS!! She's here too, he will be alright okay?" she tried to calm the unstable General as Zephos hurried through the crowd, gasping at the scene.

The Fae had decided to assist the doctors in the makeshift hospitals, with her magic she saved lots of lives and limbs but this…seemed a lost cause.

"I created a temporary block around the wounds, he's not bleeding anymore." Velvet spoke, spooking the newly arrived women with how serious she was

"Rozy, see he's not bleeding. Look at him." Flora leaned down despite her instincts screaming her not to. Eventually Rozália did as told, still in shock but it was true. He wasn't bleeding but his glow has dimmed significantly.

"Judging by the state of his armor, it was a grenade and the shrapnels had caused most of the outer wounds. But I don't know whenever he has internal bleeding or not. We need to get him to the hospital." Zephos spoke, quiet but elegant and sure in her words

“He needs blood. My blood.” The General finally snarled, still clutching Marcell protectively. That was a problem. Her blood was liquid Hellfire, no way they could store it in anything, they didn't have the right or any equipment with them to do it here and the unsaid: she couldn't exit the battlefield that long.

"Well…I can try to create a container strong enough to hold but I'm afraid it will be destroyed during the transfusion." Zephos spoke "I can manipulate it so it wouldn't touch the container. Won't be easy." Velvet interjected

"You can do that?" Flora looked up in awe mixed surprise. The Sugar Demon didn't reply only harnessed focus when she saw the blade in Rozy's hand and her splitting her vein vertically with one desperate slash. The liquid fire instead of flowing to the ground started floating in a graceful arch, into the half open container Zephos had created and levitated in the air. The burning liquid didn't touch the glowing container at all as it was rapidly filled by it.

"Rozy it's enough." Flora gently grasped her hand worriedly as her wound hasn't closed yet. The words were enough for her to burn close her own slash, only noticing the amout she gave when tried to stand up and the world was spinning.

"You need rest." Zephos concluded in vain, but the effort was there

"Yeah you do. Sit the remaining of the E-day out, we got Marcell." Flora reinforced the thought her tail wrapping around Marcell's uninjured shoulder. She gave a testing pull, damn the dude was heavy! She really could've used Sage's help now.

"I will go with them. He's not gonna die. I promise." Velvet said at last, still holding her blood under control in the container. Rozália watched as the three beings slowly disappeared from view with Marcell's seemingly lifeless body; she couldn't stop. She was still needed. Steadying herself on her feet, the sounds of war crept back to her ear and mind. She had to continue.

“Ez nem volt valami elegáns.” (This wasn't too elegant.) Raia commented at a missed stab corrected by a blast of fire.

“Túl sok vért adtam.” (I gave too much blood.) Rozália spat at her sister's mocking, last thing she needed was her instead of a Hellfire bath.

“Elintézted, amit akartál?” (Did you get what you wanted?) The General asked, only receiving a nod and a faint smile as an answer. She didn't say it out loud but wondered why she was still around then. What happened to make her stick around longer than expected?

This Extermination wasn't as coordinated as the previous where the waves could be distinguished from each other. This was a revenge, a constant push of a button never letting the resistance catch a breath or restock on ammunition. Primitive but somewhat effective.

“Le kell állítanod idő előtt. Megint.” (You need to stop it before it's due. Again.) Raia spoke what she already suspected

“ 'Megint'?” ('Again'?) Rozália echoed with a small grin of pride, causing her sister to roll her eyes. No, she's not going to give the satisfaction of praise. They traveled in relative silence until they quite literally ran into a swarm again divided from the main army.

“Nos, Égszakadás és Földindulás?” (Well, Thunder and Earthquake?) Rozália raised an eyebrow at Raia to stall the time, she needed to call upon the Hellfire underneath to be in a good enough condition, but Raia constantly needed electricity and she wasn't sure if she could take on an entire army alone.

The enemy was rapidly, gleefully approaching but along with them the darkness also grew. The sisters looked at each other in confusion, Raia shook her head no at the silent question. This wasn't her doing. Thick shadows stretched from every direction, drowning out the noise, snuffing out every source of light.

“Alastor?” Raia questioned

“Nem. Felismerem a mágiáját. Ez nem ő.” (No. I can recognize his magic. This is not him.) Rozy took a cautious step back as the phenomenon reached house heights.

It was barely noticeable at first, but something was inside the darkness among the angels. The entity was tall, a blur of shadow and smoke and it was moving. Moving was an understatement. An acid green blur darted through the space, the sound of gunshots following the movements a second late, indicating it was attacking faster than sound. The entity swirled, spun and slithered; sometimes engulfed panicked Exterminators. As quickly as it started, the shadows started to recede, a single angel staggering out of the pitch darkness. His skull exploded a moment later.

“Awww senki nem szólt nekem a családi összejövetelről.” (Aww I wasn't notified about the familial reunion.) Came the mocking chuckle as Karma stepped out of the shadows, her body solidifying itself, tipping her cowboy hat upwards with her still smoking revolver to reveal the viciously glowing acid green crosshair scar around her eye.

The sisters glanced at the dead, decayed army behind her, then at each other; apparently none of them had any idea what Rozy's cousin was actually capable of. Their silence was broken by a giant green bolt of laser slamming into one of the largest aerial units.

“...Mi a faszom volt ez?” (What in my dick was that?) Rozy finally found her voice

“Rám ne nézzetek, én mesterlövész és árnyjátékos vagyok.” (Don't look at me, I'm a sniper and shadow manipulator.) Karma raised her hands (and revolvers) in defense

“Akármi is volt, túl sok áramot vett el.” (Whatever it was, it has taken too much electricity.) Raia concluded at the loss of feeling the buzzing around her.

Well, the circumstances could be brighter. Rozália needed a dose of Hellfire to be a reckoning, recharging for Raia got much more difficult and from what she understood, her teleports consumed a lot of energy. At least Karma had arrived with guns blazing but she was still hardly enough for the never ending swarm spat by the crack especially after that thing was fired. It will overrun the army without a doubt. Many are already wounded, ammunition usually gets scarce during this hour. She needed to close that damned portal again as soon as possible. Its shine was becoming more and more bright and for the first time in war, genuine fear flashed through the General's face.

“Hozzák a Csillaghullás ágyút?” (Are they bringing the Starfall canon?) Raia questioned, not missing her look

“Nem…” (No…) Rozália replied after a few seconds when she noticed the brief blue tint in the white “Ez túl szent, hogy a Csillaghullás legyen.” (This is too holy to be the Starfall.) She almost whispered in borderline disbelief

“És ilyen lehetséges?” (And such a thing is possible?) Karma asked, debating whenever she was just looking at the shining portal for too long and now seeing things. Because it was not, it should not be possible.

The three of them reached the edge of the town where the artificial clearing was along with the source of the never ending influx of enemies who appeared to be…fleeing. But why would they try to escape from Heaven? The answer blasted itself into the battlefield a second later, exploding through Heaven's gate. Cindy's wings blazed brilliant white with bright blue flames at the tips of the feathers of fire, her powers ravaged through ranks just like Hellfire would've and indeed she was…more than holy. Nothing could escape from her impossibly bright blaze no matter how they tried to run, no shelter stood against her raw power never seen before. The jade green color has long disappeared from her eyes, leaving scorching golden in its wake. The destruction was only a portion of what a Starfall canon could do and she didn't even seem to be winded by such a feat. The winged terror landed with a small tremor of the whole ring of something like her even touching the ground and continued her assault of blinding, pure white flames spewing everywhere until the unit sent was reduced to nothing.

The three Véghvárys only could stare silently at the youngest of the bloodline in disbelief mixed awe; what even was she?

“Amúgy tudom, hogy ott bújkáltok. Érzem a testhőtöket. De aranyos, hogy próbáltok sunnyogni.” (Actually I know you're hiding there. I can feel your body heat. But it's kinda cute that you try to sneak around) Cindy chuckled flippantly, confirming it was indeed her, not some random cosmic horror deciding to drop by.

“Oh és lehet, hogy felgyújtottam Gábrielt amikor próbáltam eljutni a portálhoz. De nem hiszem, hogy ezt bánja bárki is.” (Oh and I might have set Gabriel on fire when I was trying to get to the portal. But I don't think anyone has bad feelings about it.) She chuckled as her distant relatives slowly made their way out of their hiding spots, still not being able to mask the shock too well

“És mi a fasz tartott eddig?!” (And what the fuck were you doing before?!) Rozália found her voice first

“Időeltolódás. Faszom tudja mi mikor történik. Kozmikus lény vagyok, nem egy szaros könyvelő aki az óráját lesi.” (Timezones. Like my dick knows when what happens. I'm a cosmic being, not a shitty accountant always peeking at their clock.) Cindy shrugged defensively, so much for a thank you.

“Na mi a terv?” (Well, what's the plan?) She asked instead

“Bezárni a kurva lyukat minél előbb.” (Closing that fucking hole as soon as possible.) Karma replied, cocking her revolvers at lightning speed when they were surrounded by the remaining Exterminators pouring from the city.

“Meg tudom olvasztani. De akkor nem hogy egyfolytában jönnek át rajta.” (I can melt it. But not if they keep coming through it.) Cindy suggested

“Meg tudod olvasztani a Mennyországot??” (You can melt Heaven??) Raia couldn't control the raw surprise in her voice

“Biztos. Ő meg felgyújtotta. Csak nem féltékeny vagy?” (I'm sure of it. And she set it on fire. Are you jealous?) The cosmic horror motioned at Rozy with a chuckle that left Raia sputtering instead of a smooth reply

“Két gondot meg kéne oldani. Gyengék vagytok mint az őszilegyek.” (We should solve two problems. You're as weak as flies in autumn.) Karma pointed out

“Mondom a tervet. Amíg mi visszaszerezzük az erőnket, addig ti elintézték a leselkedő faszokat. Amikor mindenki elég erős akkor bezárjuk azt a lyukat örökre. Egyszerű, de brutális.” (Here's the plan. Until we get out powers back you finish the peeping fuckers. When everyone is strong enough, we will close that hole for eternity. Simple, but brutal.) Rozália announced and she only met with agreement, behind the silver of the angels she also could see the faint glow of her army sneaking upon the distracted beings.

“Csináljuk.” (Let's do it.) Karma agreed and took off as a seafoam, acid green shadow towards the enemy, followed by powerful wings spreading with a small blast.

Her army and her sisters clashed viciously with the remaining, Heaven was finally silent after Cindy's rampage. Rozália walked directly under the crack and began to coax the Hellfire to her. It came siphoned from the ground, rushing from the Morningstar mansion itself, the flames lifting her up to the point where her feet barely touched the ground, the fire instead swirling around, entered her, the curse filling her body to the brim until she was fully transformed despite wearing the pendant. Power raced through her veins, her ruined soul, the crimson flow feeding into her never stopping. She was the Wielder of the Hellfire, that was finally for certain.

Raia found a few cables lying on the ground, still sparkling with electricity; the demoness immediately latched onto the opportunity, mercilessly siphoning the power until the whole ring was dark, devoid of any electric power. Her appearance shifted accordingly, approximately 14 feet in height, emerald green eyes turned glowing white, her hair light cyan from the amount she currently held within her body.

The remaining angels in Hell had been slaughtered all, at least those who rushed to protect the portal. Karma began to feed on the darkness caused by Raia, her body distorting, dissolving, rearranging, her left eye milky white, her crosshair scar blazing acid green, the rest of her face clouded by shadows. She was also around the same height as Raia, although it was a little difficult to determine. Death and decay oozed from the demon as she glided to her sisters waiting for the youngest. Stars outside the pocket dimension of Hell burned brighter and through the dimension's own sky as Cindy called upon their power. Her skin became stars themselves, her wings no longer blue from the extreme heat but holding galaxies themselves. Her limbs elongated, her wings larger, almost able to cover all three of them.

Rozália saw an outline of a six winged archangel with swords, Michael most likely. The Commander behind all of her losses. Clawed feet touched the ground, a quick glance around all four of them standing in a loose circle and a nod as confirmation as the seal was ripped off.

Hellfire, decay and lightning shot into the shatter between the realms, the three pillars of destruction continued without any sign of stopping; crimson red fire, black essence with acid green, vicious purplish cyan lightning tore into Heaven, preventing it sending anything or anyone through without the risk of being incinerated upon contacting the deadly powers combined into a lethal vortex. As if everyone stopped even breathing to stare at the phenomenon, Rozália was the Infernal General but the other two were previously thought to be simple sinners. Yet their destruction could rival hers. Raia was the first one to stop before she completely exhausted herself, gradually sinking back to around 8 feet. Karma followed with one last push of her shadows and morphing back to her usual appearance. Rozália remained standing, her power supply proving to be the most stable; and when she was finished she still could feel the fire ravaging the holy land so she decided to take it back. With a bestial howl, she ripped the fire out of Heaven surging it back under Pride for It to heal.

Cindy took her spot, Heavenly light paled against the pure glow of Creation, of The Fire itself. The borderline divine being closed then spread its wings and energy burst through her very core, into Heaven, the unmeasurable heat slowly threading the gap close by melting the realm's gate close. She floated frozen in space as pure energy coursed through her body, strengthening the closed barrier each second until the stars began to fade, her wings returned to their original matter, only white flames kept erupting from her hands.

Eventually it also came to a halt, the gate was forever woven close. All four of them were breathing heavier, they were spent, exhausted but fulfilled what their shared last name carried.

The four sisters stood in a circle half bathed in Heaven's dim light, half illuminated by the cursed flames below. They stood facing each other

United.

The Véghváry bloodline by me:

Rozália - @infernal-general

Raia - @lightningdamned

Karma - @deathshadowed

Cindy - @phoenixborn

#⚔ stories 🔥 | when the music stops; the cries die down; memories crawl out of the grave; the soul can never find peace #⚔ alright/encourage to like and reblog 🔥 | no grave can hold me #I would like to thank everybody who liked that post back then and made this possible. I really hope I did your muses justice #dash commentary/opinions are very encouraged!#⚔ save 🔥 | because having only one secret basement is not extra enough #⚡ raia 🗡 | the duelist #🪦 karma ☠️ | the gunslinger #🔥 cindy 🔥 | the phoenix

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manofthepipis · 11 months

Note

Don’t know if you plan this, but will spamton eventually tell the other 3 Ads about how his glitches feel? Like the “burning/hot plate sensation” I don’t think Survey ever told them, and doesn’t want to say things on spams behalf, but I am curious on how their reactions will be in that area!

Also! Do you plan on introducing Kris back into the story later on? As spams whole “being pardoned by them” thing? If not, that’s totally fine as well!

Another thing! Do you view Gaster as Mike? Or a another party? I know that Gaster and Spam have a connection, no doubt about that, but I just wanted to hear your thoughts!

rlly good question! honestly i have an answer for that first bit in the next chapter when some of the adds talk about, well, the complicated things that they've seen from spamton. The terms and conditions here. unfortunately for surv, they got some of the most heart wrenching info, but i'd feel they're rlly talkative and communicative in nature, telling the others the latest Spamton Revelation Of The Day

(i plan to put more of their convos in the next chapter, which is almost done as i've had it set aside a lot in lieu of a new job lol but i'm gettin there)

I dont plan on bringing kris into this fic, mostly because i'm unsure what canon will do, and this fic is like an au equivalent of a waiting-room-for-chapter-3-to-come-out-for-me like we know for the lightners it's over the course of the week, but for darkners, so little has been said about how their world works it's the creativity juices coming into play. Though he eagerly awaits their return and to be his best self just in time to be a better ally to the party than jevil :D

speaking of not knowing what canon will do, I've definitely been alluding mike to being gaster, but only because that was my favorite theory at the time of writing srpsb. After sweepstakes, it's changed a bit, or i've become a lot more open minded about all the possibilities about who mike really is. Still, I'm committing to keeping Mike as the one who was the one behind the phone and the strings, at least in this au, despite it one day maybe being turned all on its head (but hey that's the fun of fanfic lmao). Though you won't see me saying Mike=Gaster for sure, it's my favorite theory, and one i've been sold on since moment one, but one big thing in my writing is keeping many things vague since the UT/DR fandom is rich with theories and headcanons and i keep a lot of things open to interp (except acid theory like i can't get behind that one at all but yet i never have. absolutely no shame but i like the light/puppetification theory a LOT more just cuz of Spamtons plethora of themes. this isn't a surprise but ya the fic isn't friendly to acid theory lol).

#i never rlly liked how gaster was portrayed in the UT fandom #i liked the mysteriousness and vagueness of canon and the fall and the followers being hints and clues #here in DR it feels like it can be him it was the same vibes i got from the mentions of him in UT for the first time #ESPECIALLY the phone and the cellphone sounding like garbage noise and that maybe linking to the wrong number song??? maybe???????#however then you got spamton talking about Tenna in the sweepstakes #(who got me thinking maybe mike is a good guy and tenna is actually bad)#but i digress for this fic i'm commiting and maybe when more DR comes out i'll write something then #mike will be mentioned less tho as the adds aren't going to bring that up again until spamton is ready #swatch is curious too like these are their answers they've been waiting years for and have mistreated spamton over not getting #but still after what happened they're not planning on pissing him off anytime soon #maybe #asks #fanfic #aaaaa ty for the ask srry i got to it late!!! i hope i got to everything #gaster is goopy grandpa to me

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storiesfromhalcyontale · 5 months

Text

Chapter 15: Best last day ever!

I didn’t know how long I was asleep for but by the time I woke up we had returned to the lion temple. I rubbed my eyes and looked around, there were many celebrations going on. Probably due to the fact that the missing members of the lion tribe were finally found. Though I just found myself really tired to be honest, I didn’t want to go to sleep yet. Or more retrospectively I couldn’t, all these thoughts were running through my head and I couldn’t get them out. Like I didn’t know what was exactly going to happen tomorrow or if the machine would even work, no who am I kidding of course it’ll work. I reassured myself, Gaster probably knows what he’s doing. I took a seat on the steps of the lion temple and just thought, I was frankly worried. I was glad everyone was safe, but I was worried that me and Asriel could be stuck here for longer. I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned around, expecting Laval but actually it was Li’ella which surprised me since I expected her to be taking part in the festivities.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” She asked.

“Oh sure I don’t mind at all.” I answered, moving up so she could take a seat. “Why aren’t you taking part in the festivities?” I looked at her as I curled up into a ball.

“Oh it got a bit too loud so I’m taking a moment away from everything” She answered, taking a seat next to me in the process. “I just like to sit on the steps but it looks like you beat me to it.”

“Oh yeah.” I chuckled, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine honestly.” She smiled at me, “It’s better than being cooped up in a cell for twenty four hours. Thanks again by the way.”

“Li’ella it’s nothing. Though I still don’t understand Crooler’s plan.”

“I think she wanted to make some type of mind-controlled army with us. And I think she used Asriel for testing. I don’t exactly know though.” She scratched the back of her head, “Doesn’t really matter anymore.” She sighed.

“Look, don't worry about Crooler.” I said hopefully, “If all goes right she’ll change for the better.”

“I hope so..” There was an awkward silence before she continued, “How did you get wrapped up in all of this?”

“Oh. That in fact is a long story.” I began explaining everything to her, only leaving out details about Laval and Cragger’s relationship. Once I finished I sighed, “Honestly it was pure coincidence I came across them in those woods anyways.”

“Well I’m honestly glad you did.” She answered, “I wish we had more time to talk. You seem like a nice person Sho.”

“Well there’s still tomorrow and I don’t think I’ll leave the lion temple until I have to go back to my realm. So we have some time to hangout.” I smiled at her, “Although I think I’ll mainly stick with Laval.”

“Understandable.” She responded, “Laval is a nice guy. I should know I used to date him.” She laughed.

“Oh. What happened there?” I asked curiously, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t have to”

“It’s fine.” She smiled as she explained, “I guess we sort of fell out of love, which is alright. I still remember fondly about the time I spent with him, we split on decent terms.”

“That’s nice.” I answered, “It’s nice you two are still friends.”

“Yeah. I don’t really let it get me down anymore, we’re still friends and that’s all that really matters.”

“Yeah. It’s all that could’ve happened, plus Laval doesn’t have a bad bone in their body to hate someone unless they did something like, REALLY bad.” I yawned, “I might just head up to bed, really tired after today.”

“I understand, you had to go through alot.” She stated, “I’ll see you in the morning Sho. Goodnight.”

“Night Li’ella.” I answered as I walked away. Though I didn’t go straight to bed, I watched the festivities as I walked by. Only stopping to watch Laval and Cragger dance which made me somewhat smile. Once I had gotten up to my room, I changed back into my clothes and put on my headphones. I scrolled through my songs until I got to I’m still standing by Elton John, although the song was rather energetic I didn’t care. I laid down in my bed as the song played and my eyes drifted off to sleep.

I woke up the next morning still feeling rather tired. However, with one good stretch I was ready to go, I left my room and went to look for Asriel who I found just looking outside his window. I walked up next to him. “How are you feeling Asriel?” I asked him. “Oh…not particularly great.” Asriel answered, turning to me, “I thought that everything would be normal once I was no longer under Crooler’s control but…I remember everything. It felt like someone else was in my body but I could still see what I was doing..”

“That means you remember..”

“Yeah I remember nearly choking you out, I remember what I said to you… I remember stabbing Lagravis…” Asriel wiped his eyes, “And I feel so guilty…I wish I did something, I wish I fought back…” I put a supportive arm on Asriel’s shoulder.

“That isn’t your fault. Crooler used that weird plant thing to manipulate you, you didn’t have a choice.”

“But I nearly killed both you and Lagravis Sho. What I said to you was horrible.”

“You're not a criminal, Asriel. You’re not a bad person, you were being used by Crooler. Don’t forget that.” I hugged Asriel, “It’ll take time to heal but trust me it will get better.”

“Thanks Sho. You're too kind for this world…” Answered Asriel as we stopped embracing.

“You're welcome, wanna go and find Laval to hangout for a bit?” I asked him. “Just to get your mind off things.”

“Sure if you want.” Asriel responded, looking sorta down. We both left the room looking for Laval. Knocking on their door in the process.

“Give me two seconds!” He shouted, “Okay you can enter!” We both entered Laval’s room which was seemingly a mess, giving the impression he had only just woken up. “Hey Sho, Hey Asriel.”

“Hey Laval.” Asriel waved at Laval, “How have you been?”

“Alright to be honest.” Laval smiled at Asriel, “Got to dance with my friends and Cragger last night so it was pretty good.”

“Sweet!” I responded, taking a seat on Laval’s bed, “Well me and Asriel probably have a couple of hours to kill before we return to our realm. So what should we do?”

“Hmmmm.” Laval thought for a moment, “I was gonna say let’s have a speedor race but I doubt Asriel would want to do that again.”

“Yeah you’d be right about that.” Asriel answered bluntly, leaving Laval thinking for a moment.

“Hmmmmm.” Laval hummed for a moment then looked up at my hair then came up with an idea, “Wanna try on my crown Sho?”

“Wha- Really?” I looked at Laval confused, “C’mon man I won’t be able to pull it off.”

“It’ll be fine.” Laval reassured me as he took it off, their mane flopped down which kinda covered his eyes, “The comb-thingies will hold it up.”

“Whoa man your mane!” Asriel gasped, “It looks really nice.” Laval smiled at this.

“Thanks man.” Laval responded as he handed me the crown, “Not many people get to see my mane like this so take a good long look. Also Sho just push your hair back then put the crown on. The comb-thingies should do most of the magic”

“Oh alright.” I did what Laval had told me to do, pushing my hair back as I carefully placed the crown on my head. “How do I look?”

“Oh like a prince!” Laval complimented, “You should look in the mirror man!” I looked in Laval's mirror and he was right, I did look like a prince.

"I look dapper!!" I gasped, looking in the mirror in astonishment. "I actually look amazing!"

“You really do Sho..” Asriel muttered, also taking a look in the mirror, “Man, I don’t exactly look the best right now huh..?” I turned to Asriel. “NONSENSE!” I shouted jokingly, “Sure you may look slightly tired and you basically were forced to do stuff you wouldn’t normally do. But other than that you still look amazing!” Asriel gave a slight chuckle and looked at me.

“Yeah…” He mumbled, we heard a knock at the door and turned to it. Seeing Li’ella appear at the door. I waved at her as Laval jumped up.

“It’s so good to see you again Li’ella.” Laval laughed as he hugged her, “Nice to see you're doing well.”

“Thank you Laval.” Li’ella responded as she returned their hug, “I’m just trying to get used to everything again to be honest with you. With being in captivity for three months..” She sighed.

“Yeah I understand that one-hundred percent!” He chuckled, “It’s going to take awhile to re-adjust to everything.” Li’ella gave a genuine smile to Laval.

“Yeah I guess that’s right…” Li’ella muttered, “That’s not why I’m here though, I’ve come to tell you that Cragger’s here-”

“Wait- Cragger’s here?!” Laval grinned, he then turned to me. “I’m gonna need that crown back Sho-” I took the crown off and handed it to Laval as I sorted my hair. I also watched as Laval tied his mane into a ponytail with my hair-tie which I didn't really mind if he kept.

“Here ya go Laval.” I said as I turned to Li’ella. “It’s nice to see you again too.” She gave me a smile.

“It’s nice to see you too Sho.” She walked over to Asriel and gave him a hug, “And how are you doing Asriel?”

“Better…” Asriel gave a faint smile as they embraced “I’m doing better.” There was a sudden PING! from my phone and I quickly checked it. It’s from Gaster.

8am Gaster: Sho everything is ready. Get to the origin point and say your goodbyes to everyone.

I didn’t respond to the message, I honestly didn’t know what to do. I thought we had more time. I thought to myself as I sighed, I looked up at Laval, Asriel and Li’ella.

“What’s up Sho?” Laval asked curiously, tilting his head to the side like a confused kid. I stood up.

“It’s time to go.” I said rather bluntly, helping Asriel to his feet.

“Oh right!” Laval responded, jumping to his feet. “I’ll tell Cragger to help give you both a ride to spiral mountain.” I saw Laval smile, was he planning something? I thought to myself as we left the room. We walked through the empty corridors of the lion temple and down to the courts where Cragger was found.

“Took you long enough.” Cragger joked with a tiny laugh as he grabbed ahold of Laval’s hand. “I’ve parked my speedor just outside the temple!”

“Actually Cragger. It’s time for them to go.” Laval turned into mine and Asriel’s direction and he continued with his faint smile

“Oh right.” Cragger mumbled, “C’mon we got no time t-” He was interrupted by someone shouting.

“WAIT SHO-” I looked in the direction of the shouting and saw Lavertus running in my direction. He seemed to be carrying something, “Before you go I decided to spend all night making you something.” I looked at him curiously as I looked down at what he was holding. He was holding some sort of brown satchel, though the button on it seemed custom made specifically for this satchel. The button itself was in the shape of a lion head and shined like gold. “Even though you're from a different realm, you have the heart of a true lion so I wanted to make something to represent that!” He handed me the satchel and gleamed with true happiness.

“Whoa!” I looked at the satchel shocked, “This is sick! Thanks man.” I swang the satchel over my shoulder and smiled.

“Your welcome Sho! I’m really gonna miss ya! Or am I?” He then laughed at his own joke which in retrospect was rather cringey but I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m just messin’ I am actually gonna miss you. Welp, see you in another lifetime human!” And like that, Lavertus turned away and walked back into the lion temple. I stood there slightly confused before getting a tap on the shoulder.

“C’mon Sho.” Cragger said, almost as if he wanted me to follow him to his speedor. I followed him and hopped onto his speedor with Asriel hopping onto Laval’s speedor, soon we began getting on our way to spiral mountain. As we travelled I couldn’t help but feel…I dunno, sorta of a melancholic feeling. I didn’t understand why..

We soon found ourselves back at Spiral mountain. Back at the beginning I thought to myself as I hopped off Cragger’s speedor to suddenly be greeted with a hug from Gorzan.

“Don’t go so soon dude!” He shouted, almost upset, “We’ve just met and you're already leaving?”

“I have too.” I murmured, reciprocating the hug, “I don’t belong here Gorzan.” I quickly looked around then realised that most of Laval and Cragger’s friend group was here; Eris, Razar, Rogon and Worriz (which surprised me since I thought he hated me). The only person that wasn’t here was Bladvic but that could be summed up to him sleeping somewhere on the way. I looked at Asriel who began to speak.

“You came here to see us off?” He asked in a faint tone.

“Yeah!” Eris exclaimed, “You're both chill and honestly fun to hangout with so this will most certainly be sad."

"I only came because Razar forced me…" Worriz grumbled, looking at the raven embarrassed.

"Oh shush my dear wolf friend." Razar booped Worriz's nose with his hook which made him noticeably blush, "You think I'm missing the send off of someone who gave me such a rare trinket?!"

"No.." Worriz mumbled, turning away from the Raven to hide his embarrassed look. This made me laugh. I looked down at my phone, I need to message Gaster.. I thought to myself before turning to the group.

"Why don't we all get a photo?" I asked charismatically, "It'd be a nice way for me and Asriel to remember yall."

"A photo…?" Rogon looked at me confused, "I dunno what that is but it sounds fun!" He then grinned as grabbed Eris' hand, which took her by surprise but she ended up smiling. "C'mon let's do it!"

"I second that!" Laval exclaimed as I began posing for the selfie.

"Ready…?" I posed my phone up as I threw a peace sign and everyone got into position. I clicked the camera button. There was then a small click and I looked at the photo on my phone. "That looks brilliant!" I complimented. I then opened my message app and clicked on Gaster's profile.

8:35am Sho: We're here. Open the portal. Gaster: Right, brace yourself.

Suddenly, there was a shining blue light which contrast the scenery. The portal was open and we're actually going home I thought to myself as I looked at the portal. Asriel waved at everyone and walked through the portal, however I hesitated. I don't know why I'm hesitating, was it because I was gonna lose two friends…? I wandered as I looked back at the rest of the group, or more specifically Laval and Cragger.

"Sho are you alright…?" Cragger asked me as I looked at him.

"Yeah you seem to he holdi-" Laval was interrupted by me running up to both of them and hugging them.

"No matter where we are, we'll still be friends right..?" I asked, almost crying.

"Yeah…yeah…" Laval answered as he wiped my eyes. "Sho no matter where you are, your always a beacon of hope. That similar hope is found all over chima. So I'm sure we'll stay friends no matter where we are."

"I agree with Laval." Cragger mumbled, looking like he was about to cry, "We'll always be friends man. Nothing can change that." We soon stopped embracing as I looked at the portal. I looked back at the entire group then gave them a genuine smile before stepping through.

The dim-atmosphere of the Laboratory was almost blinding to me as I stepped through, it was a stark contrast to chima that's for sure. I looked over at Asriel, who seemed to be hugging his parents and Akemi. Akemi was holding him tightly, almost unwilling to let go which gave me a slight chuckle. As I heard the portal close behind me, I looked straight-ahead and I saw them. My parents, Grillby and Sans.

"Dad…" I murmured as I stepped towards them, embracing Grillby first before sans joined in. "I'm so sorry… I should've explained everything I-"

"Sho it doesn't matter…" Grillby muttered at he pet my head parent-like, "What matters is that you and Asriel are safe… How about we get you home and make you a nice mug of hot chocolate then you can explain everything alright…?" I looked up at Grillby then nodded.

"That sounds nice…" I murmured, not letting go of Grillby.

"your gonna be alright kid…" Sans commented in his usual tone, "your going to be alright…". I felt a sense of hope, everything was back to normal and…I was home.

<-Previous Chapter

Epilogue 1 ->

Alrighty Chapter 15, I wanted a nice "ending" to the story. And this was how, though I did still have some ideas left for two epilogues. This chapter is meant to have a bit of a slow feeling which it's able to perfectly achieve I think.

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everysongineverykey · 2 years

Note

"like the sound test room is of course an unused room that a ton of undertale fans likely still don't know about" The sound test room is in fact very much used, it has a 50% of substituting the fishing rod room in snowding if you fun value is set to 65! (I think you need to fight Papyrus first?)

seriously?? i fully thought it was one of those things you had to mess around with the files to find. huh. well, even so, it's a pretty rare room- you need one specific fun value to get it, and even then it's just a 50% chance (and if you need to fight papyrus first and then backtrack, that makes it even less likely people will find it), so i doubt it would get a direct, on-the-nose reference. i think it could still show up, though- i feel like you could conceivably put it in deltarune and give it its own scene in the story so that even players who don't know of it in undertale can experience it as its own thing, and fans who do know it can have the added experience of knowing it's a reference.

that's one thing i've been pondering in relation to gaster as well for some time- the fact is that most deltarune players know who he is, most undertale fans will go into deltarune knowing who he is, he's a pretty popular mystery, but... you can't guarantee everyone will know who he is if he shows up on screen without context. if he says some shit like "ah yes, you know who i am, now at last we meet" or whatever, there's a significant chance that less online utdr fans, like younger fans with more restricted access to the internet, won't have a clue what he's talking about. toby can guarantee that deltarune is mostly only played by people who have completed undertale, but he can't be certain they'll know everything about gaster, and if gaster plays a big role in later chapters, it'd be kinda unfair to just... leave them out of the loop. of course i've had a lot of fun thinking about a late-game sequence in the style of undertale's waterfall history plaques or new home exposition dump where maybe the gang's walking through some hall with either signs telling them the story of gaster or gaster himself speaking to them from somewhere else and then at the end they (and we) finally see him in person... the vision in my head is sooo cool would that i could visualize it somehow <3 but alas i cannot draw or program </3 but anyway! i went off on a tangent there. that's something i didn't know about the sound test room! thanks :)

#deltarune #oh and the fact that fun value 65 is one away from mystery man fun value 66 has NOT escaped me <33333 the connections <33333

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fuzzysocksstuff · 2 years

Text

Alright.

Welcome to my Undertale shit post.

I have a questionable idea for a comic, here's the snippet of the script. (And by snippet I mean hella long paragraph)

Thoughts appreciated, but not free. Please leave a penny. Thnx.

Side stuff: Gaster middle brother:

Scene: hanging out, maybe making a snowman or something

Characters present: Sans, Papyrus, Frisk, Alphys, Undyne, Gaster

Sans sees Gaster out of the corner of his eye, pauses for a second. This time seems different, Gaster doesn’t appear corrupted, the last time sans saw Gaster uncorrupted was before they messed with time.

Sans shrugs, and continues what he was doing, its probably is just a temporary file that happened to load that will dissipate momentarily- a figment of his imagination.

Papyrus notices this stranger watching them, “Hello new skeleton! (sans jumps, papyrus can see gaster?) I don’t believe we have met before, I am the Great Papyrus, what is your name?”

Everyone has stopped what they were doing, Gaster has everyone’s attention.

Sans starts to sweat, staring at Gaster, he wonders if he has finally lost his mind! This isn’t possible, Gaster’s files are corrupt past redemption, how much longer can this file of Gaster last?

Undyne chimes in, “Whoa! I never knew there was a another skeleton! Alphy’s, did you know?”

Alphys responds honestly, “w-well, I-I didn’t think there were a-any other skeletons l-left…”

(Gaster looks at his hands, touches his face, and stares at papyrus and sans during dialog)

Frisk silently watches in the background

As Gaster takes a step forward, sans takes a step back, this isn’t real, it’s going to disappear, he’s not really here, it’s not possible, not in any conceivable timeline he’s calculated. Sans’s anxiety climbs.

Gaster finally responds, full of excitement and confusion, “Papyrus? I-am I actually here? Did my calculations finally work? Maybe I could run through the numbers again, (some math and physics mumbo jumbo)…then, I must really be here!” (Gaster uses hands to count, pacing side to side while making the calculations to himself)

Gaster’s eyes finally lands on Sans’s horrified/numb expression, his eyes start to gloss over and voice trembles as he remembers the last time he saw sans, “Sans, I finally did it! I collected all of my pieces, uncorrupted them, I am finally me!” Gaster takes a few more steps forward while saying this, Sans continues to take steps backwards in disbelief, his breathing gets heavier, the weight in his chest is unbearable, sans remembers how he couldn’t save Gaster, how he was just out of reach, but here he is, standing in front of him.

Papyrus, “Hmm, it seems you have met my brother, weird that he’s never mentioned you. Nevertheless! There is always room for another skeleton! I still don’t know your name?”

Gaster, “Sans…?” Gaster can’t hid his pain, how could his own brother back away from him?

Papyrus, “Well, that name is already taken I’m afraid…Pick another!”

Reality finally sinks in for sans, his grin returns, “Well, I’m glad to see that you’re finally more tangible than GAS-ter!” (winks)

Gaster runs to sans, pulling Papyrus in with- Sans realizes this is the first time his younger brothers have all been together since before corruption, his eyes start to well up, gaster lets a tear slip from his eyes, Papyrus is still very confused.

Papyrus, “Well this all seems very fast, it appears my friendliness abilities have become too powerful, welcome new friend! Of course it would slip your mind to tell me about another skeleton, sans”

Sans, “I-uh, let’s just say I know him from another time” Sans looks up at Gaster, “It’s been too long.”

Gaster, “Papyrus doesn’t know who I am, does he?”

Sans shrugs, looking away toward the ground.

Undyne, Frisk, and Alphys all look at each other very confused, they have no idea what Gaster is saying.

Gaster, “Then I assume no one else remembers either, do they?”

Sans is silent for a moment.

Sans, “Geez, just got back and you’re already WINGing it” sans says with a single sweat bead on his forehead. Gaster chuckles, “you have not changed, you have always been such a COMIC sans”

Sans chuckles and winks, “BONa fide at all!”

Papyrus, “NGEH! I spoke too soon, no friend of mine would torture me with puns!”

Undyne snaps out of her disbelief, “uh, WHAT? How do you know what he’s saying? How do you know him? Sans what the fu-“Sans shoot undyne a dirty look, she should know better than to swear in front of Papyrus, “fuuudgery?”

Papyrus, “hmm, yes, Fudgery indeed! Although, your font seems strangely familiar, it must be a puzzle my greatness was able to solve, nothing can get past the Great Papyrus!”

Sans, “So cool bro.”

Gaster starts to use sign language while speaking, “ah, I apologize, it’s been so long since I have been able to talk to someone else, I forgot to sign! My font is not the easiest to read, it’s wing dings and my name is Gaster.”

Undyne looks unsatisfied with this answer.

Alphy’s realizes that Undyne can’t sign, “I-uh, h-his name is G-Gaster. I studied s-sign language o-once, I’m sorry I can’t sign back to you, i-is t-that ok?

Gaster, “Yes, thank you, Alphys.” Alphys didn’t catch that she didn’t say her name yet, “oh, of course!”

Undyne, “Alright, well then would’ya guys TRANSLATE!?”

Sans bumps Gaster, “way to go, you’ve already gotten under her GILLS” Gaster, “Really? I thought things were going SWIMINGLY!” both Sans and Gaster laugh.

Undyne and Papyrus are unamused. (alphys is translating for Undyne)

While sans and gaster continue to make puns, we see flowey appear behind Frisk, watching cryptically.

Sans, “I’m not so sure, she looks like she might just BUBBLE over!” Gaster pushes sans over and laughs even harder as sans falls over, “awe man, I just got this SINKING feeling.” Gaster laughs harder.

Papyrus, “Sans did you just fall to make a PUN!?? You lazy bones!”

Gaster, “oh Paps, what happened to your FUNNY bone, you don’t find this Humerous?”

Payrus, “Ngeh!” -casually looses his mind while sans rolls over laughing, Gaster holds his stomach while laughing.

Sans goes silent for a moment, he hasn’t been this happy for so long. He hopes this is real, even if it doesn’t matter in the end, even if the human resets and he forgets all of this, he in this moment remembers what it’s like to be happy. Sans takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and just basks in this pure joy.

Gaster, approaches sans, “you okay down there?”

Without opening his eyes, sans uses a bone to trip Gaster to the ground, he opens one eye and looks at Gasters perplexed face, “you should watch your step, you never know when (idk, bone pun that I can’t think of right now)

Papyrus is finally done loosing his mind, and sees that sans looks genuinely happy, maybe for the first time in a long time, “Brother?”

Sans, “Yeah bro?” Papyrus, “now that you’ve had your laugh, why don’t we head inside and do the getting to know over dinner?” Sans, “Sounds good bro.” Sans doesn’t get up, Gaster does, “yes, that would be nice.” Papyrus, “sans, I’m waiting.” Sans still doesn’t get up, “Gee bro, it seems like my legs have just WALKED off.” Papyrus, “ENOUGH! If you can’t walk, then I’ll walk for you!” Papyrus picks sans up, gaster chuckles and the three of them walk inside.

Undyne, looking defeated, “What just happened?”

Frisk, “I don’t know. But, we could talk over dinner! They were planning on us too, we should join them.”

Alphys, “y-yes they were! Why d-don’t we go eat Undyne?” Undyne, “I suppose.”

Undyne, Alphys, and Frisk walk inside with frisk watching. Flowey, “interesting…”

End scene

Wowie! You actually made it to the end! Here, take some water, you've got to be exhausted after running that marathon!

Thanks for scrolling.

#undertale comic #undertale #sans #skelebros

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deltaruminations · 1 year

Text

The Man in the Motif: A Character Analysis of W.D. Gaster via Music

“Sing us a song, you’re the mystery man… sing us a song if you please… ‘cause we’re all in the mood for a broken chord, and you’ve got us feeling unease…”

here’s the Big Dumb Music Post lmao

A couple things:

Most of what comes after the cut is written like an actual essay and not a shitpost i promise

This is more Synthesis and Subjective Reading of Extant Material than speculative theorycraft

I mostly wrote this for fun & because I’d never seen anyone lay out an analysis for our boy G like this before. I don’t think it’s like Revolutionary it’s mostly just me talking a lot about a special interest lol

I get the sense that a lot of people may have already picked up on a lot of this stuff and it might just be my alexithymic ass that needs heady analysis like this to understand subtle emotional cues. That’s to say: IDK how much New Stuff is being presented here for any given reader but it might still add value to that existing understanding I Guess

I’m not trying to assert that Toby Fox consciously intended to convey everything that I’m pulling out of this stuff lol

OK HERE WE GO!!!!!

Contents

To quickly access a given section, just search for it by its leading flag ([#XXX])

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

[#002-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

[#003] File Select & Game Over ambience

[#004] Darkness Falls

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

[#006] Takeaways

Undertale and Deltarune use leitmotif to a wide variety of ends in shaping players’ experience of their stories. Because music is understood emotionally and interpretively, a single song can function to convey several simultaneous ideas about characters, places, and/or themes, and may be understood to have multiple layers of meaning.

Gaster’s leitmotif in particular is notorious for its tendency to be heard by fans everywhere in Undertale and Deltarune’s soundtracks, regardless of the actual intentionality of its use. Due to the brief and generic nature of the sequence, there’s a distinct possibility that this ambiguity was engineered into it, possibly as a way to influence players’ perceptions by implying that he’s secretly ever-present and ever-watching, and/or to convey something about Gaster himself, such as dispersion of his consciousness or memories.

Aside from the previous point, there are a few instances in Deltarune’s soundtrack in which its use is either explicit or, at the very least, somewhat less ambiguous. This discussion will focus on the former cases, specifically tracks that play in the scenes in which we interact with the man himself. I’ll cover this in roughly the order that I believe a typical player would experience them for the first time.

Most of these sections will be Very Roughly divided into:

Informal analysis (I Do Not Know Music Theory I Am Just A Guy With Abled Ears) of choices made in the song itself

Subjective analysis of what emotions or associations the song might be evoking

Interpretation of what any of that could mean about Gaster Our Good Friend Gaster

Discussion of in-game context wherever I think it's interesting lol

Because my formal knowledge on music composition is very limited, and also because I’m no longer hearing these songs fresh and untainted by Lore Obsession Disease, I had my partner (a musician who knows nothing about UTDR or this character) give his opinions on these songs as well. While I don’t think a formal background is a prerequisite for this kind of subjective analysis (as these soundtracks are designed to communicate with a broad audience, not just with musicians), it of course allows for further insight. I’ll refer to him from here on as my “research assistant” because I think it’s funny.

I first had him listen to the tracks listed here out-of-context and give me his thoughts on what they communicated to him about the character or scene. I then gave him some context for each song, the story, and the character, and we discussed whether that context brought further interpretation. It turned out his basic interpretations closely aligned with mine, with the addition of some really cool observations that would’ve never occurred to me on my own. This discussion will reflect his opinions & observations as well. Huge thanks to him!

With that in mind, I’m going to use the word “melody” and other such Music Words pretty loosely throughout this sorry. I tried my best to respect the Terminology but im just a fucking dude ok

[#001] mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme)

We must, of course, begin with mus_st_him.ogg (Gaster’s Theme), which establishes his leitmotif (or at least, the only confirmed part of it; whether or not there’s a B part to the leitmotif is currently unknown, though I‘ve seen some interesting speculation about that). Assuming that Deltarune players experienced Undertale first (as Toby Fox seems to have intended), this will have been the first instance of Gaster’s leitmotif ever encountered, and it’s the front line for evaluating his character.

Found only through a Fun event, in Undertale’s “Sound Test” room, this is presented as less of a song and more of a demo or reference sequence. As we move on to other tracks, I’ll consider this track the platonic ideal and use it as a point of comparison.

One brief note is that the filename itself does not explicitly assign this track to Gaster, but rather to “him.” It’s the Sound Test UI that puts his name on it. Whether or not there’s significance to this is currently unclear.

(I think there may be something in common between the friendly “voice” that thanks us for our feedback in the Sound Test room and Deltarune’s out-of-universe UI text after closing the fountain in Deltarune chapter 1, but I don’t have any idea what, if anything, that means right now.)

Precedents established

Since this is the base motif, I think it’s worthwhile to mention how the song is structured on paper. Since I’m no Theory Guy, I’ll refer you to Tumblr user notesanddreams’s technical analysis of what he calls the “Gaster Sequence,” which is a name I like a lot and am going to use moving forward.

To quote him:

It’s a pretty simple four bar loop. The melody, which everyone I know has taken to calling “the Gaster motif,” is a four note sequence that goes “starting note -> up a minor second (half step) -> up a perfect fifth -> back down a perfect fifth.” This is played four times before modulating down a half step and looping….

There’s simply not enough musical information in the track to discern a tonal center, and therefore any attempts to give it a key signature are futile. This gives the sequence a very mysterious and unsettling nature, but its vagueness allows it to be applied to certain tracks in the Deltarune OST very subtly at times.

While it’s distorted, this song seems to be played on an unaccompanied piano. This establishes an association between Gaster and that instrumentation (as we’ll see reinforced later), as well as with sounds of distortion & modulation, dissonance, and “noise.”

These two factors combined may be things to consider alongside the leitmotif when determining whether a song or part of a song should be considered to offer direct descriptions of Gaster (as opposed to containing a more abstract reference to him, or instead being referential to or descriptive of another character associated with piano, such as Kris).

Emotional perspective

Gaster’s Theme is anxiety-inducing. It builds up endlessly but never resolves. It is not musical; it lacks anything recognizable as motion or melody, which in turn causes it to lack anything immediately recognizable as personality, or emotion, or backstory. It’s a song that betrays no motivations or values, leaving us to fill in the blanks on our own.

The minor key and dissonance could easily be experienced as sinister, playing on our fear and mistrust of the unknown. If the truth is out there, it doesn’t seem to be pleasant. If we continue to seek it out, who knows what could become of us, or what we could unleash upon the world?

The Sound Test UI itself is bizarre and mysterious. Why does it thank us for our “feedback” after hearing Gaster’s Theme? What input or feedback did we provide?

Characterization perspective

We could take this theme on its own to suggest that Gaster is characterized by duality, tension, and emotional detachment and/or reservation.

The rising tones in each bar evoke thought and ideation, approaching a point before dropping down to approach another. The endless, moderately-paced loop of shifting, yet internally consistent, sets resembles a careful dialectic that never reaches resolution.

We could interpret this as the sound of an analytical mind aware of many options and possibilities, but never ultimately delineating the truth between them (my research assistant specifically described this track as being “locked into itself”). We could also take it less literally to signify a reversal of opinion or understanding in general – not necessarily that decisions are never made, but they’re reached through heady deliberation and obsessively re-examined after they’re made.

While the motif betrays internal tension, it’s also highly ordered and consistent, lacking any spontaneity. This can be taken to mean that Gaster is cautious, deliberate, and reserved. For all the neurosis it conveys, it still comes off as fairly confident, as though Gaster is simply used to this and doesn’t tend to question it.

We could also possibly infer that other characters experienced Gaster in much the same way as we do – they may have found him unsettling and hard to read.

As mentioned before, it’s unknown whether other parts to this motif exist or are planned to exist. If they do exist, then the fact that only the A(?) part has been presented as “Gaster’s Theme” would underscore the one-sidedness of his presentation in Undertale, as well as a possible tendency of Gaster’s to hide parts of himself.

(EXTREMELY speculative, so please don’t take this too seriously, but: I’ve seen at least a handful of fans raise the possibility that at least some part of the Secret Boss (“Freedom”) motif may be a B/C part of Gaster’s motif. If Gaster is trying to obfuscate any involvement with Secret Boss characters, using his metaphysical resources to hide obvious musical associations with them (i.e., by labeling only this part of the motif as his “theme” in the Sound Test) would certainly be a clever way to do so.)

[#002] ANOTHER HIM

The first true application of the Gaster Sequence a player will experience is also the very first song heard in Deltarune: ANOTHER HIM, which plays during the Introduction (also known as the Survey or “GONERMAKER”).

This is another instance of Gaster being referred to as “him” in the metadata rather than by name. The specific phrasing of “ANOTHER HIM” seems referential to Undertale Players’ knowledge of him, and could be taken to suggest that this is a separate instance or at least “piece” of the character described in that game. Alternatively, this could indicate the same character being presented from another perspective, and/or the same continuity of that character who’s no longer recognizable as the same person for one reason or another.

Musical analysis

This track is, of course, a direct quote of the entire Gaster Sequence isolated from any other motifs. Its main developments are a slight modification to the rhythm of the Sequence and the addition of other instruments and background ambience – this is actually the only song in the scope of this document in which the motif itself is heard accompanied (while Darkness Falls also contains other instrumentation, it occurs during an instance of a different motif). We again hear the Sequence played on piano.

When my research assistant first heard this song without context he paused it after about 5 seconds and proceeded to tell me all about Paul stretching and how it can be used to create the type of ethereal ambience heard in this track. One thing he noted is that this algorithm allows for stretching a sample while keeping it in-key, without adding dissonance. I should be clear that I have no idea if this exact technique was used here, only that it seems to have achieved a very similar effect.

So, what is the sample being stretched (in some way or another) to create that ambient noise? When we reversed the stretch, we found it to be none other than one of Giygas’s instruments from EarthBound. This has been identified by other fans as a sample of the track Giygas’s Intimidation.

[#001-A] A Brief Tangent on Giygas

I want to be careful about suggesting too much from musical samples & references, since UTDR are known to make extensive use of samples and soundfonts from other works, especially from EarthBound (as well as reworked versions of Toby Fox’s own music from other projects). Like, I don’t think Toby was trying to Say Anything in particular when he used the “WOW!” from Earthbound’s intro sequence in Spamton’s battle themes except “EarthBound is very special to me and that sound design choice they made was really memorable and I think it sounds really fun here.”

That in mind, UTDR fans have been intuitively connecting Gaster and Giygas for years based on superficial similarities and the known influence of EarthBound alone. Given Gaster’s unique existence in metanarrative, the specificity and consistency of the references associated with him, as well as the potential thematic relevance of this reference (and the one to follow in section [#005-A]), I do think it may be fair game to consider them in these cases. I’m going to throw out a couple of things:

The use of samples from Earthbound, specifically ones related to Giygas, draws yet another thematic connection between Gaster and Undertale’s True Lab and possible parallels to Alphys, suggesting this connection is relevant to Deltarune. Memoryhead itself bears resemblance to Giygas. (also wait what there’s parallel harmony in Amalgam?? holy shit???)

Giygas is a character who, when encountered in Earthbound, has been driven to a state of eldritch, cosmic horror by trauma & grief. His backstory as Giegue, told in the previous game Mother, includes themes of pursuing knowledge despite knowing of the dangers, of betrayal, and of guilt over well-intentioned harm, specifically harm done while under some form of external influence. The Giygas of EarthBound, in his madness, exerts violent influence over animals and people, including Porky, a troubled child who Giygas compels to serve him.

Throughout the fight, Giygas expresses his internal conflict, lashing out seemingly not due to malice but rather uncontrolled emotion. Defeating Giygas requires first that the character Paula “Pray,” or call out for strength from the party’s families and the people they’ve helped along their journey, until there are no more characters left to reach; Paula’s “call” becomes unheard, “absorbed by the darkness.” Then, finally, she begs the player themself to “PRAY” for the party – the “kids” they’ve never met before – dealing the final necessary blows in the process.

Gaster & Giygas are both unpleasant sounding two-syllable G names LOL this is stupid sorry

Obviously, I don’t anticipate a 1:1 resemblance between Gaster’s and Giygas’s stories, but there could be thematic parallels worth considering. There is one thing, however, that I find interesting in the context of this song in particular: in inviting us to this “Survey,” Gaster seems to have called out to us in the same way that Paula did, praying to us for help – perhaps, more specifically, to help the kids of Deltarune who we have yet (at this point in the game) to meet.

Emotional perspective

ANOTHER HIM opens with a distorted ambience, evocative of murmuring, choral voice, rolling thunder, and perhaps the crackling whips of a Tesla coil. This ambience ebbs and flows in intensity, occasionally seeming to thrash and writhe. Just before the Sequence itself starts, and then throughout it, we hear what seem to be longing strings, and underlying the piano is a steady, understated percussion.

In contrast to the distorted fuzz of mus_st_him.ogg, the piano used here is crisp, with only a limited echo applied to it. While not unaccompanied, this piano still feels exposed and small, especially against the faint instrumentation and ambience churning below it. The high, bell-like keys feel bright and hopeful. At the same time, the slow, halting tempo suggests trepidation.

Where the base Sequence marches steadily through its dialectic without deviation or hesitation, ANOTHER HIM’s arrangement pauses at the height of each thought, as if considering it more carefully, before dropping back down to the next. After the first two sets switch off normally, the melody then proceeds to rise steadily, as though finally grasping at a revelation; after reaching an apex, it then pauses, collecting itself, before looping over again. Isolated from the ambience, this arrangement sounds contemplative and searching, in contrast to the neurotic dialogue of the base Sequence.

The backing ambience sounds ethereal and spacey, but not noticeably dissonant. It doesn’t necessarily lend the same eeriness of mus_st_him.ogg’s distortion, but the low, slow murmuring and even occasional lashing of the “voices” in the background still betray an undercurrent of unease & tension.

When my research assistant heard the songs mus_st_him.ogg, ANOTHER HIM, and Darkness Falls without context, in the order presented here, he read them as a developing narrative. He felt that this piece, compared to the base theme, added “motion” in the form of a steady rise and fall. He then said, “What I would want next, if this were one piece, is melody. I’m still waiting for that next part.” While it takes more time to breathe, ANOTHER HIM still never approaches resolution.

He also likened the emotional experience of this song to Gregorian or hymnal chanting – less so the literal style of music, but rather the use of reverberation in that musical form to create a full, choral sound from only a few individual voices.

Characterization perspective

The overwhelming sense I get from ANOTHER HIM is one of vulnerability, introspection, and dishevelment, as well as cautious deliberation. It also conveys a certain amount of hope and possibly curiosity, though these are muted in comparison to the hesitance and turmoil.

Compared to what we “see” of him in mus_st_him.ogg, Gaster seems to be far less self-assured in his dialectical thinking. He’s breaking from his traditional pattern of rumination and attempting to reach for some form of personal truth. The cautiousness could also be taken to convey unease or skepticism about the situation at hand, about the probability of success in achieving the “NEW FUTURE,” or even about the Player themself.

As far as the background ambience, its most obvious function is to convey the ethereality of incorporeal, out-of-universe existence, its ebbing and twisting reflecting the shapelessness of a disembodied consciousness. It could even be considered diegetic – as if it is the sound of his state of being, or of this strange, extraplanar space beyond the event horizon.

The ambience could also be taken to convey emotional information, though its separation from the “conscious thought” of the motif could imply many things (as we’ll discuss later in [#004], we have an example within the same chapter of the motif conveying quite a bit of emotionality in itself).

If we take this angle, then it could suggest that Gaster is not integrating emotionality with rational thought, but is at least possibly acknowledging that emotionality — or it’s built up to a point where it can no longer be fully contained or ignored. We could interpret the pauses in the motif as Gaster listening to or meditating on these “voices” – or becoming momentarily overwhelmed by them.

From this perspective, it’s clear that this emotional state is confusing and volatile; the dialogue happening on this level is not nearly as orderly or civil as that heard in the motif. The “lashing” sounds could be taken as flashes of pain; their violence could suggest bad memories, self-criticism, shame, or regret, among other possibilities.

I also think the choice of a percussive “heartbeat” is quite interesting. While not rapid, it could possibly suggest anxiety, as though his heart is pounding. It also suggests intimacy, which in turn requires a certain level of trust – he has allowed us close enough to hear that heartbeat at all, whether or not it’s comfortable for him, or he feels confident that it’s a good idea for him to do so.

Despite this piling on of confusion and unease, the relative clarity and brightness of the motif’s piano seems to twinkle faintly in the dark. This sense of hope gives us something to latch onto amidst the tumult, and that may be true of the character as well. We could read this as a hope that is worth enduring the doubt, the humbling, and the possibility of pain.

The song in context

ANOTHER HIM’s hesitation and vulnerability strikes an interesting contrast with Gaster’s dialogue throughout the Survey sequence. Aside from a very small number of seemingly spontaneous reactions, Gaster in his dialogue – in his intended self-presentation – comes off as unfailingly polite, professional, confident, and generally neutral.

While we needn’t assume that this self-presentation, or the opinions he does express, are insincere, we can still infer that whatever the reality is of his internal state, Gaster is making a concerted effort to keep that information hidden from us. There are obvious practical reasons for this: to maintain the integrity of his study, he needs to minimize his biasing of our behavior.

That said, we could certainly read personal factors into this as well. From Gaster’s POV, the Player possesses a tremendous amount of metaphysical knowledge and ability. Whether or not he has difficulties with trust in general, Gaster certainly has reasons to be very wary of us, something I’ll discuss further in the next section.

The content of the sequence itself (text, background, etc.) warrants its own analysis. I’ll probably do one at like, idk some point probably

[#003] File Select (& Game Over) ambience

While it doesn’t really constitute a “song,” I think it’s worthwhile to look briefly at the sound design in the File Select and Game Over UIs, since they’re still among the very few instances of “face-to-face” interaction we have with the man of the hour. Note that this doesn’t include Darkness Falls, which plays after a certain choice is made at a game over – the next section will discuss that. Because this section covers sound design choices moreso than musical ones, I’ll eschew the format of the other sections and simply analyze these choices in-context.

This is the one section of audio I didn’t review with my research assistant, so you’re just getting my unmoderated opinions here, unfortunately.

For the better part of the game (so far), the File Select screen generally looks and feels the way a Player would expect from an RPG UI, with illustrations, friendly help text, and narrative music:

Post-completion Chapter 1 File Select (Before the Story)

Chapter 2 File Select (Faint Glow)

Similarly, the chapter 2 (or, rather, the post-ch1-completion) Game Over screen displays a genre-appropriate graphic, includes a message of encouragement (or, perhaps more accurately, a plea for Kris to survive) from Kris’s party members, and plays the song Faint Courage.

These File Select & Game Over screens are potentially extremely lore-rich in and of themselves (some of this will come up in the next section), but with regard to this particular discussion, I’m mostly interested in the stark contrast they present when compared to the pre-completion Chapter 1 screens.

Before chapter 1’s completion, when Gaster is strongly implied to be narrating (and possibly facilitating) the Player’s SAVE data manipulation and game over choices, the soundtrack for both screens is profoundly barren.

There’s no “song,” no melody, only an identical low, looping drone for both screens. We know that there can be music here, even very emotional music, and we feel like there probably should be. And yet, there isn’t. This makes these screens feel empty, ominous, and cold, underscoring their dark, ascetic visuals.

I think the fact that so little is being said here is in itself very, very interesting. We know that we aren’t actually alone on these screens; our friendly facilitator is here with us. We also know from the other examples in this document that Deltarune’s Gaster is not inherently associated with a lack of music, nor (as we’ll see in the next song) a lack of emotion in melody. Why is it only in this particular context – when the Player approaches these existential crossroads – that the music disappears entirely?

The File Select screen on its own doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. While the dialogue here is certainly unsettling (even compared to Gaster’s clinical speech in other scenes) and warrants its own discussion, it still isn’t entirely clear why file manipulation should sound like this.

In the Game Over screen, however, we can start to make inferences. Game Overs are when Gaster’s plans are at the most risk – they’re when a Player is most likely to opt out of the study and never return, leaving Deltarune’s future as-is and any hope of a “NEW FUTURE” unfulfilled.

With that in mind, I think this drone conveys emotional shutdown. Gaster is still there – the drone is his presence, as though he’s trying to keep his breathing slow and measured as he speaks with us – but whatever is happening with him internally, he’s either working hard enough to succeed in hiding it from us, or it’s so overwhelming that he himself can’t even acknowledge it.

What that internal experience could be is anyone’s guess. Personally, I think he’s deeply afraid.

When Gaster seems to panic upon seeing his own name in the Survey, he can simply exit the situation and prevent the Player from making that choice. He can’t, however, prevent us from exiting the game – whether or not he had the power to do so (and he of course doesn’t), doing so would be meddling in the experiment, it’d be a breach of participant consent, and it’d potentially undermine whatever uneasy trust the Player has developed with him. In these moments, he’s entirely at the Player’s mercy.

(Note: this last video shows the game exiting after the creator is named “GASTER.” As of Chapter 2’s release, naming either vessel or creator “GASTER” causes the game to return to the chapter select, rather than exiting.)

Since the same drone plays on the File Select screen, we can infer he’s shut down there as well. It still isn’t as clear what about SAVE manipulation would cause such a strong response, and there are many ways this could be interpreted. It’s worth noting that we don’t currently know whether Gaster is the one executing those actions, or if he’s simply giving us guidance and warnings as we execute them ourselves. More broadly, we don’t know whether Gaster is capable of executing these actions at all.

For right now, my best guess – and I want to be clear that I don’t feel confident this is correct – is that SAVE manipulation is the first obvious indication to both us and to Gaster that he’s willing to accept some amount of “necessary evil” in pursuit of his plans. Based on the seemingly unprecedented gravity of his tone and diction on this screen (especially around erasing SAVEs), this may be when Gaster first recognizes, fully, just how much power he’s entrusted to a Player, how irresponsible it may have been for him to do so, and he is again deeply afraid – this time, not just of us, but of himself.

[#004] Darkness Falls

(This is the song I wrote that post about, that a lot of people seemed to like, which was very cool! But also it was meant more as a throwaway vent post than an actual analysis and was worded kind of strongly/reductively in part because I didn’t expect anyone to actually see it lol. anyway this will reiterate a lot of those thoughts but with A LOT more detail and nuance, possibly more than is necessary lol)

(Quick kudos again to the user who pointed out details about Faint Courage and its relationship to Kris on the Post People Liked. I hadn’t even begun to think through that part of the song when I made the post. It helped a lot with this!)

(Wait one more note: I’d previously thought this sequence only happened in pre-completion Chapter 1, when Gaster was actively present in the UI, but apparently this still happens as of Chapter 2?? The guy just crawls out of the woodwork specifically to narrate our ending and see us off I Guess. I do not have any particularly strong opinions at the moment about what this could Mean because I don’t generally have strong opinions about why he disappeared in the first place except IDK We Got The Hang Of The Game So He Switched On The Normal UI And Now He’s Just Observing Quietly And Taking Notes And Also Waving From Cars And Egg I GUess but anyway I thought I’d point it out because I got it wrong before)

(Oh btw if God kills you it just bypasses the normal screens entirely and returns you to a checkpoint. this detail doesnt mean anything it was obviously implemented for mechanical/joke reasons I just think it’s funny. like even Gaster is just sitting there like ?????? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. sorry moving on now)

Darkness Falls is only heard after saying “No” at a Game Over. As previously discussed, Game Overs in chapter 1 (pre-completion) feature the Emotional Shutdown Drone™, while post-ch1-completion Game Overs feature the song Faint Courage. Upon refusing to continue, whatever audio is present cuts out entirely, leaving complete silence as Gaster narrates our ending. Immediately after that text cuts out, Darkness Falls begins to play.

While a Player could encounter this before the File Select or after seeing the Tree Room, it felt most logical to me to order it like this for Reasons. Based on both my own experience and that of some other people who responded to the Post People Liked, it seems like a lot of Players, even ones who know about the Tree Rooms, just end up never saying “No” and seeing it at all.

This is the only track in this document’s scope in which the Gaster Sequence occurs alongside another leitmotif: the one found in Faint Courage, the song played in the aforementioned post-ch1-completion Game Over screen (I’ll simply refer to this second motif as Faint Courage from here on).

For the sake of this analysis, I’m only considering the Gaster Sequence part of the song (roughly 0:00 - 0:33) to be directly descriptive of the man himself, as we have good reasons to believe the second motif is specifically saying something about Kris. That’s to say: any character traits being suggested by Faint Courage will be assumed to describe Kris, not Gaster.

However, I’ll still discuss the song as a whole where it makes sense to do so, including consideration of what it could be saying about Gaster’s perspective on Kris, on the moment in which it’s found, or on the broader narrative.

Musical analysis

In an unusual break from precedent, the Gaster Sequence isn’t hidden by or within the other leitmotif featured in this track. Instead, we hear an unaccompanied piano arrangement of the Sequence that then leads into Faint Courage, played on the same piano but now accompanied, and with more instruments gradually added. Each motif takes up roughly half the song’s length, though the latter is slightly longer.

Much like the piano heard in ANOTHER HIM, the keys played during the Sequence have a moderate reverberation applied to them, but are otherwise fairly clear & crisp. Notably, this reverberation still continues after the shift into Faint Courage, as if the previous motif has shifted into a background, supporting role for the next one.

The arrangement of the Gaster Sequence heard here deviates the most by far from the original mold, to the degree that it’d be easy to miss it as an instance of that theme at all. Viewed side by side, the difference is stark. Someone who actually Knows Theory could probably describe it more eloquently than I can, but I’ll do my best to fumble through this with my untrained ear and the input of my research assistant.

This arrangement of the Sequence doesn’t do away with the back-and-forth of the base theme, but the dialogue heard here begs, grasps, and searches, seeming to have no pretense of self-assuredness or strict, rational confidence. It seems more grounded in the fact that this internal conversation really has only one, contiguous “speaker,” as each even-numbered set of bars picks up directly from the set before it, rather than there being a sharp drop between them.

The “speaker’s” opening comment, which begins on a chord, rises like a choking cry or plea, before they seem to attempt rationalization. Unable to answer in kind, searching for something to say but having nothing to meaningfully offer, they volley back on a higher note, as though presenting themself another question. The “speaker” then repeats the same sorrowful, confused entreaty from before – but this time, they continue from that cry to reach toward something, pause as though approaching rest, and then decide there’s something more to say – something entirely different.

Referring back to the “narrative development” reading proposed by my research assistant (first brought up in section [#002]): when my assistant first heard this song without context, he almost immediately stopped the track and said “that, right there, is melody!” He described the addition of a tonal center as making the difference between “color” and “meaning” – ANOTHER HIM adds interest to the base Sequence, but it’s still difficult to find an emotional foothold in it. It’s difficult to parse. Darkness Falls, on the other hand, has obvious musicality. It’s immediately relatable. It’s generally pleasant.

He spent some time discussing the chords found in this arrangement of the Sequence, describing the very deliberate placement of these chords as being its own melodic line of sorts, “going through its own motion, its own process.” He described the pattern as being roughly “harmony, then dissonance, then a stretch of time, then dissonance.” He noted that the one tonic he could identify in this Sequence was just before the turn into Faint Courage.

With this in mind, we could say that the instance of the Sequence heard in Darkness Falls, in contrast to that heard in every other song covered in this document, reaches its own internal resolution. That tonic, leading into the turn, could be read as a choice finally being made.

My research assistant also pulled out a “hero’s journey” narrative from this song. The first half, the Gaster Sequence, continues its push and pull of dialogue and tension, establishing the sense of a problem needing to be solved; while the second half, Faint Courage, approaches that problem with playful curiosity, possibility, and hope, before developing into a heroism heralded by nostalgic, Zelda-like synths, and ending on a literal high note. He noted that this type of narrative is common in ending themes for games, serving as a reflection of the story just completed.

Emotional perspective

The immediate motivator for me to write the Post People Liked was because I’d pulled up Darkness Falls on YouTube (for this analysis lol) and among the video’s top comments was someone saying, more or less, “Boy! It sure is weird that Gaster’s Theme shows up so obviously in this beautiful, moving song!” This was one among many, many comments I’d seen over time across various platforms expressing the same thought.

This confusion is perfectly understandable. As I’ve expressed in several ways in this document and elsewhere, the idea of the Gaster Sequence being arranged in a way that is, in itself, obviously moving – immediately, viscerally moving without any need for the kind of reaching overanalysis I’m doing here – is wholly unprecedented in either Undertale or Deltarune. As I mentioned in the Post People Liked, we’ve been conditioned to view Gaster as anything but another character, and that may be its own form of characterization. And, like I said before, the degree of deviation heard here is so great that many players will likely miss it entirely if they aren’t paying attention or don’t know what to listen for.

That said, it’s very obvious that this arrangement of the motif sounds distinctly loose and emotional. The first half is sorrowful, but its internal development also conveys curiosity and open-heartedness. The heroism of the second half conveys a distinct sense of hope, or at least, satisfaction.

I think it’s worth noting here that, when I initially showed my research assistant the scene in which this song is found, after he’d previously heard the song out of context, his immediate impression was that it felt ironic and mocking, as though the game – maybe even Gaster himself – was deriding the Player for not persisting further. I think this impression makes sense. It’s one that I’ve experienced myself, and based on comments I’ve seen, it certainly seems to be the impression many Players walk away from the first two chapters with.

After a little more discussion, specifically after I presented the idea of Deltarune’s One Ending, and the idea that this ending is likely the “default” ending – the one Gaster knows will happen and seems to be hoping to change – my research assistant felt the song conveyed sincere acceptance. In his words: “whatever ending the player gets, it was heroic that they even tried.”

Characterization perspective

In reference to the idea of this ending theme being ironic or cynical, I think there’s something to be said for the possibility that Gaster’s habitual masking and/or intrinsic propensity for interpersonal oddness leads to others disregarding his sincerity or misinterpreting it as malice. We could argue that this is a trait indicated in a number of other ways beyond this song.

The reverberation of the keys during the Sequence of course recalls the ethereality of Gaster’s extraplanar existence. The fact that the reverberation continues into Faint Courage, combined with the placement of the tonic just before the shift, could be taken to represent a decision by Gaster to take a background role in Kris’s narrative.

Something interesting to consider from that: if the choice was made to take a background role, then what other options were being weighed in the previous dialectics? Does this imply that Gaster has considered more active roles in the past? (Could it be the case that he’s previously taken them, and the outcomes of those past decisions have influenced this latest choice? Is passivity really the best choice he could make here, or is he actually just transferring responsibility? Does he simply not trust himself to do the right thing if given the chance? Sorry this is getting really speculative LOL moving on)

As a number of users mentioned, the inclusion of Faint Courage could be an indication that Gaster is not only mourning the potential loss of the Player and with them, the “NEW FUTURE,” but the potential permanence of Kris’s death in particular. This reading suggests that Gaster feels a great deal of tenderness toward Kris themself; given what we’ve seen of Gaster thus far in this document, it wouldn’t be hard to infer reasons for why he might be especially fond of a misfit kid with self-esteem issues and interpersonal difficulties. (Assuming, of course, that these troubles aren’t directly related to their situation with the Player. Personally, I like to think that the more troubled aspects of Kris’s character are, for the most part, just as true to their real personality as their more “acceptable” or likable aspects are – attributing too much of their struggle to outside influences feels like an undermining of their agency. But I do feel it’s still worthwhile to acknowledge other possibilities, or at least the potential nuance they offer.)

The relationship between Gaster and Kris is absolutely something that warrants further examination as the story continues. While this song (and to a certain degree, the next one) seem to suggest a fair amount of good intent and even tenderness on the part of Gaster toward Kris, there’s certainly still room for complexity and tension on Kris’s part.

The song in context

In a typical game, we’d expect to be returned to a title screen or menu right after choosing not to continue. Deltarune instead gives us Gaster’s narration, then leaves us on a black screen for the roughly one-minute duration of Darkness Falls, before it closes the game window on its own. That begs the question of why the game lingers here on this song in the way it does.

In a metanarrative sense, I think there’s validity to the idea that this choice was made to reinforce that we reached “an end” – not just a game over, but the “default” ending or One Ending to the game, in which the world is covered in darkness. As mentioned before, Darkness Falls sounds to a degree like an end credits song. The game closes because that’s what typically happens after the end – we leave the game.

As far as narrative or character interpretation goes, we do know that (pre-ch1-completion, at least) Gaster is our facilitator out-of-universe in Deltarune from its start to its finish. We have reason to believe that he has control over the screens we’re on (given that he can exit us back to title). We can infer that he would be the one to redirect us to the menu.

We have no reason to think that, just because Gaster’s narration has left the screen, he’s suddenly ceased to be present when Darkness Falls plays. The fact that it starts with his Sequence seems to imply his continued presence. We can infer that he’s the one keeping us here through the song, and the one who finally closes the game.

Maybe he keeps us here because he feels he owes us our ending song – and maybe this song is an expression of what he’s thinking and feeling in that moment.

To reiterate my reading from the Post People Liked: Gaster describes our ending, and then he has nothing left to say. We said “no,” and he can’t violate our consent as participants, but he can’t bear to let us go just yet. His “NEW FUTURE” is in the balance, Kris’s life is in the balance, and on top of that, we can’t deny that the man is probably just lonely.

So, we’re left alone in the dark with him, and for the first time, we “see” him entirely exposed – no confident, clinical dialogue, no choices to make, no spr_mysteryman, no True Lab fog or trees for him to hide behind. We sit there with him as he works quietly through the situation – perhaps even entreating us to come back and try again later – and when Darkness Falls ends, when he finally reaches some form of acceptance, he decides he can’t keep us there any longer, and closes the game.

[#005] man.ogg (Tree Room)

man.ogg is the track that plays in the secret Tree Room, and is notably not found on the original Deltarune OSTs thus far. While a first-time player could technically experience this track before the previous two discussed, most players going in blind won’t learn about the secret room until after their first playthrough, or potentially until chapter 2.

I know there’s some debate in the fanbase over whether or not Gaster is the unseen (at least to the Player) man encountered in the Tree Room and elsewhere. Aside from the arguable use of his motif in this song, which I’ll get to in a moment, I think there are other context clues indicating that he’s intended to be representative of Gaster in some way:

Gaster, in particular, seems to never be referred to by name except when being referred to by the “followers” or the Sound Test UI. The reasons for this could be metanarrative (to maintain the mystery around him) or narrative (to indicate that Gaster has distanced himself from his name, for whatever reason).

Precedent from Undertale associates Gaster with the word “man,” specifically unmodified instances.

Aside from spr_mysteryman and the possible relevance of Memoryhead and its attacks, UTDR never represent Gaster as a sprite visible to players. After all, as far as we’re aware, he no longer has a physical form for us to see. The fact that Deltarune’s Man is always hidden from our view feels like a clear nod to this.

Musical analysis

man.ogg is a brief, unaccompanied piano piece, seemingly a waltz (fan-arranged sheet music for reference – I’m a big fan of the tone descriptor “surreptitious yet jocular”).

While it’s subtle, it can arguably be read as a variation of the Gaster Sequence. Gaster Theme Everywhere Skeptic Matthew Sandstrom describes this variation as a “Garbled Gaster”:

The melody and rhythm are somewhat garbled, but the right notes are there, even if the order is wrong.

He identifies two other tracks in chapter 1 that seem to use this same Garbled Gaster motif: April 2012 and, VERY, VERY INTERESTINGLY, THE HOLY. I won’t be getting into those tracks here, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a distinct “Man” motif might be an ongoing thing to look out for.

For what it’s worth, my research assistant also felt that man.ogg was likely an intentional variation on the Gaster Sequence. His justification included the thought that the motif could largely be boiled down to the “top two notes.” Make of that what you will.

I won’t worry too much about comparing this directly to mus_st_him.ogg as I have with other tracks in this document, since it seems to be almost a new motif in itself. The fact that “the right notes are there” but the “order is wrong” is worth considering, though – it’s the same Sequence in an almost unrecognizable form. It’s no longer a dialectic, but a partnered dance. Keeping with precedent, there’s also a very subtle, almost imperceptible echo applied to it.

As a final note, man.ogg is actually not an entirely new track – it’s been identified as a rework of a fan song (“Waltz of Seccom Masada”) made by Toby Fox for the game Yume Nikki (“Dream Diary”). Specifically, it’s a theme he wrote for the character known to Yume Nikki fans as Seccom Masada-sensei.

[#005-A] A Brief Tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei

As I mentioned in the previous tangent ([#001-A]), I want to be careful about suggesting too much from reworked tracks that were meant for or made in reference to other projects. After all, MEGALOVANIA isn’t meant to suggest that Sans is ascending to God Tier or likes saying swears. (It’s worth noting that the aforementioned April 2012, which seems to use the Man motif, is also a rework of an unreleased Homestuck track.)

However, much like with Giygas, the connections between Gaster and Uboa have been intuitively obvious since the first Fun event investigations on Starmen.net. (Toby Fox literally used a slightly edited Uboa for Dr. Andonuts’s final boss overworld sprite. The dude likes Uboa, OK?)

So, again, I don’t think it’s unreasonable in this case to take a closer look at a very pointed reference to Yume Nikki as we gather information.

Masada-sensei’s appearance in Yume Nikki is very brief; demonstrations of the segment may be found on YouTube. While the connections between spr_mysteryman’s design and Uboa are well-known, the idea that Masada-sensei and Gaster may also be comparable in some ways is far more obscure, but worth considering.

Some things of possible note from the segment itself:

Reaching Masada-sensei’s spaceship requires descending a long flight of stairs into what appears to be some type of basement. At one point, Madotsuki must equip the Umbrella Effect (which causes her to hold an umbrella while rain falls) in order to extinguish a fire blocking her way.

Masada-sensei’s sprite is in black-and-white – white face, black clothes and hair. His only discernible facial feature is a set of googly eyes that make him look a little neurotic. He also has a non-standard reaction to the Knife Effect – approaching him with it equipped will cause him to back away in fright.

When first encountered, he turns in place steadily and fairly slowly in front of some kind of piano or organ, as though playing the instrument and/or operating it as a type of control panel. Interacting with him causes him to beep at us.

The next room to the right contains a bed. If the player has Madotsuki sleep in the bed, she will wake up later to the sound of the ship’s alarm system. At this point, Masada-sensei can be seen turning rapidly and erratically, as though panicked.

The spaceship will then be seen to crash onto a planet. It is raining when they land. Masada-sensei stands still, looking out the window.

Masada-sensei and Madotsuki seem to be alone on the planet, which stretches for several screens, desolate, until it culminates in a hole in the ground, atop a mound, leading to another long flight of stairs that descend into darkness and an even stranger, more inscrutable setpiece.

Possible character parallels worth noting:

Masada-sensei’s location in a spaceship suggests associations with scientific activity.

Yume Nikki fans commonly interpret Masada-sensei as a music teacher, hence the honorific. As Royal Scientist, Dr. Gaster would have been an authority in his field. We also know that at least one of Undertale’s Royal Scientists (Alphys) is a schoolteacher in Deltarune.

Masada-sensei certainly bears some physical resemblance to the widely accepted image of Gaster; and similarly to Gaster, the small amount of subtle characterization he was given made him a very popular object of fans’ affections and speculations. It’s worth noting, however, that Masada-sensei seems to be pretty universally understood as a sympathetic and very “human” figure – something that can’t necessarily be said for Gaster among the fanbase historically and at large.

I won’t extrapolate on this information too much here, but for this section, the “teacher” thing is worth keeping in mind.

Emotional perspective

I would certainly say “surreptitious yet jocular” feels like an accurate description of this song. To me it feels playful, but out-of-step. It seems like it should be a more cheerful piece, but there’s an underlying sadness or confusion leaking through.

What stands out to me most about this track is how rough it sounds, like the piano player is new to the instrument. For being such a simple piece, there’s a clumsiness to it, a lack of confidence – it sounds like it’s being played just a little too slowly, like the piano player is practicing the muscle memory needed to play it at full speed, and the rhythm stutters momentarily between bars, as if they’ve tripped over their own fingers. A few of the notes sound dissonant, like they were played wrong.

To me, this conveys a sense of imperfect but earnest effort. The piano player is not particularly good at this yet, they don’t feel confident about it, but they’re continuing to play. While the song isn’t exactly succeeding at evoking cheer or comfort, it still conveys sincere curiosity.

Characterization perspective

The way this song deviates from the base Sequence, combined with its rough, unrefined sound, could suggest that Gaster is breaking form in these scenes, perhaps stepping out of a comfort zone and attempting a new form of learning.

Aside from the traffic easter egg in chapter 2 (only seen if he was met in chapter 1), these are the only scenes in which Deltarune’s Gaster manifests in-universe and interacts directly with another character. Given that Gaster seems to prefer staying hidden as much as possible, and is also literally an extraplanar being, it isn’t difficult to see why he might be out of practice for this kind of interaction.

The playfulness suggests a drop in facade, and may reflect an innocent and almost childlike curiosity about the Player and/or Kris. The use of a waltz suggests a desire for connection, as though it’s an invitation to dance.

(Setting aside any specific Gaster relevance, I feel there’s a more general trend developing in Deltarune of waltzes being used to convey themes around connection, such as loneliness, the awkwardness and growing pains of a new relationship, the vulnerability and comfort of trusting a new friend, and the despair of a valued connection unexpectedly severed.)

The evocation of a novice sound could also suggest a more general relationship to teaching or nurturing. Recalling the tangent on Seccom Masada-sensei, we could read this song abstractly as a teacher’s perspective of a student’s development.

While Egg could have any number of worthwhile meanings as a symbol in Deltarune, we shouldn’t disregard the obvious: Egg is a young, fragile life in need of gentle handling and incubation. By giving Kris Egg, Gaster seems to be asking them (and/or the Player) to protect it — the future of Egg is in their (our) hands now.

We also have Lancer telling Kris they “won’t get through [their] teen years without at least one Egg” (itself a reference to EarthBound). With this perspective, we could read the act of giving Egg to be itself a gesture of nurturing on Gaster’s part, if admittedly a very bizarre and confusing one from Kris’s/our POV.

The fact that Players on a Snowgrave route will be locked out of chapter 2’s Tree Room could suggest that this behavior causes Gaster to second guess his trust in the Player and their ability to handle such a fragile responsibility.

[#006] Takeaways

While Gaster’s dialogue projects an air of unwavering, confident professionalism and emotional neutrality, the musical information presented alongside him hints toward a complex emotionality lying beneath his mask. Gaster is far from unfeeling – he’s simply hard to read, and that may be, to some degree, his intent.

In general, Gaster may have difficulty trusting his own judgment, whether as a response to past mistakes, and/or as a natural result of his tendencies toward hyper-analytical rumination and emotional repression.

The Gaster of Deltarune seems to be engaging in a great deal of reflection and introspection. He may be proceeding with this study despite having serious reservations about it. He seems disheveled and, to a certain degree, desperate. Whatever reasons Gaster has for being so interested in the future of Deltarune’s world, these reasons are powerful enough that they are, in many ways, breaking him down.

Despite his spoken eagerness to connect with the Player, close observation may suggest that he’s quietly uneasy with the arrangement and may be more skeptical and/or fearful of us than he lets on.

For whatever reasons, Gaster also seems to have a particular fondness for and sentimentality toward Kris, who he seems to want to nurture and protect, while also viewing them as a potential savior and source of hope. The association of both characters with piano seems to underscore a connection between them.

OK im tired of writing about this now. THE END !!!Q!