Inspired by chapter 28 of Frame Doubling by @mangosalsa01 :3
I've been wanting to draw some fanart for a while but I don't draw often and I couldn't figure out how to draw what I wanted until I watching this amazing animatic by wormtime and it showed exactly what my brain had been failing to form, so I used some snippets from the video as reference.
Also here's a bonus vehicon (and my initial sketch of megatrons altmode) my sister had me sketch on a box with a colored pencil for some art practice. As well as IDW Tailgate I drew in my notes instead of listening to my professor 😅
Undertale and Deltarune seem to be playing with the idea of cat states, or two opposing conditions existing simultaneously.
While we don't know exactly what their relevance will be to the plot, we can at least compile all instances for reference.
ENTRY 17
The most infamous example of a cat state in Undertale. In-game, Alphys' entries are scattered throughout the True Lab, but number 17 is conspicuously missing.
There are two inaccessible "Entry 17"s present in the game, however: one by Alphys, and one seemingly by Gaster.
Alphys' Entry 17:
Gaster's Entry 17:
Both entries exist simultaneously, occupying the same entry number.
From this example, we can extrapolate a similar phenomenon that may be occurring in the next two examples.
MONSTER FUNERALS
Though Entry 17 may be the most known example, the monster funerals essay is probably the best.
In the Librarby, the following essay can be read:
However, there is an alternate version of this essay in the files:
And there it is: "To be scientific, it sucks that no one ever knows if anyone's dead or alive." Almost the very definition of Schrodinger's cat.
Not only are these two essays a great example of this theme - one version of an essay in which the writer thinks monster funerals are cool, the other in which they think monster funerals suck, both coexisting - but the text of this hidden version itself seems to allude to this quantum state.
Moreover, the story about a missing classmate might have some implications or foreshadowing for the plot, which has twice brought up missing characters who might either be alive or dead in Gaster and Dess. But we'll speculate more later.
THE BOX LOVER OR BOX HATER
This is less definite than the previous two examples, but worth consideration. A sign by the first box from a "box lover" is contrasted with the following one from a "box hater."
Both are accessible in-game, so this could definitely be two separate people. Interestingly, though, both seem to stem from the same exact initial line of dialogue - "(This is a box.)" - instead of two separate instances of that line.
THE RIVER PERSON
The River Person seems to be heavily tied to the quantum state concept, having a lot of binary dialogue that might be referencing it.
The River Person themself is a mysterious character who seems aware of many secrets across the two games, so maybe this isn't surprising.
DEVICE_MENU
Unsurprisingly, given it's Gaster, the File Select screen before Chapter 1's completion has some interesting dialogue that might relate to the cat state theme.
If successfully deleting a file, the following text will display:
And if trying to erase an empty slot:
These seem to allude to the idea that "erasing" a file may not be destroying something that exists, but retroactively ensuring it never existed in the first place. An empty slot may not mean nothing ever existed there, but that it was "erased" in this way.
This could relate to cat states because once one condition is decided on, the result effectively erases the other possibility from existence.
(You could read more into this with Goner Kid and the whole "It's Raining Somewhere Else" thing: somewhere else, there's an alternate universe where Goner Kid, and/or the rain, was determined into existence.)
EGG
And here's the biggest piece of evidence that cat states will have some kind of relevance.
"Not too important, not too unimportant" is the description of each Egg we're given.
This can cleverly be read in one of two ways. On the surface, it can be a Goldilocks style average of the two descriptions, a way to say "somewhat important."
But if we take this line in context with all the other examples so far, it may be read as contrasting two opposing states, just like other dialogues like the River Person's do.
It gets even more on the nose, though.
If you drop the Egg in the overworld, the flavor text will say the following:
Yes, of course it's probably also a MSPA reference. But the in-game implication here seems that as soon as you decide to discard the egg, when you observe it, it's already gone. Not just gone - "What Egg?" seems to imply it now never existed to begin with, just like the deleted save files.
And we can't leave out the man behind the tree giving us the Eggs, either. When first interacting with him in Chapter 2, the dialogue reads:
But after gifting Kris the Egg, the dialogue concludes:
The shift in tense from "is" to "was" has massive implications. As probably-Gaster put it earlier, it's as if he was never there at all.
SPECULATION CORNER
Eggs in general seem to be the symbol to watch out for. I think eggs are a perfect choice to convey all this quantum state symbolism, since it can represent unchecked possibilities. No one knows what will hatch out of an egg. It's not determined yet.
And if cat states are represented by eggs, and eggs are connected to a few other things, that transitively connects cat states to those same things. Namely, boxes and the man behind the tree.
Dimensional boxes in Undertale were always mysterious. And now it seems imo we're kind of DIYing something similar, as the refrigerator and crate we use to store the eggs soon begin to multiply them. While these aren't technically "boxes," they're still square containers with interdimensional weirdness going on, so I'm assuming there's a connection.
This, in turn, connects cat states to whatever goes on with our egg containers, or boxes. Maybe that's not surprising, given the quantum connections with both.
But what everyone is probably the most interested in is the connection of cat states to the man behind the tree. That opens up an entirely new can of worms, depending on who you personally theorize the tree character could be. That means that cat states could be directly linked to Gaster, or Papyrus, or whoever you think it is.
As for me, I'm in the Everyman camp. And Everyman, to me, is most closely linked to the concepts of Silence and Chaos. (Too long to get into here, but tl;dr: Silence due to, well, silence, and Chaos due to being subsumed by butterflies.) So maybe these motifs will have something to do with the cat state theme eventually.
I'd be remiss not to mention Sans anywhere, too, since his books and abilities would seem to indicate he has more than a passing interest in quantum physics - and applying it.
I wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to this stuff too. But I'm more interested in the effect of cat states on the main plot.
I can't say for certain that cat states will be a plot element going forward. And I can't confirm that Gaster or Dess will have major roles in the plot, either. But I would be highly surprised if they didn't - or if the characters and the theme of cat states didn't have anything to do with each other.
Remember the Angel from Undertale? There were two coexisting interpretations of the prophecy: one, the One Who Had Seen The Surface would physically free monsters from the underground, or two, they would do so by "freeing them" through death. Depending on our actions, that Angel could be interpreted as either Asriel or Chara. Us on a Pacifist route, or us on a No Mercy route.
Again, both Gaster and Dess are characters that influenced the narratives of Undertale and Deltarune, respectively. But both are mysteriously missing by the time we engage with the story.
Gaster's life "was cut short," and is not mentioned by any normal character; but he's also still "listening," is "shattered across time and space," and seems to be speaking to us in Deltarune, making his state of life or death unclear.
Dess, too, is missing, and everyone but Noelle seems to avoid talking about her. Both of these characters' fates seem intentionally left a mystery.
As mentioned earlier, the monster funeral writer seems to be foreshadowing for Dess, as a classmate who disappeared and worried everyone who didn't know if they were alive or dead is a pretty direct parallel to what we know of the Dess situation so far. And it might even parallel what we know of Gaster in Undertale.
If that's the case, then it seems possible that Dess and/or Gaster exist in a quantum state of being both alive and dead, and our actions - our observation - might determine their fate.
I’ve seen some people bring up the idea that the Golden Flowers in Undertale symbolize Grief. It seemed like an interesting idea to me, so I wanted to take a chance to examine in more depth myself. Grief is certainly a major theme in Undertale, and the Golden Flowers are directly tied to the Undertale of Asriel and Chara, and they also share another parallel with the concept of Grief:
It sticks to you.
Golden Flower seeds stick to whatever comes in contact with them, and considering the patch of flowers in the Trash Zone, they’re resilient enough to spread almost everywhere if you let them. This can be linked to the pervasive nature of Grief.
So through that lense, what can the Golden Flowers tell us about the characters related to them?
Golden Flowers appear the most around Asgore. They cover his garden-slash-throne-room almost completely, they’re found almost everywhere in his house, he even makes them into tea. And Asgore is indeed a character consumed by his grief. For his dead children, and for the life he once had with Toriel, and the hope that the Underground once had, and for all the children he has killed. No one is more defined by their grief in Undertale than Asgore.
Compared to that, Toriel has…. less Golden Flowers in her life. The patch of Golden Flowers in the Ruins, Chara’s garve, is significant, but it’s not nearly as large as the field of flowers covering Asgore’s Throne Room.
And she has less Golden Flowers in her home as well. Asgore has seven different Golden Flower plants in his house, Toriel has one - plus a drawing in the kids room.
And I guess Toriel IS handling her Grief… better than Asgore does? She is still struggling with it, obviously. She still has plenty of Golden Flowers… Just, you know, she’s doing better than Asgore. I think part of it might be that she feels like she’s channeling her grief into something productive and noble. The Golden Flowers over Chara’s grave soften the fall of every Human who stumbles into the Ruins - Toriel is trying to use her Grief to protect these humans.
And she is at least trying to move ahead, compared to how much Asgore dwells on the past. She doesn’t seem to regret leaving him and while Asriel and Chara’s old room in New Home is preserved exactly the same as it was in their life (including wrappped presents forever waiting for them) - Toriel seems to have made an effort to refurbished Asriel’s room in Home into a more general room for her new human wards (the photo frame and closet are empty - rather than having the old family photo\Asriel’s old clothes in them). But still, it’s very hard to ignore the fact that she still has her share of Golden Flowers in life.
Then there’s Undyne, who drinks Asgore’s Golden Flower Tea. Her connection to Golden Flowers is a lot more vague, a lot less direct. And I think it’s because she’s not really a grief-focused character herself. I made another post about it, but Undyne is more motivated by the misery and unhappiness that she sees in the Underground in the present. She’s less angry about the horrible war long ago or the death of the royal siblings as much as she’s just angry at all the monsters who are sad and miserable now. But the only solution she has for this misery is following Asgore’s war plan, the plan created from the depths of Asgore’s grief-stricken mind. She pertake in Asgore’s grief indirectly, without even fully realizing it.
And there’s also Monster Kid’s story about Asgore coming to school and donating his flowers (probably meant to be Golden Flowers) for project. Monster Kid can’t recognize a Human on sight, they were probably born long after Asriel and Chara’s death, but King Asgore’s grief still effects them - and the entire community - even if they don’t fully realize it.
(And I wonder if Frisk choosing Golden Flower Tea in the Undyne Date symbolizes them empthazing with the Monsters’ communal grief)
Then there’s the third patch of Golden Flowers, in the Trash Zone:
In my previous Golden Flowers centric post I reasoned that they came from Alphys. She messed around with Golden Flowers in her lab, she complained about how sticky the seeds are, she hangs out in the Trash Zone, she spread it there.
And I think with her it’s less about the Grief about Asriel and Chara. About sharing Asgore’s Grief. With her she kinda… created her own ‘branch’ of Golden Flowers that she spreads herself because this Grief is her own and her own alone. I think the patch of Golden Flowers in the Trash Zone symbolize Alphys’ grief over what happened to the Amalgamates. Grief over the monsters lost life and her lost plans and her lost potential.
After all, it was because of those experiments that she came in contact with the Golden Flowers, and because of those experiments that she spent so much time in the Garbage Dump to spread them.
That’s another way the Golden Flowers can be linked to Grief, I think. Every patch of Golden Flowers in the game is found over someone’s grave, in a way. The Patch of Golden Flowers in the Ruins is actually Chara’s Grave. The entire Throne Room is Asriel’s grave, and…. if Alphys had taken (or did take, in some timelines) that jump over the abyss, the Trash Zone Golden Flowers would the only grave she has.
But there is one character linked to Golden Flowers that I haven’t covered yet, someone with a very, very, very major connection to them….
Like…… if I said that Asgore is dealing with his Grief badly and spreading to everyone else and letting it consume it and literally consuming it in the form of tea….. well, than Flowey\Asriel IS a Golden Flower, he literally became his own Grief.
Grief for the person he was back when he could still feel love, and grief for Chara. This is most pronounced in the Pacifist Run, where Flowey assumes his old form of Asriel and basically straight-up admits that all that he does is motivated by his overwhelming grief for Chara. Every time he snatched the Happy Ending from a Neutral or Pacifist Player is just about how he didn’t want them to stop playing the game because he is basically the physical incarnation of Not Moving On.
One topic often debated about Frisk is the question of how old they are. With the fandom throwing around numbers anywhere between 5 and 16 without any real evidence, this post will attempt to give the most accurate answer possible based on game data and real world science.
There are three factors that can help determining Frisk’s age.
The first one is their physical appearance. The second one is their mentality, this ranges from Frisk’s personality to the things that they know or don’t or to their decision making process. The third one is how other characters treat Frisk and what they expect of them.
We know how average kids of any given age are like both mentally and physically, by comparing what we know of Frisk to this data, we can make an estimation of their age.
Okay only doing one for today, but don’t worry! By my calculations, I am still on track lol. For this prompt, I decided to make a Papyrus themed Junior Jumble! A puzzling art form… Feel free to solve it and post your answers in the reblogs!
Junior Jumble is surprisingly hard to make, even this simple one took a while xd. I have huge respect for those who make puzzles like these! They certainly take a lot of creativity and spelling know-how to do.
Ramble:
I wonder if the reason why junior jumble is harder for papyrus than cross words is because they don’t really give you direction.
They just hand you letters to figure out a way to make it spell something, which can have multiple answers. That you can only check is right when you put it in the final word box. (Though they’re always are some exceptions, but generally based on the ones I seen.)
But crosswords, on the other hand, have little directions that act like the puzzle itself. For example: “this word is used to describe a certain blue cladded skeleton” and it’s 4 boxes long.
To me jumble feels more abstract, and crosswords less so. Maybe that’s why crossword is easier for Papyrus.
Toriel: Her experiences say half empty, but she wants to believe it's half full.
Sans: Can't decide. He wants to believe it's half full, but his mind is more compelled to think half empty. He flips it upside down. Doesn't help much. Is it full? Empty? Someone please help him... Sleeps.
Papyrus: The glass isn't just half full, it's overflowing! It's flooding! The room is an ocean! The underground is an ocean! The world is nothing but water! Oh god, what have you done?!
Undyne: Half full. Anime says so.
Alphys: Half empty. Other anime says so.
Mettaton: HE IS THE GLASS.
Napstablook: They cried so much the glass filled up anyway. Please don't drink it.
Asgore: Drinks the water. Now it's empty. He has nothing left.
Chara: Fills the glass to the brim. It's more efficient that way. =)
love the idea of sans&pap being totally unaware of how humans work like frisk looks in the mirror and is like ugh i need a haircut and sans is like ??????????what the fuck?????????it grows???????
I get wanting to distance yourself from old inaccurate fanon but recently it feels like the fandom is just being contrarian and overcorrecting so much they create a new fanon, just in the opposite direction
Papyrus is most likely a young adult and this is supported by evidence in the game itself
Because I’m still stewing over people claiming that Papyrus is canonically 14 years old I’m putting together a list of things that imply Papyrus has to be AT LEAST 18, if not older.
He does not wear a striped shirt like kids do in Undertale
He’s literally driving a car at the end of the True Pacifist route
The Royal Guard would have to be seriously fucked up to even consider allowing a young teenager into its ranks
Going along with the last one, if Papyrus were only 14, why would Undyne beat around the bush pretending that cooking is training when she could just tell him he’s too young for the guard right now?
Papyrus’s UnderNet username is “CoolSkeleton95.” Numbers in usernames usually refer to birth years a good chunk of the time. If we assume that the main story of Undertale takes place in 2115, Papyrus would have been born in 2095, which makes him AT LEAST 20 years old.
Correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I believe it’s implied or stated that Papyrus keeps house? If he IS only 14, I’d have to seriously side-eye Sans for making his kid brother do all the housework.
If there’s anything else I’ve missed feel free to add it on.
I’m just tired of neurotypicals insisting that autistic adults are Actually in fact children. It’s not new, it’s infantilizing, and it’s ableist. Enough already.