hi! i'm new on tumblr, coming from twitter. i'm a traditional animator looking for work, here i'm posting mostly fanart and my pencil tests. look at this post's tags to find my illustrations, pencil tests and art references.
i'm multifandom, but i like mostly undertale/deltarune, dai gyakuten saiban/the great ace attorney and witch hat atelier.
DNI:
basic DNI criteria (xenophobe, racist, transphobe, etc.)
WHAT DOES EACH SHADOW CRYSTAL & GLASS DIALOGUE ACTUALLY MEAN?
For years, the Shadow Crystals have remained one of Deltarune's biggest mysteries...
That's because they never came with a clear explanation. We knew it was connected to the Secret Bosses, we knew Seam was interested in collecting them, and we knew that using it produced strange visions that sometimes seemed to make sense, while other times seemed completely disconnected from anything happening around us.
Those visions always felt significant, yet we could never really say why.
Some players interpreted the Shadow Crystals as glimpses of the future. Others believed they showed the Weird Route, or even memories from previous cycles of the world. I used to believe it showed visions of a world that had followed the prophecy, but I don't believe that theory anymore
And with the release of ch 5, Toby Fox finally gave us the first concrete explanation of what the Shadow Crystals actually are:
At first, this revelation seems like it should settle the whole discussion.
Because, if the Shadow Crystals is the fragments left behind after a dream is deeply cherished and then broken, then perhaps all we have to do is reinterpret their visions through the concept of lost dreams
But it isn't quite that simple, because the Shadow Crystal isn't the only form this object takes. Whenever Kris returns to the Light World, the item changes its name...
It becomes Glass
And now that seems more important than ever. If the Shadow Crystal, its Dark World form, contains the power of lost dreams, then what exactly does its Light World counterpart contain...?
And, more importantly, can we use Seam's explanation to reinterpret not only the Shadow Crystal's visions, but the visions produced when the Glass is used as well?
Well, I believe ch 5 finally gave us the framework we need to start answering these questions.
To begin with, we need to step back and look at a broader pattern that's been present in Deltarune since ch 1... the way the game builds concepts that aren't merely opposites, but reflections of one another.
"A LEGEND of HOPE" and "A LEGEND of DREAMS"
"A LEGEND of LIGHT" and "A LEGEND of DARK"
Hope stands to Light the same way Dreams stand to Dark
Dreams and Hope are often treated as similar concepts in everyday language. People "dream" about the future. They "hope" for a better tomorrow. But Deltarune treats these words as separate ideas
The Dark World is, essentially, a fantasy world shaped thorugh the dreams of Lightners. It's a place where ordinary objects gain form and purpose. A small, mundane environments can become entire worlds of their own.
Not to mention that the very existence of darkners is tied to the will of whoever created the dark fountain. In other words, its the place where imagination becomes tangible.
The Light World, on other hand, would be its counterpart. Its the world that represents reality. No fantasies, no magic. What's lost doesn't simply return because someone wishes it back. Dess remains missing. Asriel went off to college, so seeing him is harder. Toriel and Asgore are divorced.
Meanwhile, the Dark World is filled with the idea of escapism... of being able to forget the reality you live in and have adventures in a world created based on your desires. There's a fantasy that's more desirable than reality itself
Dreams may be born within the Dark, but reality belongs to the Light.
That's why, if the Dark World's version of this object contains the power of lost dreams, then perhaps the Light World counterpart represents the opposite side of that same symbolic relationship.
Not lost dreams. But... lost hopes
SHADOW CRYTAL DIALOGUES
If the Shadow Crystal is created when a dream is held onto tightly and then broken, then each of the visions it produces should represent something that was once deeply desired by someone... and then ceased to exist
With that in mind, when analyzing each dialogue, we should ask ourselves:
What was the dream?
How was that dream lost?
Why is the vision presented by the Shadow Crystal precisely the reflection of that loss?
"You thought you saw the television get smashed to pieces."
We can start by thinking about what Tenna represents
Tenna is born from a dark fountain created in the Dreemurrs' house by Kris, in a chapter that constantly returns to the theme of family
The Dreemurrs and Holidays families used to gather around the TV to watch the specials together, and Tenna witnessed those happy moments as well as the eventual separation between everyone and the constant arguments between Toriel and Asgore.
In other words, the television carries deep symbolism for these families
That's why when the Shadow Crystal shows the TV being smashed to pieces, we can interpret it as showing the dream of seeing the family united again, lost, leaving behind only fragments of something that can no longer be recovered
"The prophecy's text does not warp in the crystal's lens"
This is a curious dialogue because it follows a different logic from the others... here, nothing changes.
And this absence of change may carry a very important implication. No matter how much someone might dream of changing the outcome, the prophecy will always remain the same...
That's why the prophecy's text doesn't change.
The story will have only one ending, as I've theorized before
Everyone else disappeared… and you saw Noelle smiling at you, with arms full of flowers"
This is the hardest dialogue to interpret within the logic of lost dreams, because at first glance it seems like something good, because Noelle is smiling and holding flowers
But at the same time, it also makes you uncomfortable because it starts with "everyone else disappeared..." and that's the detail that changes the ENTIRE context of the scene
Well, throughout Deltarune, the past exerts a lot of influence on various characters. For example, Noelle remains deeply marked by Dess's disappearance. Asgore continues to live surrounded by memories of what existed before...
Again and again, Deltarune returns to themes of nostalgia, memories, and the feeling that there was once a simpler and happier time than the present
And with this in mind, the Shadow Crystal's vision starts to make much more sense. Because when we ask what one of Kris's deepest dreams might be, we can say it's the desire for everything to go back to the way it used to be
And it's precisely this lost dream that the Shadow Crystal shows
The quartet of Kris, Asriel, Dess, and Noelle no longer exists. The two families drifted apart, Toriel and Asgore divorced, and Rudy and Carol's relationship was likely affected by everything that happened.
However, Noelle is the only one left from those happier times, even though her relationship with Kris is now more distant than it was during their childhood.
So when the Shadow Crystal shows everyone else disappearing and Noelle remaining before Kris, perhaps it's showing only the fragments that remain of that dream...
When we look at it this way, this vision becomes sadder. Noelle smiling with flowers can now be seen as something painful to witness. It hurts to know that this dream is lost. It hurts that a similar tragedy happened that ended up marking and pushing everyone apart.
Even though her smile might seem to carry a connotation of happiness at first glance, we can't overlook how it's surrounded by the absence of everything that should have been around it. The flowers also reinforce that melancholy as well
They're beautiful, but also ephemeral... and ch 5 repeatedly draws attention to the fact that flowers don't last forever. They're associated with memory, with transience, with things that can't simply be preserved forever...
And it hurts even more because Kris and Noelle still care about each other, yet neither of them seems willing to openly acknowledge it...
"You thought you saw toys strewn on the floor/You thought you saw the computer lab/You thought you saw the lobby of the church"
The Dark World is a world of fantasy created from the will of its creator. So these visions can be interpreted as the Shadow Crystal showing what remains once the fantasy ends
GLASS DIALOGUE
It wasn't only because Glass is the Shadow Crystal's counterpart that I started associating it with the concept of lost hopes.
There's a much more specific piece of evidence within the story itself, and it comes from Noelle during the Weird Route:
* It feels like... I've just been watching myself through glass.
* Watching someone else move me through my life.
* That's why I want... to do something crazy.
* That's why I want... to break free.
* But, I can't. I couldn't.
* Because I'm just Noelle.
* A Noelle that has to do Noelle things.
* Just like Kris has to do Kris things...
* But Kris... you changed.
* Kris, YOU actually changed!
* You found out how to stop being Kris!
It's curious that Toby Fox chose the word Glass specifically. After all, Noelle could've described the same feeling in different ways. For example, she could've said that she feels distant from herself, always trapped in the same routine, tired of doing what's expected of "Noelle", unable to escape the role assigned to her. Instead, she compares the experience to watching herself though glass
Furthermore, she says she's "watching someone else move me through my life." So the problem isn't a lack of awareness, because she knows what's happening and has the desire to "do something crazy" and wanst to "break free." But she lost the ability to turn that will into action
Noelle was also the one who noticed that Kris is acting differently. With our influence, they're talking more, acting differently, and even their voice has changed.
But the problem is that Noelle is wrong to believe that Kris has REALLY changed, because this change doesn't mean Kris has managed to break free from the constraints of doing "Kris things".
In fact, this change came precisely from their ability to "act" having been lost. During the Weird Route, Kris becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the control we exert over them
In other words, Kris is less and less capable of deciding who Kris is
That's what makes the choice of the word glass even more interesting. Noelle is describind a situation in which someone remains present, still conscious, and still capable of observing their own existence, but no longer occupies the place of an agent within it. They're there, but something else is conducting their life.
So if we connect the word glass to what Noelle is describing, we can formulate a more specific hypothesis:
Glass shows what happens when you lose the ability to act on your own life.
You still exist, but you start to feel like you no longer have control over where your life is going. You can still see the world, but you feel like your presence no longer has the same power to affect it.
And that's exactly why I interpret the power of Glass as lost hopes.
If a lost dream is the fragment of something someone deeply desired and that was eventually broken, then a lost hope can be understood as the moment when someone stops believing they can still do anything about their own reality.
And this makes even more sense when we go back to ch 3 and 4, when Gerson says that Susie possesses "the white pen known as hope." This fits Susie particularly well because, from the beginning, she is the one who most challenges established rules.
She was the one who created S-Action and R-Action
And in moments that seemed hopeless... she comes up with solution that weren't expected
And that connects directly to the prophecy, which gives us a very specific condition for the final tragedy to happen:
In other words, the tragedy happens when hope, the belief that there's still something that can be changed, is lost.
So now, let's look at the dialogues shown when using Glass though one specific question:
What happens when you lose the ability to act on your own reality?
“You thought you saw through your hand.”
You continue to exist within reality, but you no longer feel you have the power needed to interfere in the direction your life is taking. That's why seeing through your hand represents precisely the loss of the ability to interfere in reality
"You thought you saw your mother holding someone else."
It's as if you've lost your place in the world. Reality continues functioning even if you don't interact with it. It's as if someone else has taken your place... even in your family
"You thought you saw Susie glaring at you, coldly..."
As I said before, Susie is the character who challenges the rules, and her relationship with Kris is very important for understanding this dialogue.
In ch 1, Kris acts outside our control to immediately protect Susie against King's attack. It's precisely this moment that begins to transform their relationship, making them closer.
That's why seeing Susie glaring coldly at Kris could represent that, upon losing the ability to act on their own reality, the trusting relationship between them would remain distant.
"You thought you saw Susie in a far-off window, unkempt and glaring" [After abandoning Weird route in ch 5]
I also want to connect all of this with this dialogue, which seems to be very similar to the previous one
By the time we reach the point where the route can be abandoned, a lot has already happened...
Kris and Noelle have both been forced into situations neither of them wanted to be in. Kris has repeatedly resisted the control imposed on them, and both characters have endured immense psychological pressure
But abandoning the Weird Route doesn't necessarily mean everything that happened simply disappears. Even if Noelle insist that "nothing changed", there's no easy way to erase what the two of them experienced.
Kris won't forget what they were forced to do, or how many times they tried to stop things from getting worse. The damage remains even after the route itself is abandoned.
And it's precisely in this context, when using the Glass, that Susie is seen from afar.
That's especially important because she's the characters who represents safety for Kris... she's their LIGHT
And the most extreme parts of the Weird Route happen when Kris is left alone with Noelle, precisely because Susie isn't there to intervene
So if we once again consider Susie as someone who can act, break rules, and find new paths, then seeing her, even from a distance, becomes a symbol of hope to Kris might still be able to regain their autonomy. But now, compared to the previous vision in the Pacifist/Neutral route, that hope feels much farther away.
That’s because Kris has now experienced just how much control WE can take away from them. The realization of that loss makes the possibility of regaining agency feel EVEN MORE distant. That’s why Susie appears so far away in this new vision, after the Weird Route has been abandoned
"You thought you saw Noelle close against you, whispering."
This was the hardest dialogue to interpret, and I spent a long time thinking about it, which significantly delayed me finishing writing this theory
First, it's interesting to note the contrast that exists with the previous two dialogues. While Susie appears farther and farther away, Noelle is close to Kris...
And the reason for this might lie in analyzing Noelle...
She is perhaps the character who most clearly embodies the experience of wanting change while being unable to believe she still has the means to make that change happen
She says she's just a "Noelle" who needs to do "Noelle things," just as Kris is a "Kris" who needs to do "Kris things." Therefore, she can't see a way out of the role that's been built around her.
Yes, Noelle has her own desires, including the explicit wish to "do something crazy" and "break free," but the recognition that she wants to escape isn't accompanied by the ability to do so.
That's why I interpret her closeness to Kris as a form of identification. In a situation where Kris loses the ability to act on their own reality, Noelle can recognize something in them that she experienced herself. She knows what it's like to remain conscious while something else seems to be steering your life.
Her own identity is already surrounded by expectations about being a good daughter, being a good student, and doing what a "Noelle" is supposed to do
Then the Weird Route pushes that to the point where she's literally being driven forward by the command Proceed.
Meanwhile, Kris is dealing with an even more extreme form of interference, whether it's coming from us or from whoever is controlling them through the phone
Within that context, Noelle appears close precisely because, in a state of lost hope, she's someone who can recognize what it means to be a passenger in your own life...
This also explains the contrast between the two characters. Susie is distant because she represents what's been lost, the possibility of acting. Noelle is close because she represents someone who shares the experience of having lost that possibility
That's why I think the vision of Susie after the Weird Route is so important. Her distance shouldn't necessarily be read simply as "Susie likes Kris less". The Glass could be showing something much more internal:
The more Kris is confronted with their inability to control what's happening, the more distant the possibility of recovering that autonomy seems. Before the Weird Route, there was still some hope that Kris might be able to stop things from going any further.
After seeing just how far our control can go, and realizing that even resistance may not be enough, that hope can feel much more remote
CONCLUSION
The Shadow Crystal contains the power of lost dreams, the fragments that remain when something deeply desired is broken. That's why its visions reflect what's left behind by those dreams:
The shattered television, the empty remnants of former fantasies, a childhood that can no longer be recovered.
The Glass, meanwhile, may contain the power of lost hopes. Not the loss of the thing you dreamed about, but the loss of hope that you can still do something to reach it. That's why its visions revolve around transparency, displacement, distance, and separation
You're still present. You can still see your life. But you can no longer fully interact with or change what happens next
In other words, a dream can be broken, leaving behind a shard.
Hope can be lost, leaving you looking through a glass at the life you can no longer control
my piece for @krisellezine, probably my favorite kriselle art ive ever done, please go support the zine!! im so honored to have been a guest artist for it :)
certain things in deltarune give me specific feelings hard to express, abstract imagery and strong colours. this is what i somewhat envision upon the concept of the meat factory and hearing its sound effect. the audio must have some really high pitched sound and it makes my head kinda hurt, this what the white noise strip is.
What if "the Roaring Knight is Dess or Carol" is a red-herring?
see i'm no deltarune connoisseur, i'm pretty sure there's a bunch of hidden clues i still don't know about. but i haven't seen anyone talk about another possibility, even though there seems to have way more evidence to support this hypothesis than the two main theories about who the knight might be. if there's any incorrect info or counterpoints, please let me know.
i know that many people's hearts got shattered (pun not intended) when they saw the knight and realised it wasn't kris. but what if it actually is?
see i saw some people point out there's a lot of similarities between kris' poses and the knight's poses, then i decided to think about that a little more deeply.
(though i feel the last comparison might be a bit of a stretch BAHAHA i found these screenshots on twitter, i don't know who made the third image but for the first ones it was @/4aggyunc who posted them)
chapter 4 challenges the way the prophecy goes, how it might be possible to escape a terrible fate by having hope. susie might be the key to that, as susie and gerson discuss in gerson's battle that a white pen called hope can write the next pages, and he says to susie that's what she holds. but this particular piece of dialogue never fails to intrigue me:
is it possible that the tale of deltarune doesn't in fact have an ending, something similar to a timeloop? might sound crazy but could the knight be future kris, interfering on the past? stick with me.
chapter 4 introduced the fact different people create different dark worlds. and the only different dark world we see in the whole series is susie's, right? all of the other ones feel like they could have been created by the same person. the dark world created by the roaring knight in chapter 4 is absolutely full of emotional elements related to kris, similarly to what happened in chapter 3.
chapter 1 and 2 dark worlds most likely were created by the roaring knight too. when you reach the first save point in chapter 1, you can see there is already a save file named as "kris." when you save, you overwrite that file.
like kris was already there... but not really?
it does not feel like that was kris' second time in that dark world, because ralsei had never met them before. no one in that world seemed to recognise them, in fact.
however, if the knight IS kris in the future or something, then that save file would make sense; the knight is completely unrecognisable.
besides, i think kris' costume in the dark world resembling an armour of a knight could be some type of foreshadowing. i don't have any evidence for that really, it's just a feeling.
people getting into kriselle knight theory right now are only a couple light-years behind my big and wrinkly brain.
so i'd like to add my income after playing chapter 5!
if you don't know what i'm talking about, briefly, the theory says that when drowning in the lake, kris and noelle are dying and fusing together into an amalgamate that is the knight. it explains why the knight has kris' mannerisms and noelle's antlers.
i've seen no one point out that when they are drowning, the sound that plays in the background is the exact same as the one that plays when you fight endogeny in undertale. (endogeny is such a mysterious figure that keeps reappearing in deltarune, they deserve a whole post only about them.) besides, a very, very interesting fact about the black shard:
maybe a stretch, but noelle describes her life as watching it through "glass", and glass is an important thing in deltarune: the prophecy is written on it, the shadow crystals are glass in the light world.
the shadow crystals appear to be glass from the prophecy, if you believe the weird route is the prophecy it makes total sense that noelle would mention this. watching herself "through glass" could also refer to her seeing through the knight's visor. if kriselle knight is true.
another cool thing is that the knight happens to have an attack extremely similar to asriel's in undertale.
this happens when asriel absorbs human souls... so if noelle absorbs kris' soul, wouldn't it make sense?
doesn't it also fit really well with "only one ending" theme? i think it's a really clever way of making the story work: in the normal route, you raise the heroes while in the weird route, you raise the villain. the prophecy pointing out to the weird route is tragic, but it does say the world can be saved even though the knight exists.
"bannishing the angel's heaven" makes sense if it refers to the knight, because noelle is an angel. remember also that noelle AND kris have multiple parallels with jesus, so the knight having holes in their hands is no mere coincidence.
this new dialogue also gives us a lot to think about. like i said before, chapter 1 and 2 have probably been created by the knight, while kris' save point is also there when you boot chapter two without a previous save file.
in the knight's fight, kris "held their breath", likely a reference to chapter 5 weird route. if you hold it twice, kris "smiles" like thankyou survey implies noelle smiles at the lake.
and finally...
the knight seems to be melting.
for now, this is what i have as evidence. if i notice anything else, i'll keep you informed!
Why are Kris, Frisk and Chara so similar? - An UTDR Timeline Analysis
simply put, DELTARUNE is an overlap between UNDERTALE's past and future. or either, UNDERTALE is a split between DELTARUNE's own TIME and SPACE.
it is stated on ralsei's unused manual that DELTARUNE's currently taking place in 202X. for the sake of clarity, let's suppose kris, susie, ralsei and noelle are all 15 years old and that the DELTARUNE events take place in 2020.
in UNDERTALE, it's stated that the child who fell to the underground in 201X was chara, let's suppose that this event ocurred in 2015, and that chara was 10 years old. asriel by that time was a little older than them, so it could've been 13 years old. let's call that time period UT's past.
it is indeed very safe to assume that dess disappeared in 2015 in DELTARUNE too. kris, susie, ralsei and noelle were all 10 while dess and asriel were both 13.
in UNDERTALE, we do not know what year it is when we play as frisk, it could have been decades, even centuries after chara's death. it is also very safe to assume frisk, susie and noelle are all 10 years old as well. the gameplay period is UT's future.
please take into consideration my shitty timeline illustration.
but that begs the question, how come the characters we meet in UT's future are also in DT if it takes place at the same time as UT's past?
the physical world of DELTARUNE is practically the same of UT's future, with some minor differences due to the events of UT's past never happening in DELTARUNE, and also that asriel and a new person with chara's unique traits are both alive by that time.
that is because frisk represents SPACE, meanwhile chara represents TIME.
(note that 'true pacifist' isn't definitive, i do not believe there is a correct UNDERTALE ending. all of them are also related to DELTARUNE.)
kris represents both TIME and SPACE. the three of them are, therefore, not different people, neither the same people. they can only physically exist because of each other, and none of them showed up 'before' or 'after' anyone, because there is literally no sense of chronological time in their relation between each other. kris is the bridge of communication for chara and frisk. kris, chara and frisk are a paradox.
kris is the room inbetween, the state between dream and reality, the prophecy lost to time and space.
UNDERTALE's timeline is also one where sans, papyrus and wd gaster were not supposed to exist in. it is a universe where everything worked perfectly without them... until they started to exist there too.
in case you don't know, i'll try to explain briefly, but in short it's very likely that sans and papyrus are originally from DELTARUNE, then at some point in the story they will stop existing in DELTARUNE and start to exist in UNDERTALE. this interpretation comes from various evidences, but some of them include:
sans is able to bleed in UT like susie in DT but unlike the other UT monsters.
monsters in UT state that sans and papyrus just 'showed up' out of nowhere.
papyrus remembers vaguely how life was before he and sans moved to snowdin, he states 'the grass was green' but gets interrupted by sans.
papyrus has heard of toilets isn't sure of how they look like (there are toilets in DT but not in UT).
in UT sans states multiple times he wish he went back to the past, but was never able to, similar to frisk's journey trying to go back home.
'it's raining somewhere else' track in UT has a complementing track in chapter 4 called 'the place where it rained'.
the lab behind sans' house has a photo with people frisk doesn't recognise, and the photo says 'don't forget'.
but also, wd gaster is very likely a relative to sans and papyrus. first name are fonts, the mystery man (heavily implied to be wd gaster's appearance) looks similarly enough to a skeleton, sans' attack is called 'gaster blaster', in chapter 4 toriel conveniently avoids using sans' last name despite calling him 'mister', and i doubt heavily he is actually called 'sans sans'.
taking all that into consideration, it isn't too much of a stretch to assume wd gaster is also a lightner living in DT who will be transported to UT along with sans and papyrus.
but when in UT timeline are the three of them going to appear in?
this is definitely before chara's death.
when the monsters got trapped in UT, they got to the bottom of the cave and built HOME/the ruins (where is exactly under mount ebott) from fear of the humans. they wanted to distance themselves from the barrier the most they could. after chara fell and got adopted by toriel and asgore, the monsters were filled with hope and started to expand their exploration towards the barrier. first snowdin was founded, which is probably where sans, papyrus and gaster first appeared. after this came waterfall and hotland. by some time around there, wd gaster was given the role of royal scientist and the true lab. gaster helped the underground by building the CORE after hotland was expanded, and only then was when NEW HOME was built. chara and asriel died together while living in NEW HOME.
the experiment that shattered gaster across time and space was definitely the one related to the dark worlds. we don't know when it was done, but it was some time after the CORE was built.
now i don't have much evidence to back the rest, but here's the general idea of what i think happened.
the reason for gaster's experiment with dark worlds could have been because gaster wanted to get back to DELTARUNE with sans and papyrus. the dark worlds themselves may be what sent them to UT in the first place. i think by the end of DR lightners will be aware of dark worlds since the game is hyping a really big disaster involving light and dark worlds.
this is what led gaster to research dark worlds in UT, as a way of creating a portal that goes through the main dark world, ralsei's, and going back to the light world from there. it went wrong though, and gaster 'died' (or rather he became omnipresent), while sans was left alone with papyrus with no way of going back.
sans tried and tried to mess with gaster's machine but no success of opening another portal ever again, to the point he gave up and accepted his life in the underground.
by the time sans meets frisk, centuries since all this happened may have passed, which makes his story way more depressing. if papyrus is killed in the geno route, sans' feelings in his fight get clear as water. he first lost all his friends in DR, then gaster, then he was alone with papyrus, the last person he loved dies.
i hope you enjoyed my analysis and that it gives you a new perspective when looking at UT/DR. if you have any counter arguments or wanna correct me about something please let me know, i really don't like leaving my stuff outdated or straight up contradicting something.
Why are Kris, Frisk and Chara so similar? - An UTDR Timeline Analysis
simply put, DELTARUNE is an overlap between UNDERTALE's past and future. or either, UNDERTALE is a split between DELTARUNE's own TIME and SPACE.
it is stated on ralsei's unused manual that DELTARUNE's currently taking place in 202X. for the sake of clarity, let's suppose kris, susie, ralsei and noelle are all 15 years old and that the DELTARUNE events take place in 2020.
in UNDERTALE, it's stated that the child who fell to the underground in 201X was chara, let's suppose that this event ocurred in 2015, and that chara was 10 years old. asriel by that time was a little older than them, so it could've been 13 years old. let's call that time period UT's past.
it is indeed very safe to assume that dess disappeared in 2015 in DELTARUNE too. kris, susie, ralsei and noelle were all 10 while dess and asriel were both 13.
in UNDERTALE, we do not know what year it is when we play as frisk, it could have been decades, even centuries after chara's death. it is also very safe to assume frisk, susie and noelle are all 10 years old as well. the gameplay period is UT's future.
please take into consideration my shitty timeline illustration.
but that begs the question, how come the characters we meet in UT's future are also in DT if it takes place at the same time as UT's past?
the physical world of DELTARUNE is practically the same of UT's future, with some minor differences due to the events of UT's past never happening in DELTARUNE, and also that asriel and a new person with chara's unique traits are both alive by that time.
that is because frisk represents SPACE, meanwhile chara represents TIME.
(note that 'true pacifist' isn't definitive, i do not believe there is a correct UNDERTALE ending. all of them are also related to DELTARUNE.)
kris represents both TIME and SPACE. the three of them are, therefore, not different people, neither the same people. they can only physically exist because of each other, and none of them showed up 'before' or 'after' anyone, because there is literally no sense of chronological time in their relation between each other. kris is the bridge of communication for chara and frisk. kris, chara and frisk are a paradox.
kris is the room inbetween, the state between dream and reality, the prophecy lost to time and space.
UNDERTALE's timeline is also one where sans, papyrus and wd gaster were not supposed to exist in. it is a universe where everything worked perfectly without them... until they started to exist there too.
in case you don't know, i'll try to explain briefly, but in short it's very likely that sans and papyrus are originally from DELTARUNE, then at some point in the story they will stop existing in DELTARUNE and start to exist in UNDERTALE. this interpretation comes from various evidences, but some of them include:
sans is able to bleed in UT like susie in DT but unlike the other UT monsters.
monsters in UT state that sans and papyrus just 'showed up' out of nowhere.
papyrus remembers vaguely how life was before he and sans moved to snowdin, he states 'the grass was green' but gets interrupted by sans.
papyrus has heard of toilets isn't sure of how they look like (there are toilets in DT but not in UT).
in UT sans states multiple times he wish he went back to the past, but was never able to, similar to frisk's journey trying to go back home.
'it's raining somewhere else' track in UT has a complementing track in chapter 4 called 'the place where it rained'.
the lab behind sans' house has a photo with people frisk doesn't recognise, and the photo says 'don't forget'.
but also, wd gaster is very likely a relative to sans and papyrus. first name are fonts, the mystery man (heavily implied to be wd gaster's appearance) looks similarly enough to a skeleton, sans' attack is called 'gaster blaster', in chapter 4 toriel conveniently avoids using sans' last name despite calling him 'mister', and i doubt heavily he is actually called 'sans sans'.
taking all that into consideration, it isn't too much of a stretch to assume wd gaster is also a lightner living in DT who will be transported to UT along with sans and papyrus.
but when in UT timeline are the three of them going to appear in?
this is definitely before chara's death.
when the monsters got trapped in UT, they got to the bottom of the cave and built HOME/the ruins (where is exactly under mount ebott) from fear of the humans. they wanted to distance themselves from the barrier the most they could. after chara fell and got adopted by toriel and asgore, the monsters were filled with hope and started to expand their exploration towards the barrier. first snowdin was founded, which is probably where sans, papyrus and gaster first appeared. after this came waterfall and hotland. by some time around there, wd gaster was given the role of royal scientist and the true lab. gaster helped the underground by building the CORE after hotland was expanded, and only then was when NEW HOME was built. chara and asriel died together while living in NEW HOME.
the experiment that shattered gaster across time and space was definitely the one related to the dark worlds. we don't know when it was done, but it was some time after the CORE was built.
now i don't have much evidence to back the rest, but here's the general idea of what i think happened.
the reason for gaster's experiment with dark worlds could have been because gaster wanted to get back to DELTARUNE with sans and papyrus. the dark worlds themselves may be what sent them to UT in the first place. i think by the end of DR lightners will be aware of dark worlds since the game is hyping a really big disaster involving light and dark worlds.
this is what led gaster to research dark worlds in UT, as a way of creating a portal that goes through the main dark world, ralsei's, and going back to the light world from there. it went wrong though, and gaster 'died' (or rather he became omnipresent), while sans was left alone with papyrus with no way of going back.
sans tried and tried to mess with gaster's machine but no success of opening another portal ever again, to the point he gave up and accepted his life in the underground.
by the time sans meets frisk, centuries since all this happened may have passed, which makes his story way more depressing. if papyrus is killed in the geno route, sans' feelings in his fight get clear as water. he first lost all his friends in DR, then gaster, then he was alone with papyrus, the last person he loved dies.
i hope you enjoyed my analysis and that it gives you a new perspective when looking at UT/DR. if you have any counter arguments or wanna correct me about something please let me know, i really don't like leaving my stuff outdated or straight up contradicting something.
if a piece of media has mostly gay men its "such good rep" but if it has mostly lesbians it "should really have more mlm rep" i think we should all walk into traffic maybe
can lesbians not have anything. can undertale not be the fun wacky lesbian game for fun wacky lesbians. toby fox is the only respectable himedanshi and you will appreciate the sacrifices he made for us
What if "the Roaring Knight is Dess or Carol" is a red-herring?
see i'm no deltarune connoisseur, i'm pretty sure there's a bunch of hidden clues i still don't know about. but i haven't seen anyone talk about another possibility, even though there seems to have way more evidence to support this hypothesis than the two main theories about who the knight might be. if there's any incorrect info or counterpoints, please let me know.
i know that many people's hearts got shattered (pun not intended) when they saw the knight and realised it wasn't kris. but what if it actually is?
see i saw some people point out there's a lot of similarities between kris' poses and the knight's poses, then i decided to think about that a little more deeply.
(though i feel the last comparison might be a bit of a stretch BAHAHA i found these screenshots on twitter, i don't know who made the third image but for the first ones it was @/4aggyunc who posted them)
chapter 4 challenges the way the prophecy goes, how it might be possible to escape a terrible fate by having hope. susie might be the key to that, as susie and gerson discuss in gerson's battle that a white pen called hope can write the next pages, and he says to susie that's what she holds. but this particular piece of dialogue never fails to intrigue me:
is it possible that the tale of deltarune doesn't in fact have an ending, something similar to a timeloop? might sound crazy but could the knight be future kris, interfering on the past? stick with me.
chapter 4 introduced the fact different people create different dark worlds. and the only different dark world we see in the whole series is susie's, right? all of the other ones feel like they could have been created by the same person. the dark world created by the roaring knight in chapter 4 is absolutely full of emotional elements related to kris, similarly to what happened in chapter 3.
chapter 1 and 2 dark worlds most likely were created by the roaring knight too. when you reach the first save point in chapter 1, you can see there is already a save file named as "kris." when you save, you overwrite that file.
like kris was already there... but not really?
it does not feel like that was kris' second time in that dark world, because ralsei had never met them before. no one in that world seemed to recognise them, in fact.
however, if the knight IS kris in the future or something, then that save file would make sense; the knight is completely unrecognisable.
besides, i think kris' costume in the dark world resembling an armour of a knight could be some type of foreshadowing. i don't have any evidence for that really, it's just a feeling.
