#pt disconnected

[pt-disconnected]

The Player glared at the Knight- after all, he was right. They had come back to see things through, to watch the conclusion. And they had no argument for that. And knowing that the Player had no argument made the Knight grin. "Now, the reason you'd come back to this extent... baffles me. Why not just go back to how you were? Why take the effort to disassociate yourself from the puppet you used?" This got an angry reaction from not just the Player, but the team of Ralseis as well. "Their name is KRIS!" they shouted, almost simultaneously. But the Lightner just chuckled. "It doesn't matter what it was. It was a puppet at the time. It couldn't make decisions on it's own." they said... only for the Player to interrupt.

"And how did you know that from where you were that whole time? You couldn't follow Kris into the Light World. You couldn't follow them into the deepest depths of the castle, where Jevil was. And those were where they showed just how much of a life they had, even when the link first formed. They weren't a puppet. They may have been a vessel of sorts, like my body is." "But they were not a puppet. Things can live without a SOUL, after all... Kris was alive the whole time. But without a SOUL, they were a blank slate, which you saw as not being alive. And while the SOUL was left without any method of normal control, that was what allowed them to live- to gain experience from their surroundings, much like what one would do in the early days of their life. Their SOUL was what allowed that to start- but, I'd say by now..." "They don't even need me anymore." The Knight looked confused, maybe even startled by the sudden show of confidence. "Wh... what in the Angel's name are you talking about?! You know nothing about SOULs! You can't possibly know anything about them!"

The Player chuckled mildly. "Sadly for you, this experiment of yours came after something else- something that bears a lot more resemblance to this world than you think. And seeing those resemblances let me piece some things together- things that work the same way here as they did in that other 'existence'. I'm uncertain whether that one was real and separate, like this one- but I know enough to see the connections."

"At this point... I don't think that the SOUL in Kris, is actually my own SOUL. It's theirs. I'm just... cutting the strings. After all, if a puppet can dance without directions from the one holding strings, then it would be able to dance just as well if there were no strings at all. But the SOUL... wasn't the strings. It was what allowed the strings to connect. But, I'm starting to see that when I cut those strings, the SOUL wasn't removed at all. If that had happened, they'd just... fade. Back into the empty shell." "But they aren't empty, they're still moving. They're still LIVING." the Player said, to confused reactions from the group. "But... how do you know that? Kris still has the SOUL, and you said it'd unlink sometime soon... you're saying it like you already unlinked!" The Knight scoffed at this. "You'll see soon enough, in the end. They're a puppet, a vessel. No more. You took their SOUL from them, and with it, their life."

"You killed Kris."

And yet, the Player just chuckled, staring down the Knight- making even the Knight uneasy.

"You know the interesting thing about messing with time..? It can change when certain events happen. And, well, my memories feel a bit changed... you reminded me to think about that not long ago, didn't you?"

The Knight went visibly pale- which, in the Dark World, spoke volumes. "...you... you..."

The Player nodded. "I already unlinked. Turns out, my past self saw everything going on, and seeing Kris like this... well, they felt guilty. They disconnected sooner than I had before this. The timeline shifted- and I'm still here. Because I felt like I could do more than just that. I wanted to see things through, like you said."

"But I already disconnected. I did it a good amount earlier than I had thought... hah, gotta love those kinds of time travel shenanigans, huh?" they said, laughing. But the Knight wasn't smiling. In fact they looked visibly angry. "Y- you..! You GAVE your SOUL to them?! Then how do YOU still have a SOUL?! It should have been either them or you!! ...What did you do?! What rule did you change when you were... out there?!" he spat, angry as a raging bull.

But the Player laughed more. "I didn't change anything, Knight. This SOUL? It's mine. Always has been. I didn't quite realize it- but turns out that even people in my world have SOULs. They just never... show up. There's no reason for them to. So when I came in here, I took my SOUL with me. And that SOUL is using strings to control this vessel whenever I'm out there."

"The SOUL in Kris is all theirs."

---------------------------------

Kris was sitting on the bed in their house, waiting eagerly for the Player's SOUL to unlink, for that piece of them to be gone for good.

Nothing. Had they lied after all? But... there was no way. They were acting so genuine...

Still, something felt different. The SOUL... felt different.

Kris tried to stand up... they did.

They tried to walk to the birdcage. They did.

Open it up... done.

No resistance.

They reached out, preparing to pull out their SOUL again- bracing for the pain. But instead, it emerged as though a battle began, without the box that contained it. That was... new.

So they put it in the cage and closed it. Now they could see what was going on.

Kris began to move towards the bed. The SOUL moved in that direction, too.

That was new for sure.

They open the cage and focus some... and they got their SOUL to exit the cage on their own.

They started to move it around, up, down... left, right... and it worked. Not even a moment of hesitation or waiting- nothing inhibiting it.

And they felt free.

---------------------------------

The Knight was frozen. Such an obvious observation- and it had passed right over them. "But... then how did you access the SAVE state of theirs, and cause all this?"

The Player chuckled some. "At that point, it was still Kris' SOUL, if you recall. You hadn't pulled me in, my SOUL wasn't in the equation. When you pulled me in, my SOUL was pulled in with me. And that separated your link- in fact, it weakened my connection as it was. But of course, there was still my past self to deal with. They still had connection, while I didn't."

With every explanation given, the Knight wanted to give a counterargument- but somehow, these outlandish reasons... were valid. "...you... how do you plan all this out? How are you doing all of this?"

The Player laughed. "You know, I could easily just pretend I planned this, and say something on the lines of thinking in four dimensions. But honestly? I'm just rolling with the punches. Memories changed? Cool, time to make use of that. Pulled into this place? All right then, I'll work with that. Sometimes one of the best plans is not to have one. It's impossible to predict a plan that doesn't exist. Patterns are helpful- but they may not work forever."

The Knight growled in anger. "...so all of this... all of these changes, all of this absolute CHAOS you've strewn across my carefully laid plan... all of this has just been you doing... whatever comes to mind at that moment?! All of these things you do to ruin my progress... and you're not even planning them out?"

The Player chuckled a bit. "Not a bit. I'm not willing to try and learn that much about this time travel bullshit, I just want to make use of it to get this done."

With this, the Knight was seething mad. It looked like he was ready to attack, but in his current situation, he was not only outnumbered, but the Player could easily just pull the same stunt. He wasn't prepared to fight.

But as the ground beneath them shook, his face of rage shifted... and he looked quite happy with the quakes.

"...ah, but it seems it was all in vain!" he said, almost cackling.

---------------------------------

Kris was still trying out their newfound freedom- and the SOUL that belonged to them, and ONLY them this time!- when they heard knocking on the door. So they went out to where Toriel was, her already waiting for the arrival, before seeing Kris’ eyes- BROWN eyes... and as the door opened...

"Mom! Kris!"

"I'm home!"

And with that... we will reach beyond the end. The Player and Kris have separate SOULs, Kris is free- AND with a SOUL intact, interestingly enough!- the Knight has gotten his usual plans taken screwball thanks to weird time travel bullshit (love when the past changes), and the world is falling apart. Oh, and Azzy's here now too. Also one of the FEW times I will ever go beyond the Player's scope of vision- as it was something I felt needed shown. This will likely only happen more often if it makes the story a bit better- otherwise, we'll only know what the Player knows. But we'll see. I'm pretty excited to have Kris with their own SOUL, as opposed to split control with the Player. Yes, I was a bit worried about how to explain the time-travel again. But the differentiation between when the Player was in the Over World and when they were in the Light and Dark Worlds was perfect for that, as... well, they had their SOUL in the Over World with them. Why they can't SAVE and LOAD in the Over World? Good question, you get the gif! (You know the one.) I would say more about this but it's a lot to say, and would be difficult without potentially sharing possible story paths. Chaos, chaos. Hehe. It's a lot for this part, and honestly my brain was working overtime to tie it all together the best I could. I'm not even sure if there's any inconsistencies because of how much happened. If you do manage to spot any, then let me know. I'd really appreciate it and it'll help me with future parts as well. I also feel really bad because it's been essentially three months. THREE. WHOLE. MONTHS. College is annoying as all get out, and I wish I could just do this all the time. I enjoy writing, and I wish I could do it more, but with college, I often find myself doing other stuff, seeing this, wanting to do more, and then finding myself doing other stuff again. I highly appreciate the asks people send as reminders, since they show me that yes, people do still care about this. And that's kinda my motivation. Knowing people enjoy this story so much makes me honestly really happy, and makes it easier to work on this knowing that there is purpose to it. With any luck, I can get myself back into writing this more often, and we'll have a score of story parts (one score is equal to 20 for those who need to know) soon enough. If I didn't absolutely butcher this one at least. Previous Part | First Part | Next Part LynxGriffin's Paper Trail Comic (This part was almost exclusively based off of the Finale part of the original Paper Trail comic, with added portions that are unique to the story. I think this will be the last story for at least a good while that will be directly based off the comic itself. There will definitely be elements from past original comic pages used, but there's going to be more original aspects from here out. Hoo boy, I got work to do.)

[pt-disconnected]

With the Dark World seeming to crumble around them, the Player was honestly terrified- as were their allies. Everything seemed out of place- the Card Castle was falling apart as parts of it were replaced with rooms that were from the school, collapsing in on itself. And the Knight was there, laughing. "You fools... so focused on a pawn that you forgot to block the checkmate! And now the game is over!" he said, grinning madly.

The Player looked around, trying to find something- anything- that would get them somewhere. And as they saw a path into the Light World, they grabbed hold of one of the Ralsei variants. "Hold on, guys!" they said, triggering a split-second reaction for the six to grab each other, and Lancer of course. Lancer, trailing at the end, also gave a warning. "G- guys?! That guy is chasing us! What'd you do to make him this mad..?! What's happening to the castle?!" the prince said, confused. But the Player didn't look back. "No time! We'll try and explain soon!" they said, before pulling the six out of the Dark World and into the Light World- without them turning into their respective objects.

This terrified the Ralsei group. Lairse, for one, was enraged. "This... this isn't supposed to be possible! The darkness is merged with the light- no fountain, light or dark, should be able to do that!" he shouted, albeit still in the line led by the Player.

The Player, however, had a focus on their goal. "We need to find Kris. Odds are, they might be able to put a few pieces together. And with what we learned from that guy- I'm not even gonna bother with his name- we might have a shot at figuring out what we need to do."

The group nodded, including Lancer- though he was a bit exhausted. "H- hey, lemon-lime..? C- could I just tag along in your pocket..? I'm not really... the running type..." he said, panting some. The Player sighed. "Yeah, that's fine. I can't be losing you in this mess- Susie would kill me." they say, to which Lancer ran over (conveniently regaining enough energy to do so) and hopped in. Seems the inventory logic of the Dark World had blended through as well.

With Lancer tucked away, safe in the Player's pockets, the group of seven made their way to Kris' house via the Player's lead. Around them, monsters and Darkners of all kinds were panicking, with humans emerging from the rifts connecting the Dark World to the Light World. But these seven were focused on the task at hand.

As they approached the house in question, three figures emerged. Kris, Toriel, and then one more who looked surprisingly like the Ralseis- to his complete confusion. Kris and Toriel were also a bit shocked- especially Kris, as Ralsei was currently in the Light World, something that shouldn't have been possible.

The first one to speak was Kris. "P- Player, what are you doing here?! And what's with Ralsei and the others?! You all should still be in the Dark World- especially them!" they said, referring to the Ralsei group at the end. But the Player shook their head. "This is a massive emergency situation, Kris. Things have gone haywire on both ends. We need to get Susie and Noelle... and probably Berdly as well. I'm not sure what's going on myself, but this is a very bad situation, and that's best case. Worst case... this could be the end of your worlds. And, possibly mine if things go really south."

Asriel spoke up. "Um, sorry to interrupt, but who are you..? And why are there... uh, six more of me?!" he said, completely baffled. Toriel sighed. "Azzy, there's a lot to explain. I'm lucky to have been filled in on the situation myself, especially when things weren't so sudden. We should find Susie, Noelle, and Berdly first, then we can try and sort things out..."

Ralsei nodded, as did the rest of the Asriels- including, well, Asriel himself. Asriel, for one, was surprised at the synchronicity he had with them, but shrugged it off. "Okay. We'll need to split up to find them- but I think we can handle this." he said. "But we also need to ensure everyone's safety."

Kris looked to their adopted mother. "Mom, you know Mayor Holliday, and she trusts you. You'd be best to get Noelle." The Player, in turn, looked to Kris. "Okay, Kris, you might be able to get Susie. I don't know for sure how well it'd go- but you should be able to find her best. Here- take Lancer. That should be enough to prove the intensity of the situation." they say, pulling Lancer out of their pocket (to the shock of both Toriel and Asriel). Lancer just looked around a bit, and chuckled. "Wow, nice castle you got, Kris! Maybe someday I can see what kinds of holes it's got!" he said, before Kris just smiled a little, putting Lancer right into their own pocket.

Looking to Asriel, along with his six other selves, Player sighed. "Asriel, we'll need you to ensure this place is safe. These six should be able to help with that- just make sure this place is safe for when we get back." they say, to which Asriel just looks toward them. "...How do I know I can trust you, though..?" Both Kris and Toriel, however, nodded some, with Toriel speaking. "You can trust them, Azzy. It might be crazy- but there's something different about them. And they've proved themselves. So just work with them."

Asriel sighed, and nodded. "Okay. I'll do my best." Though, Kris spoke next. "Wait, what about Berdly? Who'll find him?" they asked. The Player sighed. "I'm gonna have to try and find them. I'm not sure, but they might be in the library- I just hope that they're all safe. But we need to move, and we'll need to move fast. There's no telling what might happen."

The group all nodded, and began working on their respective tasks. Kris began making their way towards the general apartment complex in the town- and odds were, Susie would be out and about with the chaos going on. Toriel made her way towards the Holliday residence. The seven Asriel variants began work on a sort of base, trying to make the Dreemurr house into a decent place for them to keep themselves safe. And, the Player was making their way towards the library of the town- where Berdly would hopefully be.

But on the way, they wound up plowing face-first into a large, admittedly fluffy monster. They fell backwards, and upon looking up, found themselves staring straight at a startled, albeit armed, Asgore. They immediately put their arms up. "Wait! I don't mean any harm!" they said, knowing how the Light World residents saw the humans. Asgore, however, was just confused. "Wait, what..? Human, what's going on? Tell me now!" he said, starting out confused but quickly getting his weapon, a gardening rake, readied. The Player nodded some. "Okay, I can try to tell you... it's gonna be a bit unbelievable but I think with what's going on you might be willing to believe it... heck if you want I can get you to a safe place, but I need to get to someone- it's a long story, but please, PLEASE believe me. I'm not trying to hurt anyone..."

Asgore glared into eyes of the Player for a few moments, before sighing and allowing them up. "Okay. I believe you. Tell me where to go, and I will meet you there..." he said. The Player got up, slower than they would have normally. "Go back to Kris' place... they should be able to explain when they get back. It'll be a crazy story but this is already crazy as it is. I'll be back soon..." they said, and Asgore's only reply was a nod, before he started to run towards the house. Out of the corner of their eye, the Player also noticed Kris with Susie, as well as Lancer piggybacking on Susie's shoulders. That was good timing.

So they continued on their way to the library- but what they saw honestly terrified them. It wasn't entirely a library anymore- a tree that looked straight out of a pop-up book had grown through the roof, with Berdly on one of the branches. Upon seeing the Player, he called down to them. "Player! Help! I'm not used to this! I don't want to be a normal bird right now!" he said, admittedly getting a small chuckle out of the Player, before they refocused on the situation.

They quickly tried to find something that would break the fall- before noticing a nearby Darkner that was conveniently just an oversized pillow. As such, they quickly approached. "Hey, I need your help really quick. I know it's strange, but you need to break my friend's fall- are you able to do that safely?" they asked. Shockingly, they nodded- turns out they had been doing that for other Darkners too. As such, they went over to the spot where Berdly would probably land.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just that easy. Berdly was still clinging to the branch, not wanting to let go. "I can't fall that far down! I'd PERISH! This isn't the Dark World, where a single pillow would nullify all the fall damage!" he said, clearly afraid of heights. The Player just sighed. "Berdly, there's no distinction between the two right now! Whatever it is that's going on has messed up the rules of reality! Think of it as a glitch- fall damage isn't working right because of it!" they said. So Berdly gulped, closed his eyes, and dropped right onto the pillow-Darkner. Getting up, he looked at himself, and let out a sigh of relief and did a fist pump- before the Darkner asked for him to get off of them, which he did.

With Berdly back in the group, the Player now chose to make their way back to the Dreemurr house- Berdly not far behind. As they approached, the two could see Asgore and Toriel, actually talking. It was strange, but it seemed that the dire circumstances were allowing them to interact... somewhat normally. And with Toriel back, that meant Noelle had arrived as well. But to the Player's surprise, there was a second one there with her- another reindeer monster who seemed to be just a bit older than Noelle, and dressed in an outfit much like that of Noelle's Dark World outfit, except it was a light blue instead of white. She seemed to be talking with Noelle, as well as Susie and Kris, and when Susie saw the Player approaching, she pointed them out. Kris quickly went over, with Noelle and the other reindeer monster staying back for the time being.

Kris looked to Berdly. "Berdly, you got any idea what's going on?" The bluebird shook his head. "Not in the slightest, aside from the obvious. Why? You don't know either?" Kris shook their head. "Just checking to see if we needed to explain. Regardless, now that everyone's together, we need to get a sort of plan. Dad was worried for Mom, and Dess wound up finding out about things because her outfit changed, so they're getting an explanation of things from before."

The Player sighed. "Okay, once those explanations are done, I think me, Ralsei, and the rest of Asriel's alternate selves have some stuff to explain too. Turns out that the Knight had us all fooled. I don't know how we could have stopped him in the first place anymore."

Kris groaned, concerned but clearly not wanting to think on it too much. "Okay. Tell us later. Right now, we've got a lot to work on. At least we have another two in our team for now. I don't know where we'll go from here, but... I think once Azzy and the Ralseis finish getting the house fortified more, we can get things hashed out more calmly. For now, we should just get you introduced to Dad and Dess. That way, they don't mistake you for one of the other humans who seem to be... not as happy about what's going on."

The Player simply nodded. "Got it. Let's get that done."

Whoa, what's this? Part 20?! And I hadn't even done a Anon Asks yet!! Seems that things really have gone into chaos. And this is a nice, larger part too. I personally am unsure of the quality of it but if you guys all enjoy it then that's what matters to me. I certainly want to aim for quality as well in the end. So now we've had two parts in the span of one week (not in terms of a calendar, I mean two parts in seven days), and honestly I'm happy about that. I have a few ideas for where to go from here, and those vary wildly in all honesty. Depending on how I can work with Azzy being part of the story, as well as the new additions (hehe!) we might be seeing a variety of things. Could be new stuff, could be rewritten old stuff, could be stuff happening in the background of old stuff. There's even another option that you might be able to figure out if you hunt it down. Pgp lkwbak isow mqgba abj wep, xxnr zme isrbpn waabec penrxnm ezp isr zga. Qkz bbnpaan lka nzptpe fg lka dtqu uip rexmo abj bouznn royew nu mp. Md do ritnazzm vwzm pgc yafigapne pso htwe, tobp pso lmeeyo abj opzcg mqbpnjp. Hopefully you all enjoy this additional part of the story, and whatever else is soon to be! I'll see you all in whatever comes next, be it the next Anon Asks, or another part should I manage to pull more motivation out of thin air! Previous Part | First Part | Next Part LynxGriffin's Paper Trail Comic (Whoa, a completely original segment! Shocking! Check out the comic anyways though, you might find something that might be intriguing- there's all sorts of stuff in there that inspires these story segments!)

[pt-disconnected]

Is PT-Disconnected over yet?

Not at all. I've just gotten very busy as of late and haven't had time to respond, and I feel bad about that.

I will add the next part when things settle down, sorry for such a long delay...

[pt-disconnected]

It didn't take long for the Player to put two and two together- with nobody else around, it was clear that the Knight was speaking to them. And while normally the Player would find this weird... well, weirder had happened with the game. "...You're testing my patience. Tell me, what are you trying to do?" the Knight spoke again. Clearly there was some agitation in the Knight's voice, or at least there would be if it was audible and not a text box. Though the shaking effects of the text made it a bit clearer- that always was a nice detail. The Player started their reply. "You tell me first. What are you doing with Kris? And why are you doing it?" they typed, with a bit of agitation of their own admittedly. It was strange, but they got the feeling that this... wasn't quite a game.

The Knight replied pretty quickly. "I suppose it is only fair. However you only get one question, as I am only asking you one." This was a lot less aggressive, almost like the Knight had a sort of smugness for holding back the information. Not like the Player cared. "You see, I am merely... playing a game. And Kris... Kris is one of the pieces. I myself am also one of the pieces, though I am trying to maneuver into a winning position." This gave the Player enough context to tell what was going on. "...And I take it this guy had me moving Kris as well... having me play the game... even without me knowing... dammit, this jerk knows what they're doing, it seems." they mumbled under their breath. "Yes, I do know what I'm doing. Or rather... I did. Until a new piece entered the board... or rather, changed it."

This in itself startled the Player. How the hell had the Knight heard them without the typing?! But the Knight simply looked back... well, as best as one could through a slot-shaped helmet. (How did he see through it in the first place, though?) "You may not realize it, but the connections between how Lightners and Darkners, and you and us, is greater than it seems... allow me to... demonstrate." A flash of light, and what sounded like shattering glass, left the Player shocked and covering their eyes for a moment. By the time they had uncovered their eyes, the Knight was looming over them, having grabbed them by their shirt- suddenly having become a striped green and yellow. "If Lightners can enter the world of Darkners... then perhaps it, too, can exist one level greater."

The Player wrenched the Knight's hand around in a sudden manner, resulting in breaking loose. They quickly backed away, before turning to prepare themselves to fight. The Knight was caught by surprise, but the Player knew that already, this figure they saw was now calculating what they could use this for. And sure enough, they were. But instead of preparing for battle as well, they relaxed their muscles. "I don't need to waste time with you. I just needed to stop you from going any further back, like you had been. I could tell from how you acted. You acted like you couldn't do anything that'd be... unusual. So just from that, I knew you had already seen what happened after..." "But now that you're here, you can't do that anymore. Good luck getting back there." With that, the Player jolted awake... or, what they thought was awake. And of course, they were right with Kris, Susie, and the rest. In the church, just before they went into the attic- and the Dark World. "What the hell?!! You again?!" Susie said, mostly shocked. And yet, Kris seemed... unalarmed. As if it wasn't bad enough before...

If a player is changing the rules, add a new piece. Turn the tables a bit... Yes, we've just gone a bit deeper down the rabbit hole. I started thinking about the fact that the connection between Lightners and Darkners existing one level higher (as mentioned by the Knight in Part 70 of the main comic) probably means a whole lot more than we think. Including the idea of that same 'Reality into Lightner into Darkner' concept used in this part of story... Who knows what's next... We're really getting into this mess now. Here comes the confusion. Hopefully nobody has too much trouble with it, though I know I'll be having fun. (...Possibly sarcasm?) Regardless, see you all in Part 7, and hopefully I can get back to more regular updates. (And remember I mentioned I'd be able to add to the story at least twice a month, although I do guess the post I said that in was buried a good chunk. Regardless, it's mentioned again, and I guess I'll add it in the Masterpost too. If I do end up not updating it that second time then I'll probably get a lot of asks reminding me, and that'll get me to move again lol)

Previous Part | First Part | Next Part LynxGriffin's Paper Trail Comic (Check Part 50 of the comic to see the sort of location we ended up in, and Part 69 to see where the 'one level higher' idea was first made canon!) (Also if you're wondering why all the 'part selection' bits at the bottom of each story part look different, it's because I have no idea how to keep them consistent between both mobile and desktop Tumblr, plus for one of them I have zero idea what happened. Don't ask.)

[pt-disconnected]

Anonymous Ask Responses (#6)

With Part 6 out, and some new events in motion, it was bound to happen. More asks, as per usual! Looks like I gotta send more replies, so here we are!

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"OK this is the bit I've been hoping for aka the eventual bit of the story where kris and the gang meet the player also I'm a bit confused about why susie well hates the player from the looks of things they don't know about kris' backstory yet soooo - r"

You're right, they don't know about the backstory. However, they can probably put some of the pieces together. Susie would definitely think that another human, and another SOUL, would be pretty off. So she's being pretty cautious. After all, considering the Player just appeared out of thin air (literally!) there's a lot of questions to be asked.

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"Oh boy we are at the larsei route again this will not end well for player"

Yep. The Player thought they were out of the woods (literally and figuratively), but then our good old friend, the Knight, decided to pull an Uno Reverse on the Player and have them go right back. Although we still don't know the extent of what is happening... we'll have to wait and see.

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"Will the player make the gang take the hell path instead of the heaven path immediately"

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"How would paper trail kris react to snowgrave kris? I feel like they would get along because of their shared trauma"

That, or they'd immediately butt heads. The moment you think two people will get along is the moment everything falls apart. I feel Lynx would normally be better equipped to handle this question- he knows the actual Paper Trail Kris best. Though, I don't know whether Lynx wants to do too much more in terms of Paper Trail- his iteration of the story is over, and he's made that pretty clear. So maybe we won't know for sure. No idea.

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"I hope player makes the right choices (for their sake and Kris’s sanity)"

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"Maybe player could talk to kris alone and maybe try to better their relationship with them"

Well that's convenient. I literally went through asks in order and this was what happened. Maybe we're not doomed after all. We'll have to see...

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Well, there's the sixth batch of anonymous asks completed. Along with three GIFs- all from MST3K, in classic fashion. I took on the project, and I'll keep the traditions that go with it. (Thank you LynxGriffin, these gifs work so well tbh!) I'll see you all either in Part 7 of the story, or in the next Anon Asks post if I end up having a bunch more asks!

[pt-disconnected]

Anonymous Ask Responses #20

This one is pretty delayed, sorry about that. But I will say there's some interesting ones here. And some amusing ones. But with that out of the way, let's just get straight into it.

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First, some from before the latest iteration in the series. Lots of these ones, so I'm sticking with ones I found interesting.

@prhthezanko:

"Oh interesting~ Toriel now knowing about the soul being Player's... Now thats gonna bring up a lot of questions, especially the way they found Kris in the first place. Though I do have to ask, how is Player going to go around town to the other Dark Worlds without being seen by others?" As we saw earlier, the group made their attempts to hide the Player while headed to the school (with it succeeding to fool everyone except Berdly). However this won't be how it happens every day, so that will get complicated for the group as time goes on.

———

also @prhthezanko:

"Ah yes, Toby is the one who planned this all. Toby created a connection to another world to get a more immersive story. Though, he didn't plan on it being literally immersive. Here's a small idea, since this time travel is inside said world, and not in the Overworld, it more like an auto pilot, and to keep the paradox, it automatically disconnects at the point to prevent timeline corruption. I don't think Gaster would risk a temporal paradox that might endanger his plan, right~?" Mmm, more like the game window can be open at a given point in time. Normally this would flow with time the same as any other situation, but with the altered SAVE data, it gets a little screwy since it isn't pulling a character in the game back in time, and thus not affecting the actual timeline at all. Everything goes the same until a new element, the Player, is introduced. And since the Player has gone in and out of the timeline already, the game simply works around that- if they encounter themselves, then they likely either change future events or just get pulled back again. This might be due to an error in the code of the 'gateway', since there's not supposed to be two of the same character at any given point. That's part of why the Player needed the avatar in the first place. Errors in the code do usually cause the window to close however, which could mean one of two things. One, the Player is spat back out of the Light World into the Over World again. Two, they become trapped in the Light World until they manage to reopen the 'gateway'.

We'll see which of these options works best for story purposes. :)

———

"I hope I didn't miss anything here but will Kris play as a party member given that the player is now an individual character that isn't controlling Kris anymore?"

It's less because the Player is an individual character and more that Kris no longer has a SOUL that can get hurt. But we don't fully know that whole mess yet. We'll see soon enough.

———

"When kris was kicking player in part 8, the only thing I thought of was John Mulany saying 'stay down on the ground you motherfucker' lol" Kinda what Kris was doing. They were sick of the Player choosing for them and wanted to exact revenge, and when they can't fight back it's a lot easier to do that. But, well, we saw what happened in the end. Hitting someone while they're down is a cheap fighting technique, and that's kinda why I put it here. Kris was willing to use such low blows because of how aggravated they were.

———

"I just realized that in part 8 when player tellis kris to “strike them down and get their freedom” it was referencing the asgore fight in undertale where asgore tells frisk to do the same thing"

Close, but honestly not quite. Asgore says (word for word) "take my soul, and leave this cursed place". But it definitely was a part of what that scene was based on. A small part admittedly. It also is a nod to how the SPARE function works in Undertale, outside of the Asgore battle anyways. You don't fight back- you take each hit, and you just grin and bear it, continuing to try and connect with them and see what they're like. You never really think about what it looks like from the other side though...

———

"Seam saying the stuff about the player just makes me think of the snowgrave route"

I wonder why? Maybe it was intentional? :) But seriously though, if someone who did the Snowgrave route for fun had gotten this sort of situation, things would be a lot worse. And no, I'm not gonna go down that path for any spin-off stuff. Too dark. (Doesn't mean I'm gonna stop anyone else.)

———

@prhthezanko:

"Oh I love the details. The souls, the fact that Player will still have control (assuming nothing stops that), and so much. Here's an interesting thing, What would happen if the Player would reset just after Disconnection? Would they be able to go back before the Disconnection or would they end up at the point of Disconnection? Basically, would they be able to reset where Kris would have the soul still or would the Disconnection of the soul lock them out of the previous saves."

The timeline for that segment is fixed- anything that has been witnessed by the Player becomes a fixed event. Timelines are weird, but I'll try and explain it.

The timeline of the Light and Dark worlds is, in a way, separate from that of the Over World. The game is more or less a 'gateway' into a particular time and place in one of those worlds. Normally, the timeline is just an A to B line.

But when the Over World gets put into play, things are different. With the Player witnessing things from outside, those events are locked into place- anchoring points of sorts. This means that if the Player sees or experiences an event, it can't be reset. This is because of the distinction between Kris and the Player. Kris, being part of the world, would pull everything else back with them- otherwise there would already be a copy of Kris there, and that would break things immediately.

But the Player, upon arrival, hadn't existed until then. So while they can go back in time, they don't actually pull the rest of the world back with them. This is why they saw themselves at the Heaven/Hell gate split- they hadn't pulled the edge of the timeline back. As mentioned earlier, encountering themselves directly, with the added notation of directly changing the timeline by altering their past self, would likely cause an error in the 'gateway'. But things like this, where their past self is left unaltered, are stable, and will remain in place.

Since the Player witnessed and directly influenced the disconnection of the SOUL, it is a fixed event. If they were to alter it, then things would just revert to an earlier state before the attempt to change it. Paradox protection of sorts. If the Player never disconnected the SOUL, then they would have never been there to stop themselves from disconnecting the SOUL. Another error in the timeline.

I will say that the particular situation you bring up is interesting. It could have many implications. However, for the time being, the Player is not going to stop themselves from disconnecting the SOUL- likely only to encourage it- and none of the in-"game" characters can change it either...

———

"I’m guessing gaster will be the reason why player will go back in time again"

"Wait player will go back in time again. how far back will they go?"

Firstly, Gaster may be involved, but that remains to be seen. We'll see sooner or later.

Second, it could be a variety of possibilities. Could end up going back to the beginning of the story. We have no idea.

———

And now we return to asks from after the most recent story segment. If your ask from before that point wasn't responded to, I sincerely apologize. There's just too many of them to get all of them in one post with a reasonable size. This on its own is a whole AAR segment on its own! (Also back to the usual indicator for between questions, eight lines instead of three)

————————

First, a few of the reaction "asks".

"Ooh things are getting interesting!!"

"I’m excited to see what happens next!"

"Ooh it’s about to go down!"

I'm glad I can make the story enjoyable enough for you all! It's honestly fun to write whenever I'm not dealing with writer's block ._.

————————

"I wonder what will happen now" (x2)

————————

"Wait so where did player sleep when they were at Kris and Toriel’s house" (also x2)

Probably either the couch or one of the chairs. Pretty simple. (Though I will say I get the confusion.

————————

"Yay you’re back!"

Yeah, kinda ^-^; I still have lots of stuff going on and Christmas break was more hectic than I thought. But I'm still gonna do my best...

————————

"'You went off-topic. Again. You do that a lot. Can you just, for once in all these interactions, just get the information out?' Lol player is literally all of us"

...isn't that the point? XD

But seriously Gaster is the master of monologue. Susie could probably just sneak behind him and scare him to give him a heart attack and win. We don't need three hours of riddles and stuff when you're gonna explain it anyways with five minutes of actual information.

But of course, such is his character and personality.

————————

"Player: I know I said I wanted to be a part of this game but this is not what I was expecting"

Player: sees the game doing stuff without them Also Player: WHY DID I GET SUCKED INTO THE GAME THAT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN

I mean seriously, you see a game doing weird things and don't stop to think "hey that's weird maybe I should just not mess with it"

and instead say "oh cool I want to mess with it and put myself in"

and then are surprised when you are literally put in.

In all seriousness though, you hit the nail on the head.

————————

@hypnonerdcookiepatrol:

"So the player is staying in the dark world"

For now anyways. :)

————————

@prhthezanko:

"At long last, we end up at the part where we decided to see things through. But now, this is when it all changes, right~? Will the Player get the timeline control again since Kris should be disconnected? Or will there be some unintended side effects of meddling where you shouldn't? Time will tell, and reality shall break.

Determined to see the end, the Player ventured recklessly, but now, they will face the consequences of their actions, and the consequences shall be seen by them firsthand. Will Gaster keep them there because the soul is needed for his plan, who can tell~?"

...holy crap you just wrote that description they have on the back of the book what the peck

Anyways, we'll just have to see how it works out with the Player in the mix. We don't quite even know what we're dealing with in the first place! So yeah, definitely gonna be a tough part to write.

I will say that I'm gonna try not to go down the path of Chronology (another really good fan-continuation to Paper Trail, go check it out), so while there may be bits and pieces inspired by that, it's not going to be that at all.

So yeah, this one may take a while to write. I need to figure out a lot of unknown factors.

That being said, I'll do my best to make sure it's a really good part. I sadly can't guarantee anything (since I personally have no idea how good it is until I post it and see reactions), but I will strive to do my utmost.

————————

And with that said and done, Anonymous Ask Responses #20 comes to a close. I hope you all understand how difficult it may be for this upcoming story part, plus college difficulties on top of that. However I do have a few ideas already, so it may come out sooner or later depending on how much I can weave together.

Thank you @prhthezanko for continuing to send interesting asks with pretty much every iteration of AAR, and sorry if I do miss your asks sometimes ._.; and also thanks to all the Anons, the asks do keep me somewhat motivated (even though I'm pretty sure there's a few asks that are from the same person, hah).

Hopefully the next part of story will be good, as it definitely is gonna be a tough one to write. But until then, I'll see you all later!

[pt-disconnected]

PLS REMEMBER TO SLEEP

I do, don't worry. Usually when I'm writing I tend to get on a roll and if I stop it takes a bit to get going again. But just keeping it going makes it get done, and if I get done then it's over with and I can enjoy both having the writing done and the sleep that follows. I know my limits- usually if it's late I'll limit myself, that's why the last Anon Asks took a bit. Plus I had a few other things- I'm headed to college myself, much like Asriel. Luckily I'm gonna have time to do other things, such as PT: Disconnected- I have one or two classes each weekday at most. Thus I'm gonna have at least a few parts of story out periodically. (Again, if I'm off for an extended duration, like nothing in a month, feel free to send an ask mentioning it. I don't want to leave off suddenly like that, and the asks actually remind me "oh hey, there's people who enjoy this, I should keep going". Because most stuff I do mainly affects nobody else, but this is something else entirely.

On that note, I might try and write some more soon.

[pt-disconnected]

Heyo. I've got a couple questions regarding your PT-Disconnected fanfic. Why did you decide to write this fanfic? What made you decide on the specific story direction? How did you feel about the ending of Paper Trail itself? Also, I'm not sure if you knew but Lynx has a Discord server that is linked through the original Paper Trail posts on tumblr (on the bottom near the tags). There are some fun discussions about Deltarune, Paper Trail, and Lynx's other works on there if you're interested.

Heya! Thanks for the asks- these are honestly pretty good questions! Here's the answers to each (in the respective order):

- I decided to write this fanfic because I really enjoyed Paper Trail, and the open ending left many questions- however, with Lynx saying that they wouldn't be making any continuation to this, it meant that I either had to wait for someone else to make a continuation, or that I had to make one myself. And, well, I decided that I wanted to see how my imagination played things out. So I created this blog and wrote the first part of Disconnected. I honestly never expected any more than maybe a couple dozen followers, after all someone else had to do their own continuation eventually. But, turns out that nobody really did for a while... and now, PT-Disconnected has over a hundred followers- more than four times as many as I had expected. So I continue the story, and I'll be honest, it's pretty rewarding to see people enjoying the story to this level!

- The story direction is honestly on-the-spot; I mostly made things up as I went along. A few things got planned out beforehand- I knew I wanted to keep things as faithful to Lynx's story as I could. And when I thought about Kris' SOUL being under the Player's influence, I knew that the Player would be accessing that SOUL's SAVE file... which was an aspect taken from another of Lynx's comics, Dogs Of Future Past. And since the most recent SAVE in the Paper Trail comic was at the crossroads in Lairse's Dark World, it kinda cemented the time travel aspect. So I decided to run with that. Plus, the idea of there being a 'layer' above the Light World (as explained by Gaster in Lynx's comic) gave me the idea of utilizing something similar to Kris and company entering the Dark World from the Light World, just one 'layer' higher. So lots of the PT-Disconnected mechanics are either inspired by or directly from Lynx's comics, as an effort to keep things faithful to them. (After all, it's not really a good continuation if the mechanics are extremely different from the original.)

- Personally, I had mixed feelings about the ending. However, I accept it- the ending fits how Paper Trail worked as a whole. As much as the cliffhanger pained me, and how there were so many loose ends left untied, I know that we couldn't see the end of that story- not from how Lynx played it out. Although, it did give me inspiration to do some writing- and it turns out, it's quite worth it! So, in the end, it was a positive thing for me, and I'm willing to live with it.

And as for the Discord server I definitely think I'll take a look at it! Thanks for letting me know!