Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

a theory about that 'the undertale world is post-apocalyptic' thing that can make the humans about as advanced as us, in 21xx, while still providing a reason for monsters to be more technologically advanced

a long, long time ago, humans and monsters both ruled over the earth. almost every human had at least a little magic ability. all technology was sufficiently advanced magic. whole cities would specialize in just a few types of goods. monsters with human souls and humans with monster souls powered whole cities with their magic and even looked towards the stars.

one day, war broke out. rising prejudices and tensions, corrupt officials, everything that generally messes things up. panicked, the greatest mages of their generation-the ones that managed to weasel out of the draft, anyway-found the buildings build to hold thaumic waste for ten thousand years, and converted them into vaults that would hold samples of every species, so that all their species would have a chance at revival. the society fell down. people could no longer make any of the advanced magitech anymore, as it relied on supply chains that had broken down or upon factories that had been destroyed. humans and monsters were knocked back to the Iron Age, and all the survivors had fled to the same general area. the vaults were left standing, indistinguishable from what they were meant to be.

everything went mad max for a bit. a rare few monsters could power or make some of the simpler technologies, like a fridge or an oven, and could produce monster food that never spoiled. humans were tough and strongly physical and Determined, and the magic they had was different to monster magic: while the capabilities overlapped they were separate things. the survivors organized their society to be led by a pair: a human and a monster. the Monarch of all Humans and the Monarch of all Monsters. the first Monarch of all Humans and the first Monarch of all Monsters were married, and raised a mixed-species family. humans and monsters lived in harmony in the ashes of the world they'd made.

several generations later, the current human King decided that it was magic that had caused the disaster, and so Magic should not be used. war broke out between the two races the moment he turned upon his co-worker-his cousin.

the seven greatest human mages had spent time learning how to create walls-to build with, originally, but as the King's dislike and hatred of magic grew they turned to research spells designed to seal again thaumic waste and other things-barriers designed to last ten thousand years or more, if need be.

the King of all Humans instated draconinan penalties for disobeying his anti-monster laws. he found the Seven Mages and he gave them a choice: use their magic to wipe the monsters off the face of the earth, preventing humans from ever knowing magic again, or have their families and possibly themselves killed or tortured or both.

they chose option three, and sealed the monsters away, burning away all they could bear to-years of their life, skills, senses, memories-to seal the monsters in an inverted version of a prison designed to hold for ten thousand years or until seven willing humans came together to destroy it. they did this, over and over again, sealing the monsters all away in prisons-or time capsules-until at last the last group of monsters were sealed away and the mages were left with only weeks to live, weeks they spent documenting all they could.

the monsters still had the simple technology they'd managed to salvage. the Mad King ordered old technology destroyed and did so by throwing it into the same sealed prisons that the monsters were in, having been told that the barrier was to prevent the spell of destruction the mages had claimed to put there from destroying the humans too. near the end of his life the Mad King started banning human mages from magic, too. people who sympathized with the monsters knew not to say so openly for fear of the King's response, but they could throw things into the river, 'to be destroyed' but in reality to give to the monsters.

the humans had to rediscover everything. it took them years to discover how to smelt metal without mages. they had to work out how to preserve food by trial and error, how to carry things without inventories, how to make ink and dyes, how to farm effectively-they had to rediscover everything.

and they did. still, people snuck trash into a few specific rivers, stories passed on through the generations explaining why. it took two thousand years since the monsters were sealed for the humans to reach anything like what they'd had before the First Great War, as they called it, and the monsters had spent that time surviving and reverse-engineering human trash and 'trash' and trying to improve upon old designs and building their way up.

a few small cults still say that monsters were evil, the Mad King was right, and that this nonmagical technology is just as Doomed and Evil and Wrong as the magical one.
but the ones that say monsters were gone-they all were proven wrong when one left Mt Ebott, a hundred years ago, and walked straight into the most prominent of those. that cult struggled along until it fell apart in an all-out rebellion, a single small child fleeing to mt ebott in the chaos to see for themself.

and the great vaults still stand, waiting for someone to read the writing on the walls.

 

tl;dr the monsters have the advantage of not being forced to throw away all the stuff they'd Mad Maxed to start from scratch, like the humans were forced to

 

headcanon: humans can cast monster-style magic, but cannot generate their own magic and must absorb the magic monsters give off.

the reason frisk falls unconscious for an unknown amount of time after the asriel fight is that they figured out how to absorb magic and proceeded to attempt to absorb the magic of an actual literal god which is. not the best idea!

the monsters were then too scared to move frisk because of all the magic clinging to and leaking out of their soul

they survived, obviously, but the magic changed them. their soul is...deeply weird, and they may or may not have resurrective immortality; they have never tested it and don't intend to try.

and they've still got some of the magic they absorbed. maybe, one day, they'll get into a situation bad enough to feel the need to use it.

 

a sudden thought: what if chara's "wow! you are super fast at being wrong!" line was like...a very strange complement
like, they're complementing frisk being super fast even if it's at being wrong

highly unlikely but leads to an amusing interpretation of chara giving out...utterly bizarre complements that sound like sarcasm or insults but nope. this weird ghost has weird ideas on Things Deserving Of Complements.

 

i just saw a comic which proposed the theory that it's not frisk that's the flirty kid but rather chara and like 90% of frisk's flirt options were just them humoring chara (or in the case of the alphys date...chara just Doing The Thing while frisk goes !? >:( ?)

https://skeleton-hugs.tumblr.com/post/136391044179/artbynators-okay-serial-flirter-frisk-is


it is hilarious and actually Explains A Thing, namely why flowey doesn't go "??? why is chara being such a flirt??" in the true pacifist run (remember, he thinks frisk is chara in that run too).

 

Maybe they're both flirty.

 

http://swirlingflight.tumblr.com/post/170438666715/becausebirds-dangerscissor-i-appreciate-how

how frisk gets their money in the pacifist run, maybe
(well, some of it is probably apology money. but, well, it fits their name...)


EDIT: what the hell why does this now link to a post about crows

 

a headcanon that literally came from listening to thunderstruck on repeat with a specific crossover on my mind:

there is a sort of poetry/song/prose format in monster culture, that involves at least two interleaving perspectives: Person A and their past or, in the case of major perspective+life changes, alternate self who has not done the perspective changes but has done at least part of the life changes. Like, a love/marriage song interweaved with bits from an alternative self who never changed their mind about nunhood and therefore never got married, or from the person's past self before they fell in love. Sometimes the two versions sing at once, not always with the same lyrics. It's interesting. The past or alternate self may be talking about their perspective on Actual's present or on their own present.

some magic cues are used to indicate who is who, along with using different tones or voices. usually Actual Person A's perspective is first, but not always, which puts an...interesting ambiguity into some songs.

Especially songs with two people singing. Those almost entirely use tone-there's some interesting things done with music videos, including different background colours, different fonts on the subtitles, etc to indicate these PoV changes, as well as a custom of using archaic forms and words in the past/alternates sections, which is literally the only context some words survive in. Differing tense choices, colours, and magic cues may be used to also indicate which when is being sung about about in works where there may be ambiguity.


poetry and prose use different fonts and text justifications to indicate Actual, Alternate/Past, and Both perspectives. things written centered, for example, are both. some works also use colours or sizing, as well as tenses, grammar changes, word choice, and in some bilingual works language to indicate which when is being talked about.

It is very complex.

 

...also, the heck, papyrus doesn't actually. use the actual official international typeface corporation papyrus font, which is apparently...trademarked or something??

he uses an off-brand version, papyrus ef regular

he's...off-brand knockoff papyrus???


also comic sans the font is really comic sans ms, which is 'comic sans microsoft' but ms after a name is 'master of science' so that might be why sans is a scientist
but

knockoff
papyrus???

http://swirlingreblogs.tumblr.com/post/170677437978/undertale-theories

 

what if frisk had some weird synthaesia that had them literally hearing magic
and that's why there's music

 

I've always headcanon'd that the skeletons have the foundry name of their font as a last name. Papyrus Letraset almost sounds like an Actual Person Name, but Comic Sans Microsoft is such a disaster that going by his middle name is the only reasonable choice. Wing Dings 1 Microsoft just kinda gave up.

 

ngl part of me is pointing at the off-brand font and shrieking "i knew it i knew it he's amnesiac gaster isn't he!!!1"

 

a headcanon: possession in the undertale universe falls into four types: neutral or mutualistic possession of a non-mage/monster, hostile/parasitic possession of a non-mage/monster, neutral or mutualistic possession of a mage/monster, and hostile/parasitic possession of a mage/monster.


those who cannot use magic and are in a hostile possession mostly become sensitive to magic, and/or resistant to the attack forms of magic.

those who can use magic and are in a hostile possession and fight for control (especially magically) experience a rapid increase in overall magical power and in monsters physical strength, which can actually exceed what they would normally be able to achieve with training. they also sometimes have an increase in DT reserve size and recovery speed-although usually not DT amounts in their body (basically their soul's store of DT grows larger but the amount actually Doing Things stays the same). after a period ranging from days to months, they also begin to become harder to possess-first harder to possess against their will, then eventually harder to possess at all. eventually they become impossible to be fully possessed against their will and the ghost or whatever has a choice of negotiate and come to a bodysharing agreement, sit there unable to do anything but watch, or leave and face a probably angry, determined and by this point inevitably very magically strong mage. note that the ghost or whatever also becomes magically stronger, but at a rate that is closer to actively training magic strength, which is slower.


mutualistic possession of those that cannot use magic has the interesting property that the possessor has difficulty with actively using their own magic too-everything is a bit harder. like trying to run in a weighted jacket. or under higher gravity.

mutualistic possession of those that can use magic also is interesting-each person in the arrangement can only actively use their own magic, but they can interfere with or stop each other's magic, or combine their magic in ways impossible for those not bodysharing.

interfering with each other's magic can have similar effects to a hostile possession in some ways-on both sides-but slower.

 

Dr Undertalescum and weia-yo have this really cool post (weia-yo sent an ask to Dr Undertalescum) about how Something is Up with Waterfall. https://drundertalescum.tumblr.com/...fav-headcanon-is-that-something-deeply-fucked

I now have a headcanon on what, exactly, is Up With Waterfall.


Years ago, when Chara had just awakened as a ghost, Alphys impressed the Royal Scientist with her invention, the Dimensional Box. It mimicked natural inventories, forming a stable 'pocket dimension' inside the Void that could hold a limited amount of items, defined more by the number of 'tethers' back to actual reality that it could support than by its physical size, which varied anyway and was a somewhat ill-defined concept in the Void. It effectively allowed everyone to have an inventory...or two...or three.

Gaster nominated her as his successor, but claimed she was merely an instrumental helper on his dimensional box project. He tried to start making them despite Alphys's objections. What he created was less a dimensional box, and more a dimensional bomb.
When he turned it on, his science team were all present, as was Chara's spirit (they were trying to figure out How To Tangible and were wandering around while doing so).

It sucked in everyone and everything near, essentially inventorying them without a proper tether nor a proper stabilized area of the Void. Or to put it another way: It took a chunk of the Underground and made it not just no longer real, but part of a 'place' that is the absence of reality-and allowed a chunk of the Void into the Underground in return.
It's the difference between "there is no other presence here" and "this place is occupied by the absence of a presence".

The Underground's geometry was rearranged in a way that really makes no sense. All of Waterfall makes no sense, and it gives you a headache to notice. (The average monster literally can't notice it on their own, and even if talked into noticing it would start forgetting major points pretty quickly.) The water flow is nonsense. The rock formations are nonsense.
Indeed, exposed rock as far as Snowdin was distorted in ways that make no geological sense, although the distortion only went as far as a few centimeters in.

All Waterfall populations of a bioluminescent flower that used magical energy to thaumosynthesise was distorted by the blast. They started recording sounds and playing them back, becoming echo flowers. Whole random areas of Waterfall are just gone and then distorted. There's a hallway where people will usually just skip a chunk of it containing a door, and not notice. It's possible to climb into someone's inventory. There's a huge plank structure that nobody lives in and nobody remembers its purpose. The water is disappearing. There's a whole village of beings called Temmies that just sort of appeared, and it requires you to walk through a wall and on the air to reach. Shopkeepers speak of strange things and cover up ancient writing with paint. A whole wing of the museum is gone and the plaques are scattered throughout Waterfall, as if they'd been installed on those wide-spread walls in the first place. Monsters became strange ghosts. The ferryperson and a clam-faced woman seem to exist just slightly outside of reality. The place isn't Euclidian. There's a room filled with whispers. Part of the dump has a hole leading to the Void.

Chara's existence is faintly remembered by several monsters, although they cannot remember details, let alone names. Gaster's influence on people was forgotten. Alphys became the Royal Scientist, but everyone forgot how that came to be, and her side-project of building Mettaton's body was shoved into the gap. Asgore, without the anti-human Gaster advising him, lost the will for war. For years, no-one could make out the exact shape of a fountain in what became Mettaton's hotel; eventually he replaced it with a copy of him, but for some reason the text on the plaque doesn't seem to start at the beginning.

Nobody alone can consciously remember those who were cast into the Void. Their names and faces and voices have been erased from all recordings of them that were not flung into the Void. Nobody can interact with the one who came back after they were cast into the Void.
Unless they're on a dose of DT strong enough to turn back time or raise the dead.

And that is what happened to Waterfall.

 

chara's name was picked by themself and so was erased from the world. that's why you can name them at the beginning; you're filling in a name-shaped hole in reality.

chara is their actual name but at that point they'll take damn near anything


also everyone who was flung into the void is an anti-meme to people who aren't like, time travellers or amalgamates or from the void, as is the cause of the event itself, although with some effort and a nasty headache you can remember for a bit (eventually you will lose focus and forget)

 

Idea: it makes sense for the anti-meme effects (basically, it's ridiculously hard and also painful to notice that Something is Up with Waterfall in-universe) to 'cost' DT to counteract. basically, if something happens that causes you to notice how weird Waterfall is, or you notice the Temmies all just appeared from nowhere, or are asked about anyone who went to the Void or anything like that, as well as the headaches you'll have a sudden big rise in DT use. for people with a high DT baseline, like the average human, that results in it being disproportionally tiring and if you do it a lot you start to get a soul-ache.

for someone with a low DT baseline, like the average monster, the effects are more serious. Low mood, numbness, exhaustion, chills, temporary colour-blindness, or even passing out can happen; it's possible to mistake it for the early stages of becoming fallen down (aka, depression) but really it's that your soul is up against a disaster that tore a hole in space-time and is holding its own for the moment.

for someone with a truely outrageous DT baseline, like frisk or an amalgamate, the increased effort can be swallowed up by standard fluctuations and all that happens is that it appears to take a little longer to create the same amount of DT. with such a ridiculously high baseline, forgetting occurs as with normal events or facts.

 

how do you think sans ties into this headcanon? does he not remember gaster/any other void-entities, just like the other monsters? or is he just barely managing to hold on to some scraps of memory? or is something else going on?

 

It's pretty much canon that Sans, unlike most other monsters, doesn't remember stuff like time travel at all, but is aware of its existence and has found ways to figure out when timeline changes have happened. Also, if the picture after a True Reset is any indication, he can also save stuff that shouldn't exist, so it could presumably be a similar thing going on there.

 

he was on the edge of it. he's just barely managing to hold onto some memories, although that state actually requires regular, tiny doses of DT to allow his soul time to recover; he was actually declared completely, irreversibly fallen down and therefore legally dead at one point and handed over to Alphys for her DT experiments. unlike the other test subjects he had a 'DT sink' that prevented him from melting and becoming an amalgamete, but as-is after he takes his medicine he sort of emits slime for a bit.

both the skelebros remember very little of their past, Papyrus even more so than Sans,; they even forgot their names, and renamed themselves after fonts. both also gained strange abilities: they can control gravity, teleport across short distances every few minutes or so even with a few tens of kilos of extra weight (sans can just barely teleport frisk) or over longer distances and more frequently between two 'hubs' that take a while to set up (sans has one at each sentry station), warp space, and treat the rules of the battlesystem as guidelines. they also have various absurd abilities, some technically possible without being on the very edge of the Waterfall Event and others quite definitely not, like...whatever the hell papyrus does to clip under Undyne's piano on his way out the window, or Sans stopping time.


he does, however, remember that before the Event, there was a skeleton named something like gaster, who had two children.

he knows that he's either an amnesiac gaster, a relative of gaster, or part of gaster.

but then again, the same could be true of papyrus.

at least sans remembers: there used to be three of them.
now there are two.


the skelebros assumed they are brothers, and that sans is older. for all they know, they were wrong.

Spoiler: spoiler

in my main headcanon they were right but hey. go wild.

 

yeah! sans and papyrus are both hecking weird and in this theory it's largely due to the Waterfall Event, including sans not remembering time travel but knowing it exists and being able to save things that should not exist, and papyrus knowing way more than he should (mettaton having eyes, for example, way before he reveals the existence of his EX form) and being able to see through an audio-only phone call.