Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

Spoiler: Climbing the mountain

It's possible that a kid got lost on a mountain and, instead of climbing back down or sitting to wait for rescue, decided to keep climbing up it and into a cave. It is in no way my first theory. *Eta. Partly because I'm not sure how a kid gets lost on a mountain in the first place. How does a kid accidentally climb a mountain? Or is it something more like, Chara meant to climb it, but got off the path they knew, and didn't know how to get back home?

Chara (a) is willing to eat buttercups to die a painful death in order to free the monsters, and (b) at no point indicates nostalgia for their home from before falling in the cave.

My headcanon's that Chara went up there deliberately to escape their previous life. There's a couple of things in the game that add to that headcanon.

It's possible that Chara got lost and confused, but I'm not managing to think of anything in the game that leads me to that conclusion. This is a thing where I'd need to hear at least one thing in favor of the idea, since it's going up against a pre-existing headcanon.

Spoiler: Abandoned Quiche

Yep! That's a possibility, and a fun and interesting way to look at it.

My point is, on a meta level, the tweet is the origin of the reference. What we make of it after that is a separate matter.

 

Spoiler: Climbing Mt. Ebott

Although, just because 'accidentally got lost' isn't a very good theory for Chara in specific, it works just fine for most of the other humans. Frisk's backstory is... VERY loosely defined, and it's wiiiide open for everyone else. Which makes for some interesting possibilities!

 

Spoiler: Yeah!

I think the scholar, of the cloudy glasses and torn notebook, climbed up intentionally for the exploration and mystery of it all. :3

 

@Avery And I don't mean to be steamrolling you with a bunch of replies, so I'm sorry if we had that effect.

 

All this stuff really makes me want to hear about what happens after.

Spoiler: postgame?

I mean, how goddamn shocked are people going to be when someone comes back from the Mountain of Tragic Disappearances? Did anyone even remember that monsters lived underneath? How long ago was this war?

 

I think I might be stuck on "everyone seems so SURE and I am not seeing the evidence being compelling enough to be that sure, even though I do see the evidence and find it valid, can't tell if personal or informational component is missing". I am starting to suspect it's a personal component, and maybe everyone is not as sure as I think they are.

And no worries, I felt a little overwhelmed, but I don't feel pressured to change my opinion or anything. And more people = more viewpoints = better understanding, too.

Spoiler: My interpretation of this dialog

I see this more as Asriel wondering if Frisk was suicidal than saying that Chara was, though it could also potentially support that. Something about the way he phrases it and where he trails off. What this tells me is two main things. 1) Chara either told Asriel why they climbed the mountain, or Asriel found out somehow. 2) We only know the reason was "not happy", which could mean it's sad, or that it was an angry reason, or a scary reason.

Spoiler: Contrasting Frisk and Chara

I feel like a big difference between them is that a desire to return to the surface is attributed to (pacifist and neutral run) Frisk. Chara seemed to only be in support of that to free monsters and/or destroy humanity. This had something to do with that I was thinking of, but I forgot while typing. :P

Spoiler: Chara's Motivations

I feel like being either abandoned or kicked out of your home would be sufficient to explain what else we know of Chara's behaviors without needing to consider whether or not they were suicidal at the time. If someone abandoned me to die because they didn't want the responsibility of a child, it might mess me up similar. In a "stay here until I come back *leaves forever*" scenario, I'd feel really betrayed and possibly hate people for it, even more so if I found out what humanity did to monsters shortly after.

Not spoilers, because vagueish, but I was totally the type of kid who would have gotten lost on that mountain, even if I knew it was implied to be a death sentence to travel on it. That's plenty believable to me. XD

 

Spoiler: not at all serious Abandoned Quiche thoughts

I might as well write this down now that I'm thinking about it, so I won't forget. Like, the quiche is probably pointing just to Frisk, but the only other mention of quiche comes from Papyrus, mistaking Sans baking a pie as a quiche. So there's a tentative link between the skeletons and the abandoned quiche. Soooo you could argue that there was some hint that those two had been abandoned, in some way.

At that point, my mind feverishly runs off into ridiculous angsty ideas about baby-bones skeletons, and Gaster being their father or having created them as experiments. Either way, he "just wasn't ready for the responsibility", and soon after he falls into the Core anyway, so they don't remember that they were abandoned. Did he just shove them out into the world, or drop them off at Snowdin directly? Maybe the latter, since their house could have been his originally (the workshop and such), and that was their consolation prize. "I can't take care of you, but at least here's a place to live"?

I think I like this idea mostly because art of little Sans taking care of even littler Papyrus is really cute and sad. >_> I can't back this up properly at all.

 

@Lambda and also the thread in general, I think Sans was baking a pie because

Spoiler: I'm shipper trash

he got a recipe from Toriel, known pie baker and skeleton confidante.

 

@Avery Well, yeah, but there's no reason why that throw-away line can't have multiple levels of meaning behind it. *is also Soriel shipping trash

 

Ah, that wasn't meant as a... a rebuff? I hadn't realized that at first and wanted to share. I seem to do that a lot with Undertale. XD

And for the record, I am 10000% here for skelebros having to take care of each other as skelesmols, either one or the other, or both.

 

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be rude/implying you were being rude. :P No problem.

 

Spoiler: demon child discussion

i've always seen frisk and chara as developing differently based on whose personality the player allows to dominate. if you choose frisk, they will go on to develop friends and family they did not have previously, and chara is able to come to terms with themselves and realize they don't need to kill humanity.

at least, provided they (you) don't reset the timeline, in which case i believe either a) chara is not satisfied with asriel's fate in the true ending and wants to try again, something frisk could be on board with or b) chara is still bitter about everything that happened to them and become warped, going on the genocide path

 

Spoiler: A few things I will probably need to reword when awake.

Video #4. Asriel telling Chara that he doesn't like this idea. Stammering, responding to things that Chara says (or has said before).

"Big kids don't cry."

"No, I'd never doubt you!"

I can't draw the lines of it, but something about it reminds me of Rhett and Ray, someone who's pressured to change to another's view, and follows out of a love/fear of the person rather than genuine agreement.

It seems to me that Chara pushed and Asriel acquiesced, and he came to an unhealthy dependence on Chara for validation. If they had lived, they might have both grown out of this. But they didn't.

At some point, I forget when but I suspect in the geno route, Flowey claims he started out being confused and sad, but helping everyone to fix their problems. That he started killing peolle later, once he got bored and frustrated about not caring about anyone.
In Nes Home in the geno run, Flowey says that he's fine with not resetting asblong as Chara's with him again. He goes on and on about the kill or be killed lesson he learned from his choice to not murder the humans, from the wounds he recieved and his guilt and anger with himself for ollowing the plan but backing out at the end.
Pacifist Final boss Asriel cries out for Chara to just let him kill them so he can reset, that he's not ready to let them go, that they're the only person he cares about anymore.

Asriel, and thus Flowey, cared very much about what Chara thought... but didn't genuinely agree with it.

I'm not saying Chara was a demon and master manipulator. That's fine as an occasional interpretation, but I don't think it matches well enough with canon to be the main depiction.

I'm saying... Maybe Chara started out as a lost, confused kid, rather than someone who deliberately ran away from home. I don't find that convincing, useful, or interesting. Chara chose to die of poison, deliberately eating flowers to get sick and die, to give their soul to Asriel. The plan, as Asriel understood it, was to cross the barrier, bring Chara's body to the flowers, and kill just six humans (probably bad people) in order to peacefully free the monsters.

Asriel tells Frisk that it was Chara's mind that controlled his body through thd barrir, carrying Chara's body. That it was Chara's mind that decided to start attacking the humans, and Asriel who decided not to.

It's possible Asriel lied about this.

But I think he didn't. His guilt over breaking his promise to get the souls, his betrayal at Chara breaking their promise by wanting to indiscriminately attack humans, his grief over their needless death, and his emptiness at not feeling love or empathy fof anyone... that's a storm that makes zense of the Flowey we meet.

Anger at people who treated them badly, confusion over being treated well, and a clever, clever idea makes sense of what we headabout Chara.

The only stuff we have of eithernof those kids, unfiltered by a story's perspective, is the videos in the true lab. The things that Astiel says, and seems to rsspond to. I get a not-good feeling from that negative space of what Charamight have said.

Spoiler: Babybones

I keep seeing pics like that on my dash, and it so doesnt match my headcanons that I've ben confused and annoyed by it... but that makes it make more sense, thanks.

My main objection is, but Sans said "our" readings said"... but that could work and be even more sad. Identifying strongly with the not-Dad they hardly knew, reading and rereading what bits of info he had to get as much as he could...

 

Spoiler

Undyne says "millenia," but she might be exaggerating.
In the opening image, the human seems to be holding a stone spear and wearing furs.
I believe Gerson was alive when they were sealed. How long do monster turtles live?

 

Baby bones fucks me up because it implies that Sans and Papyrus either came out of a bone womb or skeleton eggs, and I don't know which is less alarming and weird.

Don't get me started on the goddamn ghosts, jesus dick.

 

Earlier today I saw a headcanon and accompanying comic that baby monsters are (or at least can be) created magically when the two parents feel either a strong love or strong friendship for one another. (which doesn't quite fit in with Toriel being "so excited to be having this child," but it's still a cute headcanon.)

Let me find said comic...

 

Maybe skeletons and ghosts are related species.

 

found the cute comic about accidental friendship baby

 

With this kind of thing, I go with a rule of "be internally consistent, explain everything else with magic". Also storks. Explain it with storks.

Because, like, if a skeleton can move without muscles, I am willing to believe anything can happen in that universe!

 

I'm imagining their friendship baby as looking like. a fish-person like undyne with transparant skin so you can see the bones.