W.D. Gaster

W.D. Gaster is a cryptid who is namedropped in Undertale's easter egg events and appears more properly in Deltarune.
==Canon Overview==
===In Undertale===
Gaster's name is brought up in many of Undertale's FUN events, where his past is discussed: He was once the Royal Scientist, predecessor to Alphys, who built the CORE, the power plant that uses the thermal energy of magma to create electricity for the whole Kingdom of Monsters. However, one day his experiments went wrong and fell into his creation, which for some reason scattered him across time and space. The only monsters who mention him are the grayed-out "Gaster Followers" or "Goners", who can be met if the player's FUN value falls between certain specific ranges. Because his brilliance was irreplaceable, Asgore Dreemurr is said to have taken a long time to hire Alphys as his replacement. He also appears to be the author of at least one of the reports in the True Lab, which is both normally inaccessible in-game and written in Wingdings.
In other FUN events, the player can access a fake sound test that features his theme, somehow receive a phone call that may have been meant for him, and meet a monster resembling Yume Nikki's Uboa, who some theorize may be Gaster himself.
These events are only available on the Steam version of the game, as the Switch version does not allow the player to alter the files.
===In Deltarune===
It is commonly believed that Gaster took over the official Undertale twitter (both English and Japanese versions) from October 30-31, 2018 in order to advertise the Deltarune demo.Who Dr. Gaster Is and Why That Matters to Deltarune (13:20 - 14:00)PIECES OF GASTER vol. 1 | All Gaster Secrets Theories Evidence Explained in Undertale + Deltarune (17:34 - 17:47)When Gaster takes over the Undertale Twitter, everything turns black/gets covered with darkness. HmmBreaking News Gaster Tweets on Undertale Official During this event he claimed to have been searching for the players of Undertale as they have searched for him, and invited the players to take part in a "survey" that would be used to complete something new. He claims to look forward to the future we will create together with him.
It is frequently thought that he also appears in the intro to Deltarune, where he has the player create a human vessel to act through, similar to Undertale's Chara.PIECES OF GASTER vol. 1 | All Gaster Secrets Theories Evidence Explained in Undertale + Deltarune 18:54 - 19:04Who Dr. Gaster is and why That Matters to Deltarune 13:20 - 14:00I Know Who's Speaking in the Opening SequenceWD Gaster and Deltarune a Comprehensive Guide The vessel's appearance and personality are customizable, though a few of the personality traits are a bit odd. The player is asked to name the vessel and provide their own name. Gaster criticizes the player if the vessel is given the player's name, but if the player has the same name as certain new cast members, he tells them that they are about to meet someone "very, very wonderful". However, this vessel is rejected by someone else (theorized to be Chara based on their speech pattern in the Japanese version of the game), who then puts us in charge of Kris instead.
He appears to be the one clogging Kris' phone in the Dark World segment, and in a randomly spawning event he is believed to be able to offer us an egg in this trying time.PIECES OF GASTER vol. 1 | All Gaster Secrets Theories Evidence Explained in Undertale + Deltarune 35:00 - 35:22Gaster is an egg
Gaster also is thought to appear on the Game Over screen in the first chapter, allowing the player to restart from the last checkpoint. At the player's first retry, he tells us that the future is now in our hands.
Unlike in Undertale, in Deltarune Gaster's dialogue is not rendered in Wingdings. In English he speaks in voice squeak-less allcaps that glow, and in Japanese he speaks in kanji and katakana; his text has a unique fadein/fadeout effect.
Needless to say no one knows what this guy's deal is yet and we are all very nervous about the many, many possibilities.
==Fandom==
Gaster was discovered by dataminers shortly after Undertale's release, back in the period while the FUN events pertaining to him were still accidentally dummied out. While he and the other Deltarune previews were initially thought to have been added to the game just to have a secret creepypasta, he was the source of a great deal of wild speculation among fans, especially once Toby began to make vague remarks"Its very nature is shrouded in darkness." - Toby Fox on Twitter, posted 31 December 2015 (retrieved 23 November 2018) about wanting to start a "darker" new project ("Dark yet darker" being a line from Gaster's remaining lab report).
In fanwork, Gaster is usually portrayed as the mystery man who can be met in Waterfall in a FUN event and is usually trapped in the void and/or is forgotten by everyone. He is portrayed as everything from a mad scientist who is pure evil (unlike any other Undertale character) to a well-meaning or goofy character and is often depicted as Sans and Papyrus' father. Fanart of him eating instant noodles or getting his clothes caught in a roomba is popular in Japan for some reason.
Since Deltarune, fan treatment of Gaster is changing again, with an even deeper split between the "evil villain" and "wacky void grandpa" factions. Of Gaster's takeover of the official Twitter, one Japanese fan said "[Gaster is] on Twitter now, he's dropped Wingdings out of consideration for the fans and is bilingual now, he types hella slow, he keeps indenting stuff weirdly... This is doing some Stuff to his perceived character archetype in this fandom"ツイッターデビューするし、ファンの事考えてWindings捨てて英語と日本語喋り出すし、タイプするの遅いし、小分けだし、ますます博士の属性が複雑になっていくヤバいぞ - Pinosuke on Twitter, 30 October 2018 (Retrieved 23 November 2018 and "He's acting like a dad bad at technology trying to use LINE to bond with his kids"子供に頑張ってLINE送ってるお父さん感ある - Pinosuke on Twitter, 30 October 2018 (Retrieved 23 November 2018.
===Fan Theories===
Gaster is usually thought to be connected in some way to Sans and Papyrus (their father, creator, brother, coworker etc) for various reasons, including that his name is a portmanteau of two fonts (Wingdings and Aster), which they speak in, Sans' blasters in the files are called referred to as Gaster Blasters, and that the Mystery Man from Waterfall looks like they could be a corruption of a skeleton, with that possibly being due to having "[fallen] into his creation", and also most fun value based events relate to him.
In 2017 Toby posted some of his first notebook sketches of the initial concept for Papyrus to twitter. Written on the side of this page is a note reading "has a brother named comic sans and a [REDACTED] named [REDACTED]"(apparently) the genesis of papyrus - Toby Fox on Twitter, 8 January 2017 (retrieved 25 November 2018), which is often taken as evidence of this theory.
The identity of the "you two" Gaster mentions in his lab log is another source of furious speculation. Favored possibilities include Sans and Papyrus or Sans and Alphys; since the release of the Deltarune demo, new possibilities include Chara and Asriel, or characters from Deltarune that have not yet been introduced, as the rest of the lab log is believed to refer to Deltarune's dark world.
=== Backlash ===
Some fans, even those who like Gaster, feel that fandom on the whole over-emphasizes his presence in the game and treats him like he's more relevant to the main story of Undertale than he really is. YouTuber Dorked has called this "The Fandom Mandela Effect", for fans who not only treat him this way but legitimately believe it, even going so far as to theorize that the writings in True Lab are his.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phd0cjrc1F8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q3u1VffIOk
===Common Pairings===
*Gaster/Sans (Sanster)
*Asgore/Gaster (Kingdings)
==Fanworks==
===Fanfic===
*lucky pennies from the void - tealmoon
*ending, beginning - simplycarryon
*Dusting off Bones - Phantomrose96 (WIP)
*The Scientist - talkingsoup
*memeing across time and space - threefourthstime
===Fanart===
*Handplates comic by Zarla-s
*"WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK" - miamitu
*when you arrive at the void and reality finally sets in - goopyspacegirl
*Twisted father comic by parknewna
*Don't have to hide comic by TheBombDiggity666
*The River's Warning comic by TyI95
===Meta===
*W.D.Gaster masterpost - nochocolate
*Gaster and the Egg - musical-gopher
*Who Dr. Gaster Is and Why That Matters to Deltarune - Misty Sparkles
==Archives and Fannish Links==
*W.D. Gaster-tagged works on AO3
==References==
Category:Undertale Characters
Category:Deltarune Characters