#fountainshift

Light World Object: The battery-operated Santas around Noelle's house Light World Backstory: Weird little things that vaguely resemble Santa Claus. Sometimes Kris would attempt to "starve" them. It only made them stronger. Dark World Backstory: Used to deliver presents to all the Darkners on Christmas Eve, just like the real Santa. However, after Merri converted the Dark World into a museum, all of the Santaguy's presents were taken and put on display, putting the 'guys out of the job. They then found work (whether they liked it or not) as the museum's security force, guarding the objects they used to give out freely. Personality/Character Info: They're basically just Christmas-themed Shadowguys. They can only say "ho ho ho" and make the sounds of whatever instrument they're holding.

Light World Object: Dess's guitar

Light World Backstory: Pretty self-explanatory. Carol has perfectly preserved Dess's entire bedroom, guitar included. It's the only non-damaged instrument in the collection.

Dark World Backstory/Personality/Character Details: Noelle's TV is seemingly still in-use, so it didn't make much sense for it to wax unhealthily nostalgic like Tenna in Chapter 3. This is why I decided that Dess's guitar would fill Tenna's role instead. Essentially, Merri used to be more of a punkish free spirit like Dess (or at least what little of Dess we can infer as of Chapter 4), but after Dess's disappearance and/or death, she was left alone and unplayed in the bedroom for a good long while. Carol still had to come in to dust from time to time, and gradually, in a desperation to maintain some sense of purpose, Merri started picking up some of Carol's negative characteristics. In particular, Carol's obsession with preservation led to Merri transforming the Holiday house Dark World from a wild yet cozy winter wonderland, to a neat and tidy museum. Objects, setpieces, and even some Darkners were made into various exhibits, to be safely observed from a distance rather than interacted with directly. The Darkners who haven't been put on display are forced to act as Merri's dutiful employees, either operating the vast museum or lending their musical talents to her grand orchestra (She can't quite shake her love of music). She's a control freak obsessed with preserving order, harmony, and the past.

Merri would force the Fun Gang to sit through a loooooooong, boring tour of her museum for the first portion of the chapter, making it more bearable by promising them a part in her concert at the end (Susie expects it to be a rock concert, only for it to turn out to be classical). The latter would take the form of a "Lightners Live"-style minigame, and each leg of the tour would be capped off with a quiz. Noelle would be the only one fully on board with all of this, as it reminds her of the happy times with Dess, but the exhibits would become more uncomfortable and personal as they go, leading to the Fun Gang inevitably giving Merri the slip.

Light World Object: Kris's DAW software.

Light World Backstory: Kris used to compose music using this software, and at some point used it to partially assemble a collaborative track between them and Dess, for use in one of Asriel's games. Dess disappeared, and Asriel moved out, which made it difficult for Kris and Az to stay motivated to work on the song or the game. The death nail for the project came when Kris finally resolved to return to the project, only to find some sort of unkillable, unidentifiable malware that had apparently been festering in the files for the audio workstation ever since Dess disappeared. The malware corrupted the DAW, so that extra notes would be added to songs willy-nilly, and the software could only export black MIDI files. The data corruption started spreading to the rest of the music folder, and since the malware couldn't be identified by the PC's antivirus, Kris opted to move all the uncorrupted files, quarantine the music folder, and abandon the unfinished track altogether.

Dark World Backstory: P.T. Black used to be Cyber Land's hottest music producer, pumping out hit after hit with his star performers, the Goggins, under the careful guidance of Kris's hand. His dream, however, was for one of his stars to perform in Prince's biggest, grandest carnival, immortalizing his own name alongside them in lights. Lucky for him, the Lightners introduced him to Merri A. Chi, a talented punk rocker, who had "star" practically written all over her. And she was visiting specifically to record music for Prince's main attraction. The opportunity was too good to pass up. He immediately knew that she was his best shot at getting an in with the Cyber Land's top brass, and quickly reached out to Merri under the guise of friendship, offering a generous contract to produce her music and make her a Big Shot. And things went well for a while. But over time, he changed the terms of their agreement, worming his way into her contract, with his name taking up more and more of the spotlight whenever they released new music. And still, Prince didn't take notice of his efforts. Until one day, during an extended visit from Queen, by sheer coincidence, he happened to patronize the same cyber bar as one Spamton G. Spamton. The two hit it off, and Spamton invited his new pal to a tour of his "luxury" digs one town over, just off the set of "TV Time". All the while, P.T. attempted to coax any information he could out of the salesman-turned-mailsman about how he got so close to a big shot like Mister Ant Tenna himself. But Spamton was a steel trap. Ol' P.T. Black was about to throw in the towel when a lone rotary phone in the corner of the room started to ring. And before Spamton could react, P.T. grabbed the receiver and held it to his ear...

He arrived to Merri's next recording session in a sorry state. Merri initially wrote it off as simply a hangover from another one of her producer's notorious benders, but it quickly became apparent that something was wrong. The life in his eyes was gone, his movements were stiff, and his speech was frequently interrupted by random sound bites from God-knows-where. And for some reason, when he showed her the final recording, the playback was nothing but garbage noise.

She never showed up to another session.

Personality/Character Details: He's a sleazy record producer, as I'm sure you've gathered. He's a bit better than Spamton at maintaining a facade of benevolence, but thanks to his malware- induced corruption, his true intentions always bleed through eventually. Even before said corruption, he always had a greasy, used car salesman kind of vibe to him. Almost every word out of his mouth was a lie, a selfish demand, or a sales pitch. Honestly, the only reason the Goggins stuck around was because he was the only producer in town, though in his mind they were fiercely loyal to him.

He's still desperate to live out his dream of having his name in lights in Prince's carnival, and now, with the creation of the Dark Fountain, he has an unprecedented opportunity to use Kris themself as his puppet star performer.

Some part of him probably genuinely misses Merri, but he's so far gone at this point that any selfless emotions are buried deep below his pile of insecurities and desperation.

Also, he sometimes involuntarily speaks in brackets like Spamton, but all of his bracketed interjections are song lyrics pulled from whatever music Kris had saved before quarantining the music folder (but really just actual songs from real life, because it's fun).

Light World Object: Kris and Asriel's desktop PC Light World Backstory: Before Asriel left, he had started working on a game as a passion project, loosely similar to Undertale. It was never completed. And yet, the files still remain, along with crude drawings that both siblings have made for it and various other projects over the years. When Asriel went off to college, he took his ideas for that dream game with him, but Kris was stuck at home, and frequently used the PC to video chat with Asriel. Recently though, with the internet out, even that practice has ended, leaving the computer to simply collect dust in the corner... Dark World Backstory: Prince used to be the ruler of a carnival kingdom of nigh-limitless creativity, helping Kris and Asriel to bring even their most embarrassing and disturbing ideas to life in the form of fantastical amusements and attractions. But one day, Asriel moved away, and the distance between him and his sibling caused Cyber Land's attendance to plummet overnight. And with the internet out, there's no creative input to inspire new innovations and expansions, either. The Land has stagnated, but Prince is still itching to satiate their creative drive, even if it requires causing some destruction first.

Personality/Character Details: Like the image says, Prince is essentially Queen but worse. I based them on the general vibe (and face design) of some of Toby's early Queen concepts, back when she was meant to be genuinely intimidating (Her appearance was also partially based on Josephine Baker, but that's neither here nor there). Prince is still an eccentric egomaniac who spouts internet humor, but it all has more of a bite to it. Prince has spent their entire existence in Kris and Asriel's bedroom. Thus, they're intimately aware of Kris's insecurities, their darkest, most intrusive thoughts, and, alarmingly, their relationship with the SOUL. Of course they won't blab about that to Kris's friends, as long as the latter agrees to contribute to Prince's fun and games.

Speaking of, this hypothetical Cyber Land chapter, while it follows the general structure of canon Chapter 2, leans more heavily into the carnival/amusement park theming. The carnival/park would be the Dark World manifestation of the "EPIC games Stuff!!!!" folder, with some kind of big, unfinished grand attraction at the center around the Dark Fountain. Prince's driving motivation is their desire to not only get the park up and running again, but to expand it. They want to force Kris to continue where Asriel left off, and keep going forever. To turn the entire world into an inescapable funland designed by the Dreemurr siblings and ruled by Prince themself.

Prince speaks directly to the audience through their microphone, acting as a sort of PG-13 Burlesque performer crossed with a circus ringmaster.