>>531922880
So my super schizo belief is that the garbage noise is associated with FRIEND, not Gaster, and we were mistaken all along. Reasons for this:
>the garbage noise is called mus_smile.ogg in Undertale
>It plays during ENTRY 17, which appears to describe Gaster discovering the concept of a Dark World ("photon readings negative", "dark yet darker")
>a very slowed down bit of mus_smile is playing near the shelter to make the noise you hear there
>FRIEND is inside the 8-bit Shelter in MANTLE, and we know the Shelter contains a dark world in reality
>IMAGE_FRIEND being on the same layer / naming convention as Gaster, in this view, is explained by Gaster having met FRIEND when he discovered dark worlds in Undertale
>In fact, perhaps FRIEND is from a plane higher than all game worlds and he pulled Gaster up out of Undertale and let him start picking at Deltarune
>Gaster being "outside" Undertale is why he appears to have been "shattered across time and space", because an outsider player or programmer is to a game character like a 5D object would be to us, able to prod at certain points in our spacetime
>This last one is kinda psychotic. But Muffet says a "sweet smile" who she saw "changing shape in the shadows" offered her money to capture Frisk's SOUL. It's easy to assume this was Flowey or Mettaton, but there's a connection to FRIEND too. Because mus_smile is actuslly a distorted reversed Muffet laugh. And we know FRIEND has the power to give people wealth, looking at Spamton
So yeah I think the garbage noise is made by FRIEND