Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-3488943-20161204005818/@comment-27701762-20161207002630

Gibbagobba wrote: I don't know, the only way it would make sense for Chara to be from 201X is if this game took place in a completely different universe and their time was different. The narration for the calendar says "There's an old calendar from the end of 201X. A date is circled on it." So already the year 201X is in the past.

On the Genocide Route, where Chara absolutely begins narrating, the interaction with the calendar is changed to "The date I came here."

So 201X is definitely the year that Chara fell into the Underground. There wouldn't be a point in circling the date on a random calendar and then holding onto it, so saying that Asgore was hanging onto it wouldn't explain why it is old. Meanwhile if Asgore was doing it to remind himself of the day that Chara fell down each year, then the calendar should be up-to-date and the narration should either read that it is from the present year, or eschew the term "old."

In addition, the only other mentions of 201X are another old calendar, as well as the Mettaton fountain in the hotel, which says that the fountain was constructed in 201X, and the Mettaton statue was added "last week." So the other mentions of the year suggest that the game specifically doesn't take place in 201X.