anonymousbongos63

[anonymousbongos63]

This post is likely super rambly, but this is mostly documenting my current ideas and such. And, hey, it might catch someone's attention and seem interesting to them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Undertale has me in a slight chokehold again after YEARS of not looking at a lot of fan content.

after looking at a few deep dives into some AUs, I remembered this one AU I made but never fully explored last year in March.

I think the initial idea for it was some time travel shenanigan shit? But that led me straight to a writer's block, so I scrapped it..... mainly cause I couldn't for the life of me remember what the initial idea was when I went back to look at it.

silly me, I didn't write anything down in a txt file like I usually do nowadays.

but that doesn't matter, because I have a different idea that sparks joy (ideas)

The working title for this AU is currently No Man's Tale or something to that effect? to my knowledge, no Undertale AU is named that. the undertale multiverse is extremely vast though, and I'm only really aware of the popular ones.

THE SETTING

The setting is essentially a cold but livable wasteland, the sky is always clouded likely due to pollution, civilisation is few and far between with wide empty deserts and the occasional establishment between each village, town, and city.

this is absolutely heavily inspired by Trigun, specifically Trigun Stampede.

As I delve more into the story, I intend to add my own spin on things, but there's only so much you can make original with a wasteland setting.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

The story, as little as I have of it up in the ol' noggin, is mainly centred around this AUs Sans and "Frisk".

In this AU - as pictured in the image above - Sans is called MG and Marigold, and Frisk is replaced by Nat.

While both are pretty interesting in my opinion, I think Nat is more interesting in their character arc.

Nat tends toward violence in contrast to Frisk, who most fans depict as a pacifist.

Nat is neutral in most cases, but in times where it seems violence is needed, they are more likely to reach for the nearest improvised weapon.

The reason for this disposition, as explained above, is because they were a street rat prior to their meeting MG. AFTER they meet MG, suddenly everything they'd learnt about the world is pretty much chucked out the window. What do you mean someone can just- HELP you out of the blue? What do you mean they're not expecting anything in return?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE TO STAB EVERYTHING THAT LOOKS AT YOU FUNNY???

Because of this and the character arc it causes in Nat, this AU has suddenly taken over my brain.

Next is Mari! I may or may not redesign him again at some point, mainly cause I'm not the happiest with his design at the moment. But that's a future Bongos problem.

MG is much more optimistic in this AU, along with obviously being called Marigold instead of Sans. He's less kind out of the necessity of keeping a promise, and more so kind out of the necessity of keeping himself sane in a cold wasteland where almost everybody is ready to shank you at any given moment.

So, of course he's gonna care for the kid that just got their ass handed to them in a bar fight! ..........And why do they look like their having an existential crisis after he got Grillby to patch them up.

MG is also a mechanic and he has a car that he found in a junkyard one day, he fixed it up (which took him a while since he was a bit rusty at the craft by that point) and now it drives perfect.

And as we transition into what I'm cooking up in terms of story and how it would be formatted, here's MG's and Nat's original designs and old information.

THE STORY

In terms of story, I don't have much yet. But what I do have goes as such; MG and Nat meet at Grillby's Bar/Diner/Whatever I end up making it, and Nat gets into a bar fight after stealing a few fries off someone's plate. Nat gets their ass handed to them, and MG notices this. He trots on over and helps the kid up. Nat, at this point, is mildly confused.

Mari waves Grillby over and calls in a favour to get Nat patched up. Nat is a bit more confused by this stage.

Then, after already helping Nat enough by this AU's standard, Mari buys Nat some food. (He puts it on his tab.) Nat. Is confused.

Then, after all of that, MG offers to get the kid somewhere safe.

Nat is exceedingly confused. That's about it for the start of the whole story at the moment. As for how the story would be told, I think it would work best as a comic. Which I'm not extremely good at since I haven't made many comics, I haven't even made one that tells a full length story.

However, since I have an original story underway that I want to make into a comic, this story'll be my comic guinea pig.

The story would mainly be narration-less, with the exception of when it's needed to have a bit of character building.

This would mainly be in the form of Nat writing in a notebook MG gifted to them. At some point in the beginning of the story, MG gifts Nat an old notebook he dug out of the boot of his car. Some of the pages are ripped out, and it's clear something was written on them before they were ripped out. But the writings are illegible since the rest of the pages were missing.

I think this story would likely focus mainly on familial and platonic bonds, as well as the existentialism that comes with living in a wasteland and trying to be kind in a world that isn't.

It'll be good practice for me because a lot of my stories end up falling into the pair your spares trope.

That's all I have for this AU at the moment, I'll probably get around to designing the other characters at a later date, but it'll most likely be as I'm writing out the story and molding the world.

[anonymousbongos63]

Listen. It's for character development.