#[ ordinary deviation from external reality | first fallen human ]

[cruximpetus]

On Chara, Asgore, and Goat Family Dynamics:      This is going to be a long post, so head under the read more for the headcanon.

     First off, we have to start way before Chara even arrived - to the war between monsters and humans.  We know from the signs in Waterfall that the humans started the war because monsters could absorb human souls (which begs the question how did they find out?  If a monster can only absorb a human soul after the human has died (because human souls persist after death), then they would have needed to be around when that happened - whether as a cause of death or because they were simply friends enough with the human for it to happen.  I’d prefer it was the latter, but I think it was more likely to be the former - not necessarily an intentional cause of death, but certainly that the human and the monster weren’t on friendly terms, thus leading the human populace to have more reason to panic than to see it as a way to live longer after death -- but that’s another thing entirely.  To be honest, I think if it’d been friendly circumstances, the monster-human fusion likely wouldn’t have said anything if they didn’t have to do so-- but, then, this assumes that not all such fusions cause a physical appearance change as the Chara-Asriel fusion did, which I think is based more on the souls of the two involved and their age.  Asgore, for instance, absorbing one human soul would likely not have that vast amount of change.  But that is beside the point and I’m getting carried away), despite the fact that humans were, as a result of their souls naturally stronger than monsters.  We do not know how long the war went on, and we don’t know who was in charge during the war.  Signs point to Asgore (due to his crappy naming scheme) or an ancestor of his (because crappy naming can be passed down in genetics, I have no doubt).  Either way, Asgore or a direct ancestor led the monsters during the war.  For ease of discussion (and because canon more clearly points to it), let’s say Asgore led the monsters during the war between monsters and humans.      Now, why does this matter?  What does this have to do with later dynamics?      Humans started the war.  Asgore led the monsters during the fight - which means they fought back.  Humans are naturally stronger - which means they could easily have killed the monsters, his people.  Asgore continued to pursue peace (even within the context of war), because that is more his personality, but humans refused peaceful terms - which meant more fighting and more monsters dying because humans were afraid, humans were fighting, and humans weren’t allowing for any sort of reconciliation.  We have seen how Asgore reacted to his son’s death and the pressure of his people; it is likely that under this pressure he cowed and ordered the monsters to fight.  And every time a human died, their soul was absorbed, which made the humans more afraid because look at how much damage that monster can do - but we also know from the canon lore that when monsters don’t want to fight, their whole physicality reacts to it.  A human soul can fight the monster who absorbed it (as noted with Chara but even more noticeable in how the six human souls dealt with Flowey), can make them weaker, so even such a powerful fusion, in that circumstance, would likely have fallen to the humans.      And when they won (after the loss on the monster’s side was too great to continue), humans sealed the monsters into the Underground, where they would have no hope of getting out ever again.      No leader - even a monster leader as completely capable of love and compassion (since that is, after all, what monster souls are made of) as Asgore is - would, after that, be able to look on a human and feel anything but conflicting emotions for them.  Perhaps before the war, it would have been nothing but love, but after?  After humans decimated his people?  After they were forced to fight?  After the humans locked them away?  Maybe that part of him was still there, but there had to have also been some sense of despair, some sense of anger, frustration - hatred is a strong word when we’re talking about Asgore, but in this context, it makes sense.  Certainly his first reaction would have been a negative one instead of a positive one.      This leads us to Chara.  We know from canon that they are the first fallen human - the first human to fall into the Underground after that great war.  Asgore’s initial feelings towards them could not have been good.  We know that Asriel found them first, and I tentatively headcanon that Asriel was born in the Underground, sometime after the war - which would mean that he hadn’t seen a human before.  He had probably grown up with the stories, but he didn’t have that same lingering...hesitancy, anger, negative feelings that Asgore would have (likely because he is Toriel’s son  as well, and her first instinct with human children is to mother them the way she would any abandoned child.  Her reaction to a human adult falling is debatable, but to her, a child is a child is a child, and she will mom the heck out of them and protect them).  It is even possible that Asriel didn’t know that Chara was a human until Asgore said something about it, may have just thought they were another sort of monster they hadn’t met before (less likely, but possible).  Either way, Asriel struck up a friendship with Chara before Asgore met them.  Given all of the above, Asgore’s reaction was not necessarily a good one - likely wasn’t - but even if he tried to fight that off to be a good adoptive parent he does not want to adopt a human child Toriel and he does not like that their child is associating with a human but Asgore is a pushover and fine, fine, let the human live with us, they don’t seem so bad for a human, I suppose we will get along just fine and I will do my best - Chara grew up in an abusive household (my headcanon, not necessarily canon) and would know that something was off.  They don’t necessarily know what love looks like from a parental figure, not until they learn it from Toriel, but they know what disgust and anger and a lot of negative emotions looks like.  And maybe he doesn’t hate them entirely, but those negative feelings towards humans in general are there, and Chara can feel that and feels that directed towards them.  So, from Chara, at least, there’s that instinctive wariness of Asgore - not because he dislikes them specifically, necessarily, but because he is wary of them, as a human, and even if that slowly fades away, there’s still a part of Chara that is scared of Asgore and identifies him as a threat.  From an abusive household standpoint.      And that’s the problem with Chara/Asgore - they don’t dislike each other specifically but they see in each other a lot of negative associations they have with other people in their past.  And no matter how hard Chara might try to get Asgore to like them, they do it because they’re afraid that he hates them (even if he doesn’t hate them), and no matter how much Asgore might like Chara, it’s still a hurdle because humans are bad.  (Toriel would say not all humans, but Asgore doesn’t necessarily believe that is the case.  He saw the war.  He led during the war.  He watched what humans did.  Toriel might forgive readily unless it’s personal, but from what we’ve seen Asgore does not - not when it comes to leading his people.  His people come first, regardless of what he personally might feel.  A human is a threat.  Regardless.)      I think this is why Asgore constantly mentions that Chara is the future of monsters and humans.  From what he has seen, Chara does not seem to be as monstrous horrible as other humans did.  He sees the way they interact with Asriel (besties ftw!) and they see the way Toriel dotes on them and how that makes them shine, and Asgore likes to push hope, so he’s saying - look, here’s hope.  Here’s hope that maybe humans and monsters can get along.  But for Chara, that’s an additional pressure, that’s something they have to live up to, and since they already suffer from suicidal ideation (and at least one previous attempt) and likely have a history of being abused when they don’t live up to a parent’s expectations, that instinctive fear is still there.  They feel they have to live up to that.  They feel they have to earn his love (and rightly so, although they don’t know they probably already earned it).  Further - it’s likely that Asgore has to use that phrase to get his people who have just come out of a war with the humans and many of them still remember it to accept that their king and queen have just adopted a human child.      Bitter is the word I’m looking for.      Inevitably, this comes to a head with the accidental buttercup butterscotch pie.  This looks like a murder attempt and Chara laughs.  It’s a nervous laugh, it’s an I tried to do something nice because I feel like you don’t really love me and I want your approval so much and I fucked it up and now you’re going to hate me more than you already do and for once in my life it felt like I had something good and I just fucked it up, and it’s possible that Toriel understands it was an honest mistake, and Asgore likely understands it’s an honest mistake (even if he has his doubts because, hey, human), but that doesn’t mean that Chara isn’t still beating themselves up over it.  (I also think it’s likely that they told the monster populace that Asgore was just sick because that would not have looked good on Chara.)      And that’s when Chara comes up with their plan.      If they die, they can live up to what Asgore has constantly told them they are meant to do (be the future of humans and monsters).  Asriel can absorb their soul (hopefully) and go take out a few humans (they can give him descriptions of their parents, their family, who are horrible, Asriel, their deaths aren’t so bad) so that monsters can go free.  Because monsters have treated them better than humans ever did.  And, yeah, they die in the process, but that’s okay, isn’t it?  They’ll have done something nice for their family and made up for almost accidentally killing Asgore.  And they wanted to die anyway, so that works out for them.  At least they had something good for a little while first.      (And then they don’t die when Asriel absorbs them and then Asriel refuses to kill anyone and then they actually die because Asriel refused to do anything and now Asriel is dead, too and then, fuck this, everyone deserves to die because if my best friend can’t do this, if he chooses the people he knows hurt me over himself, his family, over me, then fuck it all.  And then they’re soulless, which really makes everything that much worse.  Bitterness, my dear friends, is the word.)

[cruximpetus]

Things I should note right off the bat when it comes to how I will be writing Chara: First and foremost, I do believe that Chara is a transfemale.  To me, there is a lot of evidence in the canon that supports this.  However, because the canon refers to them with the they/them/their pronouns, I will continue to do so in their canon verse (and, yes, I do have headcanon for why they would prefer these pronouns in that verse at that age).  I will not be doing so in Chara’s modern verse, where she prefer the she/her/hers pronouns. Second, I do have very strong headcanon for the relationship dynamics between Asgore, Toriel, Asriel, and Chara.  These can be shifted and changed in threads with writers of those characters, but for the most part, they are fairly firm. Third, I do ship Asriel and Chara.  I believe this can be supported by canon (particularly how Asriel talks about Chara) and should note that I do not see this as incest, although if needed I will tag it as such.  (This does come into play in my modern verse, where I do not have the two of them meeting until college and the adoption of Chara into Asriel’s family is the same way that the family of a best friend or a significant other might adopt their child’s loved one into their family.) Fourth, and perhaps most important for threading purposes, I do not have icons for Chara.  I’m not much of an artist and do not feel comfortable using others’ art to make my icons (unless they’ve given me explicit permission to do so).  Therefore, most of my threads with them will be iconless (except in modern verses, where I do have an FC for her) and my preference will likely be to have them as para threads.  Don’t have to be multi, just that I prefer icons for one-liners, which would prove hard for Chara in their canon verses. Fifth, I do not believe that Chara is their real name, as noted by their page.  I believe the name is one they chose for themselves upon falling into the underground and given the opportunity to name themselves.  However, given that in her modern verse she will have had much more time to think over what her name might be (and will want further distance from her birth name), her name will be Felicity Grace - goes by Felicity, which means happiness, as a connection to Chara, which means joy.