#I will also ramble about how I write Starlo. please

[a-scaly-troublemaker]

Oh god I did it again

I got hopelessly attached to a side character after trying to write them a little too hard

[deathbirby]

!!! YEAHHHH LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO. MY THOUGHTS BELOW BECAUSE OH BOY I LOVE THIS??

Ahhh... Starlo moving into the house and bringing his own stuff over and- AAAHHH.. just getting comfortable and oh my god imagine Ceroba just seeing the stuff and feeling like the house is a little less dreary now. Oughh...

there were ALSO going to be more scenes with the feisty five, because i love them

The feisty five!!!! I love them sm that snippet is perfect actually. I can totally get not wanting to write more than 3 people tho. I die at writing just 2 people. And hey, they ended up being perfect in the fic. I haven't said it yet, but you absolutely nail the characters and sometimes when I think about uty I think of your fic. That's how accurately they are written to me.

a lot of my notes for this fic were about ceroba and chujin's relationship.

Ohh.. Chujin and Ceroba. They're so.. interesting. I completely get you too! They were definitely happy together.. but it wasn't that healthy in the end. The lack of communication (like about the number of kids you want??) made me raise several eyebrows. And Chujin locking his final wish behind an impossible task (that requires killing an innocent person).. oughh.. I know he was afraid but his fear ultimately blinded him to the needs of his family.

i'd like to think i could guess... Ohh my god. That part where she talks to his grave.. it made me so fucking sad. Nothing can really describe the feeling of looking at the grave of a loved one. But it was written so well! I love how she comes to accept that she didn't know him as well as she wishes she did but that she still loves the husband she lost..

she blinks back the tears before they can fall. The ache behind them dulls

Oh.. It's.. god it hurts so good. The acceptance. The way she can finally move on. I'm sobbing on the floor.

this of course also comes back in her confession to starlo in the last scene

AND STARLO! She's been his best friend for decades now. She knows him and his faults. He knows hers. They still support the other despite that. Not even at their lowest will they abandon the other!! (Ceroba being the one the stop Starlo from shooting Clover and Starlo stopping Ceroba from asking to be shot by Clover- I. Oh my god..) They're so fucking loyal to the other. They kept secrets at first but they won't do it again. Not after the events of the game. One finding out is what ultimately helps the other. I love them sm your honor

let's talk about kanako: i actually have an abandoned-for-now WIP prequel/sequel to this fic about her!

KANAKO!!!! Omg I'd love to read that fic so much. Intergrity and Kanako sharing a body?? soul?? is one of my favorite takes. (Spoonako in the bathtub jamming out was totally Integrity getting the aux and playing a banger song in their head)

Kanako basically canibalizing the other monsters... Ough imagine the guilt. Don't think about it. I pretend I do not see it. Alphys looking at her soul like "What is wrong with you?? WHY ARE YOU BLUE?"

here's my favorite little bit of what i had written:

..That snippet. Oh. My. God. She realizes Integrity is scared..!! That she was scared even back then!! They were just a child in an awful, AWFUL situation. Oh my god. And she worries about her mother!! KANAKO YOU ARE A SPOON AND YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT HOW WORRIED YOUR MOM MUST BE- I'm gonna cry. She just wants to see her mom again and uncle star and- ohh I am not okay.

i also have a clover fic idea set in this universe called you shouldn't have to sell your soul

Hello?? I absolutely would read this?? The reunion.. The tears.. The feelings.. Lami wanting to find her friend- AAAGHH...

thank you for reading all this if you did!!! thanks for giving me the excuse to ramble about them again, i love this game and i love star and ceroba and the ketsukane family alot

BRO YOU BET I READ ALL OF THIS!! I love these characters so fucking much. You could literally ramble for hours and I would listen. In fact, if you ever wanna ramble please do I am here for it actually.

..also I just imagine Kanako coming back and being like "Mom why were you and Uncle Star kissing?" and Ceroba looking like

HI HELLO! I read your Staroba fanfic and I didn't have an account to leave a comment so I thought I would do that here. So uhh... here goes?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IT WAS SO GOOD AAAAGHHH I AM SICK THEY MAKE ME SO ILL??? I love them oughhhhhh I love them so much they're so CUTE TOGETHER AAAA.

“I wouldn’t find you anyway. You snore.” “I do not—” Star laughs, bright, ducking away as she swats at him. For a moment, the stale air of the Ketsukane Estate lifts, and Ceroba can breath again.

OH MY GOD HOW ABOUT I JUST CRUMPLE TO THE FLOOR AND SOB AND AAAAAA

You cooked so hard you burnt down not just my kitchen but my entire house. Thank you SO MUCH

Oh and... there is a director's cut? ... 🥺👉👈

HI THIS IS SO KIND!! thank you for reaching out to leave a comment i love getting asks about my fics. it's been a Hot Minute since i thought about uty but i will absolutely dig into my notes for the director's cut again <3 putting it under a cut because i have no idea how long it'll get!

so, first, deleted scenes: there was originally going to be a scene where ceroba notices that starlo hasn't really Moved In to the guest room at all, and gently bullies him until he brings over his sewing machine/more of his stuff and makes it his home too. there were ALSO going to be more scenes with the feisty five, because i love them, but writing scenes with more than three people is a NIGHTMAREEE and it got a bit out of scope of what i wanted. here's a snip of that deleted scene though

“Could play ERS,” Star suggests. “Somethin’ Ace can’t cheat at.” Ace scoffs, idly shuffling the deck of cards on the table. “I would never. Mooch, on the other hand…” “I would,” Mooch chirps, smiling broadly.

a lot of my notes for this fic were about ceroba and chujin's relationship. it, for obvious reasons, haunts the backdrop of this fic a lot - the complications of their relationship that never had the chance to be worked out in life, the ways in which they complicate her grief in the aftermath of his death, it all means a lot to me and it was important to me that i underlined it throughout the fic. see:

The minute it escapes, Ceroba wants to take it back, but she can’t. Star takes the beer from her hands as the aluminum crumples in her claws. She lets him, her head bowed and her shoulders shaking. “He knew me. He knew me, didn’t he? And he still- and he still… what’d he think I could do? That he couldn’t? That the finest minds of monsterkind couldn’t?” “I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Star says, quietly. She laughs, covers her mouth to stifle it. Tears slip down her cheeks. She’s been crying too much, lately. She doesn’t want to remember these moments. “I wish I did,” she cries. “I’m so damn tired of guessing.”

in the game, she refers to chujin as "a man of secrets". when she talks about him building a house: i think he was insinuating a bigger family. did they never have a conversation about that? where he told her he wanted a bigger family, without her having to guess based on how big he built the house? and, of course, the entirety of steamworks underlining that... maybe he wasn't as honest about his job to her as he could've been!! not to mention. the elephant in the room of "experimenting on himself to his death"

i don't think it was a bad marriage! we don't see a lot of them, but the scenes we do see in the flashbacks, and the way ceroba talks about him - there's a lot of genuine love and care there, and i believe that they had a good thing going, but it definitely wasn't the healthiest, especially when it came to how they talked to each other - or, you know. How They Didn't. ceroba deconstructing her idolization of chujin after his death and coming to terms with the fact that she can be, and IS, angry with him, even in her love and her grief, was like. the backbone of this fic, for me. but also, of course, it's about the way she ends up accepting it, and moving on:

“I think I already knew what I was going to do before I came to visit. I just wanted to let you know. There’s…” Ceroba places a hand on the grave, fingers curling against the smooth surface of it. “There’s so much I should’ve asked you, when we had the time. So much I wish I had known from your mouth, instead of the tapes. Instead of the Steamworks. But seeing you in the things you made for the Dunes, for the rest of the Underground… that isn’t so bad. I don’t know what you’d think of the last couple years. But I’d like to think I could guess.”

accepting her role in the way things were strained, and looking to the good of his legacy, the good she loved in him. accepting that she DID know him - not nearly enough of him, not as much as she wanted to, but that she did. i'd like to think i could guess. you know!!

this of course also comes back in her confession to starlo in the last scene - the fact that she knows starlo so well, that she's known him for so long and trusts him to be open and honest, THAT is part of what reassures her that she can be in a relationship again. that it won't end up the same way. the knowing is important to her!! the trust!!!

ceroba & chujin sidebar over, let's talk about kanako: i actually have an abandoned-for-now WIP prequel/sequel to this fic about her! called i'd really love to break your heart, about her time in the secret lab from the moment she became an amalgam to her post-undertale reunion with ceroba. it's a more dreamlike/rambling style of third person than i hope we live to tell the tale, because it's very inside of kanako's head, and her thought process as an amalgam is really tangled and messy, especially before frisk arrives. i have a couple notes for how i think she's like, as an amalgam:

amalgam kanako threads - friends with the ghost of integrity? looks like she's talking to herself. did melt with other monsters but took 'priority' & is now the only aware monster in the amalgam, which she doesnt think about. has dreams of others' memories. still loves westerns. asks alphys for them. amalgam parts: parsnik (snakes like dina's…), frostermit or another hermit crab…, decibat relative?

the fact that she was injected with integrity is key to my understanding of her as an amalgam, because i think that's what kept her 'kanako' even when the other monsters lost themselves. an unimpaired condition, the quality of being whole, etc. i think she inherits a lot of behaviors and faint memories, feelings from the other monsters, but for all intents and purposes she's the only one still 'alive', and i think she feels guilty about that, a little! but for most of the time, while she's in the secret lab, she's just really, really not thinking about it too hard.

here's my favorite little bit of what i had written:

When the Royal Scientist walks into the room, shocked and worried and hopeful all at once, and tells them they can go home if everything’s alright, Kanako hears her, but… She isn’t looking at her at all. She’s looking at the human at the back of the room only she can see, the girl from Snowdin in her dusty tutu and ribboned shoes, looking all wrong. Nothing but a dark blue shadow on the wall, a slip of a person. Dr. Alphys keeps rambling and the girl meets Kanako’s eye, slowly shakes her head. She looks scared, now. Scared like she looked back then, when Kanako couldn’t recognize it.  It doesn’t make any sense. They’re all awake now, aren’t they? They’ll get to go home tomorrow, won’t they? She’ll get to see Mom again, and Uncle Star, and everything will be okay, because her dad’s plan didn’t work but she’s alive, awake, and she doesn’t know how long she’s been asleep but Mom must be worried sick. There’s a lurch in Kanako’s stomach every time she looks over to the girl, for the rest of the day. The unease, a constant shadow over what should be joy. 

(my integrity is named lami, and she's a good kid, for all that she lashes out when she gets scared. i'm a "all of the souls were just kids and even if they did get LV that's a tragedy of their circumstances" truther. she's the second main character of this fic and i think her and kanako are best friends :] it takes a while. but they get there. having someone to talk to through those lonely years is part of what keeps kanako together)

and my secret, third thing to wrap this up: i also have a clover fic idea set in this universe called you shouldn't have to sell your soul, which is a second person fic about them and flowey seeking out the cast of uty post-undertale when the kids are revived. lami joins them because she wants to find kanako. they're so important to me<3

thank you for reading all this if you did!!! thanks for giving me the excuse to ramble about them again, i love this game and i love star and ceroba and the ketsukane family alot