#Is that an Undertale reference!?!? Kinda. It goes both ways lol

[lilybug-02]

Humans...? Underground?

Bug Fact: Leaf Cutter Ants farm fungus! They use leaves as fertilizer to cultivate the fungus they eat.

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Masterpost

[timeofjuly]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you so much for the tag @floofanflurr <3 I am always happy to yap about my fics! I'll pop this below the cut 'cause it's kinda long.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Eight under the timeofjuly account, and a few others scattered around other usernames and the anonymous collection.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 124,470 words, which is kinda crazy to look back on since I only started in August of last year.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Undertale at the moment, but I've written for a few other fandoms in the past.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Resisting the Current

Trick or Heat

Wishbone

Parallel Circuits

And Four Papyri in a Pear Tree

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! Always, though it sometimes takes me a little to get around to it. My favourite thing about writing fanfic is the sense of community that you build, so I love getting to chat about the fic in the comments. I always have a million and one thoughts that didn't make it to the page that I'm desperate to share. I also like to say thank you when people go out of their way to comment, because I really appreciate it. As a reader, I know I get super excited when an author replies to my comments.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm going to go with a few of the RtC 'verse oneshots for this. I think Resolutions from Parallel Circuits ends on a pretty angsty note, particularly compared to the seemingly upbeat start. From Silver String, there will be no answer is pretty bleak and so is on my way home. I'm quite proud of how they both end, actually - I think they're my two strongest endings in the lot.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Any of the smut, probably? They're all set in happy established relationships and end on a cutesy note.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not for a very long time, no! I remember, many many years ago, posting my very first fic on fanfic.net lol and getting a very nasty review about how the reader didn't know the main pairing in the fic was m/m (slash back then, what a blast from the past) even though it was very clearly indicated in the summary and the AN at the start. It goes to show people have been bad at curating their own reading experiences by minding the tags and summaries since forever.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yep! Mostly established relationship stuff under this username so far.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I'm not super into cross-universe crossovers, but, same as @floofanflurr, I really like playing around with cross fic crossovers. I'm (slowly) writing a crack dialogue-only oneshot where the reader inserts of Wishbone and RtC are stuck together in a broken elevator lol. It's been a fun challenge! It's very very hard to put two characters who are normally referred to in the second person in the same scene, lemme tell you, which is why I ended up choosing to go dialogue only.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have not, but I'd be open to it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nothing that I've posted! @marty-parties and I have been messing around with an underfell papyrus/reader fic, though! I also used to rp all the time, which I'd count as cowriting. I miss it very much, even though I used to get super easily overwhelmed by it.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

This is such a tough question. I'll pretty much read anything if I vibe with the ship dynamics (pining and unrequited love my beloved, I will read you anywhere no matter the ship or fandom), but I went through my bookmarks to actually get the stats on this. I used to be super into the mcu (I completely lost interest after endgame) so tony/steve and tony/steve/bucky were the most common ships. I have no clue what my favourite ship would be now, though.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Never say never, but I really want to write this horrortale isekai fic I've had bouncing around in my brain. I've fully plotted it out and it's set to only be five chapters, but I'm really struggling to actually write the thing. I have started it, though, so we'll see.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Characterisation, I think. And even though I mostly gravitate towards writing angsty stuff, I think humour and comedic timing is a strength of mine too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Physical description and settings, 100%. I don't really picture anything in my head when I write, which means all that physical description doesn't make its way onto the page, and when it does, I'm just going off vibes. Particularly with setting - I have zero idea what the locations in any of my fics look like lol. Like, the house in RtC? No clue. Zero.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Really cool! I love it when people do this and I get to translate it, it's like a nice surprise.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter, I think? It's all scrubbed from the internet now though.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Wishbone. I am so attached to the Second Mage and Sans and Rus, you have no idea. Particularly Flint, I just adore them. Don't get me wrong, I love the electrician and Quinn and all of my ocs, but I have a special place in my heart for reader inserts who are nasty and hurting and lash out and aren't always the kind, considerate, emotionally stable person in the relationship, forever supporting others. I read something years ago that said to consider how your character is inclined to react to things, both good and bad, and how for lots of people, it's not in our nature to instinctively respond to things with kindness and openness. In fiction, we often expect our POV characters to deal with situations with emotional maturity that we ourselves, along with the majority of irl people, don't have. I think this rings true even more for reader inserts. It's fun to flip this on its head in Wishbone - what if instead of acting with an uncommon kindness, you do the opposite? You get to be flawed. You get to have the murky motives. You get to hurt and in turn you hurt others, and that hurting has real consequences on you and the people around you. This is also a great way to create angst lol - in the non-fell version of Wishbone, where everyone is generally just less of an asshole and therefore makes kinder choices, a lot of the events in the fic just wouldn't happen.

No pressure tag to @covfefeships and anyone else who'd like to do this!

[damadorias]

Been dusting off the fossils with this one boissss!!

Decided to redesign two old ocs from around 2018 time, those being Mercy and Draco, they're my oldest fandom ocs from the ol' undertale days and boy were they friggen cringe. Well, Mercy not so much, his design was just kinda cringe.

They've been renamed to Chronos and Genesis, and instead of being enemies to friends, they're now siblings.

They are the twin deities (though in world deities are referred to as "dreamweavers") of existence in the Strange Creatures universe. They were sorta put there randomly tbh, they probably won't hold much weight on the story itself but they're just there to be fun side additions/a point of religion for the population.

Chronos Draco rambling starts now!

Chronos is a deity of death, the end, and the natural passing of time. He can reap souls both in person and remotely, however if too many people die at the same time it gives him a headache. He often complains about how often people die because of that. He'll also wish immortality on you if he doesn't like you just so he doesn't have to see you constantly, a stark contrast to how he was when he was a skeleton oc, who would torture and kill any and all until rehab became part of his plot back then.

He's also much more mellow and chill now. He's one of philosophical thoughts and meditation... and fuck tons of coffee, bro is addicted. He's also one to sympathise with the people of the worlds, to the point where if too many deaths are caused by a corrupted leader of a planet, he'll show up to scare them out of it, and if they choose to not back down he straight up wipes their planet off the map with a black hole, a particularly nasty fate for a cruel world leader given that black holes distort time to a point where the planet's destruction along with their every movements to them would take billions of years to happen. This is, of course, a rare instance though. Deities can't be that heavy handed all the time after all,,, also because the plot that Chameleon goes through wouldn't work if a deity was constantly intervening at a moments notice,,, lmao

Anyway, overall Chronos is sort of depressed without actually being depressed in a way. He often talks about how everything has to end, and nothing really has meaning due to the universe's endless cycle of dying and living, for the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. The heat death of the universe to him is like a weekend movie night, only that week's like billions of years of time. This is because after the entire universe becomes an abyss of nothing, a big bang happens and life restarts over and over and over. So yeah Chronos deals with that, along with his bro.

Oh yeah also Chronos has a habit of just making fun of people who die in stupid ways. If you're gonna die via a vending machine falling on you after you stupidly shook it in a rage over a candy bar, Chrono's wont hesitate to poke fun at you for it, like who the hell wouldn't?

Anyway, now Genesis ramble go!!

Genesis hasn't really changed much from how he was before in terms of both personality and design. He pretty much just became a humanoid with an extra streak of black space matter in his flowing locks, lost his wings and had an outfit change. His personality's pretty much the same because the idea of a deity being an absolute memelord prankster's funny af

Anyway, he's the god of beginnings, life and ig also the passage of time lol. Him still loving pranks is a danger to everyone because now he's a god who can pick and choose who sees him, that is a volitile mix for chaos. He's also obsessed with penguins, maybe played up a little more than before, I can't actually remember how extreme I made that detail back then ngl. I also remember him having this effect where touching his stardust would be like getting high. I kept that but I made it more interesting. Instead of getting high, touching it would cause you to instantly gain forbidden knowledge, you'd know how the universe works, all it's secrets, you'd witness every life you've ever lived/might live, you'd literally fucking know everything and it'd be information overload because no mortal mind can hold that kind of knowledge, and so, when you pull away, you instantly forget. All you'd be left with is this lingering dread feeling that you knew something forbidden, you wouldn't know what that forbidden thing is. Chronos also has this same effect when you do it to him.

Unlike Chronos, Genesis has a habit of constantly showing up to mortals and befriending them all due to his silliness, something that Chronos constantly has to remind him why it's a bad influence on the world. His old friend Frost might even still exist in this universe, since well, furries can exist in the Strange Creatures world so he wouldn't even have to change much if at all lmao.

Ironic thing but despite Genesis being a redesign of an oc because it was deemed cringe, Genesis would probably encourage cringe culture. Joke thought I had was that his old design from the undertale days would be an oc that he'd make which honestly feels wild lmao.

But yeah silly times, these two were really fun to redesign and I honestly love em'

I know I've already technically done a redesign for Mercy in the past but like this feels different, the other times never felt quite good enough and felt very sort of thrown out there without much thought. This feels like an actual real redesign because I actually love them now, them and their silly friggen dynamic, I feel like I could draw so many stupid silly scenarios with these two because I can't stop thinking about all the ways they're hanging out and interacting with the world. Their designs also slap frfr, like I did so good at making the twins look like twins, they're not identical but you can just tell they pair together. Chronos is obviously black hole inspired and Genesis is just galaxy themed as the original version was. Chronos having the extreme side of the redesign only sharing eye shape with the original because red eyed hooded skeleton is like nothing to work with. I will also never not find it hilarious that being turned into a literal god of death made him WAAAAAAY less violent, he's just chill and mellow with a touch of melancholy now.

[entryno17]

in your opinion, how important do you think gaster will be in the plot line of deltarune? :)

OH BOY AN EXCUSE TO INFODUMP!!!

short answer: VERY.

long answer: VERY,

VERY.

i mean... gaster is the first character that appears in the game—as in, he appears seconds after you boot it up. after asking if he's "CONNECTED" he guides you along the whole gonermaker segment; not only does he serve as the introduction to deltarune, he's literally the person who announced the game itself! that seems... kinda important.

of course there's also the easter egg with smile.ogg playing while trying to use the phone in the dark world, and the weird door that plays smile.ogg slowed down by 666%... gaster is the one who asks if you want to try again when you get a game over, and he narrates the main menu before you beat the game...

there's also the fact that, like, the entire dark world itself seems to be in direct reference to gaster??

gaster had 11 lines in all of undertale, and 4/11 of those were him rambling insanely about 'darkness'. darkness as a concept is at least somewhat important to this guy, and themes of parallels between light/darkness are... pretty prominent in deltarune, to say the least. i can't go into this any further without just reciting the entirety of the plot.

OH! AND! don't forget (haha) deltarune's ending theme.

i'll set aside lyrical analysis of this song for now (just trust me it's also extremely related to gaster), and instead take the time to remind you not to forget about that funny little note in sans's garage:

it's never stated directly, but it's heavily implied that gaster was "forgotten" about. between goner kid's weird spiel about non-existence and the fact that gaster barely seems to exist at all to anyone but his followers, it's safe to assume that gaster being shattered across time and space effectively erased him from reality, thus causing him to be 'forgotten'.

don't forget is the main leitmotif throughout deltarune, appearing in 9 different songs in the ost. if it is related to gaster like i assume it is, that's another point for gaster being extremely important lol.

BUT! his influence in the game goes even deeper than that, believe it or not!! this is a bit hard to explain so bear with me, but gaster is directly present throughout the inner workings of the game. i'll be quoting some stuff from tcrf.net because it explains this better way than i can lol.

The window captions used throughout the game use upper and title case variously, to denote context; the 'light world' sections use title case (eg. "The Beginning", "The Return") and the 'dark world' sections, along with everything else, use upper-case (eg. "THE DARK", "CONTACT", "DELTARUNE").

Internally, most of the game's assets are named using a similar though distinct convention of upper/lower case. Unlike the window captions, the "Dark World" assets, like the "Light World" assets, use lower case, abbreviated prefixes (in Undertale, these were the only prefixes used). Allcaps prefixes/names are only used in the following contexts:

• CONTACT and everything associated with it • The logo screen and main menu (both versions of it) • The game over ("FAILURE") screen • The dogcheck room • UNUSED

These are effectively all of the "out-of-bounds" sections of the game, as it were, with the exception of the ending credits.

okay so... we already know that gaster directly appears in the CONTACT sequence, the main menu, and the game over screen. as for the dogcheck room and 'UNUSED'—both of those can only be accessed through hacking/datamining, and gaster's connection to unused/datamined content in general makes this VERY relevant to him.

anyway, here's a table of these prefixes:

Variable names within allcaps objects also follow this convention, mostly being in allcaps as well, in addition to sometimes utilizing slightly more verbose terminology. One notable counterpart for a common local variable is EVENT, used in place of con (condition).

someone that speaks in all caps and often uses stilted, somewhat verbose vocabulary... sounds familiar, right?

HE CALLS DOGCHECK "SONG_THAT_EMERGES_FROM_A_SLEEPING_DOG". this is not relevant to the point i'm trying to make at all but i need as many people to know this fact as possible.

that's not the only place gaster is hiding, though! there's also some weird, unused rhyming text that seems to describe the mystery man sprite!! basically, gaster's presence is weaved throughout the game and he undoubtedly plays a major role in deltarune—inside and out.

let me loop back to the start of all this. it's pretty widely agreed upon that gaster is/was in cahoots with chara, and their partnership led to the creation of deltarune's world; we're obviously missing a lot of information about this since we've only played the first chapter, but this seems to be what's going on.

chara speaks repeatedly about the creation/destruction of different worlds at the end of no mercy, and deltarune is pretty clearly a separate world based on undertale's world. at the moment, it's anyone's guess what exactly they're trying to accomplish together—chara is also implied to be the person who 'discards' your vessel, so their motives probably don't align in some way. the point is, the world in deltarune was created.

considering all of this... i'm pretty confident that the "SURVEY_PROGRAM" we played is gaster's 'experiment'. as in, literally all of deltarune seems to be at least partially his doing.

... I THINK THAT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT!

[starlightshore]

barring the no mercy route being an influence in this case, how would you describe chara's personality? I cannot describe them well at all despite them being my favorite character. they're too complex lol. all of the meta i can find at this time as them described at both extremes of innocent & evil but i don't think that's accurate

TW: discussions of canon dark topics such as abuse , death and suicide

i love talking about chara, i've talked about them at length before lmao. thank u for giving me a chance to talk about my beloved child.

you can actually read a character exploration i'm doing in a mini-arc for Askfallenroyalty. actually, if you want one condensed post, this comic sums up chara's motives

My interpretation:

chara is an abused kid and suicidal kid*(1) who ran to mount ebott to die.*(2) upon learning that monsters are made of love and humans aren't*(3), chara began to hate humanity. the deltarune prophecy*(4) makes them to be The Angel despite being a human. Feeling undeserving of this title and obligated to fulfill it, Chara wanted to be a good kid more than anything.

But then the buttercup pie incident happened. They've accidentally*(5) poisoned asgore and came up with a plan to ensure the prophecy could be fulfilled and take a hit against humanity. Two birds with one stone -who cares if it's also a personal win too? then obviously the plan goes up in flames and they and asriel are murdered. then asgore wants to kill of all humanity.

your influence*(6) gets Chara onto a path of redemption or a path of destruction, mirroring the deltarune prophecy's two main interpretations.*(7)

in summery: chara is a scared kid trying to fit into a world that demands violence by the past actions of the previous generations. The war massacred monsters and locked them up with a kill-solution -ensuring that further violence would be needed to be free, thus continuing the cycle of violence.

chara is just a kid. they knit, they make macaroni art, they loved their family and had a best friend forever.* (8) but they're also vengeful, they cared so deeply for monsterkind they were ready to die and had no idea they'd be awake as a soul, they were prepared for death. they're complicated, you can't have one side without the other. while i’ve never wanted to murder anyone, i can still relate deeply to chara and see myself in them a lot. the tragedy of them -the fact they never really got a “happy ending” like everyone else just haunts me and it’s why I spend so much time making AFR. I just... love this character so much, i want this kid to be happy. (not that it could ever be easy to get there, happy endings aren’t free.)

And frankly, seeing this hurt kid get demonized just rubs me the wrong way, and it feels completely against the morals Undertale tries to tell with it’s story. I see it as a cautionary tale against violence and dehumanizing others for the sake of hate and violence. how kids can be influenced by the violence -or kindness around them. you don’t need to forgive the ones who hurt you, but killing them is not always the solution -though sometimes necessary as framed in the Undyne the Undying fight.

People get both Undertale’s themes and chara wrong the most, and for the game that’s meant the world to me it bothers me more than it should lol. It’s a Good Story, and I don’t mean to frame my interpretation of the character or themes as 100% canon and I know Mr.Fox’s brain to confirm it kinda deal, but with all the time I’ve spent analyzing and thinking it over I do think it’s not off in the general direction of it lol. And besides the author’s intent isn’t really the end-all-to-be-all. It’s what you get out of the story and the themes that matter and stick with you. No one can take that away from you.

Sources and evidence:

"* If you're cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard." -faded ribbion flavor text * "The ends of the tools have been filed down to make them safer." -gardening tools in New Home (and iirc Toriel's home as well, too lazy to double check rn) * Where are the knives. -no mercy chara (this and paired with the previous imply there are no sharp objects in reach of chara's home because chara can't be trusted with sharp objects out of self harm. This doesn't necessarily mean abuse but paired with them hating humanity so deeply, being suicidal and a child it paints a picture of abuse.

"* I know why (chara) climbed the mountain.* It wasn't for a very happy reason." -asriel post pacifist epilogue dialogue

"* Love, hope, compassion... * This is what people say monster SOULs are made of. * But the absolute nature of "SOUL" is unknown. * After all, humans have proven their SOULs don't need these things to exist." -Library book on monster souls)

* Legend has it, an 'angel' who has seen the surface will descend from above and bring us freedom. - gerson

"* It takes at least a human soul... * And a monster soul. * ...* If you want to go home... * You'll have to take his soul. * You'll have to kill ASGORE." -Alphys. Because boss monster souls are the exception and can persist after death for a short period of time, Chara could of killed any of the family members to escape the underground. this implies escaping wasn't the goal -it was to die (considering they already attempted suicide to fall underground the first time, this is explicitly suicide.) the plaque doesn't mention or speak like monster/human fusion's consumed soul would be aware. chara had no way of knowing they'd be awake. also the whole thing with the pie is a prank. cups of butter. -> buttercups. putting flowers in a pie is a joke to do, we see Chara is similar to Toriel (they mimic her speech in the no mercy monologue, they say “greetings” as she does like how Asriel says “howdy” like Flowey does. Chara makes puns and jokes in the flavor text all the time.

https://imgur.com/a/zP18P -dog food bag at different LV. "When the protagonist first encounters Mad Dummy, they are given the option to beat it up. Choosing to beat it up prompts one of three responses depending on the protagonist's LOVE." (source: undertale wiki)

If the protagonist’s LV is 1, the response becomes "(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.)"

If the protagonist's LV is between 2 and 4, the response becomes "(You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.)"

If the protagonist’s LV is between 5 and 7, the response becomes "(You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?)"

If the protagonist’s LV is 8 or higher, the response becomes "(You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)"" This implies Chara (who is the narrator) will feel different about the dog food -which references the classic phrase of "glass half empty/full" showing your out look in life. Then hitting the dummy show's Frisk's out look on violence depending on LV. Note that by the end of it, it's no longer "you feel..." but "feels good" This is Chara.

      7. “* Lately, the people have been  taking a bleaker outlook...* Callin' that winged circle the  'Angel of Death.' “ -gerson “* Only the fearless may proceed. * Brave ones, foolish ones. * Both walk not the middle road. “ -the first plaque in the first puzzle room with Toriel. The idea is to walk on both the left and right sides -you can’t go half way in the middle. this mirrors the “true” endings are only accomplished if you stick to no mercy or pacifist only.

     8. literally their home in New Home is a treasure trove of pre-game chara characterization.

[cloaked-saurosuchus]

@everesttale I'll try to!

If you want a slightly deeper dive, I'm gonna borrow a piece from AO3's own references: Tutorial - Creating a work skin and Skins and Archive FAQ. i'll cover mostly straight-up the UT skin

(also sorry no alt text/IDs. i do not have the spoons. sorry)

So: when you're uploading a work to AO3, THIS part is what you're interested in:

Namely the 'Select Work Skin' (where if you never messed with them, you'll have the same list as I do in this screenshot). That decides how your fic is styled if your reader has Show Creator Style on (I have it off by default, and others might as well.).

NOW, if you look at the Undertale Work Skin, this is the preview image:

...and that's more or less what you need to know! You turn the editor to HTML, and wrap the text you want to change in <span class="THECLASS"> text here </span>

...and you post and you're done! This is the basics and you can very much stop here as if it doesn't work for someone, they can just turn it off :) (note the 'Hide/Show Creator Style' button)

If you want to get More into it...

This has its pitfalls. I'm on linux and I don't have any of these fonts installed, so it falls back to a different one...

(this is why I have creator skins off lol), but you can see it lowercases/upercases correctly! (it's like that because I don't have Papyrus, and the 'fantasy' family of fonts gets understood as dingbats on my laptop)

On my phone:

*shrugs* uppercasing/lowercasing still works. now the default fonts can be kinda weird and have No Effect so you can! make the skin better!! with a better 'fallback' font family!! WOOHOO

the linked UT skin has some CSS. Copy-paste it. Create a new work skin. Paste it in.

Now every 'font-family' line can be changed. the more on the right a font name is, the later it gets picked (ie. leftmost not installed? try the next one. the next one. the next one...). ultimately if none are found it just goes to your browser's default font.

You can add a wide font type to the end always get some effect (try monospace, serif and sans-serif for best results! if it's not in quotes, it's a wide font type). like this:

#workskin .wingdings { font-family: 'wingdings'; text-transform: uppercase; }

TO:

#workskin .wingdings { font-family: 'wingdings', 'dingbats', monospace; text-transform: uppercase; }

... will now try to get dingbats first, and then go into a monospace font as well. Neato! if you save the skin then, you can use it the same way you used the official UT skin! and that's it. Here's my slightly edited UT skin, with just some extra fallback fonts (though I'd recommend deleting the 'fantasy' type for both papyrus styles as well. just since it's a Weird font type you don't know how might look):

...and how it looks on my mobile:

Yay! you cannot display a font that someone doesn't have installed to them, but it still can be Visible that Something's Going On :)

All in all, AO3's skins are just CSS, which if you google, has a Million tutorials if you want to get Fancy.

friendly reminder that if you're writing an UT fic to post on AO3 and want to include wingdings, I am begging you to use the Undertale Work Skin AO3 has. It's so good I promise. it:

makes it able to be turned off so if someone doesn't want to decipher it they don't have to

if the reader has wingdings installed, it's Literally in that font. it's still text underneath. it can be copy-pasted and changed font etc. This is the way wingdings should be done, not emojis (afaik it should be accessible even to screenreaders etc!!)

it also includes an auto-uppercasing style for papyrus and auto-lowercasing style for sans. which means if you/your readers struggle with capslock papyrus and you write it in Regular case, it's gonna capslock it for you BUT CAN BE TURNED OFF (and those who want papyrus aesthetic can have Papyrus Aesthetic)

you guys ao3 skins are so good I promise. if you don't know How to use them I will So gladly help you out or point you towards resources,