#also imagine being emotionally available after having to say goodbye to another pair of siblings

[n4rval]

HI I WAS MENTIONED

i haven't even posted anything about my hcs to the PATIENCE and BRAVERY siblings yet but holy shit you guessed lucas' character spot on ahahahahaha (sweats profusely) (honestly kind of scared)

i will take the opportunity to add some takes on SOULs and magic here if you don't mind

FOLLOWING BELOW: further insight on SOULs and magic, the 6 fallen humans and how their qualities are presented in UNDERTALE's narrative, imagining Wingdings and the laser siblings

For me, it makes more sense for the presentation of white color on a monsters soul have much more to do with their natural MAGIC ABILITY (besides love, hope and compassion). When they use different attack dynamics, they can reach for these values within themselves and exercise the manifestation of it with intent, like when you shine a light on a prism and it breaks down in individual colors.

Humans might not have the innate ability to cast magic spells, as "FLESHLINGS ARE TERRIBLY DEPENDABLE ON THEIR ORGANIC FORMS" (a real quote i was there he really said that), but magic is there, and magic has been learned and used in the past on the casting of the barrier. If DELTARUNE is a valid source to understand these mechanics (high probability), we can see it is possible to increase Kris' magic ability through boosted items – not that the item on its own is magical, but it allows better channeling of a living being's magical potential (if otherwise we'd probably see kris using it, but kris knows no spells so magic boosting items are useless to them so far).

What's with human's coloured souls, then? Well, take the prism. I like to think a soul's colour doesn't necessarily dictate what kind of magic a human would be able to do exclusively, or that they are only that colour — but their most prominent value and by extention, the kind of magic they would be more familiar with as mages. In fact, the way it is possible to shine a different light on another's soul (such as Frisk's) and bring forth these values is evidence of such.

PATIENCE for, well, sit still, will you? As much as the motif sounds like ye olde regular Your Best Friend, it does have its own spice to it! A cheerful energy, like a playful small child who's genuinely happy to see you. I've worked a character around this one; little Prudence's entire run basically consisted of looking pretty and waiting for everyone to take her wherever she needed. When you're small and cute, you've got to know exactly the right time to take an opportunity and make it unscathed. Also, sad monsters sometimes need a little patience.

BRAVERY for facing your issues head on! Get on with it, old man! Lucas is a menace and doesn't shy away from anything, punching through and racing towards his goal. Like a speedrunner. He skips NPC dialogue like a total idiot and gets very lore confused later. Perhaps he would benefit to learn, someday, that giving away some of your time or crying like a baby for help is indeed the bravest thing to do. He is so dorky and I cannot wait to post my designs. Come on, he wears a bandanna with VERY MASCULINE ABS drawn on it (and they're pink). Sad monsters sometimes need a little push forward, a little bravery.

INTEGRITY for remaining true to oneself. A soul that is grounded and very down to earth (not creepy at all), but never gives up on hopes and dreams, always reaching ever higher. Ingrid takes herself and others seriously, and promises mean a great deal to someone with this value. Huh, where have I seen this before?

PERSEVERANCE for clinging on dear life and never letting go, even if all odds are against you. Even if you're slow and out of shape, even if your vision sucks and your glasses are always dirty, even if the cool tortoise grandpa wants nothing to do with you – do your best(pathetically) to persist. Sophie was a klutz, but harbored a curiosity that would creep most people out. She was so insistent on knowing, so keen on her note taking, so terribly questioning that she fell into his creation and shattered- ah, wait, no, that was somebody else. Either way, good luck trying to shake this one off.

You know what else is a perseverance dynamic and I don't see it being pointed out often, if any at all? The KARMA effect. Your stats may suck, but with a neat little trick and a little persistence, you may be able to get what you want. I think of it as the ATK counterpart to the defensive invincibility boost of their items.

KINDNESS for a sweet gesture, especially to those who have hurt you. It takes incredible inner strength to remain kind and forgive, and it may feel self-sacrificing, but one must give kindness to receive kindness. Of course, this doesn't mean taking shit from anyone, but you see that even bitterness can be delicious – and that is how you like to cook your conflicts. Cooking, kindness ... huh, where have I seen this before?

I haven't worked out much around the adventures of the kid I called Andre yet, but he makes some mean breakfast. So good it rivals the spider bake sale!

JUSTICE for a fair game and a thirst for making things right. Bullet hell? Well, they've got bullets too, and they are great for directly countering attacks. You know what they say, the best defense is a great offense. Clover (i think we all just agreed that's their name as a fandom) is confident and has their rights and wrongs very neatly laid out, as well as astoundingly accurate intuition. But you know what's actually interesting about all of this?

That Alphys was the one to cast that light, even though she's not particularly much of a connoisseur of magic arts.

It might just be an uhhh whatever toby moment, but I feel like this adds another interesting layer to Alphys' character and justice's seemingly small role on the UNDERTALE narrative. But we'll talk about her somewhere else.

Anyway, back to the sibling's adventures with the dingus in scene.

I'd like to think if he is involved, the lab is where they are finally reunited and proceed as a duo. I mean, it's not like patience is in a hurry, or that the guy is too enthusiastic about handing over a little kid to the guy who swore war on humanity. Or having a little kid carry the weight of murdering a big sad softie. And now, somehow, there's TWO of them (what a nightmare).

There's the whole lead-up of ooohhh 👻 beware the man who speaks in hands 👻 he's a huge creep and brilliant and everything but he never comes out and he's super weird and spooky good luck talking to him 👻👻👻 and then they enter the dark lab and there's just. this really pathetic blob of sadness with a weird accent and his collection of contrastingly goofy gadgets and gizmos.

At first he's happy. Then he's worried. Then he's afraid, very afraid. Are you SERIOUS? Weren't you some kind of GENIUS?? The siblings together do a great job at pulling him out of that terrible place and aiding him on process loss, with a gentle push and a little bit of patience. They learn a lot with him; about monsters, about magic, about their own strength and how to sync their skills. He makes it a mission to stall them the best he can, until he can maybe talk to Asgore about it, achieve an agreement. Oh, STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT! With these ridiculous, pointless gimmicks already! What are you so scared of??

Well, the jig is up. It is both admirable and a little intimidating, how despite their entire journey, despite everything they know now, these kids still wish to try their chances with the King of the monsters. Whether they make it back or not isn't as important as being together. It puts his mind at ease, and for a moment, he thinks he knows the King well enough so that he could hope he would indeed drop the trident and be filled with hope once more, just as they managed to do with him. A hypothesis quickly proved wrong. It takes much more than a little patience and a gentle push to overcome the sheer horror that was the mere idea of ever making it out of these caverns.

The Bravery SOUL. so normal about it Shotout to n4rval's Gaster who got me thinking about the two humans‼️ Stares

(Patience not included as it's just plain good ol 'Your Best Friend' throughout) Why does the theme sound so NERDY. All the other SOULs, even Kindness, sound serious. And it would be logical for Perseverance to sounds like that, but nope: it's Bravery's theme.

When I listen to Kindness' theme, it associates with defending oneself, Perseverance with calculating your next moves, while Justice focuses on the opponent's.

Integrity is hard, its creepiness strays me from my line of thought, but most fitting would be 'attacking'. The dustiness of the tutu doesn't play a role in my choice and it's likely that neither of the humans killed anyone, as it would instill at least some fear into monsters and, y'know', be mentioned at least somewhere. But self-defense is still an option, though! Doesn't have to go as far as murder. Nerdy, and many people have pointed out the presence of Gaster's leitmotif in there.

(The video it's taken from)

And, well, these. Just some silly things. Personally I think Gaster could've dealt with two humans after Chara, namely Patience and Bravery. The Patience and Bravery weren't used for the reason of being excessive (I feel like 4 SOUL modes is enough) and Toby not having ideas about how such a SOUL mode could be even executed (the OVERTIME one has a special place in hell). But if looking at it from an in-universe perspective, what if Gaster utilized the SOUL power for lasers? I think a monster's SOUL combines every human trait in it, making it white. Like RGB. So they can also use colored attacks, which have a unique effect. The Royal Guard uses blue attacks to hinder the movement of their target, or, more specifically, a human. Same goes for sentries like Sans and Papyrus. Woshua uses them so you could stand still and let it cleanse you. Hard to say why Gyftrot would, but hey! It's a personal choice, so why not? Orange attacks are very scarce and only one monster exclusively uses that type of attack, and not a combo. Tthat monster being Pyrope. When it comes to switching between these two, Mettaton uses both because of the lasers prominent in the CORE and Hotland, while also being a robot, which, I suppose, makes the utilization easier. Asgore, unlike Undyne, isn't adamant on his target being still to the point of rendering it immobile, so he uses blue attacks instead like the rest of the Royal Guard, while also mixing them with orange ones to disorient the human. So Sorry is a weird case. They attack you but are also sorry for that. (Asgore-style) ..They're quite the character. Green attacks are self-explanatory. Also got a silly idea: what if, since a monster's SOUL is all traits mixed together, white attacks damage you since that is also applicable to them? If you make an orange and a blue attack into one, then it turns into an attack that damages you upon contact either way. But strong monsters, like the main cast, can turn your SOUL a different color. Which, too, is connected to the fact that a monster SOUL consists of every trait, so it can be any color. I already talked about Undyne above. Sans rarely even fights, but in the one instance that he does, it's the sins weighing on our SOUL. Papyrus views the whole fighting thing differently, so for him it's about the challenge. The art of fighting. The purple and yellow modes are a bit weird, the latter one especially. But Muffet uses the former one over the green one due to her playfulness. The purpose of the yellow mode is hard pin down, because it doesn't inconvenience you in any way. But a SOUL is a SOUL, so naturally, SOUL magic would affect them as well. The yellow mode could be used to aid monsters and allow them to get more precise hits? My point is, monsters using either of these (colored attacks and SOUL modes) is natural. What Gaster did was to use that power a bit differently, fusing it with technology.

I feel like Bravery stayed with Gaster for a bit longer than Patience, hence the amount of connections. But if we're going off of Flowey's order of the six SOULs, Patience died first. Bravery dies shortly afterwards. Very reminiscent of the Dreemurrs, isn't it? Ouch. Imagine searching for them and finding out that you arrived a bit late to the scene. Gaster, probably: human...... i know your BRAVE.