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7ban-sama · 1 year ago

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Now that miss 2n2n mentioned it, I feel like Chasriel and Amatsuka have a similar dynamic… what do you think about it?

Generally speaking, I agree with my wife. She's quite smart. Smarter than me about many things. Hehe. But I do just have a bias... Chasriel is a big ship of mine & has been for years. :3 Can't help but at times see some commonality... at least in ah, the appeal for me, and why I am drawn to each of these.

I think the funniest... 'strongest' shared trait is the sheer, BEST FRIENDS FOREVER!! emotion Chara and Asriel share... We get all these details of their childhood, and it feels loaded in sentimentality. Matching striped shirts, matching heart lockets, shared toys, playing in the garden together... I love that Asriel delighted in Chara enough to like, want to record them. Hehehe!!! Do a scary face!! (⬅ help him... he's sick...) All that good stuff though. Even ahh, that thing we learned, where Asriel would copy the way Chara filled their water cups... Sighh. When you compound the stuff we've seen of Kris and Asriel's childhood, it gets unbearable really. (Thinking of Kris as like, a combination and unification of Frisk/Chara's identities, informing us more about Chara and Asriel. Sort of like AU versions of self.)

I think what glimpses we've seen of the Yugi, we can allude that there were many moments spent together, blissful, enjoying each other's company. Even if perhaps life was difficult around them, they had each other.

So many moments spent, indoor and outdoors, day and night. Holding hands, laughing, ahhh, oooh, the bliss-! Enjoying the beauty of life! And I think in each respective dynamic, the point is they were once like this, before tragedy strikes... That's like, why it's so sad that everything ended the way it did.

Though, entering kinda delusional talk, I think similarly there was some sort of...? Destructive, addictive element... Perhaps whatever lead to Amane being bound in rope and scraped up is, in a sense, comparable to Asriel dutifully feeding Chara buttercups. Even if the motivations perhaps are ultimately different? Chara wanted to save the underground; I think Amane was far more selfish with his motivation to kill Tsukasa and himself. I think Chara envisioned a future for Asriel where monsters would inherit the earth and he could see the surface, w/o them as a burden of a sibling. (A bit closer to Tsukasa's martyring, in that way.)

Anyways deep down I like to think Chara and Asriel were sick off of the... romanticizing of Asriel's loyalty to Chara, poisoning them... They were edgelord children. I think there was a lot to be felt, about meticulously bringing Chara buttercups, and this making them sicker. Keeping it a secret from mom and dad... The endgame of soul absorption, not a small boon either. Desire to become one? Meld? The idea of 'take your soul in me', between these two very close individuals, feels like it didn't go without... some sort of idealization. Didn't it at least sound kind of mystical, incredible, some final act, to become one... I figure Asriel just wasn't ready for the raw consequences of when Chara was finally, fully dead, and he had to interact with their corpse.

Meanwhile, for the Yugi, I also think the whole ropes ritual came with a sense of secrecy, loyalty to one another. Indulging in harming, being harmed, permitting each other to do that. The satisfaction of, I really would let you do anything to me... For Amane, who is chronically bad at expressing himself, it might have just felt so satisfying, he couldn't give it up. Even if it was making them both unwell.

In both of these instances... I think the destructive paths provided a way to express intimacy that the everyday platonic shenanigans couldn't. Which makes sense to me, for incest-?? The nature of it is, your relationship naturally has a 'limit' of closeness. Your family, you'll always be family, and family can play together in the backyard, but family can't... consummate... You can't be crazy and obsessed with one another more than, you love your parents, it's not how it works. But what do you do, if you feel it anyways? What if you're desperate for a means to prove to one another something — even if you're not fully aware of it? Amane never liked to look his feelings head-on, Asriel seems to have been processing for years that no one could replace Chara...

On the raw physicality side, it could have simply been satisfying to be bound and helpless, under Tsukasa's hands. Biting rope, the accruing injuries. Invasive touch...? And there was a point Chara was bed bound, but still being fed flowers. What did Asriel feel, going to the gardens, bringing back buttercups... touching their face? Hand-feeding them? Affirming they're going through with the plan? Later, as Flowey, Asriel is obsessed with the idea of getting to kill Chara again, over and over... I don't think he can conceptualize anything else more intense, than this act. The omega flowey fight is grossly sexual to me btw, the dialogue obscene. He would like to trap Chara endlessly in the void and be in a loop of stabbing/being stabbed kfkfkf... But IDK if Amane and Tsukasa can conceptualize more bc they just seem stupid horny for the thought of TSUKASA BEING RENDED TO PIECES, UNRECOGNIZABLE, AGAIN... SO..... *THROWS MY HANDS UP* This is what I mean by the ADDICTIVE quality of it all... When two people can't just go "I love you" and kiss, for many many complicated reasons, it feels like this is the best proxy.

(An aside: Chasriel is closer to 'childhood best friends' since they weren't raised very long together, but I think the interspecies is it's own sort of taboo. Meanwhile in Deltarune, Krisriel is more directly incest.)

I'm rambling without direction here, but I did just wanna tack on, Toby Fox is... a weeb, nerd, likes Japanese media and culture. They're clear inspirations for UT... so I feel like that kinda rings through in the themes. The fact that he's endeavored to learn JP, go to Japan, conduct interviews exclusively in JP... further gives me the impression the JP fandom is something he wants to engage. Perhaps, it's uniquely rewarding? And I find JP fandom sooner understands Chara and Asriel's story... Regardless of like, whether or not they ship or don't ship tbh, I think the whole childhood sentimentality contrasted with their mutual death, is understood... They loved each other, they spiraled into this, and ultimately they couldn't be without each other. And even after they died, it seems the force of what they did to one another...? Has kept them existing, even though they've been chopped & screwed. This is actually another interesting detail tbh, like I wonder as JSHK progresses... if Yorishiro Tsukasa will feel as ah, warped/been through so much, deconstructed what time even is... as much as Flowey does? Acting in an extreme way, perhaps more extreme than Azzy would ever be inclined to in living, as far as we know. It's interesting...

These are my thayoughts. Enjoi

#☀️#💬

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tallsc · 2 years ago

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Undertale Chara Short

If my Gold story was in a weird format this is in an even weirder format, I made a dialogue thing that I was going to turn into a comic at some point. I never made the comic, but I still like the dialogue, and it works well enough as some weird first-person story, so here you are XD

When I first woke up, seeing you make your way into the ruins,

I was so confused.

And I was angry at you. For a little while, at least.

You seemed just like any other human, killing monsters without regret.

You even killed her.

But... you did seem to regret it.

You killed less often.

When you did, you clearly didn't want to. It was only in self defense.

I was starting to think... maybe you were different from the other humans.

I wish I never changed my mind.

But I watched you try to spare my father.

I watched you spare that flower.

And we even went back. To do it all right.

We made so many friends.

Made up for past mistakes.

Went through terrifying things to make it all right.

Even... saved him.

Going to the surface... I thought, maybe, everything would be okay.

Maybe I would be happy here. Even among the humans, as long as the monsters were okay, everything would be alright.

For the first time after my death, I had hope for the future.

But then we went back.

I was so confused. Didn't we do everything right?

What more is there?

...

You became...

So cold.

So heartless.

I learned the truth in that reset.

Humans truly are cruel, vicious beasts.

They will do whatever it takes to get what they want.

For you, it's for your own twisted curiosity.

But I was human too.

And I knew what I wanted.

...

My name is Chara.

And the monsters will no longer live underground in fear.

Because they're gone.

But you want to see more of this world, don't you?

Well, I'll bring the world back.

I just need one thing from you.

No humans will ever threaten the monsters ever again.

I'll make sure of that.

Btw, this is just my interpretation of Chara, ik there are a ton of different variants out there and if you interpret them as more evil or less evil good on you, I hope you have fun with that, I just like this idea of them.

I don't imagine them as outright evil, they're a kid who made some messed up decisions, hates humans and loves monsters. They don't like Frisk killing the monsters but if they/the player goes through a full genocide route they decide that the lesser of two evils is finish this route, then either put all the monsters out of their misery with their new shared power or get Frisk to reset along with taking their soul so they'll have more power in said reset.

I was trying to go through what I assume to be many people's blind introductions to Undertale. Neutral route at the start (killed Toriel and Undyne), reset to Pacifist, reset to Genocide, reset to Pacifist again, and what Chara's thought track is of all of them. The second pacifist isn't explained much cause Chara's still angry and is gonna go kill so many humans now.

#undertale #chara #short story #cw mention of death

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anime-grimmy-art · 4 years ago

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What do you do when there’s not much to an AU? You make up your own stuff, ofc. And as is per usual when I make Character Designs, I make up a shit ton of lore too.

The ramblings under the cut, but what I’m really interested in, is what you guys think. Do you guys have any headcanons/ideas for this AU? Let me hear them! Also, if you don’t wanna read on tumblr, here’s the Google Docs link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/151yshHxnb_--P6eMKkwkI2dee9xC_Llb/view?usp=sharing

Before I get into the characters’ roles, here’s some general facts and backstory of their town:

- Basically, it’s Undertale meets Harvest Moon / Stardew Valley. Well, kinda. I at least used that approach for coming up for the jobs for the characters. You know, how there’s always a general store, a doctor, a smithy, etc.

- The usual story of a HM game is that you come to a town that’s way past its glory days and you, as the player/farmer, help them get back to that. The “backstory” of the town is that that already kinda happened. I’ll get into it more in the character description, but basically when Asgore was still mayor, the town got really popular. Then yadda yadda, a certain tragedy happened, two kids died, and the town suddenly got very bad publicity. There was a lot of stuff going on back then, bad reputation being spread and also a lot of law stuff, cos, you know, supposed child murder ‘n all, so Asgore made the decision to shut off the town to ppl from outside. This was in the interest of most monsters living there, because as fun as it is to have a lot of people coming there, most just wanted to live a quiet life. Not everyone was happy with that though, so many moved away from town and some others are trying to get the town back on its feet. But more on that later.

On to the characters:

I’m just gonna start with the skelebros, cos it’s their fault in the first place I got so invested.

Basically, they are what the player is in hm/sdv. They just showed up one day, took over the abandoned farmhouse and began their life there. The two came to town way after it was “closed” and since then a new mayor has opened the possibility for new residents to move in. Their farm helps the economy of the town a lot and the mayor, like usually in hm games, is trying to use that to make the town more known again. The skelebros aren’t really working towards that goal however.

So, now a bit more detail on them individually.

Papyrus:

- The design is mostly based on what’s “canon” in this au.

- He works mostly on the fields and is in charge of the crops. Their fields aren’t spectacularly big, but still big enough to plant a few dozen rows of veggies.

- Paps also helps out a lot in town when he has the time. He helps Asgore with his plants, he goes fishing with Undyne, helps Toriel carry crates around and so on. This is inspired by the part-time job mechanic in HM ToT.

- Unbelievably, in this AU Pap is not an absolutely awful cook. Since he helps out at Muffet’s and Grillby’s a lot, they tend to show him some tricks to cooking. Even though Pap’s not a big fan of the greasy or overly sweet cooking those two do, he picks up a lot.

Sans:

- Again, design mostly based on the “canon” look. Maybe a bit more baggy.

- This is finally an AU this dude gets to rest. Since there are no resets and he doesn’t have to see his bro die again and again, for once in his life, he’s not a sad ball of depression. He’s just a chill and lazy dude that loves to make puns. Though, since he’s not too experienced with the feelings of loss, helplessness or grieving, he still tends to hide behind puns and fakes smiles if he does feel bad.

- Sans is in charge of the animals on the farm. Papyrus begrudgingly gave him that role since Pap’s loud demeanour and hectic movements usually scare the animals. Sans’ relaxed attitude draws the animals to him naturally and even if Pap mostly finds him sleep against a tree, in a stack of hay or on one of the sheep, the animals are always fed, healthy and relaxed, so Sans seems to be doing his job.

- Sans always has a small chic sit inside his hoodie or hat. Is it always the same one? Who knows, maybe.

- Sans also, somehow, can produce eggs out of thin air. Grab into his hoodie pocket, in his pants pocket, in his hat, in his slipper, there’s suddenly always an egg there. On good days he can even make butter or cheese appear.

Gaster:

- He’s literally just a scarecrow in this. Though, if you ask any of the bros why they designed their scarecrow that way, they won’t have an answer.

Frisk&Toriel:

- Frisk is mostly based on what I wore myself as a kid in summer. Just a loose shirt with a cappy. Toriel basically has her ut gown, just with an apron on top.

- Frisk just appeared outside the “magical” forest one day. Napstablook and his cousin found them and brought them to Toriel, who has been taking care of them since.

- Toriel runs the general store in town, but also often takes care of the few kids that still live there.

- Frisk usually helps out in Toriels store, plays with the other kids or sits around at Asgore’s. They’re notorious for nabbing small snacks, mostly from Asgore’s plants. You’ll always find them munching on something.

- Frisk was in town before the skelebros. Since they’d moved in, Frisk often went to spy on their farm. After a small incident with angry chicken, Frisk got to know the two better and now they see them as something between brothers and uncles.

- But Frisk honestly gets along with everyone. Just like in UT, they’ve not only been adopted by Toriel but literally everyone.

- Toriel and Asgore’s relationship is not as bad as in the main game, since, you know, Asgore didn’t kill literal children, but there’s still tension between them. Back when Asriel and Chara died and the whole thing with the bad rep for the town began, Toriel felt betrayed by Asgore focusing more on the town than giving their deceased kids the grieving they deserved. They’re not divorced, but Toriel still moved out and said needed space to think. Now that Frisk is in the picture though, the both of them are slowly coming to even ground and may even be able to talk things out and clear up the uncertainty of their decisions.

Asgore:

-Asgore has his UT Ending / Deltarune clothes, just with a gardener’s belt.

- He’s the previous mayor of the town, but after all the crap that happened, he stepped down from the position. Now he has his own little shop and sells seeds, saplings, homegrown veggies and fertilizer. So, basically what e.g. the Marimba Farm is in HM AP

- His main customer is Papyrus and they’re on friendly terms. Asgore is worried about how much and how hard Pap works, so he often gives him a discount.

- Since his family’s past tragedy, Asgore is kind of nervous around kids. So, when he first met Frisk, he hoped they’d not visit him too often. But to his chagrin, Frisk took an instant liking to him and spends a lot of time at his shop (and steals eats the fresh grown veggies). Now, he’s really grateful for that, because for one, he loves Frisk as dearly as he had his own children, and also because now the tension and mistrust between him and Toriel seem to grow smaller day by day.

Undyne&Alphys:

- I gave Undyne a pretty basic fisher’s outfit. Alphys basically has Elli from HM’s outfit, just a bit more doctory stuff added. She still has her canon lab coat too.

- In essence, Undyne and Alphys have 2 completely different jobs. Alphys is the resident doctor and Undyne runs the fish market.

Two things. Yes, I know Alphys is more a mechanic than a doctor, she fits the aesthetic though, so she’s the doc now. And no, Undyne being a fisherwoman is not cannibalism, think of it more as a shark hunting smaller fish.

- The reason I lump them together is because they act as the local “smithy”. Alphys is still really tech savvy in this (I mean, Mettaton is still part of this AU), so she takes on most problems with electronics and stuff. For Undyne, I didn’t want to lose her Royal Guard’s Captain image, so she’s really good at handling tools (and weapons, but Al doesn’t let her make them anymore). So basically, if there’s a broken tool, you can be sure that either Undyne or Alphys can fix it.

- As for relationships, those two are still an item. Alphys is still really shy and a shut-off, but since Undyne and Pap become best friends, she gets to know the skelebros better. She and Sans especially get along well, since most of the time Undyne and Papyrus are let loose, they sit back and talk about science-y stuff. (no, Sans doesn’t have a background in science but he’s still into sci-fi)

- Alphys has a bit of a strained relationship with both Asgore and Mettaton.

Back when Chara and Asriel died, it was because of “illness” (maybe poisoning?). Alphys feels awful because with her back then limited knowledge on medicine she couldn’t help the two. Asgore doesn’t hold anything against her but Alphys can’t help but feel guilty.

Alphys still built Mettaton’s body in this one. The two had a really big disagreement, because Mettaton hated the fact the town was going to close, and he couldn’t understand how Alphys could feel otherwise, even more so endorse the idea.

Mettaton, Napstablook, Mad Dummy/Mew Mew:

- Napsta and Dummy are pretty self-explanatory, they got straw hats. Mettaton’s outfit is a bit of a joke cos it’s a play on “work at the top and party at the bottom”. The tie has two different sides, one with the yellow red pattern, the other completely red. His “top part” is the business part, because when he’s on tv or in the mayors’ office, you don’t usually see his feet. The bottom is his party/dance part, cos his dancing/entertainment channels mostly feature his legs.

- Mettaton, still a robot, Napstablook and Mad Dummy are all still cousins in this AU.

- Originally, they all lived and worked at the Blook Farm, the Animal Farm of this AU. Mettaton, however, despised that simple live and after befriending Alphys and her building him a body, he left the Farm to pursue bigger things.

- Mettaton runs the local tv network. From weather to game shows, he does it all. He also runs the tailor shop in town that sells his designer clothes and merchandise. After Asgore stepped down, Mettaton also took over the role of town’s mayor and now works towards making the place more known again. Not everybody is happy with him doing that though.

- One of those people is the Mad Dummy. He can’t stand people anyways and he always claims that history would just repeat itself.

- Since the whole family is made of ghosts, they have different dummies and scarecrows they can use to take care of the animals. To mock Mettaton and kinda get back at Alphys for giving MTT such an opportunity, Mad Dummy found the blueprints for the Mew Mew robot and now modelled one of their scarecrows after it.

- Napstablook isn’t fond of taking over obejcts like his cousins do, so he mostly takes care of the snails. Somehow, he can interact with them even when incorporeal.

Muffet&Grillby:

- The two of them run the Inn together. Muffet cooks in the daytime and makes desserts, Grillby manages the bar in the evening.

- The two still can’t really stand each other but working together like this benefits them both because their rivalry just spurs them on more.

- Even though Grillby is a patient person, somehow Muffet is the only person who riles him up enough to retaliate. (Well, maybe except for Sans, he’s a strong second).

So, basically everything between those two is a challenge in some way. Even if Papyrus doesn’t notice, even his cooking lessons are a challenge for them.

- Even though they’re constantly bickering, after working together for so many years, there’s a strange level of respect and trust between them. Even if back when they first started this business, they’d pour salt into an already open wound, nowadays they’d know better and just take a step back from the other or even comfort the other (on very rare occasions only).

Asriel&Chara:

- They be dead. Kinda.

Some Characters that’d live in that town too but that I haven’t made designs for:

- Gerson is the original smithy of the town. He’d grown up in a family of smiths, but he’d always had an appreciation for the sea. That’s why, when the town became more deserted and Undyne had a good enough skill level as smith, he took up the Captains hat and now mostly spends his days out on sea. He also ferries people to places if they need him to. Oh, and just like in canon, Undyne learned most of her skills from him.

- Burgerpants is a poor dude Mettaton basically kidnapped when he was trying to get fame in the city. Now Burgerpants works wherever MTT needs him to, be that as cameraman for the tv shows, cashier in his tailor shop or his slave secretary in the mayor’s office.

- MK is Frisk’s best kid friend. MK’s parents are in charge of shipping the goods out of town and paying the individual people. MK’s the one that usually collects the goods at the end of the day.

- Other than that, there are only a few people in town. I’d imagine the older folks or the really young families stayed in town after it was closed. I think the librarby dude would still run the library. Some Snowdin residents like the stone family or the dogs also might still live there.

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shywitchyfangirl · 2 years ago

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hey!! so i am currently interested in undertale paganism a lot, and i was wondering if you have any tips for getting started?

and if you have the time, any chara correspondences? thanks!!

Hey, sorry for taking a bit to answer!

First off, if you haven't already, check out the pop culture paganism tag for some general ideas. This post is my favorite for explaining things. That being said, your starting point largely depends on what you're drawn to, what meaning you find in the game, and what you're hoping to become through it. For instance, are you hoping to grow into a more merciful person? More determined? Maybe you want to embody all seven soul traits? Or perhaps you just draw comfort from the characters themselves and want to have some sort of spiritual relationship with them? That's okay too!

Soul searching aside, I would suggest your first move be to pick just one character and try building a relationship with just them. Whichever one you're most drawn to, or whoever most embodies what you're looking for. Try to reach out to them, talk to them, give them offerings, and ask them for guidance. An important thing to keep in mind with pop culture entities, though, is that not all of them would be comfortable being worshipped or treated as a god. Depending on who you're working with, it might be a good idea to try just honoring them as a person and/or mentor until you get a better feel of their boundaries. Once you're comfortable with them and vice versa, you might find yourself drawn to another character, another character may reach out to you in some way, or your first character may introduce another character to you themselves. In my case, for my Deltarune practice, I started with Jevil, who might in Seam for me, who introduced Diamond King to me.

Aside from that, the wonderful thing about Undertale is that it has its virtues built right in. Focusing on mercy and the seven soul traits is a great way to practice Undertale paganism, and the souls/traits themselves could easily be revered in their own right (perhaps as something akin to angels?). For instance, your practice could include embodying one trait for each day of the week. Of course, the characters themselves will have their own lessons to teach you, and you could even call on them as guardian spirits if you need their specific skills.

As for Chara, they're a tricky character to nail down (just look at the fandom). Their associations really depend on how you see them, but in a sense, that could be a trait in and of itself. Chara is the one who calls out to their brother in the final battle and brings him peace, but they're also the one who, after being forced to kill everyone they love, decides that if they're going to do it, they at least want to do it by their own power, and you don't get to change your mind after they've lost everything. They were bitter enough to want to kill the humans who attacked them and Asriel, but they were also willing to sacrifice their life to save the monsters. They are, basically, the grey area between Frisk and Flowey, which is why the player is able to guide them one way or the other.

You can disagree or add your own, but this is a start for what I would give them:

-The colors red, green and gold, red heart shapes, smiley faces, as well as any yellow flowers

-Determination (duh)

-Survival in harsh/abusive situations (it's implied Chara had a very bad upbringing prior to their fall, and got through it by learning to laugh off the pain)

-Self-sacrifice (the whole buttercups thing)

-Doing what must be done (see previous)

-Family (they loved the Dreemurs enough to die for them, and they were the one who calmed Asriel)

-Gaining the upper hand on an abuser ("Since when were YOU the one in control?")

-Similarly, control/being controlled

-Gaining power ("Any time a number goes up, that feeling is me. Chara")

-Destruction and recreation (they do bring the world back if you beg)

-Deals with other entities (you giving them your soul in exchange)

-But relating to the above, inescapable consequences (Soulless pacifist)

-Also in those lines, cursing someone with exactly what they asked for

-Necromancy/ghosts/spirit work/death, because they are themself a ghost stuck to Frisk

-I would argue redemption, since what is the pacifist route if not teaching Chara a better way

-Anger and/or protecting others (them wanting to attack the humans who hurt Asriel)

Feel free to send another ask if you have further questions! I hope this can get you started!

#hey look the witch blog posted a witch thing #god i rambled about chara #anon ask #ask #pop culture paganism #pcp #undertale #undertale paganism #shy craft #undertale chara

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vsa-pieldepapel · 2 years ago

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Charisk anon again, sorry I keep talking about UT, but uhhhhh. I feel like sans has the weirdest relationship with frisk. Like, sans knows something is up and kinda knows about the time travel thing. Kinda knows that they’ve killed the underground. Definitely knows they’ve saved the underground. Sometimes they talk to themself or act briefly like someone else. They flinch at inane things, like ketchup spills, or comments about beautiful weather. He kind of loves them. Is very afraid of them, too.

They’re also able to see through his facade, which is terrifying. They know him better than he knows them, which is a difficult thing to do. But they’ve had more time to figure it out than he has, haven’t they? They’ve been able to try again, and again, and again. What happens when they get bored?

So here he is, trying to appease this child who has the whole timeline in their hands.

Would you still love me if I told you I dont really care about sans sjdjshdjshd……… He and papyrus were probably my least favorite of the entire UT cast and I like sans mostly in the context of… Soriel, not really Frisk… haha (gets sniped)

Im still posting this because other people could enjoy the concept enough to write it as an existential horror oneshot (vibe I got from it at least) and its definitely cool even if I dont have that much to say about it… unrelated sperg below after the sans slot. Thank you for still sharing your ideas charisk anon, listening to new takes on stuff is always cool even if I have no strong opinions on it!

Maybe it’s because I treat each run as a separate incident, instead of treating the default timeline as having hundreds of resets on it. I think your idea is interesting, but I don’t have much to add on it because I rarely think about the timeline stuff outside of the context of it being meta commentary on the player

<autism_infodump> (meta analysis-wise i find Toby fox’s penchant for guilt tripping the player for playing and replaying the game intriguing) I extricate myself as a player from undertale, treat the player as a faceless entity (sorry Toby I know you wanted me to self insert but I cannot)… when you’re not in the Videogame anymore, and try to write stories about the characters with a firm fourth wall, it becomes strange to implement without direct interaction to allow for the meta commentary (all I state here in my perspective)

Consider how all the implications of genocide ingame because you made the choices that led there, insisting on continuing despite the different points you could turn back at… versus a fanfic, third person, where you did nothing to instigate the narrated circumstances, only observe the events… that’s what I mean. Your direct responsibility changes the emotional punch, Toby fox takes full advantage of the added layer of involvement you have with the media (another game that does this masterfully is Spec Ops: The Line for example)

watching genocide route/snowgrave videos I still oof because you can sympathise with the plight of the characters and Toby is very meticulous about making you care for them (precisely to make you suffer or be happy for them) but I think the blow is different when you are the one triggering these sequences, and third person changes how you process it </autism_infodump>

#doodle #digital #undertale #sans #vsa answers

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furiosity-wills-the-cat · 3 years ago

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Chara, the fourth Blook cousin:

A crack theory that accidentally become way more serious than it should have because it somehow, despite my best efforts, ended up making sense

Brought to you by my idiot conspiracy brain (affectionate) and by encouragement from my Tumblr followers

Under the cut for the sake of your dashes and sanity

Ok here we go my very elaborate accidental theory, because in order to answer the complex questions simply you must first make simple things more complex or something

First, you need to know that Chara became a Blook cousin by adoption.

All of the Blooks are adopted.

Ghosts are not born into families, they make their own.

Got it? Great, because we’re about to start running

so first, im gonna make surprisingly uncommon claim in this fandom, and I am going to say that undertale ghosts are all dead

I’m taking the tiny details we know about ghosts and sprinting with them to new places

Ghosts also do not have souls I decided

Undertale souls do not work the same as souls in traditional mythology

So every ghost is soulless Unless and Until they become corporeal

Evidence: Monster souls cant exist without bodies, and ghosts are monsters, therefore ghosts cannot have souls without bodies

Further evidence: Asriel doesnt steal blooky’s soul, blooky is unkillable, we have no concrete evidence that blooky has a soul

What about mettaton? He only has a soul after he has completely committed to being corporeal and to a specific body.

Also maddy and mettaton are both only killable while corporeal

Im also connecting the dots we have about souls in a new creative way so let me live for a second

Additionally, i am going to claim that there are a lot more ghosts than just the blooks, some evidence given below

Theres like actual scientific knowlege of ghosts in the undertale verse which seems unlikely if theres literally only three or four

The underground is so much bigger than you think, theres that giant forest in snowdin, a large town in the ruins, the huge city of new home, who knows how much space in the large open areas of waterfall etc. Its really really big okay

Also based off evidence of blooky, we can conclude that ghosts can turn invisible whenever they want to and/or haunt objects to hide

So I personally think that ghosts are, generally speaking, extremely reclusive

And the blooks are just a special exception, a beautiful family, amazing for them

So anyway im going with typical ghost lore for now, for the sake of ease, so im gonna say ghosts generally come from monsters who are particularly restless or unsatisfied when they die

HOWEVER i dont think they remember being monsters or anything before being a ghost. They just kinda fizzle into existance with a fully formed personality and immortality while being unkillable and feeling vaguely uneasy

ALSO i personally think that chara was a ghost for a long time before they became a blook by adoption

Based on game lore, i think ghosts can possess any inanimate object and just kinda wear it? But it takes a lot of strong emotion to become corporeal

And chara is the super weird exception because they were a human not a monster.

They dont have a soul (i headcanon that their soul got destroyed when asriel died)

And they KNOW this, which is a huge part of why they kinda just... give up

Because they lost their ability to fulfill prophecy

Also, without a soul, they lost their ability to reset, so for the first time since falling underground, theyre subject to the relentless march of time

But theyre still weirdly strong and powerful and more emotional

ALSO they DO still remember being a human but they catch on pretty quickly that other ghosts dont have memories and because chara is stupid they just lie to fit in

Theyre too tired to explain themself, they just want to be alone and feel awful

Now back to ghost lore

Emotions are a lot harder for ghosts??? I decided

And they dont know why,, they tend to blame it on the soul thing

But realistically its actually more of the immortality thing making actions not have consequences and/or or not having a body so they cant have a sense of touch or have physical effects of emotion

They all know that ghosts just tend to be way more floaty and bored and numb

And thats part of why the blooks are so special

Maddy’s rage and Mettaton’s yearning and Napstablook’s misery are like... not great all of the time...

but theyre also way way more emotion than most ghosts have,,, they are just a family supporting each other, being as functional as they can,, just an emo(tional) ghost family

most ghosts barely do anything except like stare at walls but the blooks have their snail farm and that helps them have purpose and it is good

And they hold each other accountable and it is nice

So anyway chara just chills and is in a depression coma for a few decades before the blooks find them and are like “our child/baby cousin”

and they raise them for a cool minute

They are all very protective of the new baby emo blook

And chara doesnt get therapy but at the very least they once again have a family, and they decide they want to try to become corporeal eventually just like mtt and maddy

So anyway chara starts hanging out in the ruins a lot more and they finally tell the blooks theyre leaving to go become corporeal in the ruins

This is actually because they are trying to hang out with toriel

because they miss their mom ;;

but chara’s not gonna admit that to anyone, especially not to themself

And because theyre still repressing their emotions constantly and pretending to be fine, they cant become corporeal

And they hang out in the ruins for a long time because they feel guilty lying to everyone about everything

They still feel like its their fault that all the monsters are stuck underground, because they were SUPPOSED to save everyone and they COULDNT and it HURTS

But again, they are doing too much repression to use this guilt to become corporeal,

so instead they just kinda hide and watch toriel from a distance and cry

Blooky visits them the most, thats why blooky is chilling in the ruins so much at the start of the game

Theyre just there to visit their shy baby cousin ;;

Ofc they wont tell frisk about this because chara wants space and privacy and blooky respects that

but maddy and mtt also visit them a lot

Oh also when mtt and maddy start dissapearing, blookys mental health plummets as their family and support system starts to dissolve

Blooky was actually doing extremely well (for a ghost) for a long time, i headcanon,

but theyre doing the worst theyve been in a long long time during the game, because of family issues

So anyway, chara dissapears when frisk shows up, and maddy assumes this is becaude frisk hurt their fragile feelings

Maddy spends hours desperately searching the ruins for chara and cant find them and assumes that they had their heart crushed and went to hide and disappear in a depression coma for another few decades, and thats part of why maddy is so furious with frisk

Like,, to be clear, maddy is still jumping to conclusions and throwing blame around with no proof, but also, its a logical conclusion to come to

And mettaton has already disappeared too and been gone for a while, too, by this point, so it hurts even worse

But anyway, what actually happened to chara is that;

Because chara is a human ghost, not a monster ghost, normal ghost rules dont apply to them

And they can possess living things too they find out

Maybe they knew it a long time ago, maybe its a new discovery, but for whatever reason they end up possessing frisk and theyre like “what the heck”

And frisk still has most of the control

But now chara is like,,, “this is my chance, im a human again, gotta save the world for real,,,”

and they cant explain this to anyone without revealing their past

so they just chill in frisk’s mind while being super crypic and trying to figure out how it works

Pacifist route, this is pretty much exactly what happens

They manage to help frisk save the day

And in my headcanon, the no mercy route is started by frisk who is scared when faced by monsters attacking them

And then chara, who was aready hiding in a semidepression coma for a while, immediately transitions to a panicked “gotta protect this body, gotta protect my chance to be human, i died and threw away my chance to save everyone the first time, i CANNOT lose this chance again”

And so the combination of both frisk and chara is the genocide run

Because frisk kills in self defense, and whenever frisk hesitates, chara jumps in

Also theres leftover feelings from the whole asriel incident

Because again, ghosts come from monsters who died unsatisfied

And chara’s main source of unsatisfaction is how they were trying to get asriel to kill people before he died and then he didnt

So thats a strong strong feeling ruling them

So anyway by the time they both realize how bad its become they figure its too late and also the amount of LOVE has made them numb

And thats when chara who, despite everything, still has idiot hero complex and thinks they need to save the world

So, while panicking, they step in at the very end, and erase the timeline and delete everything

And also to clarify

They DONT HAVE this power at any other point in the game

Because, guess why

They become corporeal

Just like maddy, the no mercy route is the only thing that gives them strong enough emotion to spontaneously become corporeal

So they become corporeal and as soon as they have a soul again and can reset again, they just erase everything

Ok back to fluff

Post pacifist route, they are still a non corporeal ghost

They can still float around and look just like the other blooks

And it takes them a while to open up about things, but they do end up moving back in with blooky so that blooky isnt completely alone

And also they do way better with a family

Also they can float through the mountain and talk to flowey down below and bring him news

And now that they know about him, they can bond with him and explain that they dont have a soul either but that doesnt mean theyre worthless

Oh ALSO

The other dead humans dont have ghosts

BECAUSE

ghosts only come from restless dead MONSTERS

and chara is the weird special exception

Because they were a monster when they died

They became a ghost and asriel didnt because they were way more restless and stressed than asriel was when both of them died

Like sure, asriel felt awful, but chara was the one who was way more like “this is my fault, i CANT die now, the world NEEDS me”

So anyway

charablook the emo tween ghost and asriel flowey the eldrich goat daisy are siblings once more and they hang out and eventually they are okay and have a family again

Thank you for reading, this has been my thoughts on a crack theory that accidentally went too far

This isnt even everything, maybe i’ll make a part two eventually, but i promised to have this post out like two days ago, so i wanted to post SOMTHING

Anyway leave your thoughts if youd like

Im not looking for people to disprove it, i already know its crazy, i dont think it was intentional by the game writers, but i do think its a fun concept

thats the fun of it, so if anyone wants to run with it im all for it lol

Thanks again! Have a nice day!

#no mercy #as a warning tag #chara undertale #napstablook undertale #fic tag #meta #analysis #crack theroy #undertale #i didnt edit this very much #so if there are any major typos or parts that didnt make sense #or were illegible #feel free to let me know so i can clarify

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songfell-ut · 4 years ago

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Happy birthday to:

@venelona! I set out to prove that I could do a gift on time, and even if time zones have come between us, it’s totally the 4th right now for me, dammit. So here you go, stolen directly from your conversation on @lailosh‘s server and based of course on these comics.

(Omfg, I told my daughter I was happy I finished a birthday gift on time and now she’s nattering to her class on Zoom about how today is her mom’s friend’s birthday and the teacher is asking if we’re doing anything)

Anyway

The bedroom was quiet. Not too quiet—the air conditioner hummed and traffic noises filtered in from the busy street outside, as usual. It was just the quiet of an early-evening bedroom with no one in it yet, sleeping or playing on their phone or doing you-know-what…

…Not that the room’s usual occupant ever did much know-what. In fact, she never did any of it. He definitely would’ve noticed. He noticed everything.

For example, he knew the moment the sun’s last rays finally died out and warm, sweet darkness began sinking into the room, pooling under her bed and creating the ideal space for someone – something – like him to emerge.

Nightmare permitted himself a tiny grin, letting his tentacles writhe in anticipation. He’d been resting and gathering his power for over a month, building enough strength to invade the waking world. Let her think he’d grown tired of trying to reach her again after…after that, her shocking indecency, showing him all that soft warm naked skin and touching him with no he had to focus

Yes. She probably thought she’d won and driven him off with her horrible wiles! Well, what would she say when he came for her—no, when he completely platonically attacked her in her own world, where she thought she was safe? There was nowhere to run from him in her nightmares, but she could always wake up. Here, though…

Nightmare took the magical equivalent of a deep breath, running his tentacles along the barrier between his world and the reality inhabited by humans. It was a delicate process, but he used the barest touch of power to find the barrier’s weak spot, nudge the folds of subspace aside and insert his tentacles one at a why did this feel so inappropriate time, until he was through!

The space under her bed was…not spacious. In fact, if he hadn’t been so viscous, Nightmare could well have found himself stuck. It was enough to make him contemplate giving up and slipping back into his own world, where an eldritch being could stretch properly and not think terrible, untoward things from something as innocuous as penetrating into her wo—

No! As a being of infinite cosmic horror who fed on the suffering of lesser creatures, Nightmare had no intention of backing out now…not the least because he couldn’t back up any further without hitting the wall. What kind of pathetically undersized dwelling was this?

At least he knew her routine, and that she’d be in here soon enough: she was doing the dishes, and then it was time for her shower. Should he strike while she was rummaging in her closet for her favorite cotton robe, the one with the stupid pink flowers? Or lie in wait until she came in afterward, threw her towel off, and eventually got into her pajamas? …Assuming she bothered wearing any. He never watched that part, no matter how much he…well…

Nightmare squeezed his eye shut. Things would be different after tonight, he vowed. Once he’d given her another glimpse of real terror, she’d never taunt him again! He would unleash his most hideous abominations upon his not-scantily-clad victim, and her fear would make him strong enough to finally see—

—a set of dainty black paws wandering in through the half-open door. The skeletal creature froze, slipping a little further back under the bed. Since when did Frisk have a damned cat? And where was it going?! Surely the beast wasn’t stupid enough to approach him?

The cat took a few hesitant steps, then stopped and growled under its breath, tail lashing. Good! Let it make all the noise it wanted. If it got close enough to grab, he’d—

Nightmare was so busy thinking of ways to make the cat sorry for existing that he didn’t notice one of his tentacles eagerly creeping out from under the bed, reaching to grab the little animal…until the cat’s paw went whapwhapwhap and smacked him with needle-sharp claws. “Oww!” he snarled. “You…!”

The kitchen was just down the hall; to his alarm, Frisk had turned the water off. “Nero?” she called. Her footsteps drifted toward the bedroom, and Nightmare crammed himself back against the wall. “Ne—geez!” she yelped as the cat came rocketing out of her room. “What’s wrong with you?” the young woman demanded, her voice trailing after him. “Come back here and answer me, you little…!”

That was too close. Nightmare breathed a sigh of relief, and considered reaching across the room to shut the door; his powers of telekinesis had all but vanished as his…other talents developed. But no, she was an intelligent young lady, and she’d wonder why it was suddenly closed. Besides, the substance coating his limbs would leave telltale greenish-black traces. He just had to hope she wouldn’t notice the flecks of it on the carpet that had been whacked off—that had been forcibly removed by the cat clawing his tentacle.

So the skeletal abomination settled himself to wait, very patiently, as befitted a creature of his age and magical stature. He was always happy to pass the time devising new tortures to inflict upon his victims. Frisk never failed to disappoint him, provided she had clothes on, and once he’d had his way with—once he was finished platonically terrorizing her, she’d never say any ridiculous things about naked or marriage ever again!

Only a minute later, Frisk came back down the hall. “I know, Mom,” she was saying, presumably on the phone. The hall light came on; Nightmare steeled himself for the bedroom light, but to his intense relief, she went to the bathroom instead. “Yeah, I’m gonna go to bed early tonight. I’ve got new contacts, and they’re giving me a headache.” There was a rummage through her medicine cabinet, then some vaguely cloth-sounding noises. “Of course Nero’s doing fine. He just got his wet food, and…he’s already heading to the litter box again. Goody.” Sigh. “Are you guys having fun on your amazing cruise that you wouldn’t take me on?”

Ah. That explained the cat’s presence. And it was also excellent nightmare fuel: he could make her see her parents out on the ocean, having a wonderful time until, say, the walls of the ship split open and grew teeth to begin devouring the passengers, or some kind of disease started spreading that made people turn inside out…Frisk was always susceptible to body horror. Oh, yes, he knew how he could take advantage of her. …Platonically!

“Thanks, Mom,” she said loudly, breaking in on his definitely-not-filthy thoughts. “Have fun. Love you.” He heard her set something down in the kitchen, then sigh, padding back down the hall.

Nightmare settled down to wait again, only to flinch at the sound of sudden, rapid footsteps: Frisk burst into her room and leapt onto her bed with a little “Whee!” The mattress flattened beneath her weight, mashing into his skull; he cursed silently in the tongues of a thousand mortal worlds as Frisk flopped onto her back. “Oh, man, what a day,” she muttered. “Stupid contacts.” Yawn. “Don’t care about the shower, do it in the mornin’…”

That was…remarkably cute, Nightmare thought, then tried to un-think it as she rolled onto her side, relieving some of the pressure. If only they were in his realm! Her mind would be an open book, and he could effortlessly seize her subconscious and steer it in any direction he chose. In this world, he had to wait till her breathing slowed, then grip the carpet and glide out from under the bed on a layer of the noxious stuff coating his body.

Once his torso was free, he silently eased his legs out and rose to his knees. His tentacles quivered with eagerness as he started to turn toward the b—

“Gotcha!”

…If Nightmare had had any friends, and one of them had asked him the likelihood of his next victim not just taking him by surprise, but grabbing him by the neck with rubber kitchen gloves? He would have laughed, and then killed them, because they were clearly insane and he didn’t have any friends.

But by all that was unholy, his theoretical dead friend was not insane. Instead of giving Frisk a (perfectly chaste) glimpse into her own personal Hell, Nightmare found himself being scruffed like an indignant kitten and hauled toward the light switch; instead of latching onto her and ripping her flesh from her bones, his tentacles had just enough time to form a protective seal over his eye before the room was flooded with foul, searing light.

“Oh my God, shut up!” Frisk shouted over his wails of pain. “It’s just one lightbulb!” She shouldered the door open and began dragging him down the hall. “You’re not melting or anything! But if you want to, go for it—it’d probably be an improvement!”

“How dare you!” The eldritch skeleton flailed with both arms and kicked at random, to no avail. “Release me now!”

“Why?” she snapped. Nightmare made another series of agonized noises as she pulled him all the way into the brightly lit bathroom. “I’m not letting you go till you apologize and we get everything cleaned up!” She slammed the door shut and locked it for emphasis. “Got it?!”

He still couldn’t bring himself to uncover his eye. “How? How did you know—”

“The cat had a bunch of gross slime all over his paw! Who do I know that gets gunk everywhere and smells like a hot dumpster? Gee, let me think!” Frisk still had an iron grip on his neck, fingers digging between the vertebrae. With her other rubber-gloved hand, she banged open the linen closet and began pulling things out, piling them on the toilet lid. “I had to scrub it off him so he wouldn’t eat it and die or something. So then I thought to myself, Wow, Self! I already had to wash one dumb thing I didn’t want here! Why not go for a double?”

The implication hit him as she yanked a knob and started the shower full-blast. “You wouldn’t dare,” he hissed.

Frisk stopped dead. For a moment, Nightmare entertained hopes of mustering enough strength to break loose and reach the light switch. When one tentacle eased free, though, she pivoted until he was fully facing the vanity lights, holding firm as he writhed in agony. It felt like miniature suns burning into his slime and bone…

…but only for a moment. The next thing he knew, Frisk had turned him away again, leaning over to shield him from the light. “Believe it or not, I don’t like hurting you,” she said severely. “But you’re in my world now, literally, and you’re not Mr. Big Scary Hentai Monster. You’re more like a vampire in a crappy horror game—all I have to do is turn the lights on. So, you’d better behave. Got it?” Her grip somehow tightened. “Here we go. Hold your breath!”

Nightmare didn’t have time to request any further details, because she was already ripping back the shower curtain and stepping into the tub with him, holding him under the water as she pulled the curtain shut. “There! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while,” she said cheerfully, patting his topmost tentacle. “Doesn’t that feel nice?”

It did not feel nice. The hot water felt like…like…it was bad and he hated it. Yes. It was terrible, and not oddly pleasant or soothing once he got used to it, not at all like being massaged by a thousand tiny hands. In fact, he hated it so much that he relaxed, telling himself he was tricking her into dropping her guard.

Behind him, Frisk hummed in satisfaction and reached out of the curtain. Nightmare’s tentacles began to loosen almost imperceptibly, but constricted again as the human tapped on them. “Hold still. I don’t even know if this stuff hurts when it gets in your eyes…well, eye. But like I said, I don’t get off on torturing people.” Something – probably a bottle – made a sploot sound as she squeezed it. “You just smell really bad.”

Nightmare couldn’t help flinching at the first cold, rough touch of the shower loofa. “I do not ‘get off’ on it,” he informed her. “I can’t help what I am, can I?”

“Hmmm. Yeah,” she said absently. “Yeah, you absolutely can. At least, you can control what you do.” A strange floral scent filled the room as she began a brisk, gentle scrub-down, removing most of his protective slime; he unconsciously folded his legs to sit forward more comfortably, letting her angle the showerhead so that more water streamed over him. “Would you die if you went too long without scaring the crap out of someone?”

The skeletal monster had to suppress a shudder as her fingers slipped between two of the tentacles. No one had touched him like this in…ever, or at least as far back as he could remember. “Probably,” he muttered, telling himself to calm down. It was perfectly innocent, just a wretched human daring to lay hands on him, earning the most terrible punishment imaginable— “Would you die if you went for too long without eating?” he added.

Scrub. Scrub. “Well, duh. But if I want a burger, I don’t sneak into the cow’s house to taunt it first.”

Nightmare did shudder this time as her hand glided over the same spot over and over again, leaving a very sensitive layer of ectoplasmic flesh. His tentacles were stirring with interest, and the more firmly he told them to stop it, the more they all wanted to be washed. One was actually angling itself to let her rub it harder. “I…fine! Just hurry it up.”

“Aww, see? It’s not so bad,” she chirped. The tentacle stretched luxuriously, and Nightmare fought to keep another one from rising to demand the same treatment. “At this rate, you’ll be nice and clean in just a few hours!”

Hours?! He did his best to open his eye, raising one hand to protect him from the light. “You’re joking. Right?” She made an indifferent noise, and he tried to grab at the loofa with his other hand. “Let me do it, then!”

“Nope,” said Frisk, giving the shower curtain a threatening nudge with her elbow; he twitched as the light flickered around its edge. “Just relax, okay? Let your loving wife take care of you~”

He felt his entire skull flush bright green. “You are not my wife!”

The human made a pouty sound. “How can you say that, honey? After all we’ve been through together!” The scrubbing intensified. “I know you wanted more romance. Is that why you came all the way here to see me?” The scrubbing paused. “How did you get into the real world, anyway?” she asked, much more seriously.

Nightmare willed more of his tentacles to peel themselves off his skull, and to behave themselves. “With magic. Don’t waste my time with stupid questions.” The light was just a bit dimmer in here through the shower curtain – enough for the pain to start receding – and he needed to adjust to it; no point formulating an escape plan if he couldn’t see what he was doing.

Frisk slowly removed her grip from around his neck. “Okay, then. I see how it is.” She heaved a sigh, then picked up the bottle again.

This was his chance—Frisk was distracted, with both hands occupied, and his vision was clear. Nightmare grinned in silent malice, flexing his bony fingers as they lay in his lap. Most of his power was still depleted from entering this world, but he had more physical strength in one tentacle than ten mortal men. And this was one slim, soft, pliant young woman! He could take her—he could overpower her with virtually no effort!

It would be ridiculously simple: turn around, grab her, and force her to turn the lights off, for starters. Then they could talk about how she had treated him like a misbehaving cat, and—

She chose that moment to drop the body wash and make him jump. “Crap! Sorry,” Frisk said.

The monster made what he hoped was an agreeable noise and picked up the bottle, which was pretty slippery. “Here,” he murmured. “If you’re going to—”

Without warning, Nightmare sprang to his feet and whirled around, backing the startled human against the shower wall. “Now,” he snarled, “you daaaaaaaaaaaaaugh”

Frisk watched, disbelieving, as the dripping-wet monstrosity jerked backward, arms flung up to shield his eye, as though she had turned a spotlight on him and also thrown some holy water. “I was wondering if you’d noticed,” she remarked. “Did you think I was actually talking with my mom that whole time? I just didn’t want you to know I was taking my clothes off.”

“Why?!” he nearly shrieked. “Why would you do that?”

“‘Cause I didn’t want them to get gunked up! That stuff doesn’t look like it washes out. You’d better help me get it off the carpet, by the way.” Frisk chuckled, and that teasing note crept back into her voice, the one he’d heard so many times in his own nightmares: “If I lose my security deposit, it’ll be your fault. How do you plan to compensate me for that, I wonder~”

Nightmare couldn’t speak; he just emitted a stream of “Y-y-y-y-y—”

“Yyyes, I’m naked,” she agreed, retrieving the bottle. Almost against his will, Nightmare’s eye cracked open in time to watch her set down the loofa, peel the gloves off, goop some body wash onto her hand, and begin blithely rubbing it over her skin. “No offense, but I don’t want you all over me yet.”

The monster’s eye bulged so hard that Frisk snorted. “I meant this, dummy!” She indicated the slimy loofa, and leered at him. “What did you think I meant?”

It was tempting to throw himself out of the shower and hope for death’s sweet embrace, but to his steadily increasing horror, the skeleton couldn’t move his feet. As his gaze swept unwillingly up and down her body, the way her skin glistened as her hands squeezed and stroked it, Nightmare’s desire to grab her shifted…and his tentacles agreed.

Frisk was opening her mouth to say something when one appendage snaked up and began petting her shoulder, which was somehow even warmer and smoother than it looked. “Whoa,” she remarked, looking from it to him and back with wide eyes. To his dismay, her mouth quirked a little. “What happened to romance, Nightmare? Didn’t you want to dance in the moonlight, eat Peking duck, or whatever?”

“I’m n-not—” Nightmare tugged at the errant tentacle, first with his hand, then his magic. To his very dismay, Frisk was reaching up to poke at it, giggling as it brushed her cheek. “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded of the world at large.

As if mocking him, another tentacle lurched at the young woman, making him stagger forward till he had to catch himself with his hands on either side of her. Frozen in place, Nightmare unwillingly watched a few errant suds trickle down her neck, sliding merrily off her collarbone and along the side of her breast before continuing to the brave new worlds beyond—

“Um,” said Frisk, still sounding more amused than perturbed. Her eyes met his, then flicked to her left meaningfully.

Aaaand of course another tentacle had slid around her wrist and along her arm. “Oh, my,” she said, bemused. Nightmare’s soul did a backflip as the young woman moved forward, the tentacles drawing her closer, till her breasts were nearly touching his soaking-wet jacket. “Are you actually coming on to me, or—eep!”

That was probably due to yet another tentacle worming around behind her and running up and down her back, eliciting a little moan. The skeleton wanted desperately to wrench himself free, or at least tell her to be quiet, but…

Frisk was flushed, her breath coming quick and shallow. Nightmare watched her hands come up to rest on his ribcage, picking off bits of slime. “What now?” she murmured.

Nightmare wanted to tell her that she’d won, and please go put on clothes now so he could leave and never come back. He also wanted to tell her that this wasn’t how he’d envisioned their next encounter, or that young women in his day knew better than to trap extradimensional beings in the shower with them; he wanted to be very stern about doing this kind of thing the right way, because she deserved the right way, not…this.

He wanted to stop himself as his fingers rose to brush her damp hair off her face and his skull drooped to rest on her bare shoulder…but he didn’t.

He didn’t want to give up and let his tentacles wind around Frisk to pull her against him, or to put his arms around her, encasing her entire body. But he did.

“Nightmare?” Frisk whispered.

It wasn’t romantic. But if she didn’t care—

Nightmare summoned his scant reserves of magic, and raised his hand long enough to snap his fingers.

The lights went out.

Not long afterward – just a few days after her parents got back and collected Nero, with only a few inquiries as to what that smell was – Frisk went on a shopping trip that raised several eyebrows: she bought several shower curtain liners, a dozen bottles each of Amber Sunrise and Moonlit Jasmine body wash, every single Stain Stick on the shelf, and a steam cleaner.

If that wasn’t strange enough, her neighbors soon started complaining about odd noises in the middle of the night, and at least one of them made rude remarks about how she had to be hoarding trash or something. When the landlord came in for an inspection, though, all he saw was a scrupulously clean apartment with a faint, lingering odor that he couldn’t identify.

It was hard not to see a heap of folded plastic in the corner of her room, but there were no bloodstains – or recent unsolved murders that he knew of – and anything else she chose to use it for was none of his business; Frisk accepted his admonishment to keep it down, whatever it was, and promised to maintain her new cleaning schedule.

Her neighbors didn’t hear much of anything after that. There was nowhere to run from him in her nightmares, but that was fine—she was in no hurry to wake up. After all, she wasn’t the one who’d been caught, was she?

#happy berfdeh #fluff #it was a choice between spicy and punctual #i know what i need to work on and spice ain't the problem

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jamestrmtx · 4 years ago

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Fairytale Complex - [Undertale | Sans x Reader]

[Gender Neutral, Frisk's Parent Reader | Slow Burn]

Chapter Ten | Dating Fight! (Part 1 of 2)

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(Obligatory) Alternate Title: "Ya like jazz?"

• • •

If you told your past self you would be in the monsters' home at midnight, wearing borrowed pajamas and staying the night on their couch, you would've most likely been asked over what the hell you were smoking.

It's what you assume will be a sleepless night, giving you time to reflect on what's happened so far and what opportunities you'd lost with the blackout. Not only had it interrupted your time with Toriel, but it had brought upon a new piece of information you weren't quite sure what to do with, and that was Sans and him being afraid of thunder. While one side of you wanted to tease him over it, the other -- based on how raw his fear was and how much he seemed to have entrusted his safety on you -- wanted nothing but to try to comfort the monster over the situation. In short, sympathy towards him sounded hard to do without him taking it as the results of his flirting, yet making fun of him made you feel like a jerk.

"Can we talk?"

You look to the voice to see Sans standing by the television, a hand gripping its top for stability. His body language shows exhaustion and nothing more, though you don't let your guard down yet, still wary over any possible flirting attempts. "About the blackout thing, I mean."

The circles under his eye sockets are darker than before, a bit of a strange observation to take in, considering how much he's slept already. If this is what he meant about how he needed Karma for his magic, it made way more sense now. A half-hour trip to Toriel's with him casting a see-through veil over the windshield and another one for him to pick up Papyrus had proven more than enough to drain his magic and all the energy left in him.

But if that was the case, why did he accept his job as a sentry, if his task was to kill any human who crossed him -- right from the start?

Was he willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of obtaining that soul, and simultaneously, his kinds' freedom?

"Sit with me," you offer, caught in the spur of the moment. "You already sat on my lap, didn't you? Why try to be modest now? I wouldn't have minded that much, if you'd at least taken me to dinner first."

You hear him snort at that, though a hand covers up the noise when he catches just how quiet everything is. "Sorry, (Y/N). I may like flirtin' with you, but physical contact's where I cross the line. And unless you're also comfortable with it, I'm not gonna try anythin' like that." He rubs the back of his skull, looking guilty. "So with that being said, sorry for all that. For, uh, slammin' right into you, huggin' you, and then, well... lettin' me sit on your lap without asking. I wasn't myself back there."

His expression's not far from that of a wounded puppy, and it's only when you pat down at the space left next to you that he reacts, sitting down and facing your gaze. "Did something happen in the past? Were you… in a war or something like that?" PTSD's the first thing to come up into your thoughts, though you're not exactly sure how to approach the topic with him. "You don't have to answer me, if you don't want to."

"Thanks," he says, shoulders kept high as he huffs and faces his lap. "It's... somethin' like that. But like you said, I don't really know how to talk about it yet." He lets out a noise between a chuckle and a nose flare, meeting your gaze again afterwards. "I didn't know just how… how loud thunder was here at the Surface, so when it first happened, I was even more caught off guard by it. Today wasn't that bad, and I already knew what was comin', but I still acted that way."

"Do… Do other people know about this?"

"Only Tori and my bro. They were the ones who saw me in that state the first time."

You bite your lip and let out a sympathetic hiss in response to that, remembering just who'd caught him and you in that position. If Alphys and Undyne really didn't know anything about his fear, then judging by the wide stares they were giving you while the skeleton sat on your lap, their point of view was clearly far different from yours.

"What's wrong?" he asks, mirth returning to his voice.

"Remember when you sat on my lap?"

His face falls, tone straining with it, "Is remindin' me a way of you gettin' back at me for what I've done?"

You huff and swat his shoulder in a harmless, playful manner despite your narrowed gaze. "I'm being serious here, Sans!" you exclaim, frowning. "Alphys and Undyne... They- They saw us like that, so I was wondering if you knew about it, too."

"What?" he asks, a subtle furrow showing on his skull. "Did they really see us?"

"Yes!" Your response is muffled by you covering your face in shame, face burning at the thought. "If they really don't know about your condition, then they… They probably thought we were hitting it off on the couch!" With how hot your face feels, you're forced to let it go and direct a pointed gaze at Sans, who tries to ease you out with the gesture of his hands and a hush, reminding you to keep your voice low. "They probably think we're dating now!"

"And what's so bad about that?"

"Everything!"

Frustrated by his easygoing self, it takes a minute for you to find some calm, regaining it when you remind yourself over what's more important right now.

"I don't want either of us to get carried away with that, so I'll just tell you this," you speak up, maintaining a calmer tone and looking at the skeleton right in his irises. You focus your eyes on him, wanting the gravity of the situation to be known. "I… I used to be married, and I waited two whole years of dating just to, well… achieve that dream, only to then have Jerry ditch me the second he couldn't keep up with the responsibility of living and raising a child together." You pause in your words, feeling a few tears form in your eyes, embarrassment and sorrow both weighing the same. "If there's anything I need less of, it's romantic drama! I don't mind you flirting with me, but if any false rumour gets out about us, then I... I simply won't allow this to happen anymore."

You back off and lower your intensity.

The more you talk, the more you realize this has nothing to do with the skeleton, aside from what transpired with the blackout.

"What happened earlier was accidental, and I firmly acknowledge that. But if you're going to keep up this flirting charade with me, I'm gonna need to ask for one thing: don't spread false rumours about us." You wipe a tear off your face, looking away when you feel his gaze on your body, burning you. "I… I want to be a good parental figure for Frisk, so if I want that, I really can't be depicted as an easy, airheaded person." You stop and let out a breath, almost shuddering in the process. "I allowed myself to be stupid once, so I can't let it happen again."

You know you're about to confess something really, if not extremely personal, yet you can't prevent yourself from keeping your mouth shut, something about the monster and the quiet of the living room pushing you to be heartfelt with him.

"It was bad enough when he told his friends about how quickly I fell for him -- how it seemed I loved him more than he did with me. And it took me too long to understand what he meant by that when… when his first solution to us not working out the first time was doing a one-hundred and eighty on our relationship without any explanation whatsoever. I was naive and stupid as hell for getting back with him twice after that first fallout, and then deciding to marry him later on, so to this day, I… I still take responsibility for what became of us and our family after that. And that's why I really can't allow myself to… to fall into another relationship just like that. I need to fix this and myself first."

You finish venting with a huff. Then, you form a smile and offer a hand out to the skeleton when you're done. "Think we could both put this day behind us? I won't push further over what happened to you, but I… I expect the same kind of respect and treatment from you."

Sans takes your hand, completing the shake. "Ya really gotta ask, pal?" he says, winking. "Respect's somethin' that should be given right from the start, so long as the other person's showed it, too." He pulls his hand back, meeting with your eyes afterwards. "I may like teasin' and flirtin' around with you, but I still hold respect for who you are as a person, just as I hold respect for how mad attractive you look in your work uniform."

Truthfully, his last sentence catches you off guard with how nonchalant he is, and you almost pass off his words as nothing. But when you do catch onto the comment he made over that particular aspect of you, you stand up, towering over him with your hands on your hips and a scowl. "Good-night," you bark, teeth gritted.

"Wait."

Just as you turn to leave, he tugs at the end of your pajamas' sleeve and grabs your attention with the call of your name. A muffled, jazzy tune followed by yelling and fighting can be heard from the television, now on. "Watch somethin' with me," Sans says, serious. "I know ya ain't sleepy yet, and that you chose to sleep on the couch, so don't leave."

You don't budge; rather, you sigh and keep your back turned to him. "Unnecessary comment leads to a necessary need to retreat."

"C'mon," he pleads, letting go of your sleeve. "I won't make any more of those 'til the sun rises."

"...Promise?"

"Promise."

You finally face him again, though all while keeping a neutral look as you sit down next to him. The television displays a black-and-white film, action present in every second of it. When the monster asks over what you'd like to watch, you don't give him a concrete answer, letting him choose instead. He passes by a few channels, sound clips amalgamating with each other as he switches back and forth, only stopping when a DreamJobs movie shows up, a bee pun quickly making its way to your ears.

"Wanna watch this?" Sans asks, waiting.

"Whatever you want, honey," you reply, arms crossed as you look him in the eye, attempting to one-up his past flirting attempts. "I bee-lieve I told you to choose, didn't I?" You wink, soul leaving your body when you see he grins at your actions.

He returns these by hooking an arm right behind the couch, leaning in just a bit closer to your side and staying true to his word by not once touching you. "Flirtin' back now, huh? Surprised you didn't just tell me to buzz off."

You stare at him for a good while, stricken by his line of defense. When you're capable of moving again, you stand up and make way to the kitchen, only stopping after reminding yourself over how helpful Sans had been these past few weeks, and how little you'd shown your gratitude over it. "I'm gonna go get some water. Do you need anything, Serif?"

"You're all I need right now, pal."

"I'm serious."

He chuckles, slumps on a corner of the couch, and rests an arm behind his skull. A subtle grin returns to his face, sly and dangerous. "I'm good," he says. "Though it wouldn't be bad if you could take some monster meds outta the bottom pantry."

You frown at that, reminded over his physical state. "Are you still tired?"

"Nah. Just got a lil' headache, is all."

Though unconvinced, you enter the kitchen and follow his instructions as to where the medicine is. You take the one marked with 'acetaminophen for monsters' and bring two cups of water along with you -- tap for you, and from-the-fridge for him. Taking a cup of water from Toriel's home made you feel bad, even if it was lukewarm and from the tap.

When you return, you sit next to the skeleton and offer him the medicine first. Then, you offer him a glass, though he takes the warm one. "Think I didn't see what ya did there?" he comments, winking. "You ain't gotta restrict yourself so much, pal. You're as much of a family as Frisk is."

You grab the remaining glass and hold back your emotions, how hard they hit making you drink the water to avoid them. "...Thank you, but I'm not." You drink the rest of the water, not wanting to let your voice waver. "Frisk may be like your family, but I certainly am not."

The movie distracts you when Sans decides to look at you; the mood of the film's far more whimsical and upbeat for your current state of mind. "Like I've said before, please don't waste your time on me, 'cause it's not gonna work."

Silence stays as you both watch the movie, yet it's promptly broken when he finishes his drink. "'Fraid that's not gonna work with us, (Y/N)." His voice is serious again, a rarity for who he is; or at least, who you envisioned him to be. "Just as we're insistent on Frisk being a part of our lives, we're insistent that you can be a part of that, too. It might take time, but it'll happen with effort, integrity, and mutual understanding."

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#sans x reader #undertale x reader #lgbt #lgbt themes #gender neutral reader #male reader #female reader #mother reader #father reader #parent reader #chubby reader #long fic #romcom #adventure #mystery #platonic relationships #slow burn

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valkyrieofsmut · 4 years ago

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Captive Love 24

UF!Sans x Reader (or Frisk if you wanna)

Summary: Sans is full of self hatred, and decides to do the 'right thing.'

A/N: Oh boy, drop this stuff like it’s hot! I’m trying to get all caught up to where I’m supposed to be- or where I’d planned to be, anyway. But, it is (American) Thanksgiving- pretty much a time for gluttony- and it’s new here, but sorry there’s not a bunch of new stuff for all of you who’ve been staying caught up on Ao3!

Masterlist Series Masterlist

Story

Sweetheart goes home.

What the hell did he even think a worthless monster like him was doing with someone like (Y/n), anyway? Did he think he had a chance? That she'd ever even look at him if she had any other choice?

He didn't deserve her. He didn't deserve anyone, but especially not her. He deserved to dust, that's what he fucking deserved.

Sans drained a glass of Flare-wish, one of Grillby's custom made alcohols, and it hit deep in his bones, making the hum of his magic a bit more obvious.

It was supposed to bring your happier feelings forward, but it was just depressing him more as he realized that most of his happy thoughts were for the same reason he was feeling low in the first place; (Y/n).

"Hey, Sansy. Two days in a row, huh?" The usually drunk bunny asked as she sat next to him. "Don't usually see you here this much anymore. Hey Grillbz, gimme a Hot shot Flamethrower, I wanna get wasted, quick!" She turned back to Sans, looking him over. "Your brother kick you out or something?"

Sans just gave a noise in response.

"What happened to your pet? She was cute."

Red eyelights fell on the bunny awaiting her drink, a show of animosity covering his sorrow.

"Thanks, Grillbz," she gratefully accepted the tall glass in front of her before looking back to Sans. "What's with the look? Oh- wait! Gf gf gf… Is she mad at you or something? Refusing to be good?"

"shut th' fuck up!" Sans snapped.

"Oooo, got a nerve, huh?" She asked as she laughed.

"ya don't know what th' fuck y're talkin' 'bout! she ain't got anythin' ta do wit why i'm here!"

"Suuuure," she said, taking a sip of her drink before taking a big gulp and murmuring, "mmm, warm."

She'd taken only a couple of steps toward her usual booth when Sans yelled, "i jus' wanted a fuckin' drink! why d'ya gotta ruin it?!"

i ruin everything, his mind whispered. i ruin everything…

He disappeared quickly through a shortcut.

(Y/n) heard the door open downstairs and took a breath.

She hoped that Sans was in a better mood. She still really needed to talk to him. She wasn’t quite sure if she’d gotten her answers before, but she remembered how hurt the flashes of honest emotion across his face had been.

Sans appeared through the doorway, looking pissed- and extremely miserable.

“doll- i…” He took a breath and bolstered his resolve. “doll, i came ta tell ya ya can go home.”

She didn’t need to be there with him. She needed to be somewhere safe, where she wouldn’t have to deal with beings like him- disgusting, lowlifes that didn’t have a good or decent bone in their whole being. Those who would hold her captive just so they could continue to see her pretty face, knowing that they’d never get the chance otherwise. The ones that would try every deceitful trick in the book just to see the beautiful smile grow across her face.

(Y/n) looked at him in confusion. “You… think it’s safe now? But- the sun is setting! I thought it was more dangerous to go out at night!”

Sans couldn’t meet her eyes, drunk enough that he swayed a bit, had lower inhibitions, but he was still lucid enough to know what was right, what he had to do…

“don’t worry about it… it’ll be fine…”

“Sans- you’ve been drinking again, it might seem like it’ll be fine, but it’s not going to be if we go out and try to walk through town. You and your brother were right- walking through town even in the middle of the day was dangerous.”

Sans didn’t lift his eyelights from where they’d landed.

“And- and I just wanted to talk about what happened yesterday, I wasn’t trying to-”

“it doesn’t matter,” he cut her off.

“I-it doesn’t- Sans- I need to know what kind of relationship-”

Stars- shards of glass dipped in lemon juice and hot sauce were being shoved through his soul.

Like he could ever have a real fucking relationship with her!

She was too kind, too sweet- too perfect!

Someone like him would never have a chance with her! If nothing else proved it, the way that she flinched every time he got close did!

Even if she was willing to play into his fantasy and pretended to want to be with him, he hated that fake shit. The thought that anything that would resemble a relationship between them would be all fake on her part made him feel sick. It made his soul twist in such a way that if it was physically twisting, it would look like a pretzel instead of a soul.

“there ain’t a fuckin’ relationship,” he barked out, stopping her words short.

“There… isn’t…? N-not even a friendship…?” (Y/n) asked quietly, trying to hide the hurt in her voice.

“don’t- don’t fuckin’ act like ya’d actually want ta be wit me, doll. wouldn’t be doin’ either a us any favors.”

(Y/n) was so confused, so hurt…

He didn’t think there was any relationship between them?

They’d at least basically become roommates, or slumber party friends, since they slept in the same room.

What they’d done- did he think of it like picking up a stranger in a bar and taking them home, never intending to see them again?

Oh- was she… cramping his style so he couldn’t bring other partners home…?

It was like the icy edge of a sharp icicle had fallen and stabbed through her heart.

This hurt worse than the first time her ex had betrayed her trust and hit her.

“I-I-I…” Her lip trembled, and her voice quivered with it.

“get yer shit, i’m takin’ ya home.”

His voice was rough, forceful… His mind was made up. He was getting rid of her. He’d… finished with her, gotten bored… Time to take the trash out, throw her to the curb and find a new interest…

(Y/n) stuffed her few clothes in a bag, pulled on her shoes and jacket and shrugged. “Guess that’s it…”

He stepped close to her, looking a bit regretful, and she almost thought he was going to change his mind…

Sans wrapped his arms around (Y/n), crushing her against him. It was going to be the last time he’d ever get to hold her, so he was going to take it in for as long as he could.

His soul was rushing, throbbing fast, and he shoved it back into place as it tried to reach out to her to relieve the ache.

He didn’t need her.

He just needed his brother to be safe, and that’s all he could ever ask for.

Having emotions was bad.

Love was stupid. It was dangerous, for you, and the one you loved. It would get one or both of you dusted.

Sans didn’t need her. She was weak. She made him weak.

She was his weakness…

i don’t need ‘er, he told himself, jus’ take ‘er back, drop ‘er off… don’t go lookin’ fer ‘er…

He took a deep inhale, pulling in the smell of her, and felt his body tighten, trying to get her closer.

He’d never take her back if he didn’t do it right now.

… So he did.

(Y/n) was confused, Sans was holding her close, and not letting her go, even though he’d sounded upset at her, plus it had felt like they’d just gone over a rough wave on a innertube, or raft, or something else that floated, making her stomach dip, though they hadn't moved.

She pulled back and looked around, her eyes nearly bulging as she saw the street about seven blocks from her apartment. No time had changed; the sky was barely lit, as it had been through the window at Sans and Papyrus’ house… The street was nearly empty, but that was most likely because it was a questionable neighborhood in the dark with limited streetlight.

“Wh-wh-” she took a breath to compose herself. “What the hell…?”

Sans dropped his arms and stepped back.

Now he just had to get the collar.

Then he could leave, get out of her life… never see her again…

(Y/n) pinned him with a questioning glare. “How the hell did we get here so fast, Sans?” She asked, dangerously calm.

“took a shortcut,” he told her.

“I thought it was a trek through the town full of monsters back, that would most likely get us killed, especially at night!” She accused, the used feeling coming back, its sibling, betrayal, growing at its side.

“yeah, it is, if ya walk.”

“How did we get here- are we really here?” She was having trouble understanding what had happened, since not much was known about monsters. Was this something they could all do, or just Sans? Was it real, or an illusion? Had she been in the same area the whole time she’d been ‘gone’?!

“i told ya; i used a shortcut. got us here faster.”

“And… you what? Just found out about it at the bar?" Suspicion was starting to build a wall of bitter feelings in her chest.

"this's where i met ya," he admitted, "so i knew where it was."

(Y/n)'s jaw was tightly clenched as she tried to restrain herself. "You… could have… brought me back- at any time?!"

Sans felt her anger hit him like a dark wave.

He needed to be quick- he just needed to get the collar and go, while he could still remember her softness and the memory wasn't overshadowed by her anger at him.

"You're such an asshole! I can't believe I ever-" She cut herself off, her jaw clenched and hands tightly fisted.

Sans moved to take the collar from her, but she smacked his hand away.

"Why didn't you just do this before?!" She demanded.

Anger flashed through Sans at the smack, mixing with his lowered inhibitions and flaring up. "maybe i fuckin' shoulda!" He yelled back.

He was quick enough this time that he was able to unlatch the collar and it slipped from her neck as he drew his hand back.

(Y/n) raged, her hand snapping forward, grabbing whatever was in his hand and threw it down at her feet.

"You're a real fucking asshole!" She yelled at him.

"yeah?! well y're no fuckin' ray a sunshine either!"

Ooo… that was so untrue it made his soul twinge.

He realized that he had to get out of there before he said something he'd really regret, and disappeared through another shortcut.

(Y/n) gave a loud noise of rage, pitching the bag in her hand at the spot he'd just stood.

How could he do that?!

Just keep her there for no reason?!

The only explanation she could find was that he had meant to use her the whole time, and had just been keeping her there until she'd complied.

She gathered the things she'd thrown on the ground and stormed home, hoping the landlady was awake to let her in.

#underfell sans x reader #uf!sans x you #red (underfell) x y/n #underfrick #underfluff #tsundere sans #reader insert #y/n #mutual pining #romance #angst #fluff #multi part story #Read on AO3 #past abusive relationship

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llama-lord · 4 years ago

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My Full Personal Interpretation of Chara

It’s my view that Chara was severely abused during their time on the surface, and began to view crying as weakness because of it. I'm not sure if Chara was actually trying to commit suicide, but I think they had suicidal tendencies, showing little concern for their own life. Undertale's intro shows Chara tripping instead of jumping, but it also shows them clearly seeing the hole and approaching it beforehand. Given that the injuries Chara sustained from the fall were far from fatal, as they were able to walk with Asriel's assistance, their cry for help could've been out of pain and/or survival instinct, rather than a genuine desire to live.

Pre-death Chara hated Humanity, but there was always a look of hope in their eyes (in the neutral ending where Asgore commits suicide, he tells Frisk “I'm reminded of the human that fell here long ago... You have the same feeling of hope in your eyes”), they loved Monsterkind, they loved Toriel and Asgore (while it’s possible that Toriel knitted the Mr. Dad Guy Sweater for Asgore, I think it’s more likely that it was Chara. “Mr. Dad Guy” is an awkward name, one that sounds like a middle ground between “Mr. Dreemurr” and “Dad”), and they loved Asriel more than anything. However, while Chara was capable of and showed genuine love and kindness to the Dreemurrs, sharing countless tender moments with them, they could be a bully sometimes. Although Chara never physically hurt Asriel, they frequently shamed and sometimes mocked Asriel for crying (mirroring their own treatment on the surface), and liked to playfully toy with his emotions from time to time. With no other friends and due to his own insecurities, Asriel looked up to Chara and came to idolize them. That said, while Chara's and Asriel's relationship was unhealthy, I doubt it was ever intentionally abusive until the plan came forth. Had Chara been made fully aware of how much damage they were doing to Asriel, I think they would've been horrified.

EDIT: I view the mindset that "big kids don't cry" as being picked up by Chara on the surface due to mistreatment. They shamed Asriel for crying under the distorted belief that they were toughening him up.

While I think Toriel and Asgore were decent parents, they never noticed Chara's darker tendencies, nor did they ever ask them questions about their life on the surface. When Asgore told Chara that they were "the future of Humans and Monsters" (I highly doubt Chara’s deathbed was the only time Asgore said this, given the weight of the title, and his bad habit of placing enormous responsibilities onto the shoulders of young children, seeing how he gave Frisk, a child no older than 12, the duty to "seek the truth" of the Prophecy so they can free everyone in the alternate Neutral Route where he commits suicide), his intent was to refer to Chara as living proof that the two species could coexist. However, Chara took it the wrong way, believing it now meant that they were responsible for everyone, giving them a complex, putting pressure on them as one of the Royal Children.

EDIT: I placed too much blame on Asgore in my initial write-up. It’s far more likely that Chara developed a complex from living with Monsters, and that being called "The Future of Humans and Monsters" was simply the icing on the cake.

EDIT: I think Toriel and Asgore may have recognized signs of abuse in Char, or just felt that something was off about them, but I doubt either of them realized how bad their issues were.

Poisoning Asgore was a genuine accident. I don’t believe Chara "laughed the pain away" nor laughed sadistically. There is a recurring theme of characters laughing and joking in stressful moments (Snowdrake's Father when he talks about his son ran away after his mother disappeared, Snowdrake's Mother during her fight in the True Lab, Mettaton NEO, Undyne when Frisk is beating her to death in the Neutral Route, Toriel when you oneshot her in the Genocide Route or betrayal kill her, Asriel when you hug him, Asgore when he kills himself in the alternate neutral ending, and Migospel, especially Migospel, as his entire theme is him putting up a happy facade to hide his pain). The only times we ever see sadistic laughter in Undertale are from Asriel, who is soulless, and Chara in the Genocide Route, which I don’t believe is an accurate reflection of the person they were in life. So, while I doubt that Chara felt particularly terrible over accidentally poisoning Asgore, I believe their laughter was relatively dry, hollow, and empty.

EDIT: I think Chara freaked out when Asgore got sick, but calmed down after realizing that he wouldn't die. There was still some guilt, but most of it left at that point.

Due to a combination of Chara shaming him for his tears in the past, and his own idolization of them, Asriel now looked down on crying, and saw Chara's (relatively) calm reaction as preferable to his, saying "I should have laughed it off, like you did".

Then came the plan. I think Chara was motivated by both revenge and a wish to free Monsterkind. Chara chose to commit suicide rather than kill the Dreemurrs for their Boss Monster SOULs. I've seen people theorize that Chara picking death of buttercups was self-punishment for what they did to Asgore. I'm neutral on this theory, but I'll acknowledge that there are far less painful ways to die that would've still appeared accidental. And in this moment, yes, Chara was intentionally manipulative (which is abusive). They belittled Asriel's emotions and played up his desire to be a hero by telling him that he could free everyone. When Chara discovered their shared control with Asriel after their SOUL was absorbed, they resolved to walk to the village themselves. When the villagers attacked, Chara tried to kill them all, and that's when he resisted. Asriel had just enough control to walk back to the Throne Room, where he died.

EDIT: I doubt Chara was lying to Asriel when they told him that they only wanted 6 SOULs. Chara had no way of knowing of whether they’d even be conscious, let alone share control with Asriel, after they died. That, and going back to their village would’ve re-opened old wounds, which leads me to believe that their attempt to destroy it was an impulsive act fueled by a power trip, not a pre-planned one.

I doubt post-death Chara is entirely soulless, because they would need a way to manifest themselves. However, Chara’s dialogue at the end of the Genocide Route implies that something happened to their SOUL, saying that “My 'human soul’...My ‘determination’...They were not mine, but YOURS.” While Asriel’s SOUL was completely destroyed, Chara’s SOUL shattered into fragments. At least one of these fragments latched onto Frisk's SOUL after they fell, due to the amount of determination that Frisk had, and their shared SOUL trait.

Fast forward to Frisk's fall. I'll state my main points here. I fully believe the narrator theory, but disagree with the possession theory almost entirely (more on that soon).

If you do not believe the narrator theory, you can skip the bolded passage below.

While Chara does not make a physical appearance in True Pacifist Route, I think they become a better person from it. Chara realizes that they were wrong, that Asriel was right, and that not all Humans are bad. And while Chara doesn't save Asriel or your friends, they give you a push in the end, saying "you can SAVE something else".

Asriel's admission that "Chara wasn't really the greatest person" rings true. Chara was far from perfect. However, I see this statement less as him actually condemning Chara, and more as him taking them off the pedestal he’d placed them on, and realizing that they weren’t a good role model. When Asriel addresses “Chara” after the True Pacifist Route, he has low expectations for them, saying "You’ve probably heard this a hundred times already, haven’t you…?", when he asks them not to reset. However, the fact that he was willing to even make an appeal to begin with, saying "Take a deep breath. There's nothing left to worry about", shows that, despite everything, he still has hope, even though it’s not much, that Chara will do the right thing.

(On another note, the fact that you returned in the first place, after Asriel asked you not to, after he said that he couldn’t come back, after you were EXPLICITLY told that the game would end after you left the Underground, doesn’t speak well of your intentions. Flowey’s expectations for Chara weren’t very high to begin with, but I believe that your return further lowered them. It serves as proof to him that maybe Chara hasn’t learned anything from this.)

Then there's the Genocide Route. Yes, the player not only starts, but is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the Genocide Route. No, I don't believe Frisk is possessed, at all, not until we are very close to the end. Until that point, Chara simply provides a Monster counts for us, and Frisk's more aggressive personality is simply a reflection of our actions. With Chara's SOUL fragmented, severely restricting their ability to feel love and compassion (they might benefit from Frisk's SOUL), there's hardly anything left to restrain their worst traits. Once we kill all 20 Monsters in the Ruins, feeding a desire for power, Chara is on board with us. Their dialogue changes from less joking and increasingly apathetic (“Not worth talking to”, “Forgettable”), with a trace of violent overtones (“Where are the knives”), to outright sadistic as we progress (laughing at the RG 01/02).

EDIT: Judging from the dialogue for the stove after killing Toriel and the dialogue for killing dogs in a Neutral Run, I think Chara may (at least initially) have shame for what they are witnessing in the Genocide Route. However the thrill of gaining power ultimately overrides it. It’s essentially a guilty pleasure.

EDIT: Looking back, while Chara doesn’t actually kill anyone before Sans, it’s plausible that they helped us deal more damage in certain fights. A possible reason why we deal so much damage to Toriel in the Genocide Route is that Chara lashed out. Flowey has feelings of abandonment associated with Toriel (”She'll find another kid, and instantly forget about you. You'll NEVER see her again.”). Given that Toriel refers to Frisk as “my child”, and Chara’s final pre-death memory was of their betrayal, Chara could’ve felt betrayed by her, even though she was a decent parent.

I doubt Asriel’s “recognition” of Chara in the Genocide Route is an accurate reflection of what they were like in life. There is ample evidence to conclude that, not only did Asriel genuinely think that Frisk was Chara in EVERY route, but also that he held onto this delusion the ENTIRE time. Furthermore, there are multiple inconsistencies with the interpretation that Asriel will only quickly conclude that Frisk is Chara in the Genocide Route, and takes much more time to do so in the True Pacifist Route:

1. Omega Flowey toys with Frisk in the Neutral Route, despite seemingly wanting their SOUL.

2. Flowey’s dialogue for sparing Asgore in an aborted Genocide Run directly contradicts the notion that he thinks Chara would only be cruel.

3. Omega Flowey saw the name of Frisk’s SAVE file right before the fight, which alone should’ve been enough evidence to make him think that they are Chara.

4. Flowey’s spare dialogue doesn’t change in an aborted Genocide Run, directly contradicting the notion that he doesn’t think Chara would care about anyone else, as he still threatens to kill “everyone they love”.

Here’s something to consider:

Given how long it took for Flowey to go insane, he is likely aware that Chara will not necessarily be as violent as he is. By giving him evidence for him to conclude that they actually are (killing everyone in the Ruins), Flowey gains enough confidence to drop his charade.

Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence that Flowey thinks that Frisk is Chara in every route is his reaction to being spared in a Neutral Run. He should not be confused by the concept of mercy, as he has undoubtedly been shown mercy himself many times during his own resets.

In other words, it’s not that Flowey can’t understand the concept of mercy itself, it’s that he can’t understand why this person specifically would show him mercy. Although Flowey is aware that Chara may not necessarily be as violent as he is, this scenario is different. If there was ANY time to have a kill-or-be-killed mindset, this was it. Flowey gave us every possible reason he could for us to kill him, and sparing him is the strongest challenge to his delusion that Frisk is Chara. He simply cannot understand why “Chara”, who tried to kill the villagers when he refused, would show him mercy after what he said and did.

Asriel makes three colossal mistakes in the Genocide Route. First, he talks as if he's equal to Chara in strength, that he could kill them if he wanted to, saying "Creatures like us wouldn't hesitate to kill each other if we got in each other's way", making them turn on him (I see this line as serving as proof to Chara that Asriel hadn’t learned anything from the village incident). Asriel flees to the Throne Room. We fight Sans, with Chara making the final attack for us. We confront Asgore, who Chara attacks for us. This is where Asriel makes his 2nd mistake, destroying Asgore's SOUL, trapping us in the Underground. His final and fatal mistake is when he begs for his life instead of hiding in the ground. The Chara who Asriel begs for mercy from is, for the most part, soulless; they cannot and do not feel any love or compassion for him anymore. Asriel neglected his own belief that Chara was soulless, when he told them "No... you're empty inside, just like me". Asriel has given Chara plenty of reasons to be angry, and with nothing left to hold that anger back, Chara proceeds to hack him to pieces. This is when Chara finally makes a physical appearance. While there are plenty of other Monsters left in the Underground, murdering the person they loved the most in life is the point of no return for them. This is important because I don't believe that Chara would've intentionally killed Asriel prior to their death, even at their absolute worst, even if he betrayed them. But here? Chara sees killing Asriel as the elimination of the one person who always held them back, and the final step to abandoning their humanity and ridding themselves of the emotions that they now believe only ever hurt them. They've found a better partner, us, one who will always give them what they want. With their goal to achieve power in this world accomplished, Chara believes that its existence no longer serves a purpose, and asks us to erase it. And if we refuse, they think it's hilarious, that we believe we have a choice here. When Chara says "SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CONTROL?", it doesn't mean they were possessing Frisk, nor does it mean that we never had in control. We controlled Frisk, we had countless chances to abandon this path, but we pushed all the way to the end. Chara has been betrayed before, and was caught completely off-guard. But this time, they came prepared. If their partner tries to turn their back on them like Asriel did, they'll override their decision, because they have final say, and they WILL get what they want.

EDIT: I’m on the fence on whether Chara actually hesitated to kill Flowey. I will say that, unlike with Asgore, they were willing to hear him out at the very least.

As far as the Soulless Pacifist Route goes, I fully believe that Chara kills your friends. However, this is not done out of malice. If Chara genuinely wanted your friends dead for good, they would’ve kept the world erased. This is simply a demonstration of power by Chara, to show that they are the one in control.

Other thoughts:

Despite Asriel’s betrayal, Chara doesn’t seem to hold any strong feelings of hatred or bitterness for him outside of the Genocide Route, and until the “Creatures like us...” line, given how there's no push to kill him in an aborted Genocide Run.

Everything after this point are mostly unsubstantiated headcanons and beliefs of mine. Feel free to continue reading if you are interested.

In my opinion, Asriel’s trauma is often underestimated in fan portrayals. While he has healed to some extent from the True Pacifist Route, taking Chara off the pedestal he once placed them on, his sense of self-worth is still in dire need of repair. How intentional the trauma inflicted on him was is simply a reflection on the perpetrator. It is irrelevant in measuring the damage.

I don’t think Chara is completely fixed by the True Pacifist Route? While Chara has certainly learned something from observing our actions, they still have plenty of work to do on themselves. However, while they can’t change what they did, with Frisk’s help, I think they can try to make up for it by becoming a better person.

While Chara is inherently in a better position than Asriel after the True Pacifist Route (Chara benefits from Frisk’s SOUL and fragments of their own SOUL, while Asriel is completely soulless) I think Asriel will be much easier to help. While Asriel could easily get his form restored by SOUL donations from 7 generous dying Humans, I doubt Chara will ever be able their own body again. The absolute best case scenario I see for Post-Pacifist Chara is them peacefully body-sharing with a consenting Frisk.

Asriel is not obligated to forgive Chara, or (while I doubt he’d be this bitter) even talk to them ever again. That said, Asgore and Toriel owe Chara a lengthy talk. Chara is responsible for their own actions, and their circumstances do not excuse them, but, while they failed themselves, Asgore and Toriel failed them too. This talk can be one for understanding, and, hopefully, reconciliation.

I strongly dislike the concept of killing off Chara under the guise of “setting them free”. It does not heal Asriel’s trauma, nor does it accomplish anything else.

#undertale #chara #asriel #flowey #asgore #toriel #frisk

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kytea · 5 years ago

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The True Nature of Deltarune

Deltarune Chapter 1 has been out for over a year now, and being the big UT/DR fan that I am, I’ve been slowly mulling over both games, reading many fan theories and putting together my own interpretation of what I believe the nature and goal of Deltarune will be. This will be a long one so grab some popcorn, put on your matpat hats and click to keep reading!

So what is Deltarune? Is it a sequel to Undertale? Is it a prequel? Is it an alternate universe? Is it the coming of age story of a bunch of teens? Is it a complex meta-narrative on the nature of video games?

The answer is yes to all of the above. And to begin delving into this we must first understand the creator of this game: Toby Fox.

I won’t toot Toby’s Fox’s horn too much, we all know how talented and hardworking he is, but he’s also very emotionally perceptive and empathic. His general disposition is reminiscent of avant-garde artists that push the boundaries of artistic creation in a medium.

Toby loves mysteries, and in the early version of Undertale there was an included file that disparaged hackers and went on to say that it’s difficult to add mysteries in games these days due to data miners and such.

Thankfully, this did not stop Toby from lovingly adding quite a few big mysteries to Undertale that have yet to be resolved. Knowing Toby and his strong desire to share his story, a story that according to him, kept him awake at night:

“For the past 3 years I've been waking up in the middle of the night unable to go back to sleep because I've been thinking about the scenes that happen in the game. Even though so many details are still hazy, I really want to show you the things I've been thinking about.That's really my only reason for making this game. If I don't show you what I'm thinking, I'll lose my mind.“

I don’t believe Toby will let these mysteries go unanswered, and it is here that we can begin to understand what Deltarune is about.

The Mystery of W.D. Gaster

Truly, the biggest mystery of Undertale is that of W.D. Gaster: former royal scientist, creator of the CORE and the Determination Extraction machine.

A player can go through the entirety of Undertale multiple times and never even hear word of Gaster’s existence. This is because all the events that pertain to him are hidden behind a value in the game’s files known as the “FUN value”. Outside of actually manipulating this file manually yourself, it is, to the average player, random. The FUN value can trigger multiple different events throughout the game, some of which include running into “Followers of Gaster” or even Gaster himself.

While the latter has nothing to say before he “boings” out of existence, the former Followers all tell an eerie tale of a scientist who fell into his own creation and was scattered across time and space.

But hold on. Time and space? Why does that sound familiar?

Ah yes, during the Sans battle he speaks about an “massive anomaly in the timespace continuum”.

And during this battle Sans says a lot of other cryptic things without context, for example, he laments not being able to “go back” somewhere. But where or when is he referring to?

He mentions how he and others were monitoring time-lines and their readings showed them stopping and starting, jumping left and right, and eventually ending. Who was he monitoring these readings with? This all seems incredibly scientific and sci-fi, I thought Sans was just a silly skeleton, is he some kind of time cop? (he does have a “badge” in his workshop) He also uses skeletal weapons known as “Gaster Blasters”.

What…? Gaster Blaster?

Okay, now we KNOW Sans DEFINITELY has some connection to this mysterious scientist W.D. Gaster, but what? Well, for starters W.D. Gaster is short for Wing Dings Gaster, a type of font that he also speaks in.

Who else is named after and speaks in specific font types? Sans and Papyrus of course!

Furthermore, in the concept sketches for Papyrus, Toby wrote and redacted parts of a message that says: “has a brother named comic sans and a [BLANK] named [BLANK]”.

Who is this mysterious redacted person and what is their relationship to Sans and Papyrus? The easy money is on a family member, and for sake of argument lets use the prediction most of the fandom has already concluded and accepted: that Sans and Papyrus have a father named Gaster.

So Sans and Papyrus have a long lost father that was a scientist. This explanation would begin to explain why Sans has a weapon named after him, and why he wanted to “go back” to some place or time, perhaps in an effort to save him from his fate.

There’s a hidden event in Undertale where if you reset after listening to Sans speak about LOVE and EXP in a pacifist route, and initiate the conversion a couple of times in a row, he’ll catch on by the expression your face that you’ve heard it before and will surmise that you’re a time traveller and give you secret code words to tell his past self.

This will lead to him giving you the key to his room which ends up just being a prank at first.

But then you find a key to the secret workshop/basement hidden behind his house.

Once you enter the workshop, you’ll find some blueprints written in symbols you can’t read (wing dings?) and a curtain covering a machine that doesn’t seem to be working, among other things.

Toby Fox tweeted a message regarding this machine a few days after Undertale’s release around the time people were figuring out FUN values and the secrets surrounding Sans and Gaster.

“You’ve all seen the happiest outcome. Neither of them could fix the machine, no matter how hard they tried. No one can.”

This tweet seems to imply that if the machine could be fixed that Undertale could have a happier outcome.

And this my friends, is the gateway to the nature of Deltarune.

Deltarune, according to Toby Fox, is a game for players that have completed Undertale. But what does it mean to complete Undertale, and I mean, TRULY complete it? Toby often expressed that he wasn’t happy with how people told others how to play the game, that it is best played completely blind. Having played Undertale blind myself, and having watched others do the same, the natural way the game is meant to progress is that first players will experience the Neutral Ending, followed by the Pacifist Ending, and Finally the Genocide ending. This is because the game cruelly plays against your expectations of how an RPG should work and this almost guarantees that you will kill at least one monster your first play through. As if the fact that the fight button is always the default position in battle isn’t enough, in the early parts of the game you are told that you may need to weaken a monster before you can spare them. This naturally brings to mind the systems of Pokémon, where you have the best chance to catch a Pokémon if it’s at low health. Well, if you try this during the Toriel fight, as most do, you’ll find that as soon as you get close to critical health, you’ll instantly kill her.

Poor goat mama..

Difficulty-wise, the neutral route is the most easy, because you can level up a little and gain more HP. The Pacifist route is a bit harder because your HP is lower, but with the experience you gain from the previous route, it should prove no problem. Finally the Genocide route is the most difficult because it takes a concerted effort that implies knowledge of the previous routes to kill every single monster.

So an ideal Deltarune player has knowledge of all three main routes of Undertale, and may have experienced or heard of Gaster.

Is this player you? If so, ask yourself, what would a “happier outcome” look like to you? And be honest. Many fans in the Undertale community have already answered this question in the form of fanworks. Some of the most common elements among them are as follows:  

1) Frisk and all the monsters are free from the Underground and living on the surface with humans.

2) Asriel is revived.

3) Gaster is revived.

4 )Chara is revived.

The revival of Asriel, Chara, and Gaster are the undisputed holy grails in terms of happiest endings that the UT community dreams of and creates endless fan works to explore the possibilities. Toby knows this well.

Using a speech pattern attributed to Gaster, Toby teased the release of Deltarune Chapter 1

“I LOOK FORWARD TO CREATING A NEW FUTURE WITH YOU.” stands out quite a bit to me as the prospect of a “happier outcome” is already tied to Gaster and Sans, now a “new future” is connected.

And when Deltarune released, and fans had a chance to play it, they found:

1) All the monsters are free and living on the surface.

2) Asriel is alive and well and living his best life.

3) A voice with the same speech pattern as Gaster (based on Japanese text) brought you to this world and attempted to give your own vessel before…

4)…a voice with the same speech pattern as Chara (also based on Japanese text) discarded it.

Right off the bat Toby seems to have given fans what they wanted, a perfect future ending. But as you continue to play, you begin to realize that this may not be the world you dreamed of.

First, while all the monsters are living on the surface, they aren’t the same people from Undertale, for example: Undyne has never met Alphys, and the amalgamates that went to live with their families at the end of Undertale are deceased in this world. And while Asriel is alive, it’s not THE Asriel we were so determined to save in Undertale.

Gaster’s presence permeates Deltarune so thoroughly it would take awhile to point out every example, but it seems clear that he’s present in some form.

And Chara? You only need to see the ending cutscene of chapter 1 to know that they are around in a similar fashion as when they possess Frisk in the True Pacifist after a Genocide ending.

But their presence is also present in subtle ways. For example, if you attempt to play the piano in the hospital in Hometown and then speak to the receptionist, she comments that Kris’ playing isn’t the same as usual (Likely due to our control), but it seems that Chara may be good at piano. Interestingly, on the cover artwork for the official Undertale Piano Collection 2 book, Frisk can be seen holding a knife playing a key on a piano in the judgement hall filled with bones.

So for better or worse, what appears to be the original Chara and Gaster from Undertale are present in Deltarune, in some meta form or another. And maybe that’s the key: “Meta-characters”. After all, you yourself as a player are a “Meta-character”. You can ask the inhabitants of this new world questions that only someone with knowledge of a True Pacifist route would have, such as being able to ask Undyne about Alphys. Asking her this only makes sense if you yourself completed a True Pacifist route before playing Deltarune.

Ralsei, the lonely prince.

Toby being the trickster dog he is, he didn’t just give us 1 Asriel and call it a day, no he gave us 2.

Ralsei is quite clearly meant to be a version of Asriel because not only do they have similar or identical dialogues, but he was also was meant to look more like him before Toby decided to give him his Black Mage look.

There are even strong parallels obviously meant to create an emotional response and connect Ralsei to the feelings people had for Asriel in Undertale by giving the players the option to hug him.

Ralsei is quite the mystery on his own. And while he’s most certainly sweet and lovable, there’s undeniably some disconcerting things about him such as:

-Why does he know Kris and Susie’s names?

-Who did he learn the prophecy from? “Foretold by time and space” isn’t a good answer (or is it?).

-What did he say to Kris when the player SOUL wasn’t present in the prison?

-When he’s KO’d in battle, what does he become? Apparently he can still eat to regain HP when in this shrunken form.

Ralsei seemed to be under the impression that violence wasn’t needed in this world, but upon nearly being defeated by the King after mistakenly healing him, Ralsei says “This isn’t a world where kindness always wins, is it?”

The way he says this seems to imply he knows of other worlds and that they have different rules. Perhaps he comes from a world where someone being kind to everyone they met had great results?

There are definitely things that Ralsei is not telling us, whether this means he’s up to no good will remain to be seen, however, I would like to take this opportunity to make a prediction based on the previous understanding that the original Chara and Gaster are present in this new world in meta forms, and assert that Undertale Asriel, the final piece of the perfect ending puzzle is present in Deltarune in his own meta-character form of Ralsei. Perhaps the form he shrinks into when KO’d is one we know well...

There is that unused Flowey face...

Add glasses and a hat and...

but that’s just a game theory!

And I can't help but wonder about the dark heart on Ralsei's chest and this merchandise in the Deltarune section of fangamer that specifically features a quote from Undertale about the prophecy of Delta Rune (that turns out to be about Asriel in the TP ending, and Chara in the Genocide ending) "There is a prophecy. The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty."

It's also the Deltarune game logo

Because the merchandise is called Darkheart, it made me immediately think of the dark heart on Ralsei's chest, and having an Undertale quote about Asriel/Chara makes it all the more mysterious...

Regardless, in just the first chapter of Deltarune, the elements of the “happier outcome” connected to Sans’ machine are present. But how do they all connect? Well, let’s look at the other characters in Deltarune, starting with:

Lancer

Oh Baby Santa Claus, how we love you so. It’s hard to overlook how similar Lancer is to Sans. They’re both hilarious in their own way, both ride bikes, have similar color-schemes, both have a love for tomato-based products, and both have some scientific/engineering affinity (Sans and his workshop, Lancer and his “Lancer Industries”).

But that’s not all, the door to Sans’ room is identical to the warp doors found in the Dark World that Lancer hails from, and Sans’ warp ability also makes the same sound effect as these doors as well.

Lancer is a member of the FUN gang (remember the FUN value?), that, as far as we know currently, has 3 other members besides himself: Kris, Ralsei, and Susie (with the possibility of Noelle and others in the future).

Speaking of Susie, her name (or a version of it) popped up in Undertale prior to Deltarune’s release when the game was released on the Switch. By speaking to the Gaster Follower “Clamgirl”, you can learn of a girl named “Suzy”, that you will meet her soon, and that “in life’s grand scheme, she might be why you came here in the first place...”

Upon receiving this dialogue, checking the drawers in Sans workshop will reveal a card with a drawing of 3 people smiling and the words “don’t forget”.

“Don’t Forget” is the vocal theme of Deltarune sung by Laura Shigihara, and the melody from the ending verse,“Don’t forget, I’m with you in the dark.”, is leitmotifed throughout the entire Deltarune chapter 1 OST. The connections between Sans, the FUN gang, Gaster, and by extension Undertale and Deltarune are quite apparent. Perhaps the actions of the FUN gang in the Deltarune world will have an affect on the FUN value in Undertale.

Based on all the evidence we have now, I am going to make a bold prediction:

Lancer is literally a younger Sans.

That’s right, Toby Fox made Baby Sans before Disney and Sega made Baby Yoda and Baby Sonic.

Deltarune’s Dark World is the past from the perspective of Sans and Gaster (or a recreation of it). How Lancer becomes Sans will likely be a very large part of Deltarune’s narrative, and once he becomes Sans, he will exist as a separate meta entity that can traverse different worlds, even if versions of himself already exist in some form there (similar to Ralsei and Asriel).

We’ve seen that if characters are exposed to elements that make it clear they live in a video game world, whether this be Determination for humans and Flowey, a time-space accident for Gaster, or a strange man whispering to Jevil, these characters become something wholly different, more powerful, and begin to become more similar to players with the ability to SAVE, RESET, or use abilities that seem beyond the scope of the game (e.g. Photoshop Flowey, Jevil’s ability to speak, etc). Undertale and Deltarune are video games about video games.

So if it is to be believed that Gaster is Sans’ father, and that Lancer is a younger Sans, then it stands to logical reason that whoever Lancer’s father is, that they must be Gaster.

No, not the King, there is another. A “Lesser-dad”.

Yes, Rouxls Kaard.

“GOD DAMNIT”

Rouxls Kaard, or “Rules Card”, or if you rearrange his name “A Dark Soul Rx”, wait, Rx as in prescription? As in a doctor? Dark Soul as in Mr. Darkness Gaster himself? Too much of a stretch? Maybe. Although you can’t deny they have similar appearances.

If Rouxls Kaard is Gaster, and therefore the father of Sans and Papyrus, then he’s undeniably similar to one of his sons. Rouxls Kaard seems to be quite passionate about puzzles, (despite not having a natural predilection to them). I could see Papyrus gaining an affinity for puzzles by being raised by such an individual, they both have quite flamboyant personalities. And let’s not forget that there are also hints that Rouxls Kaard may be inclined to creating scientific devices such as the “Control Crowne” he uses to control K.Round.

Hmm, controlling other people… sounds familiar to what we the player are doing to Kris… and who was it that was initially going to give us control of a vessel before we lost said control to Chara’s intervention? Control seems to play a big part in Deltarune doesn’t it?

Also, isn’t his manner of speech is reminiscent of a silly ye olde knight. Wait, wasn’t there a Knight causing trouble in the Dark World? Hm.

So something is going to turn Lancer and Rouxls Kaard into Sans and Gaster, respectively.

Now remember the CORE that Gaster built? This one?

It turns geothermal energy into magical electricity via an unknown means with one of the byproducts being ozone, which is corrosive and could potentially make someone very melty. This is what it looks like on the inside.

Lots of blues of varying hues with white accents. Kinda reminds me of Rouxls Kaard and the other “card” people’s color schemes.

What a coincidence! Oh and apparently the layout of the CORE can be re-arranged or something:

"I work at the CORE. The inside is a maze made of swappable parts... That means we can shuffle the layout at will." - Hotland NPC

Almost sounds like a sliding puzzle…

Finally, Gaster is referred to as “The man who speaks in hands”, likely due to his Wing Dings font that contains a lot of hand symbols, however, it isn’t a stretch to also apply that epithet to Rouxls Kaard, after all, the Rules Card speaks in hands as well. Hands of cards.

Susie

Can’t forget Susie. Unfortunately, there’s not much we can say about how her role in all this will play yet. If we are to believe that the “Suzy” that Clamgirl references is Susie, then it’s clear that she’ll be key, perhaps as a catalyst for all the big changes some characters will need to undergo...

I will say that I think it’s interesting that toby specifically has a character in Hometown comment that humans are made of blood (and implying the monsters are not),

and Susie says:

“Everybody bleeds, right?”

From our understanding of monsters in Undertale, monsters don’t bleed, they turn to dust. But, maybe Darkners can bleed. If we believe Sans is a Darkner, it may explain this:

It could be ketchup. It could be a Darkner thing. Lancer does mention blood casually. But if only humans and Darkners bleed, then why would a monster like Susie say “everybody bleeds”?

So what is Deltarune you ask? I think it’s:

1) A story about Sans, Papyrus, and Gaster’s past and future. We get to experience their past in the Dark World, and speak with their future selves in the Light World. But these future versions of Sans and Papyrus may not be as far into the future as the Sans and Papyrus we meet in Undertale. Remember, Sans had an Ice-E’s crossword in Undertale? Ice-E’s-P’E’zza is a restaurant in Hometown. Papyrus may also be younger than he was in Undertale because Sans, an adult who runs a grocery store, thinks a teen like Kris should hang with his little brother, and it would be “weird” if he were there with them.

2) A story about post-Undertale Asriel, Chara, and Gaster. Asriel/Flowey maintains his new form as Ralsei thanks to the power of the Dark Fountain. He now lives in what is/was Sans’ childhood home. Whether he knows this or remembers the events of Undertale is unknown, but it is my belief that he holds a deep connection to the Asriel we all wished to save. Chara resides within Kris in a similar manner as they did at the ending of a UT True Pacifist Ending after surrendering the red SOUL to them in a Genocide ending. Does this mean that Kris’s body or “vessel” is Frisk? This seems to be heavily implied by Kris’ outfit taking on the same color scheme as Frisk’s UT shirt while in the Dark World.

3) A coming of age story for a bunch of teens. Kris, Susie, Ralsei, Noelle, Lancer, and all the friends that may join on their adventures are still people regardless of what grand meta narrative is at play involving the nature of their reality. They still need to go to school, fall in love, and worry about growing up and going to university. Noelle will undoubtedly play a large role with Toby’s tease of her as “Lost Girl”, and considering how attached most of the community has already gotten to these characters, it hurts my heart to think about what may befall them as they try their best to live their lives. Does this mean Deltarune’s world is doomed? I hope not... but those save file screens sure are creepypasta...

“IT WAS AS IF IT WAS NEVER THERE AT ALL.”

4) A story about video games and the control (or lack thereof) we have over them. It’s quite clear that we, the player controlling the red soul, is able to influence this new world based on knowledge from Undertale that should have no barring. For example, we can name “Onionsan” who has forgot their own name. One of the options is “Onion”, but why? Is it because we know their name is Onionsan in Undertale? How do we even know if that is actually what this version of them is really named?

Deltarune is so close to the perfect Undertale ending we wanted, but it’s just a little bit wrong. Would it hurt to force Undyne and Alphys to meet and fall in love? To get Toriel and Asgore back together? To make Bratty and Catty friends? If you were given the option in game to do it, would you do it? What if it made their lives worse…? I believe that the fact we are able to influence inhabitants of Deltarune with our Undertale knowledge may have some unforeseen consequences, and perhaps, be what begins this whole situation in the first place. (Paradoxes are the best time travel stories!)

Toby Fox said that Deltarune was the game he originally wanted to make, but whether it was too ambitious or time consuming, his idea evolved into Undertale. Now that he’s creating the game he always wanted to, I believe that he will connect everything we know about them together and resolve the mysteries, after all, Gaster has been waiting for this chance.

And maybe, with a little luck and determination, we can create a new future with a happier outcome. If I’ve learned anything from Undertale, it’s that you must hold on to your hopes and dreams, because dreams are the goal of “Determination.”

#undertale #deltarune #spoilers #sans #papyrus #gaster #asriel #chara #frisk #kris #toriel #sans undertale #theory #the true nature of deltarune #noelle #fun gang #susie #toby fox

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tsukihimeyfan · 5 years ago

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To Undertale

In honor of its 4 year anniversary, I would like to talk a bit about Undertale (I know I’m a bit late, but bear with me). Apologies ahead of time for the long post, and to anyone who reads it in its entirety; thank you. Also thank you very much to Toby Fox for giving birth to this masterpiece that has touched all of us so much :) I will be discussing several important details in the story, so SPOILER ALERT (just in case)

I came upon Undertale very late. It had already been out for about a year when I first heard about it, but everyone said such wonderful things and I was curious, so I decided to watch a playthrough on youtube, just to sate my curiosity. But Oh Man, I was not prepared for what I found: a gorgeous soundtrack, dozens of memorable characters, an amazing story, an incredible journey, and a veritable fountain of feelings sprouting in my heart. I fell in love.

For at least several weeks afterwards, the words “stay determined”, “everyone can be better if they just try” and “despite everything, it’s still you” bounced around in my head. Also, the idea that “even if its painful, even if you are going through a hard time, you can always choose to be kind, and happiness can always be found there, for others as well as yourself” became embedded in my soul. Even now, thinking about the True Pacifist ending fills me with joy. It was only fairly recently that I finally completed my own playthrough of the game, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were still many little secrets to uncover (for example, did you know that the “gauntlet of deadly terror” bridge is just a rock formation that Papyrus painted over to make it more dramatic? He also added the rope for safety LOL😂)

The best part of the game, in my opinion, are the main characters. They are all more complex than they appear, they all have their struggles, and I would like to talk a bit about my opinions and theories about all of them.

Let us start from the beginning and talk about everyone’s favorite goatmom, Toriel. Of course, we all know her sadness at the death of her children, new and old, but if we really think about it there are signs that the situation may have been even worse than it seems... Namely, the shoe box in the room Toriel prepares for Frisk. If you check it, it says there are several shoes “in a disparity of sizes”. Presumably, these are the shoes left behind by the human children before they left the ruins, but they surely didn’t leave the ruins barefoot, right? And if they only stayed with Toriel for a day or so like Frisk does then she wouldn’t have had the opportunity or the need to go out and get some for them. This implies that each human child that fell probably stayed with Toriel for a while, long enough for her to need to buy them new shoes, maybe even because they outgrew their original pair. This, in turn, means that she had a chance to really get to know them, take care of them, and love them, unlike Frisk, who she only took care of for a little while before we leave. This might explain why she is so angry at Asgore, why it is unlikely that she will ever forgive him. If this is true, he not only killed random innocent human children that she didn’t really know, which is bad enough on its own, he might have killed her children, children she treasured. This also explains why she is so obsessive about protecting Frisk from everything and keeping them in the ruins no matter the cost. And yet, despite her pain, her “loneliness and her fear”, she still is one of the most gentle, kind and caring characters you meet, even willing to try to prevent Asgore’s death as well as Frisk’s. Toriel is best goatmom <3

Then we meet the star of the True Pacifist run (especially if you call him often); the Great Papyrus! He is my second favorite character for good reason. He is so much fun from the very beginning. Although he might appear to be a bit narcissistic at first, you quickly realize that in truth he is just lonely and desperate to impress in a misguided attempt to make more friends. Even so, he is always attentive to the feelings of his friends and tries his best to make them feel better. His relationship with Undyne is also quite adorable, and there are signs that he knows more than he lets on about everything (he is at the very least great at gauging the emotional state of people and manipulating them a little to push them towards self improvement, as Frisk’s date with Undyne and his warning about Alphys can demonstrate). Also, the way he always tries to believe the best of people, even in the worst circumstances or when he is scared, is truly admirable. I really love that precious cinnamon roll

Then there is Sans. Oh my god, Sans. He steals the show in the genocide route, truly. He is my favorite character of all, and there are so many things about him you don’t find out if you don’t dig deeper and talk to several people. First of all, he is a wonderful brother. Although he always teases Papyrus, he does his best to cheer him up all the time (for example, in the Genocide route he says that Junior Jumble is the hardest, even though in other routes he says its the crossword, just to make Papyrus feel a bit better when the human refuses to play along with his puzzles), he pays the bills for the house, he probably gave Papyrus his action figures (Papyrus tells you santa gave them to him, but there is a thank you letter to santa in Sans’ room), he made sure Papyrus’ room was super cool and comfortable when he doesn’t even have a bed frame himself, he was probably the one who bought Papyrus his car on the surface (one of the guys at Grillby’s tells you that he spends most of his time checking out car magazines), he helped him build his sentry station and battle body, and he reads him bed time stories every night. Second of all, although he seems to be a comic relief character at first, he is struggling with major depression (you can find out that he is eating less, he doesn’t sleep much at all at night, he feels hopeless all the time, he seems fatigued all day, and he doesn’t see a point in doing anything at all) and is probably using humor to cope. Finally, there is Sans’ heroism as well as his tragedy: he is one of the only characters who is aware of the resets. First he had to live through Flowey’s endless resets, when he first befriended everyone and then proceeded to kill them all in a variety of ways, presumably being the one to stop him from getting the human souls several times (Flowey tells you that Sans has caused him “more than his fair share of resets”). Then there is YOU, who manage to free the monsters, begrudgingly earn his trust/friendship, and then rip it all away (even worse, he is completely aware of your betrayal; if you reset after a True Pacifist ending, you can find a picture of Frisk smiling happily with all of your friends together, and the only time such a picture is taken is when you all make it to the surface, so he certainly knows that you freed everyone and then returned them to the darkness for your curiosity). And yet despite all of that, despite knowing that fighting you is pointless (especially since he can tell every time he kills you and you load your save file), despite not having hope anymore that he will one day see the sun and remain under its light, he still fights you fiercely on the genocide route, again and again, employing all of his considerable power, but not for himself (he doesn’t hope for anything anymore after all); its because he still wants his brother and his friends to have a better future, because he knows that if you win the world will end and no one will ever return, because he still wants you to reset so that everyone will come back and have another chance at happiness, no matter how brief. Jesus christ, this character gives me all of the feels. I love him so much

As for Undyne, I love how she seems so rough but is actually very sweet to her friends and loved ones, and she cares so much for her fellow monsters, always trying her best for their sake. Also, her crush on Alphys is the cutest thing ever, particularly if you take the time to call her often (you’d be surprised how often she talks about Alphys. Papyrus also tries to encourage her several times to be honest with her feelings, and their dynamic is frankly the best mentor-student relationship I’ve ever seen)

In the case of Flowey, I really like how he is a sort of reflection of the player ingame, especially for those who chose to go through the genocide route (“‘I don’t like this’, I told myself, ‘I’m just doing this because I have to see what happens’ Hahaha, what an excuse!”). And the Asriel twist was truly masterfully executed.

I really empathize with Alphys in a lot of ways, since I struggle with social anxiety myself. Her journey to overcome her self hatred and be honest about her mistakes is really touching. I love how her friends understand that she only had the best of intentions at heart and continue to stand by her when she comes clean about what she did. Friendship can really make all the difference in the world for those of us who are struggling like her in one way or another. Her apparent suicide if you kill Mettaton or Undyne, her pillars of support, is one of the saddest things in the game I think. I also really admire how during genocide she presumably opens up the true lab for the evacuating monsters despite her fears, and if you abandon the genocide route in Hotland she takes charge in order to protect all monsters in Undyne’s stead

When we first meet him, my opinion of Mettaton is the same as Undyne’s; “I don’t really like that guy, but I admire his lifestyle”. However, I really enjoyed his growth as a character after Frisk beats him and his fans remind him of what is truly important. He becomes so much more supportive of his friends, and I really like how he always stays true to who he is, even going so far as to find the body/look that perfectly represented how he felt inside, and later encouraged others to do the same (like giving that one lion his dress)

Finally, we come to one of the most interesting characters, even though they are rarely mentioned and not really seen except in the ending of the genocide route: Chara. Truthfully, I think they are often misunderstood because the biggest impression they make is in said ending, when they take control of Frisk and destroy the world. However, I do not believe Chara was inherently evil. After all there are clear indications that Chara is the narrator of the game (the most obvious being the mirrors in Genocide). They tell you that your determination awakened them from death, and I believe that their spirit becomes attached to yours at the beginning of your adventure, which would explain how you, a human new to the underground, can understand the monsters that can’t speak normally like the Froggits and the snails (notice that their text starts with a noise they make, like “ribbit”, and what they actually mean is in parenthesis) as well as the ancient writing on the walls. After all, Chara lived in the underground long enough to become a sibling to Asriel and become known by all the monsters, it would make sense for them to have learned their language, and then they translate for you. This would also mean that all the funny commentary whenever you check an object or a monster comes from Chara. Also Chara being the narrator would explain why they go silent at one point or another during the battles with Asgore and Toriel (when the description says only “...”). Many people argue that their plan to cross the barrier with Asriel and kill humans means they were evil, but I do not think so, even if they did hate humanity. After all, if they only wanted the power to kill humans they could have killed one of the Dreemurs in their sleep, taken their soul and crossed the barrier with it. Instead, they killed themselves, gave Asriel their soul in order to break the barrier and made a plan to free all of their monster friends and family. Death from buttercup poisoning is not an easy one either (it includes bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain and blistering of the intestines); they had to suffer in terrible agony for days in order to achieve their goal, all for their monster family. People also argue that the fact that they laughed after accidentally poisoning Asgore means they did it on purpose or enjoyed causing him pain, but Undertale shows us many times that sometimes you laugh when the only thing you want to do is cry. There is also this during the fight with the Snowy amalgamate which proves my point: (look below) . Finally, during the battle with Asriel in True Pacifist, you use your memories with your friends in order to save them, but you don’t know Asriel at all, so how do you save him? The answer is simple: Chara shares their memories of him with you, and since they are the narrator, they are also the one who encourages you to use the last of your power to save your friends. In conclusion, I think in the beginning Chara is just a slightly bitter, slightly misguided, sometimes unnecessarily violent child who tried to do their best to protect those they loved, even though in hindsight it might not have been with a good method. In many ways, they remind me of Undyne (specially after MK says that maybe she is mean, not cool, in the True Pacifist ending. That really breaks my heart, when I think about all she has done for monsters in general and MK in particular in other routes. It would also explain why Chara seems to admire her so much, calling her a heroine in every route and seeming horrified by the state of her body when she is killed in neutral routes). This means that what they become in the Genocide route is because of you, and they even tell you so at the end (you are the one who makes them think the only meaning of their reincarnation is acquiring power). It makes sense that seeing everyone they know and love being killed systematically right in front of them would twist them, turn them into something they were never meant to be in order to cope with what is happening. Also, Sans does say that gaining LV causes you to feel less and hurt others more easily. Your actions take that well-intentioned but misguided child and turn them into a demon.

I am so in love with these characters that I cannot do a Genocide route myself. I only know about it from watching playthroughs but I don’t have the heart to destroy their happiness. I only ever did a single run, without resetting once, all the way up to True Pacifist. I like to think that in some universe where they are real, they are living happily on the surface, Sans has had the chance to restore his lost hopes, and resets are no more.

I would also like to thank the Undertale fandom for giving me a home, and so many wonderful ideas to explore. Since Deltarune practically confirms that the Multiverse exists in canon, the possibilities are endless, and the amount of detail and dedication you guys have devoted to building those other realities is truly outstanding. I specially love Underfell, Aftertale (and its close relative Errortale), Underswap, Handplates, Endertale, and Underverse/Xtale. To their creators, thank you for the ideas, the art, and the possibilities. And most of all, thank you Toby Fox for starting us all on this wonderful journey.

And to all my fellow fans: Remember, Always Stay Determined ♥️

#undertale #stay determined #happy anniversary #despite everything it's still you #toby fox #thyf rambles

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argentdandelion · 5 years ago

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No Soul Necessary: Flowey’s Happy Ending (Part 3)

“We’ve got more beef than a prizewinning cow, but I want to forgive you so hard right now.”

If Flowey can’t feel love and compassion, it’s possible he can’t feel love and compassion for himself. Under his guilt and self-loathing, he may be unable to understand his life is valuable, and that he deserves happiness.

If he genuinely can never feel self-compassion, and so let himself pursue happiness again, then he might never really be happy. He might be haunted forever; he might forever disbelieve Frisk if Frisk claims he deserves happiness. More compellingly, he himself (as Asriel, temporarily) tries to separate his existence as a soulless flower from his brief return as a Boss Monster/Boss Monster-looking being, and has no compassion for Flowey.

Yet, Flowey’s happiness may not be impossible: his True Reset speech could be motivated just as easily by a little bit of compassion as by guilt. Perhaps absorbing the souls of so many monsters had some after-effects, however small. It’s unlikely everyone he’s ever killed would forgive him, as they don’t remember, but Frisk could, and maybe that would be enough.

To get his happy ending, Flowey must, to some extent, value himself for himself. As one could call this “selfishness” or “arrogance”, this might seem contradictory. Yet, it makes sense: kind, compassionate Asriel was too selfless, too altruistic, too self-sacrificing. He didn’t care enough about himself, or his worries. His love or loyalty to Chara got him killed, and guilt-ridden for who knows how long.1

So far as can be inferred from his story in the Genocide Route, when he woke up as a flower and couldn't feel love for or from his parents, he turned his turmoil inward. There's no evidence he lashed out at first. He might have instead suffered in silence, until his despair grew too great and he killed himself. He reloaded and used his power for good, but when it didn't make him happy, he turned to violence to fill his life with fun, with some sort of meaning.

Later on, Asriel accepts if Frisk neither forgives nor comforts him, apparently believing he doesn’t deserve it for all his bad deeds. At the flowerbed, he says he can’t go up the surface “like this” (resembling Asriel), because it would only break his parents’ hearts. He doesn’t think well of Flowey; in fact, in the flowerbed speech, he talks about Flowey as if he’s a separate being, and an object rather than a person.2

In the True Reset speech, Flowey still focuses on others: others’ lives and happiness, not his own. He talks about everyone’s happiness and letting Frisk “live their life”, but doesn’t mention himself. His persuasion seems half-hearted, and he doesn’t object much to the idea his memories will be erased: perhaps he’s resigned to his fate as a tool for the True Pacifist ending.

That caring for oneself is 'selfish' is often drilled into humans' heads by society. People are often taught to sacrifice for others, but not how to appreciate and care for themselves.

It is possible monster society takes caring for others, including self-sacrifice, to greater lengths than human society. Asgore himself suffered so much to give his people hope (though that's entwined with his responsibility as king). Monsters also believe their very souls are made of love, hope, and compassion; before breaking the barrier, Asriel notes how strange it is that many monsters love Frisk despite barely knowing them.

If Flowey indeed stays in the Underground, as many works assume, it could be from the belief he doesn’t deserve happiness, that his happiness means misery to others, or both. To SAVE Flowey, he must balance his guilt with his altruism. Given the sheer scope of his crimes (despite the fact time travel erased it all) and indisputably selfish motives in doing so, convincing him he deserves to live a good life may be the most difficult battle of all.

Part 1 → Part 2 → Part 3