#chara do not consider themselves a part of this and hate it

[boringmarinn]

@fransweek Day 7 - Valentines!!

Finally, in the middle of this week's rush (i was busy with my work 😅) i managed to finish this years Frans Week! It didn't turn out the way I imagined it, but i did it!

It makes me really happy to see all these talented artists here, and I really appreciate it, it was so much fun!

See you next year with more!

[thegoober010]

Im bored and I had some angst ideas for undertale so be prepared to suffer people >:)!! JK they aren't that bad!

TW/CW -> self destructive behavior, dealing with loss, suicide attempt, eating disorders, dealing with insecurities, depression, ya know the usual

So these are my own personal head canons for these characters so yeah!! Some may be a bit ooc just so ya know!

So these are my own personal head canons for these characters so yeah!! Some may be a bit ooc just so ya know!

characters in this -> ashore, toriel, papyrus, frisk, sans, alphys

without further ado LETS GET STRAIGHT INTO IT

"Oh you were my everything, I was your second best."

I feel like Sans has a few self destructive behaviors, such as doing activities that could possibly harm him mentally or physically or going out once Papyrus is sleeping and doing something risky. He makes sure he isn't harmed too badly since he still wants to be there for Papyrus but at the same time he just has to find a release and this is the only way he can, all the stress that builds on top of him, each reset he remembers it all so vividly, he remembers how everything felt, he remembers everything he saw in each and every one, he remembers it all. And with all the stress from that the only way to feel better is doing things that could harm him because it makes him feel real, it reminds him he's actually there, alive, real, he's actually going through all this.

I feel like Papyrus struggles with eating, he struggles eating properly, I feel like this started with his obsession of getting into he Royal Guard he feels like a 'proper' guard needs to focus more on training than anything and although he enjoys cooking he doesn't like eating it himself as much as he used to and he's more focused on training or improving. He'd rather someone else eat his food than him after a while, it's not to say he doesn't eat, of course he does... in very small portions that could be considered nothing. The reason he does this is because he wants to focus more on training or improving other aspects of his life and because he feels like if he eats it could possibly ruin his progress and could harm him in general, it's like he's afraid of food.

Asgore deals with a lot of issues after the loss of Chara and Azriel. The loss of his only biological child and of his adoptive child caused him to go into a huge down spiral as shown in the game. I feel like Asgore fakes many parts of his personality for everyone else in the underground to not only give hope but appear stronger than he truly is emotionally, but let's be honest, he has many breakdowns throughout the day, remembering all the moments he had with his kids before they're all slowly replaced with the memory of their deaths. I feel like he also engages in self destructive behavior but instead of physically its more mentally. Ya know by like... killing kids. It ruins his mental stability more as it reminds him of the deaths of his own children.

Toriel also deals with many emotions after the loss of her children. She gets easily attached to children or anyone who's very child-like. She acts like a very caring mother figure to them as it reminds her of how she acted in the past with her own children, it's like she pretends they're Azriel or Chara because she still can't handle the loss. Of course she knows they're gone and that they'll never be back, but she can't help but see them in every child-like monster/human she meets, she hates the fact she can't see them as themselves but instead sees them as her past kids because it makes her feel as if she's pretending they're them, which she kind of is but at the same time she treats them like they're own person. Due to the loss of her kids she also is very protective, she can't handle the thought of losing anymore children and after the loss of the other 6 human souls, the ones she got attached to as well, it caused her to remember all the feelings she had felt that day. She will never forget each loss and she will always blame herself for them, sometimes she thinks about how it might be better to be with them, how she just wants to see her kids again and those she took care of.

Alphy's is a whole angst character on her own Jesus, low self-esteem, the guilt of having to hide her experiments, social anxiety, losing her science partner its crazy. Alphy's low self esteem severely affects her experiments as well as the ones from the past. Her low self esteem caused her to not take many risks that could've actually helped her improve her experiments and the technology used in the underground, and it could've probably even helped Asgore in his journey with grief as she would've had more confidence in handling it and helping him through it, but she didn't, or well more like she couldn't. Even after getting with Undyne I feel like she has abandonment issues, she's scared of being left by her or that she'll find someone better but Undyne does try to help with her self-esteem issues, her guilt and so on.

FRISK IS A WHOLE SITUATION WOWZA! Based on what we know from the games/ what Azriel says in the pacifist route we can infer that Frisk falling down wasn't an accident but a suicide attempt. I believe this to be the case and I feel like Frisk might have many issues to deal with after all why would they jump without reason? Without wanting to be gone? I feel like they don't enjoy talking about it much but they will have to at some point as others start to realize how they truly got into the underground.

[dnangelic]

my eyes still hurt so bad but i forgot i wanted to make a post abt the potential misconception of daisuke (well at least him in particular given he's the openly nicer one) being mistaken for a chara that will always want to 'fix' other muses. i'm just here to deny that rn cause uuuh. aside from me as a mun knowing how boring or weird it can be to be at the opposite end, daisuke's circumstances themselves are pretty complicated, at least like, morally. daisuke does have a moral backbone. he has a sense of right and wrong, he does have a conscience and never wants to hurt others or see them senselessly get hurt, and a good part of his character is feeling guilty, knowing stealing and a lot of whatever else he's doing should be considered wrong, in tandem with stealing and doing all that other questionable stuff all the time anyways. he's someone who initially tries to shift the blame of things onto dark, saying that dark and dark alone is the thief, and that he hates stealing. (this is, again, complicated and only half-true; in the end, dark is him, and daisuke is a thief who both somewhat enjoys and can be confident in stealing anything,) but regardless daisuke will ALWAYS be a) crime-aligned (alongside literally his entire family) and b) somebody who already understands that the only thing that can really change a person is that person themselves. he's not really going to stubbornly morally preach or patronize others for extended periods of time because he knows it'd be hypocritical; he'll give advice if someone needs it or express a concern or two while trying to consider others' circumstances like with argentine, (a rogue live-artwork who was going to extreme + dangerous lengths to find an answer to what a human heart was,) but the most anybody will really get in the end is daisuke's shock and opinion. he's not really someone who'll ever try to force anyone to change, especially when such an important trait of his character is actually the helplessness of someone who's unable to do anything more than extending his own hand out to others and accepting them.

[kiniism]

okay heres a really long post about my onions on scarlet (and violet but ive only played scarlet so far). i will NOT be spoiling any of the story or pokemon that havent been revealed in official media, HOWEVER! i will be talking about certain mechanics in the game in more detail, most specifically how you physically move about in the world (ie the upgrades you get for your mount). while im going to try not to compare scarvi to other games in every single aspect, its not feasible to leave it in the vacuum considering What It Is (a mainline series game from one of the highest-grossing franchises in the world). developer crunch aside, this is what they gave us, so thats what im talking about. SO!! preface done. lets get into this, breaking it up by section with each getting an overall Section Score, and then a final Overall Game Score. points i like begin with ++ and points i dont begin with -- to try and make it easier. THIS IS LONG AND CONTAINS SALT (some deserved, some personal).

THE POKEMON THEMSELVES

section score: 8/10 i like a lot of them! its just the ones i Dont like, i...Really Dont Like

++wooper’s new evo is the singular best pokemon of all time ++the names this gen are top-tier ++most of the designs are really cool! --there are some who have interesting ideas behind their base design/abilities but it really doesn’t feel like it fits with the mon itself and wouldve been better off as a separate entity/pokemon (there is a sea-based creature and a coin critter who bring this to mind most keenly) --while its nice theyre supposedly all to-scale, many are way too small to be seen on the switch screen. conversely i guess i understand why people are always tripping over bug-types in forests

YOUR LEGENDARY RIDE BUDDY

section score: 5/10 their personality is the absolute saving grace here, the novelty of riding them is fun, though a lot of the mechanics fall flat for me but are still required to explore the world

++having the box legendary with you from the tutorial is a cool idea i didnt know i wanted before! ++this lizard is so personality. god bless --the camera cannot keep up when you dash for long distances --i dont hate the fact that there is only a single pokemon you ride on since that cuts down on total animations needed, its just sad we cant use anyone else --i also dont hate that your movement abilities are locked behind one of the story lines, BUT there are hard-locked areas of the game you cannot get to without more progress, which stifles the whole “open world, do whatever you want whenever you want” feel --you unlock gliding late, and after roughly ten seconds of gliding, you begin falling rapidly to the ground. whats the point of this? also no free flight is always depressing, if understandable at a technical level --climbing walls is your last upgrade. the small hop you do at the top of the cliff to make it to the flat ground is often TOO small and you may fall. and if there is a pokemon at the edge where you’re about to be, you will bounce off it and be sent likely back down to the bottom of the cliff. not to mention if the wall is not completely vertical, you might lose your climbing grip and begin to slide down anyway --they take up so much of your screen you often cant see whats in your path and will run over or into obstacles like smaller pokemon or npcs

THE ANIMATIONS, GRAPHICS, AND VISUALS

section score: 5/10 the pokemon textures and chara designs alone save this part from being rated a 3/10

++the pokemon themselves look AMAZING, they have visible scales/fur/metallic sheen and are generally a delight to see walking about ++the npcs and characters are all really cool and i enjoyed meeting them ++pokemon have several different animations you can see with the picnic feature ++pokemon having sleeping animations in the picnic and when idle too long with lets go mode is adorable ++pokemon roaring/crying after they defeat an opponent in battle and are waiting for the next to come out is a nice touch --the environment textures look like 144p stock photos --the landscapes themselves look like a middle schooler’s first blender project, they arent natural and they arent pretty --there feels like there isnt a cohesive stylistic choice, like in legends arceus or breath of the wild, where they have a consistent vibe for the whole game --pokemon dont stand correctly on slopes, ie one of their feet will be clipped into the ground and the other will be floating --most of the move animations are pretty to look at, but we still have “slide forward and jiggle around a bit in your t-pose” and thats IF its a physical contact move. arceus’s dynamic battle movements are completely forsaken here --the idle animations in battle have a lot of dead space between them so we’re back to just two of them t-posing at each other --pokemon dont even close their eyes when theyre asleep. they have a whole animation for it outside of battle, and inside of battle there isnt any sleepy signs. they dont Freezeframe when frozen either. --koraidon specifically does a really cute animation when you’re just sitting on his back BUT. his neck wheel clips into his throat horribly and i just cant unsee it --the pokedex has a cute aesthetic but you cant SEARCH it and trying to read the sideways names is unsatisfying --the CONSTANT jumpcuts/fadeins both in the open world and in cutscenes looks Awful. give the editor a break, you dont need ten small movies to do the job of one

THE UI ELEMENTS AND CONTROLS

section score: 3/10 for every step forward there seems to be several dozen going back

++taking a selfie for your trainer card is nice ++the map has a pleasing aesthetic overall --the map does not show cave layers --while you can lock the large map from rotating, you cant lock the minimap from spinning which disorients me to no end. also the main map doesnt keep your zoom level saved when you close and open it --trainer card is removed from the x menu and instead locked behind opening the large map and then a smaller menu, which is pointless --you cant take a photo of yourself for the profile Icon. why? --the pokemon menu icons do not have special shiny variants, and also they clip horribly within the party screen. all of my pokemon are beheaded and/or have no feet --in the pc why is multiselect bound to the - key and not something way more accessible. why make Y ONLY swap and not toggle between modes like sword and shield had? --in the pc you cant pick up a pokemon and go to the ‘all boxes’ screen and drop them in a new box. you have to manually scroll through all your boxes --in the pc you cant hit Up on your first party member to end up tabbed over the Last Slot --health bars in battle. where do i start. its awful and i hate it? if you have a status effect or take damage from an ability, the bar will display for a moment while the damage animation goes off, and then DISAPPEAR WHEN THE TEXT BOX TELLING YOU THE DAMAGE WENT OFF SHOWS UP. its stressful when you/your opponent is at low hp and you dont know HOW much until the turn resolves entirely. in worst case scenarios (ie tera raids), you may only get a few frames. just display the health bars all the time, along with the pokemons level.

THE NEW FEATURES

section score: 5/10 if these features worked as im sure they were intended or had a few tweaks, they would be 10/10. but they Dont, and its super sad that the bad vastly outweighs the good

++finding rare items on the ground (nature mints, vitamins) is really nice ++being able to BUY nature mints is amazing ++picnicing is fun and handy when you dont want to make a long trek to/from a center ++terastralizing is fun to both do and plan around ++the raids are an improvement over sword and shield ++coop is kind of pointless but still really fun to Exist in the same space as your friends! so it stays as a positive ++accessing your pc boxes from anywhere is a godsend! ++nicknaming pokemon anywhere is nice! ++being able to relearn any past known move at any time is amazing! ++shiny pokemon are seen in the overworld! ++the lets go feature is a fun concept --HOWEVER the lets go feature is implemented Terribly. the mon doesnt stray far from you and immediately returns to the ball if you do get too far. you often send them forward and they dont target what you want them to, or they defeat one pokemon and then give up. 90% of pokemon are also TOO SLOW to keep up with you, which means you cant even reliably have a buddy walking with you for fun. it also makes evolving certain pokemon a hellish nightmare of forcing yourself to walk slowly so they dont get stuck --shiny pokemon DO NOT SPARKLE OR MAKE A SOUND in the overworld. they will ONLY alert you to their shininess when you enter a battle. the only way to identify a pokemon is with the lets go feature (your mons will not attack a shiny) BUT. with all the problems the lets go feature has i just listed, the only other recourse for people who dont use it is to squint at their screen. what do you do with a shiny who flees if you dont notice it in time before getting too close? you lose. good day sir. i will not be giving the game a pass on this at ALL because of the many visually impaired players being shafted on all fronts --speaking of shiny pokemon, shiny dittos and shiny zoruas can be disguised as Normal Pokemon and you wont know until you engage them and they de-transform. and again, the only way to know for sure before you manually battle is the lets go feature. so thats just dumb --we did not need crouching and sneaking in this game if there isnt any out-of-battle catches or need to hide period --the tera raids being timed really doesnt feel good when you need to watch SO many animations and none of them are shortened or skippable. the boss tera’s, sometimes you have to tera, and while the throwing-ball at the end was clearly made with love...its long, and ive seen it a lot now --the difficulty spike from 4* raids to 5* raids (i havent done a 6*) was pretty insane without building an endgame pokemon specifically to take them on. also the fact that i cant invite my friends first and then open it up to strangers means you’re likely stuck with dumb npcs padding out your team --sandwich making is kinda clunky and the fact that the buffs are separated by type feels super arbitrary and just to pad out the system of “wow look at all these ingredients!!”

THE STORY AND WORLD

section score: 9/10 its a pokemon game so some cliche is expected, but this has been my favorite one since black and white. the only thing really dragging it down is that the world is not as open as it seems

++all three paths have solid foundations and i enjoyed experiencing them! ++all of the important npcs felt like real characters who had their own motivations and quirks ++i actually learned stuff in class and got to flunk my math midterm three times because i cant fucking read just like in real life! +7 points --the world is not as open as it wants to be. areas are hard-locked behind certain mount abilities (swimming, climbing) but you can. sort of get up cliffs by jumping backwards which is fucking hilarious --the OVERworld doesnt necessarily need to scale with player progression (its normal to have low level starter areas and high level endgame areas) BUT! the BOSSES should. i was reasonably leveled for my first few fights but then took on a boss 10+ levels higher than my team, which was a fun struggle! BUT. after that. i was ENOURMOUSLY over leveled for the REST OF THE GAME, and none of the fights were interesting or fun --the terastralizing gimmick was only used in an interesting way a handful of times (one earlier-level gym leader surprised me but that was about it) and could’ve had a lot more potential if the types weren’t so predictable. a fight you have after beating the league had me cautious of something that wouldve been amazing to see but never happened --almost none of the npc pokemon had held items...? or if they did, they didnt make a valuable contribution to the fight, which made most of them feel easy to steamroll --i also found very few useful held items in the wild, which isnt the biggest deal since you can buy them, but it was always nice to pick up something and be like oh hey yea i can use this! without specifically going to the store. maybe ive explored the wrong areas tho idk --there are too many shops. have a clothing store in each city, yes, but do not put every piece of your outfit into a different store. no fucking store sells ONLY socks and NOTHING ELSE. same goes for the sandwich shops --there are too many buildings. you dont even go inside any of them, not even the fashion shops, so why have a loading screen just to pop up a menu? have an npc outside show you a ‘catalogue’ and pick from there --there isnt a way to mark npcs you want to revisit on your map, ex the friendship checker or that one guy you trade pokemon parts to so you can get amarouge or ceruledge. i have to look them up every time --the pokemon dropping materials is nice and adds immersion that each line drops a specific item, but it just adds to unnecessary bag bloat. ive made maybe seven tms in my 80 hours of playtime and havent sold any materials because i dont want to scroll through them all

and the kicker... THE PERFORMANCE

section score: 1/10 this is abysmal. it makes me physically ill.

++the coop bugs are kind of funny thats the only reason this has a Single Point and isnt a 0 --the lag. THE LAG BRO. everything lags. the game, every menu, the pokedex, starting a battle, EVERYTHING --it cant keep a steady 30fps at the best of times --the frame drops and slowdowns are frequent, distracting, and honestly nauseating at times. i can only play in handheld mode --the camera clips through EVERYTHING how did this get through playtesting --my game has crashed three times. once while i was walking away from a pokecenter, a second when trying to connect to a friends world, and the third while eating a sandwich. this is the only switch game in my recent memory to have ever crashed completely --the memory leak when the game runs for more than a few hours. --people are FALLING THROUGH THE FLOOR. --the world fucking deloads itself sometimes when i throw a pokeball. yea that video of the psyduck by the bridge is real, its happened to me several times

so now.......here we are at the end of things. first, heres stuff i would fix to make it a perfect 10/10 mainline pokemon game

add shiny sound/sparkle back

make health bars display 100% of the time in battle

move the profile/trainer card and pokedex options back to the main menu

let players lock the minimap rotation

bosses have proper level scaling

make the names in the pokedex not sideways

tweaks to the movement of your ride mon

animation upgrades, both in the overworld and for cutscenes

minor adjustments to the animation timings in tera raids, making shorter versions of them to combat the timer anxiety

complete overhaul of the lets go feature

performance upgrades. god let this game cook for another year at least

and i think thats everything. this game is clearly unfinished and the product of the ruthless development cycle, and ultimately it was way too ambitious for the time and manpower they had. its extremely sad that theres such promise under all of the glaringly unpolished features. if this game had at least some of the fixes i specified above, i would feel confident rating this as my favorite pokemon game since black and white or legends arceus

however. as of right now, with the game the way it is, this is my final score

                       POKEMON SCARLET AND VIOLET                                   FINAL RATING: 6/10

[hitachiincest]

Thank you for your response <3

I also imagine them as switches, though I do lean to Kaohika more… it’s just that, when you see fanfictions and fanarts of them, in my case I was almost horrified— at the way people take the uke thing way too far (it’s just an act, and like you mentioned, even if Kao likes to be doted on, he doesn’t have to be ukefied to be like that) and the way he’s feminized just make me want to show that he can also take the lead/be in charge (even if mostly in private) like in ep. 15 ;; They also confirmed it themselves in the first volume, that while it seems that Hika takes the lead, it’s the more mature Kao that drives the action/is the same (depends on the translation), and it may sound personal, but I hate it when he’s made all feminine— like with his Cinderella metaphor (and Hika and Kao always cross dress together), or the fact he ACTS as the uke, and that was only by chance— because when they initially joined the host club, Kao accidentally burnt his finger for real, and Hika was holding him, genuinely concerned— and then they realized that the girls love it so that’s how the act started in the first place.

oh, yea i remember back when id read a bunch of fics of them after my anime rewatch a few yrs back i was like oh thats.. hm,, ;;; cuz id found a few where kaoru was a bit Too uwu uke iirc tho quite a few of them were p old & from when that was the Norm so i just accepted that some fics were products of the times &/or written by younger fans, as lets face it ouran was & still probably is 1 of the entry level animes. i actually dont consume all that much content of them tho (i only read fics Occasionally [this goes for all fandoms] & theres not much art for them in the eng sphere & i dont follow/kno any jp ouran accs on twitter or use pixiv) so that combined w my bad memory of what i Hav seen means im a bit Unknowing of most fanon for them.. lmao... i figured most of the stuff like that was mostly left behind as of a few yrs ago but perhaps not..?

I can't speak much for the feminizing thing bc I can't recall too many fanworks ive read where that was an issue iirc? tho tbf I can't remember much of what I've read at all bc tht was Yrs ago rip sry ;; I Do think they should be portrayed crossdressing Together more often! it'd be cute; let hikaru be in a cute dress too (I may be biased on everything tho I'm a femboy liker thru & thru lol so I'm like more boys in dresses?? Epic im in lol) softer=fem clothes? False- in this house it doesn't matter the boy type; Get In The Dress lol.

but yeah that doesn't mean he's constantly like that... a princess roleplay or 2 or letting hikaru take care of him, maybe, not unlike ppl w rp aspects to their relationships (like how brats aren't brats Always! time & place, etc etc. someone choosing to be bratty in private doesnt mean theyre gonna act like that 24/7) but it's a little sad if people reduce him to his act all the time...

I don't think I mind ppl playing w the princess thing tho considering it Is a part of his chara, but the whole thing was supposed to focus more on the magic of an illusion shattering eventually & losing what he has not quite a princess & prince... ;; but he Was almost/p much comparing himself to a princess' story & when the magic breaks & he's metaphorically left in his simple flats & princeless instead of the lavish life he had at "the ball" [cinderella metaphor. there is no ball, im aware] so it can't be helped if ppl like the princess association i guess.. give ppl an inch & theyll go a mile, & all that. & honestly w hikaru "saving" [ep 15]/"finding" [ep 21] kaoru twice in canon, it doesn't surprise me if they imagine hikaru as his prince & kaoru the princess since while the metaphor was more abt the whole host club not jus hikaru, hikaru was also a big part of it, as the eps focusing on it display his longing looks at his brother & such, w a fesr of losing Him the most. so long as ppl don't Reduce him to his feminine metaphor 100%, i guess. tis only a small part after all, not a loadbearing one. the angst is more the important bit lmao give him a masc cinderella outfit, even. (altho... the allure of a bishie in a dress... Very Enticing to most I'm afraid)

him always having to be the uke role thing in their host act is kind of out of the fans control bc that's canon... if he's content w his act of being that way, then power to him I guess! he himself might also like that in public he's all uwu kyaaa hikaru <3 while at home it's Hikaru who's nuzzling into his throat. a smug sort of feeling, ya know? that only he gets to see hikaru like that, not everyone else.

WAIT actually as I was typing this I remembered some scene from thee movie shoot ep [ep 4, apparently] where they mentioned 1 of them being the receiver or w/e (bc sports) & it was apparently hikaru annoyedly asking why kaorus the seme in the script w their changed charas (hikaru being all "KAORUU OAO" & kaoru gently reassuring him, which is like their actual dynamic instead) w kaoru replying in a similar manner going "yeah >:T"

which implies either he Likes/is fine w his uke role or at least doesn't think the fangirls would like them switching up & wants the status quo to stay the same just in case. I think if he did mind he wouldntve said anything? or even suggested to hikaru that switching up provides something fresh & "it's still doki doki twincest, hikaru~ these girls have a refined taste; they might just take a liking to gap moe ^^"

but those r the 2 charas theyve allowed to be chosen for themselves, in a way, & theyre like yea this is alright. rhey prov have an "if it aint broke dont fix it" mentality & since the girls expect the typical, they see nonreason to deviate. the twins are capable of speaking out- theyd prob speak up if they minded. also, kaoru might kno that hikaru might not want to be seen as vulnerable [ep 16 comes to mind tho that had more to do w circumstances going on at the time] so kaoru takes that upon himself & bears that burden upon his perceived character [as in the way one is seen, not his host club persona] so hikaru won't mind as much? idk im going off on a tangent I feel but I think the thing w "kaoru Having to be the public uke" isn't all that bad since he himself seems fine w playing around w that character. maybe one day they'll switch it up for fun. (not Literally, as technically they could have hikaru play as kaoru but it would still be seen as "kaoru", but I mean For Reals have hikaru as the uke)

in conclusion... to the fandom: pls accept soft dom kaoru into ur hearts & rewatch the twins' eps w fresh eyes I guess. love, @/hitachiincest & @/zyrellla (ghsnkmj lolol)

[the-fabled-void]

*Cracks knuckles*

Color guide: Chara is red, Undyne is blue, Asriel is green, Papyrus is orange. Purple is for shared traits in all comparisons

Okay so, I'd actually argue that the duo of Undyne and Papyrus fits the little Dreemurrs more. (This is gonna mention a lot of the no mercy route)

Let me start with the glaring obvious similarity that Chara and Undyne both hate humans at some point in time. Both from how they were raised. Both try to use violence as a defense mechanism, even though deep down they just want a hug. Justice (pretend I made this yellow) is important to both of them, so Undyne gives the one she perceives as weaker a shield, and Chara makes themselves stronger than the ones they view as stronger than them. Another big one is their determination, (if we consider the red soul to be the determination soul), for both of them. And how they seem to have a quality that makes them different from people within their species - again, Undyne's determination, and whatever made Chara see themselves as different from humans, as a demon. Both because they were determined to protect or help the nation they care about. There's also Chara's favorite number being the number 9 and the theme of 9s in Undyne the Undying's stats.

Asriel (again I wish I had yellow) and Papyrus are, first of all, so nice. One could say naive, but I prefer hopeful. Papyrus has seen so many good people, why would humans be different just because they're a different species? Asriel's best friend was a human who was good (not the best, but not bad), why would all humans be bad, bad enough to deserve to die? And they're merciful. Both die because they still believe that even if someone who they've been told is bad, or who they know has done bad, can change... They both decide to sacrifice themselves, be the bigger person in a sense by not retaliating. Maybe a part of them hoping once the humans just see what they were doing, they'd realize they were wrong, even if Asriel and Papyrus die at the end.

Color guide 2: Mettaton is pink, and Mad Mew Mew is orange. Purple is for shared traits in all comparisons

As for Mettaton and Mad Mew Mew (I'mma go with Mew for her, also they should add MORE COLORS) is SUCH an interesting thought, I don't see much of content for Mew herself at all. So I'm just gonna point out similarities in general.

This is only gonna gain structure later

Mettaton and Chara both left what they knew for something they don't, for an uncertainty because they didn't feel comfortable were they were. Both Mettaton and Mew, at least on the surface, seem to dislike or behave violently towards humans. And yet, they both use a form that looks humanoid. Chara is a human who dislikes humans.

Mew in her Dummy form seeks revenge in the name of her cousin, though in reality, she's just trying to connect to her body through the only way she knows how - intense emotions. She has been imposed different identities from others, be it ghost or dummy by others, genderless by her body and (mostly) male by the fandom. We can guess Chara didn't have the best self image or connection to themselves. They've also gotten their fair share of labels imposed on them- girl or boy, demon, human, hope of the underground. All they want is to be seen as who they are.

Mettaton was fine with pretending to be a sentient robot, so Alphys could impress Asgore, and so he can be himself and inspire the underground. Asriel was fine with the plan at first, even if he was unsure, if he and Chara could prove they could do something good for the underground, for Asgore. Mettaton leaves a body for another. A ghost possessing an object. A ghost possessing an object. Mettaton is following a dream and inspiring hope, and while Asriel's death certainly isn't by glamour, it certainly left a mark, didn't it?

Transcript: I think it's really neat how many duos exist in undertale and how all of them can be read as parallels or foils for chara & asriel. Toriel & asgore are the most talked about ones but sans &Papyrus and undyne& alphys very much are so too. Mettaton & Mad mew mew are another one I've never seen talked about but I think if chara & asriel where revived their relationship would be very similar to mtts and mews one in ut

Frisk can also be compared to being the third in the trio too (napstablook, alphys w/bratty &catty, undyne w/sans and Papyrus, idk how to properly explain it but I think the analysis heads will get what I mean)

[sukifoof]

How do you feel about the fact that people still try to separate flowey from asriel?

THANK U FOR THIS ASK I THINK ABOUT THIS A LOT!! honestly i think it comes from a genuine misunderstanding of floweys character, which tends to happen a LOT to complex antagonists like him. like the whole Point of his character is how trauma can change a person and what they take away from what they went through... i think asriel before he became flowey is very different from flowey but in the way someone who is deeply traumatized would separate their life into two parts: before and after trauma. i think the biggest reason this happens so often is specifically cuz asriel says not to think of him and flowey as the same person. asriel doesnt want to accept that he Is flowey and how his grief changed him for several reasons....

its pretty. upsetting. to come to terms with the kind of grief hes going through, firstly. he blames himself for charas death and for breaking everyones hearts and taking away everyones hope. he loathes himself and who he has become. i think the other part to it is the way he feels about his parents and still being alive... he sees the way toriel treats asgore who has killed less than flowey and ive said this plenty of times but i dont think flowey could take it if toriel hated him. while i dont think toriel Would hate him, flowey is still too scared to ever risk her knowing her own son is a murderer. its particularly upsetting to him because no one can even remember what hes done.. he has all this self hatred bottled up and simultaneously wants others to push him away for it because he feels thats what he deserves but hes also incredibly lonely and would be devastated if that did actually happen.

i was about to go off on a tangent about how clever it is to use timelines as a metaphor for living with ptsd BUT i will not get into that thats another post for another time...... but Anyway i think asriels fights themselves show his whole character!! he wants to feel something for anyone but is too scared to risk vulnerability and getting rejected so he just keeps you there forever if you like it or not because then he can justify possible rejection. something i think about a lot is if you replay the neutral end enough times he considers that maybe you really Do want to be friends with him, but Immediately gets scared of that possibility and decides that No You Actually Just Want To Use Him Like A Toy And Then Throw Him Away When You Get Bored. oh flowey........

i also think theres also a big disconnect with his identities as flowey and the prince of the underground. flowey feels that he can never truly bond with anyone because of how numb his trauma has made him feel. he doesnt think anyone can understand how he feels... hes extremely apathetic towards everything but especially relationships with others,, he probably doesnt feel its fair to anyone who genuinely wants to be friends with him, because he has an extremely hard time feeling that way towards others. i am once again comparing him to papyrus i think thats why papyrus tries so hard to be a Good Friend he has a hard time connecting with others i think about this sooo much...... ok anyway back to flowey.. he wants to keep up asriels appearance of being the Good Tragic Prince Of The Underground. he does Not want the part of him that he feels has any worth to anyone to be tainted by who hes become following charas death.

i think in a more general Non Character Analysis Sense though this just. happens to a lot of antagonists. some people will take things "evil" characters say at face value, especially when it comes to characters like flowey who are extremely unreliable when it comes to announcing their own thoughts and feelings. asriel is a very tragic character and the fact that he does not look like The Evil Flower when he has his breakdown kind of also allows for thinking asriel and flowey are different... especially cuz flowey As A Flower only really breaks like that at the very end of the no mercy route and it happens very briefly..... but anyway people are allowed to think what they want about certain characters and Thats Okay I Suppose but also the ap lit character analysis student in me is screaming so loud </3 of course no one is obligated to like antagonists and analyze them this much BUT its personally my favorite way to Enjoy Media

tldr flowey is so inch resting to me i think people should not separate him and asriel they are the same guy and thats what makes him so complex <3 thank u for letting me talk about flowey forever he is my Big Favorite :):)

also!!! to anyone reading this feel free to send me flowey asks i love talking about him,, it might take me a little bit to answer cuz i have so much to say BUT i will eventually get back to u with my flowey paragraphs <3

[everything-laito]

( abuse/trauma/ ments!!) Okay Corn , small rant but like I hate reading DL fanfics or whatever and someone always makes Yui the like, rude/slutty girl. I guess this is just like a me thing / opinion but i just dont like how they make her into something she isnt. Same thing w the boys, they (some authors, not all) COMPLETELY erase the boys sadism/abuse/trauma and make them cutesy, fun and totally romantizise abuse.

Character Development is nice, showing how a chara/oc can get pass trauma and become nicer/better but completely ignoring/erasing it doesnt seem like good development. :/

I feel as more younger fans of DL do this, especially when i see DL videos w comments like

“Yui is so weak and moans too much.”

“Yui doesnt even try lol”

Hi Strawberry! As for your statement, I mean I do agree, I personally don’t like reading OOC stuff as something to read (that’s just me), but if it’s what people want to write and read and they’re not forcing their opinion (and it’s not about real life people and erasing their real life situations) then it’s fine! It’s creative expression! I personally don’t like it when people romanticize abuse or sexual assault either because to me, as someone who’s been through a bit of that, it can be a lil offensive. Cuz that shit just kinda fucks you up and I can heavily relate to a lot of Yui’s confusion (especially through Laito’s HDB route) with her emotions after those scenarios. But I’m not gonna be like “don’t do that” because unless if you legitimately say that Laito and Yui and the other boys haven’t gone through trauma,,,, that’s a reflection on what those people think and would imply they have a tendency to erase real life people’s trauma too. I’m not gonna censor others just because they’re doing something I don’t like and it’s not harming anybody. I’ll just move on and ignore it; I don’t get caught up on things like that unless if it has to do with real life people. Which in this case, it doesn’t. 

But it’s writing, and they're fictional characters. So that’s no harm no foul. Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you also one of the younger people in the fandom as well? When it comes to the younger part of the fandom in general, it does make sense considering many of them don’t know the mental weight of those scenarios. I know that when I was younger and got into DL (which,,,, still isn’t optimal :’)) I wasn’t able to grasp the gravity as much. It just comes with mentally maturing. Hell, my brain still hasn’t fully developed, I’m not 25/26 yet and sure I haven’t been through incredibly terrible scenarios so I know I have yet to fully mature, and people are always learning and maturing regardless. Sure people say that they’re mature for their age but that still doesn’t matter when it comes to grasping the gravity of these scenarios (if they haven’t been through them in the first place, usually). (As a better example, a lot of young young kids don’t really know the gravity of the concept of death at first too). That’s why it just scares me a lil that there’s a lot of younger people in this fandom :’’) just coming from an older person oop

Also, I’ve written about Yui (and kind of OC) hate before on this post. And it does tackle a lot of what you’re saying too, esp about the Yui hate comments. But regardless, It’s writing, and people can write what they want, especially since it takes place in a fictional universe. It would be different if they were writing about real people and shipping them, like how Jacksepticeye had a recent statement on how to not ship people irl just because it gets weird. However, the trauma in DL is very real, but it still is a fictional universe. Once again, if they were real life victims then that’s when I would draw the line. As for writing development, it is fan fiction and not professional at all. You get a lot of people who aren’t good at writing but choose to make fanfiction to get better at it, or just to express themselves. I just don’t like shitting on people’s way of creatively expressing themselves if they’re not hurting anybody, regardless of skill. 

[zirkkun]

What are your views on UT!Chara? Are they good, neutral, evil (in your opinion) (No need to answer this ask if you do not want to)

hoo boy let me just. you’ve activated a Secret Essay(tm) of mine anon fbdshabl sorry i’ll try to keep it short LMAO

(under a read more just for a) length b) ut spoilers.. even tho im p sure most of you have beaten the game but who knows lol c) uhh Chara’s story is pretty dark so this has mentions of abuse and whatnot so please be aware of that ^^;;)

Morality alignment wise is like. Idk. I’m bad with assigning that half the time because it’s all subjective in a way right oh no my true neutralness surfaces like for example I wouldn’t do something I think is bad right? But someone else might think it’s bad. (Like my 16 yr old self might consider me today a terrible person just bc I like Undertale lol 16 yr old me is rude don’t listen to them) If I were to put them on a kind of DnD like alignment scale though, I think I would probably put them in a lawful neutral kind of alignment, maybe leaning a bit towards lawful evil.

But here’s the thing. Without Chara having any sort of backstory as to why they hate humans? It’s very hard for me to gauge where their motivation lies for the things that they did. Based off of what Asriel tells you when you talk to him in the Ruins, the genocide route, and the bits of narration we have, we can pretty much assume:

- Chara was pretty abusive, this is undeniably a fact even from just watching the videos in the True Lab; and while Asriel recognizes this, he didn’t want to lose them because they were the only one he felt close to. Which is likely part of the abuse they dealt by making him feel alone without them. - Chara hated humanity for reasons they would not disclose to Asriel, but it’s pretty implied that they attempted to commit suicide by jumping into Mt. Ebott. This could mean that they were abused in their past, which could in turn provide reason for their abusive nature (because, with Chara being a child, it’s very likely that they took in the personalities of those around them to make their own person up. Even though they were hurting, they didn’t exactly know why, and even still, many people with an abusive history that end up abusive themselves might not even recognize that they’re being abusive, which might be the case for Chara as well.) - Chara probably cared for Asriel. There’s a lot of things to indicate that they may have faked it or maybe it seems like they didn’t by their abusive nature towards Asriel, but it’s unlikely that Chara would fake caring about someone. If they jumped off the side of a mountain because they hated the people they were around so much, there’s very little reason for them to pretend they liked someone at the potential expense of their own happiness. More likely than not, Chara desperately wanted to keep Asriel close, but ended up being really controlling in an attempt to keep him close. Additionally, when you hug Asriel at the end of the True Pacifist route, the line “Hah... I don’t want to let go...” is said by the narrator, indicating it may have been Chara who said it. But considering how Sans also has lines that are spoken silently and in the default font, this may not be entirely accurate.  - Imma go off for a second about genocide because i have a pet peeve about when people suddenly decide that Chara is the one that caused it. This doesn’t make any sense -- but at the same time, with little to no games considering the Player and Player-Insert character to be two seperate characters, it’s no surprise to me that people i guess “projected” onto Chara. However, if you seperate the player from Frisk (in the same manner that Kris and the Player are seperate in Deltarune), it becomes easier to understand. Chara had nothing against the monsters. They liked monsterkind. It’s extremely unlikely that they would have the motivation to kill all of the monsters on their own. This wasn’t created until far into the genocide route, where the player has done most of the work for them. Chara is now living on pure Determination, which as we know is void of care and purely puts a person on a path of achieving their last desire, and once they wake up like this, with most of monsterkind already dead... well, what else is there to live for? They already attempted to kill humanity, failed, and now the only people they treasured have fallen like flies. Nothing matters in this world. Might as well delete the whole thing to finish the job. (also Frisk doesn’t have any motivations of their own either... unlike Kris they are shown to have no specific motivations (that i’m aware of?) one way or another and don’t reject the player ever so the idea that a canon frisk would reject the genocide route doesn’t make sense to me either. obvs au’s are exempt because they’re free real estate lmao anyway this is unrelated) - Chara’s a very calculated and observent person as well -- just look at how they died? They weren’t even afraid of death. They poisoned themselves with full faith that Asriel would take their Soul and bring them back to life (which also goes back to my point about how much Chara cared for Asriel, since, if they didn’t trust him, they would not have left him with that huge responsibility) by absorbing their Soul into his own body so they could exist as one. Chara saw their death as a stepping stone in their plan. All this from just seeing Asgore accidentally eat buttercups once and getting sick. A whole plan to get revenge on the people who hurt them from that. They even made a statement about wanting to be placed back on the Surface just to cover Asriel’s ass when he eventually took Chara on his own to the Surface. - okay this is probably just more of a me thing, but I’ve never gotten the whole “Chara hates Sans” concept. But considering I also don’t really think of Chara as the one who attempted the genocide route, I guess it makes sense. Chara probably doesn’t care about Sans one way or another, really, and Sans probably has very little idea who Chara is. I’ve always seen Sans’s statements during his battle said directly towards the Player, more or less using Frisk as the messenger -- like, for example (yes I have this on hand don’t judge me):

“sounds strange, but before this i was secretly hoping we could be friends. i always thought the anomaly was doing this because they were unhappy. and when they got what they wanted, they would stop all this. and maybe all they needed was. i dunno. some good foods, some bad laughs, some nice friends. but that’s ridiculous, right? yeah. you’re the type of person who won’t EVER be happy.”

- (cont) At this point it sort of taps into something I was gonna write for that Sans essay but here we go. I bolded “the anomaly” because this is the point where he directly refers to the player as their own individual in the game. What’s the only thing that’s different between Undertale and any moments of his life previous? The player. Hence, anomaly. Even Chara would have existed before the player showed up, right? Chara fell sometime within the 2010′s according to the opening of the game, and in between that time and when Frisk showed up, 6 other humans fell into the Underground. Clearly none of them had the same powers Frisk did, because otherwise, they would have not died and left their Soul behind for Asgore to use. That leaves one thing different -- player interference. Chara even directly states that the player is the one who woke them up with Determination, meaning they were asleep (or dead) for every year previous to their arrival. Sans probably only knows them as “the first human” like every other monster in the Underground (aside from the Dreemurs, of course).

i could probably go on for a while. but i will save you the time you probably didn’t want to spend reading this already by shutting up fdbshafb

[animalinvestigator]

Reading ur post reminded me something, maybe im being super sensitive but i kin chara too and seeing Asriel at the end be like "you were the friend i always wish i had" and stuff to frisk, and liking frisk more than chara basically, idolizing frisk, all that, made me really sad, idk.. i know theyre not real but i just :( do u feel me..

Yea no its real tragic. This is referring back 2 what i keep talking about , smth i realized is much more core 2 asriel+chara’s story than i initially thought- the tragedy of being incapable of understanding eachother. Asriel’s trying to comprehend everything tht’s happened and the way he pieces those things together at the end of the game leads him to the “maybe chara wasn’t that good of a person” conclusion bcos after all this time, he still doesnt understand them, and they still dont understand him.

I also think it has a good degree to do with the way HE behaved as flowey. I think its pretty well accepted that his behavior as flowey is largely adopted from worldviews + behaviors he learned from chara, so i think it’s likely that he says those things in part as an evaluation of the things HE did -- he’s saying “chara” because he learned those things from chara, but he means “himself” when he’s talking about being a bad person...which isnt to say he doesnt truly believe that chara is a bad person, he’s just projecting his behaviors onto them in addition to htat (there’s several other times in text he does this to frisk/the player/ who he percieves as chara which is why i draw this conclusion)

In any event its really tragic + one of the main reasons i hate when people try to write everyone lives post pacifist as like, everyone hugs and gets along right off the bat -- there’s clearly a LOT of unresolved conflict especially considering chara can HEAR him when he says that . their relationship isnt by any means in a good place at the end of the game

Thats yet another reason why i think deltarune might be a continuation of THEIR story = P While i believe the unhappy ending for asriel and chara is extremely poignant and completely what was intended, with the way that toby concluded pretty much everyone elses character arcs and left those two open ended, and a number of other clues...it seems all signs are pointing towards “it will get resolved someday” .

I do believe they still love eachother though. They were both readily willing to sacrifice everything about  themselves and their lives for eachother..even though their relationship is left in a turbulent state at the end of undertale, it would be silly to say that they no longer care about eachother. After all, it’s the memory of chara that stopped asriel from destroying the world, isnt it ? ^-’

[the-river-person]

The Trial: Part 3

Once more he sat facing the human, waiting for them to begin. Sans knew he’d already crossed the line. He’d crossed so many lines. There was nothing he could do now that would make everyone look at him the same way ever again. It was exactly what he’d been afraid of. Maybe if he could think of even one pun it might ease the tension a bit, but his mind was whirling with everything but puns. But it was his duty. The role of Judge wasn’t something you could do halfway. And besides, if he didn’t bring out the whole story, then it would be harder to for everyone to see what a tangled mess all of this was. They needed to know, to hear everything, in order to accept his judgement. That was the point of all this. Was it worth it though? If he couldn’t meet Papyrus’ eyes? “The voice came first. Before Frisk met Flowey. Chara’s body had been buried in the exact place they’d fallen into the Underground, where all those children fell. But this time, Frisk’s determination was so strong that it not only wrenched Flowey’s powers away from him, but woke Chara from death.” The Human spoke quietly, but it was so quiet a pin dropping could have been heard. “As Frisk journeyed they offered their help. Giving information about the Monsters and world along the way, offering encouragement upon death, and being a silent and invisible companion. Not like a ghost monster, but more like a lingering will, a consciousness or a fragment of a soul, persisting despite time and death. When Frisk was determined to be kind, Chara was pleased. But when Frisk eventually began to lose their mind and kill, Chara was horrified.” The Monsters too were horrified. Papyrus looked incredibly sad and tears were beginning to form in Toriel’s eyes. “It didn’t happen all at once. There were runs in between with accidental kills, or where Frisk only killed the ones who got in their way, or who couldn’t be easily spared without effort. As time went on they killed more and more until it became genocide. Hate. Pain. They killed and killed and killed, desperate to alleviate boredom, to keep from thinking about the world they might have to go back to. The Determination to stay in this world was strong. But Chara didn’t know that, they could only see what Frisk did, not what they felt. And so they watched.” It must have been a heavy burden to bear. To watch as everyone you knew and loved was murdered before your eyes. Killed without mercy. When all you had ever wanted to do was help them, you were trapped in a nightmare where they were all suffering and you could do nothing. The human still showed no emotion as they continued the brutal tale. “With each kill, the violence and hate grew, and Chara was determined to do something, to stop it all. So they fed off of those traits, drawing power from Frisk. But only when even Sans had been done away with, did they have enough power for it. Refusing to let Frisk kill their brother, they chose to do it themselves. At least he could die by their own hand. And then it was enough. They could become visible, real, if only for a moment.” Pausing, the human looked around at all the monsters, meeting the eyes of those who had known Chara. “They offered a choice. The level of violence and all that hate was strong. It twisted them despite their resistance. If power was the only goal, then they could kill for it and destroy everything for its sake. But when Frisk refused, the shock was enough to bring them to their senses, and they struck Frisk down and destroyed the world with the power they had. It wasn’t enough. The Determination was too strong for Frisk to truly die without wanting to. So Chara struck a bargain. Offer up their soul, risk becoming an empty shell with a fading consciousness or they wouldn’t be allowed to reset the world properly. Chara took that soul and poured the hate and violence into it, all of the negative emotions and despair. And it was taken, by what Chara called a Demon.” Sans sat up, this was the first time he’d heard this part of the tale and it chilled him. “What do you mean a demon? Explain.” “It is the Demon that comes when its name is called. It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter when. Time after time it will appear and help you eradicate your enemies and become strong. Every time a number increases: Hit Points, attack, defense, gold, execution points, level of violence... that’s them. When people are motivated by Greed, hatred, fear, apathy, rage, and so many other things they fall into its trap, they call its name without knowing it, and it comes and feeds off of the destruction and violence they create. When Chara bribed it into leaving, it took the soul and vanished. Leaving two spirits and one body and no soul between them. But there was one thing left. The demon couldn’t consume Determination, its not a negative trait even if it can be used that way. So it remained. That was the beginning of my birth.” For the first time, an expression of emotion had appeared on the human’s face, something like... a fondness? The warmth of remembering something from long ago? Sans considered them for a moment. He’d been skeptical at first of their claims of being neither Chara nor Frisk. But the more they’d insisted on it, and the more he’d heard others like Flowey insist that it wasn’t the human at all anymore, the more he believed them. This wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. Demons, determination. This was the problem of messing with souls and soul magic. It caused this sort of nonsense. “It was slow,” the human was still speaking. They’d spoken more today than any other time Sans could recall. More than anyone else had today. “I grew stronger as Chara and Frisk struggled for control, to remain. But eventually without all the hatred and violence that had been in the soul, they both calmed down and came to their senses. Frisk was disturbed at what they’d grown into and was all for releasing the Monsters right then and there. But there were problems with that, ones you are already aware of. Time had begun speeding by at unimaginable rates. The outside was no longer livable by that time, at least as far as they could tell. So they decided to lock everyone into the time loop, resetting endlessly. By that time you,” and they looked pointedly at Sans. “Had just barely begun to recall previous resets. You had some memories from the oldest ones, from the pacifist routes. But they were fragments. And it took a long time before you truly began to remember each time, hundreds or even thousands of resets before your memory was consistent.” Sans found himself nodding in agreement. It had been like waking up from a long dream. Bits and pieces of waking floated around, taunting you until you caught them and added them to the puzzle. When you had enough you realized that you were already awake and that things were going on around you. “By then, Chara and Frisk had begun to fade away. Human minds were not meant to last more than a hundred years or so, not at all like Monsters. And without a soul to tether them to this world, they slowly went silent. One day they were just gone. No more. And I was left. Determination. I was the Determination focused on their last wish, to preserve the Underground and its inhabitants by any means. They’d gone with endless genocide routes to keep you from discovering what was happening with Time outside the barrier, but I eventually decided that not knowing was hurting you more. The rest you know...” Finally they fell silent. No one made a sound. Deep in thought, Sans considered what to do now. He couldn’t punish this person, they weren’t even the true culprit, and it was useless to punish a person who was more or less dead so neither Chara or Frisk would be any help. And anyway, he’d made very clear that the human couldn’t totally be blamed for the mess they were in. He stood, his robes flowing around him. While he’d been thinking, the human had returned to their seat. They would have to call it something different now, because a being of living Determination wasn’t really human, and they deserved a name that wasn’t the memory of someone long gone like Chara or Frisk. With a decisive gesture he motioned for the pedestal to once again descend into the floor and the slab of stone to slide over top of it again. “I have reached a decision,” he announced. A sharp intake of breath greeted these words. Despite everyone’s desire for this whole event to take place, many of them were wishing they’d never wanted it now that they’d heard everything. Wishing that they’d not been so hasty. But it was far too late. “It seems to me that this person cannot be blamed. For they are no longer Frisk or Chara, but someone new. And Frisk the Human is not totally at blame for what took place either. We could point at other humans in their lives, we could look to this Demon that comes when you call it. Some might blame Chara for becoming violent, but they didn’t become that way until they were pushed to the breaking point, and still managed to overcome it to stop things. The truth is... we’re all at fault. You, me, everyone. Together we made the world a place where this kind of horror was... inevitable.” he sighed. There was no easy fix. Nothing would be easy. But at the forefront of his mind were all the things Papyrus had believed and told him about. About changing oneself and offering chances. But would they accept it? “Like my Grandpa Semi before me, I am called to be Judge. I play arbiter and executioner as necessary. Even deciding the fate of Kings if called upon to do so. But... I cannot force the world to change if it refuses. So here is my command. Learn to be better. All of you,” he glanced briefly at Flowey, who looked away. “Choose again and again to be a better person than you were. Offer kindness and where you can...understanding. Our world is small, and our prison is more final than ever before. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make it a better place, a better world. We can be free if we make our freedom ourselves, even if the bars are still here. We’re alive, which is a miracle considering everything. So let’s put that to use. I know some of it has already started with the new school and the media stuff I’ve seen everywhere. But there’s always more we can do.” He drew himself up to his full height. “That is my judgement. All are guilty, and all must throw everything they are into this new world we’re making. To ensure that its a better place than where we were before. To be certain we don’t lose hope. There’s no putting all the responsibilities on the shoulders of royals or heroes alone, we each have to do our part.” The two hooded and cloaked figures, both the large one with dark fur and the smaller jester-like one with a wicked smile and a lashing tail, came forward and stood on either side of him. As one they spoke the final ritual words of any trial. “Let the Angel’s will be done!” And then Sans simply vanished. One moment he stood there and the next he was gone. The other two began shepherding the shell shocked Monsters from the room, quietly advising them to return home and contemplate the Judge’s decision. Papyrus ran as fast as he could, hoping that Sans would have just gone back to their house in Snowdin. The River Person gave him a ride, for the first time saying nothing at all. He’d apparently watched the trial from a television screen set up for Monsters in the Capital, and he’d been able to watch without leaving his boat. When he arrived, the telltale signs that Sans was home were present. But Sans himself was absent. Knocking on the door of his brother’s bedroom, Papyrus called out to him. “SANS? SANS? I’M SORRY. I DIDN’T KNOW.” But though he could hear someone moving around on the other side, nobody answered. “SANS I WANT TO HELP YOU. IN YOUR DECISION YOU JUST SAID THAT WE SHOULD ALL DO OUR PART. WELL MY PART IS APOLOGIZING. I HAD NO IDEA YOU WERE THE JUDGE AND CLEARLY GETTING UP THERE WAS UNCOMFORTABLE FOR YOU. AND I’M SORRY...” The door opened. Still in his dark robes, but with the hood down now, Sans looked up at him with tired eyes. “I know. S’okay, bro. I just hope it does everybody some good. If it does, I don’t mind.” Papyrus hugged him and Sans let himself be hugged. It was going to be a bit before everything was really okay again. But now they at least had a chance at it.

[icharchivist]

hello icha!! i finally got around to finishing the stranger haha,, by which i mean i just watched it today. was veryyyy excited for it as i really like the poster design for this one. anyways. this event starting w/ the sort of portrait format or whatever / that narration is like. god. threw me right back to autumn troupe. I kind of love that the storytelling format itself is so distinct for autumn! the moment I realized it was omi I started getting teary… like oh man oh man… omi…. And the connection with him taking photos! ahh!! now that I think about it… omi kind of seems a bit like early version tsumugi, huh? also I keep forgetting this man is a college student lol. suspension of disbelief I suppose. onto the play i think like. mankai should invest in a fainting courch for tsuzuru. i also went to watch the play and 1) im betting yuki had a hell of a time costume design wise like the vines on the body? such fun costuming wise and 2) the ethical implications of whatever this play has,,, fun fun. tsuzuru was clearly having some kind of thoughts. i love zeros design and am always up for a3 characters crossdressing bc 1) i think its fun and 2) the costume design. i also dearly wish this whole thing was animated bc I feel like it’d be o fun to see taichi act as zero. or at least I hope this event gets full voiced one day... moving on to the scene where omi adds soy sauce to the paella I know it’s just like haha homare funny so lets five him a lil bit but like everyone in autumn troupe making their comments on the paella and like homare just jumping in. homare autumn troupe besties. just thinking. also the way they just r like. no no no omi it’s fine if u made a mistake!! it’s ok! we like it (you) anyways <3 it’s got it’s own special taste. something something omi’s perfectly pleasant as he is now but even if he weren’t on his a-game and was dealing with all of the biker gang stuff they would love him just as hard. another thing that got me was omi telling banri that he’ll give him something sweet so juza will stop grinding his teeth in his sleep… guys… guys you’ll give him cavities…. mb omi is a college student after all lol.

anyways when i saw the actual costumes. appreciative of them, i like the lil circuit-esque detailing on banri’s outfit, and that sakyo and taichi (nine and zero) both share that like collar detail? its very symbolic and probably also literal but its a nice way to sort of signify their relation to each other visually! also sakyo just looks nice. seeing him without glasses is so great. whoever thought up the like two mole detail for him was doing gods work.

something that confused me was ryo mistaking juza for nachi for a split second? like. does juza… look similar to nachi? or was it just that ryo only heard juzas voice and made that mistake. if it’s appearance wise too. kumon nachi confirmed. I’m joking lol bc I feel like I would’ve heard at least something abt it in one of the like small conversation comments, plus that doesnt seem like itd fit summer troupes style and kumon is for sure the wrong age… but still.

i really like how for this event, the roles for taichi and omi were kinda reversed. and taichis just so like. idk. smiley. rly lifts ur spirits. its kind of nice how this event contrasts to that cg where taichi is crying on omi. I also think like. idk. considering the story of the stranger. wolf gives zero a sense of purpose and life and I think that zero helps wolf lose his apathy. it’s about “the stranger” and the ending makes him like… not a stranger, right? because he’s got a companion. in the same way, taichi brings omi out of his emotional isolation. the picture taking! also the stickers coming back… thats such a good setup! the found family of it all!!

when he was trying to work out zeros character as soon as taichi mentioned a sharp speaking style I KNEW it was Yuki… yuki would never be as honest as zero is though lol… to me i imagine she’s got a sort of juza internal monologue feel? anyways. the taichi yuki dynamic intrigues me. havent yet decided how I feel abt it but when I do… yes. sorry that I make literally no sense. I think it’s very obvious that yuki is my fav chara kind of? I’m just. hmmm it makes me think! I’ve been monologuing to myself abt the yuki and juza dynamic lately which, to my a3 knowledge so far, doesn’t exist, but its ok bc I’ll make it exist! uhhh anyways this event was very good i liked the pacing. i think it didnt drag too hard and it really properly honed in on just omi and taichi, which was quite nice. they really did a lot for just an event!

time to listen to the event song,,, ok so. ah. i rly enjoyed just for myself it was very much to my taste so. out of curiousity i was like ok lemme look up the composer / producer AND IT WAS YUYOYUPPE....... that guy is like!!!! one of my FAV producers ever!!!!!! i know him from like. his vocaloid days and god leia is still one of my fav songs to this day...! this knowledge gives me so much joy omg!!! like wow!! wowwww!!! like i knew yuyoyuppe was out there doing other stuff (i know he worked on a lot of babymetal music which is cool) but like idk. to suddenly encounter it like this. heheh.... its so nice! made me soooo happy. going to relisten to leia now haha

WAIT ONE MORE THING. i was like "haha let me look at other songs i remember liking a lot" which. for me was rakuen oasis and don't cry. anyways. rakuen oasis is ALSO by yuyoyuppe???? oh my god!!! oh my god... sigh. feel like im in heaven.

OH HI FRIEND!! so good to see you with an a3 update!! :D

godd yeah The Stranger started so strongly and the idea to still incorporate portraits in his story was really something to make us cry!

And linking Omi and Tsumugi like this is pretty interesting :O <hat is your reasoning exactly? :O

For the fainting couch for Tsuzuru LMAO and i'm letting you know there's a webcomics that addresses it in Act 2 (hough there's no spoilers aside from the fact Chikage is here)

Im glad you liked the costume and the play!!! yeah i love the designs and it is always a blast to see them this into it, and yeaaah Tsuzuru has thoughts huh. It'll get voiced sooner than later hopefully and there we'll see more in details :3c but also that's what made the seiyuu live so fun bc they perform the songs in play cosplay and replay a bit of the play everytime and it's *chief kiss*

HOMARE AUTUMN TROUPE SOLIDARITY YES. LOVING IT.

And yeah the scene itself was so cute TwT they all want to reassure Omi and be there for him it's so sweet :( but yeah i love how you say it all, Omiimi TwT

and dLKFJDFLKJFDFD Giving Juza cavities is the price to pay for sleep i guess??

yeah agreed on the costume they all look so cool! and nice catch on how those three seem linked like that with their costumes, Yuki (and the designers) does such a good job! and god yeah for Sakyo.. yeah. He has sucha good design dLKJFDF

aND DLKFJD yeah no Juza is supposed to look like Nachi physically, but mostly his face? like i think Nachi was had green hair? we see a sprite of him in a future story, and yeah, everything is in the eyebrows. so Kumon should be safe? Omi mentions he sees a lot of Nachi in Juza, and while it is mostly due to their passions i think, the fact they're also rough looking guy with a heart of gold must play a part as well. but yeah, he does look like Nachi a bit.

and i love your deeper analysis of the event yeah!!

I feel like Taichi is really an emotional core of the troupe in the sense that is, he tends to catch on what others are feelings easily. And he uses it in the early chapters to ease off the tensions and stuff, but he was being held back by knowing he was deceiving them. So now that he's more free, he can be more of himself. but yeah i also love the contrast with how Omi was the one to help Taichi through his breakdown and guilt, and now it's the other way around, it's Taichi helping him through it. and the parallelism between the play and their dynamic is spot on imo! well said!!

and god yeah the sticker things made me cry sO HARD, and the pictures! and everything!! sobs it's such a sweet found family i'm going to cry :(

And! i love what you say about Yuki, Taichi and Juza on this one. I love that Taichi keeps bringing it back to "that childhood friend" and it's always like. so obvious who it is for us rip. But it can make you wonder if Yuki was more honest as a kiddo when Taichi knew him, though now he's clearly not. I love the mention of how Zero is more like Juza's internal speech (which, if anything is another argument about why you should let Juza wear a dress, cOWARD)

but also your mention of the Yuki and Juza thing, while i can't think of them having a dynamic per se yet, but i actually wrote a post during my reread about how i was baffled at the fact they treated Muku the same way?? like both of them tried to push Muku away because they were scared of how people would react if they say pure, sweet Muku was associated to them. And i find it fascinating because i guess those two are pretty aware of how the world see them, and it used to stop them from fully allowing them to be themselves.

I also find it relevant with the fact Yuki says in his personal song that while all of this way people judge him weight on him, he rather be himself, and "I want to love myself". Meanwhile we have Juza who's also aware of the way people judge him and it weight on him, and he wants to change himself from this person he hates, this self loathing - and in a way, he can grow in a way to be "someone" he may not hate, even on stage. I feel like those two have quite a bit in common in this way of being rejected by their peers in some sort of way.

I really want them to share some stuff at some point because there's really a groundwork on it all :(

But i'm really glad you liked that event!! agreed on the pacing and i do love what it brings to the characters! it really fleshes them out and have them move forward a little and it's pretty sweet.

AND OMG THAT'S SO COOL FOR THE SONG!! i'm so glad you liked it, but that's incredible it turned out to be from one of your fav producer!!! ahah sometimes life is like that where you end up finding the stuff you loved back into new stuff! and the fact Rakuen Oasis was from him as well... that's so cool!!! just, so so cool!

im pretty sure he has more songs going forward so i hope you'll enjoy the ride even more!!

thank you once again for sharing your thoughts about a3 :3c it always makes me so happy to see them!!!

Thank youu <3 have a good day :3c

[absentsdream]

* you know rina benton-moa, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, their whole life on and off? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to reinvent by phoebe green like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole fury encased by the reflection of daylight in the eyes; lines etched into skin from lifetimes over of squinting into midsummer skies, odd trinkets lined carelessly along a mantlepiece shrouded by aged dust, a split in the lip lancing keenly as the tongue darts out to wet it thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is july 15th, so they’re a cancer, which is unsurprising, all things considered. 

hi i’m cee .. u all know me...... regrettably gone for a cutla weeks but now i’m back ready n waiting to finally write rina (rip to their intro i never wrote last time around) kisses u all so tenderly let us plot shall we.......

AESTHETICS.

a weather-worn baseball cap ( jacksonville jazz festival 1983 ) adorned with dried sweat akin to the rings of saturn that collects dust on the back seat of a car, neglected piles of unopened government letters spilling from a haphazard tower onto the floor, a moth-eaten cotton shirt, johnny cash at four a.m. on the jukebox hits radio station, hand me down trainers marred by crowsfoot grass stains, dollar store candy older than your own existence, blinking grocery store fluorescent lights, the acrid scent of tyres set aflame. 

CHARA INSPO.

frankie ( animal kingdom ), theo ( catherine house ), libby bray ( dark places ), frances ( conversations with friends ), ruth ( ozark ), tommy ( never let me go )

BACKGROUND.

lilac ridge’s newest, unwelcome baby for 1997. rina’s mother is gone before they have the chance to memorise a voice, the touch of a hand on their fever-ridden forehead. she forever remains in old polaroids - their parents look happy here, sun-blushed and clutching amber bottles of schlitz. their dad tries and tries, often in a futile effort, to be the parent an unruly rina needs. that old woman in the trailer next to them hates the saturday morning cartoons that they play too loud: she says the catdog theme loops in her sleep, now.

TW NEGLECT despite the one or two friends rina manages to keep, school isn’t lonely. it’s lilac ridge that’s hollow, an ugly reflection of the way their father returns wordlessly to the chair found on hard rubbish collection day once, gesturing for a drink and waving them out of the trailer as he lights a cigarette. he doesn’t say he’s lonely. they’re too young to understand, or too foolhardy, and spends the afternoon fashioning bracelets from creek reeds until the cicadas quiet and the evening sky turns imperial violet, led back by constellations. some nights, rina isn’t there but in the alien comfort of a tentative friend’s trundle bed, eyes fixed on the owl nightlight and stereo that emits a soft tick as it reaches the end of a 4kids cd. TW END

the trailer is often empty without warning. rina’s in fernandina beach, florida one month. the next two, it is macon, georgia. the louisiana dirge for a friend of a friend of a friend’s funeral holds their attention better than any maths teacher can. to make friends is hard, but money is money and it puts food on the table. rina becomes used to tucking away their life in a tattered rucksack. prized possessions are rare. when they find one, it makes a home at the very bottom of their bag, cushioned by old newspaper and a spare pair of socks. 

one tepid night, rina wakes to a clear desert sky wheeling above them. in the front seat, knees cramped under a too-thin blanket, their father is nowhere to be found in the street emptied by midnight. without keys the radio doesn’t start. for hours, they wait in silence for him to return. he does, eventually, fifty dollars short and reeking of beer. 

TW DEATH live and let die — an eighty-cent find from a gas station in texas that exists permanently under a layer of dust some time in the nineties, the garish yellow sticker stubbornly remains on the back window of her father’s car. it’s not a day after his funeral that she peels it off. cirrhosis and failing lungs, they say. the more stubborn parts of the sticker come away easily by the blade of a pocket knife and sat on the bottom cinder block step to the now-empty trailer back at lilac ridge, rina sets it alight. the sticker melts and warps above the flame. heat stings the pad of their thumb that grips to the top of it for as long as they can bear it and the melted bits stick to the hem of the navy dress the old lady next door lent them for the day. she asks if they need anything else. they say no. TW END

at sixteen, nobody has impeccable financing. rina doesn’t leave irving until after graduating high school, sustenance made off cup noodles that they microwave despite the label saying not to, a quick buck made to sit the SAT for that quarterback who thinks he’s hot shit, yale material, for the mousy girl who likes literature written by dead people exclusively and scrunches her nose up at rina’s rates, upfront, but pushes across the seventy bucks anyway. the school’s careers counsellor catches them eventually - you could make it into an ivy league if you applied yourself a bit more. rina’s brow quirks. their grades are fine, more than fine. what else do they need to do?

on blind faith alone — a rarity, perhaps something rina let free after the hideous, lonely last two years — hands that never quiver submit college applications. pre-med at dartmouth awaits, but two years in the structure and demand wigs them out. lilac ridge is the glue trap dangling from the ceiling and rina is the fly, buzzing relentlessly. they are nothing, just as they suspected.

TRAITS & QUIRKS.

dumbass sun, fuckwit moon, muppet rising

unofficial mensa member with zero motivation. self-help books won’t work, neither will a stern word from an exasperated mentor

at their core, all seems numb. rina is nowhere close to understanding themselves. really, there’s a stubbornness that makes them reliable, even at the worst of times. a warmth, too, not a raging flame but embers that never go cold. hands which caress despite the bruised knuckles and nail bitten fingertips. outwardly, rina’s personality depends on whichever standout film or book antihero has their attention at the time.  

petty criminal and relegated to dead-end jobs because of it. it’s rare for a boss to re-hire them, simply because their habit of up and leaving town without warning is too expensive and too frustrating

refused bail once for being a flight risk on account of their propensity to disappear into a louisiana bayou 

although rina has never breathed a word of it to anyone, they’re desperate to scrape together enough money to leave for new zealand and track down their mother’s family, if only for the prospect of a better life than thier father’s derelict trailer, the only inheritance received from him

absolute parasite :/

julian assange apologist. took up skateboarding after the infamous ecuadorian embassy footage came on the news one evening

on that note, rina hacks for a spot of extra money. cites their resume for it, so they’re reliable. it consists of them hacking into the irving mayor’s website once and photoshopping che guevara onto the face of every councillor 

WANTED PLOTS.

ummmmm

a childhood friend, particularly one whose house rina ended up staying at far longer than planned on account of concerned parents

rina’s natural enemy whose own rigid academics competed against their disorganisation and confounding, cherry red a+’s. bonus: debate club rivals

literally anything. i’ll take it. gimme

[thematchmakeramethyst]

Frisk Hart Clips #42

[In the halls of Ram-Goats school, it’s the end of the day as students walk around to prepare themselves to go home. The Rainbow Kids stopped walking once they reached the Janitor's closet.]

Cyan: (feeling tired) Even though we finished the school day, I hate Mondays.

Orange: Same here, Cyan. No one likes Mondays except working obsessed people.

Blue: On the bright side, we didn’t get another mission from the Monsters. Why can’t they gather the Monsters?

Purple: Well, Blue. They are still Monster Exterminators and even the government who would do anything to catch them. Also, we can’t risk Frisk and Chara’s Monster family being captured.

Frisk: (smiled) Who said that they’re mine and Chara’s family? They’re all of our family. To be honest, the Monster fam keeps talking about you, Six. They even consider you part of the family as well.

Green: (as he and the rest of the Six blushed) They do? Chara: (folded her arms while putting them behind their head) Yep. Sometimes, Toriel and Asgore consider you guys as their own. Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, and Mettaton see you as nephews and nieces. Even Asriel sees you as his siblings.

Yellow: (smiles with the rest of the Six as they still blushed) Wow. We never thought they cared about us that much.

Chara: That's what I said. But then I learned that no matter what, Man or Monster, the Monster family will love us, even if you’re cursed. (But when her hands and part of face turns bloody red) Uh-oh. Speaking of curses…

[The Six and Frisk gasp in shock as Chara and her outfit turn bloody red. They watch in horror as Chara grows bigger while her eyes go black, her teeth grow more enormous and sharp-like, knife-like claws grow from her fingernails, and all but her face turn into a baby structure.]

Frisk: (opening her eyes in intimidated) The Bloody Baby…

[After Cursed Chara lets out a monstrous scream, Orange quickly opens the Janitor’s closet and tries to push her inside.]

Orange: We can’t let anyone see her like this! Purple and Green, help me!

[Once Purple and Green help him, they close the door as she bangs on it to get out. They use their strength to prevent her from getting out by putting their backs on the door.]

Green: (shaken in fear) Of course, her curse has to occur after school!

Purple:(To Frisk, Cyan, Blue, and Yellow)Quick, girls! Get some chocolate!

Cyan: (looking through her backpack and lunchbox quickly) But you know the rules of school! We aren’t allowed to have snacks on the premises!

Blue: (going through hers) Why would they come up with that rule?! Sometimes, lunch isn’t enough to keep us full!

Yellow: (looking through hers) They probably have a good reason, Blue! Sometimes rules keep us protected. It’s essential to have some order and some chaos to keep everything in balance.

Frisk: (takes out a Cookies-N-Cream Hearshy’s bar) Does this count as chocolate?

The Six: (thought) Close enough!

[But then someone grabs the bar from behind Frisk. The Six and Frisk turn to see the Henry Twins with Jessie Hill, Julie Hall, Billy Hansen, and Bobby Hanson. Jenny was the one who took the candy bar.]

Jenny: (grinned) Naughty, naughty, Frisky. You know you’re not supposed to have snacks at school.

Jessie and Julie: (smirked) Yeah.

Cyan: (annoyed) Oh, great. When things can get any worse, you and your friends have to show up, Jenny.

Orange: (yelled) Give it back, Jenny! We need that candy bar. (Before a bang is heard on the door)

Benny: You do? Oh, I’m going to tell Principal Dinkleton about you hoarding candy and for yelling back at me, cruelly.

Billy and Bobby: Oh…(before mischievous giggling)

[When Cursed Chara roared to be let out, the B-Boys and J-Girls got suspicious while the Six and Frisk felt nervous.]

Jessie: What was that?

Blue: (hesitantly) Nothing!

Julie: (notices the door moving) What’s in the closet?

Yellow: It’s none of your business! Now, give us back the candy bar!

Billy: (walks toward the Janitor’s closet with his friends) We’ll give it back if you show us what’s in the closet! We know the Janitor wouldn’t keep animals in his closet! You kids are holding an animal inside, aren’t you?

Purple: (shouted) No! We wouldn’t! Our friend is just grumpy, and she needs that candy bar to calm down.

[But the B-Boys push Orange, Purple, and Green out of the way of the door.]

Bobby: (takes the knob and opens the door) Yeah, right. We like to see it for ourselves.

[But when the B-Boys and J-Girls saw the Cursed Chara, they were so startled that Jenny dropped Frisk’s candy bar in fear. Frisk quickly takes the candy bar away as Cursed Chara roared at the B-Boys and J-Girls. They screamed and ran away as fast as lightning.]

Cyan: (smirked) Well, that’s one way to get rid of the Henry Twins and cronies.

Frisk: (throws the candy bar in Cursed Chara’s mouth) Anway, bon appetit, Chara!

[Once Cursed Chara swallows it, she turns back into Chara.]

Chara: Mmm, what kind of chocolate was that? And what did I miss?

Orange: (smiled) Well, the candy bar was Cookies and Cream Hershey’s, and your cursed form scared the riches out of the Henry Twins and their clique.

Green: (concerned) But should we be worried about that?

Cyan: (closed her eyes) Nope, my future powers told me that no one would believe them.

Frisk: Cool. Now, let’s head to the treehouse. (leads the way)

[silyabeeodess]

Thoughts on Frisk, Chara, and the Player

Besides what I’ve covered briefly in the description of a comic a few years back, this is long overdue; however, since I might make something focusing on Chara in the future, I decided to go ahead and put down my two cents on these two characters.  Since this is effectively a long essay, I’ll have everything below the cut:

One of the most longstanding debates among Undertale fans is the morality of these characters and their relation to the Player.  Some see Frisk and Chara as effectively polar embodiments of good and evil following the Pacifist and Genocide routes while others see the Player alone as the individual in control of all choices with the two characters bowing to that control.  The truth might be somewhere in the middle.

Let’s cover the most basic thing first.  The Player is you.  Yes, it’s your decisions that take the story in different directions, but you are not a character. You are not a part of the world of Undertale.  You’re an intruder, an outsider, an anomaly--something that the people in Undertale only seem to have a vague understanding of.  Characters like Flowey will break the 4th wall by calling you out for your actions, but it’s often from the idea that you’re still Chara--even if Chara’s own story played out long before you came in.  Chara will ask for your SOUL, but you personally don’t actually sacrifice anything: Even as far as the game’s story goes with the “Soulless Pacifist” route, the most you lose is the time is takes to reinstall the game and play it as you normally would. You can cheat them out of “your SOUL” easily.  They think you’re Frisk.

Most glaringly, however, is that both Frisk and Chara will fight against some of your decisions.  For Chara, you have them not giving you much of a choice with how you end the Genocide route and declaring that you were never in control, amongst other actions like killing Asgore and Flowey. Most people might not notice Frisk’s refusal beyond the fact that we don’t pick their name like we can Chara’s; however, the point where this becomes most clear is during our interactions with Undyne on a Pacifist Run.  When we try to become Undyne’s friend and she insists on fighting anyway after her house catches fire, we have the choice to fight back.  Doing so though results in a weak attack, which Undyne declares as being the result of a lack of will to hurt her.  That isn’t the Player’s decision, and it effectively forces us to spare her whether we want to or not.  

This relationship parallels what we also see in Deltarune, with the Player there also exhibiting control over Kris, but Kris fighting back.  Kris isn’t an empty vessel or puppet for the Player to manipulate, and the same can be said for Frisk and Chara in Undertale. It’s a form of temporary possession, where we--an otherworldly being--take over a host for as long a period as the game’s designers allow. It means that we can’t pin our actions on either Frisk or Chara.  Let’s go back to that second paragraph though.  The other characters don’t really know this, making Frisk/Chara/Kris suffer as a result.      

From a gameplay perspective, this is an awesome idea to tackle. From a story perspective, meanwhile, things get a little complicated.

Here’s the thing about handling it simply as a story: The Player often has to be ripped out of the equation.  Again, you aren’t a character, and the only way the Player can really be present in the world of Undertale is as an OC or persona based on the independent choices of each creator.  Keeping them out means leaving the choices we would normally make 100% up to Frisk/Chara.  Ergo, stop attacking artists and writers for their portrayals of those two when creators have to give them qualities that are entirely up to each individuals ideas and experiences to try and fill in a bunch of blanks.  Beyond Chara’s backstory giving us some information on who they were, which is mostly told to us through other characters, there is no perfectly in-character portrayal of either of them.  

Which I guess brings us to the part where I try explaining my idea of them.  So let’s start with Chara, since again, they have the most background info.

What are some canon points we can cover with Chara?

Asriel describes them as “not the greatest person,” but still cared for them deeply as his best friend. From the recordings in the True Lab, we see they had a good friendship, even if Chara often took a more leading role.

Also according to Asriel, Chara “hated humanity” and had an unhappy reason for climbing the mountain.

It was Chara’s plan to commit suicide, have Asriel take their SOUL, and try to kill humans to break the barrier.

Chara laughed after poisoning Asgore with buttercups. It’s presumed by Asriel to have been an accident, but we don’t know Chara’s knowledge on the situation.

An extended monologue from Asgore has him describe Frisk and Chara as having “the same look of hope in their eyes.”

Asgore considered Chara “the future of humans and monsters.”

They refer to themselves as “the demon who comes when people call its name.”

As of the Genocide route, their goal is the complete destruction of Undertale’s world to join the Player and move on to another. They pin the Player’s actions on their newfound “purpose” to attain power.

Narration in the game is different depending on the route, speaking commonly from a 2nd-person POV on Pacifist and Neutral runs, but 1st-person on a Genocide run. This alludes that Chara is always with us during gameplay.

Chara’s dialogue mimics Toriel’s, hinting to a close relationship following the concepts of mimicry being a form of flattery and a child’s desire to be like a positive adult figure in their lives.

So here’s what I think.  Chara’s hatred toward humanity is supported not only by Asriel’s confession, but also in their actions.  If Chara took control as Asriel described after crossing the Barrier to kill humans and take their SOULS, that willingness to commit murder along with their own suicide indicates not only that general disdain, but also a hefty amount of self-loathing simply for being human.  Whatever happened to them prior to entering the Underground, that hatred was likely only nursed further by knowledge and ideas fed to them from monsterkind: Humans hurt monsters too and monsters are supposedly “made of compassion” while “humans don’t need any.” (They may have even been bullied or faced prejudice for being human, even if it wasn’t from the Dreemurrs, just like how Frisk was constantly attacked on-site.)  This likely led to a monster-centric worldview where all of humanity--and even themselves, to a point--was the enemy.  

I imagine the “Mr. Dad Guy” sweater we find was made by Chara rather than Asriel because of the inclusion of “guy” at the end, since this seems like something more of an adopted child would do than a biological one, maybe not entirely comfortable with the idea yet of calling Toriel and Asgore “Mom” and “Dad.”  I truly do think Chara loved their newfound family and never meant to hurt Asgore: The laugh, while it can’t be confirmed, seemed to be a mark of mental instability rather than something of true malice. With the pressure of being called “the future of humans and monsters” as well, they probably felt like they had to be responsible for humanity’s actions as a whole even if they personally did nothing wrong.  From that perspective, their life--and any other human’s--mattered less than a monster’s, because they had to atone for the crimes of others.  Humanity itself had to atone.  This is why they would be so willing to sacrifice themselves and kill for the sake of breaking the Barrier.

So what happens when the monsters Chara placed on a pedestal start breaking their script?  Asriel stopping Chara from committing murder is one thing: That seemed to be one part of the plan that Chara didn’t tell him about, probably because they knew he wouldn’t agree to it. Beyond that though?  What happens when monsters stop showing that legendary compassion?  Asriel started playing with lives and killed for fun as Flowey.  Asgore declared war against humanity and started killing children.  Toriel left her position as queen and couldn’t protect anyone. Not only was their happy family broken, but monsters started acting like the humans they claimed to be better than through their own “weaknesses” and desire to kill.  They were supposed to be above humanity’s choices, above even Chara’s choices. Vengeance isn’t an excuse anymore: It’s all the same, and it feels like the ultimate betrayal.  

They’re all the same.  Monsters, humans, it doesn’t matter.  It’s an ugly world where only the strong and terrible reign, and it deserves to be destroyed.  There’s nothing left.  There’s no good left.  There’s no hope left... 

Unless, maybe, someone new enters the game. Can they rekindle that hope or will they only prove those dark thoughts right?

In comes Frisk, who we really only know as a blank slate.  We don’t know their history or their desires except to leave the Underground one way or another.   We can’t really say much, so this is where it really is entirely up in the air how we portray them.

A personal headcanon of mine is that they were a bit of a little thief, “frisking” things off of others--which is why we can get G even without killing in the game.  A very morally grey character, fitting the multiple routes Undertale’s story can go and Sans description of them “maybe not being a saint” even if they play as a Pacifist.  Maybe they don’t really know what the right choice always is, but they desire to do their best when possible. 

I can’t say much here because, as I’ve said several times now, it’s up to everyone.  Me?  I like a Pacifist Frisk, even if they struggling and suffer before reaching their happy ending.  Some might have them go through a Genocide route on their own or by Chara’s possession. Some have them with guilt-riddled consciences and others treat them as the purest of souls. Some pick different endings.   

So enjoy your interpretations, your characterizations, and your AUs.  You don’t have to agree with my ideas or anyone else’s: Just don’t bash others for theirs.  Undertale’s gameplay opens things to everyone’s personal experience and should be enjoyed as such. 

[sharada-n]

Could you elabirate about why Papyrus reminds Flowey of Chara? I'm really curious.

Sure, but I want to preface this by saying its been ages since I’ve written Undertale Meta so excuse me for being a bit rusty. Also, there’s a lot of personal conjecture and interpretation here so feel free to take what I say with a grain of salt…

This is pretty much a counter argument to people claiming that Papyrus resembling Asriel is the reason why he’s Floweys favorite. I’ll get into why I think that isn’t true in a second (and why I think he actually is more like Chara) but first I’d like to point out that this theory doesn’t even make sense.

Flowey’s relationship with Asriel is complicated. On a technical level they’re the same person, yes, but in reality, they’re more like separate entities. While I do believe there is some Asriel left in Flowey, Asriel himself states at the end of the pacifist route that Flowey and he are not the same. More importantly though, Flowey talks about Asriel with clear resentment. He says Asriel was weak and blames the failure of the plan to free monsterkind on himself.

Keeping this in mind, it doesn’t make sense that Papyrus reminding Flowey of Asriel would be a positive thing to him. Especially considering the way Flowey speaks about his first encounters with Asgore and Toriel. Flowey doesn’t seem to want a constant reminder of his old life around, let alone a constant reminder of his old self. If Papyrus was like Asriel, I can only imagine Flowey would resent him too and not have him as a best friend.

“But Shara,” I hear you cry “Flowey is hardly a good friend. In fact, he's kind of a jerk and he manipulated Papyrus in the pacifist ending!”. Which, yes, that’s a fair point. I’m not saying he deserves a “friend of the year” award, but I’ve definitely been over why I feel their friendship is not just a charade on Flowey’s part. It might have started as such, but it's not anymore I think.

For example, the plan to use Papyrus to lure everybody into his trap at the end of the pacifist route wasn’t concocted until after Frisk fell, and they were friends long before that, so it can’t be the reason why Flowey befriended him in the first place.

Granted this is veering a little into headcanon territory, but there also is canon evidence to support this, such as the anniversary event where Flowey was the only one who knew what Papyrus’ favorite food was, and was seemingly annoyed at the fact that nobody else knew.

And also the dialogue you get if you keep doing neutral runs without ever attempting a genocide or pacifist run.

Here Flowey accuses the player of continually resetting and visiting him out of curiosity and boredom rather than a genuine desire to befriend him. This mirrors the part where he talks about his friendship with Papyrus being a result of his own curiosity and Papyrus (for some reason not actually properly explained in canon) being “fun to mess with” and a character that took a long time for Flowey to get bored off. Then we get this tidbit:

Not only is this line very interesting but the facial expression is important too. You can read it as discomfort, clearly, but it is also very much a guilty expression. This is the same expression Flowey has at the end of the pacifist route when addressing the player and compelling them not to reset anymore because it would take away everybody’s happy ending. It also happens to be the same expression he has when talking about the Flowey Fan Club as well as at the exact line I mentioned above, where he admits Papyrus was his “favorite”. 

Seems to me like Flowey is expressing guilt or embarrassment about his original intentions behind befriending Papyrus…

Now to get into the main thing: Why do people think Papyrus and Asriel are similar? The hard part is that we don’t know that much about Asriel when you think about it. He’s been long dead before the events of the game. We get some bits and pieces here and there but most info comes from Flowey himself, who is hardly an unbiased source. However, it's fair to say Asriel was very kind, innocent even, and pretty naive. A crybaby, in his own words. And if you take the most shallow, basic interpretation of Papyrus (the kind of fanon that makes me want to pull my hair out) what do you get? That Papyrus is kind, innocent and naive.

The only word in that list I do not take offense to is kind. Papyrus is undeniably a very kind person. But he is not innocent or naive. I could go into why I say this but honestly, it has been argued to death not just by me but by the entire fandom at this point, you’ve all heard it before. Papyrus is an actor. He’s good at showing people the parts of himself he wants them to see. It's unlikely that he’s completely faking it, I do believe Papyrus is genuinely a positive and quirky person. But he’s also playing up those parts to the extreme. Which leaves us with a lot of subtle clues as to his real feelings. Meanwhile, Asriel wears his heart on his sleeve. Crybaby, remember? And what about Asriel being a coward? Papyrus is anything but a coward.

So let's talk about Chara then. Once again we face the same problem we did earlier. Chara is long gone and we don’t know a lot about them besides what Flowey tells us, unless you subscribe to the “Chara is the narrator” theory, which I personally do, but since I know some people are still on the fence regarding this I’ll keep to strictly canon dialogue first. 

Asriel says Chara wasn’t the nicest person. True enough, their plan to destroy the barrier by means of killing themselves and then a bunch of humans wasn’t exactly a solid idea. However, it was made with good intentions. Chara was willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of freeing their newfound family. Chara wanted to help fix something they saw as undeniably wrong: the way humans treat others.

But this was also about revenge. Chara was bitter. They didn’t climb the mountain for a happy reason, according to Asriel. Asgore tells us something different too. He says he can see “the same hope in Frisk’s eyes that he saw in [Chara]”. So here we find what is both the big similarity and the big difference between Chara and Papyrus. Both of them are genuinely filled with hope, with belief, and with the motivation to make things better. They just manifested it differently.

Where Papyrus seems to maintain this disposition even in the face of adversary and unkindness, believing in you all the way until his death in the genocide route, Chara has already faced the kind of behavior that has made them resentful of things they consider unfair or unjust.

Both of them are willing to act upon these feelings of righteousness at least, however ill-advised, in contrast with Asriel (or ironically: Sans), who seems to be a more static, laid back person that didn’t like shaking up the status quo and just went along with what others did. Even Flowey himself only engages when he’s sure he has an ace up his sleeve and is unwilling to act thoughtlessly or impulsively. 

As the tape in the True Lab betrays, Chara was also a hard person to read, and both an excellent liar as well as an actor. They were hard to figure out, at the very least, and Asriel expressed joy at seeing a glimpse of their unguarded emotions when they smiled genuinely. Once again though, Chara seems to do this because they want to come across as colder and more emotionless than they really are, giving the impression that they don’t care about anyone or anything. While Papyrus is always trying to come across more happy and untroubled than he really is, and rather keeps his more negative feelings to himself.

The result for both of them is the same though: they are distanced from their friends and family, I’d almost go as far as to say that even those closest to them barely know them, and they are misunderstood in the most fundamental way. Their motivations are harder to figure out than those of most other characters, for sure. It would definitely go some way into explaining why Flowey was so fascinated by Papyrus from the start…

If you do believe in the Narra!Chara theory, there are some small details that match too. Chara is a rather goofy person actually and often makes jokes, but expresses disgust at puns and Sans’ rather lazy sense of humor where he goes for the most obvious wordplays. Just like Papyrus, who the fandom often portrays as hating puns when in reality he loves them, just not the kind Sans makes because they’re easy. Chara is also implied to be quite fond of books/reading and cooking, as is Papyrus. They both come across as inquisitive to me. The narrator's retorts can be unexpectedly sarcastic, or even dark, not unlike some of Papyrus’ dialogue. There’s some other minor things but honestly this post is way too long as is so I’ll just leave it there

Conclusion: Flowey made the same mistake the fandom made in assuming Papyrus was a one-dimensional person who is easy to fool, only be confronted with his new best friend being strangely similar to his old one and now he has no soul and a weird attachment to this strange skeleton who everybody underestimates. He even admits that Chara is the only person he would still care about now. Kind of a weird statement, except if you consider he has found somebody like Chara that sparked some kind of actual emotion in him (whether that be friendship, compassion, guilt, or something else)

What do you guys think? I’d love to hear your thoughts, or if you want to tell me this post was a horrible read from start to finish you can do that too