#tweet ask game

[inafieldofdaisies]

🐤🐤

Prompt: Send me a 🐤 for a Tweet my muse would make about yours. / Note: the link in the original post for generating a tweet doesn’t work for me, so I made my own template.

[swampthingking]

andrew’s definitely gotten in trouble with his pr manager for tweeting things along the lines of:

“no mania inducing medication will compare to the euphoria i will feel the day donald trump drops dead”

[housederiva]

My brother in bioware it is a zoomed in picture of Assan’s face, it belongs to the people. Besides it’s an absolute delight to have something I put up here being used to decorate someone else’s space

[the-owl-tree]

Thoughts on Cinderholly?

[felassan]

.

[illumiskneecaps]

tags:

[clarionglass]

for those of you keeping up with the sam reich!master/game master cinematic universe currently being masterminded by the delightful @northernfireart and my good self: oh BOY there's a part 3 coming, and she's a doozy, currently clocking in at 9600+ words with a decent chunk still to go. the end is in sight, though, and while i might split the final post into two or maybe three parts, depending on how i'm feeling, hopefully i'll be able to get the first of those parts out on sunday/monday (time zones...) to fill the hole left by the game changer episode that should be released at that time...

however! delayed gratification is for chumps! so to whet your collective appetite, i've put together a "trailer" of scene fragments >:3 feel free to read on its own, or while listening to this particular track for added ambience!

trailer starts under the cut for those who want to launch into part 3 when it comes out without spoilers :)

The Doctor ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

\\\

This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, the Doctor found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm.

///

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came the host’s voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. 

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam Reich announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

\\\

—and then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

///

“I’m going to hate this so much,” Brennan muttered.

“So’s he,” Grant smirked, then raised his voice. “Oh, Daddy,” he started in a breathy singsong. “Daddy, do you want to make us play for you, huh? Do you want to degrade us, Daddy? Hurt us?”

\\\

“You’ll never get to them all in time,” came the voice through the speaker, dangerously soft. “You can try, of course, but if you die up here, well. That just leaves your new human friends alone with me while you regenerate, and goodness knows what I can do in that time.”

“You don’t get to do that,” the Doctor growled, even as another detonator deactivated. “You don’t get to hurt them because of me.”

For a moment, only laughter echoed into the room. “Better make your decision now, Doctor. Two detonators down, eleven to go, and they’ll reach spark point in ten… nine…”

///

“But you won't, don't you see? Nobody can win a rigged game—the best you can do is run it through to the end. You're standing at that podium, and we're over here, and that's why you can't win. Because no matter how many points you take away from me, you never had points at all. You want to beat me? Then play.” 

\\\

“Run?” Brennan suggested.

“Run!”

///

“And lastly, Doctor.” Sam’s smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

“You can’t be,” the Doctor breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

[goldensunset]

"Unknown date" is the name of the partner that both Missing Link and Silksong are in some kind of toxic yaoi relationship with

HEFDHDNJSNDJDNDNDB

[dipperscavern]

Just woke up from a wet dream where I was pegging Robb Stark. The gods are good. Just sucks it wasn't real. The gods are cruel.

-chonky anon

the gods give and the gods take </3

[widebrimmedhatsblog]

41 & 85 😌

41. what is the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.

I’m going to go story in general, because the fic ideas I’m willing to talk about on here are all pretty tame. I have this short story idea floating around in my head about this woman who has to physically take her face off with a scalpel and put on a different face depending on who she’s talking to. It’s a fairly obvious metaphor, but also decently weird, I’d say!!

85. what would be on a moodboard for one of your WIPs?

I took this too literally and made a mood board. Oops? This is for In The Heat Of It All (formerly known as my plane crash au)

[dirtbra1n]

directors commentary about Impulse in the shape of Today you are a girl.... and surrounding scene of course.... i love you and peace and love on planet prevpreshanzashiro

hi it’s november 27th and I’m back here again. mindmelding between friends @aranarumei Hi kiri. is something that can be so personal. I’ll go in extra deep on still-unnamed tashiro post current events’ Side note this is why you don’t leave asks out to dry for four calendar months. close side note. extra deep on today you are a girl paragraph when we get there. I love you guys so much by the way did you know this.

speaking to you from the future: I started back on this thing at work, maybe an hour before we closed. that would make this about three hours now.

I’m putting this under a cut.

tashiro’s phone pings with a message from shirahama that reads, If you do anything to screw up your hair I’m shaving it all off your head

ping. And making you eat it

ping. Keep one foot on the ground at all times if you do anything insane I’m really gonna do it

first thing is that shirahama’s here again. everyone say hi shirahama :) he’s a few hours from getting the anxious shakes with no known cause (he was responsible for tashiro’s hair for the girlification competition). shirahama’s here again because he does an excellent job at carrying tashiro through the days and nights, and because the advice to keep one foot on the ground at all times if you do anything insane I’m really gonna do it. is topical always but especially now. he’s also here again because you have to identify a chance at comedic timing and lunge for it hungry with both hands:

tashiro purses his lips. glances out the open window; first floor.

the picture he takes of his feet, hovering as he sits on the windowsill and clad in black crew socks—he left the shoes somewhere else, he figures miyano will chase him down about them later—is waiting to be sent with incomplete text suck i when he spots someone out the very corner of his vision.

set-up is happening here. black crew socks highlighted as a reference to the black sailor uniform option from tashiro girlification poll 2023 as drawn by You 🫵 sunnfish. tashiro’s shoelessness as a cog is working steadily to do its part for a theme that was accidental, clocked, and left in. tashiro almost finishes typing suck it to send shirahama before pausing the action entirely—shirahama watches the typing bubble linger. uh-oh shirahama—because of

the very corner. an unmistakable figure at the edge of the crowd, staring over the living mass of strangers, right into tashiro stood in the window, until he isn’t anymore.

funny thing about crossdressing, see, is the worldview shift. that broad back looks broader, a piece-of-work senpai haunting his memory like a grief-hallucination.

that was him though. there are only so many people tashiro could recognize from the moon and he’s one of them. how many people in the world could possibly look like that.

relative to the rest of the thing, this scene was brand new; I’d written it a few days before tashiro’s birthday, when I posted the lot of it, because Creative process keeps me in a rock tumbler mostly. this matters really only because It was that evening, july third, when it really slotted into place in my mind exactly how prev prez should exist in the context of river. incidentally Neither your asks nor this post is about it obviously but the bathhouse scene and the others related to it are also “new” in this way, for the same reason.

anyway prev prez. from the start it was my understanding as wielder of the authorial godhand that he is, you know. functionally and narratively dead. if hanzawa masato is an active haunter straddling the line between Wanting to live and Being just so so sick of Various things, prev prez is about as passive a dead guy as the average dead guy can be. except for the fact that he is, in some way, to tashiro specifically, an exceptional (adj. unusual; not typical) person. an unmistakeable figure that tashiro could recognize from the moon. unrelated to anything right this second I think somewhere along the way I mindlinked tashiro to hanako tbhk. hmm. Okay well moving on. tashiro has a real certainty on that figure having been prev prez, because prev prez lives, in a very real way, in tashiro’s mind. he’s also a massive Haha. catalyst for the most prominent #tashirogirlification here; his gravity, the masculinity of him, works in tandem with the sailor uniform makeup and done-up hair.

because tashiro is crossdressing as a girl, he feels like a girl. because tashiro is crossdressing as a girl, prev prez (who is already recalled by tashiro in a super masculine way—it’s important to me as usual that Love & Passion is told by tashiro, seen through his eyes, because it says, to me, that those fucking photos of prev prez are also as tashiro saw him. this is present elsewhere in tashiro post, ideas of memory and recollection) Okay that was a long parenthetical let me restart. because tashiro is crossdressing as a girl prev prez Already looking the way he does. looks even more that way. okay great now the crown jewel:

it’s a second of stirring in his stomach that bridges the space between shoujo manga and violent murder. his feet are back on the ground but they might as well be dangling out the window; an impulse in the shape of today you are a girl has him gripped by the shoulders, nearly chasing after a living ghost and using strangers as stepping stones to do it.

hi killing point. first point of discussion is that this scene’s cinema is one of the most vivid ones I see; hands braced on the windowsill, head out the window, feet twitching where they stand on the floor. look up and watch yourself bound over still water stepping stone by stepping stone, grace and beauty completely hallucinated where the fantasy, in reality, is exactly as clumsy and cruel as you’d expect it to be. hup! out the window onto the heads and shoulders of strangers, clammer over the shifting tides of the dense crowd—great turnout!—and emerge worse for wear, but very quick, on the other end to continue the pursuit. this fantasy is only mostly completely hallucinated, in that tashiro really nearly goes through with it. this paragraph I just wrote explains nothing.

I’ll concede: solid alliteration with s in the first half of the first sentence leads cleanly into two sets of four quarter notes; the killing point, to borrow Words, shou-jo man-ga (kiss) and vio-lent mur-der (kill). next sentence in both of its semicoloned halves continues the yet-unstated not-quite run-on capital f Feeling where tashiro’s mind is running 10 miles a minute, but the first half embodies the feeling of Having a Body, the sensation of gravity contrasted by the tantalizing appeal of swinging your feet out the window, void calling as a siren would, and the second half (the first half of it) has impulse (personified) grabbing tashiro by the shoulders (not, by any metric, narrow these days) and nevertheless speaking into him the refrain Where’s your girlish whimsy? the second half of the second half, as we went through just a second ago, has tashiro watching himself (in spirit, haha) doing the worlds least considerate parkour, and closes with another instance of solid s alliteration. I want to put on the record that the alliteration was not intentional but I think in retrospect that it is neat. hit the button and call it time!

one foot on the ground with his hands braced on the sill, he hears, “tashiro.”

sky still looks like rain. indistinct collective murmur hangs over the crowd outside like smog. a metal rod’s pang clefts clean through his forehead, up between his eyes. taiko drums. dwarfed by encroaching shadow miyano calls again, “tashiro,” from down the hall. tashiro’s shoes dangle limply from his hands.

thundering resonance. tashiro croaks, “what?”

continuing on to what I’ll call the second point of discussion: where the camera was—tashiro facing out the window—shifts to lead into I think THE most vivid cinematic scene I see. tashiro in the foreground, caught, miyano in the background, catching. tashiro’s name throughout the whole piece has this cleaving quality I think, where it cuts through where you were to bring you where you are, and here it cuts through delusion fantasy and reckless daze to remind you that tashiro is someone who is more sensible than this. which is why, following “tashiro” the word (ice cold water poured down his back), tashiro the person suddenly sees feels and hears all that he’d been unconsciously tuning out.

prev prez just has that effect on him.

the second time around miyano’s voice is just miyano’s voice, bouncing off the walls a little with the way he projects it, more than a little concerned. by separating the information extra attention is drawn to tashiro’s shoes in his hands, words dangle and limply doing exactly what they were meant to, once I realized something. tashiro’s shoelessness as a cog is working steadily to do its part for a theme that was accidental, clocked, and left in. <- You know chekhov? TFW you accidentally liken tashiro’s impulsively wanting to jump like a girl that chases her first love, shoelessly, to jumping in a way that kind of feels a little like. river…y. in a suicidal way. you see why this is the scene I see the best and most frequently.

well anyway. As for the other things this bit is doing. the atmosphere merges a little with the water. in a lot of ways that cold water reality check description of the scene works just as well to describe the Fucking River, because I can’t ever leave it alone. because it can’t ever leave me alone. miyano is here and real but shadow works as a cloth backdrop behind him, upon which he stands stark and separate from the Fucking River because, even now, Nobody’s told miyano about whatever the hell tashiro and hanzawa senpai have got going on. all he sees is his friend, needed elsewhere, shoeless, about to jump out of the goddamn river, and all he has are his goddamn shoes. tashiro, caught, embarrassed kind of, with blood roaring in his ears, could only say, “what?” bonus points for my use of cleft when grammatically speaking it would be cleave. I have the conch, and I say grammar be damned.

anyway as I finally close this out, I’ll say Speaking of river,

see the tweet in the middle. there was a point on the third of july where I thought really hard about whether I wanted tashiro’s girlification to itself exist in dream time, as a dream, because tashiro post took forever and we’d all seen harusono’s own third year culture festival by then. ultimately I decided otherwise, but I really thought about it really hard. in any case I’m glad I didn’t do that because as I found out that friday following tashiro’s birthday. as we ALL found out that friday following tashiro’s birthday. harusono shou was on exactly the same page as me as far as One Thing in particula

aaaaand scene.

[inafieldofdaisies]

🐤 dealer's choice for any of your kids tweeting about syb? (--direwombat)

Prompt: Send me a 🐤 for a Tweet my muse would make about yours./ Note: the link in the original post for generating a tweet doesn’t work for me, so I made my own template.

[acquiescest]

irt the lrb what would you say if i said liam & noel spent new years 2023 together in paris

what would you say if i said liam bought the house in france (the one with noel's name carved into the walls) in march 2023 and that month noel talked about wanting to spend several months in paris

which could mean nothing

[kooki914]

I know this may sound like a silly question, but specifically for the undertale version of Asgore: what coud a partner do to help him become more assertive? Asking because I'm planning to ship him with an OC and I still despise how basically in the ending Toriel gets to verbally tear intro him and he doesn't bother to defend himself (specially with the "just get one soul and leave to kill 6 more ppl to break the barrier" wich she coud have done herself but refused to while living inside her own little bubble ignoring the suffering of her fellos monsters, I undestand she was grieving but I feel it coud have been done without making her seem on the right and nobody speaking agaist her). I also know that by doing this he may appear out of character or that "he changed just for his partner", but knowing that a partner can help you to change for the better while highliting you best personality traits, and I was wondering wich coud be the most coherent way (my plan is for them to spend at least 5 years together, and that Asgore also helps his parter change for the better since they arrive having strong biases agaist monsters).

I don't think this is a silly question at all! It's something I've tackled somewhat in my Spadesgore fics, the idea that someone's habits rub off on Asgore and what can seem like a negative change to outsiders (him being more closed off and assertive) is actually a positive one in the long run because he actually, y'know, gets a spine and stops putting other people's needs above his own.

With Undertale specifically it's a VERY complicated question because I feel like step 1 of any Asgore development in Undertale is that he needs to fully face the brunt of his actions. I'm actually somewhat of the opposite opinion to you about the "confrontation" between him and Toriel, I think the narrative very clearly spells out that his "violence when you're faced with violence" response was the INCORRECT one (while Toriel choosing pacifism in the face of a bloodthirsty nation was, arguably, the least morally dubious choice any character could've made), but Asgore never... confronted the root of that problem? He essentially got a slap on the wrist for the murder of 6 children, and while that WAS narratively satisfying for a game about forgiveness and letting go of the past, I think a bit of self-discipline is in order for Asgore, post the events of the game. Him confronting HIMSELF rather than relying on someone else to do it for him is kind of pivotal to that, in my opinion, because this isn't something a relationship can mend FOR him. Let me elaborate.

WARNING - since this post is analyzing Asgore, there's implications of suicidal ideation, but it's not discussed at length. And, fair warning, this post is less "proper character analysis" and more "wayward speculation based on narrative beats for the sake of shipping" <3

While Asgore is the type of person to feel borderline incomplete when not in a relationship with someone (see: all of his behavior in Deltarune; and in Undertale the way he just Stops Speaking once it's clear Toriel wants nothing to do with him, it's like he's just entirely shut himself out of the conversation as if he has nothing to offer anymore, only ever speaking in vague platitudes until the final boss is defeated and he's osmosed into the friend group), contrary to what he thinks a relationship Won't Fix Him NOR his issues around self-worth. It's something he has to tackle on his own because, if he enters another relationship without doing so, he's gonna end up in the same cycle of trying to impress his partner, exhausting himself, and putting his partner between a rock and a hard place because he's both extremely emotionally needy while NEVER communicating his needs properly, closing himself off while desperate for intimacy.

It's borderline masochistic, his tendencies to just passively wait for outsiders to judge, reward, punish, and practically command his every action. It's why he's kind of a bad leader? He's community oriented, but in that way where he wants to please everyone instead of enacting lasting change, because (I think) he can't really envision a greater good because he's got anxiety up the ass. He's REactive rather than ACTIVE, and while that's typically not THAT big of a deal (again, his Deltarune self as an example of how you can have a normal-ish life even with that weird mentality), when you're put in the position of a leader and then refuse to make conscious choices out of a fear of hurting someone, you're inevitably going to hurt Everyone, which is exactly what happened in Undertale. I guess an easy way to make Asgore a little more self-assured is, paradoxically, give him less power. This may seem antithetical, but if he's allowed to, like, sit and breathe for a minute without everything resting on his shoulders, and small, inconsequential decisions are up to him without the title of "King" looming over him, it might make him feel more confident in THOSE choices, specifically. This doesn't fix the core issue, though, more just gives him a safety net where he can hide from his royal problems with someone who sees him as more than just his title and duty, which is valid (and honestly really cozy and cute), but I'm here to break people and put them back together, so strap in.

You mentioned your OC is a human who has a lot of bias against monsters initially, so allow me to run (a mile) with that for a minute. You probably already have a meetcute in mind for them, but it's honestly a really good setup, I can't help but throw my two (or three) cents into it. It forces our POV character (the OC) to go through considerable change throughout the events of the narrative (whether you fic this or not you've already implemented character development into your romance plot and I Adore that), and in turn a changing perspective on Asgore himself. Try to think of things a human might hold him accountable for, justly or otherwise, someone who heard of mythical monsters and a terrible king who slays children. Your OC might start off somewhat siding with Toriel at first (as she was the only monster who attempted to SAVE humans rather than kill them), but gradually grow to sympathise with Asgore once they get to know him, not just because he's a walking pity party but because that human and Asgore might have more in common than they first thought. (This is where I run out of info on your OC and can't really fill in the blanks LMAO go wild with this part. It can be something as simple as gardening or something as deep rooted and psychological as "the need to please other people in order to feel like you're worth anyone's time". Bonus points if it's both and the gardening is symbolic of the psychological issues.)

From Asgore's perspective, though, this would be utterly baffling. To this day, I don't doubt he somewhat idolises Toriel, he clearly still longs to be close with her, so to see someone (a HUMAN no less) stop empathising with her feelings and instead side with his own? He'd think they're nuts! ... But also, it'd be deeply validating in that guilty-pleasure kind of way (guilty because he doesn't think he deserves redemption). It actually starts turning gears in his head, though... If someone in a position like that, someone belonging to a nation he's hurt so badly, can see the GOOD in him and try to nurture a bond with him despite it all... doesn't it mean he's genuinely worth something? Even if he himself can't see it yet?

(This is, you may note, similar to what happens with Frisk in most fan-plots, but also highlights where I think Asgore's "redemption" in Undertale falls a bit short on the character level. Frisk never really gets to spend time with Asgore, since it's narratively irrelevant whether they like the guy or not, because the point of their conflict is that Frisk refuses to kill him, and refuses to be killed BY him. It's a conflict that re-states the core moral of the game, while also partly dismissing a genuine bond between the characters because it's necessary for it to stay vague for them to properly represent the narrative forces that they do (humanity and monster-kind). The popular fanon is that Asgore adopts Frisk similarly to the way Toriel does, but, in the game there's literally nothing to support that. The equally valid interpretation is that Frisk sees Asgore as just Some Guy they're lukewarm with for the sake of not kickstarting another monster-human war, even if they genuinely don't like him on a personal level, just like Toriel doesn't anymore. Because, again, there's nothing in the game to support Frisk being besties with literally EVERYONE, they just hang out with monsters sometimes and Don't Kill Them, it's not a high bar.)

IF you don't want to take the angle of your OC siding with Toriel (if the monster bias is THAT bad in the beginning), I'd instead propose really hammering home the monster hatred. Just by existing, by being someone hostile to Asgore over something he DIDN'T expect to get hostility over (the fact that he's a monster, and not the fact that he's a murderer) would maybe make him question why he WANTED to be told he was irredeemable, and why it's so strange to receive that input for the wrong reasons. Maybe he tries convincing the human that, actually, monsters are good and HE'S the one who's to blame for everything bad, and when he's brushed off with "no all monsters suck" it just baffles him more. Bonus points if later on it hits him like a truck that your OC developing feelings for HIM specifically made them get over their monster hatred. He thinks it's a case of "if you learn to love the worst of something you'll love the best too" but then has to come face to face with the idea that he ISN'T the worst of monster kind! That they actually prefer HIS company over other monsters! And not even for superficial reasons! And maybe there's still prejudices to overcome with the human, but they're trying FOR him, not in spite of him, and it's yet another little sign from the heavens to Asgore that maybe, just maybe, he's not as irredeemable as he thought.

Another potential avenue, that's less directly correlated with shipping, is to give him a kid that is his responsibility alone to take care of. Whether that be a literal adopted child, or a kid he has to impromptu take care of for a while, I feel like having someone (anyone, really) other than himself to provide for sort of nudges his priorities back in place (even if it doesn't really dismantle the core of his issues). (My reasoning for this being a potential avenue is how much Asgore's let himself go in Deltarune when no-one lives with him, juxtaposed to his well-maintained house in Undertale where he's constantly taking visitors and patiently waiting for his wife to come back.) Something small and defenseless that depends on him for support and protection is something that could really make him realise how much his well-being actually means in the grand scheme of things, that even if it isn't pleasant he has to stand his ground if only for the sake of this child that depends on him for literally everything (which was, incidentally, also his motivation for starting the war in the first place - avenging the children he failed to protect with a fiery vengeance as the only concrete decision he made in his time as king (that we know of)).

Maybe the point of contact/conflict between your OC and Asgore in this scenario is someone who doesn't believe he should be allowed to take care of a child (what with the 6 dead in his basement), and while the feud may start as mild, it might get more and more out of hand and forces Asgore to actually put his foot down and Demand custody rather than ask politely, maybe because the kid in question trusts him and nobody else for backstory reasons, or because they're literally His Kid (Chara slots in really well into this role IMO but you don't have to go with that route if you don't want to tackle revival shenaniganery). This is, imo, much harder to execute in literary form? (If you're not gonna fic this, ignore this part) It bumps up the conflict from slowburn to full on enemies-to-lovers, even if it speedruns the process of Asgore getting a spine, and if you can pull that off hats off to you but I always struggle with proper enemies to lovers with no intermediary of "friends" in between.

IN ANY CASE, past the "will they - won't they" phase, once they're actually together, I'd suggest your OC lightly nudge Asgore into that self-assuredness he's desperately missing, and moreover I suggest it not be on purpose. While it's probably the healthier option to talk to your partner if they're having self-esteem issues, this is fiction and I love drama, if you expected anything else you came to the wrong person, and ALSO this is Asgore we're talking about. He's the king of "never talk about my emotions, ever" so even if something is brought to the forefront he'd probably just apologise and privately cry about it without fixing literally anything. It would be more impactful (imo) if Asgore chose to adopt some of the habits of his partner without him being prodded over it, or pushed into it. At first, small things, like actually asking for the pickles in his order himself (/ref, meme), but slowly it might evolve into him realising just how much he's been neglecting himself. Scenario example of what I mean - his partner has actual self-preservation instincts and can help themself when in a tough spot, and Asgore is caught off guard when that same kindness is offered to him (as the king of monsters, his subjects revered him so heavily they kind of forgot he can actually get hurt or might need help with otherwise ordinary things, and Asgore stopped helping himself along the way because of it).

A different scenario might be something benign, like an insult or backhanded compliment Asgore brushes off, but his partner doesn't. Asgore might hold the (correct) position that, as a political figure, there's literally no point in trying to stave off every insult or mean opinion, and (incorrectly) asserts it doesn't have an effect on him overall. Because, in reality, it DOES stick. He has a hard time shaking off disapproval and hatred when he's carrying around so much guilt (juxtaposed to how genuinely confident he seems in Gerson's stories of Asgore before his children fell down and before Toriel left, when Asgore could ACTUALLY roll with the punches and not mind public embarrassment because the opinion of the masses didn't matter to him as much as it does now), and maybe his partner can point out to him that he seems weirdly more fixated on the actual Contents of the insult than they do. Where they just didn't like someone's tone or intent, Asgore's actually focusing on What they said, and it's a clear indication of the way he compartmentalises and somewhat takes in every criticism he's ever received. Because depression and low self esteem just does that to a motherfucker sometimes.

Overall there's also a sort of... tricky line to tread when trying to write around/through one of the character's defining flaws. Asgore was always described as a pushover, so what are you really left with when trying to override that fatal flaw that makes him what he is? This sort of trope, "your strongest attribute is your biggest weakness", stems all the way back from ancient Greece because its a GOLDEN trope, and when making fan content I think there's an interesting line that can be drawn. Asgore's best quality is his friendliness and approachable-ness, so how do we NOT diminish that while actually diminishing the FLAW part of that core character trait? Maybe Asgore's more confident and self-assured now that he has a partner that supports him basically unconditionally, but ALSO he still cracks under pressure easily and gives into demands if pressed enough. Maybe he stands his ground more and can actually tell people off without being a total pushover, but ALSO he ends up feeling a lot of guilt over doing so and maybe regresses back into old habits soon after.

Because, again, a relationship won't fix him, and to me that's part of the appeal. Instead of finding someone to "make him whole", it's more about finding someone that's gonna be there for him during the good and the bad days, someone who maybe fills in for some of the traits he lacks, but never overrides what makes him who he is. Because, let's be honest, him being a pushover is probably what allows him to properly consider a relationship with someone who started off so heavily biased against him. Having little self esteem paved the way for him to not dismiss this person outright, opening his arms to someone who started off with genuine hatred towards him, and it's not a good habit(!!), but it's woven into his vary nature as a character, and I always find it interesting to see that push and pull between progress and loving even the bad parts of someone's personality. Again, especially because it's fiction, there's a lot to explore when it comes to that line of thinking, "do I want to make you better or am I trying to change a fundamental part of you"? I don't think Asgore would be abandoning his nature by having a spine and not taking shit from literally everyone, BUT it might be a line of thinking HE falls back on, because he's had literally hundreds of years of this habit built up, it's gonna be hard to make any progress without immediately taking two steps back again. Especially because it's Asgore, he's basically a smiling boulder that refuses to move or change (and I say that affectionately).

TL;DR:

I think finding a way to instill a sense of Inherent Worth in Asgore is a good way to shake him into being a little more assertive. It's what I did in my own fics (and a lot of this post was me re-treading the same ideas with different characters to pair Asgore with), and the premise of someone who dislikes him from the get-go but learns to love him in time is (in my opinion) the best vessel to do that through. Because, if this person, who means a lot to him, can get over their biases and love him, (like ACTUALLY love him, not the way his subjects love their king, but the way a person loves another person) doesn't that mean there's worth to him being himself, and not just what people expect of him? Is the fact that he's beloved by someone he loves not reason enough to try and survive another day, and thrive in the long run?

It's difficult to instill worth in a character that's had hundreds of years of literal and figurative dehumanization on his hands, but it has to start with small things. Him being more than just a king. Then, him being more than just a friend, more than just a person you're eventually going to grow tired of or disgusted with, and eventually someone who doesn't need constant approval to feel like he's allowed to breathe. Small kindnesses go a long way, and if he starts to see himself in someone he wants to protect, or ends up in a position where he's being provided for by someone he loves, it can build up those ideas of worth and (ironically) independence, because it's less about pleasing a crowd and more about Not Dying because he's actually not that bad to have around in the first place.

[gotchibam]

Took a bit of break from commissions to draw a lil fanart for a game called Meg’s Monster ;w;

There’s not much content for it yet since the game was just released a couple weeks ago sooo I felt compelled to make something for it! These 3 were particularly my favorite and got me crying towards the end ;_;

If you love games like Undertale then consider giving this one a try! There’s a free demo available of it on steam that you can play 👍 Just be prepared for the emotional roller coaster in advance!!

[spacemilkbag]

remember when sapnap joked to dream about playing it takes two and dream was like “i want to play it with george 🥺”

wasn't that right before dnf played it for the second time