#you really worded that poorly Chara

[akanemnon]

Maybe they shouldn't have brought up Asriel... The aftermath

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MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[aranarumei]

How do we feel about the sempai trio? (Or the multiple versions if them, depending on who you ask it either entails Hirano, Sasaki and Ogasawara or Hirano, Sasaki and Hanzawa)

[ask me about any two ssmy charas and i'll give my thoughts on their dynamic, real or imagined]

fascinating because I’ve never thought of a “senpai trio” before. but sure. the fearsome foursome! (bc they're all "not-bad boys" lol) really love that all of them have piercings. that is kind of a good name though. anyways what’s fun about them is that like. they’re not a foursome bc they’re friends. it’s just bc they’re. the senpais that miyano knows. that’s all.

like… to me, hanzawa and sasaki aren’t friends. I’m pretty sure hanzawa literally refers to him as “a classmate I didn’t feel poorly towards” which is hilarious to me. but also it makes sense! literally what interactions does he have with sasaki. I think the guy asks him once if its normal to do a lap pillow with your roommate. so like, they’re fine with each other, but they don’t hang out. sasaki’s got ogasawara as a dear friend of his, and then he’s weird about being friends with hirano (in the second years light novel he calls hirano his friend and then freaks out about it) and both of those things are really enjoyable to me. I think ogasawara’s definitely the guy he actively hangs out with most, whereas sasaki and hirano don’t really hang out like… outside of school? which might be why he feels a bit weird about calling him a friend. also because of other stuff that I won’t go into.

on hanzawa’s end, I like to think he’s familiar with ogasawara but they’re not really Friends friends. well actually I have complicated thoughts about this bc of the theory that hanzawa and ogasawara’s older brothers are dating. there’s also this bit in the guidebook where ogasawara like. guesses at hanzawa’s feelings really well, which speaks to a sort of… casual awareness. and then hanzawa asks him to attend his college, which is like, that’s not casual! and ogasawara’s the one who talks to miyano about how crazy busy he is… that’s why the word I use is familiarity. I wouldn’t say ogasawara Understands Hanzawa Well or anything but there is some sense of knowing, to me. hirano’s definitely friends with hanzawa. same club, same college, even told him about getting called maa-kun when hirano went to him for roommate advice. an understated friendship imo. I feel like… they don’t necessarily understand each other particularly well? but they find each reliable and easy to talk to.

as for ogasawara and hirano, I think they’re both “sasaki’s friend” to each other. no real dislike or tension brewing between any of them, but I think it’s neat how they congregate in a sort of group without necessarily being equally close with everyone. but just by spending time together, I’m sure they’re all some degree of close. Just mundane things like knowing how ogasawara did on exams, or that sasaki’s great at math, or that hirano wakes up his roommate… the kind of things you can’t help but learn. they’ll hang out together as a group on a school trip, but they wouldn’t Define themselves as a specific group, yknow?

[fictionkinfessions]

Anonymous asked: its the anon that wanted incest tagged https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes this one, sorry! and thank you.

this is a long post with additional anon ask responses.

Man. If that's incestuous, a lot of posts under the 'chara love' tag will be needing the incest cw tag.

Don't take this the wrong way. Incest is problematic and triggering and I do take tagging it seriously. But not everything is incestuous by default. We do need to account for alternate canons, platonicly intended sentiment, that in sme context people do not mean incestuous over / under tones even if they have an incestuous canon, and many other countless possibilities. And yes, I'm aware of the source material having incestuous overtones.

That said, the linked confession does not read as incest at all. I'm not going to tag it as incest for two reasons.

One) The op has confirmed none of that was intended as romantic or sexual, despite having an incestuous canon. A lot of other people, whether or not they have incestuous canons, often say the same or similar things. I think it would be hurtful and harmful to many people if we always interpret 'i love my sibling' as incestuous and not default platonic.

Two) I don't want to dilute the purpose of content warning tags. Meaning if a confession does not have explicit or implicit themes or topics, I will not use a content warning tag. That also means I will not blanket CW tag for sources. For example, if Supernatural has violence, blood, and murder, I'm not going to tag every Supernatural source confession with those tags. Otherwise it would become a useless tool to hide triggering content.

Considering I'm familiar enough with the name to tag the source, and that the op has a custom tag, perhaps blacklist one or both if it's a trigger for you.

Anonymous asked: I'm not the anon who asked, but the most recent Ashley Graves ask is this: https://fictionkinfessions.tumblr.com/post/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes

I'm curious if the anon asking for a TW is OP of the ask or not? Because this ask doesn't seem to say anything inherently incestuous. If it is, sorry for my misinterpretation. But the only thing I could see as romantic in this ask is "taking me to prom," which siblings do sometimes platonically. The intent could be romantic, but imo, it's not INHERENTLY. And If OP meant it that way, I'm really not judging them for expressing how they feel. That's what the blog is for. But, if someone else is trying to take ANY expression of affection that way, just because of the source, then though those implications ARE in the text at some points, I still find it a bit unfair (especially on a kin blog).

So sorry if this is worded horribly or something, I am a little tipsy. And sorry if this sounds slightly personal, I am an Andrew.

Anonymous asked: ACTUALLY, if the last ask (about the Ashley Graves ask) went through, ignore everything I just said. I am drunk and thought I was being helpful, but I'm probably actually just complaining, lol.

Not the anon who asked for a TW on this post, but here is the link: /post/760240297418588160/appreciation-for-andrewandy-graves-because-hes

All I'll say is, I'm not actually sure whether this seems inherently romantic/incestous to me, but I have in fact been wrong before, and trust ur judgement MPC /gen

-Andrew

I'm neurodivergent so maybe I too am reading it poorly. But none of that confession sounded incestuous. It just sounded like a person grateful for an ally during a traumatic childhood.

Anonymous asked: Reply to https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/760375296515014656/mpc-can-you-tag-the-most-recent-ashley-graves?source=share

Okay, Anon, are you the same person who asked to tag incest for the post about my memory about going to the mall with Andrew?

Do you think me saying "I love you, you're an amazing brother" is incest? Damn, I can't appreciate my brother for being a good brother, can I? Or was it the fact I mentioned he took me to prom in my canon?

Do you just think everything I say about Andrew is romantically/sexually charged?

-Ashley Graves (who is now just completely pissed off)

MPC, I'm sorry for this mess. If you can't post this reply, just please let Anon know to better themselves and understand actual relationships 🤦🏻‍♀️

Clearly you can't, I guess. I can appreciate being told when I miss tagging something because I don't know the source or I miss subtext because I'm neurodivergent and don't understand the person. But like. Kinda weird they saw that and thought incest. I'm sure it's because of the source material, but still. Idk. That wasn't incestuous.

Connie / mod party cat

[emoangel44]

HI RAXZ IT TOOK LONGER THAN EXPECTED AS IT'S BEEN A WEEK BUT!!! DURING ALL THAT I DIDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT YOUR FIC/S It's just one of those pieces of fanwork that leaves so much of an impression on someone, that it just ends up sticking and changing what you initially thought of a character, because of how well done the things most would just move aside or chalk up for simple reasons. you seem to be the only person who really does get Chara like no other, and I hope it's not strange to say you write them almost as if you know them or you are them that I'm sorta afraid nothing else will live up to how you written them and asriel in ur fan fic LOL but no matter... i will prevail. I love how you were able to portray charas self hate and self harm, i love how you didn't hold back on the ugly side of it and how far and disturbing it can be especially for someone as young as chara. There's just something so realistic about it that don't see alot anywhere else. 

I also like how you made asriel be childish, childish in a way a kid can be bratty or selfish(?) in the first half, that might not be a good descriptor but my puter is lagging from the many many words I've written for this ask so I'm making do </3 the point is you really know how to write these kids. Also enjoy that the tone of each fic is starkly different from one another, asriels pov feels grounded in comparison to charas inner thoughts

HOPEFULLY this all makes a little sort of sense, I've read both of ur fics three times so I'm praying it does, amen. ANYWAYS……. Love ur brain, would love to hear any thoughts you have on utdr in general if you ever decide to share em…. godbless. perhaps i couldve worded this better in a diffrent time but oh well, we ball. i hope u have a great day emoangel44🫡 will be looking forward for ur new utdr stuff

FIORE!!! i have been waiting for this day.. thank you so much. ive had several people say that i really get chara including like, literal veteran chara fans. its very nice to hear, theyre pretty important to me as a character. which is rather funny because the only analysis ive ever actually written on them that wasnt fanfiction was an essay on how i think theyre kind of actually a little poorly written LOL. to understand someone you have to know their weakpoints i guess... even if on a meta level.

for my asriel interpretation i try to incorporate a lot of "flowey-isms" as i say. the way i see asriel is that he was always a bit of a bratty, selfish kid that struggled with low empathy. he chooses to do what he thinks is right because he knows its right and not because it provides him with positive feelings himself... i think thats even more admirable. as opposed to this is think chara is high empathy which is part of the reason they did what they did. asriel is just way more of a people person than chara and so comes off as more understanding, charas just naturally a bit off-putting no matter how hard they try not to be.

chara and asriel are quite different people so i tried to make that clear in how i write their perspectives. chara is kind of stuck in their own head and lives in a world with walls of misery and think prose. theyre very direct but also very metaphorical. its a weird combination but it gets easier to write when taking in account their canon dialogues (one day youll get a fic from me with a more light hearted tone where chara will get to make their dog puns and nerd jokes. maybe). this is also the reason i write them with a strange mix of first and second person. it just feels natural for our narrator.

asriel on the other hand is much much more of an emotional person and is much less formal in how he thinks. he has a lot more filler words and "i-think"s and "i-feel"s and such.

i figure ill write a bit on what inspired each fic.

for my chara fic, i actually started writing it while bored in class. it was inspired a narration line in one of the fights in undertale, the one i used for the summary. the main thing i wanted to play with was metaphors and metaphors upon metaphors. mainly related to charas self hatred though the lense of soil and dirt and flowers and gardens because of course.

for my asriel fic, the main thing i wanted to play with was, quite obviously, writing from asriels perspective. i had already written 2 fics from charas perpective (the 1st one isnt as good as the other two and was mostly written as a characterization and perspective test) so i figured it was time to give him a turn, especially since it we only realy got a peak and asriels personality through charas eyes and i wanted to show it off more. the other thing that the fic ended up centering on is something my friend said to me about how they felt my chara characterization was screaming to be understood under all the hurt. basically the thesis of this fic is "asriel did not fully get chara but he was also the closest anyone ever got by a long shot which counts for something".

if youd like to see my other undertale stuff, here is some poetry ive written about chara (and asriel), here is my art tag which is full of stuff with them (alternatively, just use my undertale tag if you dont want art of anything else), here are my chara and asriel playlists that i always listen to while writing, and here is that chara essay i mentioned.

speaking of my thoughts on utdr... i actually dont post the majority of them. but id absolutely love to talk about them. so if you (or anyone else) have any questions about my thoughts on utdr or want to start a discussion about it Please do. Im actually begging you. i need more engagement guys send me asks. thank you for reading this absurdly long response

[sordidmusings]

Man why tf some of the best writers on this site get shorted on interaction dude like this needs SO MUCH MORE ATTENTION

Grabbed me right away and had me entertained the whole time!! The characters really live in it, some of my favorite I’ve read!! I also enjoy the reader and their motivations and where they were set up in the crew for a split to make sense and hurt the least (thank u my heart is weak in making the straw hat Captain sad lol) there’s so much personality in the authorial voice too and I just adore it

The additions to canon are really sweet and fun too and I truly enjoyed them!!

Made the dumb meme for this lol cuz it’s TRUE

Annotations/thoughts/yada yada below the cut because I think imma try and do this for some of my reblog as best I can! I do it if I read someone’s stuff on docs and it’s usually liked so why not here 🤷🏼‍♀️

The first thing that struck me was that you dONE IT you’ve got the personality of the chara in focus in omniscient perspective which is a favorite tone of mine! It immediately brings me in and makes the read an engaging experience! It’s very smart to show that card early to hook readers 👌🏻 and Buggy’s perspective is so fuuuuuuun I love that over reactive fucking mess with my whole heart 😩 you’ve done him wonders. And also multi-tasked - the humor told us exactly where to orient ourselves in the plot so that’s a real good use of word count!!

Also Buggy. Sir. May I offer myself as a replacement bendy little shit?? Not as bendy as Luffy but I can work on it-

Also I would like to fuel Cabaji’s conspiracy theory that Buggy dual wields devil fruit - we could get a head start on that propaganda to really build up that large than life persona for his adoring fans and enemies alike. All hail the King of the Clown Cult, long may he reign 🙇‍♂️

CACKLING AT THE “This is Shanks’ fault” cuz at first I was like lol I bet that dumbass blames everything on Shanks and then .5 seconds later it hit me HES KINDA RIGHT

The family heirloom thread caught my eye 👀 good restraint at leaving us wanting more

Dudjdhdjbdkdbdk “you dead?” “That’s a no then” has got me CACKLING

Koby being nervous is so cute I adore the sweet boy but got distracted from that cuz ITS SO BIG BRAINED TO HAVE LUFFY THINK SHES A CLOWN OMFGGGGG i love that you thought of that!!! And that it’s a fun turn on the obnoxious insult shitty people use when they aren’t comfy with the amount of makeup a woman wears when Luffy says it with no ill will and total acceptance and simple misunderstanding lol

“A smile wider than the grand line” is such a cute and perfect description for Luffy and I’m in love with it, it’s pretty simplicity, and the sweet man himself. Truly I’m eating up this whole meeting. It’s so heartfelt and endearing and full of character. You captured Luffy so well in all the scenes he’s in and it’s making me even more eager to read your fic for himmmmm

The reader’s plight in feeling out of place is something I struggle with a LOT. Due to many factors I sometimes have issues communicating with other for a variety of reasons on sliders between both my own inherent flaws and the gap of understanding from others and it can be disheartening and you show it well. Neurodivergence a bitch 💀 time to run away and be an AuDHD clown 🤘not knowing your dreams is its whole other can of worms too and yet another great choice.

The detail of Luffy pilfering your food during Real Talk is exceptional and so on brand and I love it sm 💀

NOT KNOWING WHAT YOU TRULY ENJOY AND RESONATE WITH BECAUSE YOU WERENT ALLOWED IS ALSO SUCH A VIBE 10/10 READER

The moment you mentioned a hat from the two boys I perked up hoping that we had a dream summer with Shuggy because I would KILL FOR THAT O M L makes me real eager to get to the introduction to Buggy and see if they recognize each other 👀👀👀 you’re very good at building interest/anticipation!

Oh boy howdy is reader’s trust in Luffy poorly placed because yeah he wouldn’t intentionally spill the beans but he’s only ever kept like one secret well 💀 tho the odds are on her side because seeing someone’s emotions about a thing is usually how he sorts the importance of it

Yet again, I am in love with your Luffy and Need Him to shower me too with that blind and unbending hopefulness and encouragement 😭😭😭 what a treasure

OOOOOOOOO IT WAS THE DUMBASS DUO THAT WE MET IF YOU KNEW ROGER-

Yet another OOOOOOOOOOO went off in my brain that we know of Buggy 👀 first thought was that we’d recognize the nose but at the same time if seeing a wanted poster one would probably assume the nose and hair were just part of the getup and there’s also enough people in One Piece with funky colored hair including blue 🤷🏼‍♀️

Loving reader’s consistent protectiveness of Luffy 😩 great character trait 👌🏻

“This I was not the time to think the enemy was funny” first off Zoro it’s always time to think the enemy is funny, second it’s Buggy the fuckin Clown dude, and third Luffy is at one of his biggest buffs when he finds enemies funny So There

YES SIMP FOR THIS MANS EYES they really stole all our hearts man they’re too fuckin pretty holy sHIT the soliloquies required to capture their essence 🤌🏻

I love your tone and sassy asides - it’s something I love to try to do because I enjoy reading it so much and I admire your skill in it!!! They keep me giggling and you put them at the right moments around and it helps keep the mood dynamic throughout because serious things feel more serious by contrast to the humor

Damn, Buggy, your roast of our clown status cuts deep 😭😭😭 a girl is trying to fill shoes she didn’t even sign up for my guy and you’ve seen clown shoes that’s gonna take some damn TIME

GDIDBDKDJ Luffy’s question about Buggy’s nose setting off Mom Mode in reader is sending me 💀

I enjoyed how you recounted the show scenes!! It’s hard to keep readers interested when telling them things they already know but your recounting is engaging and chooses good details to include and exclude. The interjections help a lot 👌🏻

I adore Nami BUNCHES but still loved the vicious call out for her cuz while I get her reasoning it does fall squarely under the category of “Dick Move” 💀 also shows some real viciousness in reader and in conjunction with the concept of loyalty 👀 something I admire Much and that would be VERY GOOD for our dear clown

Ooooooooooo very smart of reader (and you) to start up the ploy she has the map to keep her in the room with Buggy instead of taken out with the others. All around you’ve made many good decisions on why she’d be around him and grabbing his attention too!!

Oh the things I’d do to have Buggy call me Dollface and whine at me 😩😩😩 he gets a free pass for all the complaining and griping in the world as long as I get to stay in his presence (I’m totally not down bad at all no sir 🤡)

READER DROPPING THE DEEP LORE IS SO GOOD AND THE DRAMATIC IRONY OF THIS WHOLE SITUATION IS DELICIOUS

AAAAAAAAAA AND SHOCKING HIM BY FLIRTING WITH HIM OH MY GOD THATS ONE OF MY FAV TROPES EVER PLEASE MORE I AM BE G G I N G

The beats of their interaction after this are just perfect all the little details like the eyes widening him trying to get back on his game and his fluster and just all of it are so good!! (Also totally barking at getting up in his personal space, you know but like Casually)

The whole paragraph beginning with “Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again” has me so SOFT so prone to kickin my feet so GIDDY it’s so suddenly tender and genuine and oof just my heart 😩

AND MY HEART EVEN M O R E AT HIM ASKING IF ALL OF IT WAS A LIE AND THE TREMBLING GRIP I JUST

I NEED HIM HE NEEDS KISSES AND I CANT GIVE THEM TO HIM AND AHSHXBSJZN 😭😭😭

✨STARSHINE✨ what a wonderful choice for a pet name from dear Bugs!!!!

The plea for him to not kill Luffy is so sweet and I love it and having that hold over Bughy is so good and I’m thinking to the future when Cross Guild is a thing and they gotta fight Luffy and Buggy is just there sweating under the piercing gazes of his cohorts being like “so no problems with the plan right, clown?” And he musters up all his courage to warble out “w-well actually…” because he can throw almost anything away to save his skin but you begged him. You begged him. Too bad that might get him killed at the moment - that sword and that hook were looking so shiny and so so sharp

Thank you for keeping up the real Straw Hat Tradition of the crew copying Luffy’s nickname for allies 💀 zoro saying “clown lady” was just too perfect lol also Zoro needs to loosen up cuz her humor is great 😤

“Luffy, ever the little shit” PREACH lol such a beloved little shit 💕💕💕

🚨BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER I REPEAT BUGGY IS SWOONING OVER READER THIS IS A CODE PINK READY THE PILLOWS FOR SCREAMING IMMEDIATELY🚨

Never fear, dear reader, you will be seeing the failclown again 🤍

IM LOSING MY MIND AT LUFFY ENCOURAGING READER TO BE A CLOWN FULL CIRCLE AND BEAUTIFULLY ABSURD 💀💀💀

The use of government name had me snickering ngl

“He talked about a lot of girls” ah Shanks you fucking dog I love you with all my heart you sleazy beach bum 🥰

BEING BUGGYS FIRST CRUSH HOLY S H IT IM LOSING IT IM-

GALE CARDINAL AND PEACOCK ARE SUCH CUTE NICKNAMES WTF I ADORE THIS SO FUCKJNG MUCH OTS SO SWEET THE ADDED LORE IS SO GOOD

THE LAST LINE RIPPED MY HEART OUT HOW DARE YOU BUT ALSO THANK TOU FOR IT AND THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD 🙏🏻

The Princess and her Fool (Buggy D. Clown/Reader) 1/4

Inspo: GOSSIP-MÅNESKIN

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Word Count: ~7.9k

Warnings: Cursing, canon typical violence, insecurity, descriptions of peril.

A/N: MÅNESKIN is Buggy coded, no I won't elaborate, it just makes sense. So is Ashnikko, esp Cheerleader. Listen to it in context then judge me. All the chapters are inspired by different MÅNESKIN songs.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Buggy was furious. First, he woke up on the floor because it stormed during the night. Second, no one had their shit together during rehearsal. And third, worst of all, soME KID STOLE HIS FUCKING MAP! HE WAS GOING TO INVADE IN TWO DAYS, ACTIVELY FINISHING HIS PLANNING WHEN HE SAW THAT BENDY LITTLE SHIT MAKING OFF WITH HIS MAP! UNCALLED FOR! OUTRAGEOUS! IT’S BULLSHI-HIS. FUCKING. MAP?!?! FUCK!

Buggy snarled as he threw one of his throwing knives at the mast in front of him, “We’ve got a fucking show to do fellas! Hop to!” he sneered, aiming a dagger for the feet of the closest crew member. The crew scattered to their positions, Cabaji staying by Buggy’s side.

“What exactly is the plan, Captain?” the unicyclist asked.

“Get. My. Fucking. Map, Cabaji.” Buggy hissed, poking out another knife from seemingly nowhere, resting the tip on Cabaji’s nose. Cabaji often wondered if the captain had eaten two Devil Fruits, a secret one that let him be such a fiend with those knives, a paranormal, infinite number of them at his disposal. “Board their ship, knock them out, and find my map.”

Cabaji sighed, wheeling backwards, away from the knife’s tip, “Yes, Captain.” He said, wheeling away to bark orders at a few out of place “freaks”.

‘Somehow…this is Shanks’s fault.’ Buggy thought bitterly, slinking back toward his throne, ready for a performance of a lifetime.

You felt a little out of place. You couldn’t help but shuffle your rice around your bowl as you thought about where you were.

You had run into the one and only Monkey D. Luffy when he was on his way to steal the map to the Grand Line from Ol’ Axe Hand. You were on your own little mission, searching the sea for…let’s call it a family heirloom. You were out for blood, but forced to run out of gas as you floated along the expansive seas. Your skin burned and blistered as you stared at the horizon line of nothing but blue all around you. You had been lost at sea for days, no food or water, nothing but the torn-up gown on your back. You were losing hope of surviving. That’s when you heard it.

“HEEEEYYYY!! YOU OKAY?!” you could barely drag your head to look in the direction of the loud screaming, a small rowboat, little more than a dot in your blurry vision. You sighed out a breath of relief, flopping an arm over the edge of your own rowboat. A small sign that, yes you were alive, yes, you need help. “DON’T WORRY! WE’RE COMING!” you felt your eyelids close against your will. A small wave of peace washing over you.

“You dead?” a voice asked tentatively from beside you, what you assumed to be an oar poking your backside a little too hard, drawing a pained groan from your dry throat. “That’s a no, then.”

You peeled your eyes open with a wince, two young men? Boys? Were in front of you in their own little rowboat. You’d later come to find their names to be Luffy and Koby.

“Whatcha doing out here, lady?” Luffy asked, almost tipping his boat over by hoisting himself up on the edge to see you better.

“W-“ you sighed at your scratchy voice, “Water?” you rasped, reaching your sunburnt hand out toward the boys.

Koby flinched back, scrambling to grab a large canteen of water from his feet, thrusting it into Luffy’s hands. “You-you do it.” He whimpered, shifting further away from you in his seat. Luffy laughed a bit, unscrewing the cap, but extended his arm out to you, the open canteen’s rim meeting your greedy lips. The water flowed too fast, covering your face, but you didn’t care, reaching a hand up and taking the canteen from your face. Luffy grinned wide and sat back.

“So, why are you out here, Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, eagerly shifting in his seat.

“Clown Lady?” Koby asked.

“Yeah, that big frilly thing she’s wearing, and the paint on her face! She must be a clown!” Luffy justified, crossing his arms.

You huffed a laugh, mustering all the strength you could to sit up, “Not a clown.” You explained, the gravel in your voice quelled only slightly, “Just a big poofy dress and messed up makeup. I was chasing some Marines, got stranded.”

Koby recoiled, “Why would you be chasing Marines?”

You snarled at the thought, “They stole something of mine. I need it back.”

Luffy’s grin stretched even further, “I can help with that!” you eyed him down, looking for deception in his pure, wide eyes. “Join my crew! I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he exclaimed, giggling a bit.

You blinked at the boy in front of you, taking in his scrawny frame, the little scar under his eye, his straw hat, a hat with a complete sense of Deja vu you couldn’t get rid of, and a smile wider than the Grand Line. King? Well…actually…maybe. The boy didn’t look like much, but the fire in his eyes, the pull in his chest to adventure that you could practically feel, the love and care and hope oozing from every pore. A pirate? Yeah. In the hazed light of the afternoon sun, in your dehydrated mind, your heart skipped a beat. You thought you saw Gol D. Roger in front of you. You felt his warm smile, his laughter ringing through your ears. Yeah…he could probably do it.

You set your jaw, trying to chase away the sting of tears, “Okay, Kid. I believe you.” You said, holding out your hand to shake. Koby’s eyes bulged, and Luffy all but cackled, “I’ll join you, but I have a few conditions.”

“Fine by me!” he had said, shaking your hand immediately, dragging you into their rowboat, and the rest is history. You had been pretty useless in helping get the map, but your knowledge of Marine’s bases and ships’ construction and layout helped more than you’d know, dangling from first Luffy’s back, then eventually Zoro’s.

So, there you sat, mulling over your rice. It hadn’t been long since you joined Luffy and became a “Straw-Hat”, and as much as you believed in the kid, and even though you got along with Zoro and Nami, you couldn’t help but feel unwanted, a little on the outside. Even if you had technically been the first one to join, you kinda felt like you were tacked on, like this wasn’t where you belonged.

You had three conditions in joining Luffy, 1. He and the other Straw-Hats were to help you find your heirloom, 2. You would stay with Luffy until it was found, 3. When it was found, you would be allowed to leave whenever you were ready, to make your own path, your own life. Until then, you would be the most loyal crew member the Greenhorn Captain had ever heard of. You would ask how high, you would “bark” on command, kill without hesitation. You hadn’t had to prove it, nor the chance to yet, but you could feel it coming. Something’s brewing. Something’s on the horizon, and it wasn’t a rowboat.

“Hey, Clown Lady! Whatcha up to?” Luffy asked, plopping next to you, already stealing a clump of rice from your bowl. You sighed and handed the bowl over, resting your head on the table in front of you.

“I’m thinking and I’m sad, Luffy.” You had long given up on correcting him that you were not, in fact, a clown. Luffy’s face scrunched and he paused his ravenous shoveling of the rice into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully for a moment, “Why are you sad?”

You hesitated, but relented, knowing this would only nag at you until you talked about it, and raised your head, but only half facing your rambunctious captain. “I feel like…I don’t belong here.” You finally spat out, shoving your face into your hands so you didn’t have to see the younger man’s expression. “I feel…different. I’m not…special like you guys.”

Luffy went to interject, but you slammed your hands off your face, pushing yourself to face him fully, “I don’t have a devil fruit, I’m not a great swordsman, or a great navigator. I’m some lady you found in a rowboat on the verge of death who has very little that’s spectacular or at all interesting about her other than some family heirloom that I don’t even know if I fully want to tell you about.” You exclaimed, grabbing the captain’s shoulders, “Don’t you ever just-just-” you huffed in frustration, shaking Luffy a bit, “-feel like something’s missing?!” Luffy looked at you with wide eyes, his arms pinned to his chest, a weird expression on his face. You sighed loudly, letting the poor man go and turning back to the table, suddenly infatuated with the wood grain, heat rising to your face.

Your captain called your name softly, “What’s your dream?” he asked.

You shrugged, “I don’t really have one. I have…goals I guess.”

“What are they?”

“I want to find my father’s-um my family heirloom,” you stuttered, revealing a touch more than you had before, “I want to carry on his mission, I guess. Keep it safe. After that, I don’t know. I’d like to fall in love maybe.” You rambled, all rather noncommittal in your tone.

Luffy nodded thoughtfully, setting aside the now empty bowl you had your rice in. “What do you like to do?”

You thought for a moment. God, it had been years since you thought about what you liked, what you wanted. You had to set it all aside for your father, for your family. The last time you remember having fun was when you were fifteen, when two boys that were your age came to visit your island, they taught you knife throwing, tried to show you how to sword fight, showed you the ship they lived on, but most of all, you thought of the way they showed you how to perform. They weren’t able to steal around the island, for fear of your family overpowering their crew and kicking them off before they had their fill of fun and food, so they needed money.

They had you bring them to the town square and set one of their hats on the cobbled ground and for hours the three of you did little tricks, danced, sang, told stories, or showed off some of the skills they had been teaching you for tips. The echo of your laughter and glee bouncing through the city, chorused with the boys’ joyous hoots and hollers into the sunlight. You had scrounged the tips together and used the money to have a ball that night at the summer festival, running through crowds with fried dough and masks of monsters and beasts of old, only stopping to watch the massive fireworks in the night sky, dancing under the colorful sparks for nothing but yourselves, cheers from all around.

Your eyes threatened to well up at the thought, not a day goes by that you don’t think of those boys, hoping they’re doing okay, that they got to grow up as carefree and happy as they were with you. That was the last summer you were allowed to be a kid, “I like performing.” You whispered, barely wanting to voice such an absurd thought. That everyday could be like that summer. That you could feel the thrill of all those eyes on you, all that joy directed at what you can do.

Luffy sat up and grinned, “Is that your dream? To perform? What do you do?” he asked, genuinely happy to have helped you down this train of thought. “C’mon, tell me!”

“I learned how to do a few things over the years, I’m good at acrobatics cause of all the ropes I’ve dealt with on ships, I love to dance, I-“ you laughed as you said the rest, “I learned how to fire breathe and throw daggers really well too!” you grabbed a worn, old throwing knife from your side and tossed it in your hand, Luffy’s eyes sparkled in wonder as you went on, “You weren’t the only one with a weird childhood, kid.” You teased, nudging him with your shoulder, before grabbing the blade at the end and launching it straight at the wall where it stuck with a light twang.

“Why don’t you do that?” Luffy exclaimed, gesturing to you, your face more specifically, “Just talking about it has you smiling more than I’ve ever seen you!”

You chuckled a bit, but the sad gleam returned to your eyes, “I can’t. I have to protect the Kaku Kaku no Mi.” you explained. Luffy furrowed his brow, and horror dawned your face, “Forget I said that! Luffy, this doesn’t leave this conversation.” You whispered, holding his face in your hands, eyes boring into his.

Luffy’s eyes widened in excitement and awe, “You’re looking for a Devil Fruit?!” he exclaimed, your hands over his mouth muffling the last two words from leaving his mouth.

“Yes!” you whispered, tears close to falling, “And no one can know! I trust you, so it’s okay that you know, but you must promise me you won’t say anything to anyone. Not even Zoro and Nami.” You pleaded, hands still covering the captain’s big mouth. “Please, Luffy. As my Captain, I’m begging you.”

Slowly, your captain’s eyes softened, and he nodded, gently taking your hands away from his face, and in a pure moment of sobriety, Luffy spoke, “I’ll keep your secret, Clown Lady,” he said, a small smile spreading over his lips as he added, “Only if you promise me that you’ll follow your dream. Go perform on the biggest stages you can find. If not for you, for me.” His words were punctuated by a hand being raised; pinky outstretched in a childish pact. One that you hadn’t seen or made since you last saw one of those boys that summer, vowing to see each other again.

Tears fell down your cheeks as you choked out, “I can’t just-!”

“Yes, you can.” He chortled, “I just told you that you could. You have permission.”

You froze, the tears coming harder, but you felt a weight falling off of your shoulders as you wrapped a shaky pinky around his. You yanked Luffy by the join and pulled him into a deep hug, his arms wrapping around you twice with his rubber abilities. “You’re such a good kid. Roger would be happy to have you as his successor.” You whispered into his hair, laying a quick kiss onto the crown of his head.

Luffy pulled back a bit, eyes shining, “You knew him?!”

You giggled, swiping a stray curl out of his face, “Not for long-“

You were cut off with a BANG and a LURCH. You held Luffy to your torso as you were both flung to the floor, shielding him from potential impact.

“We’re under attack!” you exclaimed, already rushing to your feet, the captain not far behind. You both ran out to the deck, Zoro and Nami already there, weapons drawn.

“Who the fuck is that?!” Zoro roared, looking in all directions through the grey smoke.

You felt woozy all of a sudden, red overtaking the grey, “Luffy! The map!” you yelled, pushing him over toward Nami, coughing and trying to balance against the railing of the ship, “INCOMING!” you yelled, dropping to the floor, clinging to the rails. Another BANG and a LURCH cut through, the red smoke billowing farther. You peered through a gap in the sea of crimson and saw a curious jolly roger. “Is that a clown?” you mutter. The last thing you see before you pass out is Luffy swallowing the map, Nami and Zoro already passed out. With your last moments, you reached out to the barely conscious Luffy.

“Wake up!” came a hiss from next to you, you tried to rouse, your eyes barely blearing open. A harsh kick to your foot made you jolt to attention. Your eyes met Zoro’s as you tried to blink the drugs out of your system, finding all four of you in a large wooden crate. The other three were already standing, looming above you.

“What the fuck?” You mutter, trying to stretch the soreness out of your neck.

“Where’s the map?” Nami whispered.

Luffy waved her off, “Don’t worry about it! It’s somewhere safe.” He assured cryptically. You two shared a look, and you gave him a small nod, you weren’t saying shit.

“Marines must’ve found us,” Zoro huffed.

You and Luffy shook your heads, “Pirates.” You droned.

“Yeah, I saw a big, weird Jolly Roger.” Luffy explained.

You nodded, “Uh-huh. Kinda looked like a-“

“-clown.” You both finished. After a moment, you blanched. You knew who a clown in the East Blue was. “Oh shit.” You whisper, standing up and trying to find a way out of the crate, futile as it was.

“What’s your problem?” Nami asked.

You looked her dead in the eye, “We might’ve pissed off the wrong guy already.” You mutter, cryptically.

With that, the crate’s walls fell to the ground, all of you squinting under the harsh spotlight. Circus music played all around you as performers swung above you, cycled past, fire breathers a little too close for comfort, all the while a chorus of flat applause echoed over the music. When your eyes adjusted it took you a second to notice the audience and their distress, taken by the barrage of talents all around you. When you do, you lock eyes with a woman who’s jaw trembled and eyes widened, tears threatening to fall as she mouthed a small, “Help.”

Nami lowered Luffy’s clapping hands next to you, “If we die, Luffy,” you locked eyes with the young captain, “I’ll kill you.” You hissed, pushing the younger man behind you. You, Nami, and Zoro forming a bit of a triangle around him.

You whipped your head toward a backstage entrance, a resounding voice demanding attention, “No, no, no, NO!” the pirate yelled, rushing into view, “Stop clapping! Stop clapping!” he insisted, marching into the ring, “No! This is all wrong!”

You squinted trying to get a proper look at the source of the voice, but he was in the dark, not quite lit up enough to see his face. “The spotlight was late.” He exclaimed, “You completely missed my entrance!”

‘Ah, that’s why I couldn’t see him.’ You thought with a smirk.

The man gestured wildly, getting the spot tech’s attention, physically guiding them to find him. The comedic timing and absurdity caught you off guard, and you found yourself suppressing a laugh, just a soft snort coming out. Zoro glared at you over his shoulder, this was not the time to think the enemy was funny.

“-And where was the dancing lion?!” you got a good look at him now; he was a clown. A handsome clown. The first thing that struck you was the way his eyes caught the light. They shone in a way that struck you, your heart skipping a beat, a sense of nostalgia washing over you. His makeup was perhaps a little worse for wear, but he looked pretty stressed. Pissed might be a more accurate word, really. Nonetheless from where you stood, he was a very attractive man, a squared off jaw, stubble peaking through along it. His face was screwed up a bit in annoyance, but you couldn’t help but think he was pretty. He had blue hair and a colorful getup, topped off by an orange captain’s hat, his clown-y jolly roger positioned proudly at the center. There was no question about it, this was one of the most prolific captains in the East Blue, Buggy D. Clown. You all were fucked.

“Hey!” You whipped around to grab Luffy by the arm, try to stop him, but he persisted, “I know you! I saw your wanted poster in Shells Town!”

“Don’t say something stupid, Luffy!” You whispered, pinching his bicep.

He barely flinched, brushing you off, “You’re the clown guy!” Luffy turned to you briefly, “Hehe! How bout that, Clown Lady!” He chimed.

Buggy’s face screwed up in confusion, ‘She’s not a fucking clown.’ He thought. ‘If she is, she’s a shitty one. Out of costume and everything.’

“Your name’s uh-uh” Luffy trailed off already moving on.

“Buggy!” you whispered.

“Binky!”

“No!”

Buggy was unimpressed, “Buggy.” He corrected. “Buggy the Clown. Buggy, the Flashy Fool? Buggy, The Genius Jester?” Buggy offered, looking for any sign of recognition on the young captain’s face. He found none, just unabashed…well. Luffy.

“Wow!” Luffy exclaimed, he looked at your little crew with a grin, genuinely excited to meet a famous pirate. “I bet everyone in the East Blue knows who you are!”

Buggy’s eye twitched, and you took a step closer to Luffy, widening your stance, “What did you just say?”

“Just that everyone knows who you are!” Luffy said innocently. He didn’t know. He really didn’t. You didn’t even know about what was going on, and you actually knew who Buggy was.

Buggy snarled, pushing past you and the other crewmates, grabbing Luffy by the face, “NOSE?!” You stumbled but stood close, eyeing the clown pirate’s hand on your captain’s face. Your fingers twitched to deck the guy, but you had to be patient. You had to wait. Your priority was keeping Luffy safe, not pitching a fight with other pirate captains.

You saw the other circus folk step forward, a menacing threat hanging over all of you. “Are you making fun of my nose?” Buggy seethed.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Luffy started, struggling to speak through Buggy’s grip. “But now that you mention it…” Luffy’s hand rose from his side as he spoke, “Is that thing for real?”

You clenched your jaw as Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away. “Don’t be rude, Luffy!” you hissed.

Buggy regarded you for a second, taken aback, but his attention was quickly grabbed by Luffy again as he tried to reach back toward his nose. Buggy slapped Luffy’s hand away again, “What’s real is, I’ve been scheming for MONTHS!” he exclaimed, “to steal that map from that Old Axe-Hand Moron.” Buggy emphasized the insult, swinging into Nami’s face, who regarded him coldly as he indicated for a laugh. You frowned at the mention of the Marine, displeased by the few interactions you’d had with him. Buggy shrugged at Nami’s nonresponse and backed away, “-only to find out I had been upstaged by four little nobodies! Who stole it from right under my nos-“ he cut himself off, that clearly being a sensitive subject for him. “-NO! IT’S IN MY HEAD NOW!” he yelled, groaning in frustration before marching away from your crew.

You took a deep breath as you watched him go, approaching Luffy again, resting a hand on his shoulder, trying to ground him to reality for one damned second. “Hey!” Luffy shouted, and you clamped your hold on his shoulder, nails digging into his skin. You hissed, trying to get him to shut up, but Luffy persisted as if you weren’t even there. “I’m not a nobody!” he proclaimed, a resolute tone in his voice. “I’m Monkey D. Luffy! And I will be King of the Pirates!” you tensed even further, letting go of your vice grip and biting back a lecture on time and place.

Buggy let out a weak, piteous laugh at your captain’s statement, “Oh! Now that’s funny!” he pointed at the man who was supposed to oversee the lion, who held up a LAUGH sign. The crowd followed directions hollowly, and you found yourself locking eyes with that woman again, the tears falling slowly down her cheeks. You sent her a determined nod. If you could do nothing else today, you’d protect Luffy, and get her out of here. The laughter rang for a moment, until the unamused clown gestured to stop, the tent falling to silence on a dime. “My bounty poster graces every marquee of every Marine outpost for miles.” Buggy carried on, talking up himself and his crew, but at that moment, you noticed something. Buggy had throwing knives in his coat. If you could just get your hands on one…a plan began to form in your mind on how to get one as the two pirate captains argued about who would be king.

You scanned the room when your plan was as fully formed as it would be, looking for all exits and possibilities you could. Just when you felt solid, Zoro opened his big mouth.

You could see Buggy’s rage build at the swordsman’s arrogance, a vein on his forehead popping out a bit, the tendons in his neck tight. “Now,” he muttered. “Maybe we should skip right to the finale.” Buggy raised his hand, each finger interlocking with a knife, one shoved between each knuckle. Your focus lasered in on them, barely registering the other pirates as a threat as they readied themselves for a fight.

THEN NAMI STEPPED UP. FUCKING HELL. Your brow twitched as you resisted the urge to shove her back, “Wait! Wait. What if I have something to offer you?”

You snarled, “Oh hell no.” you knew exactly what she was gonna do. And it wouldn’t work.

“Something more valuable than the map.” Luffy eyed Nami, confused as to what she could be talking about, stepping closer to her. Nami goes on to set up offering one of you as a freak, stepping around Luffy.

“Go on.” Buggy insisted, curiosity something he couldn’t seem to resist.

Nami smoothed her resolve, turning and snatching Luffy’s hat, tossing it high above you and tried to bolt. Luffy used his rubber abilities to try and grab the hat.

“Fat chance!” you yelled, sprinting after her. You made it out of the tent when she stumbled in her path, shocked by the destruction around her. You, did no such thing, tackling her around the middle. You two rolled in the dust for a moment, when you landed you had her pinned under you, straddling her, holding her arms above her head, “We die, you die. You signed up for this shit.” You hissed, leaning into her face, “Try something like that again and I might have to kill you. Only thing that could save you is that rubber boy you just tried to sell out.” Nami’s eyes were wide under you as you were quickly surrounded by circus performers, picking you two up and dragging you back to the tent.

Buggy eyed you with renewed wonder. ‘You chased down your crewmate who was…getting away? All because of this…rubber dude?’

Nami’s horrified expression hadn’t left her face, “What did you do?! What did you do to their town?! You destroyed everything!” she cried to the clown. Buggy just rolled his eyes and twirled a throwing knife in his hand. You had become used to such destruction over the years, and used that to your advantage, compartmentalizing those feelings for later and focusing on getting one of those damned knives.

“Not everything.” Buggy chided, cutting slices into an apple he had retrieved in light of Nami’s escape attempt. “I let em keep their hands.” He joked, pointing to the guy with the sign again, provoking applause from the crowd.

“Okay,” Buggy started, “Here ends the theatrics.” He said walking over to your group again, but more specifically over to you, the lights shifting with his path. His eyes landed on you, looking you up and down, trying to take you in. You met his gaze without issue, even quirking a small smirk at the man. Buggy narrowed his eyes at you before turning to your captain, “I know one of you has my map, and I’m gonna get it back.” He said, Buggy’s eyes flicking to you briefly. “What was it you said, rubber boy? That it was in a safe place?” All of your eyes shot wide. Amendment to the plan. You were going to be grabbed. You have the map now. At least they’ll think you do. You have to help Luffy. “Don’t act so surprised. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

You shared a look with Luffy ‘Go with it.’ You tried to telepathically communicate with the boy, “So please make our guests uncomfortable in the Greenroom!” He said, motioning for the circus pirates to descend onto you, trying to drag you into the back. You immediately held your arms over your torso, pretending to have the map under your shirt, he doesn’t know it’s in a damned cannister, writhing to keep your hands in place. ‘Please think I’m stupid enough to do that.’ You prayed, meeting Buggy’s eyes for a moment.

His eyes narrowed, “Leave her.” Buggy called, pointing right at you. You struggled less, darting your eyes around, ‘panicked’ you and Luffy were left in the circus tent while Nami and Zoro were dragged into the dark of the backstage. You two were ushered forward, inches away from Buggy. “I am going to have a little chat. With my stretchy new pal, here.” He said, eyes flicking to you, “But first, I’m, gonna need to talk to this pretty little Doll Face right here.” His gaze bore into you as he flicked his head to the side, the crew grabbing Luffy and dragging him one way, Buggy guiding you in another. “Let’s chat, babe.” He rasps into your ear.

‘Please let this work.’

“Come ON, Doll Face!” Buggy whined, the two of you in one of the off shoot store rooms. He had stuck you both into a large cage, not lion big, but big enough. “Work with me here! I mean, what are you even doing with a bunch of snot nosed little babies, huh?” he asked, plopping to the ground in front of you. You sat across from him, your arms crossed over the area you were pretending to keep the map.

You gave the clown another grin, “Why? Jealous?”

Buggy’s brows knit in confusion, “Huh? Why’d I be jealous?” genuine perplexed questioning all over his face as he began fiddling with one of those throwing knives you were so ready to get your hands on.

“Because he’ll do it.” You said frankly, checking your nails, frowning at a break.

“Do what?” Buggy challenged, holding the knife level with you.

You simply hummed into your smile, making it grow, “He’s gonna find the One Piece and become King.” You said, speaking like you were talking about the weather. “I see it in him every day.” You locked eyes with Buggy’s annoyed gaze. “I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.” You barreled forward, riling Buggy up, “I haven’t heard of a pirate like him since Joy Boy!”

Buggy was almost growling, “Don’t you talk to me about Gol D. Roger.” He hissed, fingers twitching around the knife’s hilt. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

You shrugged; arms still wrapped firmly around yourself. “How would you know?” you lilted, leaning forwards into the clown’s space. “You don’t know anything about me, Buggy.” You said, emphasizing his name. “You don’t even know who I am.” You giggle, cocking your head to the side, looking the seething clown up and down.

Buggy ran his tongue along his teeth, sucking in a breath, “What’s your name then, Doll?”

You bit your lip to keep down another laugh, “I don’t know if I want to tell you, I kinda like it when you call me Doll.” Buggy was physically taken aback for a moment, his head jerking back a bit, not expecting any flirting. Your eyes softened a bit, extending out your leg to bump your foot with his. “Come on, pretty boy, don’t be so serious.” You laugh at his bewildered expression for a moment before announcing your name with a grin.

His eyes widened further, making you laugh harder, “You’re cute when you’re not trying to kill my friends.” You joked, nudging the clown’s foot again, trying to illicit a laugh or any reaction now other than the frozen, almost afraid man in front of you.

Buggy swallowed the lump in his throat, fighting off the heat rising to his face by clearing his throat, “What about when I am?” he joked, trying to get the higher ground back.

Your smile never left you as you rose to your knees, ‘It’s been long enough for Zoro and Nami to have figured something out to get us all out of here. I want to use the little time I have left to have a little fun.’ You thought to yourself, crawling over to Buggy, grabbing the bars to the cage next to his head, settling between his legs.

“Well, I thought you were kinda hot, but I’m sure you’d be even better trying to kill someone I don’t like.” You lilted, face only inches from Buggy’s.

Buggy’s eyes were blown wide again, his long lashes tempting you a bit. After a moment of sharing the same space, you raised your hand up, stroking his cheek with the back of your hand, your knuckles brushing those feather soft eyelashes. You watched as his pupils overtook his beautiful blue green irises, raising your hand further to tuck a stray strand of hair back into Buggy’s bandana. You smiled again and his whole face softened.

Buggy brought his own hand up and grabbed yours from his face, whispering “You don’t have the map, do you?” you looked to the side to avoid his eyes, feeling a bit bad for the deception, and shook your head. His fingers caught your chin, and he made you look at him, a pained look on his face. “Was all of it lies? Just sweet little things to distract me?” he asked through grit teeth, and you couldn’t help but notice a slight tremor to his grip.

Your eyes shot wide, immediately holding Buggy’s face in your palms, heart straining a bit when he wouldn’t meet your eyes. You could never be so cruel! “Hold on, now Bugs! This wasn’t even my plan, honestly,” you started, moving your head into his field of view every time he tried to dart those pretty eyes away from you, “I was just gonna stall, piss you off a bit.” You chuckled, “Anything I said in here,” you said with a soft smile, “I meant, pretty boy.” His eyes searched yours for deceit, confusion flashing over his face when he found none. “I don’t have to lie to get what I want.” Buggy felt an impossible pull closer to you, and so did you to him. Just as you were close enough to brush your nose against his-

“HAHAHA!” Luffy’s cackling rang out through the whole area. You flinched and tried to find where the sound came from, and Buggy blinked a few times, taking in your beautiful features as you searched for your captain, only realizing you were real when he felt the pressure of your fingers still on his face.

He shook himself out of it, “Duty calls, Starshine!” Buggy chuckled, grabbing you around the waist, placing you to the side. You worried your lip between your teeth as you listened to the loud sounds coming from Luffy. Buggy hummed and stood up, taking a key from his hat and letting his hand detach while you weren’t looking, letting it unlock the cage door before slipping through and closing it back up, locking it quickly.

Your eyes snapped to Buggy, standing in the cage, watching him as he walked away from you, “Buggy!” you called. The clown captain stilled, only turning his head to listen to you, “Promise me something!” you could barely see his brows furrow, his ear twitch, “Don’t kill him. Just-he’s a great kid and he deserves a shot. You don’t have to share; you can fight to find the One Piece all you want. Just-just don’t kill him.” You were even shocked yourself at the desperation in your tone. Buggy’s shoulders tensed before he straightened out, with a deep breath. You didn’t know for sure if he agreed of not, but something deep in your heart told you Luffy would be okay.

You were spinning the throwing knife on your finger, threading it through your fingers over and over as you sat and waited. You had already tried picking the lock to little success, and there weren’t enough weak points to exploit in the cage, so you sat, and you fiddled with the blade, waiting for one of your crewmates.

“Clown Lady!” you heard Zoro’s gruff call travel low through the room. You licked your lips and whistled a practiced bird call, hearing two sets of footsteps move direction and come find you in your sturdy, iron bar cage.

You leaned against the bars, waving at your crewmates, a wry smile on your lips, “I don’t know if this is the right place for that nickname.” You joked.

“Damn, what’d you do to get locked up like this?” Nami huffed, already trying to work the lock.

You shrugged, “I think he likes me,” you chuckled, to the dismay and slight disgust of the two pirates, “Maybe he wanted to keep me!”

Zoro grimaced, “You have a weird sense of humor, woman.”

You rolled your eyes, a glint in the sand catching your eye, a glint in the sand catching your eye. You beamed, pointing at the swordsman’s feet with a wide smile, “I told you he liked me! Look,” both crewmates’ eyes followed your finger to the dusty ground, “He left me a key!”

Zoro and Nami took a moment, blinking to process this information, looking at each other to confirm this was real, nodded, and then Nami grabbed the key.

“Let’s go, Luffy was running his mouth, I could hear him,” you said, rushing through the tent, you and Nami running ahead while Zoro made quick work of any circus folk you ran into.

You turned the final corner and sprinted through the hallway, coming into one of the ring entrances. Luffy was in an escapologist’s water tank full of seawater, Buggy arguing with him through the glass.

Your eyes met Luffy’s as he was fully submerged in the water tank, and you gave him a wide smile, Nami running up behind you. Luffy, ever the little shit, points behind Buggy at you two. Just as Buggy turns, Nami launches the staff she’d been holding straight at the glass with enough power to crack it.

Buggy dodges it, looking up at you two. Just when his eyes met yours, the glass broke out, all the water and Luffy himself spilling out onto the ground. And in that moment, the world paused.

He was in peril, sure, but Buggy couldn’t help but marvel at your wide smile, the grin crinkling the corners of your eyes. You tossed something in your hand, catching it again. One of Buggy’s throwing knives. Buggy felt a smirk pull at his lips, no one manages to steal his knives from him. Damn you’re impressive.

When the world resumed, he and Luffy were fighting off the effects of the sea water, and Buggy heard an absolutely awful gagging sound, eyes shifting to the rubber captain. ‘HE ATE THE FUCKING MAP?!’ Buggy almost cackled at the insanity, but one thing overpowered it all. He needed “My map-” “My hat-“ he and Luffy began to crawl, dragging themselves toward their respective treasures. When they had reached them, Buggy laughed, God could he fail upwards.

That’s when you three made your advance, you, Zoro, and Nami circling Buggy like sharks, “You want a piece of me?” Buggy called, “Let’s see what you got!”

Zoro tried to chop off Buggy’s head, but it just popped off then back on again, causing all of your faces to scowl in confusion. “Chop Chop Fruit.” You called.

“Very good, Doll Face!” Buggy exclaimed, “Surprise, Shithead!” Buggy began to separate into smaller and smaller pieces, flying around you three.

“Cutting him won’t work.” You stated, twirling the knife in your hand, thinking. Thinking of nothing good, of course, a wicked grin appearing on your face.

The flying limbs and body parts flew all around you, pushing Zoro and Nami out of the ring. You tried your best to dodge them, but you got hit back by a few before finding Buggy’s rhythm, bobbing and weaving with him. Unfortunately, he noticed, and sent a hand out to drag you to the ground, away from the others. You landed hard against a supply of chests and crates. Perfect.

Luffy rose to the challenge, invoking Buggy’s Chop Chop Cannon, and dodging expertly, pinning the clown’s torso to the ground before one of his fists came flying in from the side, toppling Luffy off of him. Luffy popped right up, only for Buggy to send a fist full of knives at his head, catching Luffy’s hat when he ducked.

‘Oh, shit.’ You thought. ‘Buggy might be fucked. What a shame. I kinda wanted to see him again.’

Luffy’s eyes were wide, panic and rage flickering through them as he tried to pick it up, only to be tripped and pinned by Buggy. Your captain met your eye, which you immediately swung open one of the chests, and he got the hint, that brilliant boy. “Nami! The crates!” he choked out.

Nami’s head whipped to where you were, ready to go, knife in hand. Luffy stood tall, ripping Buggy’s hand off of his throat and whipping it towards Nami, who batted it right at you, who slammed it into a crate, closing it tightly before prepping the next one. And so that’s how it went, the other Straw-hats sending you pitches and hits, and you making sure they found their homes in individual crates. One particularly sneaky leg tried to go back to Buggy, but you whipped your throwing knife right at it, barely nicking him, but pinning it to the ground by the pants. You grabbed it and shoved it into a chest, sitting on it with a satisfied grin. All that was left was his head, feet, and hands.

“What did you do?!” Buggy roared, outraged.

Luffy chuckled, dusting off his poor hat, “Cut you down to size!” he laughed, infuriating the clown.

Buggy sputtered and yelled, “-you’re just a sad, lonely little boy wearing another man’s hat!”

You lowered your gaze to Buggy’s, a narrow glare. “I know who I am.” Luffy started, placing his hat back on his head. You glowed with pride as he spoke, “I am Monkey D. Luffy. And I’m gonna be the King of the Pirates!” he announced, readying himself for the final blow.

You met Buggy’s eye one more time as Luffy wound up, and you sent him a quick wink and a smile.

“GUM GUM! BAZOOKA!” and with that, Luffy slingshot the clown’s remaining pieces out of the tent.

‘Wonder when I’ll see him again.’ You wondered. ‘Hope it’s soon.’

You kept your eyes on the hole in the tent as Luffy picked up the map, handing it off to Nami. You stiffened for a moment, apprehensive with her after the stunt she pulled.

“You’re trusting me with this?” Nami asked, taking the map into her hands.

“You’re the navigator.” Luffy insisted.

They shared a little moment, holding each other’s eye, a passage of understanding between them.

Zoro cut in, puffing out a quiet, “Let’s get out of this clown show.”

You smirked, “Should I take offence, Zoro?” you teased.

Zoro rolled his eyes, “Quiet, woman.” He barked, all of you heading towards an exit.

“Wait!” Luffy exclaims, and your eyes landed again on the face of the woman in the crowd. “We have one more thing to do.” You and the woman exchanged smiles.

“Hey, Luffy.” You said, sitting next to your captain on the deck of your small “ship”. The young captain was wearing the straw hat again, repaired by Nami.

He smiled up at you, watching the waves. It was just you two out there, the other two working inside. “Should I stop calling you Clown Lady?” Luffy asked, peering up at you, squinting in the evening sun.

You smiled, teeth and all, stroking the young boy’s nape, “You don’t have to.” You start, poking his cheek with your free hand, “I don’t mind being Clown Lady. Especially not for you, Captain.”

Luffy sat up and his eyes got that sparkle, he had an idea. “Maybe that’s what you could do! Be a clown!” he volunteered, gesturing wildly with his words, your shoulders shaking in laughter. “Clowns do all kinds of stuff! You could do all the stuff you wanna do!”

“I could also…just do them and not be a clown.” You chide, pinching his side, “Besides, you don’t have to worry about me and my silly dreams. Okay, Luffy? Focus on yours. You might actually achieve yours.” You say, taking the boy into a side hug, his head under your cheek.

You could feel him scowl under you, “You’ll achieve your dream,” Luffy said, using your government name to prove his point.

You barked out a laugh, “That might’ve been the first time you said my name!” Luffy shrugged and chuckled, wrapping an arm around you too, a comfortable silence filling the deck, the only sound was the sounds of the sea, calm and cool. You took a moment to look at Luffy, specifically that hat. That hat niggled at the back of your skull like a song you couldn’t remember the name of, why was it so familiar? “Say, Luffy.” He hummed in acknowledgment, “Where’d you get this hat from?”

Luffy smiled wide and began telling tale of the Red-Haired Shanks, a man he looked up to in every way, who took care of him. As he spoke you couldn’t help the feeling of familiarity grow stronger. “Luffy.” You stopped him suddenly, craning your neck to look the boy in the eyes. “Did this Shanks guy ever tell you about a girl he met when he was young?”

Luffy shrugged noncommittally, “He talked about a lot of girls.”

You pursed your lips trying to place your words, “What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?” you asked with a chuckle.

Luffy sat up suddenly, straight as a board. “Was that you?” he asked, wide eyed.

You shrugged, “I think so. Remember those boys I told you about?” Luffy nodded eagerly, “I’m starting to think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.”

Buggy froze where he was being held by Arlong’s pirates, the itchy bag rubbing against his sensitive nose.

‘Remember those boys I told you about?’

‘I swear sometimes he might be the reincarnation of Roger himself.’

‘What about a girl who beat him in a fist fight when they first met?’

The knife.

It all made sense. It was you. The girl. Right before it all went to shit, when Roger was still around. The first girl he had a crush on, the girl he promised to see again. It’s you.

“Well, I didn’t know their names!” you exclaimed to an incredulous Luffy. “They called me Gale. Like Nightingale, one was Cardinal, and the other was Peacock! We thought we wouldn’t miss each other as much after they left if we didn’t know names. Didn’t work, but it’s what we thought.”

“Why didn’t you go with them if you liked them so much?”

You sighed, taking a pause before speaking. Buggy straightened up a bit. “I wanted to. I always liked being a pirate and everything. I just…I had-still have responsibilities. I have my duties; I must serve my family.” Lame excuse, if you ask Buggy, but what can you do?

‘I…think one of them was your Red-Haired Shanks.’

And of course, you remembered Shanks, not him.

[ryliesundertalerphubblog]

Breaking the Vow of Silence.

Hi. It’s been a long time.

I’m reposting this story here from my personal blog as it’s more relevant to the Undertale fandom, and I feel that it really should be said here.

So last night I discovered a very old chat with someone I had an extremely bad falling out with in the Undertale fandom. After reading the final messages sent to me by that person, followed by what they did to me after the friendship had ended, I feel the need to no longer keep the vow of public silence I was.... idk if saying manipulated or forced is the right word (though it sure feels like I was manipulated, back-reading with retrospect), but I was asked to keep the falling out of our friendship private and not make it public, for this person feared that if I made it public, I would end up cutting them off from their little friend group and chase them out of the fandom.

Though I will not be outing this person's nickname at the time, because this isn’t a call out. This isn't a warning to "stay away from this user" or whatever. This is just... me finally breaking that "public silence" Vow, solely for myself, to give myself as much closure as I can get.

So yeah. Here goes a random rant about probably the second worst experience I've had in my fandom experience. I will be reblogging this version to all relevant blogs. Sorry if that causes spam for anyone who might still be following these blogs for... whatever reason, but. This is a story I’ve kept inside and out of the public eye for so long that I just... sort of feel the need to.

So for the sake of this post, I will be calling the ex friend in question “Maple.

Maple and I first met in what I call the "first phase" of the Undertale fandom, and I thought we hit it off pretty well. We rped a lot, talked a lot, ectect. And we eventually had more intimate/personal discussions about our respective traumas and abuses. I loved them as my friend, and I wanted to support them in any way I could.

An incident occurred where another Sans RPer was venting to me in DMs about how a thread with a certain Chara made them uncomfortable, or that just rping with them in general was uncomfortable, I don't exactly remember. So I told them point blank to tell the Chara mun the truth and to not string them along. They did. And I think that what happened next was the Chara mun was venting to me about this, and I told them that I encouraged the mun to be honest with them. They took it to mean "I told this mun not to RP with you" and gathered a bunch of their friends to block me for it. At the time, my brain didn't math well, so I don't think I put the two incidents together. To me, it felt like I was blocked by a bunch of my rp buddies out of nowhere. So I reacted pretty poorly.

This incident, apparently, was the inciting factor in Maple's discomfort with me. A discomfort they never addressed or spoke about with me.

Oblivious to their discomfort, I continued to interact with them as normal. But their behavior started changing towards me, and I started getting weird criticisms on my blog from an anon I'm going to refer to as DOAnon, and I'll explain why in a bit. Because of my actual worst experience in fandom happening prior to Undertale, I track my rp blogs (to this day I do) so if/when I get anon hate, it can give me the information I need to go to the police if it got as bad as it did in the fandom before Undertale. So I was tracking the movements of DOAnon and my friend whom I cared for dearly was acting strange. Eventually Maple started to vent in wingdings in a server we both occupied, venting in a way that made me think they were scared of someone, that they were afraid they were going to be hurt by this person. Note, this was YEARS ago, and I had to hand translate the wingdings text to normal text just to read it. But because Maple was my friend, I pushed through to try to help them. When their vent started making me think they were being harassed, I confronted them privately about it out of concern.

Needless to say, when they finally told me the vents were about me, I was upset.

However, because they were my friend, because I cared so much about them, I wanted to talk things out. Get to the bottom of the issue and resolve it. But Maple made it very, very clear that they didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted me out of their life, "for their own comfort," because they refused to have a discussion with me about the problem, let alone a solution.

So, deeply hurt, I reacted... well, better than I remembered reacting, actually. I was definitely upset, but my final words to them on discord weren't as vicious or biting as I remembered them to be. I basically told them "You really don't want to talk about this??? Fine. Goodbye." And blocked them on everything I could think of. If they wanted me gone, I was going to stay gone.

But that wasn't the end of it.

Note I want to stress that from my perspective, Maple's discomfort and upset with me came out of nowhere. They never talked to me about it. For about a month or even more, they pretended like nothing was wrong. Hell, they vented about me to my face and it still didn't fully click they were upset at me until they said it right to my face. I had on rose colored glasses and was very, very dense.

So yeah. After your trust in someone you cared for so much was very suddenly broken like that, I did not react very well. I was emotional and impulsive and paranoid. I made a post on my RP blog saying I no longer felt safe or comfortable and that I was going on an indefinite hiatus. Apparently, Maple didn't like that, even if I wasn't talking about the details of our now-ended friendship publicly like they had asked me not to.

So Maple found the only blog I forgot to block them on and messaged me on tumblr. Now, I couldn't tell you what was said in those DMs. I was so emotionally distraught and hurt that I probably reacted a lot harsher and with a lot of venom. After all, I did what they wanted--I got out of their life, blocked them and didn't even imply that my feelings in my post were from a falling out with a friend. And they were block-evading me despite this, so I do think it was much more of an argument than the discussion on Discord. I blocked them on their account, ready to just ride the waves of my hurt until I numbed over and moved on. I told a few close friends about what happened (still then trying not to say Maple's name but some figured it out anyway, not sure if I said anything or if Maple's vague vents about me on THEIR blog tipped them off, but I'll get to those in a bit regardless) and that was as far as it should have gone.

I made a new rule about how I wasn't comfortable following people who interacted with "people I've had issues with in the past" (yes, still keeping it vague for their sake) and that I'm more than fine with rping with people regardless if they interact with them or not, I just won't follow for my own comfort, and I asked that if anyone figured out who I was talking about, to not contact me about them/not to discuss them with me. I do believe I made a general hurt vent post after that as well, on a blog barely anyone followed, but again, I still kept my friendship break-up a secret from the general public. Like I promised.

Again, apparently this was too much for them, and one of their friends messaged me on tumblr on their behalf.

I don't remember this conversation much either. Just that, I was angry, and they were being stupidly vague to me about Maple being the person they were talking about. After a fight with the friend, I blocked the friend. I then added a rule to my RP blogs to not to be a fucking asshole and use vague language to talk to me about a person you know I have a problem with.

I don't really remember much after that, but remember how I mentioned I was getting weird anons? Well, that's where this story takes a turn for the worse.

DOAnon started to get more aggressive with their asks they sent to me. I don't remember most of them, because there was just, so many passive aggressive/hate anons that I just tuned it out after a while. However, I was keeping track of them. The reason they were nicknamed DOAnon was because the tracker stated that their provider was DigitalOcean, which among other things, is a service that provides a VPN. After realizing this, and when the anon started saying things like "You chased someone out of the fandom" or used my more personal Insecurities in their attack on me, I was about 70% sure it was Maple, or a friend sent on Maple's behalf. They were hurtful and annoying, but there was a part of me that just, didn't want to believe it was Maple sending them. I wanted to have faith in that friendship, despite how it ended. I kept giving them excuses. I really tried to believe in them. There’s an inkling of me that still wants to.

I figured DOAnon would get bored and move on eventually, but they never did. They stalked me onto new rp blogs, personal blogs, and sent in annoying and hurtful stuff. They even claimed I stole an idea for a character design from Maple (not directly referencing them, of course, just calling me a thief), which bumped my suspicion from 70% to 80% that it was Maple or a friend of theirs. (To clarify I have, absolutely no idea what aspect Maple thought I was stealing, most of the design elements for the character I’m pretty sure they were accusing me of building with “stolen” assets were ideas given to me by Celest, but I digress) They were persistent, and they were annoying.

Eventually, they screwed up. They went onto a device that wasn't using the DigitalOcean VPN, and the tracker showed me that the anon was coming from Maple's state of residence. That's when I knew it was them. Even when I wanted to deny it, I knew deep down, Maple had to have been the one harassing me for... god, it was probably months after I tried to move on from this. And, god, even if I try to sound so firm here, I still want to believe it wasn’t them.

Around this time, I was made aware of the fact that Maple had been vagueposting/venting about me on their blog, a hell of a lot more than I was about them. Funny, rules for the and not for me, but I digress--I don't think they stated my name or anything, but my friends could tell immediately that Maple was talking about me. They had a goodbye post that made me out to gave chased them out of the fandom, and their description was as equally hateful towards me. (They then apparently deleted the blog and someone else took it, so if you’ve figured out who Maple is, don’t bother looking for it.)

It hurt, but the pain wasn't as bad due to how long it had been. I knew I didn't "chase them out" like they claimed--their own god damn paranoia did.

Finally, DOAnon--or, let's just call out who it was, Maple--finally took things way too far. Harassing me for months, Maple eventually sent me a link on anon to a gif image of a woman burning to death in her car.

This was the last straw. I made a public post, STILL keeping their identity a secret for, some godforsaken reason, (Oh hey look the post is still up, linky link for you guys) under the advice of law enforcement--to essentially tell them to stop stalking and harassing me, or I WILL call the police again and get them arrested. They finally stopped actively harassing me after that.

They stalked my blog after that, sure, and I made posts noting that so they would be scared off even further, but I didn't get any more anons. Finally, after being scared enough, they stopped stalking me all together.

To this day, I'm still confused about everything. Bitter too. And I want to reiterate, to stress, that this is not a call out post. This isn't aimed at them to get cancelled. This was years ago and if you know who this is about and/or figure it out... please, don’t bother. This isn’t an “Us VS Them” thing. I just needed to get this off of my chest.

I know I reacted poorly to the situation at the time and I was no innocent party. I may not have sent them anons or stalked them, but I also don't think I was entirely the victim either. Then again, maybe that's the part of me that I need to kill off--the part that keeps trying to excuse the shit Maple did to me all those years ago. There’s still a part of me that wants to apologize, and I don’t know what even for. I just want to say “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” without anything coming to my mind to even apologize for.

Again, I'm just... recounting the experience here publicly as a form of closure. As a form of letting go. I want to heal from this experience, as I never properly did. I want to trust in people, my loved ones, again. And I think by making this post, by breaking that promise of silence, I'm acknowledging that Maple was not and shouldn't have ever been considered one of those people. They might have been fine during our friendship, but the end and aftermath of it proved to me that my love in them was misplaced. Maybe I am a pure innocent victim who just reacted piss poorly to it all, or maybe I wasn't. I cannot tell you because I cannot trust my own judgement anymore. I don’t want to take credit for shit I didn’t do, but I also do want to own up to any mistakes I genuinely did make.

Sorry for the sour story all of a sudden, and seemingly unprompted. But after being reminded of my promise, how I did my best to uphold it, and how I was treated regardless--I just. Needed to break the promise.

I needed to stop respecting the wishes of someone who ended up wanting nothing more than to hurt me. That's all this is.

I... don’t even know why I want to add this, but if for god forsaken reason you find this, “Maple...” Despite what you did to me, I hope you’re well. Where ever you are. If you find yourself coming to these old blogs seeking to reignite your anger towards me, I beg of you to stop. It’s gone. It’s done. There’s nothing left for you here. I’m gone. You’re gone. We’re gone. I’ve stated several times that this is not a call out for you and I really, genuinely mean that. The promise you made me keep for all this time, though? It wasn’t fair to me, after what happened to me because of what happened with us. Remaining silent was only hurting me. I’m sure this will only make you defensive or angry, and I’m sorry. Maybe this is what I wanted to apologize for--for breaking the promise I made to you all those years ago with this post. At the idea that you might one day find this post and it spikes your paranoia or anxiety. For upsetting a metaphorical you that may have completely forgotten about me altogether and will never read these words.

Again, this isn’t an attack on you. I don’t want any more drama to come from this. I just needed to break the one thing that was keeping me from healing and learning to trust others again. I don’t want to give you trouble--I’ve kept you anonymous still for this reason, because despite how much I hate to admit it, I haven’t fully killed the part of me that loved you. I don’t want people to find you or attack you or anything. I’m sure you’re a different person now--and hopefully, a better one, with a happy life and lots of friends to make you happy. I don’t hold what happened against you. I’m hurt, and the scars you gave me haven’t healed, but I don’t hold your past self against your current self.

So if you’re still here...

Please, move on.

[msmkcreates]

AuraFell InfoDump

Hello! As some of you may already know, I have created my own AU called AuraFell! It doesn't have any Tale/Swap/Swapfell/etc counterparts yet, so this is completely new!

I'm going to dump everything I have to start with this AU below the cut. If you want to wrote or draw this AU please ask, it's still in New AU stages so I want it to be done right! But I'm very easygoing and I would love for more content to me made so don't be afraid (:

More info below the cut, it's a mess of about 7k words so bear with me!

AuraFell:

Let's start with the magic system. Most monsters have the same type of magic as regular AUs, nothing special. If they have an aura, it's weak or hard to use.

Boss Monsters, though, have Auras that are strong and super effective.

Boss monsters in this AU (that ive developed) are:

-Papyrus (Mockingbird)

-Sans (Terror)

-Asgore (Dad)

-Toriel (Auntie)

-Undyne (Shrill)

-Alphys (Professor)

-Mettaton (Signal)

-Grillby (Ozone)

-Frisk (Kiddo)

And the deceased ones with powers thus far:

-Gaster (Doctor...deceased)

-Asriel (Giver...deceased...?)

-Chara (Pal....deceased)

Nicknames! So nicknames are actually given to Boss monsters by the ones their aura effects. They all for some reason call them that name.

Aura powers fall under two categories, with subcategories. If your aura is in the same category, you're resistant to the other's power. If you have the same category AND subcategory, you're immune.

Ambient Auras: These are Auras that are area of effect, sort of. They are focused in one way or another but generally present at all times.

-Visual: This means the Ambient Aura is focused with a visual effect (flashing colors, a friendly smile, the written word)

-Audial: This means the Ambient Aura is focused with sound (humming, singing, spoken word)

Given Aura: This aura type must be administered physically somehow. It is not ever-present but can be "stowed" or "kept". The effect is imbued to an object or physically given somehow.

-Present: This means the Given Effect must be given through an item (a baked good laced with the effect, a gift, etc)

-Physical: This means the given effect must be administered through physical contact (a bite, a kiss, skin to skin contact)

Let's start with the skeleton Brothers' powers

Papyrus, AKA Mockingbird

-His Aura is called Lullaby. He makes people fall asleep. He usually does this by humming or singing. It can effect one person immediately or multiple with a delay. 

-His favorite lullaby to hum is "Hush little baby" (you know. The one where Mama is gonna buy you a Mockingbird...) and perhaps that's why everyone calls him Mockingbird

-He used to think he had no powers because he didn't know how to focus it, and his Category/Subcategory is the same as Sans AND Undyne (whom he spent the most time with) so neither were ever affected

- Category/Sub is Ambient (Audial)

Sans (Terror)

-His aura is called Modify Memory, but nobody knows that. He can speak to a sleeping person and influence their dreams, or speak a story to an woken person and they will legitimately remember that it happened that way. Again, it's most effective when focused on one person, and the details fuzz or change if he tries to stretch it to more people

-He pretends to be affected by Mock's lullaby. He's incredibly fast, agile, and strong, and he pretends he's only a good fighter when he's unconscious. This way nobody will risk a surprise knockout and they'll cooperate with him when Mock threatens to put him to sleep. He modifies people's memories so they will spread by word of mouth that the unconscious fighting is his power, not modify memory

-Category/Sub: Ambient (Audial)

Speed run through the others:

-Toriel (Auntie) makes pies or any baked good that are more addictive than any drug. Category/sub: Given (Present)

-Asgore (Dad) has Big Dad Energy and everyone wants to impress him, to an extreme. He's so strong he affects most of the Underground without knowing it, and to his horror most of the Underground seems to think that murdering others and getting stronger is the way to impress him. He focuses with spoken word but it's mostly unnecessary at this point. Ambient (Audial)

-Grillby (Ozone). Hypnosis. Pretty flame colors. Leaves his victims open to suggestion. Ambient (Visual)

-Muffet (? Nickname tbd) makes a paralyzing poison. She has figured out how to put it in her pastries but it's best delivered by bite. Given (Physical)

-Undyne (Shrill) has the command power. People follow a command from her. Longer instructions if focused on one, one simple instruction if aimed at multiples. Ambient (Audial)

-Alphys (Professor). People take whatever she says as fact as long as it's written in her handwriting. Ambient (Visual)

-Mettaton (Signal). His TV programs are brainwashing propaganda. He can convince people to buy or sell anything if they are watching him through a screen. Ambient (Visual)

-Frisk (Kiddo) radiates friendship with a smile. Ambient (visual)

-Gaster (Doctor) used to be able to say anything and people would believe him. Ambient (Audial)

-Chara (Pal) was able to convince anyone to be friendly to them no matter what they'd done. Ambient (Audial)

-Asriel (Giver) could give you a rock and you'd well up with grateful feelings. Given (Present)

So 

yeah that's the basics, that's the big peeps in that world. Basically it isn't really Asgore's fault the place is so fucked up he's just very old and powerful and the violence is mostly people trying to impress him (poorly).

Gaster is Terror and Mock's Dad but he died when they were young, 8 and barely 2. He died trying to save Asriel and Chara when he accidentally dropped a barrier-breaking theory that Asriel then took as fact because of Gaster's aura.

Toriel moved almost immediately after the children's deaths, and Asgore did his best to raise Terror and Mock until Terror was old enough to take Mock to live in their house in Snowdin (about 14 and 8 years old)

Snowdin is a really bad place now though bc Toriel (Auntie) has been giving away her pies at the ruins gates, and people are killing and hurting each other for enough G or whatever they think she wants to get the next fix. She's kinda lost it at this point, she keeps feeding them out of some twisted need to be needed

Terror was old enough and smart enough to know "yeah, let's not eat that". They're immune to Asgore's power bc they are the same types, but they still want to impress him the normal kid-wants-to-impress-dad amount so they never tell him when they need more support out of some sense of pride. 

Mock was a bit of a runt well into teenage years. His magic was very slow to grow. He got picked on a lot, kids stole his lunch money and roughed him up and such. He would hum his favorite lullabies to himself to calm his anxiety, and wouldn't you know it, but one day it put everyone to sleep!

So sometimes he doesn't even realize he's humming, he does it to calm his nerves, he a nervous bean, but he also  knows from the one time someone injured his socket that earplugs are good enough to slow his effects

He also learns pretty quickly that junkies don't sleep for long and they are way stronger than he anticipated so, he racks up some of his LV for stuff like that.

He also likes tea because his powers depend on him being able to hum/sing

[numberonephantompizza1]

Poppy Fanfic: “Ask Her”

For context: This is a fanfic I wrote in order to join the Poppy Milk dev team and show off my writing skills. Since the callout at the time said we’d need to write a lot of sidequests, I wanted to ask the question of what a Poppy-centered side-quest would be like. I got the idea that it would be from an Asker’s perspective, and everything sort of came naturally after that. Even though I’m on the dev team right now, it’s not canon to Omega Timeline: Poppy’s Story and even has some inaccuracies that contradict canon. With that said, please feel free to read the story below the cut.

---

You noticed something very different inside your room when you woke up. The lights were off and the sun hadn’t yet risen, but there was a certain… aura, coming from your door. You were filled with a certain trepidation, but… you approached it. It was hard to see in the light, but it looked… grey. 

Swallowing the lump in your throat, you stepped through...

...and found about the last person you would’ve expected. The spitting image of Frisk - CORE!Frisk, that was, looking up at you, in the middle of a white void.

“Wh- You’re real?!” you asked, dumbfounded.

“Of course I’m real. Have you been taking all this multiverse stuff for granted? Everything is real somewhere,” Core answered, simply. 

“I… I don’t… and you, me…” you panted, starting to feel a small panic attack coming on.

“Focus,” Core snapped their fingers, grounding you back in reality. Okay, this was happening now.

“Let’s get down to business. Simply: you don’t like me. And I don’t like you. But we BOTH like Poppy. Poppy, my dear, sweet angel… has unfortunately recently come to the realization that Askers ALSO exist in the multiverse. And now she wants to do a ‘meet n’ greet’ with one of her fans. Trust me, I TRIED to talk her out of it, but she can be darn persuasive when she wants to be. And as you’re now realizing, that’s where you come in. 

“I wanna make you a deal. You play along with whatever Poppy wants until she gets bored of this. If you’re on your best behavior - and that means, don’t give her anything bad, don’t tell her anything you KNOW she shouldn’t know, don’t use any magic, and be a general good influence - if you play nice, in exchange, I will allow you to hang out with ANY resident of the Omega Timeline. 

“Want to spend a day full of wacky hijinks with a Papyrus, or even an Underswap Sans? Consider it done. Want to know how Deltarune Chapter 2 plays out ahead of time? I know a Susie with your name on it. Whatever you want, so long as you play by the rules, and don’t ask for anyone obviously ridiculous. So… do we have ourselves a deal?”

You contemplated that offer, and everything that was happening, trying to suppress your inner urge to geek out for just a few moments. The Omega Timeline, Poppy, and all the AU’s you could think of and more were real. And you just got an invitation to visit them.

“Yeah, of course!” you nodded excitedly, though your enthusiasm only seemed to make Core more anxious.

“Don’t make me regret this…” Core sighed, as the whiteness seemed to melt away into a cozy-looking house with wooden floors and lime walls, where you were standing directly outside of a white door. Core seemed to have disappeared.

Technically, there was nothing stopping you from exploring. So you did just that. You walked up to a shelf with some family photos. One was a photo of Poppy, Core, Dusted and Rust all together, in some meadow, looking happy. At least, you assumed Dusted and Rust were happy, they didn’t show up well on camera. There was another photo of Poppy alone, looking somewhat younger than she did on the blog, seated on a chair in a photo that looked far more staged. She held an actual poppy flower in her hand and smiled brightly.

You opened the cabinet doors, curious of what knick-knacks you might find in there. Some crayons, a few random glass cups, some art by 3-year-old Poppy that was so poorly done its meaning was hard to decipher, and a locked box. You reached for the box--

“Getting a bit sidetracked, aren’t we?”

You jolted up, and faced Core behind you. Even though they were child-sized, they crossed their arms with the poise and authority of a stern parent. You laughed anxiously. “Ahahaha… ahaha… ha……..”

“...Strike one.” Core said, and vanished. The meaning of that was all-too clear. Deciding not to dilly dally any longer, you went to the room you suspected to be Poppy’s, and knocked. 

“Just a sec!” Poppy said, and opened the door. She looked up at you, and gasped. “Wow, Granpa really did come through…!” She twirled excitedly. “You must be my adoring fan, aren’t you?” she asked.

You stared down at the girl in stunned silence.

“To be honest, I kinda figured you’d be some gray guy with sunglasses, but that’s kinda silly in hindsight. How you doin’?” She asked that last line in a mock accent as you continued to stare.

“Baby,” you said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you quickly tried to change the subject. “Yeah, it’s… y’know, it’s great to be here…” You clasped your hands together, biting your lip. You were in an Undertale AU, faced with the AU granddaughter of another AU character. You still weren’t entirely over that. Was this fever dream? Fandom heaven, or fandom hell?

“I know! Once I heard you guys weren’t from the Omega Timeline, I realized I hadn’t met even ONE of my fans… even if you guys are super annoying some of the time.” 

“Uhhh, yeah…” you wondered if you should apologize on behalf of the askers who put Poppy in the hospital that one time. Then again, it seemed kind of awkward, and it might have been best not to bring that up while Core was watching, which was always. Looking down at the cutesy girl, it was almost tempting to pull her into a hug, but you managed to keep your composure. 

“I wanted to do something a little more special than just some sorta interview, though, because you ask me questions all the time anyways,” Poppy said. “Granpa said you’ve never been to the Omega Timeline before, so I wanna give you the big tour!” Poppy went to the door. “I’m gonna be outside when you’re ready!” She left the room.

Seeing the empty room in front of you, you were tempted to snoop again, but you’d learned your lesson after last time. You headed straight out after Poppy.

You couldn’t help but gasp in awe of the serenity of the great outdoors as you were beckoned to it. You’d been outside before, obviously, but everything just looked so… nice. The blue sky, the grassy grounds, the ornate buildings… you’ve seen this place in pixel art and a couple drawings before, but seeing it with your own eyes was another story. And the next thing for you to nearly faint at was seeing the Undertale characters running around, Sanses, Undynes, Frisks, even goat moms. 

Poppy smiled. “...It’s nice, isn’t it? I KNEW taking you on a tour was a good idea.” She smirked. “Now remember, just because this is a meet-up doesn’t mean it’s free, and there WILL be a fee at the end of our ride.”

“...Uh… I left my wallet at home,” you said, patting your pockets, “And I don’t have any, uh... ‘G,’ I think. Unless the G stands for ‘Gratitude,’ amiright?” you did finger guns.

“G stands for Gold,” Poppy corrected you bluntly, unamused. She returned to her chipper attitude just as quickly, though. “Now, let me show you around!” She led you down the street. 

Walking with her, seeing so many versions of your favorite characters in the flesh, walking around… well, the temptation to talk to SOME of them was irresistible, Core be damned. You did resolve not to go too far off-track, but you shared some words with the folks you passed by, Poppy thankfully stopping each time you did. You met two Frisks - one boy, one ambiguous - an Underswap Undyne, a human version of Toriel, and surprisingly, a version of Princess Peach.

You and Poppy approached an elegant fountain, stood upon proudly by a statue of a mustachio’d CORE!Frisk. “This is the Timeline Plaza! It’s sort of the local park, where people meet up to do... stuff. Just hang out. Make a picnic. Play ball. All that good park-y stuff, y’know? And there’s stores in all directions, so it’s pretty good.” She proudly showed off her home to you, with a smile.

You talked to more on the way to the next place. An Inverted Fate Papyrus. A weird Ralsei who said his name was “Noyno.” An Asgore wearing a hoodie, who you assumed was swapped with Sans. (Poppy did scold you a little bit for this, telling you that just because someone has a hoodie you shouldn’t assume they’re swapped. You apologized.)

“This is Grillby’s! One of them, anyways. The nearest one to my house. It’s pretty good if you want an OK burger. Sanses love the place, though. It’s… kind of unhealthy. And a little gross.” Poppy said. “Especially when they just drink… raw… ketchup.”

“Can’t handle a little ketchup?” you smiled mischievously. “We drink it by the gallon back in my universe,” you lied.

“...I really hope you’re joking,” Poppy said, alarmed.

“Am I?” you smiled brighter.

“...W-well, we’re not going in there, so you can FORGET about drinking that much ketchup!” Poppy said, afraid of the sheer power of your ketchup-drinking.

You and Poppy moved onto the next spot. You met an Underswap Alphys who seemed to be trapped in a red-and-gold palette. You met a robot dressed as a circus ringmaster, who claimed to be a Chara. You met a Dummy dressed in a Frisk shirt. (You didn’t assume it was swapped with Frisk this time, which turned out to be a mistake, because it was.) Poppy stared at you awkwardly now, wondering why you were talking to all these random strangers. Finally, you and Poppy reached your next destination.

“The theater! Where we show off all the greatest hits! Including MY movie, which, not to brag, but it’s--”

Except, you’d been distracted by a hyperdeath Asriel, and were ignoring Poppy for the moment.

“...” Poppy spoke up. “That’s what I don’t get about you.”

“Huh?” that seemed to wake you up, and you looked at her. 

“Everytime it’s always, ‘have you met Underswap Sans,’ or ‘have you met JangoTale Frisk,’ or some other weird thing. You always ask that. But… they’re just people. Why do you always assume I know some random Sans or Frisk or someone?”

“I…” you were a bit taken aback. “...I don’t… we don’t assume you know them, they’re just… they’re just important.” 

“Important?” She asked. “...I-I mean, yeah, EVERYONE’s important, but, I don’t really get what you mean…”

“They’re all--” You paused, trying to collect your thoughts, think of everything you knew from the blog, and tried to actually talk to her. “...They’re like friends to me. Kinda.”

“...You guys are friends with them? I thought you were stuck in your world…” she frowned.

“No, it’s like-- I’m not ‘friends’ with Underswap Frisk, or-- or Storyshift Frisk, or Shifty or whatever, I’m just friends with… Frisk.”

...Poppy stared at you like you just said the ground was turning to jelly, or something equally bafflingly inane. “...I… think you’re confused. Look, sometimes newcomers struggle with this. Your Frisk isn’t the only Frisk--”

“I know! It’s… You don’t get it. This world, these worlds are so special and creative, and they mean a lot to me. I know we can be really edgy, and I know we ask weird questions about Dusted and Rust, but that’s all because… because...” you paused.

Poppy looked, seeming upset about hearing her siblings mentioned in the context of ‘edgy’ questions, not seeing what you were seeing. Core, standing behind her, holding up a hand signal.

The number two.

You were getting carried away. You overstepped.

“...Um… I’m sorry.” You pulled her into a hug as Core vanished. “There’s really no reason for us to ask those questions. We can just be dumb sometimes.”

“...” She hugged back. “Yeah, it’s okay. I knew you guys were super weird and dumb before I convinced Granpa to let you in here, so I guess I should’ve seen this coming,” Poppy smiled, regaining her confidence as you did your best to not be offended at being called weird and dumb.

“Okay! I think I have just one last stop in mind to cap this tour off on a high note! Literally, hehehe…” She giggled mischievously. This time, you didn’t stop to talk to others, following her directly as you approached a peak overlooking the town. For yet another time, and probably the last, you couldn’t help but ogle at the town’s beauty. “Pretty good, right?” She sat down.

“Ha… with all the climbing, I was worried we’d fall down a mountain,” you joked. Poppy seemed to roll her eyes, as you sat beside her. “...I guess I get how you can call this place home. I mean, once I stop nerding out, anyways. You don’t see stuff like this in my… reality.”

“Just gallons and gallons of ketchup, huh?” she commented. You couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Yeah.”

And you two just stared into the distance for a while. ...She wasn’t just a character. She was a human being.

...Or, technically just a ‘being,’ scratch the human part. Still, you felt a bit desensitized to all this. And so did she. You related in that way.

“I can’t say you exactly passed with flying colors, but you fulfilled your end of the agreement well enough.”

Without any warning, you were back in a white void with CORE!Frisk, just like before. You almost forgot about the deal you made, what with all the time you spent with Poppy. You stood.

“Uh… yeah. So, my reward…” you drifted off, remembering the offer Core gave you. The chance to meet just about any AU character of your imagining… or at least, any that would be peaceful enough to be in the Omega Timeline. Which still left a WIDE variety of options…

Who did you want to see? What mattered most to you?

...

Thinking deeply… you told Core their name.

“...Oh. Really? Well, I guess it makes sense for you that you’d want to see them,” Core remarked. “I can’t guarantee they’ll give you what you’re looking for, but a deal’s a deal. Let’s head off.”

You and Core went somewhere else.

---

And that’s all she wrote! If you read this far, thank you. Working on the game since then has been fun, and I think you’ll like what we have in store. Until then, ciao.

[random-autie-fangirl]

Another headcanon done!

4. So, Chara, when they were alive, went to monster school with Asriel and as you could imagine... they were pretty much the worst teacher's pet imaginable. Someone who constantly tells on their classmates for cheating, someone who tells the teacher when the teacher almost  forgets to give homework, someone who will say they know the answer each time, and say so in the smuggest manner possible, and they will help other classmates with homework but they always seem so smug and condescending about it (and most of the time they're not even trying to be)...so basically there are a lot of reasons for Chara's classmates to dislike them. Chara just thinks the others are jealous of them. (Honestly "what, jealous?" seems to be Chara's reaction to many things sometimes including things which no-one should be jealous of).

(And, yes, I am in fact aware that this makes them a whole lot like Berdly and that’s the point. Smug teachers pet, always needing attention, needing to impress… Also goes for the kids relationships with their best friends too. Chara really does also consider themselves to be the knight in shining armour to their poor, defenceless Asriel (They. Are. A. Loser))

Okay, while Chara is adamant that cheating is bad and wrong and you should never do it but Asriel can because Asriel is their best friend. (Which makes the thing of a post-geno Chara being like "why would Asriel think he's above consequences?" rather hypocritical because while it was in a much less serious situation, Chara also acted like Asriel was above the rules). So Chara would find test answers specifically for Asriel's sake without ever looking at them themself, and Azzy and uh...I dunno about how Asriel would react honestly.

Like, I don't think he's someone who would think that cheating is something terrible, he might be worried about getting caught, but surely he thinks Chara's too smart to let that happen? Another thing is that does Asriel actually need to cheat? His variety of awards  (in Deltarune) might mean he's at least somewhat academically gifted unless those are all for extracurricular interests or skills. Like art or video games or athletics (okay, Deltarune's narration does say it's poorly drawn but we can't really be sure that's actually an objective fact and not just the narrator's opinion) but personally...I go with the idea that those awards are for the very specific hobbies he's shown to be good at, and while he's not academically bad by any means, but he isn't someone who would devote his entire life to trying (like Chara did) and he's not gonna be on an honor roll if he doesn't so...

So I think he might be happy for the help, content to just breeze through school and focus on what he actually cares about.

Except wait...you can ignore that little tangent because there's no way that Chara wouldn't just give Asriel their answers to copy off. Chara is utterly perfect at all things academic (according to Chara), Chara would never make a mistake and never has and if they ever did, it would kill them on the spot

(So, yeah, you might be realizing that Chara is a whole lot stricter with themselves than they are with Asriel, much more lenient with their idea of perfection but well…Asriel is perfect, he's the kindest person Chara knows, he adores Chara, always helps them out, always hanging on Chara's every word. Asriel is a (figurative) angel, and when an angel falls from the sky, you don't worry about whether he’s good at academics, y'know? Asriel is already such a good person that he shouldn't have to lift a finger to be good at anything else. (and Chara doesn't think he's good at anything else) He deserves all the credit and all the awards just for existing.

Also it basically circles round to being a positive trait again (in Chara's eyes) Chara would hate it if someone threatened their status as smartest person in the room, plus he's smart in other ways, going along with whatever Chara says makes him smart, doesn't it?)

(Oh, and he's royalty, being royalty inherently makes someone perfect. Just like it makes Chara perfect. On a functional, societal level, the Dreemurrs are the only ones that share Chara's status...but let's just say Chara puts waaaay more focus on that status than any of monsterkind or even humanity)

Hey, Do you have any Chara headcanons?

So technically I already have a reblogged post of Chara headcanons. Right here, within the tags. (99+) Chara neutralist squad on Tumblr

However, I most certainly have not run out of things to talk about and so...

I now present Chara Dreemurr headcanons 2: Electric Boogaloo

1. Yes, so as I said before, they have been spotted reading the dictionary cover to cover multiple times and reads english grammar books for fun. It is like they have to use one word literally nobody understands at least once a day or they will figuratively die. And of course, they would be the one to say figuratively every single time they use a metaphor or hyperbole or turn of phrase and they would get genuinely annoyed with anyone who says literally when they don't literally mean literally. Chara is the kind of kid who if someone says "can I", they will say "I don't know, can you?" like an english teacher because it's supposed to be "may I" for allowances. And, Azzy, it's supposed to be "Chara and I" not "me and Chara" ...no-one cares.

2. Something vocabulary related is that Chara absolutely, categorically refuses to swear! Apparently, contradictory to popular belief given that they're an "edgy" character, they think they are far too intelligent, high-class and mature for such gauche and vulgar words (did I mention they're a loser yet?), you see, and they would definitely consider using words that mean almost nothing to be a grave insult to their extensive vocabulary.

This doesn't mean they don't have certain stock phrases they use as exclamations or insults, though, of course. "asshole" or "bitch" becomes "you complete and utter ingrate", "what the fuck/hell?" becomes "What on this good earth/What in the Angel's name?" and "fuck you" becomes "may the angel smite you dead" or "may you burn in hell forevermore" (except that since Chara Dreemurr has proved themselves able to dish out much, much worse insults than "may the angel..." (stuff like "you look horrible, why are you even alive" for example) this might just be more annoyance than genuine hatred.)

So basically, while a normal person might say "Ow! Fuck!" when they stub their toe on something, Chara "Sesquipedalian loquaciousness" Dreemurr starts up an anime villain speech at nothing in particular while Asriel giggles and possibly records in the background. (Because of Asriel's apparent love for anime, he'd probably find his sibling's way of speaking to be the coolest thing ever as well as thinking it makes Chara some sort of uber-genius (note: it does not))

3. Okay so, since they tend to fixate on being impeccable in every way, even for the smallest of things, they can get embarrassed very easily and...very dramatically. Not finding the best word for every situation (particularly if they end up saying something wrong), not getting a perfect score on the test, anyone (who isn't the Dreemurrs) seeing them when their appearance is anything less than completely spotless.

They shall freeze and go completely blood red, they shall squeal and run off to their room. They will lie face down, not making a sound, and stay there for...hours. They will not respond, they will not be consoled. They have recently learnt they're not literally the best at everything ever and no, nothing will ever be okay again.

...They'll be back to normal within a day, though, boastful and eager to impress as ever. I think at some point they do learn that maybe not being perfect isn't the end of the world...eventually. Anyway, heard someone saying that hell exists for Flowey and it is minor inconveniences and that is true but hell also exists for Chara and it is minor embarrassments.

(Yes, I am aware this is very exaggerated, it's just more fun that way)

[smells-like-mettaton]

12 and 19 for Mortal Coil Shuffle and 15, please c:

ayyyy thanks!! I'm always ecstatic to talk about mortal coil shuffle lol

12: Why did you choose to write [insert fic]? How long have you been working on it?

It started when I saw this art and absolutely loved it. The humor potential of skelebros body swap is just too good. Independently I was also wanted to do a take on saving Asriel and Chara, and somewhere along the way I decided that smushing them both together was a good idea, and it essentially because my main post-pacifist fic. Conveniently I had notes about this fic in my personal discord so I can say I started brainstorming it on January 17th of this year (2021)

Since I have my old notes pulled up anyway, I'll give you a bonus look at what some of the early planning looked like:

Undertale skelebros body swap: precanon or post canon?? [2:34 PM]Precanon: can have sans interact with Flowey. Everyone at grillbys thinking sans is pulling a prank. Papyrus trying to get sans to open up so they can get help. Probably happens because sans drank himself into oblivion or smth [2:37 PM]Post canon: get to play with Frisk's reactions. Sans is probably more willing to get help from alphys. Papyrus has a job and sans has to actually DO it because he won't let his brother get fired. Papyrus realizes just how not lazy sans is when he has to be home for a day. Swap still happens thanks to a poorly timed shortcut, probably shortcutting them out of the way of a car or smth. Undyne wants to fight sans in pap's body now that she can (no one really fought him since he has 1hp before) [2:38 PM]Alphys wants to study them since it might give her a way to transport flowey's consciousness into a different body [2:40 PM]Ok post canon it is [2:41 PM]Do we wanna have genocide bits like sans's scar?? I kind of don't want to deal with that much angst even if it would be cool. I want frisk to have never done genocide ;;

as you can see most of this is outdated now! I have never been able to stick to an outline Ever lol

19: 15 words to describe the aesthetic of [insert fic].

bodyswapping shenaniganary with a side of Feelings (yes i know this isn't 15 words shhhh)

15: Which fic that you’ve written relates to you and your personal life the most?

Settlers of Catan is pulled heavily from my family's game nights. pack the ribcage, we're not coming home was a lot of me vicariously venting about my dad before I moved out and the emotions hit closer to home than any of my other fics. (I am doing much better now don't worry ^^;)

Thanks for the asks!!

[cellydawn]

Sans is a Darkner Theory (MASTERPOST)

I know that this theory has been touched on before, but I’d like to compile all the evidence from the original post with some additional stuff I found relevant into a single comprehensive post. To preface this, I would like to remind everyone that the merchandise based on Sans isn’t canon and that though Deltarune isn’t a direct sequel to Undertale, the Deltarune FAQ confirms that connections between the two are not precluded.

I’m going to divide this theory into three parts because I want to cover all my bases and there is an extensive amount of evidence, so without further ado, let me introduce you to my completely self-indulgent crazed ramblings!

WARNING: This is very long. Also, a bunch of speculation here so read at your own discretion.

1. Sans has connections to the Deltarune universe

Let’s list off what we know for sure:

Sans instantly recognizes the Player as a human and has knowledge of the Surface.

In the conversation at MTT Restaurant, Sans confesses that he knows the feeling of wanting to go home.

According to the Snowdin Shopkeeper, Sans and Papyrus showed up one day and “asserted themselves”.

In his lost soul dialogue, Sans says that “you’ll never see ‘em again”.

During his battle, Sans reveals that he “gave up trying to go back a long time ago” and that “getting to the surface doesn't really appeal anymore, either.”

After being defeated, Sans says that he’s “going to grillbys”. In Deltarune, the first place we see Sans is at Grillby’s. Sans’s house and the restaurant in Deltarune are the same as in Undertale (except for slight alterations like the lack of snow and...��sans)

Undertale!Sans and Deltarune!Sans have identical sprites.

After talking with the Clam Girl and learning of Suzy, you can go to Sans’s workshop and find a card sticking out from the back flap of the binder, described as a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people with the words "don't forget" written in lowercase. Deltarune’s credits song is titled “Don’t Forget”.

We can safely assume that Sans came from another place that is not the underground nor the surface; Sans misses his home and his friends there (presumably the people in the picture); Susie and Suzy are related somehow. Additionally, we can speculate that Sans and Papyrus may have arrived from another dimension. It might very well be the case that Sans originated from the Deltarune universe: Sans is completely resigned to the fact that he can’t alter the past no matter how hard he tries. Deltarune’s prophecy is all about inevitability. Sans’s defeatist attitude might stem from this.

Here’s some evidence that is more debatable:

River Person warns the Player to “Beware of the man who came from the other world”. It’s possible that the man in question is Sans.

I’ve noticed this isn’t brought up as much, but Sans’s word search is from ICE-E’s, which is a brand we only see in Deltarune. As far as we know, there is no trace of this brand in the Undertale universe. It definitely doesn’t appear to be one from a newspaper—it’s a distraction given to kids at restaurants.

BONUS: There’s a wacky inflatable mascot that resembles the ICE-E’s mascot in the dog shrine found in the skelebros’ house (console version)

During Shyren’s encounter, if the Player hums twice, the flavor text describes Sans selling tickets made of toilet paper. Now, we know that all the food in the Underground is made out of magic. Magic nourishes monsters, but it doesn’t pass through their bodies as waste. Why does Sans have toilet paper? 

Alphys seems to be in-the-know about Sans’s time-space shenanigans. In the epilogue of the pacifist ending, there’s some dialogue that suggests Alphys and Sans are quite familiar with each other. Both of them want to keep this a secret for whatever reason. In a neutral ending in which Alphys becomes the ruler, she is mournful of the deaths of Undyne, Alphys, and Asgore, but is glad that “at least Sans is here”. In the MTT quiz, if you pick “Don’t Know” to the question about her crush, Alphys reveals that she has done research on alternate universes and knows they exist. Both Sans and Alphys have connections to Gaster, who is quite prevalent in Deltarune. She, along with Sans (and coincidentally, the ICE-E word-search) are affected by Fun values and have their own Fun events. It seems a little random, but what if all the Fun events are Gaster-related? Are Alphys and Sans the two people mentioned in Entry 17?

So I think all of these pieces are sufficient in establishing Sans’s connection to Deltarune, though it is still unclear whether Sans came from Deltarune into Undertale or vice versa, OR Sans showed up from yet ANOTHER universe. That’s a theory for another time, though. On to the next part!

2. Sans has abilities/properties exclusive to Darkners

Some of the basics:

Sans can teleport, that is, use “shortcuts”, as evidenced by appearing both in front and behind the character in Snowdin, going to Grillbys, chasing after Papyrus in the wrong direction during the Pacifist ending scene, etc. Though Rouxls Kaard is shown to teleport, Lancer’s style of teleporting most closely resembles Sans’s. There are multiple instances in which Lancer stays ahead despite the Player passing him (for example, Lancer sneaking a sign past the party despite there only being one way to the door).

The door to Sans’s room greatly resembles the fast-travel doors that only Darkners are able to create. If you get the key to his room, the pitch-black and seemingly-endless walkway is not dissimilar to that of the supply closet. Papyrus also happens to liken Sans’s room to “another world”. All of the weird junk could be representative of various landmarks in the dark world.

Sans can manipulate shadows as seen through his first appearance (I also like to think that this is the reason why his “eye-lights” can disappear). This is most prevalent with Ralsei, Lancer, and the King obscuring parts of their body with shadows.

Darkners have colored portraits. At first glance, you would assume Sans doesn’t have one, but his head is already—conveniently—black and white.

If that wasn’t enough, let’s take a look at Sans’s battle in the Genocide Route. The most distinguishing feature of this fight is Sans’s ability to dodge your attacks, an ability that was thought to be unique to him. As it turns out, Darkners are also able to dodge (provided that they are warned). In order to actually beat Sans, you need to tire him out, and once you have dealt the final blow, he runs away. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

I believe that Sans actually survives the encounter as well. I’ve seen people claim that when he goes off-screen, the “dusting” sound effect signifies that he dies. This is wrong. That sound effect plays at the end of every battle, regardless of whether you spared or killed an enemy. I’d like to point out that the EXP you gain from the battle does not confirm Sans’s death. If you pick on Loox, you can get 5 extra EXP stacking up to 3 times. This means that killing an enemy is not required for you to gain EXP. I’ll also include that the kill counter doesn’t go up once Sans’s battle is over. It’s believed that this is the case because of Chara’s interference, though I don’t personally agree.

Let me also present this tidbit that I see no one else talking about: unlike literally any monster in the underground (besides Flowey, but he doesn’t count), Sans HAS NO HP BAR. When he gets hit, the damage numbers are present, but the HP bar that should have appeared above him is absent. Darkners don’t have a visible HP bar when struck.

Here’s some stuff that’s a little bit more controversial/speculative:

Lancer more or less implies that Darkners bleed, though we haven’t seen any examples of this yet. Ralsei doesn’t correct him, however. We know that the monsters in the light world don’t bleed (“Does it hurt to be made out of blood?”), and Susie’s comment (“Everybody bleeds, right?”) could be read as her trying to look cool for Lancer. Then, does Sans bleed?

It has been confirmed by @nochocolate​ that the red coming out of Sans is the exact same red as his ketchup bottle. This is a deliberate choice, but it doesn’t completely deconfirm that it may be blood because we don’t have other instances of blood to compare it to. Additionally, there is a mention of both blood and ketchup from Noelle: "This isn't another trick, is it, Kris? Like when you put ketchup on your arms and told me it was blood?" This might just be Toby Fox poking fun at the fandom or intentionally misdirecting us—really, it could go either way.

Sans’s mouth doesn’t move at all while he talks. It turns out that there may be an explanation for this! In Undertale, you can see the mouths of face sprites move while words are being spoken.

However, in Deltarune, both Lightners and Darkners don’t feature moving mouths in their textboxes! In instances wherein the full-body sprites are shown (Papyrus date, Alphys date, literally all the battles), the mouths don’t move either. So while his expression rarely changes, it might turn out that Sans DOES actually move his mouth while speaking, we just can’t see it. I’m a bit iffy on this theory since it varies from monster to monster in the Light World. Moreover, in Undertale, while Mettaton’s mouth doesn’t move at all (I’m going to disregard this since he is a robot) it’s very peculiar that the same can be said for Alphys.

Seriously, why doesn’t Alphys’s mouth move at all?? This HAS to be intentional, all of the other characters with a face sprite have moving mouths. Deltarune!Alphys doesn’t have one either. This brings up more questions than answers: Are certain monsters Lightners and others not? Is Alphys a Lightner? Did her “research” on alternate universes involve her actually traversing the multiverse? Am I overthinking this? In any case, it’s more stuff linking her to Sans...

If it turns out that not all monsters are Lightners, then it makes sense that Sans is so devoted to Papyrus, assuming that Papyrus is, in fact, a Lightner. No other person’s death makes as much of a difference as Papyrus’s concerning Sans’s behavior towards you. Alternatively, if Papyrus is not a Lightner, then it stands to reason why Sans is so depressed—he has no way of fulfilling his purpose. “Sans”, after all, means “without”.

The Light World has virtually no indications of monsters being able to use magic. In Undertale, it’s stated that magic is a method of self-expression for monsters, yet the only magic we see in Deltarune is from within the Dark World. If we compare Deltarune!Toriel’s stovetop to Undertale!Toriel’s, we see that the flavor text has omitted her use of fire magic. Susie is able to send out magic ax attacks, but this is likely due to the nature of the Dark World. I need to clarify that she is not the one that casts the Pacify spell at the end of a “neutral” run; she realizes that the King is tired, and waits for Ralsei to finish the job. Her remembering Pacify is exactly what it means, and Ralsei comments on it because he is expressing surprise that she cared to remember the spell she made fun of him for. I’ll also point out that the lack of magic would be the reason why the monster-human war ended differently/didn’t even happen, therefore allowing monsters to reside on the surface. If Sans did hail from this world, he wouldn’t have magic or would have very limited magical capabilities if he isn’t a Darkner.

Here is a piece of dialogue from Sans about the Underground. Interestingly, he differentiates himself from monsters, though this could just be because he doesn’t want to lump in Papyrus with them. The King has a similar line (“Show my son the monster you REALLY are!”). Monsters are possibly complicit in Darkners’ imprisonment. Is it possible that Sans is also resentful? Do Darkners exist in Undertale?

I feel like this interaction is worth mentioning. It’s entirely possible that Darkners were sealed so long ago in the Undertale universe that nobody even remembers their existence. 

Going back to Papyrus, if Sans is a Darkner, then it’s important to mention that Papyrus is not. We see Papyrus turn to dust when he is killed. For that reason, it seems that Sans and Papyrus are not biological brothers. I think this actually makes a lot of sense given how different they look. Yes, it’s true that Sans and Papyrus both have a skeleton motif, but they don’t look remotely similar. The face shape, the jaw, the build, the height, the eyes, the nasal cavity—nothing matches! Each monster species look the same, hell, even boss monsters like Toriel and Asgore resemble each other. Compared to Papyrus, Sans seems a lot more solid (his gut) AND he’s almost completely covered up save for his face (what are you hiding under there?).

Their bone attacks are distinct as well: Papyrus’s have a more angular aesthetic compared to Sans’s rounded edges.

In comparison, Toriel, Asgore, and Asriel have the same exact fire attack.

So, if Sans is a skeleton-themed Darkner, what type would he be?

3. Sans is the Ace of Spades

This part of the theory is a bit more conjectural, but I think there is enough evidence to put this in here.

Let’s start with how Sans, Lancer, and the King are similar:

Their sprites have the same color scheme: black, blue, white, and grey.

They sport uneven and toothy grins, are round and chubby (“if you eat too many hot dogs…you’ll probably get huge like me”), and have a hood.

The spades seem to have a smile motif. The grinning “mouth” of the Card Castle has the same number of “teeth” as Sans. Additionally, you can see portraits of spade people inside the castle. They’re all smiling.

These three are the only characters that can freely shift between being completely submerged in the shadows and becoming visible. The ability to cloak their body with shadows is a trait thought to be shared by all Darkners; Ralsei, after all, exhibits this all throughout our journey. What’s interesting is that there are clear parallels to Sans, Lancer, and the Kings’ shadows: they conceal their entire form and reveal it during their first appearances.

Sans and Lancer are shown to be able to teleport. I’m bringing this up again because it seems that not all Darkners can teleport without the use of a door as indicated by Ralsei’s confusion. If Ralsei has extensive knowledge of Darkner powers, and he is unaware that Lancer can teleport, then teleportation must be an ability unique to the spades, or, at the very least, card-themed Darkners.

Sans and the King’s fights are eerily similar. You need to fight/tire them out and listen to them monologue in order to progress. A major theme of both fights is how you can’t truly spare them. Appearing worn out from the battle, they appeal for mercy. Should the Player fall for it, they launch an unavoidable attack that deals catastrophic damage. Additionally, before his fight, the King employs the use of silent text, just like Sans during his judgments and his intimidating moments. Also worth noting: in both fights, the battle box is manipulated deliberately to suit the needs of the Player (for our last attack against Sans) and the King (his weird stomach tongue latching onto the box). Sans is also capable of stretching the box as seen with the attack before his special attack.

Lancer and Sans, in particular, parallel each other quite nicely. They are both playful jokers, they both own bikes, and both of these characters have a strange relationship with food (particularly with red condiments).

The two just so happen to have stands to sell questionable foodstuffs.

Sans is evidently constantly eating:

Undyne: “And his brother kept making 100’s of midnight snacks.”

Papyrus: “GRILLBY’S… IT’S DARK AND FULL OF GREASE. PURGATORY OF FRIES… HAMBURGER ABYSS… ANYWAY, MY BROTHER PRACTICALLY LIVES HERE.”

Big-Mouth: “Sans is interesting. He has told me about all kinds of incredible foods. But, despite his knowledge, he always orders the worst burger off the menu.”

And we know that Lancer barely eats at all. He doesn’t think that having three glasses of milk as his dinner is unusual, he’s not allowed to eat the Dark Candy, he pretends to eat the salsa in the stump, and he has to get fed worms by Rouxls because his father forgot to feed him. Sans and Lancer both have terrible eating habits. I’m not sure what this is supposed to mean, but you know, food for thought.

Why the Ace of Spades:

The designs of both Lancer and the King originated from @kanotynes​ who created an entire deck of cards. The Ace of Spades does not have a distinct design.

French manufacturers standardized the four playing card suits. “Sans” and “Lancer” are both French words.

It symbolizes uncleanliness and depression (Sans’s socks and his room, the latter is pretty self-explanatory), omens (River Person’s warning, Flowey alerting us to not reveal our abilities to him, “you’re going to have a bad time”), and death (the reason for his skeletal nature).

In Blackjack, Aces have a numeric value of 1 (matching his stats) or 11 (the same number of unique pre-battle dialogue from Sans, though this may just be a lucky coincidence). The Eleventh Hour is an idiom meaning nearly too late. Sans’s fight is your last possible chance at quitting before the world ends and your game gets corrupted.

Remember that bit where Sans has toilet paper? In the Card Castle, you can see that a bathroom, the Royal Flush, is occupied. Darkners have to digest their food. On a related note, the royal flush is a poker term for an A(14), K(13), Q(12), J(11), and 10 hand. Interestingly, in the sequence before his “special attack”, we see Sans disappear and reappear at the edges of the screen 14 times (again, probably just a neat coincidence).

The ace is paradoxically the least and most valuable card (in Blackjack, Poker, etc.), paralleling Sans being the weakest and strongest enemy.

Ace of Spades also represents “an end”, and Sans is there at the end of our journey, judging us before Asgore’s fight. He is also responsible for initiating the phone calls at the end of every neutral route.

Okay, this one is a little bit of a joke. In this deleted tweet, Toby said that Sans would be too lazy for sex, causing fans to speculate that he is “ace” lol.

BONUS: Sans was originally intended to run a casino. This one’s a bit self-explanatory. Also explains his poker face.

The most important piece of evidence, however, is this: the French expression fagoté comme l'as de pique means "(badly) dressed like the ace of spades." Checks out.

On Gaster Blasters:

Gaster Blasters might have a spade motif. If you connect the natural curves of the eyes and the top of the nose ridge, you get a spade shape. The GB's crests resemble King Spade's crown and possibly the neck/shoulder part of his cape.

A GB's nose resembles King Spade's when he isn't snarling at you; this might also apply to Sans if he stopped smiling (mouth shape affects the shape of their noses). 

Also on the topic of noses, Sans, Lancer, and King Spade's noses translate to the same shape in their overworld sprites.

The fog from Snowdin, which has been theorized to be either a front-facing GB or Sans' face (and honestly I lean more towards it being Sans's face because of the eye shape) has a hidden line underneath and above the nose. Perhaps Sans resembles the Gaster Blasters and the Spades more than we anticipated?

HMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

[suzyundertale]

tumblr user suzyundertale makes a post about Suzy from Undertale

Suzy masterpost, because people need to pay more attention to Suzy. This is not a theory post, but more of a collection of information on what we currently know about the Undertale character Suzy. Of course, due to the nature of Suzy as a very mysterious character, there will be slight speculation, but hopefully it’s clear what is canon and what isn’t.

Section One: The Beginning

When Undertale first released, there was very little that we knew of the character “Suzy”. Even less than what we know now, which is impressive. The only connection we had to her was word of mouth from an NPC with no name, but known in the files simply as “clamgirl”, found in Waterfall if your “Fun” value is between 80 and 89.

When you first talk to her, she says the following:

* I'm visiting Waterfall from the city. * Synchronicity...? * My neighbor's daughter looks about your age. * Her name is "Suzy." * I feel like you two should be friends. * You have... * A neighbor's blessing!!!

(”Suzy” here is written in yellow text.)

Talking to her a second time:

* Not knowing where I live is no issue. * Fate finds a way.

And, finally, talking to her post-pacifist:

* So you never became friends with my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

(She has more dialogue, but this is all that you really need to know.)

Section Two: The Patch

In January of 2016, a couple weeks after Toby made (and subsequently deleted) a tweet about he wanted to “start something else” in 2016, a something which we now know to be Deltarune, Undertale received its first major update - version 1.01.

Here’s the relevant information.

Toby made two very, very minor changes to Clamgirl’s post-pacifist dialogue. Here is the new dialogue, with changes bolded:

* So you never met my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do today. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

He changed “became friends with” to “met” - emphasizing the fact that Suzy is not a character you can meet in Undertale.

He also added the word “today”, to emphasize the fact that this does not mean Frisk will never be able to meet Suzy.

This wasn’t the only Suzy-related thing in the version 1.01 patch, however. The patch added a well-known line of dialogue to the lab behind Sans and Papyrus’ house. Normally, when you examine a certain drawer in the lab, you get this dialogue:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of Sans with a lot of people you don't recognize.) * (He looks happy.)

However, from version 1.01 onward, if you examine this drawer after having spoken to Clamgirl, you will get this dialogue instead:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of... Huh?) * (A card is sticking out from the back flap of the binder.) * (It's a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people.) * (Written on it...) * "don't forget."

Again, I’d like to emphasize that this dialogue only appears if you’ve spoken to Clamgirl, if you know who Suzy is. In this way, the phrase “Don’t forget” is intrinsically linked to Suzy.

So, from all of this, we can gather a few things about this mysterious “Suzy” character.

She is a girl around Frisk’s age.

She lives in the capital.

She has at least one parent (who happens to be Clamgirl’s neighbor.)

Frisk is, apparently, fated to meet her.

Despite this, it is impossible to meet Suzy in Undertale.

Sans’ photo album will have a card reading “don’t forget” only if you know who Suzy is.

Section Three: Fast Approaching

Did you think that was the only Undertale update that added cryptic Suzy-related dialogue?? Guess again!

Fast-forward to September 2018. Undertale has just been released on Nintendo Switch! Almost immediately, it is discovered that the Switch version added this:

(excuse me posting my own video, but it’s really the best one on youtube...(side note; i’m not sure if she’s actually supposed to reappear when you exit and re-enter the room, that might be a side effect of me poorly emulating the game))

Anyway, this is what happens post-pacifist in the Switch version if your fun value is exactly 81. If it’s 82-89, Clamgirl has her regular dialogue from v1.01.

The Switch version of Undertale came out September (15 in Japan, 18 everywhere else) 2018 - A month and a half before the release of Chapter 1 of Deltarune. In hindsight, it’s obviously foreshadowing - but when you think about it, foreshadowing what?

A month later, we play Deltarune, and meet a brand new character named Susie. Not Suzy. (More on that distinction in a bit.) If that’s the case, why did Clamgirl claim that we were going to meet Suzy very soon? 

Well, the answer is that we don’t know.

It’s important to consider what Clamgirl says from an in-universe standpoint. It’s easy to take this line as Clamgirl talking directly to us, the player, since she’s clearly hinting towards Deltarune - but in actuality, in the game, in-universe, she’s talking to Frisk. She’s telling Frisk that they’re going to meet Suzy very soon. It’s possible that, when it comes down to it, what Clamgirl said might not apply to us at all.

Section Four: Deltarune

In October 2018, Toby Fox not only released an entire demo for an entire new video game, but a video game with a major character named Susie. Not Suzy, but Susie???? What’s going on?

Since Deltarune seems to have an alternate universe thing going on, some people believe that Susie is simply the Deltarune universe’s version of Suzy. This is definitely a possibility, but there is also reason to believe that this may not be the case.

Deltarune also introduces a new character named Catti, who is Catty’s little sister. Like Suzy and Susie, their names are pronounced the same, but spelled slightly differently. This could be hinting at the difference between the two.

As it stands, however, we currently do not know the relation between Suzy and Susie, or if any even exists.

In any case, it is likely that Suzy will be a major part of the story of Deltarune, as the main theme of the game is called “Don’t Forget”.

Bonus: A Comment From Toby

To my knowledge, the only time that Toby has ever publicly spoken about Suzy is in this tweet, since deleted (not specifically, but because Toby wiped all his tweets before a certain date), from nine days after Undertale’s release:

Unfortunately, since we’ve lost the context, it’s difficult to know who exactly “yellow kid” refers to here. The tweet was most likely in response to speculation regarding Suzy’s identity. Since Suzy’s name is written in yellow when Clamgirl speaks about her, some people assumed that Suzy may be associated with the color yellow. “Yellow kid” could be referring to Monster Kid, Frisk, or the yellow human soul. (I’ve heard people say before that this tweet is specifically in response to people speculating about Monster Kid being Suzy, but I don’t know how true that is. If anyone has any proof of this claim, let me know!)

Conclusion

Generally, when you’re writing an analysis of a character, you’re able to say more than three facts about them. There is very little we can say about Suzy, however, without delving into pure baseless speculation. Hell, we know more about Gaster, who is generally regarded as the mysterious Undertale character.

It’s very likely that we will learn more about Suzy in the future, but right now, we don’t have much to go on. However, that also means we’re free to speculate pretty much anything we want. Essentially, until proven otherwise, Suzy is whoever you want her to be..! 

[uselessheretic]

I’m sorry but this whole thing is kinda just ridiculous and I don’t get the point of any of this conversation. I understand that you made a post that was poorly worded, but the constant focus on going back to “I didn’t expect people to take it personally” feels so dismissive of my critical engagement that analyzes the show and pulls sources from the creators where instead it’s lowkey treated like I’m acting out in an overblown emotional response where at best I find this convo mildly irritating. I don’t really care if you made a post half asleep that you didn’t think through. I didn’t put much effort into making a joke about it this morning while half asleep either. Like it’s so childish and weird to repeatedly separate yourself from the post you made and excuse any issues within it as being from being half asleep, while still defending that post to the death when nobody asked you to do so.

Whatever baggage you have with Izzy stans being too sympathetic to his character or not engaging with him in the way you view as correct is whatever. It still doesn’t change the fact that it’s condescending and heteronormative to put out PSA’s to fans that “REMINDER! This character isn’t gay!” even when acknowledging that a character is confirmed by the creators to have feelings for another character of the same gender, and even when acknowledging that it makes no sense to interpret his character as straight.

Subtext vs explicit text is a weird argument that doesn’t change the fact that what I was originally responding to was the assertion that Izzy isn’t canonly gay and that this is something the fans need to keep in mind. That’s a false statement. Izzy is confirmed to be in love with Ed by David. The way his character is portrayed within the show supports this. This is a standard that would never be applied to a different character where for some reason Fang can be viewed as canonly queer but Izzy’s sexuality is something fans need to stay humble about.

The fact is, you didn’t just say “Izzy’s queerness is more subtle than others and I think that means something.” You invalidated a reading of him as being gay as if it’s something fans are reading too far into.

I don’t really care if you don’t find Izzy’s queerness to be interesting or that you think there’s other parts of his character worth exploring. It doesn’t change the fact that Izzy is canonly a boy liker and that fans are within their right to analyze him through that lens.

To summarize:

Saying Izzy isn’t canonly queer isn’t a true statement. You can talk about how that queerness is portrayed and whether its subtlety in season one means something, but that’s not the same thing. Izzy fans can focus on his relationship and gayness if they want to. It might not be what you find interesting, but who cares? Just go complain in a group chat instead of clogging the chara tags with condescending statements that aren’t true. This conversation is useless because Izzy is canonly queer and I don’t understand what your personal opinions on him and how his fans engage with that fact has to do with making bold ass claims that it’s not. It might not be your intention, but it’s still rude and irritating to see a whole paragraph complaining about popular headcanons of Izzy (including trans masc headcanons because god forbid people make trans headcanons about charas everybody knows is canonly cis) giving instructions to people to take a step back and remember an untrue fact.

post screencap:

/end post screencap

i love things like this because it just comes off as excessively homophobic like youre a supernatural actor trying to beat the gay accusations or some shit. like yeah sure izzy in the show is heavily implied to be in love with ed, and yeah sure david jenkins has said that blackhands is a love story, and yeah sure con has confirmed that izzys feelings towards ed are complicated and that hes unaware that hes in love with him, and yeah sure taika has said multiple times that all the characters in the show are queer BUT GUYS lets not get carried away with your transmasc headcanons! we cant know for SURE that izzys gay dont be silly!

[vagarius]

misukazu 21

(if you saw me fuck up the other one no you didnt)

EDIT I THINK THIS ONE GOT A LITTLE FUCKED UP TOO BUT IT’S... READABLE...

questions from this post, and answers originally written for this thread!!

If you had to change the pairing’s very first meeting, how would you change it?    their canon first meeting is already so good SHDGFLJASHG but if i had to choose a different one that's still within the context of mankai... meeting as kids and losing touch and coming back together completely different at mankai

What song fits your pairing the most?    uhhHHhhHHH i don't have a real answer but i do have a partial playlist for one of my misukazu aus and the only two songs in it are furaregai girl by sayuri and champagne's for celebrating by mayday parade and i feel like that says enough sldhgalsdhfalsh

What is your favorite AU/prompt idea/trope for your pairing?     ALL MISUKAZU AUS ARE GOOD but. i really love any au where their first meeting is in the future and both are still kind of lost but they're Older and it's hard to let themselves fall into the easy trust they find in canon. i just think that'd be neat.

Do you prefer canon ideas or do you have your own headcanons for them?     I'VE SAID THIS MANY TIMES BUT CANON MISUKAZU GIVES OFF MADE FOR EACH OTHER VIBES AND USUALLY I DON'T VIBE WITH THAT BUT THEY REALLY ARE WHAT THE OTHER NEEDS... AND I THINK EVEN IF THEY HAD TO PART THEY'D STILL BE ABLE TO BE BETTER PEOPLE BC THEY HAD MET

Favorite canon moment of them?     THERE ARE SO MANY but the one that immediately comes to mind is misumi carrying drunk kazu to bed (latest bday line) because drunk kazu is so soft and it implies that misumi wanted to wish happy birthday to kazu pretty late... what did he want to give him...

Least favorite canon moment of them?     hmm... there's not really one i can think of??? IM SORRY I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY I LOVE ALL THEIR CANON MOMENTS

Favorite headcanon trope/idea? (Your own or someone else’s)    this is somehow both vague and very specific but i think misukazu gives off this vibe: He's beautiful. I can't tell him. or "Kazu is always beautiful~" Don't call me that, Kazu thinks. I'm not. so... insecurities i guess ????? AJSHAJJD

Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics?     THIS IS GOING TO SOUND SO CHEESY but i love how /real/ they allow themselves to be around each other. misukazu at their best is when one thinks "you're you. and i love that you" and the other knows this. i just. THEY VALIDATE THE OTHER SO MUCH CRIES

Least favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics? (Can be headcannon)     this isn't a "least fav" so much as "it makes me sad" but if either of them showed any sign of not being interested anymore the other is more likely to give up then push anything. sort of like "it was bound to happen, so i'll enjoy now until they drop me" or EVEN WORSE they think the other would be better off without them and pushes them away. so yeah the fact i can see one of these happening makes me sad.

If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together?     they give off "everyone knows we're dating but us" energy but at the same time i feel like they'd acknowledge there's something and just not define it bc a) they don't need to (misumi) or b) they're too nervous to (kazu). in other words i think one day they are holding hands and misumi says "kazu? is this dating?" and kazu holds his breath before asking "do you want it to be?"

If you had to take them and plunk them into another fandom, what fandom would that be? Why?     i think theyd be hilarious in any sports animanga (kazu is manager tho bc noodle arms but maybe they bond when misumi walks him through some of his usual training menu one night - ahem. anyway) BUT ALSO horimiya au...

How hard is it write/draw your pairing? Scale of 1-10.     AJDHAJDHSF I REALLY LOVE THEM SO IT COMES PRETTY EASILY... but sometimes you try to put them in tropes and realize they would Just Not Work Like That. idk where i'm going with this. but yeah. anyway 3 for sankaku.

Is there a pairing that you think rivals them?     in terms of what i ship, i tend to ship kazu and misumi individually with a lot of dif charas AJDHAKD. but in terms of like... in-universe "rival" pairings: kazu side: tsuzukazu (maybe, lbr it would take them 273924 yrs to actually get together), kazu x someone from winter (i... have my reasons but they'd take longer than what this answer entails) misumi side: ... surprisingly none that i can think of ahdjahd

Which character of the pairing do you like more? (Would you ever pair yourself with them?)     you know that tweet that's like "sometimes a ship is just your two favs"? yeah that's misukazu for me. but if i had to choose... misumi AJDHAJHDSF I HONESTLY WASNT THAT INTO YUME UNTIL THESE TWO CAME AROUND (NOT COUNTING 707)... but yeah if they wanted to hold me in their arms i wouldn't oppose

Which character of your pairing would be the one to break up with the other? Why?     OOOOOH BOY well. i think it could be either of them. i don't think they'd break up for lack of love but too much love and wanting the other to be happy and thinking that the only way to give them that is to let them go. so i guess the question is which of them would be more likely to be selfish and hold on. thinking this way, i think misumi would be more likely to break-up, bc kazu has lots of friends who are better than him!! and misumi is more ready to leave if he thinks he needs to than kazu is. now im sad.

Are they relatable as characters or as a pairing?     THE NUMBER OF TIMES I'VE BEEN CALLED KAZU KIN... in all seriousness kazu's struggles with speaking out and (shinobi spoilers) his uncertainty over his future hit real close to home... while i don't relate as much as misumi, his struggles always manage to tear my heart into pieces... ((oversharing alert) i guess what really separates me from misumi is his struggle with his desire to connect with family who has treated him poorly... whereas im more "lol fuck you") tldr i relate to kazu slightly more LOL

Did you once/ever dislike one/both of them?     i never disliked them but i was NOT expecting either of them to shoot up so quickly into my favs list ahdjahdjf. also i started shipping them Immediately After reading summer main story so there's that

On an estimate, how many posts have you made about them?    as of september 28th 2020 i make up 11/78 fics on ao3 in the romantic misukazu tag and 2/12 in the platonic one. i may have brainrot.

What made you decide to ship them?     TBH I FINISHED THE MAIN STORY AND WENT "OH MY GOD... THAT'S MY SHIP" but now that i'm here i continue to ship them because they have the potential to bring out both the best and the worst in each other and i'm all about that

Favorite genre for them? (Angst, fluff, etc.)     angst. i just. angst hurt/comfort all the way. im so sorry babies.

lol you thought there would just be 21 ANYWAY EXTRA 1: how do they spend breaks/vacation?    they'd travel a lot when they're older!! kazunari loves to travel and misumi would follow kazunari anywhere (also, new triangles!!) so they go somewhere new whenever they have the time. however i think eventually one or both of their future careers will take them anywhere and everywhere anyway, so their "ideal vacation" might turn into an evening in, cuddling and catching up (as if they didn't already send play-by-play updates over the phone of whatever they did during the day)

EXTRA 2: first date?     i don't they ever have an explicit first date, but if asked they'll cite the time they had a picnic in the park turned triangle hunt turned accidental dip in the duck pond. at least, kazunari will. misumi just tilts his head and wonders what you mean.

EXTRA 3: gifts?     IM FEELING REALLY CHEESY SO I'M MAKING THIS ABOUT ANNIVERSARY GIFTS they both end up getting each other jewelry (although kazu was really really nervous bc he wasn't sure if misumi would wear it). kazu gets misumi a bracelet (with triangles, of course although misumi only wears it sometimes because he doesn't want to lose it) and misumi gets kazu a pair of triangle earrings "so we can match!" and kazunari combusts at the implications

EXTRA 4: sharing clothes     THEY'RE ACTUALLY AROUND THE SAME SIZE (and tend to wear baggier stuff barring kazu's skinny jeans)... but they have completely different Styles so it's still really obvious when steal each other's stuff ahdjajdkaf. as cute as kazu would look in sumi's sweatshirt i think the much more likely scenario is kazu wrapping misumi in his jackets because this boy nEVER BRINGS HIS ANYWHERE anyway just. accidental shared wardrobe misukazu.

EXTRA 5: lake house au    consider: kazunari living in a house on the shore of a lake for a summer for Art Purposes (and a little bit for Dealing With Life purposes but he's not gonna admit that) and meets his lake neighbor misumi who kazu thinks might be a ghost or spirit for a while but he actually just lives further down the lake and misumi unknowingly helps kazu with his Life Issues and maybe they fall in love

[asteriusx]

⌜MAXENCE DANET-FAUVEL, MALE, HE/HIM⌟  welcome to chatsworth academy, ASTERIUS NOWAK. it says here, that you are TWENTY-THREE, in THIRD year and that you’re here for your ARCHERY skills? is it true high school you were voted most likely to OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT, well, that’s interesting.╱  SILENT ARROWS FLYING DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO YOU, THE EERIE FEELING WHEN YOU KNOW YOU ARE BEING WATCHED, RIPPED PAGES FROM BOOKS ╳  ◤ Lis, 26, cst, she/her. ◢

alcoholism tw

Born to a middle class family, Asterius saw little of the mid-class comforts because when he was three, they lost everything they had.

Mr. Nowak was the employee of a very powerful businessman, one that drank expensive champagne with the royalty and elite. Asterius’ father was nothing but a loyal and obedient man to a boss that pretty much only cared about making his next million ( no matter the destruction left behind ).

A business didn’t go well and instead of sacrificing a couple of millions, the rich man gave away Mr. Nowak’s head and properties. Poor man, little did he know his own money and properties were also being fiddled with when he signed a bunch of contracts with little clauses.

The family was left in the street and had to move to a dangerous neighborhood that was pretty much forgotten by the gods. Mr. Nowak threw himself into the arms of cheap booze while Mrs Nowak did as much as she could to take care from Asterius and his little sister, but the desperation to have a better life and the lack of motivation from her husband usually started heated fights between the couple.

Asterius, of course, grew up with the worst company and quickly falling into thievery and little crimes to bring some food to the table and some fun into his own life. One talent that he always possessed was a strategic mind and a really good aim, something that would come in handy some years later.

He spent his life in and out detention and then in and out the police station where he would sleep a couple of nights since his family had nothing to bail him out. A busted lip and black eyes were usual on him to the point that his mother stopped asking, but remained worried nonetheless when Asterius would bring in jewelry for her that was clearly out of their reach, but he never gave any explanation.

The boy grew up hating anyone privileged and rich upon receiving nothing but patronizing looks and horrid jokes towards him and anybody who was less privileged, specially from those who knew his father’s story.  EAT THE RICH  . One night, after getting drunk and grabbing his archery kit ( you are right, it wasn’t damn cheap, but he had stolen saved enough to get one ) and some sweet words to the daughter of the range field got him some useful lessons ), he walked towards the main building of the businessman that ruined his life in first place. Poorly-made molotov bombs that never exploded, messages attached to arrows and rocks broke the crystals and he was quickly captured by security and sent to a cage for some time ( with the low risk prisoners, thank gods ).

His mother left Mr. Nowak in the meantime and after going out, Asterius went low profile for a while and pretty much decided to give it up, get a horrible job and die at 28, but OH! Hope and second chances come in the weirdest of ways. He was walking around downtown when he came across a tv add about a competition and the winner would be eligible for a scholarship in the prestige Chatsworth Academy. The idea originally disgusted him, but then his brain started to work and oh, imagine how many things he could get his hands on in there, imagine how many spilled secrets and ignorant royalty he would stumble upon; the amount of POWER he would get from gathering so much information from these dumb rich kids. The best way to destroy an enemy is to do it from the inside.

So he goes, participates and wins. Surprise surprise! One of the men in the jury was the same businessman that left his father in absolute misery; still, the man seemed oddly thrilled to throw this dirty kid into a school full of polished nice young people that would probably devour him alive. So a silent challenge is accepted: How long can Asterius Nowak last in a privileged school?

PERSONALITY

No filters whatsoever, very filthy mouthed. Never says no to a challenge even if it might kill him. Friendships weren’t very common, but he is one loyal mf and so, betrayal is the worst for him and a deal breaker in any scenario; one to sleep around if the opportunity arises, though, sweet tongue if necessary, but he will be gone by the morning and then most likely deny the fact that you guys had anything to do with each other. Asshole and one to get into petty fist fights with everybody for whatever reason. Trashed out James Dean that is secretly amazed by all of the pretty things given to him in the academy and the bed? Damn, he has never slept so well. Still hates the rich though, if you are wealthy, he is not giving you his time ( yeah, sure ). Member of the chess and martial arts clubs because you gotta keep both your mind and body trained, right? A very ANARCHY kind of mindset, always willing to make a car explode and to get in trouble.

PINTEREST

CONNECTIONS

Friends?? I guess?? He gotta get them at some point.

Flings / One night stands / fuck buddies. A d*ck with legs, that’s what he is.

People that recognize him from the archery competition maybe? Either his name moved around or your chara was in there either participating or watching.

Unrequited crushes from either side

Maybe the businessman that played his family dirty has his children in here as well? I would love to see that aaahh!

Anything else we can definitely brainstorm!

[catie-does-things]

The only problem in canon has always been Sozin/Roku timeline which was poorly thought and most likely a last minute add. Fate Deferred timeline (the story itself as well) has nothing to do with canon, it is correcting things by adding a generation in between Sozin and Azulon but it is most of all playing around chara age, Azula one year younger than Zuko instead of two. Kanna rejuvenated 10 years younger probably because you wanted Hakoda younger than he is in canon etc.

Azula is still two years younger than Zuko in Fate Deferred. Kanna’s and Hakoda’s ages are just what I decided on for them without even bothering to see if there was an official word on that.

I think in general I just tend to have characters marrying and having children younger than the show writers envisioned. Like, I felt the need to give Azulon a barren first wife to explain why he was so old even at the time of Iroh’s birth, because the idea that he just waited that long to marry/have kids really doesn’t make sense for the son and heir of a Fire Lord who would be expected to produce heirs of his own.

I do agree though that the Sozin and Roku backstory was probably added in later, because that is really what messes up the canon timeline. Before that episode, I (and presumably the writers) always assumed Sozin was a younger man at the time of the killing of the Air Nomads and start of the war.