I'm finally writing about my Sans oc, Serif; I've already started posting it on Ao3 but I wanted to post it here too so, without further ado, here's the beginning of Serif's story!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Skeleton hand is lightly alter from here
~
Chapter 2
Last Edit: 7.9.26
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*…
*that expression that you're wearing…
*…
*you're really kind of a freak, huh?
*how many times have we fought in this hallway?
*i've lost track.
*that distant look in your eyes…
*you're just going through the motions, too.
*blast, slash, dodge, repeat…
*it's getting a little old, isn't it?
*…
*what if I did something different?
...
... ...
... ... ...
My senses were dim and distant as I slowly regained consciousness.
Resets always made me feel weirdly detached from reality.
I wonder if anyone else feels that or if it's just me.
...
It's too bright through my eyelids.
Did Pap turn the light on to try to get me up?
That's not entirely unusual, but not for the first day of a new reset.
Weird.
...
I don't wanna get up.
I'm tired of watching him be so excited, only to be disappointed by that "human".
I'm tired of watching him die, helpless to stop it.
I'm tired of breathing in the dust as they shamble through the Underground.
...
Papyrus expects me to get up, though.
I groaned as I tried to open my eyes but my eyelids felt so heavy.
Everything felt heavy.
Sure, I was always exhausted, but this was worse than normal after a reset.
Come on, eyelids, it's time to be awake now.
I groaned again as I expended way too much energy just to open my eyes, only to find my vision blurry at best.
Someone was next to me; I could barely make out a white skull and red scarf.
Papyrus.
He must've gotten worried when I didn't come down.
He's saying something but it's muffled, like he's talking through a wall.
I need to wake up.
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, holding it while I willed my senses to focus on the present. Which also happened to bring a headache to my attention. That's unfortunate.
I forced my eyes open with a groan. There was Pap's worried face, alright, to my... left? The wall was supposed to be to my left, how was Pap on my left? Am I not in my bed? Where am I?
"Pap?" Was that my voice? God, I sound awful.
"Oh good, you're awake," he said softly. "I was beginning to worry."
Since when could Papyrus speak softly?!
I blinked a few more times in confusion before looking around. I was in the front room, on the couch, covered in a red blanket. That's not normal. I was in bed for the reset, I know I was, I've always woken up in my bed, why am I on the couch?!
"Easy there, buddy," Papyrus tried to sooth, placing a hand on my chest. "You were out for a while, don't strain yourself too much yet. No one is going to hurt you, I promise."
The calming tone would be nice if it was coming from literally anyone but Papyrus! It just sounded so weird coming from him and it made me uncomfortable.
"Pap, w-what's going on?" I croaked. My throat hurt so bad with every too fast breath. "Why am I here, what happened?"
"We found you half frozen on our doorstep," Papyrus said, holding up his red gloved hands in front of his chest placatingly. "You were in pretty rough shape."
He was wearing a white shirt with black sleeves.
Where the fuck is his Battle Body?!
The door suddenly opened with a bang and I was flung across the room, held up by magic somewhere over the stairs. This was not helping my panic attack.
"Papyrus, put me down!" I yelled, flailing against the magic, even though I knew it wouldn't do much. "This is not a good time for japes!"
"I-I'm sorry, I d-didn't mean to st-tartle you!" Alphys cried, standing next to Papyrus. What was she even doing here?!
"I swear to god, bro, if you do not put me down, you are gonna have a bad time!" Panic suddenly flipped to hostility as I heard the distinct sound of a Gaster Blaster forming. Shoot, I didn't mean to do that. I didn't have long to regret it, though, as I heard the sound a few more times and found myself staring at the glowing maw of several blasters directed at me. Meaning they weren't mine.
Meaning Papyrus had summoned them.
How was that possible?! Sure, he had the capacity for it but he didn't know he could, he didn't even know I could! I was so careful!
"Put me down!" I cried again. How did this escalate so fast?!
”I’m not holding you,” Papyrus said, exasperated. “You’re flying on your own.”
"What are you talking about, I can't fly!" I shot back.
"P-Pap, please put the b-blasters away!” Alphys was pulling on Papyrus’s raised arm. “Th-that's not helping!"
Didn't he promise nobody was gonna hurt me? I was about to say as much when I suddenly caught something red out of the corner of my eye and my head snapped over to it to find... a red wing? And it was attached to me?!
"Wha-!" I suddenly dropped out of the sky with a yelp, tumbled down the stairs, instinctively found my footing, and bolted for the closet under the stairs to finish my panic attack, back pressed against the door as I gasped for breath I technically didn't need. I let it happen, trying to focus on controlling my breathing rather than whatever the hell was going on outside; I could think about it later. Right now, just breathe.
Deep breaths, Sans.
That's it.
Slow it down.
Nice and easy.
I was still panting but at least it was better than before.
Progress.
I could finally register what was in front of me. It was brighter than I expected the closet to be. Roomier, too. And… tiled?
Looking around, there was a sink in front of me next to a door that I could barely see the corner of a tub through, and a washer/dryer stack thing to my left, sort of halfway into what was probably once a closet under the stairs but was now permanently open. It was a little cramped for it, but since when did we have a full bathroom down here? All we had was a shower, and I shouldn't be able to see it from what should be a closet. I stood somewhat shakily, holding onto the sink for support as I continued to breath heavily. I looked at myself in the mirror. Yup, I definitely had big, red, glowing wings attached to my back…
… And my bare ribs on full display.
I’ve been naked this whole time.
Ignoring the embarrassed blue heat on my face, I opened the dryer, thankfully finding my clothes inside, nice and warm. Black shorts on, white shirt on, oh wait, what about my about the wings? They don't feel restricted and, looking back at them, they're free as a bird. Heh. But how? I hadn't consciously made holes to accommodate them and I'm pretty sure I would've needed to at least think about the clothing magic to make a change like that. I grabbed my hoodie and returned to the mirror, watching closely as I pulled it on.
The wings fizzled out of existence for a split second before coalescing again outside of the cloth. Now that I was looking for it, I could feel the rush of the magic as it flowed back into my soul and out again, like taking a deep breath.
Convenient.
But god it felt weird.
So it looks like these wings are connected directly to my soul. Uncomfortable thought, but ok. How did this happen? I definitely didn't have them before, so what changed-?
Memories of my last fight with the human rushed back to me. We were in the Final Corridor, the Judgement Hall, when I killed them again, but they were right next to me this time so I reached for their soul as it shattered. Time and space had already begun to warp around me so I must've interrupted the Load sequence part way through but does that mean... I really absorbed it? Do I have a piece of that genocidal child in the very core of my being?!
I don't wanna look.
But I have to be sure.
I hesitated, shaky hand over my sternum. What will this mean for me if it's true? Do I have their LV? Their ExP? Their Determination? Control is supposed to be split, isn't it? That's what the Flower said. Back when he was Asriel and absorbed the first human's soul. I don't hear a voice in my head or anything. Maybe I don't have it? But the wings, where else could they have come from?
No. Stop, Sans. You're spiraling. You won't know until you check, right? So stop stalling and *CHECK.
My soul formed in my cupped hands, floating barely an inch away from my chest. The inverted heart was as bright blue as ever, with the Judge's Star attached to it, as always.
What caught my eye was the deep red stain in the center.
The image of a blue heart with a blood red teardrop burned into my sight as everything else went black.
I know we commonly associate the twins with apples for obvious reasons (sometimes even tying their scent to apples etc as i've seen in various fanfics)
BUT CONSIDER:
The apples are what's left of their mother. It's not the twin's legacy, rather than just something they were left with. Nim just dumped everything on them lowkey. It's not theirs.
What if they each had an individual fruit? Somewhat like how vocaloids tend to have their signature produce? (Miku with her leeks, Rin with her oranges, Len with Banans, Kaito with ice cream etc)
While they're not physically associated with other fruit, I did look up what some other fruit tend to mean symbolically throughout history and from what i looked at these fit the twins best in my opinion:
I think it would be a pretty cool character progression to like adopt these fruits as a way to be their own people/guardians instead of living in Nim's shadow or something.
Wait, that's actually a good idea, hold on- *furiously scribles notes...*
I had most of this info figured out already, but I'd formatted it with a bullet point list that would not have worked well with Tumblr's format. It took a bit to reformat into something legible, and I changed a few details, but here is most of the important but basic information about Frisk's Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Grandparents. Some of them are low-to-no-contact with the wider family, but I included them anyways. I may or may not add profiles for some of them, probably only those that end up being important to the story, and I think I'll just attach them with reblogs whenever that happens.
General History - Determan Family
Frisk’s grandfather, Everitt Determan, is the eldest of four children born to religious leaders in the small town of Ebott City. The two middle kids were girls and the youngest was a boy that left as soon as he was able; he went no contact and nobody really knows where he is or what he’s doing, generally pretending that he never existed or died when he left, if they talk about him at all. They lived on a fairly large property in a small house near the church building they taught at and retired almost in their 70s in 1994, leaving everything to Everitt as the oldest and (effectively) the only male heir. At 46 years old, Everitt (and more importantly his 38 year old wife, Linda) didn’t really want to move back to the small town, and neither were really very religious anyways, so he was convinced by his wife decided to remodel/renovate the church into something of a family retreat instead.
Over the years since, the small house was converted to a bar and two other buildings were built; one to house visiting families and tons of storage, the other a large garage with an apartment above it. It became something of a tradition for someone (usually young and single) to stay at the property to maintain it so everyone else could come and go as they pleased without hiring an actual groundskeeper, and eldest grandchild Merriweather is the current caretaker, staying rent free while taking online college courses.
Frisk had only been living with her for like three months before falling into the Underground; they spent the first five years with Aunt Alison, then almost three years with Aunt Annabelle, about a year with Uncle Oliver, and only a few months each with Uncle Jude, Aunt Charlette, Uncle Cyrus, and eventually Cousin Merriweather. Frisk was mostly fine with Aunt Alison, but didn't take the change well when he was sent to Annabelle, and it just kept getting worse from there.
=-=
Random Notes
I used a random number generator to give everyone a primary and secondary soul trait that I could base their personalities off of, just to make sure even those with the same primary trait felt unique.
Counting each primary and secondary as its own point, I ended up with a relatively even spread of colors, though somehow Cyan ended up being by far the most common at 16, followed closely by Yellow with 15, then Green at 14. Purple, Blue, and Red were all tied at 11, and Orange had the least with 10.
Only counting primary traits, Yellow had the most with 10, Cyan and Purple tied for second at 9, Green had 6 and Orange had 5, and trailing behind were Blue with 3 and Red with 2. I just thought the distribution was really interesting and thought I’d share.
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Even though Linda's family disowned her for getting pregnant out of wedlock, both families had a tradition of using what we might call “old timey” names, so that’s generally what I used as a guide, though there are a few exceptions.
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Determan sounds like “determine” but is also a real last name, of Germanic/Dutch origin that technically means "Son of Detmar", and is related to other real names like Dieter (Army of the People) and Dietrich (Ruler of the People).
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I have everyone's sex marked here, as gender is more unique and personal. That, and other nuanced identities like sexuality, will probably only be detailed if/when they get a profile, otherwise they aren't really important enough to the story to worry about too much.
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=-=
Family Lists, as of 2015
Grandpa Everitt Determan (67m, Green/Yellow) and Grandma Linda Determan, the family Matriarch (59f, Purple/Red)
In 1974, 26 year old Everitt got 18 year old Linda Miller pregnant at a New Year’s party and they were pressured into marriage as soon as she graduated High School, so the child wouldn’t be born out of wedlock. In his defense, Everitt didn’t realize how young Linda was at the time, since it was a college party and she really shouldn’t have been there, though Everitt was also the oldest attendee, most being 20-24. She was disowned by her family and, while she started as a submissive house wife, Linda slowly manipulated her way into being the family Matriarch, and even Everitt wouldn’t dare defy her anymore.
Their kids:
Alison Moore (41f, Green/Cyan)
Oliver Determan (40m, Yellow/Green)
Jude Determan (38m, Cyan/Blue)
Franklin Determan (37m, Purple/Red)
Clementine Determan (35f, Green Pure)
Annabelle (32f, Orange/Yellow)
Charlette (30f, Purple/Red)
Cyrus Determan (29m, Green/Cyan)
Eleanor Determan (25f, Orange/Red)
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Alison married Michael Moore and they had five kids. Michael cheated about five years ago and they divorced shortly thereafter. Michael has limited contact with his kids, as they are slowly trying to forgive him for hurting their mom, but not much contact with the rest of the family. Alison was super parentified growing up and had Frisk first and longest, but was unable to keep up with them while dealing with the divorce.
Their kids:
Merriweather Moore (23f, Cyan/Green)
Theodore Moore (22m, Cyan/Blue)
Eloise Moore (20f, Purple/Red)
Atticus Moore (19m, Cyan/Blue)
Felix (18m, Orange/Red)
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Oliver married Elizabeth White and had four kids. Oliver is the Golden Child but still managed to be the most put-together of the Determan kids. He hates that he’s very obviously his mom’s favorite and has done everything he could to make things balanced and even.
Their kids:
Hugo Determan (16m, Purple/Blue)
Oscar Determan (15m, Cyan/Green)
Ophelia Determan (12f, Purple/Blue)
Iris Determan (11f, Yellow Pure)
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Jude married Christine Walker and had five kids.
Their kids:
Violet Determan (18f, Blue Cyan)
Matilda Determan (17f, Cyan/Green)
Cora Determan (16f, Green/Cyan)
Josephine Determan (15f, Cyan/Blue)
Ezra Determan (14m, Cyan Pure)
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Franklin married Rebecca Hill and had four kids before his wife left him. He has limited contact with his kids and is the reason Frisk refused to accept the nickname “Frank”, since Franklin is kind of an asshole.
Their kids:
Augustine Determan (17m, Yellow/Orange)
Otis Determan (15m, Cyan Pure)
Vivian Determan (14f, Yellow Pure)
Amelia Determan (10f, Orange/Yellow)
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Clementine was the Scapegoat until she left at 18 and never looked back. She was, and still is (as far as they know), very single and has no intention of having kids. She exists, and might be mentioned, but she will (probably) not appear herself.
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Annabelle married Jacob Daniels and had six kids. She took in Frisk after Alison, as her kids were closer to their age, but had to leave again when Jacob died in an accident three years ago.
Their Kids:
Lewis Daniels (14m, Orange Pure)
Cecilia Daniels (13f, Green/Cyan)
Tobias Daniels (12m, Red Pure)
Twins Maisie Daniels (11f, Blue/Purple) and Arthur Daniels (11m, Yellow/Orange)
Nathaniel Daniels (7m, Yellow/Green)
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Charlette married Carl Ward and had three kids.
Their kids:
Caleb Ward (10m, Purple/Blue)
Cordelia Ward (7f, Yellow/Green)
Clarabella Ward (6f, Purple/Red)
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Cyrus married Karen Myers and had 5 kids. Karen is a sweetheart and hates the “Karen” memes.
Their kids:
Jasper Determan (9m, Purple Pure)
Archer Determan (8m, Blue Pure)
Elias Determan (7m, Orange/Yellow)
Isacc Determan (m5, Yellow/Orange)
Adelaide Determan (3f, Yellow/Green)
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Eleanor got pregnant with Frisk at 15, the father left during the pregnancy, and Eleanor barely held it together long enough for Frisk to be born, immediately giving them up before spiraling into drugs, falling in with a bad crowd, did some crime, and was tried as an adult because she just turned 18. She is currently in prison and likely to remain there for a few more years. (10 year sentence?)
Her kid:
Francis Determan (10m, Red Pure)
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=-= =-=
Timeline
1948 - Everitt Determan was born.
1956 - Linda Miller was born.
1974 - Everitt and Linda get married. Linda’s parents disown her. Alison was born to Linda and Everitt.
1975 - Oliver was born to Linda and Everitt.
1977 - Jude was born to Linda and Everitt.
1978 - Franklin is born to Linda and Everitt.
1980 - Clemintine was born to Linda and Everitt.
1983 - Annabelle was born to Linda and Everitt.
1985 - Charlette was born to Linda and Everitt.
1986 - Cyrus was born to Linda and Everitt.
1990 - Eleanore was born to Linda and Everitt.
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1992 - Merriweather was born to Alison.
1993 - Theodore was born to Alison.
1994 - Everitt’s parents retire in their late 60s. Everitt begins renovating the church.
1995 - Eloise was born to Alison.
1996 - Atticus was born to Alison.
1997 - Felix was born to Alison. Violet was born to Jude.
1998 - Matilda was born to Jude. Augustine was born to Franklin. Clemintine moved out at 18 and went No Contact.
1999 - Hugo was born to Oliver. Cora was born to Jude.
2000 - Oscar was born to Oliver. Josephine was born to Jude. Otis was born to Franklin.
2001 - Ezra was born to Jude. Vivian was born to Franklin. Lewis was born to Annabelle.
2002 - Cecilia was born to Annabelle.
2003 - Ophelia was born to Oliver. Tobias was born to Annabelle.
2004 - Iris was born to Oliver. Maisie and Arthur were born to Annabelle.
2005 - Amelia was born to Franklin. Caleb was born to Charlette. Francis (Frisk) was born to Eleanore. Frisk is taken care of by Grandma Linda for a few months until it became obvious Eleanore wasn’t going to step up and Linda was almost 50, too old to take care of a baby. Alison took Frisk in.
2006 - Jasper was born to Cyrus. Franklin’s wife divorced him.
2007 - Archer was born to Cyrus.
2008 - Nathaniel was born to Annabelle. Cordelia was born to Charlette. Elias was born to Cyrus. Eleanore does something and is tried as an adult since she just turned 18. She is given a 10 year sentence.
2009 - Clarabella was born to Charlette.
2010 - Isaac was born to Cyrus. Alison discovered her husband was cheating and divorced him. Frisk (5) is sent to Annabelle while Alison figures her own shit out.
2011 - Frisk (6) doesn’t take the change well and starts acting out.
2012 - Adelaide was born to Cyrus. Anabelle’s husband died and Frisk (7) is sent to Oliver.
2013 - Frisk (8) had begun really acting out and is sent to Jude.
2014 - Frisk (9) is sent to Charlette, since her kids are around Frisk’s age. This doesn’t work, and Frisk is only with Cyrus for a few months before being shoved onto oldest grandchild Merriwheather.
I didn't realize until somewhat recently that the ref pic I have for JumbleTale is suuuper blurry lol... I thought about trying to reupload the pictures separately, but then I decided to update them first cuz there were some things that kinda bothered me anyways, so here are the updates; a big one for height ref and some basic, general notes (mostly stolen from the original post) and I think I'll just reblog with each character's new pic and an updated profile.
First thing's first, everyone’s souls are displayed here and, while monsters do have white souls, the light they give off is tinted slightly, which reflects character traits and magic affinity; not that a monster can't learn magic that doesn't match their soul color, but it's easier to learn magic that does. That said, here's everyone's attributes and callsigns (which will all be more in-depth in their personal profiles), from left to right:
=-=
Serif Sans is Blue, Integrity, and since he's permanently displaced, he always goes by his callsign, which technically is 'Serif'.
Since he isn't native to JumbleTale, a different set of rules apply to him, but he is still associated with a soul color. Blue, or Dark Blue, is associated with Integrity; not that Serif can’t lie, he actually lies a lot, but he stays true to who he is, to his core beliefs and principles, no matter what he goes through. Which actually becomes a recurring problem, as he was forced to embrace the persona of the Lab Assistant/Test Subject that Guile forced on him for the sake of survival, and the soul piece changing him drastically, integrating into his personality rather than separate entities sharing a body. However...
“Despite everything, it’s still you.”
=-=
Papyrus is Yellow, Justice, and his callsign is Lucky 13, Lucky Papyrus, or just Lucky. It's based on his old Lab nickname as the Former Royal Scientist's 13th, and most successful, clone. He has taken the place of Sans as Judge and Sentry.
Lucky inherited his yellow soul from the Former Royal Scientist, but not what made the Scientist a boss monster. Despite being raised and trained to be a weapon, Lucky always had a strong sense of right and wrong no matter how much the Scientist tried to beat it out of him. He cares less about what’s technically legal than he does about what’s fair and equitable.
=-=
Sans is Purple, Perseverance, and his callsign is Sains, based on 'Saint' but swapping the 't' for an 's'. I'm pretty sure it had its own, parallel etymology but I can't seem to find it anymore. He has taken the place of Toriel, holed up in the Ruins.
A mix of Patient and Determined, Sains was quite adept in the realm of politics, until he best friend, King Asriel, died in his arms, causing Sains to retreat from everyone and everything. His specialty is to pick apart a problem into its component parts and recognize the intricate web of side effects a potential solution might have.
=-=
Frisk and Chara are both Red, Determination, and their callsigns are Faust and Charat respectively. Faust is the basis for a "Faustian deal with the devil" which seemed fitting, and Charat is based on 'carat' with an added 'h', the unit used to describe the purity of gold, gemstone, pearls, etc. While they retain their original positions, I 'jumbled' a lot of their personality traits.
NOTE: There are many theories that Red isn’t actually Determination, but I’m going to go with it anyways, at least until a more concrete explanation is available. And I already based their personalities on my former understanding.
The easiest way to describe Faust and Charat is to compare them to each other, so that's what I'll be doing. Despite both being very Red, Faust leans more towards Brave Orange while Charat leans more towards Persevering Purple, ending up at a more raspberry color to Faust's blood orange. While Faust is more likely to brute force a solution, Charat will step back and analyze the situation before finessing a solution. While not technically related to soul color, Faust’s lack of empathy makes him more ready, willing, and able to do literally anything it takes to accomplish his goals, no matter who he hurts along the way.
=-=
Alphys is Orange, Bravery, and her callsign is Amber Alphys or just Amber. I mostly picked it for the gold-orange color, the semi-precious 'gem' stone, and Amber Alphys rolls off the tongue really well. She takes the place of Papyrus, the Rookie trying to get into the Royal Guard.
While it might be surprising that the shy and nervous Amber could be considered 'brave', she perfectly embodies the phrase “Courage isn’t the lack of fear; it’s being scared to death and moving forward anyways”. She was trained in many of the same programs as Lucky, and was supposed to be assigned as a bodyguard and steed, likely to some politician; they bonded and Lucky made sure to extract her when the Labs collapsed after the Former Royal Scientist was erased from existence, adopting her as his little sister as he set them up in Snowdin. She can admit that she's powerful and skilled in combat, but she lacks confidence in social interactions, mostly due to lack of experience during her youth in the Labs.
=-=
Mettané (Mettaton) is technically Purple, Perseverance, and his callsign is Starling, like the pretty song bird. While his position hasn't changed, his origins have; 'blooks' are now a type of ghost-like monster that have replaced all of the Temmies of Temmie Village, and Napstablook runs what used to be the Tem Shop.
I say Starling is 'technically' purple, because he's bordering red, ending up at a hot pink/magenta color, and is surprisingly similar to Chara, who is a red bordering purple. While Starling is just as dramatic as his robotic counterparts, he inhabits a mannequin in a wheelchair (until Serif himself ends up making his robot body) and is more focused on puzzles and riddles than entertainment and fame. He finds great satisfactions in solving mysteries and detangling the mess that the Former Royal Scientist left behind has become his fulltime job now. While most interpretations of Mettaton are a bit of a gossip, Starling knows how to keep a secret, or at least how much he can get away with saying before trust is breached.
=-=
Toriel is Green, Kindness, and her callsign is Doc Toriel, because it sounds like 'doctoral', though it is sometimes shortened to Doc Tori.
The driving force behind basically everything Doc Toriel does is the deep seated need to help others. This is the main reason she accepted the title of Royal Scientist after the Labs collapsed; not because she loves science, but because she wanted to use the position to help the Lab victims as best she could. Bordering cyan, making her more of a teal/turquoise, highlights her patient and nurturing nature. This also makes her the perfect foil for Starling when working with Lab victims, bringing a gentleness Starling lacks while digging into the truth.
=-=
Asgore is Cyan, Patience, and his callsign is Asguard, a play off the Norse realm of the Gods, Asgard, and his position as Captain of the Royal Guard.
Rounding out the group, Asguard embodies patience in every aspect of his life, from training newbie Guards to dealing with the general public as a Peacekeeper to handling politics as Captain. Patience and Kindness often go hand-in-hand, so many incorrectly think he's a green, but really he just utilizes a gentle hand to get the results he wants. Asguard has no problem using force when needed, which a green might find difficult to follow through on.
=-= =-=
Some interesting notes about design choices, in no particular order, are:
Amber's coat and dress are the same colors as Lucky's vest and shirt, respectively.
Doc Toriel's apron is her Royal Scientist uniform; white lab coats were optional anyways and she likes differentiating herself from the trauma of The Labs. Before the Underground, the uniform was made of leather and styled more like a Blacksmith's apron, since that's more-or-less what the job entailed, but now days it's just sturdy brown cloth. I always did like brown and purple as a color combo.
Asguard's head and mane were really hard for me to wrap my head around for some reason, so I took a shortcut and traced Simba from The Lion King before I started messing with the design. He still looks a lot like Simba, for better or worse, but I did modify it a bit more this time around. His outfit in general was really difficult to settle on.
I swapped the stripe colors of Faust's and Charat's shirts, partially to reference their jumbled character traits, but also because I think Yellow Justice suits Faust and Purple Perseverance suits Charat better than the other way around.
Sains is the only boss monster displayed here, though Asriel, Undyne, and Gaster are all Boss Monsters as well. Boss Monster souls give off more color than their regular counterparts and this can be used to identify them as early as a few years old. In trying to expand on this I’ve come to realize that I really need to write a full post about how Boss Monsters work in JumbleTale, and probably get into monster reproduction as well.
For Starling's wheelchair, I took colors form Mettaton's original box form. Turns out, wheelchairs are really fucking hard to draw. Starling's in particular is based on a more sporty, versatile wheelchair design rather than the common hospital-style wheelchair most people think of.
Asgore and Toriel are often compared to goats but I always thought they looked like they had some lion-like traits as well. Since Doc Toriel and Asguard are not boss monsters and are not related in any way, I decided to highlight these differences by making Doc Toriel a pure goat monster and Asguard a horned lion, bordering manticore.
=-= =-=
While not pictured, I know the soul colors of several other important, or at least interesting, characters as well.
The Former Royal Scientist was a Just Yellow, which Papyrus inherited; he could 'justify' anything as being 'for the greater good'.
Queendyne, or Queen Undyne, is a Brave Orange, bordering Red, and is a bit of a political wrecking ball. She is similar to Faust in the same was Starling is similar to Charat.
Frisk’s cousin, Marriweather or Marri, took them in before they fell and is a Kind Green bordering Yellow, making her a sort of olive green, and we’ll see more of her later.
Spear Mouse (Scarf Mouse) is a True Blue while Bronze Masque (Nacarat Jester/Red Demon) is a Patient Cyan, despite his coloration.
Doggo Dodger and his protégé Tom Cat (Burgerpants) are Patient Cyan and Brave Orange respectively; they fit together like puzzle pieces.
Height: 4'8" (142 cm) (a little taller than the average Sans, who I've decided is 4'6")
Quick Description: Serif started life as a fairly average Sans that could remember Resets, eventually stealing a piece of the 8th fallen human's soul, which ejected him from his original universe and changed him in a variety of ways, the most visually obvious being a pair of glowing, red wings on his back.
Merriweather "Merri" (OC) - Faust's cousin and current human guardian
Important Relationships: Negative
Guile (Gaster) - "former employer" (EjecTale)
The Anomaly (Frisk) - "demon brat" (EjecTale)
Most of Faust's human family
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White Magic:
Bones - Basic white bullets. Duh.
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Knives - Mele weapons inherited from the Anomaly's affinity for knives. He usually summons twin butterfly swords with bone motifs. His fighting style used to be focused almost entirely on long distance attacks, but now he can switch from mostly distant attacks to close quarters, hand-to-hand combat with knives. He eventually learns to use both in conjunction to overwhelm an opponent.
He hates how natural the knives feel in his hands.
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Colored Magic:
Red - The DT injections enhanced most of Serif's base skills and abilities, which were further upgraded by absorbing the human soul piece.
Relating specifically to red magic, Serif had trained to be good at dodging to compensate for his low DF and HP, and his reaction time was enhanced by the DT injections. The soul piece further upgraded it to Danger Intuition (think "Spidey Sense"), where his body reacts automatically to threats without having to waste time consulting his conscious mind first.
Serif had always been good at reading people, and understanding the psychology of their actions/reactions came naturally to him. While the DT injections used this to help Serif predict an opponent's next move to increase his reaction speed, the soul piece upgraded this into a full blown empathic ability. I might go into more detail about his empathy's uses and limitations, but that will probably be its own post.
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Yellow - Among the many experiments Guile subjected Serif to, Guile tried to recreate a lost rite to consecrate someone into the service of the Judge, which would grant them special powers. Since the specifics of the rite were lost before the barrier went up, many poetic stories, songs, prayers, etc. to and about the divine entity were all Guile had to go on. It didn't quite work how Guile wanted it to, so the project was scrapped, though the "Judge's Star" had already been attached to Serif's soul.
When activated, Serif basically takes a back seat in his own body as "the Judge" takes over to, well, judge. He initially thinks the failed rite created some kind of split personality that is able to access the Judge's abilities that Guile had expected Serif to have control over, but the truth is much stranger and requires information he doesn't get until much, much later.
! SPOILERS !
(Kinda? I guess???)
Guile basically sold Serif's soul to the Watchers, and the Judge's Star allows them to possess Serif's body to influence a "story" more directly, as they usually take more of a hands-off approach. As a loose stand-in for me, the "Almighty Creator" of my multiverse (which I've decided to call the "emeoverse"), the Watchers had gone by many names and many titles, including the Judge for the ancient monsters of EjecTale in particular, and this rite brought Serif to the Watcher's attention. Serif is now the Watcher's favorite, which is not necessarily a good thing for Serif.
! END SPOILERS !
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Green - While Serif is technically capable of using green healing magic, he has to feel kindness towards the target, more than just the baseline care for the well-being of a random living creature, which was increasingly difficult as he became more traumatized and generally jaded. He is entirely incapable of using it on himself, usually resorting to manipulating his body magic (more below) to forcibly stitch himself back together instead.
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Cyan - Serif can summon Cyan Bone Bullets, which (I've decided) do more damage than regular white bullets, but only if the target is moving. Cyan magic requires more of a "still energy" relating to Patience, as opposed to the more energetic Brave Orange magic that Serif never quite got the hang of.
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Blue - Since it matches his soul trait, Integrity, blue gravity magic is Serif's strongest type. Gravity magic affects how gravity interacts with a target, which is usually used to either "weigh down" an opponent by increasing gravity's pull, or to reduce gravity's affects to levitate a target (usually one's self) and/or simulate flight. Serif had never really tried using it on himself, there were always other things to focus on, but he was adept at manipulating an outside target's gravity to essentially "accept" a surface besides the floor as "down" and used this to at least disorient or off balance an opponent, or at most throw an opponent around a room while slamming them into walls.
Upon absorbing the soul piece, this was upgraded into full blown flight via levitation, though it is contingent on the presence of his wings in some form or another.
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purple (KR)
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Other Magic:
Dynamis - Shortcuts. They act more like portals than simply blipping in and out of existence like most Sanses are portrayed doing, and he has to know where each entrance/exit is in relation to his own spatial position. Initially, they were more like windows that only light could pass through, though he'd just about mastered letting sound vibrations through by the time he became Guile's assistant, and Guile tried to use these shortcuts to circumvent the barrier. It didn't work but, thanks to the boost from the DT injections, he was able to get matter to pass through the opening as well. Unfortunately, Serif had resigned himself to being unable to escape the Labs by the time he accomplished that.
His range was always somewhat limited by how confidant he was about things he couldn't see, worried that he'd remembered wrong or things had moved without his knowledge, but by the time he did escape the Labs, he was able to set "anchors" if given enough time, energy, and concentration, that could help extend his range dramatically. So long as he wasn't too far away (which was difficult to manage in the cramped Underground), he could feel these anchors and be reasonably certain the area was clear, as he purposefully set them up in areas that were out of the way or hard to reach.
After absorbing the soul piece, he eventually learns he can open a "shortcut" into the Void between universes in order to hop between them. This takes all of his energy to accomplish, so he passes out for a few hours after entering a new AU, but he eventually trains to be able to stay awake for a few minutes before passing out, to make sure he gets somewhere safe first. He had ended up in some compromising situations while AU Hopping because he was vulnerable and was trying to mitigate that.
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Gaster Blasters - A skill passed down through Guile's family, and since Guile himself had no children, he taught both Serif and Cypress to use them.
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Wings - Made of conjured flesh (often called "ecto" by the fandom at large), they act more like the membranes of bat wings than the stylized bird feathers they look like, though they are hypersensitive (more on par with a tongue than regular skin) and are the source of Serif's empathy and flight abilities. They store excess magic, which can be used to sustain him or be absorbed all at once for a power boost, though without them he loses access to the flight and empathy until they return. He can manipulate their form without losing the abilities, but to make the changes more-or-less permanent, he must reabsorb them before giving them a new shape to hold. While wings are his default, and how he feels the most comfortable, the next most common forms are a set of cat ears and a tail and filling in his abdomen with a belly. These alternate forms tend to affect
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body magic manipulation
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elemental manipulation (rather weak, more info below)
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Backstory: Serif grew up as a fairly normal Sans, with his two loving parents and younger brother (callsign Cypress), until shortly after he landed a position as the personal assistant to the then Royal Scientist, Dr. W. D. Gaster (callsign Guile), at 14 years old. His parents died in a tragic accident and Guile took in Serif and Cypress, flaunted his benevolence for stepping up when he really didn't have to, he owed these kids nothing, and allowed them the time they needed to grieve away from the public eye. However, when they had decided they needed to move on, Guile wouldn't let them leave.
It was subtle at first, and both Serif and Cypress had appreciated how accommodating he was being, how he didn't push them to socialize, or even leave the Lab really, since Guile lived there anyways. Serif continued to work as his assistant, but Guile kept him safely tucked away from the others, so he wouldn't have to split his focus between his work and keeping up appearances or masking his pain. Then Guile had him testing a few things, guilting Serif into agreeing to repay him for graciously opening his home to them. By the time he started actively discouraging them from going out, always under the guise of "protecting" them, Serif realized something was wrong with the situation and confronted Guile about it.
Guile revealed that everything was going according to plan. He had noticed Serif's potential among the candidates for his assistant and had rigged the whole thing to make sure Serif got the position. He had bided his time while gaining Serif's trust, to ensure that Serif would run to him when his parents died in the "accident" he had arranged. He had made a public spectacle of taking them in, generating good will and acceptance so no one would question his decision. He used their grief to establish their alibi of preferring isolation to explain away their absence. He had slowly gotten both Serif and Cypress to accept the idea of repaying him by "helping" him with his experiments; Serif had already begun the test cycle Guile had planned for him. Their prison had been secured for some time now, but Guile had wanted to see just how long he could keep up the ruse before Serif put 2 and 2 together; Cypress was hardly stupid but Serif lacked his naiveite, and thus would always have been the one to confront him, even if Cypress did somehow figure it out first.
Now that Serif knew the truth, Guile would let him decide if he would try to shoulder the responsibilities alone, or if he would shatter Cypress' worldview and sense of security. Guile had no intention of revealing the truth to Cypress himself and would continue to play the part of the caring guardian; either Serif would tell him or he could lie and let Cypress figure it out on his own. Which would his little brother be more likely to forgive him for? Serif anguished over this decision as he continued the lie, hoping he could get them out before it would be necessary to choose, but Guile had apparently thought of every contingency, and made sure Serif was too tired to plan anything more elaborate. As much as Serif wanted the support, he couldn't bring himself to admit what was happening to Cypress in a vain attempt to shield him from the grim reality of their situation for as long as he could.
While the tests were many and varied, most of them were designed to artificially, but hopefully permanently, boost Serif's stats, capabilities, and general power output, while avoiding how long training would take and the seemingly unavoidable negative side effects increased LV tended to have. Skeleton monsters were more powerful than the average monster, though not quite to the level of a boss monster, and Serif in particular had naturally deep wells of magic reserves to draw from and a knack for picking up new skills quickly, so long as he understood the underlying principals well enough. This is a large part of why Guile had picked him as a test subject, as well as several factors that would make him easy to manipulate, such as a need for validation and an intense protectiveness for his little brother.
Guile also had a side project of documenting the limits of what a monster could endure, with the right motivation, though he usually didn't (need to) go out of his way to find horrors to subject Serif to for this specific purpose.
Guile would often use the threat of making Cypress complete a test instead if Serif ever tried to refuse, or even hesitated to jump in immediately, no matter how scared he was or negative he knew his reaction would be. Serif found out the hard way that this was no empty threat, as he was literally incapable of completing a test and was forced to watch helplessly as Cypress was pushed into it, and failed horribly because he wasn't used to the intensity. Cypress was suddenly viscerally aware of what his big brother had been going through but Serif still couldn't bring himself to talk about it.
After this, Serif began training himself to lock away his emotional reactions until it was safe to collapse, to make sure he didn't shut down during a test like that again, to make sure Guile got his precious data and end the test more quickly, only hearing the term "dissociation" when he finally started therapy in JumbleTale. He also became adept at wording his requests to modify a test in such a way that whatever would benefit Serif would also benefit Guile in some way. This didn't always work, but even when it didn't the effort amused Guile so much that he sometimes let Serif "win" anyways. Guile was also more careful about exactly how far and how fast he could push Serif; not because he cared about Serif's well being, he was literally incapable of caring for others, but he didn't want to lose everything he had invested in Serif as a test subject.
Skipping past about five years of medical and military torture, Serif panicked during a test and the resulting catastrophic failure ended up erasing Guile from existence, along with most of his research and all memory of him. Serif remembered, of course, as a result of the incrementally increasing doses of DT Guile had been injecting him with, which is the same reason he remembered both Flowey's and Frisk's Resets once those started. Serif had become so accustomed to dealing with things on his own that he instinctively kept all of this to himself until he could figure out what the fuck was happening, just playing along as if everything was fine. By the time he (mostly) figured it out, he realized that telling anyone would be not only a pointless waste of effort, but potentially dangerous if the wrong people (ie Flowey and Frisk) found out.
This eventually brings us to the Final Corridor, where a genocidal Frisk (callsign The Anomaly) was fighting Serif once again. There was no real difference between this fight and the innumerable fights before it, but when Serif killed the Anomaly this time, they happened to be right next to him and he managed to snatch a piece of it's soul as it shattered, interrupting the Load sequence and ejecting him from the universe. He landed in JumbleTale, where "Shifting Sans" begins...
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Holy shit that was so much longer than I anticipated lol... I'm gonna have to finish the rest of his profile later.
I didn't realize until somewhat recently that the ref pic I have for JumbleTale is suuuper blurry lol... I thought about trying to reupload the pictures separately, but then I decided to update them first cuz there were some things that kinda bothered me anyways, so here are the updates; a big one for height ref and some basic, general notes (mostly stolen from the original post) and I think I'll just reblog with each character's new pic and an updated profile.
First thing's first, everyone’s souls are displayed here and, while monsters do have white souls, the light they give off is tinted slightly, which reflects character traits and magic affinity; not that a monster can't learn magic that doesn't match their soul color, but it's easier to learn magic that does. That said, here's everyone's attributes and callsigns (which will all be more in-depth in their personal profiles), from left to right:
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Serif Sans is Blue, Integrity, and since he's permanently displaced, he always goes by his callsign, which technically is 'Serif'.
Since he isn't native to JumbleTale, a different set of rules apply to him, but he is still associated with a soul color. Blue, or Dark Blue, is associated with Integrity; not that Serif can’t lie, he actually lies a lot, but he stays true to who he is, to his core beliefs and principles, no matter what he goes through. Which actually becomes a recurring problem, as he was forced to embrace the persona of the Lab Assistant/Test Subject that Guile forced on him for the sake of survival, and the soul piece changing him drastically, integrating into his personality rather than separate entities sharing a body. However...
“Despite everything, it’s still you.”
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Papyrus is Yellow, Justice, and his callsign is Lucky 13, Lucky Papyrus, or just Lucky. It's based on his old Lab nickname as the Former Royal Scientist's 13th, and most successful, clone. He has taken the place of Sans as Judge and Sentry.
Lucky inherited his yellow soul from the Former Royal Scientist, but not what made the Scientist a boss monster. Despite being raised and trained to be a weapon, Lucky always had a strong sense of right and wrong no matter how much the Scientist tried to beat it out of him. He cares less about what’s technically legal than he does about what’s fair and equitable.
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Sans is Purple, Perseverance, and his callsign is Sains, based on 'Saint' but swapping the 't' for an 's'. I'm pretty sure it had its own, parallel etymology but I can't seem to find it anymore. He has taken the place of Toriel, holed up in the Ruins.
A mix of Patient and Determined, Sains was quite adept in the realm of politics, until he best friend, King Asriel, died in his arms, causing Sains to retreat from everyone and everything. His specialty is to pick apart a problem into its component parts and recognize the intricate web of side effects a potential solution might have.
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Frisk and Chara are both Red, Determination, and their callsigns are Faust and Charat respectively. Faust is the basis for a "Faustian deal with the devil" which seemed fitting, and Charat is based on 'carat' with an added 'h', the unit used to describe the purity of gold, gemstone, pearls, etc. While they retain their original positions, I 'jumbled' a lot of their personality traits.
NOTE: There are many theories that Red isn’t actually Determination, but I’m going to go with it anyways, at least until a more concrete explanation is available. And I already based their personalities on my former understanding.
The easiest way to describe Faust and Charat is to compare them to each other, so that's what I'll be doing. Despite both being very Red, Faust leans more towards Brave Orange while Charat leans more towards Persevering Purple, ending up at a more raspberry color to Faust's blood orange. While Faust is more likely to brute force a solution, Charat will step back and analyze the situation before finessing a solution. While not technically related to soul color, Faust’s lack of empathy makes him more ready, willing, and able to do literally anything it takes to accomplish his goals, no matter who he hurts along the way.
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Alphys is Orange, Bravery, and her callsign is Amber Alphys or just Amber. I mostly picked it for the gold-orange color, the semi-precious 'gem' stone, and Amber Alphys rolls off the tongue really well. She takes the place of Papyrus, the Rookie trying to get into the Royal Guard.
While it might be surprising that the shy and nervous Amber could be considered 'brave', she perfectly embodies the phrase “Courage isn’t the lack of fear; it’s being scared to death and moving forward anyways”. She was trained in many of the same programs as Lucky, and was supposed to be assigned as a bodyguard and steed, likely to some politician; they bonded and Lucky made sure to extract her when the Labs collapsed after the Former Royal Scientist was erased from existence, adopting her as his little sister as he set them up in Snowdin. She can admit that she's powerful and skilled in combat, but she lacks confidence in social interactions, mostly due to lack of experience during her youth in the Labs.
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Mettané (Mettaton) is technically Purple, Perseverance, and his callsign is Starling, like the pretty song bird. While his position hasn't changed, his origins have; 'blooks' are now a type of ghost-like monster that have replaced all of the Temmies of Temmie Village, and Napstablook runs what used to be the Tem Shop.
I say Starling is 'technically' purple, because he's bordering red, ending up at a hot pink/magenta color, and is surprisingly similar to Chara, who is a red bordering purple. While Starling is just as dramatic as his robotic counterparts, he inhabits a mannequin in a wheelchair (until Serif himself ends up making his robot body) and is more focused on puzzles and riddles than entertainment and fame. He finds great satisfactions in solving mysteries and detangling the mess that the Former Royal Scientist left behind has become his fulltime job now. While most interpretations of Mettaton are a bit of a gossip, Starling knows how to keep a secret, or at least how much he can get away with saying before trust is breached.
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Toriel is Green, Kindness, and her callsign is Doc Toriel, because it sounds like 'doctoral', though it is sometimes shortened to Doc Tori. She obviously takes Alphys' place as Royal Scientist, though more focused on chemistry than robotics.
The driving force behind basically everything Doc Toriel does is the deep seated need to help others. This is the main reason she accepted the title of Royal Scientist after the Labs collapsed; not because she loves science, but because she wanted to use the position to help the Lab victims as best she could. Bordering cyan, making her more of a teal/turquoise, highlights her patient and nurturing nature. This also makes her the perfect foil for Starling when working with Lab victims, bringing a gentleness Starling lacks while digging into the truth.
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Asgore is Cyan, Patience, and his callsign is Asguard, a play off the Norse realm of the Gods, Asgard, and his position as Captain of the Royal Guard, taking Undyne's spot.
Rounding out the group, Asguard embodies patience in every aspect of his life, from training newbie Guards to dealing with the general public as a Peacekeeper to handling politics as Captain. Patience and Kindness often go hand-in-hand, so many incorrectly think he's a green, but really he just utilizes a gentle hand to get the results he wants. Asguard has no problem using force when needed, which a green might find difficult to follow through on.
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Some interesting notes about design choices, in no particular order, are:
Amber's coat and dress are the same colors as Lucky's vest and shirt, respectively.
Doc Toriel's apron is her Royal Scientist uniform; white lab coats were optional anyways and she likes differentiating herself from the trauma of The Labs. Before the Underground, the uniform was made of leather and styled more like a Blacksmith's apron, since that's more-or-less what the job entailed, but now days it's just sturdy brown cloth. I always did like brown and purple as a color combo.
Asguard's head and mane were really hard for me to wrap my head around for some reason, so I took a shortcut and traced Simba from The Lion King before I started messing with the design. He still looks a lot like Simba, for better or worse, but I did modify it a bit more this time around. His outfit in general was really difficult to settle on.
I swapped the stripe colors of Faust's and Charat's shirts, partially to reference their jumbled character traits, but also because I think Yellow Justice suits Faust and Purple Perseverance suits Charat better than the other way around.
Sains is the only boss monster displayed here, though King Asriel, Queendyne, and the Former Royal Scientist are all Boss Monsters as well. Boss Monster souls give off more color than their regular counterparts and this can be used to identify them as early as a few years old. In trying to expand on this I’ve come to realize that I really need to write a full post about how Boss Monsters work in JumbleTale, and probably get into monster reproduction as well.
For Starling's wheelchair, I took colors form Mettaton's original box form. Turns out, wheelchairs are really fucking hard to draw. Starling's in particular is based on a more sporty, versatile wheelchair design rather than the common hospital-style wheelchair most people think of.
Asgore and Toriel are often compared to goats but I always thought they looked like they had some lion-like traits as well. Since Doc Toriel and Asguard are not boss monsters and are not related in any way, I decided to highlight these differences by making Doc Toriel a pure goat monster and Asguard a horned lion, bordering manticore.
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While not pictured, I know the soul colors of several other important, or at least interesting, characters as well.
The Former Royal Scientist was a Just Yellow, which Papyrus inherited; he could 'justify' anything as being 'for the greater good'.
Queendyne, or Queen Undyne, is a Brave Orange, bordering Red, and is a bit of a political wrecking ball. She is similar to Faust in the same was Starling is similar to Charat.
Frisk’s cousin, Marriweather or Marri, took them in before they fell and is a Kind Green bordering Yellow, making her a sort of olive green, and we’ll see more of her later.
Spear Mouse (Scarf Mouse) is a True Blue while Bronze Masque (Nacarat Jester/Red Demon) is a Patient Cyan, despite his coloration.
Doggo Dodger and his protégé Tom Cat (Burgerpants) are Patient Cyan and Brave Orange respectively; they fit together like puzzle pieces.
This AU is still one of my favorites, and one I was very proud of even before revamping it. The basic idea is that instead of Gaster being erased, Sans and Papyrus did, and Gaster has to fill the roles of both brothers in the game to still hit all of the important plot points. It is so named because Sans and Pap are "absent" and must be replaced. This post is just what happens in the Underground, as I have some history for Gaster during the human/monster war, and it ends before Frisk falls, as I'll have a different post explaining how Gaster fills those roles, as well as some fun stuff that happens once they get to the surface.
But for now...
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THE STORY SO FAR
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As the defeated monsters fled Europe across the ocean, they landed in what would eventually be known as North America, with the humans hot on their heels. They didn’t have time to establish themselves before they were sealed under Mount Ebott.
Gaster was among the refugees, having just lost his whole world and in a dissociative state, until after the Barrier went up and he slowly clawed his way out of his depression by embracing his hatred of the humans that took everything from him. He joined the Royal Guard and did quite well, befriending another young recruit, Gerson the Tortoise, but realized that feeding his hatred was more self-destructive than anything else and quit, instead turning his attention to improving the lives of the surviving monsters and eventually attaining the title of Royal Scientist. As both skeletons and tortoises have longer lifespans than most monsters, as do Boss Monsters, Gaster and Gerson maintained their friendship over the decades/centuries (however long they were down there), and Gerson was more than happy to test all of the things Gaster invented.
At some point, Asgore approached Gaster about taking on the role of Judge. He accepted.
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NOTE: I'll go into more detail about the Judge later, but in short, a Judge is "set apart" to have certain special abilities to help, well, judge. The exact powers and dominions of a Judge are obscured as much as possible, since keeping all of that completely hidden would be a futile effort, but the actual identity of a Judge is a carefully guarded secret. No one is supposed to know who the Judge is, or how many Judges there are at a given time, so they can't be targeted for favors or retaliation among other things. A Judge is also supposed to accept the veil of anonymity to help put aside their own biases while performing their duties impartially, and separate themselves from whatever Judgement they are compelled to carry out.
Asgore and Toriel were filling the role themselves until everything settled in the Underground, but now they wanted to be able to focus on the future rather than looking back to punish past actions. They picked Gaster for several reasons, including but not limited to; he's smart enough to understand the nuances of Passing Judgement; he's strong enough mentally and physically to carry out Judgements; he's already fair and logical, feeding into the required impartiality well; he hadn't aged since they'd met him so they knew he'd be around for a long time.
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As Royal Scientist, Gaster was tasked with a great many responsibilities, such as making the Underground at least livable, if not comfortable, and finding ways to escape the Underground. After Asriel’s death, he was also asked to find a way to strengthen the monster race enough to survive the war Asgore had declared on humanity. After an epidemic of monsters falling down, Gaster decided they needed a way to rebolster the population, without forcing monsters into parenthood that didn't actually want it, and turned to cloning. For the initial experiment, Gaster used his own soul as the template and supplemented the lack of partner by using the human souls they’d gathered by then, but if it worked, the goal would be to essentially take "samples" of every living monster to create "genetically" diverse children in mechanical incubators that would likely be raised in the equivalent of an orphanage, group home, or permanent dormitory.
For now, though, Gaster was determined to see these dozen clones as real people and not just experiments, so he named each clone and considered them his own children, no matter how they came into the world. Unfortunately, he hadn’t considered the possibility that they wouldn't make it, of his inability to save them, and his psyche began to unravel as he mourned each death, which piled on top of the grief from before the barrier that he’d never fully addressed.
Sans and Papyrus were the only survivors.
For just over a decade, the brothers were the only thing that kept Gaster’s cracked psyche from fully shattering, hiring Alphys as an assistant to help pick up the slack while he raised them. Despite technically being the same age, Sans took on the role of ‘big brother’ for the slightly less mature and more naïve Papyrus, and Gaster allowed them to help him around the lab if they wanted to; it gave him an excuse to be around them more, to appease his own separation anxiety, and allowed them to feel helpful and accomplished. Alphys adored them both and became something of a big sister or "cool aunt" to them.
Things were looking up, until tragedy struck as an experiment failed catastrophically, wiping not only Sans and Papyrus from existence, but any record of the other failed clones as well; it was as if he had simply decided to not go forward with the clone experiment all those years ago. Not even Alphys remembered them. With nothing to ground him anymore, Gaster was driven past his breaking point and resigned as Royal Scientist, dumping the title and responsibilities on Alphys’ young, ill-prepared shoulders, and spiraling into a deep depression.
As one of his closest friends, Gerson was very concerned by this sudden change in Gaster. Gerson didn’t remember Sans and Papyrus either, but he believed Gaster wouldn’t lie about something like this, and there was no way Gaster could fake this kind of reaction to losing them; he generally hated drama and definitely wasn't a good enough actor to pull it off. While Gerson knew Gaster could survive on his stockpiled earnings, he also knew Gaster would waste away with nothing to do, no goal to achieve; he had always been a bit of a busy-body and was now in very real danger of falling down himself. As Captain of the Royal Guard, Gerson pulled some strings and managed to secure a sentry post for Gaster in Snowdin Forest, the farthest he could physically get from both the Hotland Labs and his former residence in New Home, as both locations were now very triggering. As they had continued to spar fairly regularly over the years, Gerson knew that Gaster was physically capable of the requirements of being a Guard and that sentry positions weren’t very taxing anyways, especially so far into the forest. Gaster could continue to do something, or at least feel like he was doing something, with minimal responsibility or repercussions for failure, and still allowing himself the time and space to grieve.
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Time inevitably marched onward and many things happened over the next few years:
Alphys conducted her DT experiments, creating both Flowey and the Amalgamates
Mettaton was given his original, calculator robot body
Gerson retired, appointing his protégé Undyne as Captain in his stead
Gaster discovered Toriel behind the Ruin’s door, though he didn’t know it was her at first
The residents of Snowdin became used to Gaster and his... oddities, especially since none of it was the ‘dangerous’ kind of crazy
Other things probably happened as well, and not necessarily in this order.
Expanding on Gaster’s oddities, he continued to suffer from depression and bouts of "insanity" where he would see "ghosts" of Papyrus and Sans. Scientific evidence of their existence was "inconclusive" at best, and no one else could see or interact with them, but Gaster couldn't let go of the feeling that they were real. He did consider the possibility that he was just crazy, that he really hadn’t gone forward with the clone experiment all those years ago, that he'd been living in a delusion of raising kids that never existed, and the "ghosts" were just his mind clinging to a fantasy as he "transitioned back" to reality. However, after many tests on his own mind/psyche, Gaster firmly believes that he is perfectly sane and that Sans and Papyrus do indeed exist. Somehow.
He couldn't bring himself to dive into the science of the failed experiment yet; his hand shook, his chest tightened, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't think...
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As the new Captain, Undyne wanted to run the entire Guard through a boot-camp of sorts, in groups based on current assignments, for about a week each. There were several reasons for this decision, including, but not limited to:
Reasserting Dominance - She wanted to prove to each and every member of the Guard that she deserved this position in order to avoid insubordination and head off any attempts at mutiny before they started. Gerson had been Captain for a long time and change was always difficult.
Reintroducing Herself - She did know most of the Guards already, but that had been as their equal, not their superior. She also wanted to become more familiar with the team dynamics of the Guard Units she'd had less contact with and identify their strengths and weaknesses.
Reassessment of Positions - This would be a trial period for any new placements, if any guards wanted or needed to be reassigned to different units or change duties (like RG 01 and RG 02 wanting to be assigned as partners). She would also be making sure that every member of the Guard was up to snuff and met her standards.
Undyne would never admit it out loud, but the ‘reassessment’ was really just an excuse to try to get rid of Gaster. She hated the guy. She cited that he was a ‘drain on resources’ since she knew he got a larger paycheck than anyone else, even her (because he's the Judge, which she's not supposed to know), and she thought his depression and on-and-off alcoholism (or magic equivalent) portrayed an unprofessional image for the Royal Guard in general. More than anything, though, she blamed him for Alphys’ current mental state, and she’s not exactly wrong. Alphys and Undyne had been friends for a while before ‘The Incident’ and Alphys hadn’t responded well to the pressure of being the Royal Scientist.
During his week of training with the K-9 Unit of Snowdin, Undyne was far harder on Gaster then she had been on anyone else, but he continued to perform well enough to pass inspection. He was often sarcastic but still compliant, and even humble, never showing off but only ever doing the absolute minimum necessary to complete his given task. While grudgingly impressed that he could calculate exactly how little he could get away with, it only proved to frustrate Undyne further, as she couldn’t fire him due to underperformance; Gaster simply found this mildly amusing.
At one point, she tried to boot him for "ruining team dynamics" since he wasn’t a dog like the rest of the Snowdin K-9 Unit, but he smugly proved her wrong by displaying a modification to his natural Purple Trap Magic. It usually manifested as hand-shaped magic constructs that would grab and hold a target, limiting their movements, but they could also be applied to his own body like armor, which he then manipulated to make him look superficially like a werewolf, complete with digitigrade legs, giant clawed paws extending from his arms, and even a prehensile tail for the fun of it. The look was completed with a helmet styled after his signature Gaster Blasters. While Gaster had kind of made it up on the spot to annoy Undyne, the K-9 Unit were very impressed and suddenly much more interested in getting to know him. Gaster hesitated letting them in, as he'd been emotionally distant from almost everyone for decades, but the ghosts of Sans and Papyrus convinced him to give the dogs a chance. To his surprise, Gaster found that he didn't regret it.
Now desperate for any reason to have him canned, Undyne decided to give Gaster a private training session and said some very hurtful things in an attempt to get him to stop holding back, to see what he was really capable of when he actually applied himself. To see if he really deserved the praise Gerson had always given him. She eventually struck a nerve by bringing up the erased skele-kids, which she’d heard a bit about from Alphys, and finally got the reaction she’d been looking for; Gaster snapped and threw every ounce of magic at his disposal at her, eventually falling into something like a berserker rage in his new werewolf form. Undyne slowly began to regret her decision.
Luckily, Gerson had been on his way to see how training was going and the sounds of conflict spurred him to move faster, lobbing his hammer at Gaster’s head as he loomed over Undyne; while not quite knocked unconscious, he was stunned out of berserk mode and the constructs dissipated as he collapsed. Gerson helped both injured combatants inside Undyne’s house, tending to their wounds while sharply berating the pair. Gaster, however, barely seemed to acknowledge his existence, let alone hear his reprimand, fully dissociated now that the rage had died down. Undyne was told the full story of the skele-kids and finally started to understand the situation from Gaster’s perspective, not just Alphys’, and just how broken Gaster really was. With a newfound fire, Undyne asserted that Gaster would be allowed to retain his position as Snowdin Forest Sentry on the condition that he continue training with her personally once a week; partially to help "rehabilitate" Gaster, but also to hone her own skills against a powerful opponent now that she knew what to expect.
So he’s more useful to the Guard, of course! Totally not because she actually cared about his well-being or anything. She still blamed him for Alphys’s current mental state, after all, even if he did show remorse for leaving her to be crushed by the responsibilities.
Gaster desperately needed structure in his life, which started with Undyne’s weekly training, then extended to a "desensitization program" to help control the panic attacks he tended to get the closer he got to the Hotland Labs. He would travel through Hotland as quickly as he could in his werewolf form, channeling his ‘nervous energy’ into something productive, like running as fast as possible. He would then have a calming cup of tea and talk to Asgore about his troubles before running through Hotland again. Once back in Snowdin, he would take a walk through the forest to calm down, often talking to the "nice lady behind the door" for a while. At first, he could barely handle doing this once a month, with the goal of making them weekly as well.
It took a while to put two and two together, but Gaster did eventually figure out that Toriel was behind the door; she never mentioned it so neither did he. As he would go back and forth between the two, though, Gaster found something he could throw himself into; repairing their relationship. It had been a while since he had felt a desire to do anything, let alone something productive, and he relished the feeling. It still waxed and waned with his depression, but he considered it progress.
After wallowing in his grief for so long, Gaster was finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. He had fully accepted that Sans and Papyrus were real, that his memories were real, and decided to start looking into the failed experiment, despite how triggering it still was. He had expanded his support system from pretty much just Gerson, and maybe Asgore (and Toriel before she left), to Undyne and the K-9 Unit, hesitantly reaching out to other Snowdin residents, and even reconnecting with Alphys. He actually had goals, even if they were self-centered around his own mental health. With all of this, he managed to keep himself from falling back into alcoholism, and eventually made the classic promise to Toriel to protect the next human to exit the Ruins, both for Toriel’s sake as well as his own. Despite his still smoldering hatred of humans, he couldn’t stand the thought of being the cause of another child’s death, even a human one.
Gaster is aware of the existence of resets but doesn't know they are connected to Flowey (or eventually Frisk) and doesn’t remember them any more than anyone else. While most people chalk up to déjà vu, Gaster knows better, though he can’t really do much about it.
I had an AU idea a while ago that I just updated and wanted to share. Then I realized I could combine it with two other ideas I haven’t looked at in a while and this has suddenly become a much bigger project than anticipated. I still have some kinks to work out, and need to update the other ideas, but this bit is ready to post now and the rest will (hopefully) be coming soon.
So.
The original concept for this AU was to use everyone’s Underswap personalities but keep them in their original Undertale positions. This means that I’d have things like an Anxious and Nerdy (Royal Scientist) Undyne trying to be Captain of the Royal Guard, so I’d have to come up with a reason why someone with a nervous personality would even want to be Royal Guard at all, let alone end up as Captain, among other weirdness. Some things fell into place fairly easily, especially Undyne and Alphys for some reason, and Grillby and Muffet worked oddly well as a flamboyant barista and a speakeasy owner tucked away in the CORE somewhere. However, I struggled with most of them, either being too similar to their swap partners for their positions to distinguish them, too similar to their Undertale or Underswap counterparts, or I couldn't find a way to make their new personality make sense with their original position.
My new premise worked much better for the odd ones, let me keep a lot of what I'd already worked out, and was honestly much easier to explain and justify as being its own AU.
I Inverted the characters.
To make these new characters the inverse of the original characters, I took a few core tenets of their Undertale personalities and found an antonym that is similar to, but still different from, their Underswap personalities, making sure they were still unique while also giving me some wiggle room to play with. I laid out all three of the loose and simplified descriptions I was working with before each character section, so hopefully that’ll make more sense once we actually start getting into it.
Thus, Inverse Undertale or InverTale.
((Not to be confused with Inverted Fate, as it’s their personalities that are inverted, not their fate. I actually don’t know much about Inverted Fate, the only commonality is in name.))
I also shifted the layout of the Underground a little, just cuz. :3
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So! First things first, the new setup of the Underground! ‘Cause some of these places are important for backstories.
The Hollow Shrine {The Ruins} used to be the temperate city of Homefront {Home} until the magma that used to fill the cavern of Mt Ebott’s dormant volcano could be contained and the rest of their prison could be deemed habitable. Now, it has frozen over with ice, as it is the farthest one can get from the Underground’s main heat source. While the Ruins represented Fall, the Shrine represents Winter; a place frozen in time, dead and abandoned, unable to move on from an idealized past. There is no snow, no softness, just sharp and brittle memories devoid of warmth and life. The Hollow Shrine also somewhat represents pre-dawn darkness, the coldest time of day after cooling all night and before the sun can begin to warm the land again. The forgotten time of day, when even night owls sleep.
The Blithe Gardens {Snowdin} represent Spring, rather than Snowdin’s Winter; hope for new growth and all things green and young and alive. The Blithe Woods {Snowdin Forrest} stand between the sealed off Hollow Shrine and the settlement of Blithe Garden {Snowdin Town} itself. The Blithe Gardens are filled with gently glowing crystals that represent dawn, as the world is just starting to light up.
Greenyard {Waterfall} is pronounced similar to Vineyard and represents Summer and a general celebration of all forms of life in their prime. Greenyard houses most of the population of the Underground and produces about a third of the Underground’s food. Greenyard represents mid-day, from late morning to early evening, when the most people are awake and doing things.
Between Greenyard and Harvestead is the Vail Labs, with a public facing area {Hotland Lab} that leads back to an extensive system of labs for the Royal Scientist’s personal use {True Lab}. Some lived there, others hid their less savory projects out of the public eye, some left it completely open to the public or at least their assistants, and a few barely used them at all.
Beneath Vail Labs is the AXIS {CORE} Facility that is split into two main sections; the AXIS labs that house the science team’s more energy intensive experiments, so they could be closer to the other main section, the AXIS powerplant. Slightly off-set from the AXIS facility itself, mostly under Greenyard, is the Molten Reservoir where all of the previously mentioned magma had been sequestered, leaving the rest of the Underground in a livable, temperate state, as well as allowing them to use it as a near limitless power source. To extend the time of day metaphor, this magma is as close to a sun as they could achieve in a cave.
Harvestead {Hotland} produces most of the food for the Underground, representing the Harvest Season of Autumn rather than Hotland’s oppressive Summer, and many monsters who live in Greenyard or Homefree travel here to work. The name is a portmanteau of “harvest” and “homestead” and sounds like “harvested”. Harvestead also represents evening, just as the sun is about to set, the last useful hours of the day.
Homefree {New Home} is the capital city of the Monster Kingdom and is the largest single settlement in the Underground; Greenyard may house more monsters in total, but they live in multiple, smaller settlements scattered across the whole area, while Homefree’s population is more concentrated. Homefree is also fairly far from the Underground’s main heat source, but it’s more of a winter wonderland than an icy palace; the Land of Soft Snow and Warm Fireplaces. Asgore’s Castle is located at the far end of Homefree, between it and the Barrier. Homefree represents going home after a long day of work; spending time with loved ones and resting peacefully after sunset.
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~ Character Overviews ~
If Undertale Gaster was a mysterious but forgotten genius, and Underswap Gaster was an eccentric but sociable father, then Inverted Gaster is a friendly but broken scientist.
Gaster created two clones of himself, intending to use them as lab rats and eventually turn them into weapons if they managed to survive that long, but when they awoke he realized they weren’t just empty shells and he couldn’t bring himself to follow through (a la Mercy Plates). He lied about their origin, spinning the story that he was actually trying to solve the population issue via cloning, but since the method he used wouldn’t work on a large scale he had to shelve the idea for now, then just raised the clones as his sons.
At 10 years old, both Sans and Papyrus had expressed a desire to become stronger for various reasons, and Gaster decided they were old enough to understand, so he revealed their original purpose to them, emphasized that he loved them as his sons no matter how they came into his life, and asked if they wanted to try some of the lighter, less invasive experiments he’d initially planned for them. He wouldn’t force them into it, that would defeat the whole purpose of sparing them in the first place, but it would grant them the power they said they wanted. Plus, he did still kinda want some of the data he would’ve gotten from those tests. They were hesitant but agreed to try it out with the promise that they could back out at any time, and Gaster was very careful to explain everything to them in detail, get their consent on each part of every experiment before doing it, and constantly reaffirm their consent throughout the process. He even submitted to a few himself, run by Sans and Papyrus, but he had to be careful which ones he chose since he wasn’t young enough to bounce back like they could.
At some point, Gaster had some kind of accident that damaged his mind/soul (the monster equivalent of brain damage); his memory is now faulty at best and the science that he used to know inside and out now eludes him. He often spaces out for minutes at a time (he’s described it as “mental static” like his skull is filled with TV snow), forgets what he’s doing in the middle of doing it, and rambles about things that will only make sense to someone who is extremely familiar with the subject matter and familiar with how Gaster processes information now, but the routine of cooking and cleaning for his sons helps keep him mostly stable.
They moved to Blithe Garden, since they couldn’t live in the Vail Lab anymore, but Gaster doesn’t leave the house often, as he can be easily overwhelmed now and most of the residents avoid him anyways. Thankfully, he was never a terribly social person to begin with, so he doesn’t mind being alone most of the time. He is very kind and helpful, though, and can fix just about anything on instinct, so long as he doesn’t think about it too hard and psyche himself out, because he doesn’t consciously understand what he’s doing or why it works. People have learned to present him with something that’s broken and then distracted with conversation while his hands kind of do their own thing subconsciously. He knows they do this on purpose and appreciates being able to feel useful, even if it is a little manipulative; he considers the fixed item a fair trade for giving him a little company and listening to him ramble. He sits on his porch with a book or some small project to “advertise” that he’s “open for business” whenever he feels up to socializing.
Everyone knows what happened to Gaster but nobody talks about it, especially anywhere Sans or Papyrus might hear. The two are very protective of their disabled father.
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For lack of anywhere better to put this...
Gaster had a habit of picking up bits of magic abilities wherever he could; so long as he understood the principal behind how the magic was being manipulated, he could copy it, albeit a much weaker version. He taught Sans and Papyrus as many as he could through normal training, but some were enhanced by the experiments as well. While they may have different strengths and weaknesses, Gaster, Sans, and Papyrus can all use:
White Bone Constructs (obviously)
Both Cyan and Orange Constructs
Blue Soul Mode
Gaster Blasters (modified Yellow magic)
Green Shields and Green Healing Constructs
“Extra” Helping Hands (modified green magic) (this might require some explanation, but I’ll do that later. Maybe.)
Some Elemental Magic (though it’s too weak to be useful in combat)
From the experiments, Gaster can’t, but both Sans and Papyrus can...
... Use “gravity magic”.
Basically an upgraded Blue Soul Mode, which can only be used on things with a soul.
They can now manipulate/levitate inanimate objects that have no connection to a soul.
... Shapeshift into a Blaster Beast form.
The Blaster Beast form is slightly bigger than their base, humanoid form (about 1.5X); however, they can keep the Blaster Beast form closer to their original, humanoid size with conscious effort.
With conscious effort, they can shift only certain parts of their bodies, like a tail for balance or digitigrade legs for speed. Sometimes this happens unconsciously, like claws/fangs getting longer and/or sharper when angry.
... Apply a poison-like status effect to their attacks called KR (Karma/Karmic Retribution).
It basically multiplies how many times an attack counts as having hit a target, despite only connecting with the target once.
The target’s LV determines how many times the hit is multiplied by.
They usually don’t bother activating it unless they know, or at least suspect, that the target has more than 1 LV, since it doesn’t start multiplying until 2 LV.
This has no additional effect on inanimate objects.
... Create invisible/mostly invisible platforms.
As demonstrated by Papyrus air-walking over Frisk after their fight in Undertale.
Some of San’s attacks use non-damaging platforms during his fight in Undertale.
Gaster managed to sort of copy this using Green Shields, though he can’t hold them for long.
... Use “shortcuts”.
“Taking a Shortcut” is shorthand for opening a gate (which must be anchored in advance), traveling through the nexus, and exiting another gate.
The Nexus is a pocket dimension connecting all established gates.
When they “set an Anchor” or “Anchor a gate”, they are linking a location to the nexus, thus creating a gate.
A Gate is any portal into, or out of, the nexus.
Sans and Papyrus can use each other’s gates since they are all connected to the same nexus.
They have trained to be able to go in and out fast enough that a passenger wouldn’t necessarily notice, likely thinking they just blinked for a little too long and opened their eyes in a new location.
... “See” a warning of an incoming attack.
What they are actually doing is sensing the magic as it condenses into a physical form, including the monster’s intended target area for the attack.
This is a mild form of precognition, similar to a “spidey-sense” or danger intuition.
Gaster can do this a little bit but he doesn’t get nearly as much warning as Sans or Papyrus, and he has to be concentrating, while it’s more automatic for the boys.
I may add abilities or modify these, but this is what I have for now.
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If Undertale Sans was lazy and apathetic, and Underswap Sans was energetic and childlike, then Inverted Sans is enthusiastic and ambitious.
Sans is just as depressed in this universe as any other but hides it behind a cheerful smile; always ready with a joke and encouraging word, though he doesn’t think he deserves the same in return. He regularly forces himself past his limits, exhausting himself partially so he'll just pass out into dreamless unconsciousness every night to avoid his near constant nightmares. He is diligently thorough and loyal to those close to him, a circle he keeps surprisingly small; he can be very charming when he wants to be and gives the impression that he’s closer to others than he actually is, often to make it easier to get things from them, be it favors, items, or information. He keeps the focus on the other person rather than himself, and they don’t realize how little they actually know about Sans until it’s pointed out.
After Gaster’s accident, Sans took several part-time jobs since no one would hire a 16 year old full time, including a Sentry Post in Blithe Woods. He dropped all of them as soon as he was fully accepted into the Royal Guard at 18, though he isn’t opposed to doing odd jobs around town when not actively on duty. What he makes as a Guard is slightly less than his other jobs combined, but it’s also just one job to keep track of, unpredictable as it may be, so it evens out. He now uses his charms to make sure people trust him enough to divulge things they might not have told law enforcement about otherwise, from their own secrets to snitching on others.
Sans doesn’t actively remember resets, only getting the same “déjà vu” feeling as everyone else, but since he is aware that resets are a thing, he knows that feeling means timeline shenanigans are afoot. Sans keeps his abilities and true potential close to his chest; everyone knows he’s quick on his feet and has deep wells of magic to draw from, but most don’t know how weak his defenses are, that he’s basically a glass cannon and one solid hit could take him out; most people don’t know Sans can turn into a Blaster Beast, but he did reveal it to the Blithe Woods Pack to help gain their trust, to prove he belonged with them on the Royal Guard’s (unofficial) K9 Unit, but asked them to not tell anyone else, even Undyne; all of the Guards know about the Gaster Blasters but most of the general public does not, keeping them as an ace up his sleeve to surprise an opponent; no one but Papyrus and Gaster know about the “special abilities” like KR and shortcuts.
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If Undertale Papyrus was eager to please and sincere, and Underswap Papyrus was laid-back and crafty, then Inverted Papyrus is wary and secretive.
Despite being twins, and being physically bigger than Sans, Papyrus tends to take on a younger brother role, happy enough to follow Sans around and support his ambitions rather than commit to a goal of his own. He doesn’t like to engage in something unless he knows for sure it’ll work out and be worth the cost or effort; he says it's for efficiency, to reduce waste, because he can't admit that failure feels worse than not trying at all.
After Gaster’s accident, Papyrus didn’t get a stable job like Sans did, instead doing odd jobs around town, patching a roof here and fixing a microwave there. Usually he’d be given a meal to take home or some other item for his trouble, sometimes money if it was a more intensive task, but mostly he was trying to generate good will in a new community, favors he could call in later for him or his family. He never said this outright, of course, but most adults caught on to the pattern quickly enough. When Sans became a full Royal Guard, he dropped his various jobs and Papyrus managed to sweet-talk his way into taking over Sans’ Sentry Post in Blithe Woods to make up for the lost income, sort of switching the roles of who has a stable job and who is doing odd-jobs between other responsibilities.
Papyrus doesn’t actively remember resets, only getting the same “déjà vu” feeling as everyone else, but since he is aware that resets are a thing, he knows that feeling means timeline shenanigans are afoot. While Papyrus has most of the same abilities as Sans, he doesn’t train them as much, fearing he might be exposed for having them at all, so he doesn’t have quite as much fire power or precision as Sans but he does have higher defensive stats and plenty of stamina to make up for it, tending to outlast his opponents rather than overwhelm them quickly. Papyrus pretends he’s weaker than Sans anyways, that he has fewer “special abilities” or tricks up his sleeve, even though they are about equal when taking their different strengths into account; if Papyrus can endure through Sans' initial attacks, he's basically won.
Sans generally keeps his true potential hidden so he’ll be underestimated and can surprise an opponent; however, Papyrus hates telling anyone anything substantial about himself, ever. Even more than most people, Papyrus is terrified of rejection, which is probably related to his fear of failure, but if they don’t know the Real Papyrus they can’t reject the Real Papyrus, only the mask he allows them to see. He can tailor that mask to be whoever would appeal to the person he’s interacting with at the time so that, on the off chance that he is rejected, it won’t hurt as much because it was just a mask.
Sans keeps secrets for a practical reason. Papyrus keeps secrets like his life depends on it.
When Sans revealed his Blaster Beast form to the Pack, they asked if Papyrus or Gaster could do it, too, and Sans answered truthfully without thinking; Gaster can’t but Papyrus can. Sans immediately realized his mistake and begged them to not let Pap know they knew; if he found out Sans spilled one of his secrets, Pap would never forgive him. The truth does come out eventually, of course, and Papyrus is mad at Sans, but being warmly accepted by the Pack does take the sting out of it. A bit.
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If Undertale Undyne was confident and boisterous, and Underswap Undyne was nerdy and shy, then Inverted Undyne is nervous and reserved.
Undyne’s father, an aquatic reptilian named Vython, had been the Captain of the Royal Guard for a while, and Undyne was thrilled to follow in his footsteps, joining the Royal Guard herself as soon as she could. Everyone expected her to take over once Vython retired, as she was very obviously being groomed for the position. Just over a year before Frisk falls down, Captain Vython was killed by the 6th human to fall, one with a yellow soul and a loaded gun that managed to slip past Toriel, and Undyne was promoted to Captain way earlier than she’d expected, so she was dealing with both grieving the loss of her remaining parent and taking on a ton of responsibility she wasn’t ready for. The rest of the Guard had been very understanding and supportive, but she was slowly crumbling under the pressure. Undyne somewhat blames Toriel for Vython’s death but instead directs most of her anger towards humans in general rather than hating her Queen.
Both Vython and Nyad, Undyne’s mother, had been good friends with Gaster, so Undyne ended up spending a lot of time with Sans and Pap growing up and considers them her best friends, even though she’s about 4 years older than them. They kept Gaster’s experiments a secret from her, though, and they grew apart after Gaster’s accident since they moved away and had very little time to spare for anything beyond pure survival. Undyne had become a Royal Guard not long before that anyways, so she didn’t have much time either.
After being promoted to Captain, now only a few months before Frisk falls, Undyne bent the rules a bit and let Sans into the Guard a little early; she’d been trying to handle it on her own and wait for him to turn 19 to induct him, but she really needed his support and couldn’t wait any longer. Sans also benefitted, though, so she was able to outwardly spin it as a favor to him, though he was well aware of the real reason she’d let him in early. He didn’t mind, though, and was just happy he could reconnect with his old friend and be there for her, and take care of his family at the same time. Undyne also pulled some strings to let Papyrus take over Sans’ now vacant Sentry Post, citing that he didn’t even need training because he was already helping Sans and knew exactly what to do already.
When alone, Undyne is actually kinda quiet, more like Nyad, preferring to observe before committing to a course of action, very much looking before she leaps; a natural tactician. When she joined the Guard, Undyne had an ideal of what a Royal Guard should be like, outgoing and confident like Vython, so she projected that while on duty, only letting the mask fall around close friends and family. Upon promotion, she felt she had to fill Vython’s shoes and began to act even more like him, despite it going against her reserved nature, and keeping it up was exhausting her even faster than the responsibility was. She is eventually convinced that it’s ok to be her own kind of Captain, rather than a copy of the Captain that Vython was.
Undyne’s dad was Vython, an aquatic reptilian that could be compared to an anthropomorphized water dragon or sea serpent. He was bold, bright, and boisterous, very much like Undertale Undyne. His name is based on the Sea God Typhon, one of his sons named Python, and it sounds a little bit like a corrupted (Le)viathan.
Undyne’s mom was Nyad (naiad), a mostly pacifistic healer. Nyad is something like a mermaid or selkie, able to shapeshift her legs on land into a fish/seal tail in water, an ability Undyne inherited. She died when Undyne was fairly young, leading Vython to lean more on Gaster, who had recently become a father himself and leaned right back.
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If Undertale Alphys was anxious and awkward, and Underswap Alphys was arrogant and fierce, then Inverted Alphys is zealous and engaging.
Alphys’ passion for science is infectious and anyone who’s met her can’t help but share her excitement. She had a fairly normal childhood in Harvestead, even though she spent most of her time greedily soaking up every bit of knowledge anyone was willing to teach her rather than learning how socializing worked through experience with kids her age, so she has a hard time reading people and generally takes them at their word. Obviously, she knows people can and do lie, but she never expects them to so it always catches her off guard when they do. She became Gaster’s assistant fairly young and was given his title after his accident left him unable to perform his duties
Alphys tends to not care what anyone thinks of her, barreling full steam ahead despite warnings to take her time, but her hasty decision making has led to many positive results in record time. Unfortunately, her mad scientist streak leads to many of her exploits literally blowing up in her face, leaving a trail of carnage in her wake, though she somehow doesn’t seem to ever take any lasting damage. ((Depending on what I decide Gaster's accident was, I might have it be Alphys’ fault, though not on purpose.))
Alphys has trouble with “object permanence” and doesn’t really think about something unless it is constantly in her face. If an item is in a drawer where she can’t see it, she could completely forget that it existed in the first place, until she comes across it again. She doesn’t “forget” people, per se, she actually remembers a lot of random details about everyone she meets; she just doesn’t think about them, or think to contact them, without being prompted. Even her own family is not immune to this and she could go months without talking to them unless they contact her first. She tends to either bounce between a dozen or two projects haphazardly, or she hyper fixates on one project and the rest of the world may as well not exist. Once she loses the hyper fixation, it would be shelved in favor of the next; she might never think about that particular project again or she might come back to it years later and it would be like she’d never left it. ((I’m like this too, it kinda sucks honestly...))
The exception to this is Undyne, as Alphys had immediately fallen head-over-heels for the then Royal Guard. She already had plans to expand the surveillance network and easily fit in a few extra cameras near Undyne’s home that nobody would notice, watching her from afar. This was the first time Alphys had hesitated to approach someone, got nervous around them, or thought about them while they weren’t around. It was a new and exciting feeling and Alphys relished it.
But she didn’t approach.
In the meantime, Alphys found some of Gaster’s old research about Determination, human souls, and the beginnings of the experiments that would eventually result in Flowey and the Amalgamates. While ashamed and embarrassed at her failure, Alphys didn’t hide them and they returned to their now multiple families, though the Memory Heads were deemed a danger to themselves and others so they were kept in the Vail Lab. The Amalgamates tend to wander the Underground so everyone chips in to help take care of them and they see Alphys for regular checkups. They all seem to like Gaster for some reason (spoiler: they tend to processes thoughts the same way).
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If Undertale Asgore was provincially charming but willing to sacrifice his morality for the good of his people, and Underswap Asgore was fatherly and nurturing but ran from his responsibilities, than Inverted Asgore is a passionate motivational speaker but unwilling to compromise his moral code.
Asgore is a beloved King with a regal aura his subjects are drawn to, but he is also a skilled manipulator, using his silver tongue to convince his subjects to eagerly accept anything he may want them to do. It would be terrifying if he were any less committed to upholding his moral code. Asgore has a heart of gold and truly wants what’s best for his people, so they trust him to lead them well and make good decisions, therefore they generally don’t resist his manipulation even if they do recognize it as such.
These two traits, his desire to help his people and his strict adherence to his moral code, had never come into conflict until his children were killed by humans.
Chara had just died of an “unknown illness” and Asriel took their soul and passed through the Barrier before Asgore or Toriel could stop him, only to return mortally wounded and collapse into dust in their arms. Asgore shut down, the emotions too much for him, until he learned of Toriel’s plan to declare war on the humans and decree that any human who fell would be killed, their souls harvested to break the Barrier and then used to empower monsters to destroy humanity entirely. His moral code wouldn’t let him stand by while innocent humans suffered and died for the sins of the few who had attacked Asriel, but he also knew that his people needed something to hold onto now that Asriel and Chara, the hope for the future of humans and monsters, were gone. Asgore halted Toriel, certain they could find some kind of solution that didn’t involve another war; even if they survived, could they really consider it a victory if they lost themselves along the way? However, he was unable to present a satisfactory alternative, so she took matters into her own hands and left for the remains of Homefront, which she renamed Hollow Shrine before sealing the way behind her. If Asgore wasn’t willing to soil his hands with death then Toriel would do it herself.
Toriel had announced her plan to the whole Kingdom as she left, so everyone knew that, any time they saw her, it would be to deliver another human soul to King Asgore, harvested from a human by the Queen herself.
Asgore had mixed feelings about this development. While he had always been the face of the monster throne, and the driving force to accomplish their goals, Toriel was the brains, the tactician, the one to come up with the plans for Asgore to carry out. He was lost without her. As much as he hated her plan, he couldn’t bring himself to condemn it, wanting to present a united front for his people to rely on, to hide the cracks in their leadership.
He did what he could to keep everyone’s spirits up, to keep hope alive in his subjects, but they could all tell something inside him had broken; the light in his eyes was gone, and he was just going through the motions.
I may or may not have Carol and/or Rudy be assigned to take over day-to-day administrative stuff so Asgore can wallow in misery, taking over the role Toriel usually filled. They'd have to be Inverted too, though.
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If Undertale Toriel was protective and nurturing but avoidant, running from her duties, and Underswap Toriel was cold and merciless but dedicated to her cause, then Inverted Toriel is logical and steadfast but willing to sacrifice her morality for the good of her people.
While some would describe Queen Toriel as cold and calculating, she thought of herself as practical and efficient. She couldn’t excite a crowd with nothing but words like Asgore could, or inspire others with her mere presence, but she wanted the best for her people just as much as Asgore did, so she used her administrative and organizational skills behind the scenes to bring Asgore’s ideals to life. He would set the goals and she would find a way to make it reality. She may not have been as beloved as her husband, but she preferred to stay out of the spotlight anyways, to be the one they looked to for an actual plan and not just pretty words.
Toriel had never known true hatred before Chara and Asriel’s deaths, had never felt so strongly about anything in her entire life.
When Asgore shut down in shock and grief, she had nothing to direct her drive for action besides her own rage, so that is what she acted on, though she was stopped from declaring all-out war on the human race by Asgore and his morals. He couldn’t provide an alternative solution, but he swore he would die before letting her doom their people to losing themselves just to satisfy her thirst for vengeance; a thirst that would never be able to fill the hole in her heart left by the loss of their children anyways. Killing others wouldn’t make the pain go away. Part of Toriel knew Asgore was right, but another part knew that if she let this fire in her soul die, there would be nothing left to fuel her. She didn’t think she’d survive that.
So, if Asgore was unwilling to do what must be done, then Toriel would do it herself.
She announced to the entire Underground her plan to reside in the remains of Homefront, the only place known for a human to fall, and collect the necessary souls and deliver them to Asgore personally so no one else would have to face the danger of fighting a human. She didn’t say out loud that she was also protecting them from the trauma of being forced to take a life, though many picked up on the subtext anyways. She knew that most monsters, but especially Asgore, were too compassionate to collect the required souls themselves and she wanted to spare them that horrible choice by taking that sin upon herself; no one else would have to suffer. Despite his strict adherence to his moral code, Toriel was counting on Asgore being prudent enough to not let an already collected soul go to waste.
Toriel renamed Homefront to “Hollow Shrine”, as it had been frozen in time when they left it; a Shrine to the past, now Hollow and empty. She chose to isolate herself for a number of reasons, one of which was to preemptively punish herself for the murders she had sworn to commit. For each human that fell, she tried to make their end quick and painless, often convincing them to come to her home to rest before killing them in their sleep, collecting their soul, and taking a funeral march to the throne room to present it to Asgore. These were the only interactions they had with each other for a very long time.
Not all of the humans trusted Toriel enough to sleep, but only the last one, with a yellow soul and a loaded gun, managed to sneak past her into the rest of the Underground. This human was spotted by the Blithe Woods sentries and the Captain of the Royal Guard was called to fight them, arriving after the human had already killed several other monsters. The Captain was also mortally wounded before Toriel caught up to the human and finished the job.
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If Undertale Asriel was sweet and gentle, and Underswap Asriel was clumsy and energetic, than Inverted Asriel was spunky and spirited.
Asriel had inherited Asgore’s silver tongue, so both Toriel and Asgore did their best to instill in him a desire to use it for the good of all rather then selfish gain. It mostly worked, though Asriel was not immune to teenage rebellion, getting himself and others in trouble with increasing frequency. One day, he was playing around the outskirts of Homefront when he found an injured human, who introduced themself as Chara. Making a snap decision, Asriel tried to hide them from everyone, fearing they would reject Chara and hurt them even more than they already were, and quickly became very attached to his new friend. Luckily, he was adept at healing, though neither knew how to set a broken leg so they would walk with a limp for the rest of their life.
Chara likened their new position to a child hiding a kitten in their closet. Asriel didn’t find the comparison nearly as funny as Chara did.
Chara was discovered, of course, and Asgore and Toriel were torn between their desire to keep Asriel safe from humans and Asriel’s clear attachment that would inevitably leave him feeling bitter if they tried to separate the two, a betrayal he might never fully forgive them for. Hesitantly, they allowed Chara to stay and eventually grew to care for them as well. With this acceptance, Asriel and Chara became inseparable, though Chara encouraged Asriel’s rebellious streak a bit more than Asgore and Toriel would’ve liked and Asriel began neglecting his other friends as well.
At some point, Asriel and Chara decided to make a pie and mistook cups of butter for buttercups; Asriel was many things but a cook was not one of them, and the monsters had introduced Chara to so many strange foods that the idea of putting flowers in a pie seemed reasonable enough. Asgore got sick from the pie and, despite his recovery, this marked the beginning of the end, as Chara began to isolate themself and Asriel began to take his duties as Prince much more seriously, shocked out of his rebellion by seeing the consequences of careless actions. Then Chara got sick, only telling Asriel about their planned suicide when they were certain they couldn’t be saved, even by his advanced skills at healing. They begged him to end their pain, take their soul, and use it to free the monsters. It took a lot of convincing, but he eventually agreed to their plan and snuck them to the Barrier before dealing the final blow himself.
Absorbing Chara’s soul, Asriel walked through the Barrier with their body, unwilling to let them go just yet but knowing his parents would stop him if he lingered too long. In the dark of night, Asriel found the town Chara had originally come from, knowing things about it that he couldn’t have possibly known and figured it must be the fading embers of Chara’s consciousness, since they were of course dead and gone now. He came up to a house, intending to sneak in a window and kill everyone inside in their sleep, but paused as he witnessed a mother comforting her child that had awoken from a nightmare. Seeing this suddenly put into perspective what he was about to do, that these humans were just as much “people” as every monster in the Underground, and he was about to murder them in cold blood. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Unfortunately, the mother and child spotted him as he stood frozen by their window, dead child in his arms, and all of them panicked. Asriel took off, unfortunately in the wrong direction, and the father of the family he’d scared pursued him with a hunting rifle. By the time Asriel realized his mistake, the father had caught up to him and shot him several times before Asriel managed to escape back up the mountain.
It didn’t take long for Asgore and Toriel to discover Chara was missing, frantically searching everywhere before finding a note Chara had written beforehand. It detailed their plan, emphasizing that this was their choice, and asking them to not blame Asriel for it; this was what they wanted. All the two parents could do was wait by the Barrier for Asriel to return. Unfortunately, after stumbling into their arms, Asriel only lasted just long enough to apologize before crumbling to dust.
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If Undertale Chara was mischievous and hated humanity, and Underswap Chara was kind and pacifistic, than Inverted Chara cared deeply for their loved ones and fuck everyone else.
Born a girl in an early American settlement, Charisma never quite fit the mold laid out for them by society. They would often daydream about daring adventures and fighting beasts, praised as a hero and adored by those they saved. Their parents punished them for such fanciful ideas, hoping to curb this bad habit before anyone else found out, but Chara just got better at hiding it. They were taught to read in the hopes that being more useful would attract a husband, but Chara got their hands on a fantasy novel and was instantly hooked, even if they lacked some vocabulary.
Then the townsfolk found out and the whole family was shunned until they could “get that girl back in her place. Rich people could afford such flights of fancy, but the common folk had to work for a living; how dare she think she was better than everyone else, that she was above her lot in life?”
Eventually, it got bad enough that Chara’s father decided enough was enough and, in a drunken rage, decided that the best way to “fix” the problem was to kill Chara and their mother, who he somewhat blamed for conceiving a “defective” daughter. Chara’s mother was instructing them on how to cook, one of their weaker skills, when their father came home and began beating them both. Chara eventually found themself kneeling over their mother’s lifeless body when their father lunged at them and the dropped chopping knife was suddenly in their hand, stabbing him in the face before they fled up Mount Ebott. As the sun finished setting, they climbed as high as they could, taking shelter in a cave for the night.
They never knew if their parents survived the incident, or if anyone even bother looking for them, because they fell down a hole by morning, the broken leg only the most recent of their injuries. This was Chara’s state when Asriel found them. As much as Asriel was immediately attached to them, Chara clung right back; he was the first person in years to look at them kindly, to not care that they were human, let alone a “defective” one. He also introduced them to the idea of using gender neutral pronouns and a tension in their chest they never realized was there finally released.
After inevitably being discovered, Chara was still anxious around anyone other than Asriel, who decided he wanted to stay with them more than his other friends. Chara felt guilty for unintentionally isolating him but it also felt really good knowing he picked them over everyone else. Despite Asriel’s best efforts, Chara’s broken leg had never healed right, so they had a permanent limp, but they did what they could to “earn their keep” with the skills their human parents had taught them. They were actually starting to feel pretty good about their lot in life...
... until the Buttercup Pie Incident.
Chara had been viscerally reminded that they were a human, and humans killed monsters; it was in their nature, they couldn’t help it. But they had to protect their new family, the only people who had ever cared about them, even if they had to protect them from Chara themself. There was one last gift they could give the monsters, though; their human soul, one of seven required to break the Barrier. So, Chara had to die. But how? Asriel was a prodigy with healing magic, he would heal whatever wound they could inflict on themself, but they also had to be in a position for Asriel to absorb their soul, so they couldn’t just throw themself in the magma or something. They would have to convince Asriel to either kill them himself or let them die while being close enough to absorb their soul, but what would make Asriel choose that? A mercy killing, Asriel would have to be convinced to put Chara out of their misery, even if it was self-inflicted. What kind of misery would be convincing enough?
Their mind turned back to the spark that started the wildfire in their life; buttercup poisoning, a poetic end.
Chara eventually won the race between the buttercup's poison and Asriel’s healing. He couldn’t heal them as they felt their body shutting down for good, and finally revealed their plan, begging him to not let their life, their pain, their death, be in vain.
They didn’t expect to be conscious once absorbed. They never quite regained their bearings, but thoughts and memories of the town they originally came from filtered through their consciousness and into Asriel’s mind, and when he bolted, it was towards Chara’s old house, running on their instinct. They faded as Asriel turned to dust, their body buried where they fell in the now frozen over Hollow Shrine.
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I’m still working on Frisk and Flowey, as well as most of the background characters and some random notes, but I’ll save that for another post. This one is long enough as it is.
These last two profiles, Frisk and Flowey, have been burning a hole in my pocket while I figure out how to interact with the game plot; Frisk’s cuts off upon falling into the Underground, since I haven’t fully fleshed that out yet, and Flowey’s is a little spoiler-y, so be warned, I guess
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If Undertale Frisk was ambiguous and adaptable but determined, and Underswap Frisk was empathetic and determined but naïve, then Inverted Frisk is forthright and unyielding but perceptive.
Born a boy with the name Dieter Friskrau, they usually went by the nickname “Frisk” as shortened from their last name. Frisk had always been unapologetically themself, even though that tended to alienate them from their peers, especially as communication started to become more subtle as they all grew. They saw the nuance the other kids used and understood it well enough, but they could not fathom why they would waste so much time and energy on such an inefficient method of interaction when they could just say what they meant and move on. This did not endear them to their classmates, who often accused them of being unnecessarily blunt or having childish expectations about the world, and this only got worse in Junior High and into High School. Frisk was just starting to figure out how to act authentically while still falling within the margin of error for “acceptable public behavior” by the end of their 9th grade year, but they still had no real friends, leaving them desperately lonely.
They were traveling with their parents to celebrate the 4th of July when there was a bad car accident, which only Frisk survived, somehow only suffering superficial injuries.
Since their father’s family all still lived somewhere in Europe and their mother was estranged from her immediate family, Frisk was shipped off to live with two of their mother’s cousins in The Middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. They were wracked with survivor’s guilt and blamed themself for the accident, for distracting their parents, on top of the loneliness, depression, and suicidal ideation they were already dealing with, so they were relieved they at least had the rest of summer vacation to sort things out before attempting school again. They decided to spend time in nature one day and climbed the nearby mountain, despite warnings that it was dangerous and to stay away from it, and eventually found out why as they fell down a hole and into the Underground.
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If Undertale Flowey was deceptive and curious, and Underswap Flowey was silly and authentic, then Inverted Flowey is open but broken.
A few months after the Amalgamates were revealed and the test flowers returned to the King’s garden, Flowey awoke with a confusing mess of memories and emotions. Since Asriel’s memories were most prominent, he assumed that he was Asriel somehow reborn as a flower, though this would become less clear to him as time went on.
When he first woke up, he felt scared and confused, calling for help that didn’t come until hours later. While Asgore was overcome with emotions, Flowey “felt nothing” for him, all emotions numb and distant, like echoes of what he knows he should be feeling but doesn’t, not really. Negative emotions were dim at best, but they were at least there, unlike the positive emotions that were completely absent. Frustration built the longer he spent with Asgore, losing hope that the emotions would come, and eventually culminating in Flowey discovering the ability to burrow in a desperate bid to escape, finding Toriel in the Hollow Shrine. Unfortunately, she had just as little luck helping Flowey as Asgore did and he ran away again before deciding that death was preferable to an existence without love, and successfully committed suicide. However, as he felt himself fade, he realized he didn’t actually want to die, but it was too late.
Then he woke up in the King’s garden, as if nothing had happened.
He slowly realized what he could do and began to experiment, usually taking the name “Flowey” instead of calling himself “Asriel”, but nothing could hold his attention for long; he was unable to form actual attachments, to people or experiences, beyond the “excitement” of learning something new. It was as close to a positive emotion that he had gotten since waking up as a flower and he chased it until there was nothing left to learn in the Underground. He tried to recreate that excitement, but the more he reset, the more obvious it became that it wasn’t working, and the more desperate he was to make it work anyways. He drove himself mad as timelines blended together in his memory and he could no longer tell what he had or hadn’t done at a given time, eventually staying in one timeline long enough for Frisk to fall, losing the reset power.
Now, he could be classified as a “cloud-cuckoo-lander” and often says things he shouldn’t know; whether he actually knows or could infer these things (from other timelines) or is just blurting out something random is debatable.
While he diagnosed himself with soul-less-ness, this isn’t entirely accurate. His soul is different from a monster soul or a human soul, and this made feeling emotions like he was used to difficult, but it was not impossible; however, when coupled with the memories of two traumatic deaths (Asriel’s and Chara’s) before awakening without a human or monster soul, he is actually suffering from something similar to PTSD, which has been described as leaving one dissociated, detached from their emotions, and unable to feel anything positive while negative emotions are often muted at best.
Asriel’s memories were more prominent, leading Flowey to believe he was just a revived Asriel, though this isn’t entirely accurate either. Almost all of Chara’s memories of the Underground were with Asriel, doubling up the “strength” of those memories, and since they had suppressed most of their memories of the surface, they were easily “overpowered” by the doubled memories as well, so Flowey didn’t recognize them as such. He did eventually begin to question his assumptions, though, which may have contributed to him losing his grip on reality.
So, I've been slowly chipping away at like four or five different AUs and this one just kinda distracted me for a while. I had the general idea ages ago but only recently fleshed it out enough to feel comfortable showing it off.
Focusing first on the main 6 characters, there are three pairs that are inextricably linked: Sans and Papyrus, Alphys and Undyne, and Toriel and Asgore. Most swap AUs switch their roles within these pairs, like Alphys being the Captain and Undyne being the Royal Scientist, but I decided to tie these pairs together and swap them with another pair. The obvious starting point was swapping Sans and Pap with Alphys and Undyne, making Pap the Captain and Sans the Royal Scientist, and Undyne the rookie trying to get into the Guard while Alphys is the mysterious Judge. I found some concept art (so, so long ago...) that sparked this initial concept but it felt weird leaving Asgore and Toriel alone, so I had to find a pair to swap them with as well, and bellow the cut is the result.
I've got a few ideas for other pairs to swap but I haven't fully solidified any of them, especially since there aren't a lot of pairs that are quite as solid as our core characters. Let me know if y'all have any ideas for pairs and who they might be swapped with.
Angela had been married to an abusive husband and ran away when she realized she was pregnant, which made her realize she didn’t want her child to suffer what she’d been through. She fell into the Underground and Toriel instantly connected with her over motherhood, having just become a mother herself for the first time a few years ago. Over the next 7 or 8 months of pregnancy (Angela wasn’t very far along before she ran away), Toriel and Angela grew even closer, being the mother/daughter the other never had, until Angela gave birth and there are complications that monster healing magic couldn’t fix. As she’s dying, Angela begged Toriel to take her soul and free the monsters, as they had been far more kind to her than any human had been. They deserved to be free. Wracked with grief, Toriel hesitantly granted Angela’s dying wish, but couldn’t bring herself to kill the mother and child she’d found. She was then attacked by the husband/father of the mother/child and promptly died in Asgore’s arms while Asriel watched. Both are severely traumatized by this Asgore was then forced to raise the human child, Chara, on his own as best he could, while Asriel eventually ran away (I haven’t decided how long it took for him to decide that running was the best option) and holed himself up in the Ruins. Since Asriel is still alive, Asgore continued to age, twice as fast since Toriel was no longer alive to share the burden. When Asgore was about to die of old age, he told Chara to absorb his soul and lead the monsters in his stead, which effectively made Chara immortal. Toriel eventually woke up as [female Flowey] and Asriel is (the equivalent of) a young adult when Frisk eventually fell, being the self-proclaimed Caretaker of the Ruins.
Since Chara was being raised by Asgore and eventually took the throne, war was not declared and humans were not hunted for their souls if they were discovered in the Underground. Instead, they either lived with Chara in the castle or were adopted by a monster family if they were too young, and their souls were collected peacefully when they died. Chara is able to leave the Underground with Asgore’s soul but can’t take anyone else and never told anyone, though it is useful for keeping tabs on what the surface humans are doing, or getting certain resources otherwise unavailable underground. Chara also gained some non-human traits upon absorbing Asgore’s soul, including by not limited to horns and “special eyes”, as well as general access to magic.
Sans and Papyrus are estranged brothers when Frisk falls; they each blamed the other for the accident that killed their father, former Royal Scientist Dr. W. D. Gaster. Sans was appointed in his father’s stead and Papyrus became Captain of the Royal Guard. They’ve had these positions for a while and are tersely civil if ever they need to interact for their jobs.
Undyne and Alphys are childhood friends and now roommates that have caught feelings for each other but are too afraid of ruining their current Best Friends relationship to actually confess their feelings. Undyne is young and ambitious but idealistic about what she can achieve, basically throwing herself at Captain Papyrus to join the Royal Guard. He sees a lot of his younger self in Undyne and wants to protect her innocence and idealism, since he didn’t have anyone to do that for him while growing up. He knows how dark the world can be and doesn’t want to break her by exposing her to it. Alphys, meanwhile, had recently been assigned the role of Judge and isn’t handling the stress well. Having to see and Judge the worst monster kind has to offer, and not allowed to really talk to anyone about it (no one is supposed to know the true identity of the Judge), she has become more withdrawn and relies heavily of Undyne’s optimism to get through each day.
I had an AU idea a while ago that I just updated and wanted to share. Then I realized I could combine it with two other ideas I haven’t looked at in a while and this has suddenly become a much bigger project than anticipated. I still have some kinks to work out, and need to update the other ideas, but this bit is ready to post now and the rest will (hopefully) be coming soon.
So.
The original concept for this AU was to use everyone’s Underswap personalities but keep them in their original Undertale positions. This means that I’d have things like an Anxious and Nerdy (Royal Scientist) Undyne trying to be Captain of the Royal Guard, so I’d have to come up with a reason why someone with a nervous personality would even want to be Royal Guard at all, let alone end up as Captain, among other weirdness. Some things fell into place fairly easily, especially Undyne and Alphys for some reason, and Grillby and Muffet worked oddly well as a flamboyant barista and a speakeasy owner tucked away in the CORE somewhere. However, I struggled with most of them, either being too similar to their swap partners for their positions to distinguish them, too similar to their Undertale or Underswap counterparts, or I couldn't find a way to make their new personality make sense with their original position.
My new premise worked much better for the odd ones, let me keep a lot of what I'd already worked out, and was honestly much easier to explain and justify as being its own AU.
I Inverted the characters.
To make these new characters the inverse of the original characters, I took a few core tenets of their Undertale personalities and found an antonym that is similar to, but still different from, their Underswap personalities, making sure they were still unique while also giving me some wiggle room to play with. I laid out all three of the loose and simplified descriptions I was working with before each character section, so hopefully that’ll make more sense once we actually start getting into it.
Thus, Inverse Undertale or InverTale.
((Not to be confused with Inverted Fate, as it’s their personalities that are inverted, not their fate. I actually don’t know much about Inverted Fate, the only commonality is in name.))
I also shifted the layout of the Underground a little, just cuz. :3
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So! First things first, the new setup of the Underground! ‘Cause some of these places are important for backstories.
The Hollow Shrine {The Ruins} used to be the temperate city of Homefront {Home} until the magma that used to fill the cavern of Mt Ebott’s dormant volcano could be contained and the rest of their prison could be deemed habitable. Now, it has frozen over with ice, as it is the farthest one can get from the Underground’s main heat source. While the Ruins represented Fall, the Shrine represents Winter; a place frozen in time, dead and abandoned, unable to move on from an idealized past. There is no snow, no softness, just sharp and brittle memories devoid of warmth and life. The Hollow Shrine also somewhat represents pre-dawn darkness, the coldest time of day after cooling all night and before the sun can begin to warm the land again. The forgotten time of day, when even night owls sleep.
The Blithe Gardens {Snowdin} represent Spring, rather than Snowdin’s Winter; hope for new growth and all things green and young and alive. The Blithe Woods {Snowdin Forrest} stand between the sealed off Hollow Shrine and the settlement of Blithe Garden {Snowdin Town} itself. The Blithe Gardens are filled with gently glowing crystals that represent dawn, as the world is just starting to light up.
Greenyard {Waterfall} is pronounced similar to Vineyard and represents Summer and a general celebration of all forms of life in their prime. Greenyard houses most of the population of the Underground and produces about a third of the Underground’s food. Greenyard represents mid-day, from late morning to early evening, when the most people are awake and doing things.
Between Greenyard and Harvestead is the Vail Labs, with a public facing area {Hotland Lab} that leads back to an extensive system of labs for the Royal Scientist’s personal use {True Lab}. Some lived there, others hid their less savory projects out of the public eye, some left it completely open to the public or at least their assistants, and a few barely used them at all.
Beneath Vail Labs is the AXIS {CORE} Facility that is split into two main sections; the AXIS labs that house the science team’s more energy intensive experiments, so they could be closer to the other main section, the AXIS powerplant. Slightly off-set from the AXIS facility itself, mostly under Greenyard, is the Molten Reservoir where all of the previously mentioned magma had been sequestered, leaving the rest of the Underground in a livable, temperate state, as well as allowing them to use it as a near limitless power source. To extend the time of day metaphor, this magma is as close to a sun as they could achieve in a cave.
Harvestead {Hotland} produces most of the food for the Underground, representing the Harvest Season of Autumn rather than Hotland’s oppressive Summer, and many monsters who live in Greenyard or Homefree travel here to work. The name is a portmanteau of “harvest” and “homestead” and sounds like “harvested”. Harvestead also represents evening, just as the sun is about to set, the last useful hours of the day.
Homefree {New Home} is the capital city of the Monster Kingdom and is the largest single settlement in the Underground; Greenyard may house more monsters in total, but they live in multiple, smaller settlements scattered across the whole area, while Homefree’s population is more concentrated. Homefree is also fairly far from the Underground’s main heat source, but it’s more of a winter wonderland than an icy palace; the Land of Soft Snow and Warm Fireplaces. Asgore’s Castle is located at the far end of Homefree, between it and the Barrier. Homefree represents going home after a long day of work; spending time with loved ones and resting peacefully after sunset.
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~ Character Overviews ~
If Undertale Gaster was a mysterious but forgotten genius, and Underswap Gaster was an eccentric but sociable father, then Inverted Gaster is a friendly but broken scientist.
Gaster created two clones of himself, intending to use them as lab rats and eventually turn them into weapons if they managed to survive that long, but when they awoke he realized they weren’t just empty shells and he couldn’t bring himself to follow through (a la Mercy Plates). He lied about their origin, spinning the story that he was actually trying to solve the population issue via cloning, but since the method he used wouldn’t work on a large scale he had to shelve the idea for now, then just raised the clones as his sons.
At 10 years old, both Sans and Papyrus had expressed a desire to become stronger for various reasons, and Gaster decided they were old enough to understand, so he revealed their original purpose to them, emphasized that he loved them as his sons no matter how they came into his life, and asked if they wanted to try some of the lighter, less invasive experiments he’d initially planned for them. He wouldn’t force them into it, that would defeat the whole purpose of sparing them in the first place, but it would grant them the power they said they wanted. Plus, he did still kinda want some of the data he would’ve gotten from those tests. They were hesitant but agreed to try it out with the promise that they could back out at any time, and Gaster was very careful to explain everything to them in detail, get their consent on each part of every experiment before doing it, and constantly reaffirm their consent throughout the process. He even submitted to a few himself, run by Sans and Papyrus, but he had to be careful which ones he chose since he wasn’t young enough to bounce back like they could.
At some point, Gaster had some kind of accident that damaged his mind/soul (the monster equivalent of brain damage); his memory is now faulty at best and the science that he used to know inside and out now eludes him. He often spaces out for minutes at a time (he’s described it as “mental static” like his skull is filled with TV snow), forgets what he’s doing in the middle of doing it, and rambles about things that will only make sense to someone who is extremely familiar with the subject matter and familiar with how Gaster processes information now, but the routine of cooking and cleaning for his sons helps keep him mostly stable.
They moved to Blithe Garden, since they couldn’t live in the Vail Lab anymore, but Gaster doesn’t leave the house often, as he can be easily overwhelmed now and most of the residents avoid him anyways. Thankfully, he was never a terribly social person to begin with, so he doesn’t mind being alone most of the time. He is very kind and helpful, though, and can fix just about anything on instinct, so long as he doesn’t think about it too hard and psyche himself out, because he doesn’t consciously understand what he’s doing or why it works. People have learned to present him with something that’s broken and then distracted with conversation while his hands kind of do their own thing subconsciously. He knows they do this on purpose and appreciates being able to feel useful, even if it is a little manipulative; he considers the fixed item a fair trade for giving him a little company and listening to him ramble. He sits on his porch with a book or some small project to “advertise” that he’s “open for business” whenever he feels up to socializing.
Everyone knows what happened to Gaster but nobody talks about it, especially anywhere Sans or Papyrus might hear. The two are very protective of their disabled father.
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For lack of anywhere better to put this...
Gaster had a habit of picking up bits of magic abilities wherever he could; so long as he understood the principal behind how the magic was being manipulated, he could copy it, albeit a much weaker version. He taught Sans and Papyrus as many as he could through normal training, but some were enhanced by the experiments as well. While they may have different strengths and weaknesses, Gaster, Sans, and Papyrus can all use:
White Bone Constructs (obviously)
Both Cyan and Orange Constructs
Blue Soul Mode
Gaster Blasters (modified Yellow magic)
Green Shields and Green Healing Constructs
“Extra” Helping Hands (modified green magic) (this might require some explanation, but I’ll do that later. Maybe.)
Some Elemental Magic (though it’s too weak to be useful in combat)
From the experiments, Gaster can’t, but both Sans and Papyrus can...
... Use “gravity magic”.
Basically an upgraded Blue Soul Mode, which can only be used on things with a soul.
They can now manipulate/levitate inanimate objects that have no connection to a soul.
... Shapeshift into a Blaster Beast form.
The Blaster Beast form is slightly bigger than their base, humanoid form (about 1.5X); however, they can keep the Blaster Beast form closer to their original, humanoid size with conscious effort.
With conscious effort, they can shift only certain parts of their bodies, like a tail for balance or digitigrade legs for speed. Sometimes this happens unconsciously, like claws/fangs getting longer and/or sharper when angry.
... Apply a poison-like status effect to their attacks called KR (Karma/Karmic Retribution).
It basically multiplies how many times an attack counts as having hit a target, despite only connecting with the target once.
The target’s LV determines how many times the hit is multiplied by.
They usually don’t bother activating it unless they know, or at least suspect, that the target has more than 1 LV, since it doesn’t start multiplying until 2 LV.
This has no additional effect on inanimate objects.
... Create invisible/mostly invisible platforms.
As demonstrated by Papyrus air-walking over Frisk after their fight in Undertale.
Some of San’s attacks use non-damaging platforms during his fight in Undertale.
Gaster managed to sort of copy this using Green Shields, though he can’t hold them for long.
... Use “shortcuts”.
“Taking a Shortcut” is shorthand for opening a gate (which must be anchored in advance), traveling through the nexus, and exiting another gate.
The Nexus is a pocket dimension connecting all established gates.
When they “set an Anchor” or “Anchor a gate”, they are linking a location to the nexus, thus creating a gate.
A Gate is any portal into, or out of, the nexus.
Sans and Papyrus can use each other’s gates since they are all connected to the same nexus.
They have trained to be able to go in and out fast enough that a passenger wouldn’t necessarily notice, likely thinking they just blinked for a little too long and opened their eyes in a new location.
... “See” a warning of an incoming attack.
What they are actually doing is sensing the magic as it condenses into a physical form, including the monster’s intended target area for the attack.
This is a mild form of precognition, similar to a “spidey-sense” or danger intuition.
Gaster can do this a little bit but he doesn’t get nearly as much warning as Sans or Papyrus, and he has to be concentrating, while it’s more automatic for the boys.
I may add abilities or modify these, but this is what I have for now.
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If Undertale Sans was lazy and apathetic, and Underswap Sans was energetic and childlike, then Inverted Sans is enthusiastic and ambitious.
Sans is just as depressed in this universe as any other but hides it behind a cheerful smile; always ready with a joke and encouraging word, though he doesn’t think he deserves the same in return. He regularly forces himself past his limits, exhausting himself partially so he'll just pass out into dreamless unconsciousness every night to avoid his near constant nightmares. He is diligently thorough and loyal to those close to him, a circle he keeps surprisingly small; he can be very charming when he wants to be and gives the impression that he’s closer to others than he actually is, often to make it easier to get things from them, be it favors, items, or information. He keeps the focus on the other person rather than himself, and they don’t realize how little they actually know about Sans until it’s pointed out.
After Gaster’s accident, Sans took several part-time jobs since no one would hire a 16 year old full time, including a Sentry Post in Blithe Woods. He dropped all of them as soon as he was fully accepted into the Royal Guard at 18, though he isn’t opposed to doing odd jobs around town when not actively on duty. What he makes as a Guard is slightly less than his other jobs combined, but it’s also just one job to keep track of, unpredictable as it may be, so it evens out. He now uses his charms to make sure people trust him enough to divulge things they might not have told law enforcement about otherwise, from their own secrets to snitching on others.
Sans doesn’t actively remember resets, only getting the same “déjà vu” feeling as everyone else, but since he is aware that resets are a thing, he knows that feeling means timeline shenanigans are afoot. Sans keeps his abilities and true potential close to his chest; everyone knows he’s quick on his feet and has deep wells of magic to draw from, but most don’t know how weak his defenses are, that he’s basically a glass cannon and one solid hit could take him out; most people don’t know Sans can turn into a Blaster Beast, but he did reveal it to the Blithe Woods Pack to help gain their trust, to prove he belonged with them on the Royal Guard’s (unofficial) K9 Unit, but asked them to not tell anyone else, even Undyne; all of the Guards know about the Gaster Blasters but most of the general public does not, keeping them as an ace up his sleeve to surprise an opponent; no one but Papyrus and Gaster know about the “special abilities” like KR and shortcuts.
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If Undertale Papyrus was eager to please and sincere, and Underswap Papyrus was laid-back and crafty, then Inverted Papyrus is wary and secretive.
Despite being twins, and being physically bigger than Sans, Papyrus tends to take on a younger brother role, happy enough to follow Sans around and support his ambitions rather than commit to a goal of his own. He doesn’t like to engage in something unless he knows for sure it’ll work out and be worth the cost or effort; he says it's for efficiency, to reduce waste, because he can't admit that failure feels worse than not trying at all.
After Gaster’s accident, Papyrus didn’t get a stable job like Sans did, instead doing odd jobs around town, patching a roof here and fixing a microwave there. Usually he’d be given a meal to take home or some other item for his trouble, sometimes money if it was a more intensive task, but mostly he was trying to generate good will in a new community, favors he could call in later for him or his family. He never said this outright, of course, but most adults caught on to the pattern quickly enough. When Sans became a full Royal Guard, he dropped his various jobs and Papyrus managed to sweet-talk his way into taking over Sans’ Sentry Post in Blithe Woods to make up for the lost income, sort of switching the roles of who has a stable job and who is doing odd-jobs between other responsibilities.
Papyrus doesn’t actively remember resets, only getting the same “déjà vu” feeling as everyone else, but since he is aware that resets are a thing, he knows that feeling means timeline shenanigans are afoot. While Papyrus has most of the same abilities as Sans, he doesn’t train them as much, fearing he might be exposed for having them at all, so he doesn’t have quite as much fire power or precision as Sans but he does have higher defensive stats and plenty of stamina to make up for it, tending to outlast his opponents rather than overwhelm them quickly. Papyrus pretends he’s weaker than Sans anyways, that he has fewer “special abilities” or tricks up his sleeve, even though they are about equal when taking their different strengths into account; if Papyrus can endure through Sans' initial attacks, he's basically won.
Sans generally keeps his true potential hidden so he’ll be underestimated and can surprise an opponent; however, Papyrus hates telling anyone anything substantial about himself, ever. Even more than most people, Papyrus is terrified of rejection, which is probably related to his fear of failure, but if they don’t know the Real Papyrus they can’t reject the Real Papyrus, only the mask he allows them to see. He can tailor that mask to be whoever would appeal to the person he’s interacting with at the time so that, on the off chance that he is rejected, it won’t hurt as much because it was just a mask.
Sans keeps secrets for a practical reason. Papyrus keeps secrets like his life depends on it.
When Sans revealed his Blaster Beast form to the Pack, they asked if Papyrus or Gaster could do it, too, and Sans answered truthfully without thinking; Gaster can’t but Papyrus can. Sans immediately realized his mistake and begged them to not let Pap know they knew; if he found out Sans spilled one of his secrets, Pap would never forgive him. The truth does come out eventually, of course, and Papyrus is mad at Sans, but being warmly accepted by the Pack does take the sting out of it. A bit.
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If Undertale Undyne was confident and boisterous, and Underswap Undyne was nerdy and shy, then Inverted Undyne is nervous and reserved.
Undyne’s father, an aquatic reptilian named Vython, had been the Captain of the Royal Guard for a while, and Undyne was thrilled to follow in his footsteps, joining the Royal Guard herself as soon as she could. Everyone expected her to take over once Vython retired, as she was very obviously being groomed for the position. Just over a year before Frisk falls down, Captain Vython was killed by the 6th human to fall, one with a yellow soul and a loaded gun that managed to slip past Toriel, and Undyne was promoted to Captain way earlier than she’d expected, so she was dealing with both grieving the loss of her remaining parent and taking on a ton of responsibility she wasn’t ready for. The rest of the Guard had been very understanding and supportive, but she was slowly crumbling under the pressure. Undyne somewhat blames Toriel for Vython’s death but instead directs most of her anger towards humans in general rather than hating her Queen.
Both Vython and Nyad, Undyne’s mother, had been good friends with Gaster, so Undyne ended up spending a lot of time with Sans and Pap growing up and considers them her best friends, even though she’s about 4 years older than them. They kept Gaster’s experiments a secret from her, though, and they grew apart after Gaster’s accident since they moved away and had very little time to spare for anything beyond pure survival. Undyne had become a Royal Guard not long before that anyways, so she didn’t have much time either.
After being promoted to Captain, now only a few months before Frisk falls, Undyne bent the rules a bit and let Sans into the Guard a little early; she’d been trying to handle it on her own and wait for him to turn 19 to induct him, but she really needed his support and couldn’t wait any longer. Sans also benefitted, though, so she was able to outwardly spin it as a favor to him, though he was well aware of the real reason she’d let him in early. He didn’t mind, though, and was just happy he could reconnect with his old friend and be there for her, and take care of his family at the same time. Undyne also pulled some strings to let Papyrus take over Sans’ now vacant Sentry Post, citing that he didn’t even need training because he was already helping Sans and knew exactly what to do already.
When alone, Undyne is actually kinda quiet, more like Nyad, preferring to observe before committing to a course of action, very much looking before she leaps; a natural tactician. When she joined the Guard, Undyne had an ideal of what a Royal Guard should be like, outgoing and confident like Vython, so she projected that while on duty, only letting the mask fall around close friends and family. Upon promotion, she felt she had to fill Vython’s shoes and began to act even more like him, despite it going against her reserved nature, and keeping it up was exhausting her even faster than the responsibility was. She is eventually convinced that it’s ok to be her own kind of Captain, rather than a copy of the Captain that Vython was.
Undyne’s dad was Vython, an aquatic reptilian that could be compared to an anthropomorphized water dragon or sea serpent. He was bold, bright, and boisterous, very much like Undertale Undyne. His name is based on the Sea God Typhon, one of his sons named Python, and it sounds a little bit like a corrupted (Le)viathan.
Undyne’s mom was Nyad (naiad), a mostly pacifistic healer. Nyad is something like a mermaid or selkie, able to shapeshift her legs on land into a fish/seal tail in water, an ability Undyne inherited. She died when Undyne was fairly young, leading Vython to lean more on Gaster, who had recently become a father himself and leaned right back.
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If Undertale Alphys was anxious and awkward, and Underswap Alphys was arrogant and fierce, then Inverted Alphys is zealous and engaging.
Alphys’ passion for science is infectious and anyone who’s met her can’t help but share her excitement. She had a fairly normal childhood in Harvestead, even though she spent most of her time greedily soaking up every bit of knowledge anyone was willing to teach her rather than learning how socializing worked through experience with kids her age, so she has a hard time reading people and generally takes them at their word. Obviously, she knows people can and do lie, but she never expects them to so it always catches her off guard when they do. She became Gaster’s assistant fairly young and was given his title after his accident left him unable to perform his duties
Alphys tends to not care what anyone thinks of her, barreling full steam ahead despite warnings to take her time, but her hasty decision making has led to many positive results in record time. Unfortunately, her mad scientist streak leads to many of her exploits literally blowing up in her face, leaving a trail of carnage in her wake, though she somehow doesn’t seem to ever take any lasting damage. ((Depending on what I decide Gaster's accident was, I might have it be Alphys’ fault, though not on purpose.))
Alphys has trouble with “object permanence” and doesn’t really think about something unless it is constantly in her face. If an item is in a drawer where she can’t see it, she could completely forget that it existed in the first place, until she comes across it again. She doesn’t “forget” people, per se, she actually remembers a lot of random details about everyone she meets; she just doesn’t think about them, or think to contact them, without being prompted. Even her own family is not immune to this and she could go months without talking to them unless they contact her first. She tends to either bounce between a dozen or two projects haphazardly, or she hyper fixates on one project and the rest of the world may as well not exist. Once she loses the hyper fixation, it would be shelved in favor of the next; she might never think about that particular project again or she might come back to it years later and it would be like she’d never left it. ((I’m like this too, it kinda sucks honestly...))
The exception to this is Undyne, as Alphys had immediately fallen head-over-heels for the then Royal Guard. She already had plans to expand the surveillance network and easily fit in a few extra cameras near Undyne’s home that nobody would notice, watching her from afar. This was the first time Alphys had hesitated to approach someone, got nervous around them, or thought about them while they weren’t around. It was a new and exciting feeling and Alphys relished it.
But she didn’t approach.
In the meantime, Alphys found some of Gaster’s old research about Determination, human souls, and the beginnings of the experiments that would eventually result in Flowey and the Amalgamates. While ashamed and embarrassed at her failure, Alphys didn’t hide them and they returned to their now multiple families, though the Memory Heads were deemed a danger to themselves and others so they were kept in the Vail Lab. The Amalgamates tend to wander the Underground so everyone chips in to help take care of them and they see Alphys for regular checkups. They all seem to like Gaster for some reason (spoiler: they tend to processes thoughts the same way).
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If Undertale Asgore was provincially charming but willing to sacrifice his morality for the good of his people, and Underswap Asgore was fatherly and nurturing but ran from his responsibilities, than Inverted Asgore is a passionate motivational speaker but unwilling to compromise his moral code.
Asgore is a beloved King with a regal aura his subjects are drawn to, but he is also a skilled manipulator, using his silver tongue to convince his subjects to eagerly accept anything he may want them to do. It would be terrifying if he were any less committed to upholding his moral code. Asgore has a heart of gold and truly wants what’s best for his people, so they trust him to lead them well and make good decisions, therefore they generally don’t resist his manipulation even if they do recognize it as such.
These two traits, his desire to help his people and his strict adherence to his moral code, had never come into conflict until his children were killed by humans.
Chara had just died of an “unknown illness” and Asriel took their soul and passed through the Barrier before Asgore or Toriel could stop him, only to return mortally wounded and collapse into dust in their arms. Asgore shut down, the emotions too much for him, until he learned of Toriel’s plan to declare war on the humans and decree that any human who fell would be killed, their souls harvested to break the Barrier and then used to empower monsters to destroy humanity entirely. His moral code wouldn’t let him stand by while innocent humans suffered and died for the sins of the few who had attacked Asriel, but he also knew that his people needed something to hold onto now that Asriel and Chara, the hope for the future of humans and monsters, were gone. Asgore halted Toriel, certain they could find some kind of solution that didn’t involve another war; even if they survived, could they really consider it a victory if they lost themselves along the way? However, he was unable to present a satisfactory alternative, so she took matters into her own hands and left for the remains of Homefront, which she renamed Hollow Shrine before sealing the way behind her. If Asgore wasn’t willing to soil his hands with death then Toriel would do it herself.
Toriel had announced her plan to the whole Kingdom as she left, so everyone knew that, any time they saw her, it would be to deliver another human soul to King Asgore, harvested from a human by the Queen herself.
Asgore had mixed feelings about this development. While he had always been the face of the monster throne, and the driving force to accomplish their goals, Toriel was the brains, the tactician, the one to come up with the plans for Asgore to carry out. He was lost without her. As much as he hated her plan, he couldn’t bring himself to condemn it, wanting to present a united front for his people to rely on, to hide the cracks in their leadership.
He did what he could to keep everyone’s spirits up, to keep hope alive in his subjects, but they could all tell something inside him had broken; the light in his eyes was gone, and he was just going through the motions.
I may or may not have Carol and/or Rudy be assigned to take over day-to-day administrative stuff so Asgore can wallow in misery, taking over the role Toriel usually filled. They'd have to be Inverted too, though.
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If Undertale Toriel was protective and nurturing but avoidant, running from her duties, and Underswap Toriel was cold and merciless but dedicated to her cause, then Inverted Toriel is logical and steadfast but willing to sacrifice her morality for the good of her people.
While some would describe Queen Toriel as cold and calculating, she thought of herself as practical and efficient. She couldn’t excite a crowd with nothing but words like Asgore could, or inspire others with her mere presence, but she wanted the best for her people just as much as Asgore did, so she used her administrative and organizational skills behind the scenes to bring Asgore’s ideals to life. He would set the goals and she would find a way to make it reality. She may not have been as beloved as her husband, but she preferred to stay out of the spotlight anyways, to be the one they looked to for an actual plan and not just pretty words.
Toriel had never known true hatred before Chara and Asriel’s deaths, had never felt so strongly about anything in her entire life.
When Asgore shut down in shock and grief, she had nothing to direct her drive for action besides her own rage, so that is what she acted on, though she was stopped from declaring all-out war on the human race by Asgore and his morals. He couldn’t provide an alternative solution, but he swore he would die before letting her doom their people to losing themselves just to satisfy her thirst for vengeance; a thirst that would never be able to fill the hole in her heart left by the loss of their children anyways. Killing others wouldn’t make the pain go away. Part of Toriel knew Asgore was right, but another part knew that if she let this fire in her soul die, there would be nothing left to fuel her. She didn’t think she’d survive that.
So, if Asgore was unwilling to do what must be done, then Toriel would do it herself.
She announced to the entire Underground her plan to reside in the remains of Homefront, the only place known for a human to fall, and collect the necessary souls and deliver them to Asgore personally so no one else would have to face the danger of fighting a human. She didn’t say out loud that she was also protecting them from the trauma of being forced to take a life, though many picked up on the subtext anyways. She knew that most monsters, but especially Asgore, were too compassionate to collect the required souls themselves and she wanted to spare them that horrible choice by taking that sin upon herself; no one else would have to suffer. Despite his strict adherence to his moral code, Toriel was counting on Asgore being prudent enough to not let an already collected soul go to waste.
Toriel renamed Homefront to “Hollow Shrine”, as it had been frozen in time when they left it; a Shrine to the past, now Hollow and empty. She chose to isolate herself for a number of reasons, one of which was to preemptively punish herself for the murders she had sworn to commit. For each human that fell, she tried to make their end quick and painless, often convincing them to come to her home to rest before killing them in their sleep, collecting their soul, and taking a funeral march to the throne room to present it to Asgore. These were the only interactions they had with each other for a very long time.
Not all of the humans trusted Toriel enough to sleep, but only the last one, with a yellow soul and a loaded gun, managed to sneak past her into the rest of the Underground. This human was spotted by the Blithe Woods sentries and the Captain of the Royal Guard was called to fight them, arriving after the human had already killed several other monsters. The Captain was also mortally wounded before Toriel caught up to the human and finished the job.
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If Undertale Asriel was sweet and gentle, and Underswap Asriel was clumsy and energetic, than Inverted Asriel was spunky and spirited.
Asriel had inherited Asgore’s silver tongue, so both Toriel and Asgore did their best to instill in him a desire to use it for the good of all rather then selfish gain. It mostly worked, though Asriel was not immune to teenage rebellion, getting himself and others in trouble with increasing frequency. One day, he was playing around the outskirts of Homefront when he found an injured human, who introduced themself as Chara. Making a snap decision, Asriel tried to hide them from everyone, fearing they would reject Chara and hurt them even more than they already were, and quickly became very attached to his new friend. Luckily, he was adept at healing, though neither knew how to set a broken leg so they would walk with a limp for the rest of their life.
Chara likened their new position to a child hiding a kitten in their closet. Asriel didn’t find the comparison nearly as funny as Chara did.
Chara was discovered, of course, and Asgore and Toriel were torn between their desire to keep Asriel safe from humans and Asriel’s clear attachment that would inevitably leave him feeling bitter if they tried to separate the two, a betrayal he might never fully forgive them for. Hesitantly, they allowed Chara to stay and eventually grew to care for them as well. With this acceptance, Asriel and Chara became inseparable, though Chara encouraged Asriel’s rebellious streak a bit more than Asgore and Toriel would’ve liked and Asriel began neglecting his other friends as well.
At some point, Asriel and Chara decided to make a pie and mistook cups of butter for buttercups; Asriel was many things but a cook was not one of them, and the monsters had introduced Chara to so many strange foods that the idea of putting flowers in a pie seemed reasonable enough. Asgore got sick from the pie and, despite his recovery, this marked the beginning of the end, as Chara began to isolate themself and Asriel began to take his duties as Prince much more seriously, shocked out of his rebellion by seeing the consequences of careless actions. Then Chara got sick, only telling Asriel about their planned suicide when they were certain they couldn’t be saved, even by his advanced skills at healing. They begged him to end their pain, take their soul, and use it to free the monsters. It took a lot of convincing, but he eventually agreed to their plan and snuck them to the Barrier before dealing the final blow himself.
Absorbing Chara’s soul, Asriel walked through the Barrier with their body, unwilling to let them go just yet but knowing his parents would stop him if he lingered too long. In the dark of night, Asriel found the town Chara had originally come from, knowing things about it that he couldn’t have possibly known and figured it must be the fading embers of Chara’s consciousness, since they were of course dead and gone now. He came up to a house, intending to sneak in a window and kill everyone inside in their sleep, but paused as he witnessed a mother comforting her child that had awoken from a nightmare. Seeing this suddenly put into perspective what he was about to do, that these humans were just as much “people” as every monster in the Underground, and he was about to murder them in cold blood. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Unfortunately, the mother and child spotted him as he stood frozen by their window, dead child in his arms, and all of them panicked. Asriel took off, unfortunately in the wrong direction, and the father of the family he’d scared pursued him with a hunting rifle. By the time Asriel realized his mistake, the father had caught up to him and shot him several times before Asriel managed to escape back up the mountain.
It didn’t take long for Asgore and Toriel to discover Chara was missing, frantically searching everywhere before finding a note Chara had written beforehand. It detailed their plan, emphasizing that this was their choice, and asking them to not blame Asriel for it; this was what they wanted. All the two parents could do was wait by the Barrier for Asriel to return. Unfortunately, after stumbling into their arms, Asriel only lasted just long enough to apologize before crumbling to dust.
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If Undertale Chara was mischievous and hated humanity, and Underswap Chara was kind and pacifistic, than Inverted Chara cared deeply for their loved ones and fuck everyone else.
Born a girl in an early American settlement, Charisma never quite fit the mold laid out for them by society. They would often daydream about daring adventures and fighting beasts, praised as a hero and adored by those they saved. Their parents punished them for such fanciful ideas, hoping to curb this bad habit before anyone else found out, but Chara just got better at hiding it. They were taught to read in the hopes that being more useful would attract a husband, but Chara got their hands on a fantasy novel and was instantly hooked, even if they lacked some vocabulary.
Then the townsfolk found out and the whole family was shunned until they could “get that girl back in her place. Rich people could afford such flights of fancy, but the common folk had to work for a living; how dare she think she was better than everyone else, that she was above her lot in life?”
Eventually, it got bad enough that Chara’s father decided enough was enough and, in a drunken rage, decided that the best way to “fix” the problem was to kill Chara and their mother, who he somewhat blamed for conceiving a “defective” daughter. Chara’s mother was instructing them on how to cook, one of their weaker skills, when their father came home and began beating them both. Chara eventually found themself kneeling over their mother’s lifeless body when their father lunged at them and the dropped chopping knife was suddenly in their hand, stabbing him in the face before they fled up Mount Ebott. As the sun finished setting, they climbed as high as they could, taking shelter in a cave for the night.
They never knew if their parents survived the incident, or if anyone even bother looking for them, because they fell down a hole by morning, the broken leg only the most recent of their injuries. This was Chara’s state when Asriel found them. As much as Asriel was immediately attached to them, Chara clung right back; he was the first person in years to look at them kindly, to not care that they were human, let alone a “defective” one. He also introduced them to the idea of using gender neutral pronouns and a tension in their chest they never realized was there finally released.
After inevitably being discovered, Chara was still anxious around anyone other than Asriel, who decided he wanted to stay with them more than his other friends. Chara felt guilty for unintentionally isolating him but it also felt really good knowing he picked them over everyone else. Despite Asriel’s best efforts, Chara’s broken leg had never healed right, so they had a permanent limp, but they did what they could to “earn their keep” with the skills their human parents had taught them. They were actually starting to feel pretty good about their lot in life...
... until the Buttercup Pie Incident.
Chara had been viscerally reminded that they were a human, and humans killed monsters; it was in their nature, they couldn’t help it. But they had to protect their new family, the only people who had ever cared about them, even if they had to protect them from Chara themself. There was one last gift they could give the monsters, though; their human soul, one of seven required to break the Barrier. So, Chara had to die. But how? Asriel was a prodigy with healing magic, he would heal whatever wound they could inflict on themself, but they also had to be in a position for Asriel to absorb their soul, so they couldn’t just throw themself in the magma or something. They would have to convince Asriel to either kill them himself or let them die while being close enough to absorb their soul, but what would make Asriel choose that? A mercy killing, Asriel would have to be convinced to put Chara out of their misery, even if it was self-inflicted. What kind of misery would be convincing enough?
Their mind turned back to the spark that started the wildfire in their life; buttercup poisoning, a poetic end.
Chara eventually won the race between the buttercup's poison and Asriel’s healing. He couldn’t heal them as they felt their body shutting down for good, and finally revealed their plan, begging him to not let their life, their pain, their death, be in vain.
They didn’t expect to be conscious once absorbed. They never quite regained their bearings, but thoughts and memories of the town they originally came from filtered through their consciousness and into Asriel’s mind, and when he bolted, it was towards Chara’s old house, running on their instinct. They faded as Asriel turned to dust, their body buried where they fell in the now frozen over Hollow Shrine.
-
-
I’m still working on Frisk and Flowey, as well as most of the background characters and some random notes, but I’ll save that for another post. This one is long enough as it is.
So, in January, the idea of Danny Phantom being adopted by Batman got a stranglehold on my brain and I've been posting stuff on my side blog for a while. I also started actually writing it out and now that I've been released from Phantom Bat, I think I can finally return to Shifting Sans and actually start writing again.
I'm going to take my time, though, and maybe store up a few chapters before I actually start posting it again, but in the meantime, I think Imma start sharing random AU stuff. I've been hesitant to share it, since it could be considered spoilers for whenever Serif starts AU Hopping, as well as many of them just being half-baked ideas that haven't been refined yet, but I think I don't care about that as much anymore. I just want somewhere to post it lol.
... and now that I have Serif, I can't help but want to put him in LITERALLY EVERYTHING. So. Here are my current ideas about how Serif would interact with the world of Ebott's Wake if he had entered the universe at the same time Doctor Aster came back, though not quite at the same place.
Alternate Universes are eventually confirmed to exist within the narrative, so I have decided to rework how much Serif's presence is going to affect the story. I was concerned about how much I could/should change but what happens next (I've finally caught up to Legacy of the Magi chapter 132) and have fewer reservations now. Serif usually sticks around a new AU for about a month to recover anyways so he can try Hopping again, so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for him to stay for the duration of the plot, especially if he thinks he can be useful. Things don't change much until after the State of the Kingdom Address and everything associated with it.
EDIT: I have since posted an updated, more fleshed out version of this on Ao3
Thursday
Ch1 Aster wakes up alone and mildly panics
Aster scrounges in the CORE for a radio, bringing it to the mouth of the cave before realizing he needed a power source.
Cussing himself out, Aster finds a power source at the Dump, where Serif hears him talking to himself and follows him back to the cave entrance.
Ch2 Radio show
Serif hides just inside the cave while Aster listens to the radio show.
Upon hearing of a call-in section of the show, Aster scrounges for a phone in the CORE, nearly catching Serif watching him, but Aster is a bit too distracted to consciously notice.
Ch3 Frisk and Flowey talk
Ch4 Aster calls the radio show
Serrif witnesses the call but only hears Aster’s half of the conversation, since Aster had turned down the radio so the delay wouldn’t trip him up.
Ch5 what Aster was up to and reunion with Sans
Aster is grappling with reality for like half an hour until Sans shortcuts in.
Serif witnesses the reunion, assured that Aster is a beloved parent and not a threat, and considers following them down the mountain. Their conversation fades into the distance as Serif decides to stay behind for now; let them have their happy reunion first, then they can deal with Serif.
Serif pushes the two abandoned thrones together to make a small “bed”. He’s had worse nights.
Ch6 Aster meets Toriel
Ch7 Family dinner with the gang
Ch8 Aster digests the story of Undertale
Ch9 Dinner ends and Frisk acts weird about breaking a plate
-1 Thursday
Serif wakes up in an empty Snowdin.
“No dust in the air, so it’s not a felled AU. No dust piles on the ground, so the kid didn’t kill ‘em all. Buildings are too modern for them to have died off far enough back for the dust to settle. Buildings are also empty, so somebody must’ve taken everything somewhere. All evidence points to a pacifist run gone right and everyone’s on the surface and probably don’t need my kind o’ help. Which means I’ve got the whole Underground to myself. Greeeaaat.”
Serif wanders around, looking for somewhere comfortable enough to hunker down for a few days to recover; if this universe was as “average” as it seems at first glance, there isn’t much point in staying any longer than necessary. He then hears a voice, following it to the dump to find Gaster, talking to himself while scrounging for radio parts. Serif observes from a distance, not sure he should trust this Gaster, and thinking that maybe there’s a reason he’s here after all. Hiding just inside the cave, Serif witnesses “Aster’s” radio call and the reunion with the native Sans, decides this (G)Aster was a beloved parent and not a threat, then decides to bed down for the night in the overgrown throne room, pushing both abandoned thrones together to make a small bed. He’s had worse nights.
The native Sans was his usual first contact, as Serif could infer a lot about an AU based on what Sans was like, but he figured he could find Sans later; let them all enjoy their happy reunion first, then they can deal with Serif.
-
Friday
Ch10 Radio show
There was a “protest” outside the Librarby but everyone was too drunk to do much and then scattered. This was before 9:30 am. Pre-protest for Das Boot reopening?
Ch11 Frisk thinks Sans was abused
Ch 12 Aster visits All Fine Labs
Ch 13 Radio show, Das Boot protest
Ch 14 Aster gets a job
Ch 15 Flowey isn’t Asriel, Frisk shows trauma
Ch 16 Flowey talks to Alphys
-2 Friday
The next day, Serif scrounges for something he can make edible and leaves the Underground by late morning, acting like he knew exactly where he was going; people are less likely to bother you if you look like you have somewhere to be. While wandering around town, Serif comes across a pair of crowds outside of some kind of restaurant with a small group between the two. He stays on the outskirts, cautiously curious, until a projectile flies from one crowd and hit one of the middle humans. Serif freezes, split between the urge to help and the need to remain hidden, until he sees the injured human screaming after the projectile thrower, apparently more-or-less fine. Serif decides this isn’t the best place to discretely gather intel and leaves for calmer pastures.
Finding a café with free wifi, he sets himself up to people-watch for the rest of the day, noting that this town was weird, and gets his phone connected to the grid with some minor hacking, keeping his eye out for any potential snacks he could liberate without drawing attention to himself. He stays the night at the Arboretum, finding a nice, dense tree to hide out in. Again, he’s had worse nights.
-
Saturday
Ch 17 Radio show, schedule
Ch 18 Frisk asks Alphys for SOUL help and stays til noon storm
Ch 19 the skeleboys go to lunch
Ch 20 Radio show, storm
Ch 21 Fisk and Alphys talk, slumber party begins
Ch 22 Skeleboys trapped in the rain
-3 Saturday
Resigning to dumpster dive for breakfast, Serif notices the starting of a storm but doesn’t realize just how bad it’s gonna get until it’s too late; he thought he might get I nice shower out of it, not end up in a flash flood! Annoyed at having been tripped up by surface weather, he ends up laying in a puddle of misery until Undyne literally stumbles upon him, assumes Serif is braving the elements like she is, and Serif indulges her competitiveness. This was as good an introduction to the group as any.
“Sure, why not? I’m already soaked to the bone so it’s not like I could get any wetter.”
Undyne is thrilled, they spar and race and probably some other stuff, until Undyne asks why Serif is really out in the storm and he lets slip he has no shelter to return to; he certainly can’t stay in a tree in this weather. At this, Undyne makes a snap decision and throws him over her shoulder, ignoring his protests, and takes him home to Alphys and Frisk, who just happened to be there when the storm hit and is kind of stuck. Once there, he hesitates before spilling exactly why he doesn’t have anywhere to go; while his usual first contact was the native Sans, he knew secrets would only hurt him in the long run. Being the anime nerds they are, the three quickly get the gist of Serif’s past and sudden arrival.
Sleepover hijinks ensue, including, but not limited to: get-to-know-you games like “Two Truths and a Lie” and “Truth or Dare”; make overs, where Serif gets Day of the Dead face paint; party games like Charades or other board games; Serif telling the three about alternate versions of themselves; and more. Eventually, jobs are brought up and Alphys mentions the souls research that Aster just agreed to take over; maybe Serif could help them get a head start on it, or at least find a good starting point. Serif hesitantly agrees.
“W-what do you know about souls? Or more specifically, human souls? We’re r-researching them right now and don’t really know where to start…”
“Well, every universe is a little different, so I simultaneously know a lot about how souls could work and very little about how they work in this universe in particular.”
“Well, w-would you consider consulting? E-even if you don’t t-tell us everything, maybe you can help us skip a few steps?”
“Hmm… I suppose I do have to earn my keep somehow, right? If you think I can still be useful within my boundaries, than sure, I’ll consult on the project. Also keeping in mind that I’m not going to be staying here long term; I won’t just leave y’all high and dry but I have no intention of making this place my home.”
“W-with the p-power out, we c-can’t call Toriel to tell her F-Frisk is here, or tell D-doctor Aster about you, Serif. He agreed to t-take over the soul research p-project for me.”
“Oh joy. Guess I can work on my Gaster issues while I’m here, too.”
“D-don’t call him Gaster, h-he hates it.”
“Really? Huh, most of his counterparts embraced the name “Gaster”. Welp, thanks for telling me, otherwise it would’ve been a dis-aster.” ;)
-
Sunday
Ch 23 Radio show, t-shirts are promised
Ch 24 Sans has a memory
Ch 25 Sans looks for Frisk and they have a talk
-4 Sunday
Everyone had acknowledged that Serif can’t stay with Alphys and Undyne; there simply isn’t room, and Serif didn’t want to intrude anyways. Instead, they decide to ask Asgore if Serif could crash with him, which Serif half-heartedly tries to resist but gives in when they mention Asgore is alone a lot, which really isn’t good for him. Alphys calls Aster about the green light and the stray consultant Undyne found in the rain, then calls into the radio show to announce it to everyone. T-shirts are promised.
They point Serif in the general direction of All Fine Labs while they head over to ask Asgore if he would house Serif for a bit and drop off Frisk with their dad, then head over to Toriel’s to update her on the situation.
Aster got to the Labs before Serif and happily picks up his “mystery assistant” from the lobby. Serif briefly explains his backstory and, while fascinated, Aster tries to prioritize the soul research, promising to unravel Serif’s everything on his down time. Once onboarding is complete, both are brought up to speed on what they know, what they know they don’t know, and the process for scanning tomorrow’s volunteers.
Once done for the day, Aster insists on walking Serif to Asgore’s, partially because Serif really had no idea where Asgore lived and partially so they can talk more before the inevitable insanity tomorrow would bring. Aster had picked up on Serif’s discomfort and Serif reluctantly explains that he’s had some… unfortunate experiences with Gasters of other AUs.
“Which reminds me, they all went by Gaster so it is kind of interesting that you hate it so much. So uh, sorry in advance when I inevitably mess up.”
Asgore happily shares some dinner with Serif and Toriel shows up sometime after Frisk’s bedtime, wanting to meet the “stranger” that Undyne and Alphys had invited to their impromptu slumber party. Both boss monsters try their best to understand Serif’s origins, with limited success. Tori is placated, as Serif seems to be a good person, but he does hide his LV from them; he really doesn’t wanna get into why the numbers are wrong or explain why some of them are right.
-
Monday
Ch 26 Radio show, soul scanning 101
Ch 27 Frisk gets scanned
-5 Monday
Bright and early Monday morning, Serif wakes with a start, blades out, ready for a fight, but is embarrassed when he realizes Asgore had simple dropped something while making breakfast. Serif has to explain that while living on the go, often in less than safe conditions, reflexes like that had saved his life more times than he cared to think about.
“Honestly? The fact that I didn’t wake up as soon as you came downstairs is a testament to either how tired I was, how comfortable I am here already, or how stealthy you are. So there’s that, I guess.”
At the Labs, Serif is basically just another gofer while the data is being gathered, his consultation only really needed for the bigger concepts, but he’s happy enough to be helping.
Once Frisk is scanned, and gives some “anomalous” readings, Serif is immediately grabbed and finally introduced to Sans. Sans is not thrilled with this development.
“w h o t h e f u c k a r e y o u ?”
“I’m you; or rather, I’m who you might have been if circumstances had been different. But we can compare notes later, we’ve got bigger fish to fry right now.”
Having spent a slumber party with Frisk, and knowing what he did about other Frisks, Serif isn’t surprised at all that they have a high LV Cap. Caps are a measure of how violent a person could become, based on outside influences, negative experiences, exposure to violence… Again, it varies, but…
“Y’ever wonder why a kid would climb a mountain nobody returns from? No happy reasons, I can tell you that much. I may not know specifically what this kid has gone through, but from what I’ve seen they’re a good kid with all of the hallmarks of past abuse. That’s as far as I’m willing to speculate without more details and I don’t wanna push ‘em too far too fast.”
The skeletons keep all of this to themselves for now while they think about what to do. Alphys was too busy to think about Frisk’s scan until after work and Aster said he’d update her in the morning. Serif doesn’t tell Asgore that Frisk was scanned at all.
-
Tuesday
Ch 28 Asgore has a dream and does morning stuff
Ch 29 Big brains have a meeting
Ch 30 Frisk and Undyne talk
Ch 31 Radio show
CH 32 Frisk and Aster talk after the garden show
-6 Tuesday
A morning meeting is called and Alphys is brought up to speed on Frisk’s scan data, specifically their high LV Cap. Serif mostly observes while the native scientists try not to freak out too much; Aster is certain there’s some other explanation and wants more data before doing anything but Alphys refuses to live in secrets and lies again, storming off to the Garden Show to spill everything to Toriel. Sans goes after her to play damage control and the other scientists decide to get back to work and leave this decision to the monsters in charge. This leaves Serif with Aster in the meeting room.
Aster tells Serif to look at closer at Frisk’s scan, maybe they missed something that skewed the data, but Serif argues that it’d be a waste of time; he believes that the numbers are accurate, or at least accurate enough, and nothing more can be gleaned from this one scan. They can scan more if they want but Serif doesn’t think they’ll gain much other than confirmation. Aster relents and more volunteers are scanned. Aster tries to distract himself from thinking about Frisk by grilling Serif about AU stuff.
Hiving hit this roadblock with Frisk’s scans, Aster is frustrated and scans aren’t enough of a distraction on their own, so Aster starts prodding at Serif about AU stuff. He manages to bully Serif into going to the Skelebros’ house to talk more, under the guise of finally being introduced to Papyrus, who wasn’t even there. Frisk shows up, frustrated that they still haven’t gotten a direct answer from anyone about LV Caps, and had decided to seek out Aster or Serif for answers. Aster and Frisk go for a walk and Serif takes his chance to flee, thoroughly exhausted and very much DONE with everyone.
-
Wednesday
Ch 33 Radio show
Ch 34 First blood on the scanner
Ch 35 Undyne has a memory and talks to Frisk
Ch 36 Frisk is scanned again and revelations are had
Ch 37 Frisk and Flowey talk, then Sans drops off a book
Ch 38 AML meeting with Justin
-7 Wednesday
The next day at work, Serif was with Aster when he got the message about the first human with LV being scanned. Aster was initially worried until Serif pointed out that the human had willingly been scanned, knowing they had killed before and likely aware that the scan would reveal that. Aster was suddenly less worried and more curious about the psychology of someone who would do something like that and wanted to talk to the human alone; he’d previously wanted Serif to accompany him and watch his back.
While scanning continued, Serif was restocking the breakroom when Frisk entered for a snack, having left Sans and Toriel to have some hard realizations. Frisk had been wanting to talk to Serif again since the sleep over anyways but they hadn’t been able to find the time.
“Based on what I’ve seen from you, and what I know of other Frisks… I think the numbers are accurate. Meaning that you haven’t even hit puberty and you’ve already been through hell and back… For what it’s worth, I have a high LV Cap, too. Nobody seems to have clocked it yet, or at least I haven’t heard about it, but I probably understand you better than anyone else in town. With one notable exception that I’m sure you don’t need me to spell out for you.”
“… how did… you get a high LV Cap?”
“… I don’t think we have time to get into that today-”
“Frisk! Just the person I was looking for! That star you mentioned yesterday, I can’t stop thinking about- oh uh, Serif,
Serif mentioned his own high LV Cap but they were interrupted by Aster before Serif could say much else. Aster mentioned the star Frisk had told him about on their walk before stopping short with a glance at Serif, who shrugged and started to excuse himself from the private conversation but Frisk stopped him, saying that maybe he could help figure out what’s going on.
Unfortunately, this time didn’t work either as Aster comes by and invites them both to another TED Talk about timespace and how it must have carried Aster into the future. Frisk and Toriel eventually return to school and Alphys returns with pizza and an epiphany which Serif gets roped into helping her with while Sans and Aster return to scanning volunteers.
After scans wrap up, Serif had been run ragged trying to keep up with Alphys and was told to get some rest while Sans and Aster take over. As he’s leaving, Serif runs into Papyrus who was on his way to try and pull Sans and Aster away from the labs and go to the Pancake thing. While disappointed with the update about their work status, Papyrus decides to use this opportunity to get to know Serif instead; Sans and Aster get to hang out with him all the time at work and Pap had been feeling a little left out.
They meet up with Undyne for Pancakes and she’s disappointed Alphys isn’t with them but proud of her passionate girlfriend. Serif gets roped into some contests between Papyrus and Undyne, allowing himself to show off a bit but keeping a very tight lid on his abilities. The two can tell Serif is holding back but he refuses to go all out with so many people around so they head to the school.
“Nobody’d be caught dead back at school if they could help it!”
“Heh, good one.”
“Good-? Oh shit! Ugh! I didn’t mean to make a pun!”
It takes a bit of coaxing but Serif lets himself indulge in his power.
“I’m always so afraid of it that I actually don’t really know where my limits are. I know I have them, I’ve reached them in… less than ideal circumstances, but… I’ve never felt comfortable enough with my powers to test them properly.”
-
Thursday
Ch 39 Papyrus has a memory and starts his day
Ch 40 Radio show
Ch 41 Second blood on the scanner
Ch 42 Radio show, schedule
Ch 43 Rehearsal
Ch 44 Aster and Frisk talk science
Ch 45 radio show, special bulletin
-8 Thursday
The next day, Joe Stanton tests out Alphys epiphany and scanning begins yet again. Aster was poking at Serif again when Sans came to grab Aster and Serif busied himself refilling the refreshments in the breakroom again. Jason Taylor is scanned and sent to the breakroom, where Serif immediately picks up on his LV; luckily, Serif has plenty of practice not reacting to potential threats while still keeping tabs on them.
Later that day, Aster is puzzling away with Serif about the CORE failure that sent him skipping through time when Frisk shows up after the Ad-dress rehearsal. Sans also enters, bantering with Frisk who sticks their tongue out at him.
“curses, the one human gesture i can't do.”
“Wait, you can’t make magic flesh?”
“make what now?”
Serif demonstrates by sticking out his own blue tongue, which freaks out the skeletons and amuses the human. Discussion is diverted to skeleton physiology for a bit but eventually gets back on track so Serif could help Frisk explain resets which triggers an epiphany for Aster.
“Did you already know all of this?!”
“Kinda. *shrug* The exact physics work a little differently in each universe but the result is pretty consistent. The power to change fate… Frisk is right, it’s a curse that corrupts even those with the best of intentions. I’ve seen it happen, I’ve felt the allure myself; no one should be forced to live with so much power over the lives of those around them.”
Serif declines joining them at the Dank Memehaus and heads home to dinner with Asgore. Serif brings him up to speed on Frisk’s stats and both listen to the radio before turning in for the night.
This might be a good time for Serif to talk to Flowey, since Flowey has a dream that night and starts to feel feelings. Despite Flowey being certain he doesn’t have a soul, Serif can still feel things from him.
-
Friday
Ch 46 Tori has a memory and Frisk has some trauma
Ch 47 Flowey has a memory and talks to Frisk
Ch 48 Flowey feel feelings and talks to Alphys
Ch 49 Radio show, address starts and is interrupted
Ch 50 Frisk gets shot
Ch 51 Frisk stays determined, just barely
Ch 52 Radio show, war
Ch 53 Flowey enters Frisk’s mind, realizations are had
Ch 54 Cater gets dunked on
Ch 55 Frisk and Asriel have a heart to heart
Ch 56 Frisk wakes up
-9 Friday
Serif has to pick up Sans’ slack while he joins the Honor Guard at the Address. There have been protestors outside All Fine Labs every day since it opened and today was no different; however, what was different was a taught buzz of anxiety that Serif couldn’t quite account for. Almost like they’re waiting for something. He mentioned as much to Alphys and Aster, who brushed it off as a response to the Address going on today. Serif remained hyper vigilant about scanning the volunteers, even though it made the process a bit harder and longer, and was the first to realize there were weapons present and intent to use them.
After the lab was locked down and the mob seemed to be converging on the hospital Frisk is at, Serif agrees to stay behind and hold down the fort while Aster bridges Alphys over to help Flowey try to help Frisk. He considers accompanying Joe in the Blaster Mech but decides to stay put, just in case; it was possible this was some elaborate trick to infiltrate the lab, but mostly Serif just didn’t trust himself on the battlefield. Serif continued to be on high alert, even after the mob dispersed and the day was considered “won”.
-
Saturday
Ch 57 Radio show
Ch 58 Frisk and Pap hang out
Serif and Flowey hang out
Ch 59 Shop Class meets
-10 Saturday
Everyone takes the day off to recover physically, mentally, and emotionally from the riot and the others bring Serif up to speed on what happened at the hospital. Serif is kind of glad he decided to stay behind but also frustrated that he doesn’t know what to do with all of his nervous energy. Asgore does his best to distract Serif from his anxiety, with limited success. Serif tries to channel the energy into his remaining empty quartz crystals, which just leaves him tired and anxious; he’s just as riled up mentally but now, with less energy at his disposal, he feels the need to be even more alert to make up for the feeling of weakness. Serif doesn’t trust himself to spar and instead goes on a walk/run, hoping to bleed off the energy that way.
He doesn’t get far before he finds Flowey, who was waiting for Serif to leave the house so they could talk. Flowey says whatever Serif felt from him before must have been Frisk’s soul piece but Serif says he can still feel things from Flowey. If anything, Serif can feel more from Flowey now than he could last time they talked.
Undertale Theories: Determination and the Color Red
*This is a two part theory. The first part is a theory that you may have heard before, but it ties into the second theory, so it’s a necessary refresher. Hopefully, the second part is something new and mind-blowing. If it isn’t, then I offer you a conciliatory egg (terms and exclusions apply).
Part One
*In UNDERTALE, there are seven human SOULs, six of which we are able to see during the course of the game. We know the names and colors of these SOULs: Integrity (Blue), Perseverance (Purple), Patience (Cyan), Kindness (Green), Justice (Yellow), Bravery (Orange). Since the fallen human, Frisk’s SOUL is colored red when it appears for battle, it has long been assumed that the seventh SOUL color is Red paired with the trait of Determination.
*There are a few problems with this theory. The first issue that arises involves the SOUL colors being associated with the words. When the SOUL trait of Bravery is mentioned (during Ball Game) it appears in the color Orange. When Determination is mentioned in the game, the color used is Gold, not Red. Entry Number 5 in the True Lab describes Determination as the “will to keep living” and the “resolve to change fate.” In the game, Save Points, which epitomize Determination, are also colored Gold.
*The best evidence for the Determination SOUL being Gold rather than Red occurs when we compare this screenshot from Undertale:
*with this screenshot from Deltarune:
*Though they aren’t quite in the same order, the flowers in Deltarune correspond with the human SOULs from Undertale, and the seventh flower is Gold. This reinforces the theory that the color of Determination is Gold, not Red. So why is Frisk’s SOUL Red during battles, and why is Kris’ SOUL Red when they remove it and throw it into the cage?
*I have a theory:
Part Two
*Here’s the tea (in theory). Red is the color that a human SOUL turns when a Player is controlling it. It’s not a trait color. It’s a unique magic color not associated with a SOUL trait at all.
*The first evidence of this theory starts at the beginning of the game. You are asked to choose a name for the Fallen Human. We know the character that we play as is named Frisk, so this doesn’t really make sense, does it? If you choose the name Frisk, you activate Hard Mode, which ends at the Ruins. Odd. Unless… Frisk, the character we play, is not the same as us, the Fallen Human.
*What could this mean? It could mean that we, humans, have Fallen into Undertale… the game. This also implies that Frisk is, in fact, a nonbinary character and does not use they simply because they are our avatar.
*The next evidence involving the color Red is Ball Game. The words Ball Game appear in Red, while each SOUL trait appears in its corresponding color. You are awarded a red flag for completing the game. If you get the red flag more than once, you are reminded:
*Interestingly enough, you cannot play Ball Game in the Genocide Route. Also, in the Genocide Route, when you look in the mirror, it says “It’s me, <the name you chose>.” This seems to indicate that when you play that Route, you are doing something which does not fall into Frisk’s character since in the other Routes when Frisk looks in the mirror it says “It’s you.” Also, in the True Pacifist epilogue, once we are no longer controlling Frisk’s important decisions, the mirror says:
*The strongest evidence (in my opinion), is presented during our battles with Papyrus (and Sans), Undyne, Muffet, and Mettaton. The human SOUL changes colors and this affects how the SOUL acts in battle. It is possible that Frisk has a Gold SOUL which is colored Red because you (the Player) are controlling it. Another interesting fact is that during Undyne’s battle, the action that you cannot use (FLEE) and the strategy you (the Player) need to use to win are presented in the color Red.
*This also ties into Deltarune. When Kris rips the SOUL out of their chest, it is Red… and you (the Player) are able to move it within the cage! In Deltarune, there seem to be an awareness of a Player controlling the actions of the characters (some text which indicates that they are dissatisfied with decisions or actions). Kris may be removing the Player-controlled SOUL because they are aware of it.
*This has some interesting implications considering what happens afterwards. After our control is removed, Kris would supposedly now, finally, be in control of themself… and it’s a bit scary.
Thoughts? Comments? Feel free to weigh in.
(Hoping @nochocolate sees this even though they are not active.)
Kinda late to this party but I wanted to write some stuff anyways, just off the cuff. Brain to paper. This might not be polished or pretty but whatever, I'm doing it anyways.
So.
I do rather like the idea of Frisk/Chara having a gold soul, whether it's associated with Determination or not. More on this later. Probably.
I also like the implication that any soul controlled by us as the player would become red, overriding the character's natural trait, no mater what it may be. I heard a theory that red might be associated with freedom or choice, but I think Control works better in this scenario. Specifically OUR Control over the character/narrative/game/etc. This would explain why there are multiple ending in Undertale, because we have ultimate control over Frisk, while Deltarune is working towards a single ending, because we are not the only ones in control since Kris can resist our influence (to a degree) and so can Susie the few times we direct her.
This also has some interesting implications for my Shifting Sans story, so spoilers I guess?
Serif was once an "average" Sans before absorbing a piece of the genocidal human's soul; this is represented by his soul having a red teardrop shape in the middle of it. I have no intention of changing this but I might have him discover later that the red he had associated with Determination up until now was actually connected to the player and explains why he's able to exert control over his own story as much as he does, and the stories of other AUs once he figures out how to travel between them. He gains player-like abilities that someone in-universe isn't supposed to have and manages to sort of break reality by harnessing that connection.
I think that's all the thoughts I had on this for now, but this post still feels a lot shorter than I was expecting. Oh well, I might add more to this theory later.
edit: PLEASE LOOK AT THE UPDATE! IT'S SO MUCH BETTER!
I am suuuper writer's blocked right now, so no new chapter, but I did redraw my JumbleTale roster! I will update the blog header soon, but for now...
Here is the main cast, as they appear around the time Serif first arrives in JumbleTale!
Just because I can, I’ll drop some lore as well; everyone’s souls are displayed here and, while monsters do have white souls, the light they give off is tinted slightly, which reflects character traits and magic affinity; not that a monster can't learn magic that doesn't match their soul color, but it's easier to learn magic that does. That said, here's everyone's attributes (and call signs), from left to right:
Serif is a True Blue (Integrity). Technically, Serif isn’t native to JumbleTale so a different set of rules apply to him, but he is still associated with a soul color. Blue, or Dark Blue, is associated with Integrity; not that Serif can’t lie, he actually lies a lot, but he stays true to who he is, to his core beliefs and principles, no matter what he goes through. “Despite everything, it’s still you.”
Lucky Papyrus is a Just Yellow. Despite being raised to be a weapon by [Redacted] Gaster, Papyrus always had a strong sense of right and wrong no matter how much Gaster tried to beat it out of him. He cares less about what’s technically legal than he does about what’s fair.
Sains (Sans) is a Persevering Purple. A mix of Patient and Determined, Sans was quite adept in the realm of politics, until he best friend, King Asriel, died in his arms, causing Sans to retreat from everyone and everything. His specialty is to pick apart a problem into its component parts and recognize the intricate web of side effects a potential solution might have.
Faust (Frisk) and Charat (Chara) are both Determined Reds. I know there’s theories that Red isn’t actually Determination, but I’m going to go with it anyways, at least until a more concrete explanation is available. I’m also going to cover both at the same time because of how connected they are and that comparing the two is the easiest way to describe them both. Despite both being very Red, Frisk leans more towards Brave Orange while Chara leans more towards Persevering Purple, ending up at a more raspberry color. While Frisk is more likely to brute force a solution, Chara will step back and analyze the situation before finessing a solution. While not technically related to soul color, Frisk’s lack of empathy makes him more ready, willing, and able to do literally anything it takes to accomplish his goals, no matter who he hurts along the way.
Amber Alphys is a Brave Orange. Surprisingly. She is the embodiment of the phrase “Courage isn’t the lack of fear; it’s being scared to death and moving forward anyways”. Trained to be a bodyguard and steed in the Labs, she is powerful and skilled in combat but lacks confidence in social interactions, mostly due to lack of experience in her youth.
Starling (Mettaton/Mettané) is a Persevering Purple. As a Purple bordering Determined Red, Metta ends up at a hot pink color and is surprisingly similar to Chara, who is a Red bordering Purple. Metta is just as dramatic as his robotic counterparts but is more focused on puzzles and riddles than entertainment and fame, putting his detective/deduction skills to good use once Gaster erased himself from existence and left a big hole behind. While most interpretations of Mettaton are a bit of a gossip, this Metta doesn’t mind keeping what he learns to himself if the one it’s about wants him to, happy that he was able to find the knowledge at all.
Doc Toriel is a Kind Green. The driving force behind basically everything Tori does is the deep seated need to help others; this is the main reason she accepted the title of Royal Scientist, not because she loves science, but because she wanted to use the position to help the Lab victims. Bordering Cyan, making her more of a teal/turquoise, highlights her nurturing nature. This also makes her the perfect partner for Metta when working with Lab victims, bringing a gentleness Metta lacks while digging into the truth.
Asguard (Captain Asgore) is a Patient Cyan. Rounding out the group, Asgore embodies Patience in every aspect of his life, from training newbie Guards to dealing with the general public as a Peace Keeper. Patience and Kindness often go hand-in-hand, so he is often mistaken for a Kind Green, but he more just utilizes kindness to get the results he wants; however, he knows that some people aren’t motivated by gentle understanding, and Asgore has no problem using force when needed.
While not pictured, I know the soul colors of several other important, or at least interesting, characters as well. [Redacted] Gaster is a Just Yellow, which Papyrus inherited; he could “justify” anything as being “for the greater good.” Queendyne, or Queen Undyne, is a Brave Orange, bordering Red, and is a bit of a political wrecking ball. Frisk’s cousin, Marriweather or Marri, took them in before they fell and is a Kind Green bordering Yellow, making her a sort of olive green, and we’ll see more of her later. Spear Mouse (Scarf Mouse) is a True Blue while Bronze Masque (Nacarat Jester/Red Demon) is a Patient Cyan, despite his coloration. Doggo Dodger and his protégé Tom Cat (Burgerpants) are Patient Cyan and Brave Orange respectively; they fit together like puzzle pieces.
I wrote out a ton more, like five paragraphs worth, before realizing I really should just make a new post for background characters and who all is jumbled.
This is the same pic from above but with some extra added bits, like Metta’s eventual robot body and Alphys with just her dress and showing off her stripes. Some interesting notes about design choices, in no particular order, are:
Alphys' coat and dress are the same colors as Papyrus' vest and shirt, respectively.
Doc Tori's apron is her Royal Scientist uniform; white lab coats were optional anyways and she likes differentiating herself from the trauma of The Labs. Before the Underground, the uniform was made of leather and styled more like a Blacksmith's apron, since that's more-or-less what the job entailed, but now days it's just sturdy brown cloth. I always did like brown and purple as a color combo.
Asgore's head and mane were really hard for me to wrap my head around before so this time I took a shortcut and traced Simba from The Lion King before I started messing with the design. He still looks a lot like Simba, for better or worse.
I swapped the stripe colors of Frisk and Chara's shirts, partially to reference their jumbled character traits, but also because I think Yellow Justice suits Frisk and Purple Perseverance suits Chara better than the other way around.
Sans is the only Boss Monster displayed here, though Asriel, Undyne, and Gaster are all Boss Monsters as well. Boss Monster souls give off more color than their regular counterparts and this can be used to identify them as early as a few years old. In trying to expand on this I’ve come to realize that I really need to write a full post about how Boss Monsters work in JumbleTale, and probably get into monster reproduction as well.
For Metta's wheelchair, I took colors form Mettaton's original box form. Turns out, wheelchairs are really fucking hard to draw. Metta's in particular is based on a more sporty, versatile wheelchair design rather than the common hospital-style wheelchair.
Asgore and Toriel are often compared to goats but I always thought they looked like they had some lion-like traits as well. Since Doc Tori and Captain Asgore are not Boss Monsters and are not related in any way, I decided to highlight these differences by making Tori a pure goat monster and Asgore a horned lion, bordering manticore.
So, when the monsters come to the surface, I had to answer the question of how the humans would react to them. I had already decided to use Mount Shasta as a “real world counterpart” to the game’s Mount Ebott, mostly due to some legends about an ancient, super advanced civilization living under the mountain, so it became a question of who would be the ones dealing with the monsters: the Californian state government or the United States federal government? To answer that question, I had to ask what the power dynamic was between the state(s) and the country and that is a question that is still plaguing our politics today, so I knew it wouldn’t be an easy answer. To simplify the equation, I decided it would be easier if I had more direct control over the political scene, and to that end I decided to follow the Ebott/Shasta precedent and rename everything; but to what? While things are being named, there is often a process of eliminating other potential names, so what if one of those other names was chosen instead? What would cause that alternate name to be chosen instead of the one that was chosen in our world? The conditions must have been slightly different, right? So, what were the conditions that lead to the original name and how could they have been different? This thought process lead me down a rabbit hole of creating an entire alternate history for the planet, though for this story the more important differences followed the “loss” of the Civil War.
While humans can generally trace their origin back to the “Fertile Crescent” in northern Africa and spreading out from there, Monsters are native to what we call The Americas in our world. At some point, the so-called “native Americans” arrived from across the Pacific Ocean, though it was long enough ago that no one remembers or cares about the specifics; they are considered native at this point. The humans and monsters had their differences but generally lived peacefully for thousands of years, with the humans mostly occupying the southern half of the continent while the monsters stayed in the northern half; until the Vikings arrived around 1000 CE. They took it upon themselves to eradicate the monsters, turning the native humans against the monsters as well, and waging war for several generations. Around 1400 CE, the last of the monsters were rounded up and thrown into Mount Ebott (our Mount Shasta), a dormant volcano that had been reactivated by magic, and the monsters were essentially sacrificed to the gods to deactivate it again. The humans used their tenuous grasp of magic to try to seal the magma underground, trapping the surviving monsters behind the barrier as well.
Shortly thereafter, the rest of Europe became aware of the “new world” and scrambled to claim as much of it as they could. While Columbus initially thought it was the east side of India, in this world he did realize that this was a different continent entirely and, recognizing he couldn’t keep others from claiming the land itself, managed to convince everyone that it should be named after him, since he (allegedly) found it first. The continent was called Columbia, comprised of North Columbia, Central Columbia, and South Columbia, and is sometimes referred to as The Columbias.
The Declaration of Independence was still signed in 1776 and the nation was called The Columbian Federation, until the Civil War split the nation in two around 1860. In our world, the Civil War was “won” and the United States of America stayed a single nation, but in this world, the war was “lost” and the southern states seceded from the northern states, creating United Columbia in the north and the Confederate States of Columbia in the south.
While the war was fought over a great many things, among them was the question of who should have more power and control, between the “central” federal government and the local state governments. United Columbia diminished the states’ power and importance, emphasizing a singular national identity. The Confederate States of Columbia created a looser “central” government to tie together the mostly sovereign states, acting as more of a mediator between strong local governments but with little real power.
While they called themselves different names, the two nations were still highly enmeshed and codependent, remaining separate for over 50 (almost 60) years; from approximately 1860 (Civil War: start) to almost 1920 (WW I: end).
Near the end of WW I, the two halves decided to come together as the United States of Columbia to help end the war, combining the best parts of both versions of government; any internal conflicts would be deferred to the local state governments, while all external or international interests were handled by a powerful “central” federal government. The federal government had little power over internal affairs but had absolute authority concerning external affairs. Several of the smaller states of the former United Columbia combined into larger states to keep up with the already larger and stronger states of the former Confederate States of Columbia.
Greenland and Chosen Japan are the most recently recognized states, both acquired around 1950 shortly after WWII, and are considered the 19th and 20th states of the United States of Columbia. They mostly take care of themselves and some refuse to accept them as states at all. Some also refuse to acknowledge The Unified Islands of Columbia and The Pacific Islands as states as well, only treating the 16 states attached to the continental United States as actual states with any importance.
When the monsters are (re)introduced to the surface, they are handled by the local state government of Califree and are quickly made into their own pseudo-state called The Ebott Enclave, and given the area around Mount Ebott as a show of good faith. Those within the new state who didn’t want anything to do with the monsters were assisted in relocating while those from all over Califree who wanted to “be a part of history” were also given relocation aid to bolster the new state, encouraging only humans friendly to monsters to be part of it.
While on paper the Enclave technically has the same rights and power as the other states, it has little real influence anywhere but Califree, and almost everything goes through Califree’s government anyways. Califree got exclusive access to magic out of the deal, while Ebott was allowed to focus on getting itself established rather than worry about the rest of the nation, let alone the rest of the world.
I will update the "Important History" sections as they become important to the story, but for my purposes the most important states are The Ebott Enclave (obviously), Califree (again, duh), Cascadia (Ebott's closest neighbor), and potentially Deseret as an antagonistic force (because religion and monsters don't mix well).
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State Name: The Ebott Enclave
Other Names: Ebott, The Enclave, Monster Kingdom, Kingdom of Monsters
Comprised of: A loosely triangular piece of land around Mount Ebott (our Mount Shasta) near the boarder of Cascadia (our Oregon)
Name Meaning: Enclave: A political/cultural/social entity that is completely surrounded by another.
Important History: In our world, the people native to the area revered Mount Shasta as a place to travel between (their equivalents of) heaven and earth. British prospector J. C. Brown (supposedly) found a village with gold, shields, and mummies deep in a cave under Mount Shasta around 1905, but disappeared around 1935, the day an exploration team was organized to look for it. This village may or may not have connections to the mythical “missing continent” of Lemuria; there were rumors that survivors of the sunken Lemuria lived in or on Mount Shasta from the 1880s onward. Even today, Mount Shasta is associated with strange sightings and mystical occurrences.
State Name: Califree
Other Names: Cali
Comprised of: California, Nevada (half)
Name Meaning: California is the name of a fictional island described in the Spanish novel Las sergas de Esplandián, which was popular around the time the west coast of North America was being explored. The state was given the “free” ending when it was formalized as a state.
Important History:
State Name: Cascadia
Other Names: Cascade, The Cascades
Comprised of: Idaho, Washington, Oregon
Name Meaning: Named after the Cascadia bio-region, even though most of that region is actually claimed by Canada.
Important History: Despite how close Ebott is to Cascadia, Califree was very careful to not let the two touch; they wanted to keep Ebott, and therefore monster magic, to themselves as much as they could. Cascadia is salty about this. Ebott is currently thankful they don't have to deal with two opposing governments vying for power, though they know that this will make things more difficult in the future.
State Name: Shoshone
Comprised of: Montana, Wyoming
Name Meaning: Named for the Shoshoni Native Americans, though they are mostly located bellow Montana.
Important History:
State Name: Deseret
Other Names: Mormondom, Morridor (the Mormon Corridor),
Comprised of: Colorado, Utah, Nevada (half)
Name Meaning: Deseret means “honeybee” in the language of the Jaredites, from their titular Book of Mormon that they base their religious theocracy on.
Important History: Mormons have long wanted to make their own theocratic country in our world; in this world, they managed to keep it together long enough to set up what is effectively a theocracy, though it is technically a representative democracy on paper. This rubs pretty much all of the other states the wrong way but the federal government refuses to intervene and the other states can’t do much about how a different state runs itself.
State Name: New Sonora
Comprised of: New Mexico, Arizona
Name Meaning: Just like New Mexico is named for Mexico, New Sonora is named for the Mexican state of Sonora, as well as the Sonoran Desert.
Important History:
State Name: Texas
Comprised of: Texas, the “pointing finger” of Oklahoma
Name Meaning: Texas
Important History: Texas took its hat back.
State Name: Nekanska
Comprised of: Nebraska, Kansas
Name Meaning: Portmanteau of Nebraska and Kansas.
Important History:
State Name: Dakota
Other Names: The Dakotas
Comprised of: North Dakota, South Dakota
Name Meaning: The word Dakota means "ally or friend" in the Dakota language.
Important History:
State Name: Siouxland (pronounced “soo-lend”)
Comprised of: Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri
Name Meaning: Named for the Sioux native American tribe.
Name Meaning: Kentucky and Indiana are sometimes referred to as Kentuckiana in our world anyways; they just ate half of Michigan and Ohio now, too, and shortened the name.
Important History:
State Name: Carolina
Other Names: The Carolinas
Comprised of: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
Name Meaning: Tennessee got eaten by the two Carolinas as they re-merged.
Important History:
State Name: New Spain
Comprised of: Georgia, Alabama, Florida
Name Meaning: Spain had originally owned these states.
Important History:
State Name: Chespia
Other Names: Chesepia, Chesapia
Comprised of: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio (half) (the Classic Mid-Atlantic states, minus New York)
Name Meaning: A corruption of the term for the Chesepian people of Chesapeake.
Important History: They were encouraged to focus on nationalism rather than state identities so the former states now act as a federation inside another federation.
State Name: New England
Comprised of: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York (the classic New England states, plus New York)
Name Meaning: These are the classic New England states plus New York.
Important History: They were encouraged to focus on nationalism rather than state identities so the former states now act as a federation inside another federation.
State Name: The Unified Islands of Columbia
Other Names: The Islands, The Caribbean Islands, the UIC
Comprised of: Cuba, The Bahamas, Dominican Republic/Haiti, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Corn Islands, Swan Islands, and myriad smaller islands
Name Meaning:
Important History: If it’s an island in the Caribbean, it’s assumed to be part of The Islands, many of which were “liberated” by Columbia and given an offer they couldn’t refuse to join The Islands.
State Name: The Pacific Islands
Other Names: Pacifica
Comprised of: Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, and myriad smaller islands
Name Meaning:
Important History: If it’s an island in the Pacific Ocean, and not explicitly stated otherwise, it’s assumed to be part of Pacifica.
State Name: Greenland
Comprised of: Greenland
Name Meaning: It kept it’s name.
Important History: Following WW II, the USA developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 offered to buy the island from Denmark for $100,000,000. In our world, Denmark refused, but here, Denmark accepted. Some states have refused to acknowledge Greenland’s status as a state.
State Name: Chōsen Nippon
Other Names: Chosen Japan, Japan and Chosen Japan, Japan and Korean Japan, Japan and Korea, and other similar variations
Comprised of: Japan, South Korea
Name Meaning: Japan had previously ruled over Korea (1910-1945) so they kind of just went back to doing that; Korea’s name under Japan was Chōsen (or Joseon).
Important History: In our world, Japan was occupied by the Allies of WWII from the surrender of Japan in 1945 until 1952, when the Treaty of San Fransisco essentially freed them. In this world, however, Japan and Korea agreed to become the 20th state of the United States of Columbia together, since Japan had been occupying Korea for a while anyways. Some states have refused to acknowledge Chosen Japan’s status as a state.
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The Ebott Enclave
Enclave: A political/cultural/social entity that is completely surrounded by another. The Enclave is equal to the other states on paper, but is effectively a sub-state of Califree. It would be the 21st state, which some states resist acknowledging for a variety of reasons.
Ebott is generally triangular in shape, with fixed points between certain border towns; however, the lines between those points are fuzzy and not very well established. The three points are:
Reading, Califree and Mountain’s Gate, Ebott
Redding => Reading
Mountain Gate => Mountain’s Gate
Mountain’s Gate incorporates a fair amount of Lake Ebott [Shasta Lake and others] where a lot of water dwelling monsters have made their home; they basically guard the border
Reading has become the de facto gateway into the Ebott Enclave, since it’s the biggest city bordering the Enclave
Romeo, Califree and Juliet, Ebott
Montague and Yreka => Romeo
Grenada => Juliet
The two cities are technically separated by a border but quickly became nearly indistinguishable, sometimes being collectively called Shakespear, Shakespear City, or Shakespear’s City
Romeo had a small airstrip which has been expanded into a full airport that employs about half of the city
Ghost Deer Garrison, Califree and Slate Wolf Pointe, Ebott
Tionesta => Slate Wolf Pointe
Perez => Ghost Deer Garrison
Slate Wolf Pointe is an entirely new town specifically set up to form the third point of the Ebott Enclave triangle
Ghost Deer Garrison is a military base made specifically to border Slate Wolf Pointe and “protect” (read: spy on) Ebott
Both towns are original to me
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Two other important roads in and out of Ebott have new towns popping up, too
Pandora Place, Califree and Barter Court, Ebott
Obie, Pondosa, and Harlow Place => Pandora Place (just outside "Pandora's Box" full of monsters) (sometimes called Pandora's Palace or just Pandora)
Curtis and Bartle => Barter Court (started as a trade market; a court where people barter for goods, if you will)
Located about halfway through the long, northeast line
Jeronimo, Califree and Everex, Ebott
Jerome => Jeronimo
Penoyar, Erickson, Leaf, and Bray => Everex (Erick loosely means "eternal ruler" => ever rex => Everex)
Located about halfway through the north line, slightly closer to Juliet then Slate Wolfe
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Notable Cities in the Ebott Enclave include:
Capital City - formerly New Home or The Capital, is being slowly exposed by removing the top of the mountain; it is the capital of the Ebott Enclave
City of Mt Shasta => Ebott City (has been connected to the Underground (specifically through Snowdin Forest via [the Ruins]) and has become the go-to place to travel between the Underground and the surface)
Dunsmuir => Pusher Creek (Robert Dunsmuir offered to donate a fountain to the new town, if they would rename the town in his honor. The town decided not to.)
Castella => Castile
Lakehead => Lakeshore
Gazelle
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Notable Cities near the border of the Ebott Enclave
Redding => Reading
Montague and Yreka => Romeo
Perez => Ghost Deer Garrison
Big Bend => [name] - While it could be argued that a bit of this area overlaps into Ebott, they are not considered citizens of Ebott
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NOTES
Since the nation split around 1860, Russia sold Alaska to Canada in 1867 rather than to the USA.
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“Hail Columbia” is the National Anthem.
All states sing the same first verse, but each state has its own second verse that is considered the State Anthem.
This was unofficial until reunification in the 1920s
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The states of United Columbia unified to centralize power. The states of the Confederate States of Columbia unified to strengthen their own state power.
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Many of the Caribbean Islands joined the Confederate States of Columbia in hopes of gaining political favor from the “new” country.
They continue to mostly govern themselves, only calling themselves a single state for protection and inter-state interactions.
The USC “liberated” many of the islands later on, just sort of glomming them onto the existing "state" of The Islands.
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Japan was occupied by the US after WWII and was granted statehood as a response to the Korean War.
Japan would have access to greater aid for rebuilding, protection while weakened, and influence in US politics.
The US would have access to equipment and people in need of jobs who would be willing to fight again in the Korean War if it meant getting paid.
South Korea was occupied after the war but was not granted independent statehood, instead being combined with Japan into Chōsen Nippon so they could support each other.
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The states not physically connected to the “Continental United States” have more freedom to interact internationally but must still check in with the Central Government for anything “noteworthy”. What is considered noteworthy is debatable.
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In our world, there is a South American country called Colombia, or the Republic of Colombia. It retains it’s name in this world, as it is different enough from Columbia and it’s derivatives.
This is spoilers for how my multiverse functions so it'll be under the cut but I really wanted to post it anyways cuz I'm kinda proud that it came together so well. This is also for more than just Undertale but my focus is currently on Undertale anyways so it may as well be. I might update this later, possibly with an actual picture.
It always kinda bugged me that everyone kept making "Sans clones", and while I do have my own Sans character (yes, I'm a hypocrite) I decided to use different characters for some of the more common "multiverse gods", namely Ink, Error, Dream, and Nightmare.
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The Watchers are basically a stand-in for me, the Author. Just as I, as an Author, have ultimate control and power over the multiverse I have created in my head, the Watchers have unlimited power, constrained only by their own creativity and near single-minded desire to "watch a good story”. Other Authors exist, interacting with their unique multiverses (whether they realize that’s what they’re doing or not), which the Watchers can look at, and even gain inspiration from, but cannot touch or influence; if they want to interact with it, they have to generate their own version of the source material. This includes Authors of EVERYTHING, “fan” made or official content, meaning that the Watchers are responsible for creating AUs for everything as well, not just Undertale, though contact between AUs is kept to a minimum and Crossovers are very carefully curated.
The Watchers decided to delegate their responsibilities as Author into Four entities, known as The Watchers’ Hands; these are Kreo (Kris), Roots (Flowey), Remaster (Gaster) and Nightmaster (also Gaster). Remaster, or Rem Gaster, further split himself into two beings, Lucid (Papyrus) and Trance (Sans), who work together to accomplish Rem’s duties.
Together, they all look after a place they call Void Town (name subject to change), which is a hub for all of the AUs I, the Author, have created. Most are kept distinctly separate, even if they start from the same source material. Old or abandoned AUs are “pruned” from existence by Roots, the Custodian and Destroyer of Worlds. Kreo, the Steward of Creativity, will sometimes try to recycle AUs, or pieces of them, before Roots prunes them entirely; this could entail ideas and concepts for places, relationship, archetypes, and even full characters, if they were beloved enough. The Idea Garden was created to store these disconnected ideas, the fruits of which can be used for inspiration later, and one large building in particular, called the Void Hotel, houses displaced characters, hoping to someday receive a “glow up” or reimagining and find a new AU to call home. Some of the more permanent residents of Void Town have actual houses all to themselves.
Crossovers can happen in empty void spaces between full AUs, made from copies of existing AU material that can be manipulated before (usually) being pruned by Roots as well. Occasionally, a crossover will stick around to be used as a playground, which may eventually evolve into a full-blown AU if it receives enough attention.
In general, Kreo tries to keep as many ideas alive as they can while Roots tries to reduce as much “clutter” as possible. Thus, balance is maintained.
Nightmaster, or Nightmare Gaster, could be called the “Guardian of Negativity”, as hardship always follows in his wake. Nightmare himself is a very curious being, constantly seeing how far he can push a character or concept before it breaks. He is responsible for creating the kinds of environments that spawn darker stories, like Underfell, but sometimes he goes too far, creating places like Horrortale, and even set in motion the events that would lead to Serif’s creation and his original universe in general. Nightmare took a near-canon Undertale AU and basically stripped Guile (WanderTale!Gaster) of every ounce of empathy he had, just to see what would happen, then moved on to JumbleTale to test his results on a larger scale, making [Redacted] (ie. JumbleTale!Gaster) live long enough to engulf most of the Underground in his experiments.
Lucid and Trance were unable to completely undo Nightmare’s work but they could help give these stories a happier ending by working through the hardships Nightmare had created. They interfered just enough to get [JT Flowey] and Lucky Papyrus to erase [Redacted] from existence (thus making him redacted), along with much of what he created, leaving the world to heal on its own for a while. Seeing it struggling to move past the collective trauma, they decided to save Serif from his repetitive fate and insert him into JumbleTale instead, hoping to solve both problems at once. They also connected the Reset Power to the Barrier’s existence so that it would be gone as soon as the Barrier was broken; they understood the usefulness of Resets but have seen it abused so often that even the ever optimistic Lucid is wary of it. This is also why they resurrected Buttercup Chara, attaching her soul to Hero Frisk, in order to temper his psychopathic ways. Lucid and Trance are now rather invested in making sure JumbleTale gets its happy ending and Serif has been brought to the Watcher’s attention.
In general, Lucid and Trance are in a tug-of-war battle with Nightmare over how much peace or chaos is introduced into the lives of AU inhabitants.
Nightmare also stirs up chaos in Void Town itself, causing strife between inhabitants just because he can. He has a small group of “followers” that stir up trouble as well, evading the “authorities” appointed by Lucid and Trance to help keep the peace in Void Town. A lot of what they do is fight, with an unspoken understanding that neither group actually wants to kill the others, hoping to just release their pent-up aggressive energy.
Roots and Nightmare don’t exactly get along, since Nightmare’s meddling tends to make more AUs, but Kreo doesn’t really like Nightmare either, since Kreo wants to focus on the AUs already there. Sometimes Kreo will actually ask Roots to destroy an AU if it’s just not working; after taking what can be salvaged, of course. Kreo is more neutral towards Lucid and Trance; peaceful AUs are nice but they aren’t very interesting. Lucid and Trance understand Roots’ job and purpose but still don’t necessarily like what he does. The Watchers are flighty and distractible, always looking for the next cool thing to grab their attention. They create the most AUs, asking both Nightmare and Lucid/Trance for inspiration. Lucid tends to come up with the fun stuff; setting, theories, positive character traits, etc. while Nightmare comes up with the drama; situations for the characters to navigate, tragic backstories, negative character traits, etc. Trance is the realist, acting as mediator between the extremes and finding a way to make it all fit.
In the future of Serif's story, Trance and Lucid intend for Serif to return to his original AU and help fix the damage done there as well, giving that AU a happy ending too. They also intend to have Serif travel to different AUs to fix other "damage" caused by Nightmare, as a sort of avatar or emissary of their will.
edit: i made a picture :p
As for personalities, Kreo is very much based on the quirky chaos goblin that Kris seems to be in Deltarune. They also take inspiration from a headcanon I heard about Ink Sans being slightly feral, having “grown up” all alone, so he doesn’t really understand social situations and boundaries. Kreo has very little self-control or shame, doing what they feel like just because they can. This also bleeds into AU creation, specifically early creation being chaotic and uncontrolled until it stabilizes with a more solid trajectory; like a child playing with their toys, throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. They also get attached to their “toys” very quickly, even speaking in the character’s voices rather than their own when they’re “playing as” that character. They rarely use their own voice, but when they do it’s a quiet monotone. Only a few residents of Void Town know of Kreo’s role in creating AUs, which suits them just fine; they prefer to be the weird but harmless kid that watches a little too closely while others go about their day.
Roots takes his custodian job very seriously but that’s the only thing he takes seriously. He’s cruel and manipulative, a very good actor when he needs to be, and only out to serve himself. He is also very secretive and most of the residents of Void Town don’t know what his role is, assuming he’s just another displaced resident like them. Roots plays the part of an innocent little flower boy, even making up a fake backstory as an underswap Flowey (taking a Temmies’ place) but on the few occasions he craves sincere (but positive) interactions, he’ll seek out Lucid. Like most Flowey and Papyrus relationships, Roots tries his darndest to corrupt Lucid, knowing it won’t work, and Lucid believes there is good in Roots, as he understands the necessity of Roots’ job, even if he doesn’t like it. No one is quite sure what Roots’ real body looks like; the flowers he shows everyone are just extensions of the tangled mass of roots and vines under the entirety of Void Town. He can have several “flower bodies” up at once, though this split in attention means he might mix up what he’s saying to who, helping support his Underswap story. There is very little that goes on in Void Town that he doesn’t know about, and he absolutely uses this to his advantage.
As self-proclaimed “Guardians of Positivity”, Lucid and Trance try to help everyone by meddling in established AUs; tampering with codes and probabilities from outside the AU, but sometimes entering the AU physically, when necessary, to make sure the plot progresses how they want it to. They tend to stay hidden, manipulating events from the background, rarely showing themselves to AU residents but occasionally getting caught by those paying enough attention. They are also the driving force of order in Void Town, setting up a system of government and protection that functions separately from themselves, but even after delegating these tasks, the two are just as busy as ever. Lucid is as energetic and eternally optimistic (at least on the outside) as any Papyrus, always seeing the best in a given situation; he knows what results he wants but isn't so naïve as to disregard the reality of getting there. Trance is more realistic, bordering pessimistic if separated from Lucid for too long, but his knowledge of psychology and story beats lets him find a way to manipulate the AU and its inhabitants to get the best outcome available, doing his best to cover the logistics of making Lucid's visions of sunshine and rainbows into a reality.
They could fuse back into Rem Gaster if they wanted to but, after spending so much time apart, they aren't actually sure what Rem would be like. Besides, Lucid and Trance rather like being themselves.
As mentioned, Nightmare Gaster is a very curious monster. Responsible for the generation of a lot of darker AUs, as well as the darker side of lighter AUs, Nightmare creates interesting obstacles for characters to overcome. Which is a nice way of saying he makes life as difficult as he can for everyone he comes into contact with, just to see what they'll do. He is highly manipulative and can be very charming when he wants to be, rarely outright lying in favor of half truths and misdirection. I know I want him to have a small group of "followers" that help him do his job but I haven't decided exactly who those will be just yet.
The Watchers use plural pronouns and speak as if they are a collective group, generally embodying the thoughts of myself as Author and the people that look at my creations. As mentioned, the Watchers' only goal is to "watch a good story" with interesting characters, good development, and surprising twists. While technically omnipotent, they are able to narrow their perspective so as to enjoy their "good story" as it happens and not just all at once, like I do as the Author.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
~
Chapter 1 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 17
Last Edit: 5.9.26
~
“Is the Great Papyrus playing hooky?” the masked monster chuckled in a wispy voice, cocking their head to the side. It seemed like they were trying very hard to sound sinister and creepy but I could feel their amusement, ruining the illusion for me.
“I am most certainly not playing hooky, Bronze!” Papyrus huffed in annoyance. “I’m just helping out a friend-”
“And leaving your post unguarded?!” the mouse accused again in a somewhat shrill voice, leveling their spear at Papyrus’ face. He rolled his eyes, not intimidated in the slightest.
“Yes, because I’m completely irresponsible,” he said sarcastically, brushing the spear away. “I asked Alphys to cover my post while I made lunch and retrieved these two,” he gestured at me and Frisk. “They are Frisk the human and Serif the Skeleton, wards of Sans the Skeleton,” he introduced as Frisk waved and I gave a loose salute as we were named. Papyrus then turned to us and gestured to first the masked monster then the mouse. “And these are Bronze Masque and Spear Mouse, Royal Guards assigned to Snowdin Forest.” The introduction was mostly for my benefit, Frisk definitely knew them through the resets. Papyrus turned back to the two guards, boldly standing his ground. “I see you’re recalibrating the tile puzzle.”
Bronze Masque seemed to be mollified while Spear Mouse openly scrutinized us with a slight sneer. Both Guards *Checked us and I couldn’t help but flinch slightly at the piercing magic. I could always feel *Checks, not every monster was as sensitive to them as I was, but it was even sharper than before; must be playing off the emotion feeling. I *Checked them back; it was considered rude and vaguely threatening for the average monster to *Check someone outside of a Fight, but they did it first so I considered it fair game.
Spear Mouse - 14 ATK 2 DEF *She doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t like Papyrus.
Bronze Masque - 7 ATK 10 DEF *His mask hides much of his sentiment, but not from you.
I wonder what they see for me and Frisk; I haven't had time to think about it since I got here.
No time now, either.
“She’s not a full guard, Papyrus,” Spear Mouse said after the brief exchange of *Checks, her voice slightly less shrill. I could feel an amount of jealousy behind her annoyance. “You really shouldn’t be relying on her so much.”
“If there is a problem, then take it up with Captain Asgore,” Papyrus countered defensively. “He’s training her personally and you know she’s strong enough to handle any threat.”
“It’s not her battle prowess I’m worried about,” Mouse muttered, turning away with another spike of jealousy. “And yes, we are doing our job,” she snapped, walking away. “Not playing babysitter. Now go on past before we finish so we don’t have to reset it again.”
While not in charge of this area, it seems Papyrus and Alphys get special treatment around here, which seems to chafe some of the other Guards, but not all of them. Who did he say was in charge of Snowdin again?
“Thank you, Mouse, Bronze,” Papyrus nodded to each as he strode confidently past them, me and Frisk in tow. I could feel general amusement from Bronze while Mouse side eyed Frisk as they passed. I felt oddly protective of them, though that might be overflow from the protectiveness Papyrus was radiating.
My bro sure is cool.
My soul clenched again at the familiar thought, remembering that this Papyrus is not my little brother.
Trying to think about anything else, I remembered the Tile Puzzle from my old home; it kept “randomly” generating a straight path for the human, which may or may not have been influenced by Alphys. I wonder if it actually works here. Currently the machine was off and all of the tiles were various shades of grey.
We quickly left the puzzle behind with Bronze Masque and Spear Mouse. I hadn't immediately recognized them; I wonder who they were in my old universe. Were they also Lab victims? If so, maybe they were more civilian back home...
After the Tile Puzzle was a series of button puzzles and spike walls, likely made out of the stalagmites that must have inhabited the open area before the monsters got to it. I hung back again as Frisk rushed ahead, followed closely by Papyrus. I glanced around, far enough away from the Guards that I could barely hear them squabbling. I was alone, as far as I could tell.
“Chara, you there?” I said quietly.
Silence.
Oh yeah, I can feel for her presence, assuming it’s detached from Frisk’s. I extended my emotion feeling all around, eyes unfocused as I concentrated. I barely picked up the two Guards behind me; Mouse was embarrassed about something while Bronze was filled with amusement, likely at his companion’s expense. I could feel Papyrus and Frisk up ahead, Frisk filled with the bright joy only a child can feel while Papyrus was feeling begrudgingly affectionate. No Chara, though-
No, wait, there she is; moving towards me from the puzzle Frisk and Papyrus were working on. As I looked through where her energy was, I could barely see her beckoning me closer. I nodded and she disappeared again. She must have become only slightly visible just for me, but why couldn’t she come over here?
I took my time wandering over, past the finished puzzles, until I got to where Chara’s energy was.
“Heya, kiddo,” I said quietly.
“I apologize, Serif,” Chara replied, barely above a whisper. “The astral body can only go so far away from the physical body before it snaps back, so I was unable to reach you before.”
“Huh, good to know.”
“Are you ready for the next part of my tragic tale?”
“Ready when you are.”
“I had just finished telling you about the incident with the Buttercup Pie,” she began. I nodded, paying attention to where Frisk was, now knowing Chara was more tied to him than I’d originally thought. “Sans recovered from the poisoning and assured me it was not my fault, that all was forgiven, but all I could do was smile blankly, completely detached from reality. In my mind, I had ruined the best thing to ever happen to me and I was not taking it well, retreating from both of my guardians. It was at this time, in this mental state, that I heard of a possibility to redeem myself, to help the monsters with the only thing of value I felt I had left; my human soul. If a monster were to absorb a human soul, they might be able to cross through the barrier and, once across, they could gather the other six souls required to break the barrier. At least I could be useful for something, and I would be unable to hurt anyone ever again. It seemed like the perfect solution to me. I knew neither Sans nor Asriel would willingly take my soul, though; they were too kindhearted, so I devised a plan to make the decision for them. I knew they would try to save me if they could, so I decided to poison myself to death with buttercups, just like I had poisoned Sans. A fitting end for a despicable creature like me-”
“Before we go any further,” I interrupted Chara’s downward spiral. “You are not a despicable creature and you have more value than just what you can do for others. You were a kid who made an honest mistake; nobody’s perfect. Besides, you have people who Chara-lot about you, kiddo,” I finished with a wink.
She huffed a laugh before putting up a wall of feigned offense, but I could still feel the affection underneath, slightly tainted by pain. I wonder why?
“Did you just make a pun out of my name?” she accused, but I could hear a smile in her voice.
“Maybe.”
She let a small chuckle slip out.
“I apologize for drifting too far into self-deprecation,” she continued, amusement fading back to the background. “Thinking about this always brings my self-loathing to the forefront.”
“I know the feeling all too well,” I nodded sagely. “Made my fair share of mistakes. Anyways, I think I know where this is going, sounds a lot like what happened in my universe, but please continue.”
“Right,” Chara cleared her throat. “So, I managed to go forward with my plan and eventually fell ill enough that I could not be saved. That is when I begged Asriel to take my soul, to not let my death be in vain, though I hid that I had caused it myself. Then I died. I assume Asriel granted my final wish but I had not expected to regain consciousness and that time was so chaotic for me that I never did get my bearings before Asriel, too, died. From what I have heard, he did leave the Underground but returned mortally wounded, turning to dust in Sans' arms. Sans did not take this well and removed himself from politics, knowing he was too emotionally compromised to think clearly. He took my body and buried it where I had initially fallen and I awoke when Frisk fell on my grave. You heard the rest from there.”
“I see,” I said quietly. “It’s a hell of a story. There are a few important differences between your story and what happened in my world though; the biggest difference reiterating that Asriel was a young prince at the time, rather than an adult king. This difference also means that Asriel was living with his parents, King Asgore and Queen Toriel-” Chara giggled. “Yeah, I know, but skipping that for now, both kids became inseparable and both decided to substitute buttercups for cups of butter in the pie. King Asgore was the one to eat it and get sick. Chara convinced Asriel to help with the plan so he knew what killed Chara before absorbing their soul, leaving the Underground but returning injured and empty handed. Upon his death, King Asgore declared war on humanity, that any human who falls was to be killed and their soul harvested to eventually break the barrier. Meanwhile, Queen Toriel left Asgore to live in the Ruins, disgusted by his reaction. And that was the state of things by the time I was born.”
“And since no one was around to declare war here,” Chara said, understanding dawning on her. “Queen Undyne followed in Asriel’s footsteps to adopt the fallen humans. Fascinating how that one difference could affect so much.”
