kaliawai512 (On a New Blog)

Yes, this is kaliawai512 ;) (Hi again!) I mostly write Undertale fanfic on AO3, but occasionally do other stuff. She/her. Icon art by me (style based on zarla-s).

[kaliawai512-v2]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Random fic drop, hiya XD

This was written for the Ace Omens 2 zine (@aceomenszine) which came out a while ago! Thank you so much to everyone who worked so hard to put it all together <3

[kaliawai512-v2]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Papyrus wants to know where skeleton babies come from, for Very Important Reasons. Getting the answer to this question turns out to be far more difficult than he expects. (Or, no one wants to tell Papyrus about the birds and the bees, Papyrus is more mature than any of his friends give him credit for, and the answers really shouldn't hurt as much as they do.)

HELLO I AM ALIVE

Have a fic I wrote months ago and @spectascopes very very kindly beta-read for me (they are awesome, check them out if you haven't) and then I let myself procrastinate on for all this time before posting :P

[zarla-s]

Do you save fanart you like onto your computer?

Yes

No

I don't know how to do that

I don't have a computer/I use my phone

No, but I do save fic

I save both

I am a hoarder and I save literally everything I see

Voting ended onOct 6, 2023

[kaliawai512-v2]

*awkward glance at the 24GB folder of fanart and 12GB folder of fanfic I've been downloading over the past 17 years*

I REALLY don't like losing track of things I like XD

[spectascopes]

I DID NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE SIZE. I ORDERED MOLECULAR LEVEL NAPSTABLOOKS

[kaliawai512-v2]

[spectascopes]

Lancer stickers!

*a bad boy approaches slowly (he's got short legs)

I finally put these on my Etsy! (rarely used, but I'm hopefully looking to change that)

Check them out, if it tickles your fancy <3

Theyre 3 bucks plus shipping (USA only for now, sorry!) and I also have a pokemon sticker sheet and bi mermaid on there :]

LINK TO THE LANCER

[kaliawai512-v2]

LOOK AT THEM THEY'RE SO CUTE

HIGHLY encourage any Lancer fans to pick one up. I got a second for my bro XD Thank you SO much to @spectascopes for such adorable art <3

[kaliawai512-v2]

not sure if you heard, but apparently zarla went on a stream (youtube pheonix prime) and talked about handplates a bit! https://www.youtube.com/live/f-3r2OTKUs8?feature=share if you ever want to check it out

Oh, wow!! No, I hadn't seen that, thank you so much for sharing!! :D

Handplates Finale - Post-Mortem Stream!!

Come by and have fun with us as we celebrate the conclusion of Handplates!!Here's a link for the FULL playlist!!!!https://www.youtube.com/pl

[kaliawai512-v2]

The Flowers Are Blooming: Chapter 17

As promised in yesterday's post, I did finish ONE of the future chapters of The Flowers are Blooming (because I write completely out of order, LOL). For anyone interested, here it is!

NOTE: My writing style, and characterization of Sans and Papyrus, have changed over the years, but I wanted to keep this true to the original fic. So I just went through and corrected typos and left everything else as-is. 

Chapter 17

The walk back to his house had never seemed this long before.

It didn’t make sense. He had walked this way hundreds of times—was it more than hundreds?—and it had always gone by quickly. Was he walking slower? Had the town moved while he was away? Did towns do that?

Did houses do that?

There had to be some explanation for his old house not being where it was supposed to be. Unless … it was where it was supposed to be and he just hadn’t found it yet. But he had patrolled all of Snowdin ever since he started warrior training, months ago now. Surely he would have seen it.

But … there had to be some explanation. There had to be. Maybe houses really could grow legs and walk away and no one had seen because the houses were always very discreet. 

That would explain why he sometimes thought his old house had been in Hotland, or Waterfall, or even the Capital. Maybe his old house had always moved around a lot and he had just … lost track of it one day. He thought maybe the house they had now was their old house, but no, it looked different—he was pretty sure—and besides, he remembered Sans finding all those people to help build this one.

And Dr. Japer … he remembered her. He was … pretty sure he remembered her. It was just that his memory of her was … fuzzy, and sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad, and sometimes she was there all the time and sometimes she was there sometimes and sometimes she was there but it was like she wasn’t really there.

But … Sans was always there.

Always.

Every single time.

Maybe not all the time. But he was there some of the time, all the time.

So … he would know the answer.

Maybe he hadn’t told Papyrus yet. Maybe … maybe he didn’t want to. But … Papyrus had never asked. Not really. If he asked, surely Sans would tell him. He would tell him and then everything would make sense and Papyrus could go back to Flowey the next day and tell him what really happened.

Yes. That would be okay.

But as hard as he tried to keep his head held high, he still found it hanging a bit as he stepped onto his front porch and pushed open the door.

Sans, as expected, was already on the couch, leaning his head back against the arm. On any other day, Papyrus would have rolled his eyes and groaned about his laziness, and he was very, very tempted to do the same thing today.

But instead he just found himself looking at him, watching every detail of his face, every detail of his movements, as he tilted his head to face him.

“hey, bro,” Sans said, flashing him a quick smile. It had been a while since Papyrus realized just how forced that grin looked. “just in time. i got dinner.”

He motioned toward the kitchen table, where two paper bags sat steaming and greasy right near the middle. Papyrus sighed.

“GRILLBY’S ISN’T DINNER, SANS.”

Sans chuckled and shrugged, pushing himself off the couch with a grunt that suggested the task still took a fair bit of effort.

“well, it works for me. i made another quiche yesterday, though, you can have that if you want. i’m not gonna eat the rest of it,” he said, starting toward the kitchen. “how’s that sound?”

He made it all the way to the kitchen entrance before he realized that Papyrus hadn’t said anything in response. He hadn’t even moved. He turned around, furrowing his browbone, his smile slipping, even if it never fully disappeared.

“papyrus?” he asked. Papyrus didn’t say anything. Sans’s face twisted further, and he turned around all the way, taking a step toward him. “hey, bro, are you—”

“WHERE DID WE COME FROM, SANS?”

Sans stopped.

It was like he had been hit in the face with a rock. Or a boulder. Except Sans was small and he only had 1 HP and getting hit with a boulder would have killed him, wouldn’t it? Maybe a fish. Or Undyne. But no, Undyne was much stronger than a regular fish, if she had hit Sans she probably would have turned him to dust in just that hit and—

“what?”

It was so quiet that Papyrus almost didn’t hear it. It didn’t sound like Sans. There was no joke in his voice, no lightness. It was like someone had taken Sans and … stripped off his skin. Except they were skeletons, and skeletons didn’t have skin.

Papyrus looked at him, at the lights in his eyes that had gone almost dark, the tight smile that didn’t even look like a smile. He looked down for a moment, then back up, holding his head high.

“WHERE DID WE COME FROM? BEFORE WE WERE … HERE?”

“we …” Sans’s words seemed to die before they had even passed his teeth, and he stood there, sockets wide, just staring, searching for words that didn’t want to come to him. Papyrus waited. Sans lowered his head, just enough to stare at the floor, and huffed a humorless laugh as he shrugged. “that was a long time ago, bro, and you know my memory’s terrible.” 

Papyrus frowned. Sans looked back up and smiled. It wasn’t a real smile. Now that Papyrus really looked at it, he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a real smile on his brother’s face.

“so how’s that quiche sound? i can stick it in the oven—”

“ARE YOU LYING?” Papyrus cut him off.

Sans paused again, and again, his words seemed to fail him.

“what?” he asked. Papyrus said nothing and just kept looking at him. Sans stiffened. “no … papyrus, why would i lie?”

And that was all Papyrus needed. He didn’t want to believe anything bad about his brother. He was lazy and he slacked off at his job and he ate way too much greasy food and he could be so much more than he was right now … but he was still his brother. He wouldn’t lie to him.

But he was.

“YOU KNOW, DON’T YOU?” Papyrus asked, and even though he tried to keep the crack out of his voice, it slipped through anyway. Sans’s smile tightened. Papyrus stood a little taller, took a step forward. “YOU KNOW … WHERE WE CAME FROM? BEFORE WE WERE HERE.”

Sans looked away, shoving his hands into his pockets. “you said we’ve always lived in snowdin. so there’s your answer.”

“BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT YOU REMEMBER,” Papyrus said. Only after it had left his mouth did he realize it wasn’t a question.

Sans’s smile had never been quite so tight.

“i told you, my memory’s—”

“PLEASE DON’T LIE TO ME, SANS.”

This time, when his voice cracked, he did not try to hide it. Sans turned to look at him, the lights returning to his eyes. Papyrus finally noticed his own hands tightening around the hem of his shirt, his mouth pressed into a thin, trembling line. He let his eyes fall down to the floor in front of him.

 “THERE ARE THINGS YOU DON’T TELL ME. YOU DON’T … YOU DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING. YOU’VE NEVER TOLD ME ANYTHING, AND I ALWAYS THOUGHT THERE MUST BE A GOOD REASON FOR IT BECAUSE YOU’RE MY BROTHER AND YOU WOULD NEVER LIE TO ME UNLESS THERE WAS A REALLY REALLY GOOD REASON.” 

Sans wasn’t moving now. He was looking at him, but Papyrus couldn’t even see him breathing. They didn’t have to breathe. Papyrus knew that. But Sans did breathe, just like Papyrus breathed, because it was comfortable and even if they didn’t have to, it felt far weirder not to.

“IS THERE?” Papyrus added, quieter than he had said anything in years.

Sans stared for a few seconds longer. Then his head dropped and he stared at his feet, and even though Papyrus couldn’t quite see his eyes from that angle, he was sure the lights were completely gone.

“it’s not important, papyrus.”

“YES IT IS.” Sans’s head twitched toward him, but did not rise. Papyrus took another step forward. “IF IT WASN’T IMPORTANT, YOU COULD TELL ME ABOUT IT.” 

Sans flinched, and Papyrus could just see his browbone furrowing. He shifted from foot to foot and shook his head.

“THAT’S ALL YOU EVER TALK ABOUT. THINGS THAT AREN’T IMPORTANT.”

Sans started to say something, then stopped himself and huffed another breath.

“it doesn’t matter.”

Papyrus wanted to scream. He wanted to tell him that it did matter, how could it not matter, why did the only things that matter have to be Grillby’s or hot dog stands or Sans picking up his sock, why did his brother never want to talk about anything that really mattered.

At least, not to him.

Not in all the time they had been together.

“WE’RE NOT FROM SNOWDIN, ARE WE, SANS?”

Sans flinched hard enough to make his body jolt. He tilted his head further away, wrapping his arms around himself like a makeshift hug. For a second, Papyrus had to fight the urge to step forward and hug him himself. Why hug yourself when there was someone perfectly capable of hugging you standing right there?

“you’re from snowdin, papyrus,” Sans muttered. Papyrus’s soul twisted. “so where else could i be from?”

“BUT YOU’RE NOT,” he said. “ARE YOU?”

He didn’t need to ask. Maybe he had never needed to ask. But Sans wouldn’t look at him and he wouldn’t give him an answer and all he wanted was an answer, all he wanted was for his brother to tell him—

“it doesn’t matter.”

Papyrus shook his head and ignored the burning in the backs of his sockets.

“WE’RE THE SAME AGE. AND I REMEMBER YOU ALWAYS BEING AROUND. HOW CAN I BE FROM SNOWDIN IF YOU’RE NOT?”

Sans sucked in another hard breath and took a step back, still refusing to meet his eyes. “papyrus, we … it doesn’t …”

“IT DOES MATTER!” Papyrus shot back, taking a step forward to close some of the space between them. He paused, staring just above Sans’s head, his hands trembling hard enough for his bones to rattle. “BECAUSE … I KNOW MY BROTHER GREW UP WITH ME. IN SNOWDIN. I REMEMBER IT. I … I THINK I REMEMBER IT. I … I REMEMBER IT, BUT I … REMEMBER OTHER PLACES, TOO … HOTLAND AND … SOMETHING BRIGHT AND WARM AND … GREEN …”

He trailed off.

It was like there was a fog in his head. How long had it been there? Or had that always been there? Had he just never noticed it before? It was like trying to see through clouds, the clouds that hovered above Snowdin, the clouds he remembered looking up at as a child, he knew that, but he could see other types of clouds, too, different ones, like … steam, coming out of vents in the ground. There was nothing like that in Snowdin. But there was steam in—

“bro?”

Papyrus jerked his head up. Sans was staring at him now, his eyes wide and confused and concerned and Papyrus knew those eyes, he loved those eyes, he wasn’t sure of anything else but those were Sans’s eyes and even if nothing made sense … he still had his brother.

He swallowed.

“I JUST WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH, SANS. I DON’T WANT YOU TO TELL ME THINGS JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK I WANT TO HEAR THEM.”

Sans looked away. “i don’t …”

“YES YOU DO,” Papyrus cut in as he trailed off. He pressed his teeth together and shook his head. “YOU DON’T TELL ME ANYTHING AND YOU TALK TO ME LIKE I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, YOU TALK TO ME LIKE YOU DON’T WANT ME TO KNOW ANYTHING.”

“that’s …” Sans went quiet for a moment, then sighed and turned to him again. “i’m doing this for you, papyrus.”

Papyrus squeezed his hands around the hem of his shirt.

“HOW CAN IT BE FOR ME IF I DON’T WANT IT?”

Sans stiffened, but grit his teeth. “i’m keeping you safe!”

“SAFE FROM WHAT?” Papyrus pressed. “WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KEEP ME SAFE FROM? I DON’T GET IT, SANS. WHAT ARE YOU SCARED IS GOING TO HURT ME?”

“everything!” 

It was so loud, so sudden, that it took Papyrus a few seconds to even realize that Sans had been the one to speak.

Then he looked at him, really looked at him, and nothing else mattered because he could see Sans’s sockets bright and pained and aching and so much older than he really was, staring at the floor and shaking his head.

“i can’t … i can’t let anything … not again … i hate it, i hate every second of it, but i can’t let anything happen to you again.”

Papyrus blinked. He blinked again.

A part of him, an old part of him, wanted to let it go. Wanted to break the space between them and pull his brother into a hug and hold him and tell him everything was okay, they didn’t have to talk about it, it was alright, they could just have dinner and do puzzles and watch TV and have their bedtime story and everything would be …

But …

He’s not happy. And he’s lying to you.

Everything would be fixed. But nothing would be fixed.

It would just keep going on, exactly as it had before.

Papyrus swallowed and stood up a little straighter.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?”

Sans still wouldn’t look at him, but Papyrus didn’t need to see his eyes to see him flinch. Sans’s eyes shifted from side to side before finally lifting to look at him, just long enough for Papyrus to see the ache in his sockets.

Then his head dropped again.

“you don’t remember.”

“THEN TELL ME,” Papyrus replied, without a second’s pause. He stepped forward one more time. They were only a couple of feet away now, and his brother hadn’t looked so small in a long time. “IF I DON’T REMEMBER, BUT YOU DO, THEN YOU CAN TELL ME.” 

Sans’s hands went back in his pockets, but somehow he shoved them in further, his head so low his chin must have touched his ribcage. Papyrus wasn’t sure whether he wanted to shout at him or wrap him in a hug. He did neither.

“WHY DON’T YOU WANT TO TELL ME?” he breathed.

Sans’s breath trembled as he drew it in, and shook twice as hard as he let it back out. He swallowed loud enough for Papyrus to hear.

“we’re happy here, papyrus,” he muttered, barely louder than a whisper. “i don’t … there’s no point looking back. there’s nothing we can change, if we’re stuck here, there’s no point talking about stuff we can’t do anything about.”

The words sounded strange. Like Sans had said them before. Like he had said them even when he didn’t believe them, but had said them enough times to stick in his head.

Like he had said them over and over until he did believe them.

Like he had no other choice but to believe they were true.

Papyrus felt his eyesockets sting and his hands curl up into fists at his sides.

“BUT YOU’RE NOT HAPPY, SANS.” Sans tensed, and Papyrus swallowed back the tears building in his throat. “YOU’RE NEVER HAPPY. YOU’VE NEVER BEEN HAPPY BUT SOMETIMES I THINK YOU WERE ONCE BUT I DON’T REMEMBER WHEN BUT I REMEMBER WHAT IT LOOKED LIKE AND I WANT TO SEE THAT AGAIN, BROTHER. I WANT TO SEE YOU HAPPY. I WANT TO SEE YOU SMILE BUT I … I DON’T KNOW HOW, I …”

He didn’t know exactly when his brother had lifted his head to look at him again, the lights in his eyes faint, but definitely there. Sans shook his head, slowly, and it was clear he was forcing every movement.

“i’m fine, pap—bro …”

“PAP,” Papyrus repeated, feeling the word out on his teeth. Sans tensed. Papyrus frowned. “YOU’VE CALLED ME THAT BEFORE, HAVEN’T YOU?” 

Sans dropped his gaze again, but Papyrus barely noticed. He was too busy wracking his memories.

“I  … I REMEMBER IT, BUT I  … I DON’T REMEMBER IT …?” 

He searched a little harder, but it was fuzzy, he remembered it, he knew he remembered it, but every time he thought he knew where he remembered it from everything seemed to go all fuzzy and it was like trying to see through the fog at the end of Snowdin.

He gritted his teeth and brought his hands to his skull.

“I DON’T KNOW … I DON’T KNOW WHAT I REMEMBER AND IT SCARES ME AND FLOWEY TOLD ME THAT I COME FROM ANOTHER SNOWDIN AND THAT’S WHY THE THINGS I REMEMBER ARE FUNNY AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BUT IT MAKES SENSE BUT THAT MEANS THAT YOU’RE NOT THE SAME SANS I GREW UP WITH BECAUSE WE CAME FROM DIFFERENT PLACES BUT I WANT YOU TO BE MY BROTHER, I JUST … I DON’T …”

He trailed off, and before he could even think of opening his mouth again, of even trying to find something else to say, he looked up, and found Sans’s browbone furrowed, his eyelights barely larger than pinpricks. 

“flowey?” he repeated. “who’s flowey?”

Papyrus frowned. Hadn’t he already told Sans this? Or … maybe he hadn’t. Or … he didn’t know. He swallowed hard, straightened, and opened his mouth.

But before a single syllable could leave his throat, something moved in the corner of his eye, and Papyrus turned to face the window just to his right.

And even in the darkness of the night outside, he could still make out the yellow and green shape of a flower poking out of the snow a few feet away. Staring at him with a tilted head and no smile at all.

Papyrus’s mouth closed, and ope n e d a g a i n.

------------------

Flowey had long stopped flinching when night turned back to day.

He had flinched at first, even though it didn’t really burn his eyes. It was reflex, when jumping so suddenly from darkness to light. But he was used to it now, and this time, he didn’t even blink.

He looked around at the snowy landscape in front of him, and had just enough time to make sure he had ended up in the right spot before he heard Papyrus’s footsteps crunching through the snow in the distance, and saw his bright red shirt and his long thin arm waving in the air.

“HELLO, FLOWEY!”

Papyrus wasn’t close enough to make out Flowey’s face, so Flowey allowed himself a few seconds of thought before he forced his own face into an equally-wide grin to match.

“Howdy, Papyrus!”

He was used to the change in day, the change in light, the change in everything, but somehow it still amazed him that no matter what Papyrus went through, no matter what Flowey did, he would always come bounding back, as chipper as ever.

Not for the first time, Flowey wondered if Papyrus would have done the same thing if Flowey hadn’t reset, and had just let nature take its course.

He could have let it go longer, granted, even if he still stopped it. He could have seen what would happen when the two of them faced the truth—Flowey could have found out the truth, since he was pretty sure Sans knew a lot more than he was letting on, and this last conversation had only confirmed that. He could have seen how Sans would react to him, given that in all his resets, he had still yet to interact with Papyrus’s brother, even though he knew as much about him as anyone in this town, and probably a good deal more.

But not everything. Not even close to everything.

And he was beginning to think that he had been missing out on one of the most interesting people in this cave.

Sans and Papyrus. The skeleton brothers.

The brothers who didn’t make any sense.

The brothers whose stories about where they came from didn’t match up at all.

The brothers who, according to everything he had, hadn’t even existed until six years ago, yet had made their home here, without anyone noticing that they were definitely not where they belonged.

Papyrus had been fun on his own. But this?

It was going to take Flowey a long, long time to get bored of this.

He smiled a little wider as Papyrus got closer, slowing down from his bounding run, just as he always did, as if he were afraid he would accidentally crush Flowey if he came running too fast. He was … weird. But he had succeeded where the rest of the underground had failed. And even though a tiny part of Flowey, a voice that no longer sounded like his own, reminded him that he had wanted to help Papyrus not all that long ago, he shook it off with almost no effort at all. He had tried helping. He had helped so much. And it hadn’t done a thing for him in return.

If Flowey wasn’t going to die, if he was just going to keep on living, avoiding boredom in any way he can, then he might as well have a little fun.

Papyrus stopped right in front of him, grinning like an idiot, as always.

“ARE YOU READY FOR OUR SPECIAL TRAINING?”

“Course I am!” Flowey replied, just as he always did, smiling that same innocent smile. “Go ahead and take your position and I’ll get set!”

Papyrus grinned even wider and turned.

Flowey watched Papyrus scamper off, just as eager as always, and it was almost scarily easy to remember how he had looked, slumping off back toward his house, trying and failing to keep his head held high. Flowey felt a smirk touch his mouth.

He would have to do this again sometime. Soon. It was … entertaining. 

And he still had plenty of questions yet to be answered.

Papyrus stopped in his usual spot, and Flowey opened his mouth, ready to call out the start.

Then something shifted in the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to face it. But he found nothing but snow, leading all the way out to the line of trees ten or so yards away.

He swore, for a second, that he heard a high-pitched bark, but it was faint enough that he was pretty sure he had imagined it.

“FLOWEY?”

Flowey turned toward Papyrus again, already smiling as if he had never looked away at all.

“Sorry, Papyrus,” he said, his grin widening as he looked up at the skeleton in front of him. “Let’s get started!”

[kaliawai512-v2]

So for those of you who read The Flowers Are Blooming, my unfinished Undertale fic ... here's where it was going to go.

I have to put out a HUGE thanks to @derangedchameleon. They recently read through the entire It's Raining series and left a ton of comments that made me revisit the story properly for the first time in years - which made me realize, hey, I've got notes on the rest of the series, maybe someone would be interested in reading them!

So here you go. This is the chapter summary for the rest of The Flowers are Blooming. This is NOT the end of the series, however - that will come with the plans for EXP, originally intended to be the final story in the trilogy.

Content warnings: intense violence (including vaguely-described torture), hints of suicidal thoughts, past torture and abuse

If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to drop me a message! I’ll do my best to add more details.

Chapter 12: Sans walks back to the lab, thinking about his relationship with this Papyrus and how he doesn’t know how to confront him about any of his questions—why is Papyrus friends with a flower, and why is a little white dog following him around—without spilling the beans on the fact that he’s the wrong Sans. When he arrives at the lab, he can’t find Alphys and goes downstairs to the True Lab, where he discovers the Amalgamates. Alphys finds him and is forced to explain what she did. Sans is horrified to realize that she used Gaster’s blueprints to do this. Then he realizes that Alphys must have pure SE—which he might be able to use to power the machine. He brushes off Alphys’s concern and leaves, with plans to come back for the SE later.

Chapter 13: Flowey is torturing Papyrus and getting bored with it, even as Papyrus begs him to stop and says he can help him. Flowey is frustrated that Papyrus never fights back properly and resets, greeting Papyrus again for the not-first time. He has apparently killed Papyrus fifty-five times now, but Papyrus has never killed him in return. Papyrus asks Flowey if he’s okay and Flowey lies, saying he is, before snapping that Papyrus never kills him. Papyrus says that Flowey is his friend, and when Flowey presses, Papyrus says that he believes being true to himself is strength, and so is always recognizing that you have a choice—looking uncomfortable when Flowey asks if he knew someone who didn’t think they had a choice. Flowey runs off.

Chapter 14: Flowey searches Snowdin for information as to where Papyrus came from. He asks residents and finds that no one knows where Sans and Papyrus lived before they appeared in Snowdin. They apparently showed up right around the “accident” with the Core—which no one seems to know much about either. Flowey then spots Sans heading to his personal lab and glimpses Sans’s notes, seeing something about parallel universes. He realizes that Sans and Papyrus might have come from another universe, and decides to tell Papyrus about his brother’s secret.

Chapter 15: Sans visits Alphys in the True Lab again. He’s been working on his machine—and sneaking SE from her stocks—and since he’s keeping her secret, she doesn’t question it. He brings her some dog food for the Amalgamates, even feeding one himself, wondering what kind of life it used to live and trying to comfort it in its pain. He finds himself exhausted by everything he’s been doing lately, as well as keeping all this from Papyrus. He boots up the machine that measures timelines and finds that there are a lot more, and a lot closer to each other, than anything he’s ever seen—showing that someone is actively creating them. He thinks it must be a human.

Chapter 16: Flowey is asking Papyrus a lot of questions, and Papyrus is a little confused by all of them. They’re talking about Hotland, and Papyrus brings up the houses there, referencing his own house. Flowey points out that he said he grew up in Snowdin. Papyrus corrects himself, but feels lost and unsure, saying that his old house “moved” and he isn’t sure where it used to be. Flowey keeps pressing into his past. Papyrus talks about having Dr. Japer, but again, gets lost in conflicting memories. Finally, as Flowey doesn’t let up, Papyrus gets very uncomfortable and changes the subject.

Flowey asks about Sans and gets Papyrus to admit that Sans is secretive, then brings up that Papyrus doesn’t seem sure about any of his past. Papyrus finds that he can’t remember a lot of details, including about Dr. Japer. Flowey suggests that he and Sans are from another world. Papyrus tries to deny it, throwing out reasons why that couldn’t be true, but Flowey keeps pointing out that things don’t match up that well—particularly Undyne and her lack of memories of their apparently-shared childhood. Flowey again points out that Sans doesn’t tell him things, suggesting that Sans thinks he’s an idiot. Papyrus tries to refute this and says that Sans is trying to protect him. Flowey suggests that Papyrus ask him. Papyrus says that Sans is happier if he thinks he doesn’t notice things, but Flowey still insists he try.

Chapter 17 (I actually finished this chapter!): Papyrus walks back home, thinking about everything that doesn’t make sense but also thinking that there has to be some kind of explanation. His memories are mixed up, and he thinks that his house could have been in Hotland, Waterfall, or even the Capital before Snowdin, but he doesn’t know why. He remembers Sans, though, always. When he gets home, he asks Sans, “WHERE DID WE COME FROM?” Sans is shocked and tries to brush off the question, clearly uncomfortable. Papyrus asks if he’s lying, saying that he thinks Sans knows the truth. He says that he knows there are things Sans doesn’t tell him; that he doesn’t tell him anything, and there must be a good reason. Sans tries to say it isn’t important, but Papyrus says that if it wasn’t important, Sans could tell him about it. Sans, again, says it doesn’t matter, then Papyrus says, “WE’RE NOT FROM SNOWDIN, ARE WE, SANS?” 

Sans keeps trying to dodge questions, but Papyrus points out that Sans isn’t from Snowdin, at least, and that they’re the same age and he remembers them growing up together, but he also remembers other places. His mind gets foggy, and he thinks it’s been like that for a while. He tries to get Sans to tell him the truth, saying that he talks to him like he doesn’t know anything. Sans says, “i’m doing this for you, papyrus.” Papyrus says, “HOW CAN IT BE FOR ME IF I DON’T WANT IT?” Sans says he’s keeping Papyrus safe, and Papyrus asks what he’s scared is going to hurt him. Sans shouts, “everything!” and says that he can’t let something happen to Papyrus again. Papyrus tries to get Sans to tell him what happened, and when Sans tries to say that they’re happy here, Papyrus says that Sans isn’t happy. Sans calls Papyrus “Pap,” which Papyrus suddenly remembers, searching his memories and, again, finding them foggy. He says he doesn’t know what he remembers, and it scares him. He mentions Flowey, and Sans asks who he’s talking about. Before Papyrus can reply, Flowey reloads.

The world restarts to Papyrus coming up to greet Flowey. Flowey, internally, realizes that he’s been missing out on two of the most interesting people in the Underground, and that finally, he won’t be bored. As the two begin their training, Flowey hears a faint, high-pitched bark.

Chapter 18: Flowey watches the brothers for the next week, but gets no more answers. Flowey is talking to Papyrus, and Papyrus tells him how he thinks Sans puts on a show for him, and wonders if there are any people he’s honest with. Flowey asks if Papyrus wishes Sans told him things, and Papyrus says he wishes it didn’t make Sans sad to tell him things—but that he would rather be worried than Sans be sad, because Papyrus is strong enough to be worried, but Sans is “ALWAYS A LITTLE SAD.” Like he misses someone but won’t say who. Papyrus wishes he could be there for Sans and that knew what he was missing. Flowey asks if Papyrus is upset about Sans not telling him things, but Papyrus says he can wait until Sans is ready. Flowey presses, asking what if Sans is never ready—what if Sans thinks Papyrus is too stupid to know the truth—and Papyrus is uncomfortable, but says Sans will tell him someday. Flowey thinks that Papyrus seems to have come to terms with Sans’s lying like he didn’t in the previous timeline. Papyrus seems to have partially remembered another timeline, and that the only other person who seems to retain a hint of memories is Sans.

Chapter 19: Flowey continues to do experiments on Papyrus: killing him, saying different things to him, and so on. But Papyrus always bounces back, and Flowey gets no more useful information—Papyrus doesn’t remember the bad things Flowey does, or at least doesn’t speak up about them, but he does remember the hints he got about Sans. Flowey finds Papyrus hanging out with Undyne, who he hasn’t talked to in quite a few runs. Papyrus sees Flowey and invites him to hang out, too, but instead, Flowey attacks Undyne. Papyrus thinks that he’s just playing, but then Flowey kills her. Papyrus cries over her dust, and Flowey wonders whether Papyrus will finally fight back, now that Flowey has killed someone else. But Papyrus stays there, mourning his friend. Flowey, angry, gets Papyrus’s attention, asking whether he’s going to kill him in return, but Papyrus just asks why Flowey killed her. Flowey says he did it because he felt like it, and the only way Papyrus can avenge her is by killing him, too. Papyrus says that if he kills Flowey, Undyne won’t come back, and Flowey will be dead, too. He doesn’t want more people to die. Sans approaches, and when Papyrus hears him, he looks to Flowey, silently begging him to run away before his brother sees him. Flowey does leave, but just feels more frustrated.

Chapter 20: Flowey doesn’t check in on Papyrus again, and instead reloads to a few days earlier. Papyrus comes to meet him, and Flowey asks for a tour around Snowdin. Flowey attacks the bunny shopkeeper, slowly torturing her, then invites Papyrus to “show the lady what you can do.” Papyrus tries to convince Flowey to let her down, but Flowey kills her. He then goes on to kill more people, then Undyne. He goes on a rampage while Papyrus runs after him and tries to convince him to stop, but Flowey keeps going, determined to make Papyrus understand that he won’t change, and to give up on him. He finally snaps and shouts at Papyrus, telling him the only way to make him stop is to kill him. Papyrus says he doesn’t want to kill Flowey, and Flowey asks if his life is worth more than everyone else’s. Papyrus says he wants to help Flowey feel better. Flowey screams at him that his friends are dead and he has to kill him. Papyrus asks, “DO YOU WANT TO DIE, FLOWEY?” When Flowey is silent, Papyrus asks whether he’s not happy being alive, and whether he’s hurting people so they’ll hurt him back. Flowey tries to argue, and is about to kill Papyrus all over again, when Sans shows up and kills him with a blaster.

Chapter 21: Sans knows something is wrong, but not exactly what or how to solve it. He’s been having something like deja vu, feeling like he’s lived one day a hundred times. He thinks about when he attacked Gaster and did more damage than his attacks should be worth, but hasn’t revisited that since—now, it feels like it could be important. He takes another look at the timelines and sees that while some of them curve or taper off or merge, others suddenly stop. Some have already ended. He the machine ahead a few months, further than it can usually view, and sees it splitting into millions of different lines. The line they split off from is his current timeline. Alphys interrupts him, and he leaves, stopping her from seeing what he’s doing. He takes the last of the SE from the lab and goes back to his home lab. He adds the SE to the SE core, but finds it not even half full. Not enough to make the machine work. Sans attacks the walls around him in desperate grief, realizing that he truly is stuck here. He tells himself that he has to accept that, and protect the brother he has left.

Chapter 22: Papyrus is talking to Flowey and tells him he’s glad they’re friends. Flowey, having grown frustrated with Papyrus’s determined hopefulness, laughs at him, saying that Papyrus is lying to himself in thinking they’re friends. He’s only here because he’s bored and Papyrus is entertaining. He says that Undyne doesn’t take him seriously, and when Papyrus says that Undyne is training him and sees potential in him, Flowey blurts out that she’s stalling, and he’s too fragile to handle the truth about the Royal Guard. He says that Undyne thinks he’s an idiot, and so does Sans. Sans hides everything from him, thinking that he’s not strong enough, thinking that he’s too mentally young to handle it. He says that all Papyrus has are people who feel sorry for him and won’t push him away because they’ll feel bad, and that Papyrus isn’t worth friends, or anything at all. Papyrus says that he loves Sans, and Undyne, and Flowey, too. He asks whether it’s bad to lie to the people you love, bad to tell them you’re okay when you’re not to stop them worrying, bad to say it so much that you almost believe it yourself. He wonders if Sans would be mad at him if he knew. Flowey is taken aback. Later, he focuses more on Sans, seeing that Sans knows something is wrong but doesn’t know what to do about it.

Chapter 23: Sans practices his KR abilities and keeps researching the timelines. Alphys has made Sans a sparring dummy that will show him how much damage he inflicts so he can improve, though she doesn’t know what it’s for. Sans is walking through Waterfall, on the way to do more readings, when he sees a door in the wall where the room holding the machine used to be. Hesitant and scared—knowing the machine is no longer there—he reaches for the door, but stops before he can open it, determined not to drag himself or Papyrus back into this mess. He runs away, and in the corner of his eye, he sees a small, white, furry shape nearby. He runs back into his house and collapses against the door, sitting there until Papyrus finds him and carries him to bed.

Chapter 24: Flowey goes on another murder run, less out of anger and more out of letting his curiosity take over, and he kills mindlessly. He avoids getting caught, simply so he’ll avoid being stopped. He runs into Monster Kid, who doesn’t recognize him as the killer. He gets to ready to kill them, only for MK’s sibling, an almost identical monster with slightly different features, to approach. MK calls for help, and Flowey continues his torment. MK then yells for them to run and get help, and though reluctant to leave, the sibling finally does so, running back through the Core. He kills MK by throwing them into the Core, and resets shortly after. When he goes back, he looks around for MK, but can’t find a trace or mention of them. But he can find their sibling, who is now known by the nickname of MK and doesn’t seem to be missing a sibling at all. Flowey is confused but fascinated.

Chapter 25: Sans wakes up to Papyrus yelling at him, which is familiar at first until he realizes that Papyrus sounds afraid. He finds Papyrus crying, saying something is wrong with Flowey. He says that they have to help him because he’s killing people—he’s already killed Undyne, and is trying to kill everyone else in Snowdin. They both go outside and find Flowey. Sans wants to run, but Papyrus stays, and Sans stays with him, properly seeing Flowey for the first time—at least that he remembers. Papyrus tries to talk Flowey down, saying that they can figure out what the problem is and fix it. Flowey tries to kill Papyrus with a vine, but Sans knocks him out of the way. Papyrus’s leg is broken, but they’re both alive, and Flowey starts ranting at Papyrus that everyone in Snowdin is dead, and he’s going to keep going. Sans interrupts him with a blaster, and Flowey is shocked to find his HP dropping quickly. Sans shortcuts him and Papyrus out of there, and is horrified to find them in front of the door in the Snowdin forest. He pounds on the door, begging the lady to let them in. He doesn’t think she will, since she’s never opened the door, but just as he starts to pass out, the door opens, and the last thing he sees is Toriel’s face.

Chapter 26: Sans wakes up tucked into a bed with Papyrus next to him. He cries with relief, realizing that even though this isn’t his Papyrus, he’s still his brother, and Sans was terrified of losing him. The door opens and Toriel comes in to greet them. She checks on their well-being, explaining that she healed them both. Sans is surprised she came to help, but Toriel says that he’s her friend, and worth more than her vows to stay in the Ruins. She gets them some food while Papyrus keeps sleeping. She asks what was attacking them, and Sans says a flower killed everyone in Snowdin, and was going to head on to Waterfall and beyond. Toriel is horrified and silent for a while. She then says that she’s been in the Ruins for a hundred years, and she told herself she would never leave again because she lost hope for monsters. She couldn’t stay with them while they became the same sort of people who put monsters underground in the first place. She thought monsters were still like that, until she met Sans, who changed her mind.

Before they can say anything more, Papyrus briefly wakes up, saying Flowey’s name. When he falls asleep again, Toriel spends a minute caring for him, and Sans watches, briefly wondering if they could stay with her. But then Toriel gets to her feet, saying that she’s going to stop Flowey. Sans begs her not to leave, saying that she’ll die out there. Toriel says that she’s willing to die to save her people. Sans continues to beg her, and when Toriel says that people are dying, Sans says, “who cares about them?” desperate not to let someone he cares about die. Toriel goes anyway, and Sans can’t bring himself to leave Papyrus. For a while, he just sits there, before he decides to go look around the house. He thinks about the fact that he’s been making knock-knock jokes with the lost queen for six years, and how this house looks like something his Papyrus would have made, if he’d had the chance. He finds himself regretting what he said, realizing that he sounds like Gaster, and realizing everyone who he was willing to let die. Then Flowey pops up beside him and Sans fires a blast, but Flowey doesn’t look surprised. Before the blast can hit, Flowey reloads.

Chapter 27: Sans feels, more deeply than ever, that something is wrong. Nothing has changed in the timeline readings—except for a nearby timeline that has wiggled, changed, and faded. His scientist history tells him he can’t trust gut feelings, but his experience tells him it’s important—though he still doesn’t know how to figure any of it out. Sans goes to the lab and takes out the determination—concentrated SE, focused on one attribute. He’s vaguely horrified by what Alphys has created, and starts seeing similarities to Gaster until he stops himself. He takes out a syringe and, even though he knows that this might be a terrible idea, he injects himself with some of the determination. It hurts terribly, but the pain slowly fades, and as he goes back to normal, he sees a flash of a memory of Gaster, having just finished injecting him with SE.

Chapter 28: Flowey has let this timeline run for longer than any other, having reset several times since the run where he almost killed Sans and Papyrus. He still doesn’t know why Sans is so hard to kill, and why he can apparently teleport. He doesn’t think that Sans can actually remember resets, but Sans seems to know more than he should about the resets regardless—and this time, Flowey can tell that Sans is acting differently. Papyrus breaks Flowey out of his thoughts, asking whether he ever thinks that someone is watching them—someone they can’t see. A person, who isn’t like other people, who knows things about them they don’t know themselves, and who makes them do good and bad things. Flowey sees a flash of a white dog before he asks Papyrus what he means. Papyrus says he gets that feeling sometimes, accompanying him, nudging him along. Flowey, frustrated, wonders why he’s been spending so much time with Papyrus, then decides he can at least run one more experiment. He attacks, but doesn’t kill, Papyrus, then runs off. 

Chapter 29: Sans is just getting off a call with Undyne where she shouted at him for leaving his post. He’s hesitating before actually heading there when he hears Alphys scream and runs over to her. Alphys, panicking, manages to tell him that Undyne is dead—and so is everyone in Snowdin and Waterfall. Sans demands to know if she’s seen Papyrus, but Alphys hasn’t. Sans runs out of the lab, searching Waterfall, finding dust mixed in with mud. He realizes that he’s seen this before—not like he experienced it, but like another him did. He considers what happened when the Core overloaded, how Papyrus and Alphys had glitched and faded, but Sans stayed himself. Then he remembers the determination that he took. He starts to see the world differently, but pushes the thought aside and keeps going. He trips over a small white dog when going back into Snowdin and can’t find any evidence that Papyrus is gone yet. Despite that, he knows that Papyrus will likely be next on Flowey’s list, and heads after Flowey to stop him.

Chapter 30: Flowey thinks that a dead world is quieter than he expected. He knows, with an instinct he can’t explain, that everyone is dead except for two remaining souls. Asgore and Toriel are both gone, and he felt nothing killing them. He picks the judgment hall to meet Sans in, and the two of them fight, Sans killing Flowey over and over, just like he does in the game. During the fight, Sans seems to master his use of KR, determined to stop Flowey from finding and killing Papyrus. However, Flowey finally finds an opening and kills Sans. Before he can properly enjoy the victory, Papyrus runs in, horrified at his brother’s death but desperate to stop Flowey. Flowey attacks him anyway, but before he can kill him, the world begins to flicker, then almost stop—like pausing a videotape. Papyrus’s image begins to shift, until it isn’t Papyrus there, but someone else: a tall, thin skeleton, seeming to melt together into semi-solid goop.

The skeleton accuses Flowey of hurting his sons. He says that he tried to help, but Flowey kept killing them—and the skeleton let them get hurt before. Hurt them himself, so many times, and ruined everything. Flowey begins to feel afraid when the skeleton says he “won’t let it happen again.” The world seems to skip, breaking into lines of code, and the skeleton goes on, saying he “found a way in. My boy … bright and happy, light of the world …” Flowey begs him to stop, but even when he tries to load his save, nothing happens. The skeleton continues to stare at him, and Flowey gets more afraid. The skeleton says that Flowey will do all this again if he doesn’t stop him. But before he can kill Flowey, something flashes in the corner, and they both see a small, white dog by the wall, watching them. After a long pause, the skeleton threatens Flowey: “Leave them be. Or I will find you. I will stop you. I will not let you go.” Flowey opens his eyes to darkness, overwhelming and smothering, but then wakes up in Asgore’s garden, at his original save point. 

Chapter 31: Flowey doesn’t do anything of note for two weeks after he wakes up, thinking instead on the skeleton that he saw before he died. He knows that someone must have made Sans and Papyrus, but Flowey doesn’t remember anyone who could have. He remembers the world breaking into lines of code, glitching and shifting, like a computer, or a game. He starts thinking of his saves, reloads, and resets, and wonders if his whole life has really just been a game. A programmed loop on repeat. He wonders if that means he’s the one playing the game, but then wonders who was playing it before him. He doesn’t understand this, and can’t decide whether he hates or loves it. But he keeps going. 

After a month, he introduces himself to Papyrus, but just observes instead of trying to change things. He finds himself being careless, and one day, Sans finds him. Flowey tries to greet him casually, but Sans just says, “that’s a nice little speech you got there. how many times have you used it so far?” He says that Flowey let people see him with Papyrus, and Flowey asks and confirms that Sans knows him. Sans says that Flowey is the anomaly and has been causing the fluctuations in the timelines. Flowey, happy at being found out, asks if that’s what he calls him. Sans asks if he’s been having fun, and Flowey says “some, here and there.” Sans replies, eyelights dark, “w i t h m y b r o t h e r?”

Flowey accuses Sans of not keeping a close enough eye on Papyrus, and Sans tries to attack him. But Flowey is experienced now, and easily fights back, saying that it doesn’t matter how hard Sans works: no one can win against Flowey. Flowey waits for the new skeleton to show up, but he doesn’t. So he taunts Sans, saying that he hasn’t figured out what will happen if he dies first—instead of Papyrus—and wonders how Papyrus will react to losing him. Flowey gets ready to snap Sans’s neck, but before he can, everything burns, and he flies back. He recognizes the pain as a blaster, but definitely not Sans’s. He turns around to see Papyrus, having attacked Flowey to defend his brother. He tells Flowey not to come any closer, and that he won’t let him hurt Sans. Flowey is so shocked by Papyrus actually fighting back that Papyrus is able to grab Sans and run away.

Chapter 32: Sans and Papyrus go back to their house, because they can’t think of anywhere else to go. Sans watches for Flowey, but when he doesn’t see him, he turns to Papyrus, who has broken down in tears. Sans then realizes that Papyrus used blasters—which only his Papyrus was given by Gaster. Papyrus just shakes his head and says that he didn’t want to hurt Flowey, but Flowey was going to hurt Sans, and Papyrus couldn’t let that happen. Sans asks if Papyrus has used the blasters before, or if he remembers where he got them, and Papyrus can’t decide whether he remembers—but when they showed up, he knew how to use them. He thinks he remembers using them, but it also feels like that never happened. He asks why he remembers things that didn’t happen, but still feel real. He’s scared. Papyrus starts to reach out for a hug, and Sans immediately hugs him back. They hold each other for a long time. 

Papyrus says that Sans knows things that he doesn’t tell Papyrus. Sans agrees. Papyrus asks why he doesn’t tell him, and when Sans can’t respond, Papyrus says that it feels like Sans has always been sad—but sometimes, he remembers him being happy, with people he’s never met. Sans asks whether Papyrus remembers coming to Snowdin, and Papyrus isn’t sure. Sans tells him that he used to do research on parallel universes, where things were different—including their dad. Papyrus asks if their dad was good, and Sans—remembering the good moments, but also how everything went wrong—says “he was good enough.” Papyrus says that their dad isn’t here anymore, and asks whether he liked him. Sans says that their dad loved him.

Papyrus says that they’re not from the same universe, and asks what happened to the original him. Sans tries to brush it off, but Papyrus insists, saying that he has memories he can’t explain, and he just wants to know the truth. He cries, and Sans apologizes for lying—saying that he didn’t want Papyrus to leave him, because he failed him. He tells Papyrus that Gaster stole him from another universe, babbling about how he knew he wasn’t his brother but couldn’t bear to let him go, that he loves him and just wants him to be happy, even if he goes back home in the end. Papyrus tells Sans that he is home. He’s confused and scared, but he’s with Sans. Sans says he’s the wrong Sans, and Papyrus says then he must be the wrong Papyrus. Sans protests, and Papyrus says then they’re both the right “each other.” Sans says Papyrus deserves so much better than this, and Sans failed him. Papyrus says that Undyne said you can only fail if you stop trying. Even if she’s not the Undyne he remembers, she’s still Undyne, and Sans is still Sans. Papyrus remembers many different lives, but in every one, he loves his brother. Sans says he loves him, too. 

The two of them talk for a long time, sharing what they remember and what happened in different universes. Sans realizes that, when Papyrus flickered back at the Core, parts of all Papyrus’s—including his own—merged together with him. After a while, Papyrus says that Sans seemed happier when he didn’t know things, so he pretended he didn’t—but he doesn’t like lying. Sans keeps talking about all the details, all the science, even Dr. Japer—who seems to make Papyrus nervous. Finally, Papyrus falls asleep, but Sans stays up, waiting for this all to disappear. He thinks about why he remained stable, even as Papyrus merged with his other selves, and thinks it must be related to the SE. He keeps waiting, but the world around him remains. 

Chapter 33: Papyrus wakes up an hour later and hugs Sans again before making “breakfast spaghetti.” They spend a bit more time together before going to their sentry posts, and for the next few days, things continue like that. They get to know each other better, sharing parts of their lives, and it’s very bittersweet. But one day, the two of them look for Flowey, and finally find him. Instead of attacking, they sit down and talk. Sans asks Flowey about the resets, and when Flowey points out that Sans knew, Sans says that he just knew something was wrong and had the means to look into it. Flowey says Sans is useless for letting Papyrus die all those times, and though Papyrus tries to argue, Sans doesn’t. He says that he knows no matter how hard he tries, nothing will help, because nothing he does matters. He says that Flowey is going to reset and make him forget either way, and he’s not sure whether it’s worse to remember or worse that he can never make any progress.

Flowey asks what both of them are, saying they don’t make sense. Sans brushes him off. He says that he knows things are going to end, in at least some timelines, and once they end, that timeline stops. Flowey says that he wouldn’t do that because it would mean killing himself, which he already tried and failed to do. Sans asks who ends those timelines, if it wasn’t him—Flowey says no one. Sans points out that Flowey isn’t the first to control timelines, and he won’t be the last. He says that in the timelines Flowey left behind, his brother will go on, and everyone else is still happy. Papyrus holds Sans’s hand in silent reassurance rather than trying to argue, and both of them tell Flowey he can reset, because they’re ready. Flowey asks why, when they could still spend more time together in this timeline. Sans says that one version of them will stay here, together, even as Flowey moves on, and they can keep making things better—but another Sans and Papyrus have to go. Flowey finally gives up on arguing, and as he resets, Sans and Papyrus hold each other tight.

Chapter 34: Sans wakes up to Papyrus shouting at him and heads off to a normal day in a new timeline. Over the next few months, Sans sees someone is manipulating the timeline from the machine, but feels like he’s somehow learned this before—and forgotten it. This demotivates him, thinking that there’s no point researching further if he’s just going to forget again. He helps Papyrus make his battle body and hears about his new friend, who is apparently a talking flower. All the while, a small white dog makes more and more appearances. In the final scene, Flowey visits the Ruins, thinking about everything he’s done, the experiments he’s run, everything he’s learned and all the questions still unanswered. He thinks about the other skeleton and who he might have been in relation to Sans and Papyrus. But before he can think further, he hears something fall nearby, and finds that a human child has fallen from the surface. He smiles to himself, ready to welcome them underground.

[kaliawai512-v2]

So ... Handplates is over.

I had a (really sad) theory about how the series would end, but I'm so, SO happy to be proven wrong.

I really can't thank @zarla-s enough for creating the comic. I found Undertale during a crazy, very uncertain time in my life, and I was close to falling out of it when I discovered Handplates. Reading the series, seeing others' fanworks, and, of course, making my own, gave me something happy to focus on in a job I hated, and a sense of stability as I moved from that job into studying for and starting an entirely new career. And I came back to it as life was getting crazy again and I needed something familiar.

I made friends thanks to this series. Grew as a writer and a person. Made my first AMV and discovered a love for video-editing. I wouldn't have written any Undertale fanfic if not for Handplates, which inspired my first.

Heck, in a bit more of a real-life example: I wrote my first bit of code (the CSS to style Sans and Papyrus's fonts) for Butterscotch and Bones. That inspired me to do a bit more coding in my admin assistant job, which inspired me to quit that job and learn to code properly. I'm now a senior software engineer.

And to end this sappy post, have a photo of the Momplates tsums I commissioned from @plushea back in 2017! They have a place of honor in my display cabinet, an adorable reminder of a part of my life I'll treasure always.

Thank you, Zarla, for all the time and effort you put into this series and for sharing it with the world!

[kaliawai512-v2]

Butterscotch Pie - Chapter 26

You know what, to heck with it - I'm about to start work for the day, might as well get this chapter out in case anyone wants to go ahead and read XD I'll post again on AO3 when it's back up!

If by some awful chance AO3 is still down in a few days, I'll plan to continue posting Butterscotch Pie chapters on the usual Tuesday/Saturday posting schedule.

Hope everyone enjoys!

Chapter 26

Papyrus wishes things could be the same as before, but he knows, deep down, that they never will be.

But … maybe that’s not completely a bad thing.

He wishes that Toriel wasn’t mad at Dad, but he knows that’s a lot like asking Sans not to be mad at Dad. Which he isn’t going to do. Because Sans is mad, and Papyrus knows why, even if he doesn’t really understand it. And Toriel is a lot like Sans.

And Papyrus loves them both very much.

He loves his whole family. Sans and Toriel and Asgore and Dad. He wants them all to be happy, but maybe they don’t have to get along all the way to be happy. Maybe he can be okay with that.

And they can still have good days, all of them together, even if it isn’t perfect.

Like tonight, when Papyrus asked Asgore to stay for dinner, and now there’s five of them in the kitchen, cooking together.

The kitchen definitely wasn’t made to hold five people—especially when two of them are really big—but Papyrus likes it. There’s a lot of talking and movement and energy, and he can’t forget where and when he is even for a second. And Toriel lets Papyrus help a lot with the cooking. He spills the food sometimes because he stirs really hard, and sometimes he puts in the wrong amount of something, but she never gets mad. She just smiles and laughs and helps him fix it.

Asgore helps in small, quiet ways, and Dad … Dad doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself, and just stands off to the side looking awkward. But Papyrus does his best to invite him to help with measuring or stirring, and Dad goes along with it without saying a word.

Even Sans is helping—in the laziest way possible, sitting on the counter and mixing things when Toriel passes them to him. Still, he let Toriel lift him up and put him in that spot, so Papyrus will count that as a success, too.

It all feels a little like the time in the lab, when He took them to the new room—that would have been the kitchen, right?—and showed them how to make noodles. And they ate together and the food was good and everything was quiet and nice and so close to happy.

It feels like that, but so much better.

Because this is … their life. 

Today is special because they’re all cooking together, but it’s not a one-time event. They won’t go back to a cell after this. They’re not going to be tortured tomorrow. They’ll eat the food together and play games and do puzzles and read books until it’s time for bed, then Toriel will read them a story and he and Sans will sleep curled up in a warm, comfortable bed.

They’ll keep doing that, every day. Maybe for the rest of their lives. Or maybe not. But even if it changes … Papyrus knows that whatever it changes into will be something good.

“Papyrus, dear, could you check on the sauce, please?” Toriel asks, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Papyrus turns to her and smiles.

“OF COURSE!” He runs over to the stove, grabs the wooden spoon, and stirs it a few times. He nods to himself. “IT’S THICKENING!”

“Oh, lovely. It’s almost done, then. Help me get a bowl for it, would you?”

Papyrus nods again and heads off to the cabinet where Toriel keeps the larger serving dishes.

He’s seen her get them a few times before, so he knows where he learned it. But he doesn’t remember her showing him how to check sauces or chop vegetables or … a lot of the things he does in the kitchen. He just sort of knows how to do them. He’s never questioned it much before now, and he’s not sure he wants to start. 

She’s mentioned him doing those things before, though. In the life he doesn’t really remember. In the life he must kind of remember, because he knows how to do those things. Sometimes he looks around and swears he can see himself doing those things, but he doesn’t know if it’s because he did them in exactly that way or just because he knows he must have done them. Because all of this feels so familiar, even though it’s new.

Looking around now … it’s easy to forget that he hasn’t always lived here.

He doesn’t really know if the almost-memories he has actually happened. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever have more than he has now. That still makes him a little sad. He has the videos and the pictures, but there are a lot of things that aren’t in those. Things that Asgore and Toriel talk about, and probably things they don’t remember well enough to tell him. Good moments with Dad that he’ll never get to experience.

He’ll probably always be sad about that.

But he’s here now. They’re here now. They’re living this life, and they get to keep living it. They get to keep getting better. They get to keep being happy—even if they’re not happy all the time.

Papyrus is happy.

And Sans … Sans is happy sometimes. A lot more than he was before. He’s peaceful now, not just sleepy or lazy. He’s looking around the kitchen from his spot on the counter, with the face he wears when he’s lost in his thoughts. But there’s no tension. No worry. No pain.

That’s good enough for now.

“Sans?” Toriel calls over.

Sans turns to face her. “yeah?”

Toriel smiles. A smile Papyrus knows just a little too well. 

“What kind of beans do you find in a measuring cup?”

Sans’s own smile shifts into something that almost matches hers. “what kind?”

Papyrus tenses, but he doesn’t have time to open his mouth to protest before Toriel holds up the half-filled measuring cup in her hand.

“Pint-o beans!”

Both of them burst out into uncontrolled laughter. Asgore covers his mouth to hold back his snickers, and Dad turns his head to hide his own smirk. Papyrus makes a noise through his teeth, fists clenched as he shakes them up and down. 

“WE’RE NOT EVEN EATING PINTO BEANS! THAT’S WASTEFUL!”

But Toriel and Sans just keep on laughing, and even as Papyrus huffs, he can’t bring himself to actually be upset. Because Sans’s smile is real, and Papyrus doesn’t think he’ll ever stop appreciating it.

Still, it’s nice when Toriel moves over to Papyrus and gives him a quick but warm hug. His irritated frown fades, just a bit, and when she smiles down at him, he can’t help but smile back.

Dinner is done a few minutes later, and they all start bringing the serving dishes over to the table. Papyrus smiles at the sight of his golden flower, sitting right in the center. It’s grown big now. Just as big and yellow and bright as the flowers in Asgore’s castle. It’s been the centerpiece for the last few days. Asgore has told him twice how well it’s turned out—and how he must have taken very good care of it—and Papyrus still feels warm from the compliments.

It feels nice to look at it while he eats, because flowers take time to grow, and the fact that this flower is full-grown means that Papyrus and his brother have been here for a while. 

There’s a little decoration next to it, too, that Sans finished a couple of days ago when Alphys came over. She’s been showing him how to use the chemistry set she bought him for their birthday. Papyrus isn’t really sure what they made, except that it’s pretty and a lot of different colors and inside one of Toriel’s little glass jars. 

They’re still using it to make other things, and every time, Sans looks a little more comfortable. A little less like he’s doing the kind of thing Dad would do.

Papyrus hopes that one day, maybe … it won’t matter if it’s the kind of thing Dad would do. As long as it makes Sans happy.

But for now, this is good.

Papyrus brings the last plate of food to the table, and five of them sit down to eat. It’s a little weird to see all the chairs filled, but good-weird. Maybe something that they’ll do more often in the future. Sans starts eating first, like he always does, with Papyrus and Toriel next, and Asgore and Dad last. 

For a minute, they just eat. Enjoying the food. Toriel always makes good food, and Papyrus is extra proud because he helped this time. Then Asgore hums, thoughtful, as he finishes his current bite.

“You know, I think I remember eating this together before.”

Toriel gives him a strange look. “Yes, it’s one of my regular recipes.”

Asgore shakes his head.

“Oh, no, I mean … the three of us. You, me and Gaster.” 

Sans looks up from his food. His brow bone scrunches, but he doesn’t say anything. He looks at Asgore, then at Toriel, then at Dad, like he just found a missing piece to a puzzle and is trying to figure out where it fits.

“I think you made this one day after the war, after we’d settled into our first home,” Asgore goes on. “You made it for Gaster’s birthday, if I remember correctly.”

Papyrus perks up. “OH! DID YOU ALWAYS LIVE TOGETHER?”

Asgore blinks and looks to him, then smiles. It’s a little sad.

“No, we … actually didn’t for quite some time. Toriel moved back here after the two of you were born. But yes, when your father was young, we all lived together in a house in the Ruins.” His smile widens. “Your father wasn’t too much older than the both of you, actually.”

“I was a teenager,” Dad mutters. He’s staring at his plate more intently than Papyrus thinks the food deserves, even though it’s very good.

Asgore chuckles. 

“Well, a few years difference, certainly,” he says. “And you were already so tall! But still so young, comparatively.”

Dad ducks his head lower. His cheekbones look pink. “Compared to centuries old, I suppose.”

Asgore laughs. Toriel smiles, just a little, just for a few seconds. She looks like she doesn’t want to smile, but there’s a fondness to it, and it makes a weight in Papyrus’s chest lift. 

Things are going to be different now. They’re going to be different for a long time, and maybe forever. Maybe Toriel will never look at Dad the same again.

But the warmth on her face isn’t gone.

So Papyrus isn’t going to give up.

Asgore hasn’t said anything about what Dad … did to them, and he hasn’t acted any differently to Dad, so Papyrus doesn’t think he knows yet. Part of him hopes that he never finds out, but he also knows it’s going to happen. Toriel will probably say something, because apparently this is something very important, and even if she doesn’t … well. Papyrus knows he’s not very good at lying, and Sans doesn’t have any reason to keep this a secret anymore.

Papyrus hopes that it won’t be too bad, when he finds out.

But he thinks it’ll be okay. 

The rest of dinner is … comfortable. Not perfect, but good, Papyrus thinks. Sans and Toriel make more of their irritating puns. Asgore tells more stories about their childhood—and about Dad’s. Papyrus tells everyone what he’s been doing at school, and everyone listens—even Dad.

“Sans, Papyrus, are you both ready for dessert?” Toriel asks, when their plates are almost empty.

Papyrus smiles and nods, and even Sans’s eyelights brighten a little. He loves Toriel’s pie.

Toriel gives them both a smile in return, then heads back into the kitchen. She comes back with five plates and the pie tin—apple cinnamon today—cutting a big slice for each of them. She gives Dad his slice second to last, then Asgore. Papyrus decides not to think too hard about whether that means anything.

Besides, the pie is really good! Toriel’s pies always are. Not too sweet and always fresh. 

Papyrus watches Dad while they eat, and his face softens with each bite. He wonders how many times Dad has eaten this kind of pie before. He wonders if he ate it when he was younger. Smaller. Maybe not as small as them, but … still small. It’s strange to think that Dad used to be as small as them, too.

Maybe he had never even thought of hurting anyone, that far back.

It takes a minute for Dad to notice him looking at him—or maybe it just takes a minute for him to let himself look over. He meets Papyrus’s eyes with his one good one, and Papyrus gives him a soft but warm smile.

Dad blinks. Papyrus has smiled at him plenty before, but maybe … maybe Dad can tell this is different. Maybe Dad can tell all that he’s trying to say with that one smile.

Papyrus thinks he does, because after a long few seconds, Dad gives him a very small smile in return.

It doesn’t last long, but to Papyrus, it feels like how he imagines the sun. 

Then they go back to dinner. Papyrus goes back to talking to Toriel and Asgore and Sans, and Dad goes back to looking at his pie, taking bites here and there.

He doesn’t look happy, exactly. Papyrus isn’t sure he knows how to be happy, and he has a lot to be sad about.

But he looks … content?

Papyrus thinks that’s the right word.

Dad made a choice. 

He made a good choice.

It’s a choice that hurts him, and will probably always hurt him, at least a little. But it was a good choice. It was a choice for them.

And Papyrus thinks … Dad’s still happy he made it.

[kaliawai512-v2]

Just found out that AO3 is down when I went to post a new chapter ... very unlikely anyone who works on the site will read this, but sending all my best to the developers trying to defend against the attack!! (Speaking as a software engineer myself, it's a messy situation that's difficult to resolve.)

I don't know how many Butterscotch Pie readers follow me here, but if this goes on for much longer, I'll likely post a new chapter here and re-post on AO3 when it comes back up.

[kaliawai512-v2]

how do you feel that handplates is ending so soon? as someone whos been following the comic for six years (since i was twelve), ive been panicking about it for the past week lmao. its very bittersweet in my opinion. do you think youll continue writing handplates fanfics even after the series is over?

It's DEFINITELY bittersweet!! I've been following the comic for around six and a half years myself and it's hard to believe it's ending now. I've been through the ends of a LOT of my past favorites, and it's gotten easier to accept over time, but it can be really hard to say goodbye, so 100% get the panicked feel.

As for writing Handplates fanfic, I say if the inspiration strikes me, I totally will! A series being over doesn't affect my willingness to write in it much - actually, I'd say I'm more comfortable writing for completed series because then I'm not focusing on theorizing and inevitably being proven wrong XD Plus, I didn't think I'd ever write Handplates fanfic (or anything Undertale) again after I fell out of the fandom years ago, and here I am all over again! So it's totally possible if I get the right idea.

Thank you for the question! <3

[fuzzydeergirl]

The Sans we meet in Undertale is actually originally from Deltarune Theory post.

This post is archiving evidence for this theory pls feel free to add onto it 💕 I plan on updating this post as future chapters are released

What we know:

In Undertale, Sans has a word puzzle from Ice-E's p"e"zza a place that doesn't exist in the underground.

Interestingly one of the words also appears as a puzzle in the darkword in Deltarune

The door you use to fast travel in the Darkworld in Deltarune also looks remarkably similar to Sans Bedroom door:

In Undertale if you speak to Clamgirl, and then visit Sans lab, the flavor text changes when inspecting the photo album from: "it's a bunch of people you don't recognize" to:

The line "Don't forget, I'm with you in the dark" is a liet motif that appears all over the place in Deltarune's sound track.

In Sans fight he talks about how he "can never go back" and then specifies that he's not talking about the surface:

And in his conversation with Frisk he talks about a feeling of wanting to go home:

[kaliawai512-v2]

SPOILERS FOR UNDERTALE/DELTARUNE NEWSLETTER

I put this in my drafts ages ago because I wasn't sure if I wanted to bring my favorite Undertale theory into this blog. But after the latest newsletter, well ... XD

I could only ever find clear evidence for Sans being from Deltarune (marvelous job compiling said evidence, OP!), but it just didn't feel right for Papyrus not to be from the same world, especially with how mysterious he's been in Deltarune.

Of course, I know this isn't 100% confirmation and everyone is welcome to their own interpretation! But yeah, I love this theory even more now.

[kaliawai512-v2]

i love your icon art so much! do you have any tips for emulating zarla’s style? it looks so much like theirs, its really impressive

Awww, thank you so much!! :D That's so sweet of you to say! So glad you like how it turned out <3

I actually don’t draw cartoon-style stuff very often - I have the most experience in realistic pencil portraits, which involves a lot of mimicking details. Therefore, I’ve never developed my own drawing style, so to speak (though I'd love to someday!), and tend to aim for the style of the source material.

But anyway! My biggest tip is getting as many reference pictures as possible in the source material (in my case, this is Handplates panels). Look for ones that are similar to the kind of thing you want to draw - not to trace, of course, but to see how the original artist draws specific things. Did you want to do a three-quarters side view? Find a few of those. What about facial expressions associated with particular emotions? What poses they tend to make? And so on. My visual memory is horrendous, so I literally have at least one reference picture open the entire time I’m drawing XD

At least in my experience, you naturally get better at emulating a style with time - not so much because of drawing skill, but because you notice more details and get better at observation.

Handplates is unique in the fact that Zarla has actually posted a more detailed explanation of how to draw Handplates!style Sans and Papyrus. So that’s really helpful, too!

[spectascopes]

Without a Second Thought- Chapter 1

Undertale Fanfiction (Gen, SFW) No relationships or pairings Tags (from AO3): Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Trauma, Mental Health Issues, Gender-Neutral Frisk, Trust Issues, Sans is a Mess, Good Parent Toriel, Toriel is Frisk's Mom, Manipulation, Flowey isn't a great friend, but nobody is surprised, Soriel Lightly Implied, Past Child Abuse, Narrator Chara, Major Character Injury, Injury Recovery, Crying, lots and lots of crying, Reader is Frisk Link to AO3 version

"You got through the Underground with the help of a ghostly companion nobody else could see, and you made a lot of friends along the way, but Chara didn't come with you into the sunlight. Now you have a new mom, and a new family, but no extra brain to help you make the right choices. It might have lasted, too, if you hadn't messed it up."

this is called frangst (Frisk Angst) and it's mostly about Sans and Frisk and a really bad situation

anyways I've been kinda on/off working on this for months, so most of it is already written! BIG HUGE SHOUT OUT to @kaliawai512-v2 for reading this and giving me some insightful and super helpful feedback, go read their stories if you haven't already!

TW for some intense emotions and results of emotional and verbal abuse in later chapters, I'm a bit of a wimp myself but I kinda maybe definitely cried maybe more than once writing this- allegedly

You sighed, laying in the backyard under the shade of the big oak tree mom tended to so well. She was inside making dinner- you could hear her humming to herself through the open window. She insisted it remained open, because-

"Ugh, is this really all you do? Just sit around? You've been spending too much time with Trashbag."

You sighed again, this time in exasperation. You opened your eyes and turned to see the plant in question giving you a dirty look. It was no wonder mom didn’t exactly trust him.

"It's a little mean to still call him that," you said. "He gave you a sandwich at that party one time, remember? That was really nice of him."

"Uh, yeah, you asked him to do that and Papyrus said if he didn't he’d be disowned. I bet he tried to poison me with it."

You rolled your eyes, but it was with a smile. "How much?"

Flowey groaned, blew a raspberry, then hit you in the face with a floppy leaf. "Fine, you called my bluff. He's not really the type to do things, I guess."

You sat up, pulling your legs in to sit criss-cross. Flowey's pouty, ever-cranky face had a bit of happiness in it. He poked a bruise on your leg.

“What’s this from? That’s probably a more interesting story than anything to do with Sans.”

You swept his vines away. “I ran into the coffee table. Papyrus was chasing me.”

“Stupid. You two are like dogs- like little baby dogs, you know that? Chasing each other around the house, you’re-”

“We’re dogs,” you finished, smiling. “I get it. We both like to run and play- is that a crime?”

“It should be,” Flowey said. “If I had my way, it would be. And no more of the idiotic play-fights you have with Smiley, those are just horrible to watch. You don’t even hit each other enough to do damage! Weirdos!.”

“C’mon, you should come with us and get suplexed by Undyne sometime. It’s her favorite activity.”

Flowey shuddered, and it was funny to watch it run up his stem and shake out into his petals. “Eugh. I don’t understand how you shrug off getting bruised and bloody ‘playing’ with these losers while also being the biggest wimp I’ve ever met.”

You smiled, idly touching the small mark. Mom had scolded you (and Papyrus) thoroughly and made it quite clear that any chases had to happen outside from then on. It was funny watching a grown skeleton sheepishly twiddle his thumbs in shame.

"Where have you been, by the way?" you asked Flowey, reaching over and brushing some dirt off of his petals. You pretended not to notice him flush and straighten his stem, but it was funny regardless. Maybe if he came around more he'd get used to casual, platonic dirt-wiping.

"Oh, you know. Here and there. Doing some research, sight-seeing, that sorta thing," he said, flipping a leaf nonchalantly. "You wouldn't get it since you're stuck here all the time with Miss Fussy Paws."

"You mean your mom?" 

Flowey gave you a real dirty look this time, and you shrank away, a quick 'sorry' coming out.

"She's your mom, idiot. She's... not mine right now."

"Right now?" you pressed, feeling at-ease enough to risk angering this one friend. Actually, he was probably your only friend you felt this comfortable with. It wasn’t like you could really hurt his feelings- he didn’t have any.

"Yeah- well- maybe not forever I dunno GOSH let's stop talking about this!" Flowey complained, dramatically flopping his head on the ground. "I didn't come to talk about that!"

You nodded. "Well, what did you come to talk about? I haven't seen you in months." Flowey had first popped up half a year after they'd all made it to the surface, going back on his self-promise to stay underground and out of their hair. That had been almost two years ago, and he'd come around only a handful of times since. They were always welcome visits despite his propensity towards being a pot-stirrer.

"You, silly goose!" he said, popping below the ground for a quick second and then back up on your other side, even closer. He slapped away another attempt at keeping him dirt-free. "I was thinking about your SAVE!"

You raised a brow at him. "Uh... okay?"

"You can still do that, right? You didn't turn into a spineless wimp?"

"Yeah, I think so, but it's been a long time since I have. If I'm never going to reset or reload or whatever again, what's the point in bringing up a SAVE?" You’d reset only a handful of times, always because you died and lost your nerve- deciding it was easier to go back to the beginning than to press forward and keep dying. You shivered at the thought.

Flowey grinned. "What if you could do something cool without resetting?"

You went quiet. You looked up at the window, heard mom still humming away, and then back to the flower.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, listen- you know that one part in that one god-awful movie where that wizard finds a wardrobe that rewinds time kinda but ONLY on the one object? I think he does an apple but I honestly don’t remember, it was boring. Do you know it?"

"Ew, you watched that? The author is a mega-bigot."

"Okay, I don't care! Shush!" Flowey said. "Humans are WEIRD and I'm not learning about all the ways you hate each other- my point is that it made me think about you and your resets!"

You rubbed your face. You needed a haircut, you noticed as you pushed the longer-than-normal bangs aside. You'd have to talk to Mew Mew soon, she’d been getting into that sort of thing.

"Flowey, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't want to mess with stuff like that anymore, I promised myself and everybody here that I'd never do it again."

"And you won't!" he said with a wink. You opened your mouth to protest the wink and whatever implication he was making with it, but Flowey was quick to stretch his stem way up and put a leaf to your lips. "But that and some other stuff got me thinking about the possibilities of all that determination in you. Do you see where I’m going yet?"

"No, not really," you said, arms crossed. "You had practically eternity to mess with all that before I came along, if it could be done you would have figured it out."

"Not true! I might be clever but I never had the full picture."

"Inspiration from Transphobe Supreme?"

Flowey stared at you for a second. You groaned, knowing full-well that most monsters didn't know what that meant, and moved on.

"Look, I just... I just don't want to mess with it," you said, rubbing an arm. "I might not have cared so much before, since I didn't know anybody that well and things felt too good to be true, but... but now I know they are true and I'm not going to risk any of them getting mad at me."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Really? You're not going to try and figure out if you have super powers cause you're scared mommy will get mad?"

You looked away. Yeah, that was exactly what you were saying. Mom, Undyne, Alphys, Papyrus, Sans, Asgore- all of them knew about the resets and if they found out you were messing with determination and SAVES, they'd be mad. Well, one person in particular would be way more mad and it was because he knew way more than the others. You weren't going to put family grocery excursions with the skeleton brothers at risk.

"Friiiisk," Flowey whined, laying his head on your thigh and warping his face into a big-eyed, pleading expression. "C'mon, I've done a lot of poking around the SAVE-data and all that reality-fabric stuff, I know what I'm doing! We just have to alter some of it, not all! Imagine how cool it would be to reset just a little bit! Sans and Papyrus have some irregularities in their data and it lets them do that cool stuff they do!"

"Nope," you said, turning away from him. "I won't imagine it because it's pointless."

"It's not pointless, you just haven't thought about it!" Flowey exclaimed, annoyingly popping up right in front of you again. "What if you could reset the brown bananas on the counter to be yellow again? Or- or reset a plant all the way back to a seed?"

You tried to pivot away from him, but he popped right back up. You opted to close your eyes instead, arms crossed tightly. 

"... dust back to a monster?"

You looked down at the flower, staring up at you with a smile.

"I know you care about all these losers, but what if something bad happens to them ? If Alphys keeled over tomorrow, are you telling me you wouldn't be tempted to reset to last week?"

"Well... well, maybe I’d think about it, but-"

"What if Undyne begs you to, and you do, but then Sans never forgives you?" Flowey asked. You bit your lip- you knew he was just trying to get what he wanted, but he was way too good at it to ignore. Especially when it hit so close to home and what kept you up at night.

"You can't say it wouldn't be nice to just bring her back."

"Of course I can't, but... but that's not how life is. Nobody else gets resets and it- it isn't fair to them." You stared at the dirt between your legs. "...I heard mom and Sans talking one night, and he said that he knew about me a long time ago. He said I was an 'anomaly' and that he'd spent years trying to figure out how to..." You swallowed. "... to stop me."

"Stop you?!" Flowey balked. "Stop you from what, existing? That guy is a trashbag if he-"

"He didn't know," you said softly. "Him and mom had drank a little bit and they thought Papyrus had taken me outside to catch lightning bugs, but he'd actually just fallen asleep on the porch cause he drank a little bit, too-"

"Love the details but I'm dying to know the point," Flowey pressed.

"The point is he didn't know I was there and he said he still doesn't really believe I won't reset again, all the way back to the beginning. Mom said she knew me and she knew that I wouldn't, but that she understood. I didn't hear the first half of the conversation, but Sans sounded kinda sad." You sniffled, not quite crying but almost there. "I think he blames me for something, and I don't want to make him mad."

Flowey stared at your shirt for a few moments as he processed what you'd said. Toriel's humming could be heard in that time, occasionally turning into singing and then back again. The sun was going down in earnest.

"Well, for one," Flowey began as he crossed his own leaves, "we aren't going to reset on accident, but also- if Sans ends up not trusting you, would that really be the end of the world?"

"Yes," you said with a waver in your voice, and the tears won out. Flowey seemed surprised, leaning his stem away from you, and it gave you a chance to rub at your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt. You grit your teeth, eyes closed, before taking a few deep breaths like Alphys had taught you to, letting the anxiety ease. She knew about your anxiety, and that was all she’d know.

When you opened your eyes, Flowey was looking up at you in... worry? It was something close to it, at least. Mixed with disgust, as usual.

"You, uh... you good?" he asked.

You wiped your nose as you pulled your knees to your chest. "I know you think you know everything, but you don’t ." You felt a little bad being so blunt with him, but you didn't know how else to communicate with the soulless plant. "They're my family, Flowey. My only family."

Flowey's brows knit in confusion before his expression evened out again. After another moment, he frowned.

"I don't want to lose them," You mumbled into your knees.

For once, Flowey didn't  have something smart or rude to say. He wilted a little bit, looking off at nothing. You did your best to hide your face, embarrassed to have cried so easily. Flowey- Asriel- had been through so much, but he had grown up with a family who loved him. A mom and dad- a sibling- people who would still love him if he let them back in. It had taken you ten years to find a semblance of that in a bunch of monsters you hardly knew, and you’d do anything for it. 

You didn't talk about how things had been before you wound up Underground. You didn't want to just be the scared kid from a bad home who cried too much, and you'd been doing such a good job. When the fear rose up- when you felt even the slightest bit rejected or annoying- you had kept it in. You only cried when nobody was around. You didn’t have Chara to help you make the right decisions anymore- it was on you to do that from here on out. And that pressure was suffocating after a brief time of having a second, smarter opinion in your brain. One that everybody liked more than the real you, probably.

So, yes, if even one of them suddenly decided you were not worth it to keep around, it felt like your world would end. 

"I try to forget a lot of the stuff that I learned when I was still a monster, but I don't think family is supposed to be conditional," Flowey finally said in an uncharacteristically soft voice. He looked up at you, face as normal as it could be in his state. "Sure, they might be losers, but I'm pretty sure none of them would show you the door over one little mess-up."

"But you don't know that," you whispered, looking over at the kitchen window where mom was busy baking. Your mom, in your house, where you felt safe. 

What if something happened to her? What if she got really sick and then you were left with nothing again? 

You wouldn't reset- you would never reset or reload, even if thinking about anything bad happening to Toriel made your stomach twist up in knots. But what if Flowey was actually right... what if there was a way to use your power for something else?

"I know them, though,” Flowey continued,  “and I know Toriel would never just boot you out. Papyrus would overlook literal murder."

You wrinkled your nose at that, and Flowey was quick to shrug and say:

"Don't ask. But, pal, even if they do get mad at you, isn't it worth it to find a way to protect them? Some might not understand, but if we can mess with your SAVE without resetting- which we can- isn't being able to bring them back from the dead worth a little bit of emotional turmoil? We might even find some crazy, less reality-bending thing you can do! You’re a human with determination, after all- I’m just a houseplant."

Flowey had a point and you hated it. You looked at him, tears tucked safely away again, before you reached down and patted the top of his petal-y head with your hand. He groaned in not-quite protest.

"Yeah. I'd do anything for you guys."

Flowey's blush at the sentiment quickly faded as he flapped his leaves together in excitement. "Really? You'll do it?"

"I'll help you look into it. But I'm not promising anything- if it looks even a little bit dangerous-"

"Then we stop!" Flowey chirped, moving forward and hugging your wrist. "Oh, wow, I'm so glad I got through to you! I'll be back tomorrow evening, friend! I have to get a couple things ready!"

You smiled. Even if you were uneasy about this, seeing Flowey so happy made it feel far more bearable. 

"Okay. Do you want to stay for dinner?"

"Nope! See ya tomorrow!" he said, and just like that he was gone. 

You let out another big, deep sigh. You looked up at the leaves, swaying gently in the breeze, dappling the ground below with soft patches of light.

Toriel came out ten minutes later to get you for dinner. She still wore her flour-covered apron and a loving smile, though the latter of the two was hardly ever absent.

“Dinner is ready, my child.” Toriel called. She looked around the yard. “Where is Flowey? Is he not joining us tonight?”

You got to your feet and went to your mom, giving her a big hug. You laid your face on her torso regardless of the powder on it. She smelled like the kitchen and cinnamon. She smelled like home.

Toriel hugged you back, getting down on one knee to be easier to reach. She nuzzled her soft cheeks into your hair, something so sweet and affectionate that you weren’t sure you’d ever get used to it. 

“He had to go. I tried to get him to stay but I think he’s still a little nervous.” You didn’t mention that it was because Toriel was his mother, because Flowey had not told her that in this timeline and it wasn’t your place to do so.

Toriel laughed. “He does not strike me as the nervous type, but we all have our fronts, do we not?” she said, standing and swooping you up into her strong, furry arms. 

You squeaked, then giggled. “You don’t have to carry me to the table, I can walk,” you said as you snuggled close to her. Even without your second opinion brainworm/safety net combo, you felt safe with Toriel. She was the only one that you trusted to be there no matter what, even if you said the wrong thing. Even if she maybe didn’t like you as much as she’d liked you with your plus one.

“Of course I do not have to, but I want to, and so I shall,” she said, kissing the top of your head. She hummed as she began the walk back to the table, a hand shifting to run across your forehead and move your bangs. She was always so mindful of her claws. “Do you want me to contact a hairdresser soon, dear child? Your hair is getting longer than you usually wear it.”

“Yeah,” you said simply. Toriel noticed the hair, too- it really should have felt normal by now, but having someone care so deeply still felt alien. You closed your eyes and let yourself be carried back indoors. Tomorrow you’d see what Flowey had planned, but tonight you wanted to help Toriel clean the kitchen and watch a silly movie with your newly-acquired mother.

[kaliawai512-v2]

HEEEEEY I can't believe I missed this when it was first posted on AO3 but SEEING IT NOW and, to anyone who doesn't already follow @spectascopes's work, please do check this out!! As a beta-reader who knows where it goes, I can confirm it is 1000% worth your time. I won't say anything else to avoid spoilers, but if you enjoy Frisk content, I highly recommend this!

Thanks so much for letting me beta-read!! It was my pleasure <3

[kaliawai512-v2]

Hey!

I’m trying to develop my own writing skills, but I am a little baby in the world of writing so I’m seeking help and I think your writing is really cool and it makes me happy. So I found my way here.

But I just wanted to ask if you could tell me anything about your writing process? Like how you work with drafts, plotting, editing and how you manage the time/motivation to write so much holy cow! Also how long have you been writing consistantly?

Okay that’s a lot of questions at once, sorry. 😂

Anyway I hope you enjoy your day! ;)

Hiya!!

Aww, thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoy my writing, and thank you for leaving such kind comments <3 Absolutely, I’m happy to share my experience! Sorry that this is a veeeeeeeery long reply XD

I don’t have a super-neat process for managing drafts. When I get an idea for a story, I jot it down, but I try not to force it. I let it sit in the back of my head and it will either develop or fade into oblivion. If I’ve got enough ideas that it seems like it could make a full story, I start organizing it into scenes and/or chapters (depending on the length). There will often be some “blanks” in between major events, and I fill those in as I get inspiration.

Once I’ve got at least a mostly complete outline, I start writing. And this is where I’m a massive weirdo: I write completely out of order. I’ll write a bit of a scene in Chapter 17 and then a snippet in Chapter 1, and oh, now I figured out how the final chapter will end so I’m writing that now, and then a bit in Chapter 6 … you get the picture XD This process probably won’t work for most people, but I’ve been doing it for around ten years now (yes, I am a Tumblr grandma) and it works great for me - even though it does lead to a bit more editing down the line.

I don’t edit at all as I go, and I try not to start editing until I’m at least a good ways through writing. When I am ready to edit, I read everything out loud - this helps me catch things I might not miss and helps me get a sense for what “sounds” right on the sentence level. It also wears down my voice a bit, so I don’t edit a ton at once.

And I’m flattered you think so highly of my motivation!! But I have a secret to share … I don’t write consistently - at least not in the long run XD If I’m working toward a specific goal, then I try to write fairly consistently (I also love NaNoWriMo). But I find that if I have to force myself to write over and over, then it’s worth questioning whether I’m having fun with the project. Every project has its tough parts, and sometimes you just have to power through if you want to see the end product. But there’s no glory in just tormenting yourself all the time - especially when you’re writing fanfic.

Lately, I write at least 500 words daily - sometimes up to 5-6k. But this is a writing binge. Prior to this February, I hadn’t written consistently in around six months. And before that binge, a lot longer. Why? I have a lot going on in my life. Writing is one of my passions, and at the moment, purely done for fun - and that’s not a bad thing! My creativity in various areas comes and goes, and I’ve learned to accept when it wanes and just do other things for a while. It always comes back eventually.

But the biggest piece of advice I can give you is: figure out what YOU like. Because your goals aren’t mine, and your life isn’t mine! I hope that my experience will offer you something (and questions are ALWAYS welcome <3) but you should always do what works best for you. Absolutely reach out to lots of writers and get their takes, but don’t take any piece of writing advice without a grain of salt. As far as I’m concerned, there are no hard-fast rules in writing.

Have fun with writing, give yourself space to practice on projects you enjoy, and if you can, keep the pressure low! I wish you all the best in your journey and I know you’re going to make amazing things <3

Hope you have a great day as well! :D

[maryshelleysgf-deactivated20200]

writing fanfic more like:

have I used that word recently *ctrl + f* shit

“are you still working on that fic?” last edited: 24th January 2005 “haha of course”

that feeling when someone comments

planning a fic down to the words you’ll use without anywhere to write it down and getting home and remembering none of it

it’s just a fic no one will care about inaccuracies *spends four hours researching a 2000-word one-shot*

grammar

*sees word in advert* yes that’s a good word I’ll remember that word *never uses word*

my last four fanfics are centred around this character and while it means their characterisation is perfect, people are yelling at me

“oh you write? can you name a character after me” “ummm”

is that a real word *red line appears* well why isn’t it