Hey! I read your dissertation on Underfell and Swapfell and I was wondering how Flowey/Temmie fits into the mix. Are they still violent like their regular tale counterparts? I feel like I haven't seen as much about them in terms of their accepted characterizations.
I know i said no new asks but mmmmmf this is juicy
Alright, so the general au concept has it that Flowey is pretty much the only person willing to ally with Frisk right out the gate. What this looks like is gonna vary from person to person, but here’s how I see Flowey in this AU.
Undertale Flowey clearly developed a proclivity towards violence, but I’d argue that’s symptomatic of his boredom more than anything else. He mentions going through various resets, and only after a lot of variations of doing nice things, like saving people and befriending them, did he decide to start mixing it up by killing people off. Its the joint privilege/curse of the RESET power. Ebott is a peaceful world filled with people simply living their lives, and in that context, after you’ve figured out what everyone’s deal is, not much is stimulating beyond “how fucked up can I make this”. In many ways, Undertale Flowey’s experience of the world is meant to act in parallel to the Players. At first, you just want to figure everyone out, find out how to get a good ending, while only later do you start abusing the resets to wipe out their memories of whatever fucked up thing you did.
I’d compare Underfell Flowey’s experience more closely with something like Dark Souls.
By the time whatever was left of Asriel woke up in Flowey, the world of Underfell had already become grimmer, more violent. I imagine that he ended up using dozens upon dozens of resets just to figure out a way to get out of the lab without getting crushed by one of Alphys’ Amalgamates or other lab defenses. And that was within the relatively isolated confines of the Lab. Once he finally figured out how to get out and hit the save point outside of her Lab, there was any number of unknowns that he has to confront.
Think about how you end up playing a really challenging videogame. Yes, technically resets are a privilege that keeps you from dying totally. But its not a privilege in the same way it is in Undertale. When you play Dark Souls, you’re not using your time to fuck around and try attacking the few non-hostile NPCs you find, abusing the lack of consequences. Instead, you try to make it through dying as few times as possible, using the knowledge gained in your last life to make it a bit further this time. Flowey is still technically powerful, yes, but he’s hanging on by a thread. He hasn’t become the delusional little god-prince we see in Undertale because he simply hasn’t had the space to become bored. When Frisk falls, he’s hiding out in the Ruins because the Ruins is an easier place to lose yourself in. He clings to Frisk because they are one of the few people who won’t attack a stranger on sight, and agrees to help them because he just wants out of this mountain.
To be clear, this wouldn’t necessarily make Flowey a good person. He’s still SOULless and still lacks the empathy and deeper emotions that Undertale Flowey lacked. In the early stages, I imagine he very much encourages Frisk to attack assailants, even offering advice on their weakpoints that he’s managed to pick up. Because in his mind, survival at all costs is the ultimate good. Death, while less final for him and Frisk than it is for most people, is still a scary setback, and especially since Frisk’s Determination has taken the RESET ability from him, he’s terrified of being killed off. However, much like for the other residents of Underfell, the child’s compassion is contagious for Flowey. While it takes some time, he eventually does his best to aid Frisk in their quest to save everyone, and even commends them for it closer to the end. In a Genocide run, however, he likely will still aid them, albeit showing great trepidation at killing Asgore and Toriel (who despite everything are still his parents). Ultimately he’ll serve as a sort of compass for the Player’s own choices.
Theeeeeeeere was a reason I didn’t include Temmie in my original post. The swaps as regard Asriel are…..confused. To say the least. The most common swap is with Monster Kid, but I’ve frankly always found this confusing. Like, the goat family has just a random lizard kid as their first child, and in the meantime another goat kid is wandering around? I’ve seen some versions try to explain this as MK and Frisk both being adopted, but Asriel was a biological child that was born later. Ultimately though I find this whole crisscross to be more confusion than its worth.
So, my tendency for the swap in this case is cheating a bit, but bear with me. Chara is the Player Character. Frisk is the first Fallen Human. Asriel….is still the Prince. But the swap for Asriel isn’t so much his location in the world. Instead, its in his role. In my head, the Temmie character that serves as the antagonist in Underswap and the ally in Swapfell, holds not Asriel’s memories….but Frisk’s. Meanwhile, Asriel takes on the role of Chara in Undertale. He appears to you at the end of a genocide route in Underswap to congratulate you on finally making him understand. That the only way to save his people…is to free them from this existence. He also takes on the role of narrator throughout your journey.
So, with that in mind, Temmie then houses the excess DT and basic memories of Frisk. Differentiating them from Flowey is a tricky issue, especially as Frisk didn’t really have a set personality. However, I tend to view Frisk, regardless of universe, as a person very susceptible to emotions and primarily oriented around relationships. This becomes trickier without their SOUL, but in contrast to Flowey’s playful spite, I imagine Temmie as more openly belligerent, but also more deeply compassionate with the player in the Photoshop fight.
Swapfell Temmie, like Underfell Flowey, is an ally to the player character rather than the primary antagonist. To mix in this idea of relationship and passions, I see Temmie as bonding more quickly to the player’s ideology (whether it be Pacifism or Genocide), and more inclined to tell them to run away rather than stand and fight. This can be both good and bad. SF!Temmie doesn’t try to insist on the player killing off a Froggit in the ruins, for instance, but when Alphys collapses outside Undyne’s lab, I imagine they beg the player to leave her to die. They are more cowardly, but are also more open about their care for the Player. SOULlessness seems to entail a lack of emotions, but as we see from Undertale Flowey, it doesn’t mean they are devoid of feeling or incapable of bonding. I imagine the ghost of who Frisk used to be still ways heavily on SF!Temmie, and as a result they’re a tenacious, but timid ally.
janainaart
romaincrisis
origamiaround
titsay
jbbartram-illu