Greetings, people. Recently, I saw the video “What Happened To Freaktale?”, which reminded me of the influence Freaktale had on Xénotale, my own AU. I then thought about making a post on that. So, let’s begin.
I shall say in the first place that I recall conceptualizing Xénotale back in March or April 2018, and back then, it was very different. The original idea was “What if Zeno was in another AU?”. It was as simple as that (note that he was my only Undertale OC back then). However, I never made it continue.
One day, however, I discovered Freaktale, and while I can’t say exactly when (I think it was in August 2018), and it reminded me of Xénotale, which I start to develop, with many ideas borrowed from Freaktale (some even got scrapped).
The biggest influence Freaktale ever had on Xénotale is definitely the creation of The Voice, one of the characters, very inspired by Sky, the virus of Freaktale. They, in fact, were supposed to be the center of all the changes on the AU, and while Sky made them obvious, The Voice operared discreetly, which was the biggest difference at the time, especially considering back then, The Voice was combined with another character (now, they are two separate characters and this for the best). When it comes to the differences, I must say that they are a bit more recent (from 2019). The Voice is now a bodiless creature that is indeed unbeatable (in fact, it is impossible to fight this) that is used not only in the universe itself, but also in the Multiverse (with different uses), and that has multiple different effects that can be useful to the story. One of the biggest differences they always had, is that Sky can target anyone, whereas The Voice can only target beings with determination (and they fake to be only able to target the one with the most determination in the Xénotale universe itself).
So, in fact, when it comes to this, I don’t recall if the idea comes from Freaktale or simply from the view some fans have of Undertale, but it is about Frisk and Chara. So, in Freaktale, it is well-known that Frisk and Chara are merged together, and as such, sticked together. In Xénotale, they are also sticked together, though it’s not because of their body, but because of Frisk’s mind. In Xénotale, Chara is blocked in Frisk’s mind and is only capable of communicating with Frisk and The Voice. However, I think some interpretations of the character of Chara in Undertale are also like this, but with Chara controlling Frisk’s mind in the genocide route. This is why I can’t recall if I borrowed this from this or from Freaktale, with the only new shit being that Chara controls Frisk during the pacifist route and then Frisk takes the control back during the eidocide route and does it for her vengeance. Also, I’m pretty sure that both Frisk and Chara being female has been borrowed from Freaktale, but I guess this is the case in a lot of AUs.
The things is, there may be others (in fact, there most likely are others, like Asgore was probably once heavily inspired by the one in Freaktale, if I recall correctly), however, all these things I borrowed come from 2018, back when Xénotale had almost nothing, not even Celerity (yes, at this point), and when I decided to make the actual story back in 2019, I had stopped to do this. However, I can say that more minor ideas were still borrowed from Freaktale, such as:
-Toriel, Papyrus, Alphys, Mettaton and Asgore having actual fights in the eidocide route, like Undyne and Sans. This is still true at this point, because I don’t see any reason to remove this, especially when i came up with some cool fight ideas. The idea of a new final boss in eidocide is there as well and originates from the Freaktale inspiration as well.
-One of the properties of the universe itself is also a thing that was borrowed from Freaktale. I’m going to keep it because it is useful story-wise.
-I originally planned to add some alternative stories like there were in Freaktale. Fortunately, this idea was scrapped.
-Some story elements (in fact, I only recall two) still ressemble Freaktale quite a bit, some more than others, but while one (as I can recall right now) has a direct inspiration from Freaktale, the other is more of a coincidence, pretty much coming from the fact that both their stories happen in the Underground.
Now, to be honest, I don’t borrow from Freaktale anymore. I have surpassed this. Freaktale was really my main inspiration for Xénotale, and what made me want to continue the AU back when I did it, which I do not regret all. This last detail is even stated on the Undertale AU Wiki. I also technically borrowed from other AUs, to a lesser extent though. The AUs I can recall I borrowed from to a lesser extent are Undertale DDD and Alphatale (my AUs made before too, but technically, they are made by me, so nobody would care). I have also definitely imagined a most of the shit after the publication by myself in a very weird way (which I will not state), and more recently, after I stopped borrowing from other AUs for Xénotale. This definitely includes the backstories of all of the characters and all of the characters I have added to the AU since 2018, the new locations, all of the lore points and some of the items. I also borrowed from Undertale, but as it is an Undertale AU, I think it is really obvious.
Anyways, have a great next 24 hours.