[ character designs, story and this post itself are all subject to change as this story is unfinished! ]
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HEARTTALE is an au where after the Monster Human war, Asgore made a promise, a promise to all monsters and a promise they must make to each other: to not fill their hearts with hate and resentment for humans or else they'll all target each other for survival. Instead they should learn to forgive and LOVE humans, as love united their houses, and he believes LOVE towards humans and each other will free them once more!
And now, the UNDERGROUND is Heart and LOVE themed with various shades of pinks, purples and reds, and things like romance, familial bonds and platonic bonds run deep within their culture! Like it being customary to give flowers whenever you visit someone and each flower having a meaning, a heart hand symbolizing good faith, and even the famous DELTA RUNE legend changing!
" The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Heavens Above...
They will return. And the underground will be filled with LOVE. "
Now this au is somewhat unfinished! Some characters haven't been designed yet and not every single area has been changed or accounted for! But I Do have the more important characters designed :3
Here we have Frisk! They're around 10-12 years old! As you can see they're in pretty rough shape. That's because their life back on the Surface...wasn't the greatest environment. After running away from their family traveling trip to Mt. Ebott, they tripped on a vine and fell into the UNDERGROUND. They're very anxious, shy and scared their first time around, but depending on what Route they take, they either warm up to the Monsters and begin to LOVE them, their colors glowing brighter to symbolize healing from trauma...or they grow cold and begin to take their LOVE to cope with their issues, symbolizing how trauma can make you hurt the people you care about, and even people you rarely know :(
NEXT UP IS FLOWEY!! Instead of a Golden Flower/Buttercup, they're based on Crimson Flowers/Carnations! Their petals are lower to the ground so instead they form vines for hand gestures! Vines with small, tiny spikes that can suddenly grow larger and pack a real sting!!
Their goal is still very close to canon: Manipulate Frisk and the other Monsters to get all the human souls, and become a God so they can get revenge on humans for killing someone important to them, and play with Frisk forever! However to do that, they need Frisk's trust, so no Friendliness Pellets sadly
Flowey will try multiple things to get Frisk to give them what they want. They'll suggest that maybe the Monsters aren't as nice as they seem, noting how they're starting to run low on resources and tells lies of Monsters resorting to eating humans after their Souls are harvested, other times they'll use their trauma against them, saying they know how it feels and suggests that a little sparring would help relieve some stress. Depending on what route you choose they'll lean into each one more to fuel Frisk further. Like Classic!Flowey, in Neutral they can either be killed or spared, and in Pacifist they become Asriel Dreemurr!
Speaking of...
ASRIEL AND C(H)ARA!!!
quick text ID
" asriel found Cara in the flower patch near The Entrance and took them home seeing they were hurt from the fall. after asgore and toriel realized that this human ran away from an awful situation, they decided to take them in as their own, making them the first fallen human and first human child to be adopted by a monster in decades. asriel and cara have been close ever since. "
LIKE THE TEXT SUGGESTS Cara is a lot like Frisk in how they ended up in the UNDERGROUND. Escaping from a toxic environment only to fall into the UNDERGROUND! And the story goes as usual: Cara gets sick and before they die, Asriel and Cara cook up a plan. Asriel would absorb Cara's soul before they expired and take them to the Surface, not only to see the flowers one last time, but to hopefully convince humans they're nice, with Asriel showing that even in death he still let Cara see the flowers they loved so much, and that this sickness was something they had before entering...it did not end well < :3
NEXT UP IS TORIEL! Caretaker of The Ruins! The Ruins is now a pseudo-museum for old weapons and items back when Monsters and Humans were united and fighting! A common one being banners and shields with the DELTA RUNE symbol!
She hasn't gone through much change personality wise as she would fit right in a place like HEARTTALE! The only difference is that she knows how to house flowers, fruits and vegetables as she use to provide for humans back on The Surface! She'd always leave fresh food for Monsters near Snowdin to pick up for their markets! However, her seeds don't last forever.
Next up is Little Miss Muffet! The local Spider Baker funding small spiders across the UNDERGROUND! She's mostly normal aside from having a Slightly more reasonable price at her Bake Sale. She's also someone who frequently takes the stuff Toriel grows from The Ruins, especially since her other fellow spiders live there!
Frisk still fights her if they pass by the Bake Sale without buying anything, but it's less of Muffet wanting to eat them and more so her Begging for them to buy Something since her family is struggling.
Next up is Nabstablook!!! They mostly stay the same as well with the only difference being they Frequently listen to Very sped up Nightcore, and is a bit of an anime enthusiast like Alphys...they prefer romcoms though.
Now I know THIS is someone you waited for...that's right! IT'S SANS! Sans is still lazy and loves himself a good pun every now and then, but he's also very flamboyant! Not to the same level Mettaton is, but more closer to someone like Rarity or even Leo from ROTTMNT, but he often plays into the fact he's sometimes dramatic which leads to him being Overly Dramatic for the bit!
He and his brother live in Snowdin, where instead of Christmas they celebrate Valetines Day! Snowdin is sorta the Capitol for all of Monster Kind and their culture! Instead of a Christmas Tree there's a Wishing Fountain, or The Fountain Of LOVE, where gifts, coins and such are placed either in or around the fountain! Many proposals, romantic or platonic were all made there!
Sans does still have a past with the original Royal Scientist and Frisk still fights him if they go down the Genocide route, however it is different.
At first Sans will refuse to fight you, as he is hopeful that Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding, that Frisk is just Scared, but that attitude changes when Sans dodges Frisk's attack. Throughout the fight Frisk teases and berates him, making him use more power on his attacks which tires him out. He gets more and more upset and angry, and after slamming Frisk around he just...breaks down and cries, after that Frisk can either spare him, which leads to him killing Frisk, no longer trusting their words...or Frisk kills Sans. He'll dodge a few times before eventually getting hit.
He also really wants a partner, as he is a hopeful romantic but often finds himself staring from afar. His name outside of his au is also Romance/Roro!
And lastly, it's the king himself...King Asgore.
Now he doesn't look...a Lot like his subjects, most of them have brighter colors and pinks, while he is a dark purple and black with very muted gold accents. There's a reason :3
Years of grief and anger of losing his children, his only son and human child, have eaten away at him as he grew resentful for the humans above, so much so that his once bright colors slowly grew dark.
You might've Also noticed that the golden accents are the same color as the stripes on Cara and Asriel! That's because their deaths effected the UNDERGROUND so much that Monsters now wear golden accessories to keep their memory alive. Toriel and Asgore have the most golden accents to them...and notice how muted his are. :3
After coming up with a plan to kill humans for their souls, Toriel stepped down as Queen and his subjects questioning his actions, even calling him a hypocrite for preaching LOVE when he himself no longer harbors it in his Soul...a lousy king they call him, not because he is a coward or doesn't know how to name things, but because he abandoned the very thing he taught Monsters when they were first sealed away.
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That should be everything! Right now not everyone has a design (Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton and Alphys) and Cara is getting a redesign, but I'll try updating this whenever something changes!/g
I hope you all like this passion project as much as I do!!! Feel free to draw my sillies! If you wish! :3
I HAVE THE FINAL TWO HEARTTALE DESIGNS‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
After nearly a whole Week, the final two characters and two redesigns are DONE!!!
First we have Undyne, Head Of The Royal Guard and Alphys' soon-to-be girlfriend :3
Like in canon, Undyne met Alphys in Waterfall, snapping her out of a trance where she was seemingly staring contently into a black tar pit at the bottom of the Waterfall. Alphys and her have drifted apart due to their work but still keep in touch via Undernet! And if you're wondering, Undyne does Not know that she's still a Royal Scientist. Alphys makes it sound like she got fired after an incident but was allowed to keep her lab, when in secret she's still working on the Amalgamates.
As you can see, Undyne is not only another character with a darker color palette, but also pretty beaten up < :3 that's due to her fighting humans and training with Asgore.
The now Enraged and Revengeful King would often push Undyne to her limits physically in fights, to "toughen her up" when another war inevitably breaks between humans and monsters again. He even uses his fire abilities to "make her immune to fire" since Asgore believes that the humans still wield magic, and the magic-less humans will wield arrows and sticks of fire to burn monsters. The darker spots on her body are burn marks, and her hair covers a large burn mark injury, which caused her to go blind! The burn marks on her side were from a training session and her attempting to protect her other eye.
She is...not okay with the idea of leading the Royal Guard and killing humans, feeling as though not Only is she abandoning her morals but betraying her own kind by killing humans. She originally joined to Protect monsters and humans, not Hurt them...which gives her more of a reason to constantly make sure Papyrus never joins.
And speaking of!!
THE LOVEABLE PAPYRUS!!
Sans' little brother and Snowdins' "protector", Papyrus is very sweet to everyone he comes across! He always wants to help and often partakes in community events
And like canon, he's a bit too trusting, but not naive! He can tell when someone is lying or not telling the truth, and he'll call you out on it! Not in a mean way, but to let you know so it can help you! He does tend to not pry if the person doesn't budge, but always has an ear ready to lend if someone needs to talk! He has a soul of gold :3
And just like in canon, he wants be apart of The Royal Guard! But he doesn't seem to understand what it actually is thanks to Undyne lying.
Unable to tell Papyrus the truth, Undyne says The Royal Guard finds, houses and protects fallen humans, and no matter how difficult or boring she tried to make it sound, Papyrus just wanted to join more, which lead to her giving Papyrus "training", training as in improving his food, cleaning, and stuff, in usual Undyne fashion (they both wrecked her house multiple times from intense cleaning training). She says he has to do this since he might house a human at his place or need to take care of the human himself if the human is younger or elderly.
This is all to postpone Papyrus from actually signing up, knowing Asgore would most likely accept him due to The Royal Guard not having too many members, and she doesn't want someone as nice and caring and Papyrus to go through the same training She did or kill humans. Roy Guards in this au are seen somewhat negatively due to them killing humans and abandoning the Underground's culture, but none of them really had a choice. She doesn't want Papyrus to get hurt, or hurt other humans, or be silently shamed like she did.
On a lighter note, Papyrus and Sans still share their brotherly relationship like in canon and Papyrus is Snowdin's local aroace iconic :3
LASTLY WE HAVE A REDESIGN OF ASRIEL AND CARA :3
Asriel only had a few Minor changes in regards to his colors while Cara had a major overhaul! They now look more like the images of the first fallen human! Their backstories are still the same, but I do wanna talk about the Frisk/Chara Soul/Narrator Chara theory and the Genocide route :3
Iirc it's canon that Chara and Frisk share a soul, with Frisk might even being a reborn version of Chara while they're deep within Frisk's consciousness, and bc of that they narrate the story and dialogue boxes as "Frisk's inner thoughts". That's the same here! Cara and Frisk share a soul due to Frisk being a reborn version of Cara, and Cara narrates/makes notes of things but Frisk is never fully aware that they exist until Genocide.
As known, Flowey (Asriel) tries to stop Frisk from going to the surface by killing Asgore themselves, whether to save their father from an fate like that or to prove themselves Useful so Frisk didn't kill them is unknown but it ended with them dying anyways. And Chara makes Frisk erase and reset the world to save it. Here it's the same thing but instead of the usual "I'm You" dialogue, it's. Different.
Cara. Is Distraught over Frisk killing everyone in the Underground. Friends, family, neighbors, everyone. With the exception of Alphys as she was the only one who truly escaped Frisk's wrath. (plus Blooky, Mad Mewmew and Annoying Dog bc Of Course he lives.)
Cara yells at them, screams at them. Why did they do this? They're hurt but in turn they killed so many people just to cope, and now there's nothing Left, and it's all because of Frisk.
Instead of Cara taking their soul, in grief and guilt, Frisk pulls it out themselves to give to Cara to erase the world, realizing what they did and how they don't deserve kindness or a happy ending, but the others did. They deserve another chance.
Cara, seeing that Frisk does genuinely feel horrible about what they did, gives them One more chance. They'll erase the world back to what it was once, and give Frisk another chance to set things right, but if they do the same thing again, Cara will erase the world permanently.
And that's hoe True Pacifist begins :3
I ALSO HAVE A HEIGHT CHART THAT MAY OR MAY NOT GET CHANGED :3
Now not all of the designs or stories are Final, especially Papyrus' design as I do feel like he could use more Pazzaz, BUT That's all of the main cast done!!!! I would...love to hear who your favorite character is so far among this crew and the info I've given you since I started sending these-I love hearing people yap about my characters :3/nf
I hope you like the designs and lore either way!!!
UNDYNE AND PAPYYYY!!!! :DD
(They both some of my favorites, i love them dearly ^^)
Their designs are so cute/ cool (even if Undynes scars af caused cause of Asgore.... He's now my #1 opp >:(((( /nsrs)
Chara looking more like the images of the fallen human looks really neat! Frisk feeling guilty about killing everyone and chara giving them a second chance is really nice too (love characters getting a second chance and redeming themselves ^^)
THANK U FOR MORE UPDATES TO YOUR AU (even if the story and their designs are not completely finalized i still love it ^^)
Im a fan of all their designs for multiple different reasons (each for different reasons) especially love how creative you are with adding hearts to their designs! Like how Asriels ears has a heart shape to them and Papyrus scarf also having a heart shape around his neck
My favs so far are Toriel, Undyne, and Alphys. But im also a fan of Muffet, the skelebros, and Blooky! (Maybe its cause they tend to be my favs in general lol ^^')
Sorry for the random message, but could I ask what hearttale/talehearted is? :o I tried to just look it up, but all the search results were about The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe, aha
2 months late but here you go! the original coining post for talehearted and the updated coining post
Talehearted: An individual who has a strong integral connection to a story whether it is fictional, real or based on real story.
Those who are Talehearted might feel a sense of belonging, familiarity or otherwise deep bond to the story, it's characters and/or messages. They might also feel as if they are supposed to be part of the story and/or it's world; the story parallels their own life in one way or the other, either through the messages of the story, plot beats and more.
Hearttale: The story who the Talehearted individual has a strong connection with.
A Talehearted individual's heart-tale could be a fictional, real or otherwise based on reality story; a singular event/arc of a story, or different versions of that story; any story in a genre and/or that hold specific theme(s).
I’m so excited for The Ghost in the Shell (2026). I was introduced to it through Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004), and those films resonated with me as an alterhuman. As did these films’ interpretation of Motoko Kusanagi. Her journey with her identity is like my own, although I’m personally not a cyborg. Whenever I had the time, I’d re-watch both films. When a work fiction or multiple works of fiction really click with you, I think the best part is revisiting everything and finding details you might’ve missed the first time!
I also wanted to check out other versions of Motoko’s story, starting with GITS’s source material. I wasn’t all that surprised when I learned every prior adaptation for GITS exists as its own continuity apart from the original 1989-1990 run of The Ghost in the Shell (I take it as a TMNT or Transformers type of situation); I caught the visual differences between 89!Motoko, 95!Motoko, and SAC!Motoko pretty early on. I figured there had to be some sort of explanation behind that.
Both Shirow Masamune’s manga and Mamoru Oshii’s films are major hearttales of mine. I can’t wait to see the original manga get a faithful adaptation, especially when it’s been thirty-seven years since its serialization. Its lighthearted moments are really appreciated. I feel a little closer to Motoko that way, like I’m getting to know her and not The Major.
In any case, I look forward to this summer. This isn’t exactly a niche thing to have strong feelings towards (Exhibit A: Oshii’s 1995 film inspired The Matrix by the Wachowski sisters), but Motoko and her story mean the world to me nonetheless. Both being captured in their rawest form is a win in my book!
HT Paps stress knits, sans fell asleep working on paperwork and is confused. (I forgot to add paps scar in the comic, it will be in newer chapters ugggg)
