Underswap Headcanons
So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Underswap and how I differentiate it from Undertale. I’ve never really had the words to it before, but something I’ve come to understand is that I think while the characters maintain the external personality and appearance of the person they’ve been swapped with, their dark side, their insecurities, the lines they’ll cross, the parts only close friends and family know...they are retained from their Tale selves. This underside, however, expresses itself through the lens of the externals, creating a fusion that at times can resemble both but allows the personality to become its own. I’ll be writing some basic profiles of the major characters, including some of those that I don’t write for often. I will be leaving out Chara and Frisk though. Not because I don’t have headcanons for them, but because in order to understand my swaps for them, you’d have to understand my Tale headcanons for them, which is a post in its own right.
(may do this for Swapfell, but then I’d have to get into the whole Fellswap Swapfell thing and that’s a whoooole can of worms)
Asgore: Alright, in fairness, Asgore and Toriel have always been pretty similar. Maybe its because they spent so much time as a couple. Still, there are some differences. In Underswap, Asgore has UT!Toriel’s caretaking instincts for lost souls as well as her more stringent ethics (there is right and wrong and very little in between). He also inherits the love of puns. From his original self, however, he gained a certain unacknowledged resignation. While he has a stronger sense of right and wrong than his Tale self, he shares a similar sense of doom, and that no matter what he desires, in the end, what will happen is what will happen. He will not fight as hard to keep the human there, nor does he connect as strongly, because he seems burdened by an understanding that he cannot save them. All of his children leave, and rather than trying to cloister them, as Tale!Toriel did, he in the end builds more walls around himself, tries to provide for them without getting his heart broken. He returns in the True Pacifist ending ultimately because he decides he is tired of trying to protect himself. That this is not what his son and Frisk would’ve wanted. He also resents Toriel less than Tale!Toriel resents her ex. While he still finds her actions despicable, there is a subconscious part of him that envies the fact that she still had the strength to care for their people while he shut down.
Sans: (special thanks to @nighttimepixels for putting my thinking on this track)Externally, he’s identical to Tale!Papyrus almost to the point of caricature. Bouncy, enthusiastic, optimistic, the Underground’s ray of sunshine who seems like he’s never had a bad thought in his life.....but the truth is, no one’s that perfect. Blue is pretty naturally upbeat. He prefers to see the best in people and though he’s often let down he finds that when that trust is rewarded its worth it. But in many cases his reputation outpaces his actuality. Still, the largest thing he inherited his Tale!Sans? The desire to keep secrets. To protect himself, to avoid problems by just hiding it all under a more digestible front. Even Papyrus doesn’t totally know how low he can get. How garbage his self-esteem can be. How isolated he can feel from others. Because the lower he gets the higher in gear he kicks it. More bounce! More pizazz! More magnificence! He’s Sans the Skeleton, everyone’s support system! He...he doesn’t get low days. Honest! From a more positive perspective, Blue is a little less dependent on the opinion’s of others than Papyrus. As long as they aren’t upset, then honestly they can have whatever opinion of him that they want. To clarify, he of course wants to be seen as impressive, kind, and a force to be reckoned with, but he copes a bit better with his lack of popularity that Tale!Papyrus, and is less desperate to please. While both have a strong code of ethics, Blue is more likely to burn a bridge over a violation of it (though of course hoping they will come around), while Papyrus has a harder time doing that.
Papyrus: The first time he meets Tale Sans, Sans can’t help but feel a strange rush of envy. Stretch is lazy, sure, lives like garbage and can’t commit to much. But he’s so damn charming. He seems to have retained Original Papyrus’ showmanship instincts just enough to talk his way into anything, leave just as much of an impression as he wants, or go ignored if that’s what he desired. And while in general he’s as directionless as Tale, when he wants something he rarely has trouble getting it. Motivation isn’t his default but it is a reservoir he has immense capacity to draw on. Still, there’s a lot (a LOT) Stretch doesn’t show. That dependency on people’s opinion that Blue missed? Guess who inherited it. Because yeah, he walks around like he doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks of him, like he’s got it all figured out and could talk circles around you if he wanted. But Stretch is CONSTANTLY assessing himself and other people’s perception of him. Even if he doesn’t want to be adored, he wants to be remembered, thought of as funny, clever, or hell, even annoying, just as long as its the impression he wants to give off. He walks a fine line of wanting no one to see the real him while wanting someone to just see him for who he is and VALIDATE it. His self-confidence struggles are tangentially related to Tale Sans, but while Tale tends to just shrug and write himself off as a lost cause, Stretch can’t stop himself from trying to micromanage his own personality. He has a fixation on controlling himself. In light of the RESETs, its one of the last things he can control. Even the smoking habit was intentional. He wanted a coping mechanism, as well as a good reason to be alone when he wanted to be. It sounds cliche, but if Stretch really wanted to quit he could’ve done it no problem years ago. He struggles with anxiety as opposed to Tale’s depression, and is quite a bit more extroverted.
Muffet: Muffet’s similarities to her Tale self largely relate to motivations. She works her bakery/bar to provide money for her spider family members in Hotland. As the strongest of her kind only she could bear Snowdin’s cold, and it allowed her a business opportunity (given that Swap Grillby has a stranglehold on the Hotland food market only barely broken by Napstaton’s resort) to provide for her family. Outwardly, she is near identical to Tale Grillby. Quiet, responsible, with an unexpected humor only a select few regulars are privy to. Still, she kept her Tale self’s cutthroat side. While she’s a decent person and generally is willing to help others, if the choice came between an innocent and any member of her family, she would give up the innocent practically instantaneously. She’s also a tightfist and can be extremely unreasonable about money. Stretch doesn’t talk about it much but there was an incident where she came to him about his tab and he treated the matter a little too light-heartedly.....she apologized afterwards but he’s never let the bill stand that long since. To her, nothing is more important than her ability to provide and protect for her people.
Alphys: She’s got all of Tale Undyne’s rough and tumble, “FIGHT ME” intensity, as well as her softer, gentler desire to help all monsterkind. But this dinosaur doesn’t have nearly the same confidence. Not that she’d ever admit to it. But Alph struggles with her belief in herself. She believes in Blue, in Toriel, in Undyne, in all of her friends, really. But rarely in herself. Toriel never needed to correct her during training, Alphys berated herself, often way past what was necessary. She can do a hundred perfect moves, trip once, and that’s the only thing she’ll remember. Still, she covers that lack of confidence with quite a bit of aggression. Though Tale!Undyne had her angry moments, Alphys can come off as downright cranky. She also retained a tactical brilliance from Tale!Alphys, and a secret nerd side that she represses. No one is allowed in her room because that’s where she keeps all the....*whispers* books. Part of what drew her to Undyne was that she’s allowed to openly love what Alphys feels she must keep to herself. After all, warriors don’t READ! Right?!?!?!
Undyne: Awkward, shy, nerdy, stammering......and full of PASSION! Seriously, she keeps it on the DL, but she is almost as intense as her Tale self. Pencils she chews on end up bitten in half before she knows what she’s doing. She’s thrown laptops across the room in her excitement over new breakthroughs. And that’s not counting all the broken mugs. She definitely does not know her own strength. She also has Tale!Undyne’s tendency to make swift judgments (like with Frisk and Papyrus to an extent) and stick to them until she has no choice but to reassess. A prime example? Mettablook. Once she determined that their cousin was a better candidate for the robotics project....well, she wasn’t exactly rude, but she could be a bit callous. Frankly, she didn’t have much use for them, and could be unreasonable about their requests for her to make them a body, saying curtly that she didn’t have the resources to spare for such a secondary project. On the more positive side, while she’s definitely awkward, she doesn’t struggle as much with confidence as Tale!Alphys. Her isolation is more incidental to her focus on her job (and, well, the internet). Socializing isn’t nearly as agonizing for her. She keeps in touch with Stretch despite them not working together. She simply doesn’t let people get too close so they don’t find out about the little surprise in her basement....
And speaking of Mettablook....
Mettablook (Hapstablook?): (sidenote, I’ll be using he/him pronouns since that’s what Mettaton uses in-game) When it comes to Napsta and Metta, I see their Swap being more role than personality focused. Like, Metta definitely got more of Napstablook’s shyness, but in general he is very close to how I imagine pre-robo Mettaton. He has a flair for performance, a love for anything that sparkles, and a fierce loyalty to his circle of friends. With one major difference. He wasn’t the one who met Undyne first. That was his cousin. As a result, Napsta was the one chosen for the robot program. While Metta....was stuck with the farm. As opposed to Napstablook’s crushed self-esteem, though, his route to coping with being....well, abandoned by one of the few people he thought would stick around for ever, is active denial that it hurt even a little. No, really, he’s very happy for his cousin. No big that they never call or write or visit....really, he’s sure they’re busy or something. He honestly can’t be bothered to think about it with all his responsibilities. Really. Its total bullshit and everyone knows it, but he’ll hold fast to that exterior. And while his confidence isn’t quite as shattered, he’s not nearly the performer he used to be when Chara finds him. He’s trying to rationalize why his cousin wouldn’t take him with them. Was....was this their way of letting them down easy? Are they trying to tell him that he was never as good as he thought? He still practices, but he’s far more private about it. The way you would know he’s ready for MERCY is if he shows you one of his poses, actually.
Napstaton (they/them pronouns) There’s two sides to this DJ. Their on stage persona is actually very laid back, something of a very optimistic surfer dude. They’re go-with-the flow, has tousled robo hair (okay, its been engineered to look tousled) and in general just happy to meet you. While Tale Mettaton’s emphasis is on performance, Napstaton’s first and foremost concern is the music they play and write. They don’t do television shows, but concerts and music specials. Underneath the cool exterior, though, this bot is a HOT MESS. All Napstas, regardless of universe, struggle with low self-esteem and the fear that everyone secretly hates them. When they got their chance at celebrity they had hoped this would be less of an issue. But its not. If anything, its worse, because they’re worried every minute that they’ll mess it up, that the penny will drop and everyone will see them for the garbage heap that they are. They can’t let that happen. So they focus on everything to do with their career. They hole up for days agonizing over their music. They spend hours choosing outfits carefully so they don’t look like they took hours to choose. They never see their cousin anymore, and visits with Undyne are rare and usually as short as they can make them. It makes them something of a selfish person, focused entirely on their image and how they interact with the world. Still, they have a very sweet nature that comes out especially after Chara gives them their wake up call, and they really do love their friends.
Toriel: Gracious, wise, powerful, and in charge. She has all the qualities the Underground seems to require. Along with Tale!Toriel’s impressive dedication to those she cares about and her maternal instincts she combines UT!Asgore’s utter devotion to their people. The killing of children is not something she takes any pleasure in. But she tries to bury her it in the hope of her people. With each SOUL they get closer and closer to freedom. Surely that has to be enough. She also commands a lot more respect than UT!Asgore does, and you are not likely to hear her referred to as “Queen Fluffybuns” anytime soon. Still, she didnt just carry over Toriel’s good qualities. While UT!Asgore mostly wrestled with his own guilt, Swap Toriel is overwhelmingly lonely. Which seems odd. After all, she’s surrounded by people. But there is a certain distance that she has to maintain as a ruler, that prevents many from getting close. With Asgore’s desparture, she’s lost the last person that she felt she could emotionally connect with. Its turned her....a little desperate. And a lot overprotective. Alphys had to fight for years to get her permission to join the Guard, simply because she didn’t want her hurt. Undyne has a tough time of it keeping the Amalgams hidden because Toriel is always visiting and sticking her snout in every direction. Even when they hit the Surface she has a tendency to hover over Chara’s activites and make up reasons to show up at Asgore’s house. Someone give this woman a hug and let her know everyone’s gonna be okay.
