Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

anyway! that AU idea was inspired by unexpecterchanged, an undertale AU where the characters are swapped but without following any pair rules so any character can be in any position.

EDIT: it's also possible for more than one character to be assigned to a position, for a character to be in a new position, or for nobody to be assigned a position-there's nobody in the Caretaker of the Ruins position, for example.

 

Spoiler: A thought about the six souls

It just occurred to me that the six humans who Asgore killed may have climbed up because of Chara and Asriel's actions. Chara climbed up and into the mountain for an unhappy reason, according to Asriel. They may have only expected to die in there. The humans after Chara, though, might have heard stories and rumors about the monster who walked into town carrying a human's body.

 

Spoiler: six souls talk

That would put a new light on how the Justice soul ended up walking the monster world with an antique revolver.

 

yeah that's part of my headcanon-then Justice found out about Chara's death not being murder and then things happened.

also speaking of souls: it's weird, to me, how people are citing the red soul virtue as determination. nowhere in the game is this stated or even really implied. it is explicitly stated that determination is a trait shared by all human souls, though.

however there are hints in the game that the red soul virtue could be hope (Asgore states that Frisk and Chara both have/had "the same look of hope in their eyes") or love (love of monsters on the pacifist route, love of power on the kill-all route).

 

Dang, I like that.

Especially awful and delightful: doesn't Asgore say that when you've killed Flowey before? So that kind of hope is the kind to change the world, violently if need be. Brings me right back to Hope Points theory of HP.


The reason for the red=determination assumption is that Frisk is the only human we know* is Determined enough to have access to the reset power, and enough to use it even when Flowey's around. But Hope or Love do parse better, all the other things are ideals,directions in which they pushed with their determination.

*Toriel mentioned that the other kids seemed familiar too, like she says about our human on related plays through one of her conversations... As if they'd all been resetting, and had the power, but been unable to beat Asgore. But that's hard to feel confident in.

 

God that hope points theory gets me every time cause sans only has one hp. Like he's very probably got depression and then only one hope left.

 

I'm fond of it for that too.

It gives the intent part of monster magic another significance, if the stability of their lives is so literally based on their ability to feel hopeful. It gives a nice twist to why resting (and dreaming?) gives the temp hp buffer, having had a break from fears and doubts.

And it gives another reason besides cowardice for Asgore to have stuck to his declaration, for King Papyrus to focus so hard on morale. If feeling too hopeless means falling down, then giving the people something to hope for saves lives.

 

I like the idea of the Red Soul Virtue being Joy, personally. It's what 'Chara' literally translates as in the original Greek, I believe.

Plus, it provides an interesting perspective on the No Mercy route: every virtue can be twisted, such as Bravery becoming recklessness, or Integrity becoming inflexibility. Joy, when twisted, becomes sadism, taking happiness from the suffering of others. What was happiness at bringing people happiness in the Pacifist route instead turns into happiness at taking it away from them.

 

wilyart's been doing a side project on that basis, with sketchy outline versions of their depictions of the kids as they embody the...twisted versions, i guess.

Spoiler: the twisted virtues

Spoiler: the fallen children themselves

 

I saw an au while back that i like purely because its fun, where the winchesters of the undertale universe were fallen humans, sam being perseverance and dean being justice looking for his brother. All of the humans who fell in the au died because of monsters' inaction, like no one specifically tried to harm them but they didnt help them when they were in trouble either, so they could get the souls without being violent. Sans got the phrase "dirty brother killer" from dean and his confrontation in the judgement hall.

 

I have Bonetrousel stuck in my head. I'm mad af because of reasons, but friggen Bonetrousel playing in my head.

 

Oh man i am so here for these cool cool jams

 

Frisk's name is also a joy name-it's a word for prancing around joyfully. (As well as searching someone via patdown or the like, and it used to mean gay and before then meant hungry. Yeah. Words.)

 

Also Chara shares their name with a binary star, a moth, an alga, a bunch of places in Russia, a telescope, a constellation, an ethnic group, a language, a magazine, a warship, and a singer.

Back to the twisted virtues, that can also happen with love-as I said earlier, loving power or loving killing, as opposed to the untwisted loving monsters.
(Also, Chara seems to like Frisk right away-they start helping as early as the Ruins, giving tips on how to spare monsters, as well as narrating for Frisk and giving them options as soon as there's any indication they're there at all.)

 

This fic, called Seven Souls, is about the seven main characters Frisk meets. It's unfinished, but includes such gems as Papyrus having to save Frisk from his own attack and a bit of the cooking with Undyne scene.

EDIT: spelling

 

"chara" is also a primitive data type in some programming languages. that was my original guess for why it was picked, like they were literally written into the code of the game.

 

i've said it before and i'll say it again: pundertale

 

fun fact Knight Knight's check text is a four-layer pun
"good morning"+her weapon is a morningstar+the morning star is venus+one of her attacks is a sun (or the star that first appears in the morning)

 

toby