Of course you'd have to wordreplace only Chara-as-a-word and not chara-as-part-of-character, else you'd get words like 'alexcter'.
I've seen at least one person use "Cter" or variants thereof (like Acter, Cater, Carter, and the like) as Chara's birth surname, as a pun on 'character'. On the topic of Chara: it seems weird when people pronounce it Kara, because to me it looks like it's pronounced Chara. With a 'ch' sound at the beginning.
I personally have been known to pronounce it: -Kara, or like how the "chara" in "character" is pronounced -Chara, or like "chair-ah" -Chara, or like "char-ah" (here "char" is like the "char" in "charred") because I can't decide on any one pronunciation.
same tho I usually flip between option 1 and 3 bc anglo-leaning pronounciation often doesn't occur to me with words that don't look Very English and a strong bias for option 3 bc "????? pleasing sound yes good".
Where does "alex" come from? (I've never played that game but I've also never heard that name in connection with UT before.)
It's the name I gave them. I like Alex a lot because it's gender neutral short form for a masculine name and a feminine name. I'm also very fond of Mark/Marcia for bigendered characters of mine due to roots.
I've always been of two minds about it, like on one hand Chara is shorter and less cumbersome than 'the fallen human' and by now is more or less universally understood. On the other hand, it's clearly a placeholder name and I'm pretty sure that soon after the game's release Toby Fox tweeted that you should name the fallen human after yourself.
i was reading a fic and the author was describing how sexy an expression was during a sex scene and literally followed it with the phrase "mm, spicy meatball." not dialogue. that was narrative description. spicy meatball
That is the story, yes. Though the tweet was immediately followed by "if you can't think of anything else" from tobyfox. Though I much prefer the idea of naming them after yourself or a name you otherwise strongly relate to (see: me with alex and mark/marcia). That's just far more interesting thematically than using an awkward sounding placeholder.
Chara's actually the name of a star, and also an algae, and a moth. And the 'name them after yourself' tweet people cite was Toby responding to someone who couldn't think of a name and so resorted to asking Toby. Toby responded with, over two tweets: "your own name. if you can't think of anything else, lol." Full stops indicate end-of-tweet.
Spoiler: nsfw Friends, I am as much a fan of size difference as anybody. But goddammit, if you are an alien robot and turn into a giant truck, then I'm sorry, but you cannot fit your dick inside shia labeouf's asshole