tags also SPOILERS annie
Frisk > Gaster one (1) free soul
wait shoot that was for >emails
>phone
I thought you'd like to know that my brain parsed that as 'e-mail offer for a free soul'.
that is basically what is happening : D
Gaster gets much more interesting spam than I do.
you are the one millionth visitor to this site, click here to receive a soul!
NO
: 3
remember the convos about a soul unaccounted for?
hnnnng how did that happen
Your Gaster didn't die after they did right? So. Wasn't him.
yeah that's where there's kind of a hole in the timeline
this is the problem with building canon by throwing out the first thing that comes to mind
this is the problem with building canon by throwing out the first thing that comes to mind
the thing to remember is that nobody knew souls were conscious
i think either Gaster or Alphys could have done it - in WH i'm gonna tweak Gaster's time of death so that that's possible
I still like my excuse that Gaster's Core Incident fucked up the timeline retroactively, so technically you can justify things happening in any order you want. : D
Here though, it's up to you since it directly affects your character
ooooh now there's an idea
It's a great excuse for everything: 'no, I didn't make a timeline error, that's a plot point'. : D
asdfghg
but yeah seriously sorry to just drop this on you naz i was just like 'oh i just remembered this bit of WH canon'
but yeah seriously sorry to just drop this on you naz i was just like 'oh i just remembered this bit of WH canon'
The Underground's timeline is so fucked up that you just count yourself lucky if tomorrow comes after today, never mind trying to remember when you graduated college.
but yeah basically whoever it was they weren't like 'lets torture a dead child' that's just how it turned out bc plot twist human souls aren't just a power source
aren't just a Determination source
and that's why it's in the condition it's in
nooo it doesn't affect me it ur gaster
I can go with anything, it's just 'shit mine saw', not did himself
yeah but shit yours saw still affects your char so I wanted to make sure
nods
nods
You're good!
okay then, a slight revision to events - rsGaster found the soul and instead of, say, telling Asgore, utilised it in various experiments before finally plugging it into his lab's generator. His death came later. Whatever his relation to Sans/Papyrus, it happened during this time. If he had interaction with Alphys, it was at the tail end.
Honestly I don't know how it ended up there in canon so ive not touched it. Just weird.
That leaves enough gaps that i can fill in later after having given some thought
yeah it's Highly Spooky
But the later horror if he or Alphys did that and then realize SOULs are conscious 
hehehehehe yeeeep
like Alphys def canonly can have that bc she got determination from them
(I'm keeping her having been the first to actually isolate determination in the rs timeline)
Yeah that's canon isn't it? God sometimes I forgot what's canon and what's fanon.
with Gaster as the one that did that Frisk's soul might be... reluctant when it realises what's happening
yeeeeep. and same
there's so much depth in this game
I'm not certain, but I go with the headcanon that Gaster theorized that something like determination must exist, and Alphys was the one to take that theory and prove it in reality, as well as naming the resulting substance.
nods that seems the logical explanation
Probably Gaster was himself further advancing a previous scholar's theory when he came up with the one Alphys' eventually proved, because yay for the history of scientific advancement.
yeah who says the blueprints for the dt extractor were really for that originally? Maybe he was just trying to extract something generic like human magic.
Suck everything out and separate it later.
That's true.
: D on the shoulders of giants
: D on the shoulders of giants
I just think it's kind of fun to imagine years of magical scholarly tradition, discussion, and theorizing about souls and other things. I bet it was a really fascinating field before everything got all, uh, horrifying.
I take it you guys are going on the "It's a terrible tragedy that your adopted child's soul vanished along with that hideous mutant fusion monstrosity your son when he disintegrated in your garden, I absolutely did not pocket it and am absolutely not using it to power my super secrent Mad Science Basement in which I am absolutely not experimenting
with breaking the shit out of reality" theory?
tbh it probs always kind of had a shade of the horrifying to it, but got increasingly more horrifying
yep basically ex!
godddd asgore
This Gaster... well he told himself he didn't want to mention it bc it's clear his friends were grieving enough without adding in the complication a soul would mean to the Underground, and then there was Asgore's declaration, and then...
but a lot of it was, absolutely, the first studyable human soul thing
but a lot of it was, absolutely, the first studyable human soul thing
Well, yeah, but I feel like if you were working under carefully-controlling conditions with fully informed consenting volunteers and no desperate people's lives hanging in the balance, it would only be mildly horrifying, much in the same way that medically experimenting on a donated cadaver is a little disturbing but not that bad probably.
question, would your Gaster be thinking of taking frisk's soul here?
I'd say the horror levels would be more "holding up shapes while someone is undergoing brain surgery to make sure you haven't hit important parts"
I'd say he would be definitely tempted, yeah. Whether he would depends on a lot of factors, but he'd def be having quiet nagging doubts as well. In unexciting essence, he'd be conflicted but would go for it without that 'they're conscious' information (and if he had it, he'd be all 'hell no D :')
hnnng
(NGL I have long been more than somewhat inclined to believe this theory, based on three bits of evidence: the breaker box, the fact that the power fails the second Frisk steps in the elevator to the True Lab, and the =) symbol on those Significant Last Two Journal Entries once you turn the power back on)
(Yeah that second is definitely a plot point in WH
the soul could sense the presence of it's other half
you can't leave if the elevator's not working)
the soul could sense the presence of it's other half
you can't leave if the elevator's not working)
(but yeah god the Implications are horrifying)
(Yep. That's...just a leeeeetle bit TOO suspicious.)
god this game is pain
Seriously
the main thing against the 'that's chara's soul' idea is NarraChara though. Like. How's that happening if the soul's elsewhere
and *It's as comfortable as it looks probably fits into this equation somewhere
The Developer Had Like Five Different Ideas and Couldn't Decide So Now You Get To: The Movie: The Game
asdfghjk
Welcome to Undertale
wasn't there that bit in the artbook where the walls of the True Lab were gonna change
Aw now I'm sad, they coulda gone full Aperture down there
Because Chara's mind is in Frisk, somewhat sharing their emotions, while their soul is in the thing?
Asriel/Flowey IS proof of concept that a soul =/= consciousness and vice versa
So.
yeah the mind/soul thing is what I went with
true but Flowey is explicity monster dust, which humans.. don't really have an equivalent of
true but Flowey is explicity monster dust, which humans.. don't really have an equivalent of
unless like. with sufficient determination any human would remain trapped in their unmoving, decaying body after death. brrr
If Chara was absorbed by Asriel, who died, maybe some of Chara's essence was also in his dust?
another option that a fic I saw went with was that Chara could kind of project to Frisk from their location as a soul in the lab
oooh good point. dust that got on the body
Maybe Chara's body took a stab or two when Asriel got shanked 37 times in the chest? He was holding her body.
Blood being equivalent to dust re: essence?
er their, dammit
For some reason it's ALWAYS CHARA I fuck up on that with. Never Frisk.
Anyway, it would depend on how freshly dead they were when Asriel took them topside, though...dead bodies don't tend to bleed very much, if at all.
hmm that's possible but like. why would it matter that blood was spilt then? it's already in the body.
The Friendly RPG Where Nobody Has to Die!
The Friendly RPG that plot twist, has a frikken horror story in it
multiple, even
me, shaking the game: give me your mysteries
Yeah there're two key words in that tagline up there.
'has to'
not 'won't'
er, will
I'm having fun playing with that tagline in the dumb crossover.
"RELAX dudes it's totally safe, it says so right on the sign over the door!"
it's just perfect for that kind of bait and switch
But Nobody Came.mp3
anyway, like, explain to me how blood would work
I think I was thinking of Chara's blood ending up on the flowers same as Asriel, only to realize that wouldn't actually do anything regarding the discussion at hand, they're not stuck in a flower
that could make for an interesting AU
...and frankly if Gaster wanted to experiment with actual human bits and what metaphysical properties they had he could get as much as he wanted several times over :\
RATED E FOR EVERYONE
well it depends on the bits
blood, sure
kidney, once
brain, not so much
blood, sure
kidney, once
brain, not so much
Mmmm brains.
I tend to take the view that while human souls normally last longer outside the body than monster souls, they don't just hang around forever. Like, normally it'd stick around for maybe two or three days before shattering at the most. The souls of the Fallen Children prior to Frisk lasted so long because they were kept in stasis in those glass jars.
lol one of the weirdest things for Chara when they were a skeleton was the whole hollow skull thing
nods yeah that's my guess. souls need a body
A normal monster's soul shatters at the same time their body dies, without ever having an opportunity to leave it. A boss monster's soul will linger for up to several minutes.
turns out 'glass stasis jar' counts as a 'body'
It does seem odd with Frisk's soul shattering as soon as they die, but I also take the view that their soul being outside of them and dodging the attacks during battles isn't just for the sake of making things simpler to animate, they're actually literally using their soul directly for power while fighting, so it's more vulnerable than normal.
and that time limit still incentivises usage rather than storage if you don't have something like that
Yeah, the soul jars are probably a relatively new invention from Gaster and/or Alphys, not something they had before the War.
or, what if another option is that just being outside the body causes a soul damage and they shatter when it hits zero after that time
...also, it's outright stated that most of those souls have been drained of some if not all of the stuff that keeps them from shattering
Frisk's soul just goes there faster when under fire
mmmyeeeep
Alphys had to fill her syringes somehow :\
might explain why they aren't around after the Barrier gets shattered/Flowey is defeated
Yeah
Maybe there were some very rudimentary equivalents in earlier times- all those old stories about sorcerers who couldn't be killed because they kept their hearts hidden away somewhere- but they weren't anything like as effective as the modern versions.
nods
(the telltale soul)
...man I can see an AU where Gaster goes a little mad from remorse and then Asgore takes a trip down to the Mad Science Basement just to say howdy and how's things going, and instead of tearing up the floorboards he throws open the breaker box.
maybe healing magic would help? but the leak would still be as fast, it would just top up the water so to speak
oh my god yes
Nice.
like frick imagine if the soul doesn't just power the labs, but the CORE
now imagine he finds out the consciousness thing after he built all this infrastructure
now imagine he finds out the consciousness thing after he built all this infrastructure
and the guilt slowly eats at him
Yes
Telltale Heart meets Omelas, huh?
frick yes
Why does Chara get super pissed off if you choose DO NOT at the end? They can't die any other way.
CORE actively improves the quality of life of monsters
well i mean they're probs also pissed that everything the two of you did was for fun but. yeah
in neutral/pacifist, as far as we know they're still down there
in the dark
...Ooh, on the subject of Undertale-ized stories, I kind of wanna see a monster-version of Koschei the Deathless now. Maybe instead of the whole 'inside an egg that's a inside a duck that's inside a hare that's buried in an iron chest' thing he's a human mage who worked out a way to give his soul to a monster companion without dying thus making him immortal.
: DD ooh i love that idea
God yes I think I'll use that
One more reason for him to hate himself now that he realizes they're aware... only after he fell into the void
Can't shut it down now can't do shit
:' DDD
yes perfect
Huh. I just looked it up to make sure I was spelling that right, and according to Wikipedia 'Koschei' means 'skeleton' in the old Krivichi dialect. That raises some interesting possibilities.
Alphys doesn't even know.
Like maybe she suspects, but it's the kind of thing you don't want to think about too hard, like if the souls she's slotting in can feel getting DT extracted
Like maybe she suspects, but it's the kind of thing you don't want to think about too hard, like if the souls she's slotting in can feel getting DT extracted
oh my god ecks that's perfect
He's depicted that way in a lot of Russian art
Skeleton monster subspecies origin story, maybe?
They originated from a human mage lich?
...also I keep wondering.
Earth is really frickin big.
Where'd all the other monsters go?
Cryptids
The Mt. Ebbot lava tube/cavern system could not POSSIBLY hold all of them.
....or did we just annihilate them SO HARD that Mt. Ebbot contains all the ones that're left
I don't think I'll keep that as my main headcanon, but it might be fun to play with as an alternate sometime. And I do have headcanons about that, but they're very sad. Want to hear them?
I tend to go with the idea that various versions of the monster human war occured across the globe over a certain period of time, maybe a couple hundred years
there's still like, surface monster populations but very small, isolated, hidden and afraid.
there's still like, surface monster populations but very small, isolated, hidden and afraid.
oooh yes please ecks
Part of my pre-War monster society headcanon is that they tended to live peacefully with but separately from humans, largely because they could tolerate much more extreme conditions than the average human could, so it only felt fair to them to leave the more easily accessible land for their more fragile neighbors.
(Also what happens when Mt. Ebbot inevitably erupts again, as it is very clearly a subduction-zone stratovolcano by its shape and also Hotland? Or is the Core also taking care of that?)
Because of this, monster kingdoms tended to be in very isolated, hostile areas, scattered all around the globe. To connect them, they used a variety of magic that is sadly now lost to make these magical roads that connected the kingdoms directly- ley lines, probably.
(If the Core's purely geothermal i hope it's relieving some of the pressure yeah. The fire monsters probs might also use magic to keep the volcano 'calm' so to speak)
They were basically the equivalent of a space-warping 'this years long trip is reduced to about a day and half' kind of deal, open to anyone.
good news for them post pacifist
And they were all connected via a hub at their main city-state, which was the center of monster culture in a lot of ways.
The first major act of the war was humanity taking that city and slaughtering everyone inside.
hhhhhhhh
...yeah, that sounds legit.
divide and conquer
Wait til they come back up again and find out that yeah, we can do that in about two seconds now.
It was basically a Red Wedding kinda deal- something had happened that was a major diplomatic incident, so basically all of monster society's leadership was there to try and make peace with their human counterparts. So afterwards you have a bunch of trapped, isolated civilians with no real leadership panicking and trying organize themselves getting hunted.
hhhhhh
Asgore and Toriel were running late
or lost loved ones
Everyone else died either during the war or in the years after it when humans hunted them down for being outside the mountain, Mt. Ebott consists of the one kingdom that was fast and lucky enough to get themselves together in time to mount a decent response plus whatever refugees managed to make it to them.
hhhh
I suspect that Asgore and Toriel were the Crown Prince and Princess at the time- already married, young adults, his parents still alive and on the throne at the time, getting suddenly thrust into a leadership position.
They didn't come anywhere near winning, but they managed to at least be difficult enough that humanity accepted their surrender on the condition that they would be spared and sealed them away instead of trying to kill them all.
nods
So yeah, monsterkind was nearly wiped out entirely, the ones under Mt. Ebott are the last of their species. They've got more than enough to survive, especially since a lot of them reproduce asexually so there's less of a worry about finding enough genetic diversity there, but huge amounts of culture and knowledge were lost, along with entire subspecies.
"Once Upon A Time" - A Nursery Rhyme [Original Under... Tangential, but had any of you heard this yet? I can definitely see the children of Ebbotsville, Wherever chanting this.
they were (un)lucky
Ooh, gotta love a good creepy nursery rhyme. : D
I love how it's exactly the right mix of cute and creepy.
That "One, two, Freddy's comin' for you..." vibe at the end
it really does sound like something the kids there might use
all sorts of stories around that mountain
Humanity might have forgotten monsters and magic over the years, but you always get those little bits seeping through the cracks of history. : D
yusssss
My brain keeps putting it in OR or WA or BC because there's exactly that sort of mountain range and it's also known for being Cryptid Central
Also, post-CORE incident, one has to wonder how many funny glitches the cel towers and computers in the area get...
Incidentally, I do also have headcanon about why they were all in that diplomatic meeting in the main city in the first place.
reminds me of doctor who's Beast Below rhyme
oooooh
Somebody gets a call from an unknown number on their cel one night and all they hear is a very distant "...............come join the fun........"
(pfft no service around the mountain no matter what anyone tries)
holy shit yes
Essentially, another large monster kingdom has suffered from a large, unexpected earthquake. Natural disasters happen, of course, but this one was significant because one of the dead was one of the few humans who had chosen to live with monsterkind. Their friend desperately tried to keep them alive, and wound up being the first monster to absorb a human soul
They panicked, flew to the next kingdom for help, and died of their wounds pretty soon afterward, but not before making everybody freak the fuck out because humans had seen them and realized what a scary possibility this soul absorbtion was.
The current political climate was a little unstable, some high-ranking humans saw an opportunity and came up with the plan to turn this into a casus belli and wipe out the monsters, things went from there.
I love you guys
mmmhm sounds depressingly plausible
Monster leadership thought they were going to a peace meeting to prevent the War and settle everything, got Martin'd.
i love monster human game of thrones
Aww, you're a sweetie, Goop. : D
i love you too naz
also just to clarify naz in the tag does or doesn't he know souls were conscious? you said you where going to use that but didn't specify where
"Hm, this "Monster Mash" song certainly is catchy...wait, why are they locking the doors?"
it was a ballroom blitz
...I'm now picturing 'Rains of Castamere' to the tune of 'Monster Mash'. I hope you're happy with yourself.
god like. i would watch that hypothetical monster human war GoT tv show
You're welcome.
Provided it was not directed by the people doing the actual GoT TV show, yes absolutely.
Naturally
Yeah no.
or maybe as an anime series
I mean, I'm sure Toriel has very lovely tits but I don't want to have to see them every time they want to throw in some exposition, thanks.
might be easier than live actions bc the CGI budget for monsters would probs go through the roof
a good anime, should have clarified
And yeah, animated would probably be better for that.
(go for it ex, just let it all out)
To clarify, that complaint was Game of Thrones-related, although I guess some anime has an unfortunate tendency to do that, too.
"No, Mr. Benioff, you can't actually fuck the skeleton, nor can you have them fuck each other." "But hear me out here...what if we could."
please no
"what if they could have giant glowing dicks. imagine"
I do not have faith in their ability to produce sufficiently creative xenoporn, and am therefore uninterested.
Yeah let's not.
That's not the kind of Surprise Mature Content I like in my Undertale thank
The canon kind is just fine
Like, I'm okay if people want to fuck the monsters, nothing wrong with that provided everyone involved is an unrelated consenting adult, I just get annoyed with the lack of creativity, you know?
Got the entire realm of weird xenobiology open before you, and you all just stick with 'human bits, but glowy'? Come on, guys.
I didn't spend years in the Homestuck fandom to go back to this inexplicably vanilla fic, dammit.
.......whoa, deja vu.
(brb grabbing lunch real quick)
Suddenly it's 5 years ago in my Tron fandom era (I still haven't left, but we're in a holding pattern), and one of the great fields of Discourse is 'human bits but glowy' vs. 'much more alien circuit sex'.
(I was not a part of this discourse, I'm literally as ace as it's possible to be, but, you know, Fandom is Fandom wherever you go.)
(Fandom. Fandom never changes.)
Sorry, busy day! I meant I'm going to use it sometime for Reasons He Hates Gaster
But yes, he does know that they're conscious since being in the Void
Just in general
...Wait what did I write? Let me fix that
out of morbid curiosity what would be a better candidate for skeleton sex?
Well, that would depend on a lot of factors.
God I'm sorry I'll fix it asap
I rushed the tag, shoot me pls
no worries o7
I am not the person to ask
Like, are we talking two skeleton monsters, a skeleton monster and another monster, or a skeleton monster and a human? Or several of the above? Also, are you only counting physical acts or would spiritual connections also qualify?
We've got options, is my point here.
good points : D
This is Not My Field
an entire field of untapped creativity
Yeah, I don't wanna make this plurk unexpectedly NSFW, at least any more than I already have, so I think I'll just leave it at that for now.
nods fair enough
asdfghjk
Look, we all get a little weird when we're sleep deprived, okay?
that's very true tbh
it's like the brain is trying to dream and that spills over
I have ideas on how they have children but that's about it!
Some kind of soul melding.
Gaster came from two parents, see, they don't all have to clone themselves.
nods that's the headcanon i go with too
then again i also like platonic soul melding and having both might be tricky...
then again i also like platonic soul melding and having both might be tricky...
Oh, I had it where they both very much have to want a child for it to take.
A Wizard/Mad Scientist/Both Did It
the ? end
that makes sense
They can do it without always having a bab.
so can humans is the point i'm making
i'm mostly just wanting something more like steven universe fusion than like, a direct parallel to sex
i'm mostly just wanting something more like steven universe fusion than like, a direct parallel to sex
Fixed.
Well, in my headcanon, that and sex are two different things.
I don't know. It's a thought in progress. Sorry.
(Gaster does not care for either.)
Yeah, I could see soul connections as like a strong emotional thing? So it could be romantic and/or sexual, but it could also be platonic.
The point is that it's a strong, mutual emotional connection, not necessarily that it needs to be any one specific emotion.
nods yeah that makes sense
sorry, got a little defensive there
Yes that's what I meant. I'm so sorry.
no worries man sounds like we're all agreeing
it explains how the vast variety of monsters can have kids with each other, too
Yeah. Like skeletons and tsunderplanes. How the heck did that plane happen.
(Anyway I fixed the tag and I'll stop now.)
(Also are Tsunderplanes a new monster species? They couldn't have existed a thousand years ago)
(maybe they started out looking like Leonardo Da Vinci style gliders)
(I have a pet theory one of Tsundereplane's parents is a Concorde)
(that is weird though, like that's a monster type entirely naturally resembling technology)
My headcanon for skeleton monster reproduction, for the record (no one asked I just never shut up): essentially, a healthy adult skeleton monster can break off a small piece of their own soul, and then put it inside a piece of bone.
They then imbue that bone with magic for several months, and it gradually grows into a new skeleton monster. Like incubating an egg.
The bone can be a piece of their own bones, or it can be donated- the requirements are that it must be willingly given, from a sapient being, and no more than three days old at the time of use. Otherwise it won't work.
It also doesn't have to be the same person providing the soul and the magic, so a skeleton monster could have as many as three biological parents, maybe more if multiple monsters are providing magic during their development, or only one.
ooooh
The soul regrows over the course of a few days to a week, depending on the strength of the monster in question. Theoretically, a skeleton monster could produce children indefinitely just on their own, but in practice it's a really draining, difficult process and they're not likely to have more than three or four, tops.
nods and it's not just skeleton monsters that can contribute magic to the process?
would also a human mage be able
Nope, any magic-using person can provided there's a skeleton monster giving the original soul fragment and preparing the bones properly at the start. It doesn't have to be a(nother) skeleton monster providing the bone, either.
niiice
does the new skeleton monster exhibit traits from non-skeleton parents?
does the new skeleton monster exhibit traits from non-skeleton parents?
In practice, though, most monsters can't provide bone samples because their body parts will go to dust pretty quickly once separated from them unless carefully preserved with a steady amount of ambient magic, sort of like trying to keep a body part filled with blood after amputation. And there aren't many humans around them to donate these days.
(I like. But I also like Gaster having scienced it up.)
And yes, there's a good chance they might- same as any set of parents, really. The offspring might or might not display traits from either depending on a lot of complex, interconnected factors. If the skeleton monster in question is reproducing completely on their own, the child will be very similar to them but still not totally identical.
(Okay really going, just want to apologize again and say I like this plurk!)
(Nooo, stay, we like you.)
(stayyyy)
Pls don't run!
I Don't Even Go Here and I've parked my butt here like I own the place
I'm just hhhh over having made it seem too sexual.
Didn't mean to!
no no you didn't make it seem sexual
Nahh, we're good, dude. Brief phrasing issue, those happen all the time. You clarified, everything's fine now. : D
i was bringing a lot of baggage from another fandom with a similar thing
(where you can guess how it was mainly used)
(The requirements are because magic is strongly responsive to the emotions of sapient beings, by the way- so bone from a nonsapient wouldn't have enough initial magical attraction to anchor the soul, and unwillingly taken bone would be 'tainted' by the emotional associations and result in a stillborn monster.)
(The three-day deadline is just the point at which it's not fresh enough to work anymore, theoretically you could get around that one with sufficiently good preservation technology, it's just not something they had in the past and there aren't enough skeleton monsters for it to be a big focus in modern times.)
: DDD
i'm stealing this, with your permission
Please feel free. : D
do you think the image of skeletons emerging from graves in human culture is an extreme game of telephone garbled remembrance of this in the ut universe
Absolutely, yes.
I also like the idea that skeleton monsters themselves have horror stories about what if someone used unwillingly taken bone and the resulting child actually survived, but was twisted and grew up into something that wasn't a monster at all...
hhhhh
(At least, not by their definition of the word monster. It'd match humanity's pretty well.)
'sowing dragon's teeth' huh Jason
(hhh)
Granted, that's never actually happened, but it's one of those cultural horror stories that gets passed down, plus you always have that one total bullshitter who swears they heard that it really did once, honest, their cousin's ex-girlfriend's roommate's uncle was right there as an eyewitness.
(mind you I think the child automatically being awful would kid of... go against Undertale's messages. but there'd be problems at least)
Can I steal everything.
pffft those kinds of rumors
yes, absolutely
You can and you may. : D
Maybe your idea is better than lolscienceidk ha... ha...
Pfft, no?
Science is awesome.
Especially since I've said he doesn't really study monster biology.
Which I call magibiology.
nah man
and there's no reason it can't have been a combination either
and there's no reason it can't have been a combination either
Magic mimicking biology.
Tangential, again, but have any of you ever read (or seen the film adaptation of) the Australian short novel Picnic at Hanging Rock?
And also doesn't actually contradict this, for that matter- say Gaster wanted to be absolutely sure the kids came out healthy, since he was doing this on his own with no prior experience, so he went with what he knew best.
GOD I JUST WANT TO APOLOGIZE FOREVER I FEEL SO OUTDONE U GUYS ARE CREATIVE
SO R U
and nope ex, what is it?
True. I also want him to have had two parents.
Shhh, no, you're just as good as we are and no one headcanon is more important than another, they all coexist.
Also curious, I don't think I've heard of that one.
One absolutely must be a man and named Semi. For the Grandpa Semi reference.
Ooh, yes. : D
absolutely : D
(And yeah, like I said, they're just horror stories, not actual reality. In reality, what you get is essentially the same thing you'd get if a human fetus was exposed to large amounts of a very toxic substance while in the womb- a dead kid.)
(It's just making the environment to hostile for the magic to develop properly. But people always have their superstitions, even when they're not human.)
(that makes sense)
and ooh yeah
a lot of stories surrounding the disappearance of the kids, at least
a lot of stories surrounding the disappearance of the kids, at least
Yeah, in popular culture the area around Mt. Ebott is probably haunted as fuck.
So haunted, guys, you don't even know.
i keep wondering that there might be places where humans fell and were never found
that like, there's a non-monster skeleton in the abyss somewhere
Probably? Like, I don't think anyone else made it past the barrier, but I definitely think that there were a lot of suicides and accidents on the mountain itself. Shame, really- plenty of souls right there, already gone, just out of reach...
bc it's been like thousands of years between the barrier going up and Chara falling, and then like six fall in one hundred years? that seems a little weird
but then again monsters only lived in home during that time
but then again monsters only lived in home during that time
A lot of it would probably get blamed in the news on what they call "mazuku", depressions/sinkholes filled with carbon dioxide that climbers sometimes fall into (there's been several cases on Mammoth Mountain here in CA and up in the Cascades in OR/WA/CA)
humans in waterfall, hotland or snowdin would not have been noticed
ooooooh
But yeah, the fact that they were all kids...I keep wondering if Chara's ghost (Or Flowey) Or Gaster might not have been 'calling' them somehow...
I suspect that the hole in the rock over the barrier was initially much better covered, but it wore away slowly over the years. The initial human mages may have even deliberately sealed the area with manmade rockslides to block off as much as they could, but things got gradually uncovered once they weren't around to maintain it.
i find it weird they were all different colours...
yeah tho the kid thing... i wonder if Chara set a precedent
yeah tho the kid thing... i wonder if Chara set a precedent
(god though if there was a call imagine if it were meant to aid. Chara wouldn't have known about Asgore's declaration)
God there was a fancomic short that had Gaster actually sending Frisk to free the monsters
Big volcanoes always have minor seismic activity, even if they're dormant, and a lot of them have glaciers because of how big they tend to be, which causes erosion
ooh yeah that's also a factor
So yeah, the holes/caves would change
oh?
(@ naz)
(I've lived in either NorCal or Seattle all my life, and I am a gigantic geology nerdo)
(I don't have it on hand, didn't really like the idea.)
(yeah it does kind of obviate a lot of agency)
But holy shit I do like the thought of Chara doing it... not knowing Asgore would kill them all
As for it being mostly kids, I'm in two minds about that- one is that it was sort of self-causing. The legends were especially about missing children, probably due to what happened to Chara coloring all future tellings, so children were more interested in it than adults, and more children disappearing there would reinforce the legend, rinse and repeat.
nods makes sense
Depending on how you like to interpret Chara you could have it go either way, really
true that
I'm True Neutral as far as that goes!
I enjoy all views.
tbf though, they would have no idea about the declaration so if it was with the intent of gathering souls it'd be a longshot for them
Yeah
And it's implied that the whole reason Frisk triggered everything was that it was the first time someone of equal DT/another Red soul showed up since their death
My other thought is that there might have been some sort of natural barrier- say that for a long time the one still uncovered route to the barrier was in an area of the mountain with unstable ground.
So most adults would be too heavy to navigate it successfully, and would have wound up dead from nonmagical sinkholes/rockslides/whatever before ever reaching the point where they could fall through, whereas kids who were small and light enough might make it.
my favourite off the wall theory is that the souls are the reincarnations of the mages that made the barrier in the first place and were drawn there for that reason
the mundane reasons make more sense though
Ooh, that's a good one.
of course that one kind of presumes 'Frisk is a reincarnation of Chara' and that's not for everyone
It occurs to me that they also might not have all been children. Like, I don't think it's actually specifically stated that they were kids? I think everyone just says 'humans'.
it's heavily implied...
all of the items fit Frisk well enough to use at least
all of the items fit Frisk well enough to use at least
Toriel
Yeah
and the room is very clearly a child's room
Yeah, no, it definitely fits better thematically, I'm just saying there'd be enough room to interpret it that way if you wanted. Also, Asgore and Toriel are boss monsters, from the perspective of somebody who could be thousands of years old we're probably all kids.
maybe it's possible some entered the ruins children and grew up enough to be considered teens or adults before leaving
that's true
Plus, the room is pretty clearly meant to be Asriel and Chara's room, kept more or less as it was, so it may have just been the only spare room (she's not opening Asgore's) and the decorating style is irrelevant to the tastes of the current occupant.
(On that note I'm pretty sure a large portion of monsters didn't know Frisk was a child.)
pfft i admit the idea of an adult trying to sleep in the bed is amusing
(well they have a striped shirt)
And some things aren't necessarily going to be a size issue- like, the shoes and tutu, sure, but glasses and a notebook probably aren't going to be as much of a problem if they're offsized.
Like, you can probably just tie the bandanna more tightly, and an overlarge glove can be worked around...
Toy Knife definitely implies a child, but a ribbon could fit anyone.
that's true
I'm pretty sure they were all kids, of varying ages, but if you don't want them to be there's definitely room to make it that way.
adulttale
Only MK only comments on your shirt though. I like that they noticed 
And tagged after you.
MK is the best
good monster, best friend
i really love stuff where they and Frisk are still besties post pacifist
I wub dem
SAME
Wanna write all the MK
I love MK so much
Yesss, adorable besties. : D
I remember when I watched my first Geno LP (Steam Train) and the Free XP comment came up I was like "..............oh now you done it."
cry
...I nearly wrote beasties, which also kind of fits them. Beastie bestie. : D
genocide is an excersice in wanting to punch yourself in the face
Indeed!
now imagine them in the bushes watching Undyne melt
yussss
wait noooo
I think too much about that tbh.
it would have looked like she was going to save the day, and then....
And about Gerson grabbing him up, burying his face against his chest and saying "Don't look", and booking his butt to Hotland with him because he knows every shortcut in Waterfall
godddddd
Still a Hero, right to the end.
(Do you mean Gerson or Undyne? Yes.)
And ALSO way too much about Alphys fucking watching the show in HD on her screen, probably surrounded by the refugees from Snowdin and Waterfall
At least in genocide you don't have any run ins with anyone who looks like MK so their parents and sister live.
god yeah i'm imagining it being on a massive wall set screen, everyone's sort of gathered around despite a token attempt to keep them back
there's quiet, and then cheering, and then
silence
silence
No but the worst part, again, though
that Alphys would be cheering along with them...............and then it clicks.
And suddenly she shuts up and her hands cover her mouth and the people closest to her get very confused...for a few minutes, anyway.
hhhhh
yeah
she knows what that means
Oh my god s
She does. Scream.
Undyne is Determined
The little rabbit kid from Snowdin going "What's wrong with her face?"
that classic movie "I don't know, sweetie" while in the foreground Alphys clasps her paws over her mouth
Some of the worst scenes in Geno never made the game proper
oh?
Oh I just mean stuff like this, the offscreen stuff
ohhh i thought you meant like dummied out stuff
ut does a lot with implication
Also Alphys owns up to the Amalgamates because she can't leave them and brings them upstairs and hey there's a bunch of Snowdin refugees but "...where's.....sno....wy....."
hhhhhhhh
Shajjdldgejsblek
Her husband is there, too.
He'd have to tell her that their son didn't make it in time.
god
Snowy is literally the very first Snowdin casualty 
imagine snowy's dad hurrying to where the snowdin evacuees are, hoping
Snowy never shows, Chilly never shows either...
none of the forest teens do
Finally Papyrus and/or Sans pushes them to go, since I'm pretty sure Sans was the one who put the word out to Snowdin Town and got everyone moving
god though now i'm thinking of this in the context of all those horror movies involving teens in the woods
There are cameras in the woods, she might be playing them back to try and figure out what happened...
Right?
That's what I went with for the Unfun Run portions of the fic, yeah
"What the hell am I supposed to be looking for, Sans, I don't see anyone. I don't...see...anyone...."
hhhhhh
I tend to assume it's like 'Alphys sees what's going on, calls Sans because she knows he lives there, she directs him to evacuate everybody'.
just disturbed snow
*Signs of a struggle
Small footprints heading east toward Snowdin Town.
yeah Alphys is def the coordinator i think
So you've got him going through Snowdin and Waterfall getting people to safety, her doing the same at Hotland and the Capital, and they meet up in the middle and lead them down into her lab...
(...and then he goes back out again and she has to watch him leave, another person going out to die.)
Alphys calls Undyne because Papyrus was supposed to lead the refugees into Waterfall and meet up with her so she could escort the evacuees to the lab, Undyne says she's got 'em, no fear, Papyrus said he'd be along shortly.
...wait, he's not with you??
dun dun dunnnn
PAP MY IMAGINARY SON
The way I wrote it Sans was actually with her helping her scramble to set stuff up because sad scienceloaf helpline, and they got distracted from watching the screen just long enough :\
Chills.
(Mostly because I wanted to fill-in-the-gap as to why Sans didn't make it in time)
hhhhh slipped through the cracks
whoops
He has a bad feeling, this dread he can't explain, but he can't remember timelines like Determined people can, all he has are little bits and pieces, so he doesn't realize exactly why he's so terrified until it's much too late.
fuuuck
also hey echo belated question you covered what happens when the bone is given and what happens if it's forcefully taken
what about if it's like. i know this is an edge case but bear with me
someone accidentally lost a finger and then later it was used or smth
within the three day limit
If they accidentally lost a finger and were like 'aw shit that sucked, guess I might as well put this to good use' and gave it to the skeleton monster in question, it would still work. If they accidentally lost a finger and the skeleton monster found it on the ground or something and was like 'aw shit yeah, free finger, dibs' then no, it wouldn't.
sweet
Because even though there's no active malice there, the monster would still know that they hadn't actually gotten explicit consent, so it'd still taint things.
i don't have a thumbs up emote but imagine it
I will. : D
that makes sense
in case you need one
as long as someone at some point involved knew there was no consent, including the source
then it wouldn't work
thanks ex!
Yeah, exactly. I guess it would probably be marginally less toxic to the magical development than outright maiming some poor guy to steal it from them, but deep down someone involved still knows the whole thing was done in bad faith, so that's enough.
perfect
got to have the good emotional energie
Yeah, I figure that monsters are even more sensitive to negative emotions when they're just starting to develop than as adults, the same way a fetus or a newborn infant isn't going to be able to survive a dose of medication that a fully-grown human could handle.
that makes perfect sense
Glad it works for you. : D
I look forward to seeing it if it ever comes up in something you decide to do.
: D if it didn't i wouldn't be running off into the sunset with it
i'm making no guarantees but
it's there in my head now
No worries, I'm just glad you're enjoying it.
possibly each subtype of monster might have a unique thing like that
it... kind of really reminds me of Exalted's demons?
Not totally unrelated, in a way. I was going for something that simultaneously had some basis in logic, but also felt like that sort of mythical magic kind of thing.
nods only the difference is each one doesn't eschew the involvement of other types of monster
: D you hit the spot perfectly
Aw, thanks. My basic assumption here is that you've got matter, magic, and the soul. Matter's physical stuff, the soul is the seat of consciousness for sapient beings made manifest- you've got something similar but more rudimentary in animals and even moreso in plants, like comparing the Sun to a candleflame or a single spark, respectively.
....i am suddenly strongly reminded of Dust
Magic is an energy that 1. reacts to the emotions of sapient beings and 2. supersedes the normal laws of physics. It acts as an extra variable in the equations of the universe, basically: 1 does not equal two, but one plus X depending on the identity of X can equal two.
Similarly, you generally can't make fire without some source of heat or fuel, but if you add in magic then you can because it compensates for that. You can do things that are otherwise impossible because it's making up the difference for what the laws of physics would normally allow with the extra energy, if you can access it.
And essentially, humans are matter with a soul, whereas monsters are magic with a soul.
ooooh
see i headcanoned that souls are magic
very, very condensed forms of the stuff
so condensed in humans it needs the glue of determination to avoid springing apart
see i headcanoned that souls are magic
very, very condensed forms of the stuff
so condensed in humans it needs the glue of determination to avoid springing apart
Hmm, interesting. : D
the irony of a human soul is it has all that power but is so closed off it can't easily use it
I'm going more with 'you don't need magic to have a soul, but you have to have a soul to use magic'.
nods
god i like both ur ideas how do I make it mesh
also holy hell 500+ comments lmao
i'm just picturing you holding two toys marked 'lint's headcanon' and 'echo's headcanon' and mashing them together going 'now kiss'
KITH
yeah hot damn everyone's on fire in here
Fun times~. : D All monsters can use magic because it's part of them, humans normally can't in the same way we usually can't manipulate radio waves with our minds.
nods
monsters have a greater (read: any, without training) connection with ambient magic and the magic of their own bodies, because the lines between those are more blurred
Exactly. They're there in the environment with us and they certainly do interact with us (because even humans who can't do magic can definitely affect magic by their ambient emotions, like weakening a monster if you fight them with bad intentions), but you can't really manipulate them.
nods this is why I think like
a monster could do weather magic, by affecting the world in this way
a human mage couldn't
a monster could do weather magic, by affecting the world in this way
a human mage couldn't
for example
Monsters can manipulate magical energy within or outside themselves because they are energy beings, the same way we can work with matter. Except that every now and then you get a human who wins the mutant genetic lottery and can manipulate the ambient energy around them to some degree.
That's how mages happen.
hkhkkgkgkhkgk
i tend to lean on the "any, apart from a very few, humans could learn magic the sticking point is learn" side of things
like a martial art
only harder
yeh especially because all the mages died out??? ha...
good lukxc with that
some people will have more natural talent than others, but it's not exclusive in that way
but after all the resources got destroyed, the knowledge lost and the tutors locked away...
I tend to go with 'you have to have some kind of natural aptitude, and even then you're still going to need a shitton of training'. And because they don't have any energy within themselves, they'll never be as versatile as a monster, they have to stick to whatever resonates most with their soul because they don't have the range for other things...
whereas a monster, growing up isolated, would develop magic naturally
oopsie poopsie turns out we did need monsters for something.
But they're also way more powerful than monsters.
they could hone it with practice but they don't need to go to that length to use it
Like, monsters are more versatile, but human mages have way more raw strength.
curious, what causes your gaster to be magic-dead then?
and yeah, human magic can't do much that doesn't resonate with the core trait or subtraits
nazitra - mainly the face most of his magic is going into keeping him alive
if he used magic without aids it would be an active danger to his health
...kinda like mine when he's goopy hah
(i shamelessly stole this concept from pen)
gotta keep himself scuptled up
pretty much yeah! only he can die
well... could die
or have a Very Bad Day
Mostly because they can just flat-out channel way more power through themselves- a monster would have to keep back at least some energy to prevent themselves from falling apart, whereas humans already have a physical form and can avoid focusing on that entirely and just channel all the energy they can grab in massive quantities and heavy concentrations.
Monsters are curcuits, humans are batteries
no wonder they're so powerful together
Exactly. : D
Monsters absorb trace amounts of matter while they're developing (through the bone used for skeletons, in the womb if they're born that way, in the egg if they do that, and so on), and that gets used to make their physical bodies, but they're ultimately energy beings using a very small amount of matter to interact with the physical world.
now how the heck did they evolve?
I like to think they originally evolved from some kind of pure-energy magical beings that slowly figured out how to use a little bit of matter to interact with other kinds of matter.
nods i have a theory that the first monsters were souls/vortexes of magic that were able to stabilise
probably with dust that got in - just enough physical matter
probably with dust that got in - just enough physical matter
Yeah, exactly. I mean, they were probably still... around Earth? Hanging out in the atmosphere or something.
Like, they started out as still separate from the matter they were using, like a hermit crab inside a shell, but over time they got more and more integrated with whatever matter they picked up because each successive generation was more and more successful at interacting with the physical world.
Combine that with the fact that magic isn't just energy, it's weird hard to predict physics-warping energy, and you eventually get the evolutionary leap to 'energy beings that always make forms out of trace amounts of matter as they grow', and those eventually evolve until they hit the point of being sapient, at which point you have monsters.
and following this logic like
theoretically any planet could have monsters
theoretically any planet could have monsters
that aliens pic might not be wrong
Ooh, interesting thought. Maybe creatures that are also energy-based, but took a different path? Ghosts are probably the monster subspecies evolutionarily closest to their original ancestors- still incorporeal energy beings, who need to actively integrate with physical matter instead of absorbing it naturally.
nods i also think ghosts are the closest to the ancestors of human souls
Could explain how people thought ghosts were dead humans, yeah...
I'm running with the assumption that theoretically you can get a soul out of anything, provided it reaches the level of complexity necessary to become truly sapient.
So a bunch of matter comes together in ways that make life, that life grows more complex, humans happen and the soul comes into being. Energy coalesces, becomes more complex, monsters happen and the soul comes into being.
that makes sense
i was kind of going with 'proto human souls possessed an animal' but that's... weir
i was kind of going with 'proto human souls possessed an animal' but that's... weir
*weird
and doesn't interact well with the fact that humans didn't become humans all at once
If at some point in the distant future of Undertale, someone built an AI complex enough to be truly sapient, it would also have a soul too, by the way, and would be able to manifest it visibly if it had access to magic. : D
yusss
this really is like Dust
god would monsters have daemons
shut up goop this plurk is long enough
Ooh, interesting. I actually did try a daemon AU once, just for fun. : D
If it helps, I think there probably were also some animals (and plants) that adapted to high levels of background magical energy and evolved to use and incorporate that energy instinctively, like echo flowers or bridge seeds.
i would give g a capuchin monkey pre-accident, an octopus after
(I was wondering about the whole 'monsters and humans have visibly different souls' thing in that context, and decided that both humans and monsters would have daemons, but monster daemons would be much more likely to be Really Weird- bizarre colors, mythical creatures, and so on.)
i like the idea that to mirror the whole 'soul outside body thing', humans have daemons on the outside, but for monsters it's internal
and that might have been a factor in the war
a point of dehumanisation
Unfortunately for magic-adapted organisms, monsters were still the only creatures that could actively manipulate the ambient magical energy instead of just passively using what was already there, so when they got sealed away it was basically an extinction event for any nonsapient magical creatures outside of Mt. Ebott.
of course like, daemons die when a human does in HDM so there might be some tweaks needed. maybe monsters can absorb the motes
oh no : (
Think the same kind of massive die off that would be caused by all pollinating species on Earth suddenly getting wiped out. No monsters? No other magical organisms.
(imagine though like everyone thinking the smoky grey animal following frisk is their daemon. nope)
oh man that'd be worse than the Permian extinction
hhhhh
That might've also been a factor in the loss of human magical knowledge/abilities, come to think of it. They could still manipulate the energy around them, but it didn't function as well without the people who were supposed to integrate it with the rest of the ecosystem around.
hhhhh
it all withered
Good news is that by now the magical ecosystem under Mt. Ebott is pretty much self-sustaining, so you've still got cool magically-adapted mutant flora and fauna down there even after the monsters have left, and they might be able to (re)introduce them to the rest of the world once they've started to settle in more out there. : D
perfect
kind of like a wildlife preserve
kind of like a wildlife preserve
But yeah, anything that relied on magic to survive (and probably a lot of things did, because if something happened to make the evolutionary leap that let it use the ambient energy it was so incredibly useful) was fucked post-War, and it probably had some seriously nasty knock-on effects on everything else.
i love the Day The Magic Died trope
humanity fucked themselves over fucking over the other side of the coin
Would also explain part of how humans not only forgot their own magical traditions but also that monsters were even real: they might have lost less of their culture and society than the monsters did, but as massive ecosystem-warping dieoff all around the globe is not gonna be fun times for everybody there.
hhhhhhhhhhyep
all that's left is legends and stories
man quite a few people probably really depended on those organisms
Things would've held together for up to a decade or so post-War, and then shit starts to go seriously wrong without the species that used to naturally regulate and filter all that energy into something nice and useful around, so humans wind up scrambling to reorganize based on nonmagical stuff and ditches pretty much anything that was magic out of necessity.
nods I also think magic in general picked up a lot of stigma by association
Yeah. You can't really afford to keep around your complex and fascinating but useless historical records when you're too busy trying not to starve to death after the entire fucking ecosystem shits itself sideways, but boy can you bitch about the whole thing to your grandkids.
mostly bc i like the irony of the very mages that put up the barrier being turned on by the populace in a similar manner as monsters were
that wouldn't have helped things. it wasn't just a failure to keep records - records were actively being destroyed
Ooh, yes. : D
Obviously no two people involved would have had identical motivations, but I like the idea that while some people involved were like 'massive natural disaster, clearly a sign from god that we should wipe out the monsters while we can' and others were like 'holy shit they're a huge threat and we didn't realize, preemptive strike before they kill us all'...
there were as many variations on motivation as there were people, but one goal (temporarily)
There was at least one faction involved, some less scrupulous human mages, whose motives were essentially 'if the monsters are gone, we'll be the only ones around with magic and there's few enough of us that we can set ourselves up as a superpowered hereditary aristocracy' and that backfired so fucking hard.
hoist by their own petard
there were def people, mage and non-mage alike, looking to profit by fear
there always is
pitch cackle
Yeah, exactly. Basically, the War happened because they were people: some of them were understandably frightened, others were xenophobic and bitter, some were out for their own gain, and some just fought because other people told them to, and they'd always listened to them before.
The context was strange and fantastical, but the actual motives were nothing new at all.
(Although, for fun, consider: AU where the asshole mage cabal actually succeeded in holding onto their power somehow, and the Surface is ruled by aristocratic magelord families.)
(I love this idea)
(heck, what if there was a rebellion, and that's why magic got even more of a bad rep)
man tho that would be cool
especially in a post pacifist context
Hmm... Maybe in that setting instead of sealing all the monsters away under Mt. Ebott, one of the mages managed to somehow figure out from their research during the War that monsters were important to how magic functioned and warned their co-conspirators in time, so they 'nobly volunteered' to watch over the monsters personally.
hey
hey echo
remember that 'boss monster soul harvest' idea
hey echo
remember that 'boss monster soul harvest' idea
and ooh go on
Ooh, yes I do. : D Each of the seven mages took charge of a group of surviving monster captives and imprisoned them on their own lands, with the promise that their equally magically talented descendants would watch over the prisons in their turn.
And of course, they would be compensated for this accordingly. Not that they wanted anything much of course, oh no of course not, just a little respect and recognition that they were obviously due...
and a little tribute
So a few decades of careful politicking later, they've basically managed to install themselves as the seven great families, Westeros-style.
The seven individual monster prisons are less secure than Mt. Ebott would have been, but you've also got people actively maintaining them instead of just putting up a single much more powerful spell and then leaving it unattended for millennia, so it kind of evens out.
game of thrones/once upon a time mashup remix
okay so how would this alter canon
My brain says 'carefully analyze all the different possibilities' but my heart says 'jump headfirst into MAGICAL CYBERPUNK DYSTOPIA and don't look back', so.
Modern-ish level technology augmented with some magi-tech, society as a whole ruled by the seven magical families and their various client houses?
yusssss
Ebott is the red family (who aren't all red souls, but that one was the founder)?
Ebott is the red family (who aren't all red souls, but that one was the founder)?
I wonder if they occasionally let specific monsters out of their prisons? They're not as strongly sealed away, so they might be able to take them out and put them back...
Frisk is an unknown bastard child of the Ebott family, who manages to slip through the cracks and winds up falling in with 'bad company' (i.e. the human-monster rebellion). : D
if they do it's probably very tightly controlled
we gotta rewind a bit first
what's the context of Chara and Asriel in this?
...Ooh, what if that's what summoning circles are? : D
because that influences what comes after
oh my god heck yes
monsters agreed to become summonable as part of the surrender conditions
Sorry, not about Chara and Asriel, I'm still not sure there either, but imagine: summoning circles are smaller, portable magical wards designed to keep a single monster under control outside their main prisons.
hhhh
like miniature modified barriers
They never actually walk out the front door, but a mage will open a way via the summoning circle (sort of like a version of the ley line roads I mentioned a while ago up there) that leads directly to the outside world from inside the prison. Any monster can answer, but they're bound to act a certain way if they come through the circle.
If they act in a way that disrupts the circle, then it shatters and they're yanked back inside the prison.
frick and this also means that like
beyond maintaining the full prison barriers
beyond maintaining the full prison barriers
Presumably there are also smaller wards that they can put on a monster to take with them, so they're not just standing in one spot the entire time they're summoned, like little charms and things.
the mages don't actually have to go there
that makes sense
Yeeeup. So easy to see them as just weapons or trained animals like that, and so convenient, too. The mages have their own powers, of course, but monsters can still do so much that they just can't.
Mages crop up in other bloodlines sometimes, of course, but they don't have access to resources like expert training, or years of recorded knowledge, or explanations on how to use the summoning circles, plus it's probably varying degrees of illegal to use any magic without the approval of one of the Seven Families, so they're always at a disadvantage.
you could have like
a really fucked up digimon/pokemon style thing
a really fucked up digimon/pokemon style thing
i like the idea of Frisk being a Nobody Mage
Probably they tend to wind up with a choice of either agreeing to become on of their vassals and go by family rules or wind up dead/in jail.
(or even not one at all)
not much of a choice eh
Ooh, shit yeah, magical pit fighting is probably one of the nastier pastimes they might have...
For monsters and less-lucky mages.
mind you they have to be careful not to kill too many...
and with monster populations dwindling due to falling down rates going up...
less lucky mages, prisoners, anyone who doesn't have value in this society's eyes
Meanwhile inside the monsters' prisons they've actually developed a reasonably pleasant, functioning group of societies as per canon, but you still get people getting dragged out by the mages, and the fact that no matter how nice they've made their cages they are still cages...
yyyyyeah
all is not well
all is not well
how does Shitstorm the First and Shitstorm the Second happen
I think maybe any monster can choose to answer a summons if one happens in their general area, but if no one actually decides to then it just yanks out whatever poor fucker was standing closest. Because of that, it's traditional for older monsters to volunteer to go through so that the children don't have to suffer whatever's waiting out there.
Might be the Royal Guard's job in this AU.
ffffff
can the summons be tailored? like once you know which monster you're looking for can you yank them again?
You can also summon one specific monster, if you know the exact monster you want to summon well enough and call them by name.
Most mages don't bother, because they see them as tools, not people, and therefore pretty much interchangeable.
hhhh names are really important in this aren't they
monsters don't ask Frisk's names, never give full names...
*name whoops
Yeah, names would tell the circle what to lock onto, I think. If you just say monster, you can get any monster, if you just say the type you can get anyone from that subspecies, and so on. They just want to use a bit of water magic, one Woshua is as good as another, and for that matter so is a Shyren.
But probably a handful of monsters do develop enough of a reputation among summoners to be specifically called out over the years, since they live so much longer than humans.
do monsters take things with them like if they're playing tennis do they appear with a racquet
man summoning is the definition of an inconvenience
I'm going to say 'yes, to a limited degree' because that's funny.
perfect : D
what if the summoning of boss monsters is highly restricted. highly
Probably you can resist the summons for a little while, at least long enough to throw some pants on, but you can't put it off for long.
to the point it's a 'passed down only to the heir' style thing and there might be one or two families that have actually lost the key and are actively concealing this
And ooh, yes, that works.
because boss monster souls are an instant way to make a new mage or make an existing one even more powerful, and if that got out.... the power base would get a little shaky
Might provide some good backstory, too: taking a boss monster's soul is basically the key to ultimate magical power, but they're so incredibly difficult to summon and bind that almost no one has ever managed it, there's not even anyone alive or dead among the families who has.
it's probably not uncommon for boss monster summons to be more... respectful to the monster than most
hhhhh nobody but the original seven managed it
according to popular rumor
Even summoning a boss monster at all without claiming or trying to claim their soul is considered very impressive, and most people aren't allowed to try.
yyyyyyyyep
that resistance thing you mentioned? boss monsters have it in spades
(undyne also has it for some weird reason. this probably won't become relevant later. probably)
So, say Chara is the illegitimate child of the Red-Souled family, reluctantly taken in when they showed talent but never allowed to forget they weren't welcome. They understandably resent this whole fucked-up abusive situation, and want to show up the rest of their family by claiming a monster's soul for themselves.
So they sneak a look at the really serious stuff, and by a combination of luck, major untapped potential talent, and sheer determination, summon Asriel.
And... they can't kill him.
(what if they aren't the illegitimate child. maybe a pacifica situation)
yusssss
He's gentle. Sweet. Terrified, because young monsters are normally protected, but still kinder to them than anyone else has ever been in their life.
They send him back, and then summon him again the next day. They slowly become friends in secret, and Chara comes to sympathize more and more with monsterkind, especially once they start summoning the other people he introduces them too, as well.
do they make the decision to travel to the prison
They eventually come up with the reverse of their original plan: give him their soul, and let Asriel drag the rest of their family down into the depths of the earth, where the monsters can claim them like they deserve and use the power to gain freedom.
They open up the summoning circle in reverse and throw themselves through, a sacrifice.
hhhhhh
Needless to say, things go horribly wrong and end up with Asriel dead and Chara's soul shattered, part of it lingering...
did they collide in the timestream
And then of course one day a lost and unwanted child who didn't even know they had magical potential accidentally comes across that last lost fragment, and starts hearing a voice:
"Don't let them find out you can do that. Here's how to hide the marks the circle left... later, I can show you how to draw a better one."
hhhhhh
they probably weren't making the first circle for a happy reason
Did you know that there's a rumor that monsters will accept sacrifices? Even if a non-mage draws the circle, if you're not asking for anything, they might just come through and take you. 
hhhhhh
it's probably something they scare the kids with. don't set your wards properly, and they'll take any oppotunity. and it leaked
Incidentally, I have an idea about the summoning circles themselves: each of the seven magical colors acts as a different kind of binding. Blue, you're bound to tell the truth, because integrity. Yellow, for justice, you have to keep your word if you give it. Green, kindness, do no harm. Purple, perseverance, let my orders last as long as you're here.
And so on.
Presumably, the summoner mixes and matches exactly what colors they add to the circle depending on what they're summoning the monster in question for: after all, you probably don't want to green-bind someone you're planning to send to assassinate an enemy or something.
not unless you want to shoot yourself in the foot
cyan to freeze a monster in place, I think, orange for movement so... a particular destination?
and red... probably does some hecking weird shit it's probs the least understood magic
Makes sense- maybe 'don't act until I tell you' and 'go only where I tell you', yeah.
nods there's latitude for a lot of nuance along a colour's theme
which means given skill you can use them as tools to achieve a lot, and given not-skill you can forget something and nailgun your thumb to the plywood so to speak
Right. Of the specific monsters from canon... like I said, there's probably kind of an Ars Goetia kind of deal going on here, with the more powerful and well-known monsters getting summoned for more specific things that have been associated with them over the years.
On one hand, that means they get more of a chance to see the surface, maybe bring things back or bargain on behalf of their people, try to improve stuff. On the other hand, that also means a lot more potential for being dragged into something horrible. Sort of a double-edged sword.
Mettaton is probably reasonably well-known as an entertainer- summoned for magical performances, beautiful and alluring company, etc.
ohhhohohh boy Mettaton is not the one you want to summon if you don't know what you're going
*doing
he's is not a beginner's monster
(I'm not saying he's basically the local equivalent of a siren/incubus/etc., I'm just saying there's a lot of overlap in the job descriptions.)
Alphys is probably a summoned for knowledge/wisdom kind of deal, maybe if you wanted something fixed or improved, too.
I suspect that the nature of summoning also makes other people vulnerable- i.e. a monster summoned with yellow magic must keep their given word, but because that's what's holding them here than can also turn the magic around and use it to make other people keep theirs.
(he will find every single loophole and exploit it with viciousness and grace. there will be regret. best to keep him happy enough)
Undyne would be for protection or warfare- I can't really see someone trying to use her as an assassin more than once, she doesn't really do subtle, but she'd make a good bodyguard or soldier.
oh man i love that idea
either a monster turning the magic back on the summoner as much as they can or just the nature of the magic and the bond itself
this is why 'you will do as i say' as a bond is not as attractive to a summoner as it might first appear
the effect probably amplifies if the monster already has an affinity with the trait - it probably accidentally acts as a boost
a very low scale version of the battery plugging into the curcuit
and man, Undyne would not be happy about being summoned. I mean pretty much no monster is, but she's very vociferously not happy
Ooh, yes. If Mettaton isn't for beginners, Undyne isn't for even the advanced classes, or even some of the professors.
Basically the rule of thumb is 'if you have to ask whether you're ready to summon Undyne, then you're not ready'.
And yes, a monster's own affinity to the magic is also probably a factor. I suspect it's easier or harder to summon certain monsters with different types of bindings- for example, it's much easier to successfully summon Alphys using yellow than it is green.
yyyyep
Alphys might be a bit easier bc she's usually not doing much anyway and she gets to work with new tech, but the fact that a lot of infrastructure is her stuff might be a chekov's gun down the line
(there might also be like. waiting lists to summon her. or people trying to have her on retainer so no one else can)
Alphys might be a bit easier bc she's usually not doing much anyway and she gets to work with new tech, but the fact that a lot of infrastructure is her stuff might be a chekov's gun down the line
(there might also be like. waiting lists to summon her. or people trying to have her on retainer so no one else can)
yusss exactly
basically all of the main chars in Undertale are the Big Names in the Goetica
Pretty much, yep. : D Papyrus wholeheartedly believes that he can change humanity for the better, and is happy to get his name out there whenever he can. Sadly, his services are not often called upon.
: <
and someone has vandalised all of his entries... weird...
the other skeleton's too...
Muffet probably has been used as an assassin once or twice, but may also be summoned for the more 'lighthearted entertainment' side of things in order to provide cooking. It's an open secret that she can do less scrupulous stuff, but everyone politely pretends that they only ever summon her for good food.
(without resets sans might be a tad more proactive)
oooooh yes
assassin and spymaster
Surprisingly, her 'exotic foodstuffs' actually are still pretty popular despite the worryingly plausible chance of being poisoned- or possible because of that, since your average bored rich person loves a hint of danger that way.
the spider equivalent of fugu
Exactly. Assuming that the fugu was killing you because the fish in question hated you personally.
asdfghjk
yeah she might.
if she requests money best to do so unless you've got her bound in green (which would defeat the point if it's not for nibbles)
if she requests money best to do so unless you've got her bound in green (which would defeat the point if it's not for nibbles)
you can't have your cupcake and eat it too
But the cupcake might eat you, if you're not too careful.
in monster underground, cupcake eat you
pfft
i'm assuming endgame is breaking down the prison walls and destroying the surrender terms
Sans isn't in any of the normal grimoires. For some reason, his entries are only ever listed very rarely, and only ever in the restricted 'no seriously you're fucking around with some major shit don't touch this' sections of the family archives. This utterly baffles the inevitable summoners who get curious and try anyway, because he seems totally harmless.
General consensus is that one of their Honored Founders just really fucking hated puns and threw all his stuff into the highest-level archives so no one would summon him and they wouldn't have to deal with this shit anymore.
He's happy to let them keep thinking that.
absolutely
so does Frisk summon all of them or do they travel?
do they become the 'sacrifice'?
(and man, isn't that weird gap in the older books odd?)
I'm thinking that at first Frisk summons them and gains their trust, and then later there's a Dramatic Milestone in which they become one of the first humans to ever peacefully visit the monster kingdoms.
how's the trust gained?
I think probably the old-fashioned way. They talk to them, treat them like actual people, and they slowly befriend each other.
I'm wondering if maybe part of setting everyone free and Commencing The Revolution is Frisk using their new monster friends' abilities to secretly meet up with the youngest members of the Seven Families, one heir from each, and convince them that the current system is wrong and that they should help them undo the crime of their ancestors.
does that mean the summoning's without bonds?
(Look, why not have at least one AU where the six souls get to be part of the main action, right?)
Frisk is that Friend on the Inside
(aw heck yes)
And I'm going to say that they probably start out green-binding them at first just to be on the safe side, but ditch bindings entirely once they've gotten to know them.
After all, 'you can't hurt me or anyone else here' is a frustrating rule to be held to, but it's not exactly an unreasonable demand, so monsters are less likely to resent it.
Plus if they've got any skill at all with turning a binding around it'd also mean that they know no one else is going to hurt them, so it might actually be a little bit reassuring to the monster getting summoned, too.
mm it just kind of rubs me up the wrong way a bit, since Frisk is doing what everyone else is, even just to that degree
Hmmm, true...
(and i do think not even using green bindings might be more in keeping with the original circle they tried)
Ooh, what if part of Frisk showing their sincerity is casting the green binding but only on themselves. They deliberately leave the monster out of the binding, leaving the other half of it open for them to choose whether or not to swear themselves to mercy, and decide of their own free will not to hurt them at all.
that's why i'm somewhat more interested in them travelling through the circle, bc randomly plucking a monster out of their business without a by you leave is not exactly treating them as a person unless it's like. an invitation that can be ignored
(Yeah, I'm assuming their original circle just had a shitton of red bindings, because they were working off instinct and rumor there, they had no idea what they were doing.)
ooooh see now that's more like it
(yeah a lot of this finer stuff they need practice to do. that's the catch 22)
(that'd be one weird circle)
Also, their earlier summonings were probably of the 'anyone who feels like showing up here' type, so probably not dragging out anyone who was unprepared for it, and then afterward they'd be calling on people they'd specifically gotten to know and gotten permission from.
I think one of the earliest friends was probably Papyrus- he would totally leap on a open-ended offer, and would be thrilled to have a friendly summoner who actually does want to make peace with monsters for once.
omg yes
they have a 'date'. it goes well
Later, Undyne is so fucking relieved that this kid was the one to finally manage to summon him. She's been worried he was going to do something well-meaning and wind up trapped by some horrible asshole for years. Frisk is a freaking godsend by comparison.
Once they've got him as a connection, they can actually ask Papyrus to invite people over, so they know they're not summoning someone who's not at least willing to entertain the issue.
ain't no party like a Surface party
take everyone out of the underground, one no-strings-attached summon at a time
Frisk has made so many friends. : D
Incidentally, I suspect at some point along the way they're going to find out the actual reason for Sans' incongruously high summoning restriction: it's the shortcuts.
hahahah yeah
no cyan magic's gonna stop him going
He can't actually teleport out of the monsters' prisons, but once he's already been summoned onto the surface anyway he can go pretty much wherever, including straight out of the summoning circle if you don't bind him in time.
Protip: you probably can't bind him in time.
yes perfect
And even if you can get him with something, he's gotten frighteningly good at maneuvering his way around any orders or restrictions he gets. He's been biding his time with this because he knows it's much less of an advantage if people start to find out about it, but Frisk convinces him it's time to actually start making a move.
: DDD
everything's going into motion
So Sans probably gets to be their other half of the inside job: Frisk convinces the Family Heirs to help them from the human end of things, while Sans deliberately goes and gets summoned by a major family head for something and then creatively works around his orders to fuck up their shit from that end.
And then uses the shortcuts to get the fuck out of there before they can really come down on him.
The extra fun bit is that given how paranoid and secretive most of the family heads are, they can probably pull off this particular two-'man' con a good three or four times on different Families before anyone starts to catch on because they don't share information.
i love that bit. nobody tells each other nothin'
it's a revolution
okay but Toriel and Asgore tho
are they estranged in this universe?
So by the time the Seven Families are in a state of total fucking chaos, the monsters are all prepared, they've been secretly coordinating with the human rebels for ages, and right when it all hits the peak Frisk and the family heirs open the gates and bring the prisons down.
fuck yes
does Flowey exist how involved in this is he
At which point the Family heads are summary arrested and the general populace is informed that their heirs are taking the position, and that their first act is to reopen negotiates with the now-officially-recognized state of the monster kingdom, and their second through several acts are going to involve a lot of political and legal changes around here.
I'm honestly not sure about Asgore and Toriel. On balance, I'd say that they're still divorced and not happy with each other, because losing their children like that still strained the relationship too far to last, but because Asgore wasn't actively committing serial murder they're still on much better terms than canon.
Like, they are as the wise sage Swift said 'never ever ever getting back together', but they're at least fairly civil and polite to each other and Toriel isn't hiding out letting him think she's dead.
As for Flowey, I'm going to say that he's the result of Alphys making some well-intentioned but highly inadvisable forays into necromancy, specifically by using summoning circles to try and call back the dead.
He sort of wound up trapped between worlds somehow, and Frisk's first, open circle accidentally let him out onto the mortal plane in addition to waking up Chara. Oops.
Probably he's just been hanging out on the Surface coping with his suffering by wreaking some generalized havoc here and there, which may either help or hinder Frisk's eventual plans but either way is probably going to be something they'll have to deal with at some point.
hmm given he helped people at first the havoc might have taken a while
like this wouldn't be post-all-the-timelines flowey if Frisk woke him up
Keep in mind I'm also assuming that he way aware of things while he was trapped between worlds.
D : holy shit that would alter things
So substitute years spent watching everything go to shit while trapped helpless and alone away from everything you know and love for timelines worth of gradual ennui as you slowly lose any desire to view other people as people, and by the time Frisk accidentally lets the poor kid out he's arrived at more or less the same place as Flowey.
Like, he took a slightly different route to get there, but it's a pretty similar destination.
that makes sense
help him : (
man though I would watch all five seasons of this
By the time they eventually manage to have a serious confrontation with him he may have calmed down slightly, at least enough to be reasoned with, but getting suddenly shoved back into reality he's going to be pretty much just 'you can all go to hell' for the first while.
And yeah, I'm not sure how I keep accidentally outlining the plots for potentially decent animes?
It just keeps happening, somehow?
you have a grand scope of story
or maybe i just imagine things as animes a lot
it might be both of us
Yeah, and no patience for fine detail. I never seem to actually sit down and write these ideas, I just enjoy plotting things out and then never do the work. 
I do think that you're very clever and inspiring to talk to, though. : D
You're really fun to talk to and I like hearing what you come up with, I enjoy batting headcanons back and forth a lot.
: DD you do write down some ideas sometimes!
and oh gosh jeez pfft no you
and oh gosh jeez pfft no you
honestly likewise it's fun jamming with you
headcanon tennis
Yeah. : D
this is good 
"I wonder... this?" "Ooh, but what if this?" "EXCITEMENT" [300 posts later] "Wait, wasn't this supposed to be a tag plurk?" "Uh..."
XD pfffft maybe i should quit tags and do this full time
800 replies of pure creation
800 replies of pure creation
just that sort of feedback loop of excitement and creativity i love it
saying here right now i'm down for it anytime
Same, it's so much fun. : D
Maybe we should see if we can get someone to pay us for it- are you a writer struggling to find an idea? Toss a prompt at your local muses and see what you get.
(Nooo, don't totally quit tags, though. RP would miss you.)
i bags Melpomene
I suppose that would make me Thalia, just for symmetry's sake?
At least she's easier to spell...
Although, they do have those masks, we could just keep swapping back and forth when no one's looking. : D
heheheh a perfect double act
(You know, the traditional theater : D and D : masks.)
man tho I already somewhat part time as birb's muse
(this mainly involves getting excited by her writing a lot, which given the quality is very easy)
(this mainly involves getting excited by her writing a lot, which given the quality is very easy)
Ooh, nice.
okay so i just imagined blank white masks with those emoji on them
... I feel like this is the kind of situation for which we invented Photoshop?
this is the kind of situation for which i wish i had skills at photoshop
Also, I feel like Bird could probably pull off a pretty decent Apollo, were she so inclined. I'm sure she'd look lovely in a nice laurel wreath.
Are you sure she's not an Athena?
(but yes definitely)
Well, Apollo was traditionally the head of the muses, but there could be some mythical leeway there, I'm sure.
ohhh good point
Classical mythology's pretty big, they probably ran into each other at some point, right?
well i definitely just found fanfiction shipping them
I'm simultaneously curious enough to want a link, and annoyed that they didn't get that Athena is clearly very gay.
Wait did you mean shipping her with Apollo ir with the muses?
wait most of it is ace attorney
Because the second one makes way more sense.
...Oh, that explains a lot.
I'm not actually in that fandom, I'm not sure about that ship one way or the other, but I'm glad they're all having fun.
She's bittersweet but she's mine to keep, a greek mythology fanfi... nevermind look what i foun
Athena is definitely Full Gay though
(or maybe ace?)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Athena is at least some degree of queer, but I do at least respect the effort.
i love that greek mythology fanfiction is a thing
It's pretty great. : D
Out of curiosity, I went looking to see whether this one semi-obscure sci-fi novel I'm fond of had any fanfiction, and I have just discovered that the answer appears to be: yes, three of them, all in Russian.
by the same or different authors?
At least two different authors. The author of the original book is not Russian. No part of the book is set in Russia.
I am confused.
The last one looks pretty interesting, though, because the AO3 tags are still in English even if the summary isn't. I'm considering trying something ill-advised with google translate.
: D dooo iiiit
Mmmkay, not sure whether this guy is bad at writing sex scenes or google is bad with Russian. Interesting result either way, though.
quite possibly both are in play. we may never know
what about the others?
I'm choosing to give them both the benefit of the doubt and assume they just interact poorly. The other two appear to be crossover fic, and I'm not intrigued enough by the other fandoms involved to copy-paste anything else into google translate.
fair enough
i read 'interact poorly' and my brain immediately went to 'noclip glitch'
i read 'interact poorly' and my brain immediately went to 'noclip glitch'
If you type the sex scene fast enough, you clip right through the fic and wind up at the author's notes.
asdfgh wouldn't i wish
the infamous 'finished fic' glitch
the infamous 'finished fic' glitch
If only...
hi naz : D