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[acaciapines]

susie DOES have complicated family issues in canon! it mightve been a while since you replayed chapter one but it's heavily implied that susie has neglectful parents and that the king of spades acts just like them.

oh yeah i know! her bio-parents are for sure still around lol, i've just not solidified my ideas for them yet. the way i'm thinking about writing her as of now (with the caveat that none of this is set in stone yet lol and in the very likely event that chapters 3 + 4 drop while im writing this i might change things up even more) is that she has at least one living biological parent...probably her father bc of spade king lol. but she was removed from his custody and placed into the foster system until he cleans up his act, but like, its implied he probably wont do that and would rather just Not deal with his daughter. (she was 100% neglected but i'll need to do a lot more researching and thinking before i fully have an idea as to what this life looked like)

so susie bounces around foster homes (for a time goes to the same middle school as kris! tho idk if this is before or after she's placed in foster care lol, even with her dad im sure they also tended to move around a lot, and i think its real fun if the one part of her life where things were good was with her dad, and so she hates that she was removed right when things were okay and she actually had a friend), and ends up in hometown as alphys's foster kid. i was thinking about the reasons WHY alyphs is fostering maybe having something to do with the amagamates, like, whatever that was in this universe leading alphys to wanting to get into fostering? but again. not solidified.

basically i think it would be a really interesting relationship....susie Does Not Ever see alphys as a mom lol, and for a long time they actually are very much Not public about this in school for. i think obvious reasons. its only revealed because noelle finds out from toriel (not on purpose toriel probably just accidentally said something and noelle put the pieces together) which im sure leads to drama between the two of them + ralsei, but!! the entire idea here is that a lot of this story deals with parental relationships, and what it means to like, be a parent. pretty much all the major parental players here didnt really 100% choose to have a kid, and they all react to that in very different ways.

so like, for susie's dad, it would be not only did he not choose to be a parent, he like, fully did not even bother to step up in even a small way. he just Sucked. but he's still susie's dad and i dont think she likes people pitying her, so she doesnt really like alphys and would rather get out of foster care and back to her dad even if he Sucks. but then contrasted against him we do have alphys who tries, and probably even dess but this is Not a post about dess i wont get into dess here.

but!! these are all very messy and half-formed ideas right now. for all i talk about this au i literally will not even start writing it for A While so a lot of my ideas are in that nebulous 'anything could change' stage.

[acaciapines]

pov youre me jerking upright dropping everything im doing what if susie is alphys's foster kid--

[acaciapines]

as someone who’s very excited to read your Dess raises Kris AU, something that i’m really excited for is the dynamic between Dess and Chara! From the little excerpt we saw of them in the past i’m so curious as to how they’re relationship functions / how it’ll effect Kris growing up and such. If it isn’t too much to ask, could you go a bit in depth as to how they ‘work’ in a sense?

jkegkjdfgdf IT MEANS SO MUCH THAT UR EXCITED.....WOW.....like i am too its just so fun to know other people are!!

and! yeah so. i go into them a lot in this post here where i said. a lot of what my ideas are right now (and its said better lol) but i can for sure talk about them forever and ever and ever. most relationship of all time.

under the cut cause Oh My God it was not supposed to be this long.

so!!! i think a lot of how dess and chara work is that as time goes on it becomes increasingly obvious that They Do Not, actually. like, the way i see dess is that she is very much a person who needs to be on the move--she cannot stay in one place. that just...isnt who she is, and its stifling, and she HATES being weighed down. and kids, uh, sorta do that to you lol. vs chara, who like...has defined xirself around this role xe took up, 'cause the huge difference between them is that chara chose to have frisk and dess just sorta ended up with kris, right? so thats one point they arent ever going to like, understand the other one on.

so a lot of what leads them to deciding to stick together is this sense of loneliness they both feel...dess for being someone who is always on the move has also always had people with her: azzy, for one, but i think shes also the sort of people who makes a lot of like, surface-level friendships? i think shes A Lot and most people never get to know her that well, but like...chara DOES. and vice-versa for chara: people never bother to get to know xir, but dess WANTS TO. dess really truly cares about xir and xir life and who xe is which is very new for chara. cause before this all xe's had is frisk who is. literally a two year old and doesnt have any other choice lol.

theyre both people who have been dealt a poor hand in life in regards to dark world bullshit, something they cant exactly get help with through like, traditional means. they meet when theyre both super young--iirc dess is 18, chara 21? 22?--and yknow, raising a kid at that young an age isnt the most common experience. dess has run away from home, basically, and chara's a college dropout with a biological family xe never want to see again...neither of them have anybody else! they dont have any help! so they bond over that, a lot. its like...seeing someone Like You for the first time in your entire life.

and all that said its the kids thing that really throws a wrench into everything.

because dess cant stay still, right? she cant. shes not wired for it. but chara does, and she trusts chara, and chara doesnt mind watching kris, so dess doesnt feel bad leaving them with xir. but. a day becomes a week. week a few weeks, a month, a few months. as time goes on dess coming home grows more and more sparse. but theres this sense of like...chara doesnt really know who xe is, anymore, outside of this family xe has? outside of being a parent and spouse? so to chara, to leave dess is like, unimaginable. dess is xir person. dess loves xir, which is something xe cannot really comprehend as a loveless aromantic, but having never been loved in xir entire life (chara had a Bad childhood lets just say) its like...dess chooses xir. and sure, shes gone a lot, but when she does come home, her home is XIR. her home is chara. its gloriously dizzying.

and dess does feel the same way!!! dess never really means to leave chara for so long, she just...loses track of time. hates being Needed by kids in any way more than a cool aunt they see occasionally. funnily enough she gets on with frisk better because frisk doesnt really expect a mom out of her. (that isnt to say its returned lol kris likes dess wayyyyy more than frisk does. but for dess its easier to be around frisk cause they dont expect anything). if the kids werent a thing chara and dess would actually work a lot better--chara is a lot less adventurous and likes staying back and tending to things, but without frisk to like, REALLY cement that xe'd enjoy going out with dess, probably not into dark worlds but travel might be nice. and dess wouldn't feel so much pressure, if its just chara, 'cause chara kind of just likes dess for who she is. so for just-chara, dess could stay. dess is used to people wanting her to be someone else--her mother, her father, hell, even AZZY, who like...he never acted on it, but he had a crush on her for their entire friendship. she knows he'd rather she return those feelings.

but chara GETS HER. chara cares for her in a way that doesnt want her to become something she isnt--its why they get married!! dess never felt romantic love, and still doesnt, but its chara who makes her go--oh. oh, so i think i know why people might get married, actually. its saying--youre my person, and chara is her person. and vice-versa, of course. dess is this light chara never had.

but. of course. they have two kids.

which. complicates things. dess puts chara first--she LOVES chara, loves xir in every single way she can feel love. but chara...chara cares about dess, a lot. its why xe's really blind to a lot of xir faults for a while...because thats dess. xe doesnt know where xe would be without dess. but chara is a parent. frisk and kris do come first.

the kids are like, aware of this. frisk is very much aware of this--they're younger than kris but they dont have these rose-colored glasses about dess, and they sort of notice, how much of a toll it takes on chara to be a single parent, essentially, still. dess sends money back--she IS sort of the breadwinner lol, turns out selling weird dark world things is sometimes actually a viable career--but she doesnt, like, parent. when she comes home shes a friend. but not a parent.

kris fights with chara a lot. idealizes dess. its that idea that the parent who has to be the PARENT, be the one to say no, be the one to deal with all the crying and meltdowns and just general messiness of raising another human being, is the one that also gets the most flack. dess is never around! which is hard, but it also means she never messes up. at least in kris's eyes, lol.

for frisk and kris dess really is the one thing that like, gets in between all else. its the wound they all keep opening again, because shes never around, and it hurts. whenever she comes back and stays for a week when she said a month the kids know how sad chara gets!! how lonely xe is! but kris writes it off because dess will come back, and frisk grows bitter. its the one thing the two dont talk about because its the one thing that fractures their sibling relationship. every serious fight the two have is in some way about dess.

the entire reason why noelle and kris end up meeting? because kris thinks that if they prove themself as brave like dess, and dive into and close a dark world like she does, she'll stay longer this time. but of course all that does is get them stuck.

dess never does things maliciously. she does, really, truly, care about chara, kris, frisk. but she also just...does things. she never looks before she leaps. she shies away from facing consequences. and thats like...the sort of thing you CANT do, when youve got kids. but she never wanted them. she never meant to take kris.

she's just. in too deep. and chara does NOT hold her accountable which doesnt help. it would be best for the kids if chara got a divorce but. chara cant do that. xe cannot be alone again.

OKAY THAT WAS A LOT. uh. if you (general) wants to know more!! hit me up!!! tho i will say i'll have more to say about other relationships lol, i think i've said most of what i can able dess&chara right now. BUT I AM ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT THIS AU I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON HOW IT CHANGES THINGS--

[acaciapines]

helviaposting‼️

my half of an art trade with @sideordered !!!!!!!! of his oc helvia!!!! she is so awesome guys I love helvia

ten billion thoughts and closeups under the cut bc long captions are my best friend

ok so I had a very clear idea from the start with what I wanted this to look like. thank you persona 4 for being my guiding light. as I spoke with pal more and more abt helvia I really wanted to make sure I got her like. Vibe across. I tried not to compromise on things I usually would, and I tried not to give up when I reached really hard parts of this drawing (the background). but I think the result was sooooo worth it yayyyyyy!! genuinely one of the pieces I am proudest of drawing. the power of helvia. anyways thanks for reading hope you enjoyed this :D

[acaciapines]

it’s simply so unfair that in order to get drkau noelle content I have to write it. is it not enough to simply rotate her in my brain.

[acaciapines]

Doomed siblings

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[acaciapines]

all i do all day is listen to music think about them and cry

[acaciapines]

Please tell us abt the parallels :o

YEAH OKAY SO!!!!

in this au (and as i write ralsei in my canon always lol) the biggest thing that puts pressure on ralsei's life is the prophecy--it says a human, a monster, and a prince from the dark, and because it is a prophecy, and it is fate, is HAS to be true, and ralsei, as a darkner, a group of people who literally exist below the lightners, is charged with bringing this prophecy into fruition. she has spent her entire life ALONE, with nothing but this prophecy for comfort, saying that one day, ONE DAY, she'll get through this and she'll have friends. but yknow, that weighs on a person! its heavy and terrible and she has contorted herself to fit what fate tells her she must be.

and then for noelle, the big thing putting pressure on her? her dead siblings (dess and kris. kris isnt technically her sibling but yknow for ease of language thats what i use. also we know they arent dead but noelle and the rest dont). with their deaths means noelle is now the baby of the family, a family that is shaped by this great gaping grief noelle cannot comprehend, because when dess and kris died she was young enough she barely remembers them beyond like, maybe half-formed memories but she isnt sure if those are real or just what people have told her. shes expected to be grieving her dead siblings but really she just sort of. hates them a little bit. for going off and dying and now her mom and toriel are super overprotective of her, and she knows its her fault asriel never left to go to college and hasnt even left hometown, and its just. its rough.

so both noelle and ralsei have these Huge things that have defined their lives that neither of them want, but. too bad! WHICH LEADS TO EVEN MORE PARALLELS. slash foils lol.

because when it comes to the prophecy? noelle isnt supposed to be in it!!! while this au is sort of a roleswap in that noelle takes kris's place its not a roleswap in Any Other Way, which means, yeah, the prophecy is still supposed to be a human. and noelle, uh, isnt that! but she goes around and helps close dark worlds and is part of the delta warriors anyways, which is, for ralsei, this like, really scary point.

cause ralsei? adores noelle!! thats her best friend!!! ralsei doesnt know if she has a crush on noelle or wants to be noelle! noelle just does what she WANTS. she bucks against the pressures her family puts on her. she dives into the dark despite the fact that this world was never made for her. shes TRANS. shes a GIRL, and she can just DO THAT, and ralsei looks at her, and just. wants. in every sense of the word.

because noelle has all these things put on her like ralsei does--but noelle gets to slip out of them. noelle gets to be a person.

and ralsei, non-person, darkner: she doesnt.

she never will.

[acaciapines]

and if i told you about the noelle and ralsei parallels in the dess raises kris au. What Then.

[acaciapines]

[acaciapines]

I have this headcanon where wings will outgrow baby furies for a couple weeks until the rest of their bodies catch up to them. They're pretty clumsy during this period of time, gotta get used to the weight of their new extensions😋.

[acaciapines]

hey! for the fic ask game: 3, 5 (for the wolf 359 daemon au), 8, 38 and 42?

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

somebody being a least a little bit nonhuman <3 but more broadly i really like writing about human/animal dynamics, both in the nonhuman sense obviously, but also even in my daemon aus--what do humans say about animals? how much is true and how much is just something humans have put onto the animal, rather than what the animal is?

i also think i write a lot about grief, and the ways grief and trauma both can manifest in ways seen as 'unpalatable.' how youre supposed to survive these sorts of things, and how a lot of times the answer is that maybe things dont get better, but they do get different. ie i have a lot of bittersweet endings and i dont think that'll ever change.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

oooh ive always hoped somebody would ask what the hell doug-nix and miranda-alphaeus would get up to after the epilogues, 'cause this never got in there (i dont think at least), but i've always had it in mind that they move out eventually! get a place of their own, which would leave minkowski, hera, jacobi, and sometimes lovelace whenever she stops by living together.

i just feel like. miranda and doug are outsiders to that crew, yeah? neither of them remember the people they once were, so. might as well try making something new and better together.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

this one is particularly topical 'cause a song is actually the inspiration for the current fic i'm writing! grand canyon by the wind and the wave. literally such a frisk and chara song, ALSO a really good roadtrip song, so ive meshed those together and now im working on a post-pacifist chara&frisk centric roadtrip fic! coming out....idk. may probably.

i also think twelve feet deep by the front bottoms could make a real fun onesided dessriel fic. something about 'i get left out of every plan they make / that is what i have to do / to be the only kid from highschool who is still in love with you' REALLY gets to me.

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

i think the one that surprised me the most was garden of earthly delights, which was my madoka magica daemon au. seeing as its been Forever since anything madoka has come out (plus daemon aus are Not popular anymore lol), i didnt know there was still an active fandom there, but there WAS, and all my commenters were amazing and lovely and it was so fun seeing everyone trying to uncover the mystery in real time!!! if i had to guess WHY it got popular, i think i'd guess it was the aspect of mystery...something to keep people coming back and commenting!

42. Have you ever received a comment that particularly stood out to you for whatever reason?

the comments that always stick with me the most are the people who come to tell me that it was my fics (usually either i know im not well or alterhuman) that either helped them feel SEEN as otherkin/therian, or helped them discover that this was a thing they even could be. i think thats been one of the most rewarding things about sharing those stories. theres not a whole lot out there in the ao3 otherkin tag, yknow? and it makes me so happy to know i've been able to help people.

[acaciapines]

hey acacia pleaaaase tell me more about dess and chara in the dess raises kris au

OH I'D LOVE TOO

this got. long as hell so its under a cut. can you tell ive thought about this so hard. literally more people need to consider this relationship okay IT HAS IT ALL...

so! youre dess. you've just had what asriel is calling 'a mental break' but what is to you descending down into the bunker which is REAL and WRONG and NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED, and its done something to you, and your best friend doesnt understand, and nobody understands, and this thing is going to kill your sister and it is going to use asriel's little sibling to do so. and then one day, weeks later, when asriel still wont believe you and you are slowly losing your mind, he goes out to tour colleges.

and kris is staying at your house. and there is nobody to stop you. and asriel doesnt believe you but if it is his little sibling stuck up in everything, and, and, and...

and then the next thing dess knows she has descended into the bunker with a five year old and come out somewhere else, somewhere FAR AWAY, and. by the time shes back in her right mind shes in way way too deep to ever go back. she CANT go back. besides, what help was asriel? he never believed her! her BEST FRIEND, and he wrote off everything she was scared about!! thought she was making it up, but she WASNT, and she'll PROVE IT, and she'll SAVE THE WORLD, and then they'll see. then they'll all see.

that town, that bunker--it is going to kill her sister. and dess will do everything to keep her sister safe.

even if it means she has to lug a kid around.

so, time passes. dess wanders. kris wanders with her. dark worlds here work sort of like mystery dungeons in the pokemon mystery dungeon series, but a lot fewer people know about them. there ARE, though, forums, and small local places where people meet up and swap stories and try to defeat them, which is where dess needs to be, but she cant do any of that with a five year old. so she takes to leaving kris at hotel-rooms and daycares and doing her best to schema-hunt (this group calls dark worlds 'schemas'), and its when picking up kris one of these times that dess meets chara.

chara has also had xir own run-ins with schemas. its what led to xir having frisk--getting stuck in a schema that was Awful for xir mental health, led to a lot of self-hatred around being a loveless aromantic, and a few dubious situations later xes pregnant and after xir own childhood of never being wanted and realizing that as bad as everything leading up to this has been xe WANTS this kid, xe has frisk. for two years chara struggles as a college dropout and a single parent barely scraping by, still dealing with lingering schema-trauma xe cannot talk to anybody about, and...then xe meets dess.

its not a love story, because both of them are aromantic, and chara doesnt love, anyways. but its two people who have been struggling and alone and scared finding someone else who UNDERSTANDS. its how dess finds someone who believes her when she talks about the schemas, who doesnt write her off. its chara making a friend for maybe the first time in xir entire life. its how theyre both trying to raise kids on their own but its not so hard when theyre together.

the honeymoon stages are REALLY good. its chara who has never been anybody's first priority, but now xe is dess's, and it is probably the closest xe will ever get to understanding why romantic love appeals. its dess who has a place to actually REST, not her and a five year old hopping around hotels, but somewhere she can call home. dess and chara can talk to each other about everything, about anything. about the things they've seen in the dark and the deep. about how scared they are for the kids.

they get an apartment together. they get married. they make up a new last name to share. the kids start going to school. chara officially adopts kris. neither of the kids remember a time without dess and chara both around. things seem like they might actually work out.

but dess is so RESTLESS, see. she has this amazing place, with the people she loves most in the world, but as chara settles down xe starts to put xir time in the schemas behind xir. devotes xirself to being a parent, to going to parent-teacher conferences, sitting through meltdowns and fights and being the parent xe never had in xir life. dess hates how kris clings to her whenever she is around. it makes her itch. like shes being held down.

dess starts spending more time on online forums. staying out later and later. goes out on trips--for a day, two days, a week. meets other people like her, people who dont know how to stay in place, people who need to find and close schemas, who save those trapped in them. she maybe starts to miss chara's calls. she maybe misses kris's birthday. she loves chara more than she loves anybody else, and that includes the kids. she comes home and can barely last a few days before she has to go again.

shes not meant to be pinned down by kids. shes supposed to be OUT THERE, saving the world. she and chara fight, more than they ever used to. she hates it when chara cries but she doesnt know how to make it better. maybe if she keeps running, keeps diving into the dark, she'll figure it out. maybe when she saves the world everything will be okay. then she can rest. then there wont always be this nagging fear at the back of her head, this nagging fear that everything she has is going to come crashing down around her. then all the missed calls will be worth it, all the broken promises made okay.

she's dess. defeater of schemas. and one day she'll make it back to that bunker, and destroy it, and her sister, the sister she hasnt seen in a decade, will be safe. one day she'll call asriel and this time he'll believe her, and forgive her. one day she'll go home and sit down next to chara and this time when she promises to stay, she'll mean it.

just a little longer. then she'll fix everything.

(meanwhile, chara is back at home, waiting for a wife that wont come back. sometimes in the middle of the night frisk creeps into xir bed and asks why dess is never home, why chara doesn't divorce her. chara doesnt know how xe is supposed to tell this child xe very nearly did not have that dess is the only person who chose to love xir because she could. that dess is the only person who was there when chara had nobody else. that sometimes when it is very dark xe thinks back to the schema xe was stuck in, for so very long, and the prophecy xe heard there. how xe saw dess and some part of xir knew, then, that surely, this is who those ancient words spoke of. dess, with her glorious warmth and light.

chara is the one who stayed behind. chara is the one who deals with all the struggles of raising two children-now-teenagers, who watches kris, waiting always for dess to come home; frisk, who doesnt speak of her at all. xe doesnt know if xe's doing the right thing. xe just wants xir kids to be OKAY, and, selfishly, to be loved by someone even if xe can never return the feeling.

one day frisk comes sobbing to chara and spills everything: that kris, who has only ever wanted dess to be proud of them, who knows dess is one who slips into the space between light and dark and comes out again, has dove into a dark world of their own, and has not come back out.

and chara who already knows xe will dive into the dark xirself if that is what it takes to bring kris back safe wonders if maybe xir selfishness is what will get xir children killed.)

[acaciapines]

please tell us how dess would approach kris’ species dysphoria & how she would teach him to deal with it. if she doesn’t just laugh awkwardly abt it and try to ignore it

actually!!! this is the one thing dess has going for her lol, i like to joke that in this au by losing their identity issues kris instead gains mommy issues. but basically, the big thing that even LEADS kris to all their identity issues in the first place is that when theyre like ten they find a book on humans in the library and realize them being a monster is a Lie, and around this time azzy is leaving for college, their parents are divorcing, dess has just gone missing, they're cutting themself off from noelle, and its this perfect storm for everything to go to absolute shit for kris. they lose their monster identity, everyone around them is trying to comfort them by saying 'its okay if youre human we still love you' when kris ISNT human and THAT ISNT HELPING, and theyre angry and bitter and a lot of kris's anger comes out as aggression and when cornered/when they feel theyre cornered they tend to lash out, which then bleeds into them realizing that of course they werent ever a monster because monsters are good always and theyre not a good person and coyotes are bad animals and kris isnt good or a monster and they sure as shit arent a human but maybe they can be THIS...etc etc etc. its a shitshow lol, but you know that we've seen how i write kris elsewhere.

BUT IN THIS AU, none of that happens!!! kris is 5 when dess dips with them and thus never actually finds out they're biologically human, or at least, not in the way they do in my canon. unlike asriel (who sees kris calling themself a monster and worries), dess is like 'alright cool' and just updates her mental kris file with 'is a monster' and so she treats and sees them as such.

that isnt to say kris doesnt struggle with species dysphoria, because they do, and they do probably eventually find out their body is biologically human (tho i havent really thought much about how that goes lol). but when this does happen they have chara who supports them, dess who supports them, frisk who supports them...and while they still idealize DESS to an unhealthy degree not being the only human in an all-monster town (+ having a human parent and sibling) means they never actually start idolizing ALL monsters in that unhealthy way.

so, the kris of this au isnt human, and very much feels uncomfortable when they're read as such. but their family (dess, chara, frisk) know them to be a monster. and they're able to model their appearance to appear more monster-like. i dont have a FULL design for kris yet (cause character design is my achilles heel lol) but they for sure wear a pair of antlers (akin to the horn headband, but these are Real Bone Antlers they probably got at an antique store that were modified so its like, feasible for them to wear these pretty much constantly), some sort of modified shoes/boots so it sounds like hoofclicks when they walk, probably other things i havent figured out yet...

its to the point that kris tends to be read as monster more-so than they're read as human! which has implications for when noelle first meets them, of course...but thats for another time.

and for those who might be wondering 'wait but isnt your kris a coyote?' they are! this kris is the same kris who goes on to be a coyote, its just kris's coyote-ness does have a very physiological origin lol. takes a few very specific circumstances for them to go coyote and not monster. but no matter what they are never a human <3

[acaciapines]

rotating noelle around in my brain. i need the dess raises kris au to be real RIGHT NOW.

please talk to me about the dess raises kris au i think im gonna explode. also start writing it this summer maybe :3333

[acaciapines]

what gets me about minkowski and eiffel's relationship is that they are the polar opposite of "i would find you in every life" like i don't think they'd find each other in ANY other life!! they don't share interests; their values conflict; their personal habits and hygiene standards drive each other crazy. the fact that they end up desperately important to each other isn't based on any kind of personal compatibility, but just the bare minimum of "you are a person and you want to go home and we are in hell together" and that's ENOUGH because that's more than the prevailing powers want to allow them. minkowski is determined to get them home and eiffel is determined to make sure they do it without sacrificing what makes them people and it's moving to me that this scraped-bedrock common ground is enough for love to grow from

[acaciapines]

me not 👧, me 🦈