#it's drawing for your future entertainment so this is really a symbiotic relationship we have going on

[bleaksqueak]

okay since you're all so very split on the last poll, let's shake it up a little

[mostlycompetentwriter]

Treasure- Part 4

M/F Pairing: Y/N x Kim Hongjoong (Ateez)

Genre: Fantasy AU, Pirate AU

Word Count: 3.5K

Warnings: Smut at the end, language throughout

Tag List:  @ pastel-crystals @ purpleprincesslea @ x-lilyofthevalley-x @ baekxhwa @ bootysand @ suju-hit-me-like-a-wreckingball @ yunderfullthings @ dreamshopesforward @ kiara-reighns @ fivesecondsofsarang @ speedilyunadulteratedcandy @ sansugar @ xxhzxqhxx @ erica-kay @ teeztheflag

Despite his promise, Hongjoong never demonstrated more than a comfortable camaraderie whenever he requested my time. I was always expecting the command to which I would willingly obey, but the Pirate Captain usually offered me a quiet dinner with surprisingly civil conversation. He often asked about my life back on the island, posture relaxed while he listened to me speak. It was a surprising shift in character considering Hongjoong’s initial attitude when I was brought on board. Now, he treated me less like a prisoner and more of a possession to be treated with care. 

As for the rest of the crew, I enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with the other pirates. In the mornings, Yunho would always prepare breakfast, ensuring that I was fed before his members. When the sun was at its highest point, I sometimes assisted San and Wooyoung with their chores down below the main deck. And at night, I envied the mysterious Yeosang who kept watch from atop the crow’s nest for potential threats. On occasion, the younger boy would allow me to join him up there amongst the stars, looking out over the ocean and listening to the splash of the water against the hull. 

At other times, the crew gathered together in the evenings to play a rather unique card game. On the first night, I had watched them from afar, learning through observation how to play the correct hand. Because there was a certain science to the game that involved a lot of wits and careful planning. It was also important to keep a close eye on San and Wooyoung who were more than willing to cheat their way to victory. When I finally felt confident enough to join them for the very first time, I sat in the middle of the troublesome boys and joined the chaos that was becoming a very competitive gambling tournament.

I had also become well-acquainted with the other crew members on Hongjoong’s precious ship, like the brilliant Jongho who demonstrated on more than one occasion his uncanny strength. There was also Park Seonghwa who was in charge of navigation. He liked to find the strangest places to unfold his maps, charting our next course with precision. I admired his careful organization, keeping attention to detail as he explained his work to me with a passionate tone. And I was almost positive that he was a certified genius.

Finally, there was Mingi, the older pirate who still regarded me with an air of contempt. It was obvious that he didn’t like me very much, but I think he tolerated my presence since the Captain still allowed me onboard. Because that was the one thing that all these interesting characters had in common, their profound loyalty to the baffling Pirate Captain who had proven to be nothing like I initially believed.

In the end, everything always came back to Hongjoong who I had slowly started to feel comfortable around. He was deeply affectionate with his crew members, and I was starting to become a recipient of his caring nature. It certainly made life more tolerable on the ship, especially when it was obvious that I had earned their respect.

Currently, our crew was set to sail for the fabled British waters. Hongjoong intended to keep his promise to the Pirate Lords and lead a series of attacks against the naval vessels. He wanted to set an example, hoping to demonstrate his power in an effort to dissuade future Commodores from attacking innocent Pirate crews.

We had been sailing for almost a week without reprieve and I was starting to feel the effects of being away from land for so long. I never complained because I felt like I had no reason to voice my discomfort when Hongjoong never forced me to work like the others. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to sit still throughout the day and watch everyone else move about the ship while I had nothing substantial to do for fun. 

This is why I decided to create my own special version of the card game, twisting the rules of what the rest of the crew had already established. Thus, I settled against the side of the deck that morning, organizing a blank set of cards that I had procured from Yeosang who always possessed the most interesting objects. Hongjoong found me later that day in this predicament, resting in the shadows as I shuffled through a deck of cards. “It’s not a game to play alone,” the Captain greeted me.

“I’m trying something new,” I told him in return.

“New?” he chuckled, leaning against the banister. “I’m impressed.”

“Just wait,” I grinned. “I want to try it tonight with the other guys. I think it’ll keep San and Wooyoung from trying anything nefarious.”

“Obviously you don’t know them very well,” Hongjoong said. “They always find a way to break the rules.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said determinedly. “Was there something you needed?”

“A request,” he replied. “If you’ll accept?”

“I guess it depends on what you want,” I said.

“Just your time,” Hongjoong said. “Tonight in my cabin.”

“Oh?” was all I said in return, remembering the last time I had visited Hongjoong’s cabin, expecting him to act on his promise from a month ago. Instead, the Captain had me sit on his bed while he busied himself with Seonghwa’s maps, occasionally asking for my opinion on a particular route. I was surprised that he wanted my input but entertained his questions until he quietly dismissed me without another word.

“We might reach British waters as early as tomorrow evening,” Hongjoong said.

“Really?”

He nodded. “Don’t think less of me, love. There are difficult decisions ahead of us.”

His words confused me, but I knew it was impossible to figure out Hongjoong’s intentions. “When should I come?”

“Midnight,” he said, sparing me a quick, fleeting glance before he returned to the helm.

“Hello, boys,” I grinned, shuffling through the stack of cards in my hands while observing their current game. 

“What do you want?” Mingi grumbled, barely paying me any attention while shoving a cigarette between his teeth.

“I have something fun for us,” I said. “A new game I made.”

“A new game!” Wooyoung perked up, disregarding the favorable selection of cards in hand to look at me with wide eyes. “What is it?”

“Something I spent all afternoon working on,” I said, dropping the cards onto the edge of the table. “We should play this instead.”

“No thanks,” Mingi said, rolling his eyes while he attempted to return Wooyoung’s attention to their game.

“It might be interesting,” San spoke up, abandoning his cards to retreat around the table, standing over me with his chin tucked on my shoulder. 

“Thank you, Sannie,” I grinned, grateful that the younger boy had always been there to lend me his support since I first stepped aboard the ship. When he wasn’t causing all sorts of mischief with Wooyoung, San was a pretty remarkable person who was incredibly intuitive. 

“I want to try Y/N’s game,” Wooyoung said, leaning against Yunho for support. “Please?”

Despite his tough appearance, Yunho was actually warm-hearted and he held a soft spot for Wooyoung. “I don’t mind,” he said.

“Whatever,” Mingi grunted, kicking back his stool with more attitude than necessary. He glared at me as he passed by before disappearing below the deck with a muttered curse. Meanwhile, Wooyoung and Yunho were already clearing the table of the discarded bottles of alcohol while Seonghwa politely sorted through everyone’s cards.

“Okay,” I said, sliding into Mingi’s abandoned seat. “The rules are simple.”

In actuality, I did my best to make the game as convoluted as possible. Because it left no room for Wooyoung and San’s cheating if they could barely grasp the concept of our card game. Plus, I was still determined to challenge Park Seonghwa who was far too smart for his own good. 

For the most part, the game was very similar to the cards the boys had taught me when I had been first welcomed. Back then, I often sat next to Yunho or Jongho and allowed them to talk me through every move and careful decision. I learned rather quickly and started playing on my own, even though it was often difficult to emerge victorious when it came to Wooyoung and San. Still, it was nice to feel like they wanted me around with the exception of Mingi who continued to insist on ignoring me whenever I happened to come around.

“What do the dice have to do with anything?” Wooyoung asked now, obviously quite irritated as he struggled to understand the rules.

“It depends on the card you draw,” I explained. “Certain cards allow you the opportunity to roll the dice.”

“Oh, whatever,” San huffed. “Let’s just play.”

“No problem,” I agreed, shuffling the cards before distributing seven to each player who had joined our small circle while the other crew members lingered in the background.

I held up my stack, passing my eyes across each card. “I’ll start with this,” I said, turning over one of my cards.

Wooyoung studied my card with intense scrutiny. “Okay, I’ll put this down,” he said, somewhat hesitant in his movements. 

After everyone played their first card, I carefully explained how betting would work during each round. “Two chips each,” I said.

“How do you come up with that?” San asked, clearly perplexed as he watched me slide two of my tokens into the center pile.

“I told you at the beginning,” I said, laughing at the look of utter confusion on his face.

I waited for each player to select a new card. “Does anybody have something that can complete a hand?”

“Me!” Yunho yelled, swiping a golden-tinted card from his stack. “An automatic completion.”

“No fair!” Wooyoung protested, watching Yunho drag the pile of chips in his direction.

“I don’t see a problem,” Yunho quipped in return. “Who draws next?”

“Me,” San quickly interceded, reaching for a card from the shrinking deck at the center of our table. “What the hell does the horse mean again?” 

“Take another two cards,” Seonghwa replied, an intense look of concentration sharpening his features. 

“My turn!” Wooyoung grinned, but I knocked his hand away before he could take a new selection. 

“We have to wait for San.”

“This is so confusing,” Wooyoung whined, slamming his cards down against the table with a pout.

Meanwhile, San examined his cards with narrowed eyes. “Four of a kind,” he grinned, presenting the cards in overdramatic fashion. “I get to roll the dice now!”

“Let me check,” Wooyoung insisted, snatching San’s cards away with a heavy sigh. Meanwhile, San was already throwing the dice across the table.

“Six!” he said, holding out an expectant hand. “Pay up, assholes.”

With a grimace, Seonghwa reluctantly pushed his chips in San’s direction. “This game makes absolutely no sense.”

“Of course it does,” I said. “I spent all afternoon working on this.”

“Well, you didn’t do a very good job,” Wooyoung muttered.

“You’ve been complaining all night,” I said while observing my remaining cards. “Nobody forced you to play.” 

“Yeah? But there’s nothing better to do,” he complained. “You’re gonna win anyway because you actually understand what’s going on.”

“Really?” I smirked. “Since you can’t cheat now!”

“I never cheat,” he lied smoothly. “Sometimes, I try and help my situation.”

“By cheating,” Yunho said, shuffling through his cards as he tried desperately to find what he was looking for. “Fine, I don’t have the stupid Dragon so Seongwha wins.”

The ship’s navigator grinned triumphantly while dragging Yunho’s chips into his rapidly accumulating pile. “It looks like Seonghwa understands.”

“But he’s a genius so it doesn’t count,” Wooyoung said.

“Are you saying that you want to give up?” I challenged the younger, but Wooyoung was never one to turn away from an obvious taunt.

“I’ll figure it out,” he insisted, even as his chip pile continued to grow lower and lower with each subsequent round of play.

Eventually, despite Wooyoung’s best efforts, it came down between me and Seonghwa and I was suddenly more determined than ever to win. “My heart completes the hand,” I said, exposing the card so that he could clearly observe my victory before reaching for the pile of chips. 

“But I draw first,” Seonghwa said, eyeing his new card with interest.

I frowned. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he chuckled, tucking it away before adding an extra chip to our new betting pile.

But I knew Seonghwa better than that at this point in time. And I was on edge the longer we continued to exchange cards and chips, waiting for the finishing blow. “I have money on you Seonghwa,” San said, growing impatient as he started to pace back and forth.

“I hope it wasn’t a lot,” I said, finally securing the card I had been waiting for, playing it shamelessly as I sat back in my chair with a smirk. “I win.”

Seonghwa was silent for a moment, fingering the edges of the familiar card he had previously drawn. However, he eventually released a dramatic sigh, returning his cards to the pile before pushing his chips across the table. “Congratulations, Y/N.”

Wooyoung squealed from behind me. “That’s the first time Seonghwa has ever lost!”

I felt a warm pride settle in the center of my chest as I counted the chips in front of me. “He can’t be good at everything.”

“I guess I’m not,” Seonghwa said, offering me a quick wink before giving up his chair to an eager crew member who was demanding that we play a new game. I was quick to acquiesce, grabbing the cards to start shuffling while watching Seonghwa from the corner of my eyes. He was talking to Yunho, smiling brightly despite his recent loss, which confused me because I didn’t think Seonghwa would take to losing so generously...And I couldn’t help but think that Seonghwa had let me win on purpose.

I knocked on Hongjoong’s cabin door at midnight, prompt as usual since the Captain emphasized organization and timeliness to the rest of his crew. However, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would be willing to make an exception for me. After all, Hongjoong rarely raised his voice around me anymore, even if I did something mischievous like raid Yunho’s store of chocolate with Wooyoung.

“Come inside,” Hongjoong said when he answered my call, taking a step back to allow me enough room to slip in through the doorway.

“You know, this is rather late even for someone like you,” I remarked, admiring the display of candles on the mantle.

“Yes, but the crew are asleep,” Hongjoong said. “We’ll have privacy.”

I arched a brow at him. “Is there something you want, Captain, that necessitates privacy?”

He smirked knowingly. “I just want a promise from you this time, love.”

“A promise from me?” I repeated. 

“Yes,” Hongjoong nodded. “It might not make any sense now, but it’s important to me that you keep your word.”

“Of course I will,” I affirmed, even if I wanted to point out the hypocrisy behind Hongjoong’s words.

“There might be a moment when you feel like I’ve treated you unfairly,” Hongjoong began, and his serious tone suddenly seemed out of place. “I want you to know that I would never do anything to hurt you. Even if it might seem like I did, you have to remember this moment.”

I simply stared at the Captain. “What’s going on?”

Hongjoong sighed like the entire weight of the world rested solely on his shoulders. “There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“It doesn’t seem that way,” I said, watching him sit down at his desk. “I’m worried.”

“Don’t be,” Hongjoong said, grabbing a pen from its ink container. “My intentions for you, love, always take into account your well-being.”

It didn’t seem that way to me, especially since Hongjoong seemed burdened by everything he was saying. “You seem sad,” I observed, reaching out to curl my fingers into the fabric of his jacket. “Have I done something wrong?”

Hongjoong chuckled. “If anything, love, you’ve been too perfect.”

I shifted backward, watching as he removed the jacket to reveal a thin cotton shirt underneath. “Is that the only reason you asked me to come here?”

“Not exactly,” he said, turning his head to the side as if to make sure I couldn’t possibly misinterpret his words. “I think it’s time I keep my promise to you, love.”

“T-tonight?” I stuttered, clearing my throat because I didn’t understand why I suddenly felt so nervous.

“Unless you don’t want to,” Hongjoong said, finally dismissing the stack of papers on his desk. He stood tall over me, cornering me back against the frame of the bed. “I won’t force you.”

“I know,” I said, hesitantly reaching out to steady my hands against his chest. “But it’s been so long and I didn’t know if you were even interested in me anymore.”

He tilted my chin up, forcing our eyes to meet. “You’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met, Y/N. Never think otherwise.”

It was strangely emotional, the way he spoke to me. “I won’t,” I managed to say because my heart was racing in my chest and he was very close to me. 

“Lay down,” he instructed me gently and I wordlessly complied, making myself comfortable against the sparse sheets. Meanwhile, Hongjoong had grabbed the hem of his shirt, bringing it over his head before tossing it into the floor. My breath hitched in my throat, admiring his lean torso, muscles building his frame from years of hard work aboard the ship. “You’re beautiful,” he told me earnestly. “Can you take off your clothes for me?”

I nodded in response, trembling fingers making quick work of my pants, fingernails scratching the skin of my thighs as I quickly forced them down my legs. I toed them off on the floor, reaching down for my shirt before allowing it to join the pile of clothes we were accumulating against the hardwood floors of the cabin. I slowly exhaled when I was fully naked, resisting the urge to cover myself because Hongjoong’s gaze was intense, eyes moving up and down my figure with barely constrained lust. “Perfect,” he whispered, weight dipping along the edge of the bed. I was a complete mess, barely holding back when he was hovering over me, all sinewy muscles and hard lines from the crest of his shoulders to the curves of his legs. 

“Please,” I groaned, tangling my hands in the soft strands of strawberry hair before forcing his mouth against mine, kissing him with an urgency resulting from an entire month of covetous glances on the main deck. 

“I want you so much,” Hongjoong said, voice husky as his words made me feel nothing short of desired. 

“You shouldn’t have kept me waiting,” I teased him, despite the Captain’s crooked smile.

His kisses were scorching, igniting a flame of desire in the parts of my soul that had never been touched before. I felt his hands trail down my legs, parting my thighs so that I could finally feel his hot erection. “Yes,” I moaned, breaking our kiss to look at the place where he was sliding inside, bringing us together intimately while he started to nose along the side of my neck. “I can’t trust myself around you, love,” he said. “You make me a very dangerous man.”

His cock hit deeper. “You were already dangerous, Captain.”

Fingers brushed teasingly down the sides of my waist, thumbs digging into the jutting bones of my hips. “Let me try again,” he insisted. “I can’t control the way I feel and that makes me dangerous to everyone, including myself.” 

I moaned when his teeth followed the curve of my neck, arched back against his ministrations. “Which is a bad thing?”

“Very,” he agreed. “When I would sacrifice everything, even my own life, just to see you safe.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said, gasping at an aggressive thrust that nearly knocked the air out of my lungs.

“Look at me,” he growled, a sound that went straight to my growing arousal, but I still forced my eyes to open. “I do mean it,” he said. “I would do anything for you.”

I started crying, the weight of his words and the heavy presence between my legs were all playing with the delicate string barely anchoring me to reality. He was a master of seduction, breath hot as he moved in closer to my ears. “I’ll ruin you.”

That was all that I needed to tip me over the edge, losing myself completely to Hongjoong. I cried into his shoulder, gripping tighter to the smooth skin of his broad shoulders, riding out the lingering pulses of pleasure and verging on overstimulated. “Hongjoong,” I gasped, feeling his grip on my thighs tighten as he pushed in harder, barely allowing me any room to breathe. His lips were messy as they demanded long, passionate kisses.

“Hold on for me, love,” he said, hips rocking against mine for a moment longer before stilling completely. 

He collapsed next to me, chest moving up and down to accommodate his exhaustion. “You weren’t a liar,” I commented with a delirious giggle, crowding even closer to him with one arm wrapped over his waist.

Hongjoong was quiet, the only indication that he was still awake being the slow way his fingers traced along my spine. Finally, he gripped my chin, tilting my head to meet his gaze. I was surprised to see the sadness there, despite our previous coupling. “I love you,” he whispered earnestly while a few stray tears fell from the corners of his lovely brown eyes.

[feralphoenix]

best of 2016

i actually did write some things other than undertale this year, but this top 10 is undertale all the way down.

01. love does not make me gentle or kind (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, ensemble); February

And so this is how—Sans bossing you every step of the way—you wrap both your hands around Papyrus’ middle and carefully, carefully lift them up into the air. Judging by the squealing and wild waggling of tiny fists and bootied feet that ensues—that and Sans’ laughter—Papyrus is enjoying it too. You can’t help it—you start to grin.

“Nyooooom,” you croon, gently making Papyrus “fly” around you and Sans while the skeleton siblings both laugh. “Nyoooooooooom.”

You swivel your waist, still making zooming noises and grinning like an idiot—and there, in the doorway between the living room and foyer, is Chara: Standing still with one hand on the wall, with an expression you’ve never seen them wear before. There’s something raw and burning in their eyes, intense enough to give you chills even though there’s no anger or hostility there at all. They reach up to clench their left fist around the locket that sits golden and glowing against the black yarn of their sweater, and they never look away from your eyes even once.

As you bring Papyrus back down to sit in your lap, Chara startles a little and turns to their left. Prase is there, one pale hand on their left shoulder, shaking their long orange hair back. They ask something, so quiet that even you can’t hear them, and Chara makes a face and signs something to them. Prase signs something back. Chara wrinkles their nose and starts to smile. Both of them begin to laugh.

All the happy bubbles in your stomach from playing with the baby pop, leaving something sour in their wake.

a four-years-later followup to somebody out there needs you. the previous fic was a portrait of the repercussions of this series’ premise for chara, so this one focuses on what the far-reaching repercussions are for asriel and how he’s grown. the main plot revolves around chara trying to take a few steps towards independence and asriel, who over the past eight years has formed big chunks of his identity around being their caretaker, balking Very inelegantly.

at the time i remember this being very controversial characterization for asriel, lmao... but i like to depict the ugly parts of codependency to really show how unhealthy it is for everyone involved. expanding the worldbuilding for this series, and further developing the soul ocs who appear (prase and rufus), were also really fun.

02. don’t you let the thunder in (Undertale - Frisk & Chara, Toriel, the Player); February

They skip across the cracked-floor puzzle in light steps that don’t match their usual careful gait and they breathlessly hum Toriel’s old lullaby and they miss all the exact same pitches and it’s too much, it’s too much.

What’s wrong? they think at you. Their concern and uncertainty seep syrupy and horrible into all the wounded parts of you and it’s only then that you realize your helpless panic and rage must be bleeding into them the same way.

You want to tell them nothing but it’s too raw and you can’t, so: You scream instead, curl up and rage. You’d cover your ears if you were corporeal, if you had a hope of blocking them out. Stop looking, you howl. Cry. You want to throw things and stomp your feet and punch the wall and grab something sharp and slam it through your brain. Frisk flinches. You want claws so that you can dig them into wherever your minds connect and tear yourself away.

I’m sorry, they say, and they’re miserable and you’re miserable and you hate it, you hate it. I’m not doing it on purpose.

Figure out a way to STOP doing it! you shriek at them. You’re aware that you’re not helping, that in general it’s not going to do any good to throw a tantrum like a ten-year-old, but—but you ARE just a ten-year-old. So are they. You’re just a couple of stupid kids. It’s funny. It’s just—so funny.

a fic that i wrote for a friend on the premise of frisk and chara’s bodysharing/soul link also involving mindsharing, and the difficulty in drawing and maintaining boundaries. the same friend wanted to see a little more work involving the player as a neutral or benevolent entity, since undertale players irl aren’t uniformly evil but it’s really rare to see the player appear in fic except as the Ultimate Badguy(tm) or as a self-insert in sans/reader fics.

anyway, i alternated perspectives to show how the weird mind meld is hard for both kids, and the little hints about how they might work it out to something more beneficial and symbiotic in the future.

03. the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, Chara & Asgore, ensemble); March

“If—it wouldn’t be imposing,” you begin, and falter. Take another deep breath. Let it out. “I want to learn how to fight, too. Will you teach me?”

Asriel’s eyes go wide, his expression blank and shocked—but behind him, Asgore breaks out into a wide, proud smile.

“Of course I will teach you, my child,” he says, every word filled with warmth. “I would be more than happy to help you learn to defend yourself.”

Your hands shake a little as you breathe out, relieved. “I’m sorry,” you tell him. “I know that I’m not—very strong to begin with, and there will be difficulties because of my problems with mobility, but—”

“There are ways to compensate for those things,” Asgore says. “If this is what you want, then we will find the methods that work for you.”

Your vision blurs, for a moment. The smile that steals across your face is shaky, probably ungainly and too-wide—it feels so much more natural than the contained expressions you’ve learned to produce for the sake of interacting with strangers. But the birdsong and sunlight in your chest make you feel warm and weightless, and you don’t care, you don’t care; finally, you have a place to start.

Asriel pushes back from the table in a great scrape of wood on wood, erupting from his chair and rising to his full height.

“No,” he says.

Your heart seems to—stop in your chest, for just a moment.

“I beg your pardon,” you say.

this one is a three-years-later followup to love does not (listed above). i wanted to follow up on the events that the previous fic had set in motion, with chara’s desire for change vs asriel’s fear of it. since asriel was a very unreliable narrator in love does not (and chara was also pretty unreliable in somebody out there needs you), from chara’s adult perspective we get a clearer picture of the ways that asriel’s overprotectiveness and control issues are harmful.

unfucking codependent fuckhell continues to be a cherished hobby. it was also a lot of fun to write the combat training scenes here and start to build groundwork for improving chara’s relationship with toriel too.

04. like ships had come home in me (Undertale - Frisk & Chara & Flowey, ensemble); April

One of the interesting things that’s happened as a result of monsters rejoining the surface world is that there’s been a great surge of interest in “retro” things from the humans who’ve welcomed them. Up until Alphys fixed up all kinds of new gadgets and appliances for everyone, at least, all monsters had to use of technology was whatever humans had thrown away and made it into the Waterfall dump in one piece. Sympathetic humans have helped the monsters get used to new technology, but monsters’ familiarity with old things makes them exotic in the eyes of young people.

This especially goes for entertainment. You’d guessed as much from Alphys’ Mew Mew obsession, but sometimes all the monsters could scrounge of human media was decades old—while everyone was more than happy to try out new things too, they still had a lot of love for everything they’d enjoyed in the underground. This brought old human fans out of the woodwork, and made new ones out of monster sympathizers, and, well.

Somehow or other this led to the revitalization of some things that were still new when Chara had fallen into the underground a hundred years ago. The old multiplayer game about squids fighting over territory with paint, for one.

“You think of this as new,” Chara says with despairing fondness, “but I never got to play this kind of stuff when I was alive. I was never allowed to have my own video games! Ree was, but he had, like, this ancient SNES and that was it.”

“Hey, shut up,” Flowey interjects from your lap. “You had fun with it. I know you did.”

“Once I got over my perfectly reasonable disgust that you thought Super Mario was the cool new game in 2015,” Chara says archly. And to you: “We found an N64 a couple months before we… y’know. He cried.”

this piece mostly started out as a way to explore the flowey-joining-everyone-on-the-surface concept because this angle on his characterization isn’t something i see very often in that context (or, uh, any other). the story winds up following two narratives - the trio’s adventures on the surface in the year after breaking the barrier, and also how flowey and chara sort of “came out” to everyone about their true identities, for lack of a better term.

it’s all mostly positive postcanon stuff with some wistful things and (naturally, because it’s me) trauma recovery-related content too, and i think it came out pretty solid.

05. a wish you tell a star and no one else (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, Asriel & Alphys, ensemble); May

Heat rushes into your face and chest, and you curl up like you’re a kid again—too shy to try to break down the barriers of politeness and status between you and your subjects yourself, and with no one willing to break them down for you except for Chara, who came from a place where your status never meant anything. “I guess,” you say.

They curl up next to you, shaky. You wonder what it is they’re holding in. The desire to order you not to talk to Alphys anymore, maybe, or a plea that you not leave them alone. It’s so weird, being in this position, after all the time you spent terrified that Chara would be the one to leave you for all their new friends.

It’s also weirdly embarrassing, watching Chara at least try to keep jealousy and anxiety buttoned in, when you were such a mess about it for such a long time. To teenage you’s credit, it’s probably easier to do when you have a lot of friends and you’re twenty-five, versus being fourteen and suddenly having to fight with the very human who’d scared your partner half to death for their attention.

But you’re gratified too: That they value your attention and affection so much to fear losing it, and that they respect you enough to urge you to do what might make you happy instead of clinging.

So you wrap your arms around them and hug them tight to your chest, closing your eyes and resting your chin atop their head again. “Thanks for encouraging me,” you tell them. And, after a pause: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Chara doesn’t say I know or try to joke. Instead, they make fists on your sweater and tremble a little, and they say “thank you” in a voice so tiny you almost don’t hear it over your father and Innig’s footsteps off in the middle of the garden.

a four-years-later followup to the subtle difference (listed above). this fic returns to asriel’s perspective, following a number of various plot threads - his upcoming coronation, the need to find a new royal scientist, his first friendship aside from chara and their social circle, and his attempts to propose to chara. it was a very ambitious story and covers a lot of character development on asriel’s part that was a long time in coming for this series.

doing the asriel+alphys friendship was unexpectedly fun and rewarding. they’re not characters i see written as friends very often, and the setup for this series allows them to have a very different dynamic from canon.

06. you in your veil and your pale white dress (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, ensemble); July

It’s good to be curled up half on Asriel’s lap and with your legs bent up over Prase’s, your toes on Undyne’s jeans. You have your pizza boxes propped on your own lap where they belong, topped with tomato sauce and substitute pepperoni and steamed peppers and none of that awful cheese; everyone else’s pizzas are more or less free-for-alls, with only yours and Liron’s clearly labeled in bold marker, since the others’ food generally has things that neither of you can eat.

You’re hungry from more or less skipping lunch earlier, you’re relaxed and sleepy from your afternoon spent messing around with Asriel, and as noisy as everybody is, it’s very calming to be here, amongst a friendly press of bodies—amongst people you like and whom you know are safe. Your and Asriel’s work is important, but it’s draining, so these chances to kick back are very valuable.

“Anyway, what are we going to watch tonight?” you ask. “I know we agreed on Sailor Moon last time, but I don’t think I’m quite steady enough for arguing with Alphys over whether the nineties adaptation or the reboot is better.” You having been introduced to the series by reading the manga at the library and her first finding it through someone’s discarded box set of the first anime, your opinions on the subject are very different. Debating it can be fun, especially since you do agree that you’ve got the right to think how you want even if you’re both pretty sure the other is dead wrong, but it can be stressful if one or both of you have brittle nerves.

Alphys, who understands this even if her anime opinions are occasionally incorrect, grins and shrugs, nodding. “Th-that’s fair, I think,” she says. “D-does anyone else have requests?”

a five-years-later followup to a wish you tell a star (listed above). it mostly deals with the separate plot threads of wedding preparations, the current state of chara’s recovery, and chara making friends with astis over the book kitchen and sharing food. aside from the literary references part of the plot, there’s a lot of discussion of chara’s past trauma and their frustration with growing up nonwhite & marginalized in a very white area with no connection to their cultural heritage.

this fic also happens to be a nice example of a plot that flagrantly disobeys the western conflict-centric model. i got a lot of confused and/or curious comments from people who didn’t know how the story still works and is entertaining despite its lack of overt conflict sources/things going wrong or getting worse. i don’t know whether to be smug about this or despondent that the conflict model is the only one western education will ever touch.

07. under my skin, there will be flowers (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, Yellow Soul Human); September

“Chara, when we talked about this earlier… you said you meant to… to destroy your whole village, when we were kids. I dunno... I don’t think your feelings, the hatred and resentment that made you want to do that, are bad or wrong. But I’m still glad that I was able to stop you, because taking people’s lives away is… it’s a really serious thing. It’s bad, you shouldn’t do it unless you have no other choice.

“I stopped you then. I… Chara, you’ve made it this far without ever gaining any LOVE. Wouldn’t it be great if you could avoid that now, too?”

“It would be,” you agree. “It would be great if there’s a way to end this with no one killing and no one being killed. But just like you acknowledged yourself, there are some situations where you don’t have a choice. You’ve hypothesized that that’s how it may even have been for the human, haven’t you?”

Asriel huffs. “Well, yeah, but.”

“If the situation arises where it’s kill or be killed,” you say, gentle as you can, “I will kill. Because if it’s her life or your life, your life is more important. To me—to the whole underground. I won’t let you die, Ree. If the only way I can keep you alive is to kill someone, I’ll do it. I can live with that. I know it may not sit easy on your conscience. You’re a better person than me, after all. But even if it makes you hate me, I won’t let you die.”

Your voice wavers only a little on that last sentence. Asriel holds you tighter.

“I won’t hate you,” he says, soft and velvet. His nose presses against the crown of your head. “After all the talking I did about how having LOVE doesn’t automatically make somebody evil… golly, I’d be such a hypocrite to. I’d still love you no matter how much LOVE you gained, even if you did really bad things—the kinds of things I couldn’t forgive. I’m always going to love you, Chara. That was the choice we made—all the years we’ve put into this.”

a four-years-later followup to you in your veil (listed above). whereas the previous fic had no conflict, this story is very tightly focused around conflict: how to prevent the new violent human from killing anyone, and also the friction between chara and asriel over methods. plus the fact that something’s definitely fucky here.

this fic was fun to do because the setup is basically playing undertale but from the defensive side - chara and asriel remain in new home where asgore is in canon, and spend most of the story directing their deputies, planning, and arguing about those plans while holly progresses through the underground.

although this fic ought to have been asriel pov based on the alternating pattern i set up, this story is really chara’s, no way around it. so i gave asriel the pov for ycouyo 6.5 instead (lmao) and let chara take center stage where they belonged.

08. the first shoots of green after a wildfire (Undertale - Flowey, Chara); September

The human child emerges into the light. They’re wearing clothes he doesn’t recognize—jeans heavily stained in dirt, orange-and-yellow striped hoodie with a cutesy leaf pattern on the sleeves. They’re shouldering a heavy-looking black backpack. Their hair’s in the same rough bowl cut as it was when he last saw them, and they don’t seem to have grown much. Their eyes are still hooded in the bright light pouring from the hole above him, but he can see slivers of red iris beneath their protectively lowered eyelids.

Flowey thinks about saying something rude and nasty to make them go away, and a little to see what it will make them do, little to no hope though there might be of getting pacifistic Frisk to lash out and end his miserable existence for him. Then he sighs and droops. “Do you seriously not have anything better to do?” he asks. It comes out sounding whiny.

They trudge stoically up and start shrugging out of their backpack, setting it down at the edge of the golden flowers that mark Chara’s grave. It clanks. If there’s a flowerpot and a trowel or something in there, he will scream and hide in the soil for a million years.

“C’mon, Frisk,” he says with a sigh. “I told you already—I don’t want to subject everybody else to some accident of science that’s missing his love and compassion glands. I’m fine with this.” He is a lying sack of shit, but this isn’t at all new. “Go home. Go be with the people who love you.”

“Frisk can’t come to the phone right now,” they say, a little flat and a lot sarcastic, and Flowey feels some phantom jolt in the vicinity of where his heart would be if he were still a monster.

i got the idea for post soulless pacifist chara trying to make things up to flowey using the only method the player has ever taught them (i.e. indiscriminate acts of violence) and it was just so awful and wrenchingly sad that i had to write it.

doing flowey’s pov for the first time was a fun way to flex my characterization skills, and this is one of only a very small handful of undertale fics i’ve done in third person.

09. to rest in crypts and wake in gardens (Undertale - Chara/Asriel, Frisk & Chara & Asriel, ensemble); September - November

“You’ve—fallen down, haven’t you,” they say, and take a step closer. “Are you all right?”

You shrug a little. Where are we? you sign, not thinking. I didn’t think anyone lived on the mountain.

“Oh,” they say again, eyebrows raising. And—so quickly that you can hardly believe it’s happening—they raise their own hands and sign along as they reply, “Technically, no one does. These caves are inside Mt. Ebott, not on them, and they’re certainly populated.”

I can hear, you sign back, stupidly, rudely, because that’s definitely what you need to say to someone who’s courteous enough to reply in the same language instead of being mean to you when they see you trying to communicate. You flush so badly that your ears feel scalded. Sorry, you add feebly.

The person actually smiles a little as they drop their gaze. “That’s all right,” they say, and then look back up at you hastily. “I didn’t want to assume either way, and now I know.” They rub at their upper arm in what you think might be self-consciousness, and then reach the same hand up to squeeze their pendant. “I am Chara,” they say, and then they finger-spell C-H-A-R-A for you, and show you a sign you don’t know: It looks like the sign for knife but in reverse, their right index finger sweeping towards their chest instead of towards you. It has to be their name sign. They make it a second time, and this time you repeat it. They smile again. “That’s very good. What do you like to be called?”

You spell F-R-I-S-K for them, and follow it up with the name sign you chose for yourself—an F with your right hand tapped twice over your chest in the same place as the sign for heart.

Chara mimics you, getting the sign right on their first try. “Frisk?” they ask, and they smile when you nod. “And what pronouns do you prefer?”

The relief that rushes over you when they ask this is as tangible as if someone has wrapped you up in a warm blanket and given you a tall glass of strawberry milk. They, you tell them, smiling.

This time they grin. “Will you look at that, we match,” they say.

a four-years-later followup to there will be flowers (listed above). this story shifts to frisk’s perspective as we follow them from their fall into mt. ebott through their adventures exploring the underground, guided and assisted by both chara and asriel. this allows for both an examination of the smaller changes in the world that have been created by this au’s setup, and for a comparison with the canon neutral/pacifist storyline of undertale.

i’d planned for this scenario literally before i wrote the second fic in this ‘verse, so it was really rewarding to finally get to write it. i originally planned to post it all at once, but it became so long that i had to split it up into chapters by area...

10. remember weather by the voice of the wheel (Undertale - Frisk/Chara/Asriel); December

You’re not old enough to buy things online yet, so you pull your mother aside late at night when Chara is in the shower and Frisk is upstairs. “I can pay you back for these later, I think,” you say quietly just in case, “but Frisk and Chara have been really miserable this year and I want us to have some nice memories of the holidays too, dang it.”

She doesn’t chastise you for saying “dang”; she just lifts your phone to give it a look herself, producing her reading glasses to appraise the pages more closely.

“This is very thoughtful of you, my son,” she says at last. “I would be happy to help procure these gifts. And—because I know that they are quite expensive—I would also be happy to negotiate a few extra chores in place of part of the price, if you would like.”

There were several timelines when you had the entire supply of gold in the underground to yourself. While in many ways you’re relieved to just be the prince instead of an aberration with godly time-warping powers, having to go through Mom or Dad for your allowance is not one of them. You sigh so that she’ll know how very put-upon you are, and that you’re deliberately choosing to be Mature when you say “Okay, Mom.”

return of the son of frisk and chara are jewish because i say so, the end, so there!!! it would be nice to start a tradition of hanukkah stories for every year i’m still writing undertale...

anyway this wound up being... mostly a story about trying to enjoy the holidays and find a way to keep your head up even when times are tough, both in a general sense (microaggressions) and a personal one (the kids’ various traumas).