the_isle | Don't Be Afraid To Be Who You Are

Don't Be Afraid To Be Who You Are - Isle Side

The Rain Rain Rain Came Down Down Down

Just over a week after the Isle visit people would find themselves drawn outside. The weather was finally getting warmer, but that wasn't all of it. A strange foul smelling - and fairly toxic - mold had begun growing in some of the classrooms. Thankfully not the ones where people were sleeping but it was still enough to make it unpleasant to remain indoors. Some might blame the growth of the mold on a certain obsessive compulsive cleaner, though others might say that he just discovered it and accidentally gave it access to oxygen and such.

Whichever the reason, sleeping outside for a few days was sounding like a better and better plan with every passing minute. Even the drizzling weather couldn't make the indoors terribly appealing for anyone with a sense of smell.

And it was over night on one such night that the rain was... different. Warmer and a bit tingly. And some people would awaken quite a bit older than when they fell asleep, perhaps. Their memories might have caught up with their age, or might come to them slowly. However it happens, there might be some very confusing moments as those who seemed to be young just a moment before are now... less so.

Gift In Time Gift In Time Nary A Reason Nary A Rhyme Gift In Time!

Weirdly, there was something good to come not long after the rain. In addition to aging some folks up, it also seemed to wash away the worst of the mold, allowing people to return indoors once more. And each of them would find, soon after, in some place that they considered theirs... a small gift. It was rare that positive things happened on the Isle, but perhaps this was a sign of things to come.

Or perhaps even a broken clock is right once in a blue moon...

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"Ah, yeah..." Ian took a deep breath. "Keeping in mind that in my world Chara is a video game character and not a real person so there may be some differences... And also... The game gives us very little directly, and most is given through implication so a lot of what I 'know'..." They used air quotes there "is strongly supported theory. So like Margaritaville, take this with your whole long lost shaker of salt."

Ian, just because you were the music anchor of your trivia team back home does not mean someone else from another world has clue one what you are talking about. Of course, finding out there are certain songs Foulques does not know might register as an actual crime to Ian... Or at least lead to them getting horribly of topic.

Foulques quirked an eyebrow at yet another obscure reference, but opted not to ask just then. Doing so would likely lead them off on a tangent, and while he couldn't deny he was curious, there was business to attend to. "Tis still likely more than I know," he said. "And mildly questionable information is better than none at all."

"Alright. Well..." Ian considered where to start. "What we get about Chara comes from two places, flashbacks... and subtext. The flashbacks are the easier part, but most of those are from after Chara fell into the Underground. A family called the Dreemurs took Chara in. They were King Asgore, Queen Toriel, and their child Asriel. They took the child in and took good care of the child. And as near as we could tell, Chara was happy there. We see some brief moments of Chara and Asriel's childhood together. Goofing around, being kids. Mostly playing with a camera. Then we hear from Asriel later that the reason Chara fell down the mountain probably wasn't a very good one. Asriel by the time the game ends on what they call the pacifist run is desperately trying to see the player character, Frisk, as Chara. It is... honestly kind of heartbreaking. Because we also get the story of... well..." a hesitation. "Of how Chara and Asriel... died."

They waited, watching to see the reaction. Worried that was news.

Foulques nodded. "That much, I know," he said. "Chara arrived here from what would have been the moment of their death. I've learned some of their time with the Dreemurs and of the circumstances of both their and their adopted brother's deaths."

He sighed. "Twas an act done out of genuine love and childish innocence, but it was that same innocence that doomed it. They sought, by their act of sacrifice, to break the seal on the monsters' underground realm, yet they did not understand the consequences that such a thing might bring about. Thus two young lives were needlessly lost- or would have been, had Chara not been brought here-, and it seems, the seeds of future tragic events sown."

"There... are some theories that it was less innocent. Here is where theory mixes with what is said outright. But it is accepted by a number of fans that Chara... had been abused by their human family, and that they fell down Mount Ebott in a suicide attempt. And that Chara... knew that the plan would mean that Asriel would have to kill a number of humans to break the shield, and that the mistake wasn't failing to understand the consequences of dead humans but failing to understand that it wasn't in Asriel to kill people. Asriel failed to understand that as well for what it is worth. And ironically... after death that hesitation to kill would... vanish. Neither child gets to just rest after death and... things get dark. Very dark. And given it tarted with child abuse and an attempt at suicide... I feel obligated to give a trigger warning before I continue."

Foulques almost snorted at the warning, but refrained, as it was given in good faith and would likely have been needed by many. "I thank you for your warning, but the cruelties that the world and the people in it can perpetrate have long since ceased to shock me," he said. "Anger me, perhaps, but not shock."

"And I can unfortunately confirm some of what you suspect. Sun noticed certain things about them, and told me that as his task was to mind children, he was obliged to report any suspicions of abuse to the authorities; I suppose I was the nearest thing available. And moreover, I have seen some of the scars on their body, though I suspect they're unaware of this. No doubt they thought they were being quite stealthy, but children generally think they are much more so than they are."

"As to their innocence, it was meant in the sense that both they and their adopted brother were too young to truly understand death and killing. What it takes from those that strike the blow... and those that are left behind. Though in living through the act, I fear they are learning the latter at some great cost, in part thanks to the visions they witnessed."

"I.... want to hear about those later," Ian said, then gave a small head shake. "Asriel couldn't bear to kill anyone and decided instead to lay Chara to rest in a patch of their favorite yellow flowers. But humans saw only what looked to them like a monster, carrying a child they presumed the monster had killed. Asriel managed to get back Underground, but died of the wounds. Monsters, when they die, don't leave bodies. They turn to dust."

Ian took a deep breath. "So the King and Queen's last memories of their children were Asriel turning to dust over Chara's body. They buried Chara, and.... Things broke from there. The king, Asgore, was full of fury. He wanted revenge on the humans, he wanted to get to the surface and kill them all. The Queen, Toriel... she wasn't like that could never be like that. They divorced and split up. And sadly... things got worse."

"In the middle of this, the king hired a new Royal Scientist for... reasons that frankly are another whole story. The new Scientist, Alphys, was tasked with experimenting with a thing called Determination. Asgore was sure that Determination was what was behind Human's ability to persist after death. Because, like I said, Monsters turn to dust when they die. Even their heart doesn't linger. Except for Boss Monsters. But Human Hearts, Human... Souls... persist, and can be captured. The King decided it was down to Determination and that it could be somehow harvested. The scary thing was that he was right in a way. The scarier thing was that it worked. The scariest thing though was Alphys' first test subject. A small dust covered yellow flower..."

Ian took a breath, there was only so much they could delay this.

"Alphys doused the flower in the Determination serum and it came to life. Confused disoriented. The flower... was what little remained of Asriel Dreemur, mixed with the flower and Determination. At first Asriel tried going back to the Dreemurs. But something soon became obvious. Through no intended malice... It was more than Asriel's body that was gone. Asriel's ability to love was gone as well. And Asriel was suffering. Finally the flower... tried to end itself," said softly. "It worked... and it didn't. Asriel woke up in the lab again. With Alphys shocked that the experiment had worked."

A deep breath, a hand ran through their head.

"Time had reset. And the only one who remembered... was Asriel. Asriel was trapped in an unending loop, unable to love. Unable to die. Desperate to feel... to feel anything... Asriel started doing more and more extreme things. Moved from self harm to trying to help others. But every time it started again it was the same questions, the same requests, and there was no satisfaction from helping. In fact the only things Flowey, as Asriel now called themself, could feel... curiosity, pain, frustration. So one time through Flowey... killed someone. And everything changed with the death. But then it all reset again. So Flowey tried killing everyone. Tried killing just some people. Desperate to feel Flowey tried every extreme thing he - because somewhere in there he began identifying as male - he could think of. Being kind being mean healing helping... none of it... did anything. Everything was the same. Over and over. Every time."

Another breath. "Until one day there was a change. A child fell down. As Chara had once fallen down. And suddenly Flowey could no longer reset things at a whim. He no longer had the highest Determination in the Underground. The new child did. And this.... is where things get really weird."

"I suspected as much regarding Asriel's initial fate," he said. "It could have looked no other way to the humans that encountered them. As for the rest... it fits with the little we saw in the visions, though I find the mechanics of all the time manipulation baffling. I believe we saw this 'Flowey' as well in one of the visions."

And true to what he'd said before, though Foulques' expression was grim, he didn't seem surprised. "As for this other child, I suspect that they would be the one we saw in the visions as well, though I suspect that here is where the path diverges somewhat." He gestured for Ian to go on.

Ian nodded. Well, like I said weird. Confusing. Most games have a single set path. Like reading a novel. or driving down a series of one way streets, or getting on the bus. The enjoyment is simply the journey. But this game had branching paths and as the player your choices matter. And there are three main paths the player can take. The easiest one in a lot of ways is the Pacifist run. Most video games where you play a human faced with monsters the only choices are kill the monsters or die. But in Uhndertale you could choose to befriend the Monsters instead. You... or rather the player character Frisk, befriends Toriel, explores the Underground, makes friends and allies, convinces even Undyne who is one of the most anti-human pro-Asgore monsters in the Underground. Frisk wins through, gets back out to the Outside world but then... Flowey isn't done playing yet, wants more time desperately, convinces Frisk to use Determination to rewind back to make one small change that... changes everything. This time when Frisk finishes everyone, even Asgore is there cheering the kid on. But while they are all distracted with sappy goodbyes, Flowey steals the Human Souls Asgore had been collecting, knowing that with Frisk, that's the last Soul he needs to break the barrier. Unclear if that is because it was Chara's dream or because it is just something new, or what... but..." Ian shrugged and shifted position. "The Flowey Photoshop battle is one of the weirdest things in all of gaming. With all the Souls Flowey now has the greater Determination and uses it to prove that what he really wants... is for Frisk to stay and play with him forever. Part of him is still that scared lonely child desperate to remember what feeling love is like. Um lowercase love, uppercase Love is something else. But... Wait... no. Sorry. It has ben a while. That's the Neutral ending. Sorry. That's the ending where you kill some Monsters and spare others. It has been... a while."

Ian got up paced a bit, then sat back down. "Pacifist ending is where Flowey transforms himself into... well I mean... he's still clearly still a trapped angry desperate child in either one. His big villain name... Asriel Dreemurr, God Of Hyperdeath. Yeah.... even I wasn't that dramatic as a child. Close, though," Ian said holding two fingers slightly apart in the air. "Anyway, you win that battle by reminding all your friends you made in the Underground... well, Frisk does... about all the fun you had together, to free them. But then you face just Asriel and the memories... aren't Frisk's. They're Charas. And here is where weird gets weirder and where it leads into the worst end."

A deep breath. "This would be so much easier with a coffee. Alright so... the reason Frisk has access to Chara's memories in those final moments, when the kid needs them most... goes into something very heavily implied but never outright stated. That Chara's spirit fixated on Frisk when the kid fell down, and the narrator we have all game... is Chara explaining things to Frisk. When Frisk uses Chara's memories to calm Asriel down.... Asriel uses the Souls to shatter the barrier for everyone. If you choose to go back into the Underground before going to the end game you can find Asriel, as Asriel again. Back near their old home. Back near Chara's grave. And you as Frisk have a choice, condemn Asriel for everything he did as Flowey... or forgive him. You don't know peer pressure until you hear a whole stream cheering 'hug the goat', so yeah, most players forgive Asriel, and give him a hug as Frisk. They get to talk about Chara already, mostly stuff I already went over. Though Asriel does... say a few things he probably wouldn't have said if he knew Chara could hear him to be honest and.... and if they rally are real people I probably should keep my peace there."

A deep breath.

"But that's Pacifist and Neutral. Genocide.... Genocide is the harder one, and it is where we see more of Chara, but I suspect not Chara as you know them now." Ian hesitated, not certain Foulques would want to hear this. Not certain it was avoidable. Or even wise to avoid it.

Foulques listened, mostly just nodding at appropriate points to show that he was listening an paying attention. The mention of Undine brought a bit of an amused smirk to his lips however. "That does sound like a name only a child would come up with yes," he said dryly. "And Chara's mentioned Undine to me before. Apparently, they believe that she and I should get married and that I should father her children, based, essentially, on the fact that we both use polearms and tend to be mildly irascible. Needless to say, I refused, though tis a good thing that I wasn't drinking anything at the time."

His expression soon shifted back to something more solemn, however. "I likely would forgive him myself," he said. "I would be blatant hypocrite if I didn't; my own hands are far from clean, and I have far less excuse than a lost and desperate child. As for 'Genocide', the name alone implies a grim tale, and I suspect is the potential future the visions hinted at. Tis highly doubtful that Chara would take- or condone- such a path knowing what they now know, but tis till better to hear it in full, I think; hiding from darkness does nothing to prevent it."

"Chara.... is a real world shipper? That... is perhaps information I never needed to have," the admitted, shaking their head.

But to the rest, Ian took a deep breath. "We've.... all done things we regret," they muttered, looking at their own hands. "If the visions I saw myself were any indication with what I now know... they were probably true flashes of the future. And the Genocide run is... a grim future indeed." Ian took another long breath then looked up and began once more.

"I mentioned before that there is a theory that Chara's spirit was the narrator. The Genocide run provides some strong evidence for it, especially when contrasted to the narration in the Pacifist run. Some of it is small things, Alphys has a half bag of dog food in the lab. In Pacafit, the narration says the bag is half full. In Geno, half empty. When looking at stuff around Chara and Asriel's home, in Pacafist the narrator describes things like 'and a pink, hand-knit sweater that says Mr Dad Guy', but in Geno... there is nothing in places like that other than a few dots to imply an intentional silence. Ah... intentional on behalf of Toby Fox, the game dev, not on behalf of Chara. That is generally accepted that Chara is just too upset to speak."

"Taking the Chara is the narrator theory, we se pretty clearly that the early kills confuse an horrify Chara. Especially Toriel's death...." They shook their head before continuing. "The breaking point however seems to be when the player character murders Undyne. It is perhaps the second hardest combat in a Geno run, and how she gets the nickname Undyne the Undying. Because several times she holds herself together through sheer Determination to keep fighting. And don't think the irony of that isn't lost on me, given Alphys is the one studying determination. Oh, if it helps, Udyne would almost certainly have fun challenging you and sparring with you and I could see you as friends... but... Let's just say you aren't her type. Her type happens to be Alphys. In fact there is this...."

Ian stopped dead a moment, jaw dropping open as something hit them.

"Wait... wait. Just.... if Chara and them are actually real then...." Sorry give them a moment they're shell shocked.

"UNDYNE WAS RIGHT ABOUT ANIME?!"

Sorry, Ian.exe has stalled.

"If a 'shipper' in this case is something akin to a matchmaker, rather than someone who transports goods, then yes, apparently they are," he said. "Albeit an amusingly childish one. Children, it seems, will be children, no matter the world."

His brief amusement at Chara's childish notions regarding love and marriage faded quickly as Ian continued, his expression turning especially grim at the mention of Toriel's death. That cemented it then. What they'd seen was indeed glimpses of this dark potential future. He was considering how to reply, when all of a sudden, Ian's mind seemed to turn in a completely new and... odd direction.

"I may regret asking this," he said, "but what, pray tell, is 'anime', and why is her being right about its nature so alarming?"

"Remind me to come back to that after or we could wind up down a tangental rabbit hole that will take us away from what you need to know to help Chara."

Foulques nodded. "Very well," he said. Though privately, he thought that it might be much later, depending on how the conversation went. "Let us move on then. You said that the murder of Undyne was the breaking point?" There had been a bit more, but her relationship with Alphys struck him as being irrelevant to their discussion.

Ian nodded. "If you accept the Chara is narrator theory... then it becomes clear to see a turning point then. Chara is nearly silent during that fight, resistant. But when Undyine turns to dust... Chara seems to start to change after that point. Rather than getting more and more pessimistic and withdrawn as had happened so far... the narration seems to urge the player on more and more to keep killing. Again it is subtle... well... until Flowey it is subtle."

This... was hard. Emotionally as well as difficult to remember. Ian hadn't revisited anything to do with Undertale in ages, except to poke at Deltarune a bit.

"When the player character is fighting King Asgore in a Geno, before the player can finish him off... Flowey kills him. Now there was a bit at the beginning of the fight where Asgore told the player character that a little yellow flower warned him. We even get the line 'What kind odmonster are you, I'm sorry, I can't tell'... Which in the larger context is interesting and if we were discussing Flowey or Asgore directly we could probably deep dive that. But... when Flowey kills Asgore just before the player can... Flowey is desperate, almost pleading. Saying he did it to help you... you being the player, promising he never betrayed the player and pleading for his life. Now this next part I have to take on hearsay because I honestly never had the heart to finish a Geno run. But apparently the player character then murder Flowey, no matter what the player holding the controller tries to do. And where all other deaths are finished in a single slash... Flowey is brutally diced up in one of the closest things to actual gore the game ever shows. I'd have to go back and look, but I can't recall off the top of my had any time we see any monster bleed expect Flowey and Sans in Geno."

Did... they have copy of Undertale installed? That could be useful if... no. Right. The Elden Ring patch had needed more space and this was the travel system...

"Anyway... It only gets worse from there. And there is a whole thing that is now disturbing in a whole new way knowing Sans is actually real where Sans absolutely breaks the 4th wall. Well... okay end game Sans always did, but not as badly as in Geno. Sans explains that normal video game terms like Level and EXP have different meanings here. In a regular game you get EXP or XP as you proceed through the game and it stands for experience points. The theory is that you learn and get stronger as you progress, again in most games that's by killing Monsters. In Undertale that much is the same. You get zero EXP in Pacifist. And in normal games when you get a certain amount of XP you level up, your level number gets higher and so do a lot of your stats. You'll get stronger, have more hit points so it takes more damage to kill you, gain new abilities. In most games you want to go up levels as fast as you can. What Sans explains however..."

Ian really really wished they had a coffee. Or a week to replay and deep dive Youtube and Reddit and a few other sources. But this was all they had.

"Sans explains that here, EXP stands for Execution Points. Which, I mean... fair. LV which players presumed meant level til that point is needlessly complicated, because it actually stands for LOVE. Which itself stands for... Levels Of Violence. And you have no idea how much I wish I was making that up. Anyway, the theory behind why you still get more LV when you hit certain EXP thresholds is that it is, again as of this game, I am not and have never been a psychology major, that the more you kill the easier it is to keep killing. Kind of the bloodier version of if all you have is a hammer everything starts to look like a nail. There were other acronyms in the game that mostly don't matter here, except this one theory I read on reddit one time that theorized that HP wasn't hit points but Hope. And that you die when you are out of HP because you need hope to live, and honestly I kind of like that theory."

"Anyway, so Sans then gives one of the most quoted lines in the game. Basically saying how nice it is out and how on a beautiful day like today he's going to absolutely kill you. I have no clue how h'd react on a neutral run if his brother was one of the ones he killed cause I've found conflicting sources and was never able to bring myself to kill Papyrus, and all things considered with what I know now, I am extraordinarily grateful that I got too emotionally invested in the lives of little 8 bit graphics characters to kill most of them... Anyway... So Sans gives his little speech and the undeniably best scored and hardest to win fight in the game begins. And Sans just stomps all over all game tropes for how boss battles are played. Like he attacks with his strongest attack right out of the gate. And then is exhausted by it and comments on maybe that's why it is usually held back for the end. He only has 1 HP but he is nearly impossible to actually hit. He taunts you the whole time... I watched other people play this fight and even having no stakes in it myself it was beyond intense. Helps that the fight also has the best music in the whole game. I might actually even still have a copy on my phone."

Wait, were they misrecalling the order? Well, too late now.

"There is a way to beat Sans eventually. He's figured out that every time he kills the player character, the character's determination is so strong that they reset to the beginning of the fight. And can I just ay for the record how both creepy and cool it is that Sans is aware of this? Like Flowey makes sense. Asgore... there are hints that he maybe gets it, but Sans? Out right spells it out. And says that he decided that given that the best way to beat you is to just... stop. Stop fighting. Because he taps into the game logic and does something that would never work if this wasn't a turn based game. He sits down and refuses to take his turn, because if he doesn't attack you, if he doesn't act.. you're stuck, the game can't go on. And he plans to just keep you there for eternity. Or, you know until you decide killing him isn't worth it and you shut down the game, walk away and leave him alone in the empty barren Underground. This game can get dark on so many levels. And I don't mean of violence."

"The way to beat him is actually real world determination. You have to wait him out while trying to do anything for... I don't remember how long, but a while. He eventually falls asleep and you can inch your small character box over to the attack button. Which I mean, if you had grown up playing games you would have some idea of how seriously intensely innovative and messed up this whole fight is."

It was almost like being home for a moment. Ian shook off that thought - and memories of trying to get Jenn to actually play Undertale and not hack it just to skip to the end to get out of it - and focused on the story again.

"Anyway, after a lot of really slow progress you get to the attack button and Sans is asleep and like I said, he only has 1 HP. So since he doesn't dodge in his sleep, you actually get to hit him for the first time. A slash of blood, blood coming from his mouth - and not only is this the second time we actually see blood in the game that I recall but why in the Underground is a SKELETON bleeding exactly?" A small huff. "Anyway, heartbreakingly he talks to his brother who you killed earlier, about getting a burger at Grillby's though Grillby is certainly dead as well, and when I say you I mean the player, of course. This game muddies it all up. Then he goes off screen to turn to dust. And that...."

Ian leaned back, not quite wanting to look Foulques in the face for this one, "That is when Chara talks directly to the player. Not the player character, the Player. A dark room. Chara is the only thing you see besides their text box. The sound design is haunting. Eerie. Chara thanks the player. Says that the players power awakened them from death. Chara says that at first they were so confused, their plan had failed and they wondered why they were brought back. Which strongly implies to me that they were not awake for all of Flowey's groundhog day adventures. Chara..." this was so much harder knowing they were talking about an actual small child that Foulques knew and cared about. "Chara told the player that it was them, their guidance made them understand why they were reincarnated. What their purpose was. Power. That together they got stronger by murdering everyone. I think Chara used the word enemies, which in context tells you how far they'd fallen. Ah... pun not intended there. Chara says that every time a stat number increased, like EXP, the feeling the player felt then... that was Chara, coming closer to the surface. Then there is one line I absolutely remember. Chara tells the player that they are at the end, the absolute and says 'let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next. The player is then given 2 choices. Erase or Do Not. Now, I heard one youtuber say how the original plan Toby Fox, the game creator, had was that if you picked erase it would actually erase the game from your computer along with all your save files. He was talked out of it, given people would be paying for the game and might not be able to just redownload it. Of course what killing a single Monster does to your save data even if you restart the game, that might have been preferable. Because if you finish Geno and start a new game... the game remembers and you can never get a true pacifist ending. Anyway. if the player chooses do not... Chara says 'Hmmm? How curious. You must have misunderstood. Since When Were You The One In Control?' Which is also about when Chara's eyes disappear. Since there is no voice acting... you have to just imagine the creepy voice change, unless of course you have people online to do it for you." As Ian had done without thinking about it.

"Then of course Chara's face starts melting as they get closer and closer, mouth opening and closing as the screen pulses red and black and the sound gets absolutely horrifying. Then there is the sound that is used when a Monster is killed, but the animation isn't over Chara, it is over a blank screen. Implying... Chara killed the player character. The screen then fills with damage indicators that shake around. The sound goes out, the screen goes black... and it takes a good ten minutes of silence before Chara comes back and advises you to take a different path. And then you can start a new game if you want. If you go Geno again, Chara gets violent much sooner and much more brutal and then insults you at the end. Says that they don't understand why you keep creating this world, just to destroy it. Something about a perverse sentimentality or something, I honestly don't remember and unfortunately can't just look it up here. If you try for a Pacifist run after Geno... There are a few slightly altered possible endings and none of them are good. Toriel ticking the player character in and leaving the room but then the player character rolls over and it isn't Frisk it is post Geno creepy face Chara, with the implication that Toriel is possibly about to die. Or a photograph that had been of Frisk with their new Monster family in a true Pacifist run... except now it is Chara instead of Frisk and everyone else ha their faces obscured by red Xs that look like a child drew them in crayon. Basically, as Sans would say, anything you do after finishing a Geno run mean you're gonna have a bad time."

Ian rubbed at their face. "I... wish what I had to tell you was better given Chara is actually real, apparently. The one bit of hope, if it exists, is that the game seems to imply that Chara can be influenced with time and effort. The player character can turn them from someone who hated Humans but loved and wanted to protect Monsters into someone who hates Monsters and Humans alike and just wants to destroy worlds and gain power. But... The Dreemurrs took the Chara who hated Humans and just wanted to die... and turned them into a kind and self sacrificing soul that... okay still hated humans, and I suspect denied their own humanity... but... still, a kid trying to be good, a kid full of love rather than LOVE. If that makes sense."

Foulques listened, expression grim. Things that had to do with playing with expectations of how such games tended to work, he had to take Ian's word for. But the rest... the rest made more sense. A disturbing amount of sense. "So that is the grim future we caught glimpses of in the visions," he said. "Except perhaps the one of Flowey, as it doesn't seem to fit with such a sequence of events, but that is beside the point."

He was silent for a long moment, considering. "I come from a world at war, the threat of the Garlean Empire ever looming over Eorzea, the only one of the three great continents not entirely brought under its heel. The Garleans view anyone not of their race to be 'savages', to be subjugated at best, exterminated at worst. Yet Eorzea itself is no better, its peoples generally showing similar distain for the various tribes of beastmen, likely the closest equivalent to the monsters of Chara's world. Even some members of the so-called 'civilzed' races of mankind are not immune to such, including my own people, the Duskwights. Add to this that even five years hence Eorzea has yet to fully recover from the events of the Seventh Umbral Calamity- a disaster so terrible and all encompassing that it left no individual or group entirely unscathed and reshaped the continent forever-, and you begin to picture the would that shaped me."

"Hydaelyn is not a safe world, nor a kind one. It is harsh, with violence, fear, and death seldom far away. And before my arrival here, this harshness was all that I could see. I was a man driven only by rage and vengeance. The 'courage' I thought that I had found was only an expression of how little I valued my own life. In the end I expect I was more than a little mad. I can't say that my face melted, but... I expect that I was little better than that version of Chara, save for the fact that my power was not so great, nor my ambitions so lofty."

"And then I arrived here. I was falling from a cliff to my assured death, and was plucked out of the air by this place's magic. And here I encountered Professor Yen Sid and later Chell, who treated me with kindness I did not deserve. ...That I still feel I do not deserve. I met the young King and his entourage who showed me the much kinder nature of this world, and how it has shaped him. I find I envy the boy, and how he can offer the hand of friendship without fear that the hand he gets in return will be holding a dagger."

"Then Sun and Chara arrived. Two very different individuals, yet both have reacted to my offering the most basic care and consideration as something remarkable. They have each called me a hero, a title that I know I do not deserve. If anything, it is they who have given me new purpose, something beyond mere survival to rise for each day. Some hope that I may one day be able to look into the mirror and not hate the man I see."

"Chara Dreemur will not walk the same dark path that I did. I will not allow it. I swear on what little remains of my honor that the dark tale you've just told me will remain no more than that; a tale. A dark dream that can be set aside in the light of day."

That was... a lot. But Ian nodded.

"I wish my friend Ben were here. Not the king in Auradon, my friend Ben Song from home. He... He's the one who always knows just what to say. But since you're stuck with me I'll try and do my best to think about what he'd say. I think, if Ben were here, he'd probably say that sometimes all it takes to be a hero... is to be there for the person who needs you most when they need you. And I'll add from myself... it is not just being there then, but when you keep showing up for them." Ian took a deep breath.

"You see the thing is... we don't always know the impact we have on the world, and on those around us. For good or for ill sometimes things we think are huge and we are ashamed of ourselves for... or even proud pf ourselves over... go unnoticed or unremarked upon. And then sometimes we do something so simple... something we do reflexively... is everything to someone else. It's like...." They considered for a moment how to de-tech this example. "Ah, okay so let's say you built a bonfire. You could have built it to warm people or to give light if you were being kind, or if you were being intentionally horrible, maybe you made the bonfire with important papers and someone's treasured ph.... notes. But if it is a hot day at high noon, very few people will see the bonfire at all. But if it is a dark night and you light a candle you happened to have... you were probably doing that for yourself and didn't think it was anything special. Anyone would do it. But to everyone in the area that don't have any candles... they all see you and probably appreciate the light more than you realize."

Ian rolled their shoulders. "I can't say anything for myself if you are a hero or not, but what you just said, about making sure Chara doesn't walk down that dark path? That sounds pretty heroic to me."

Perhaps oddly, Foulques first response was a bit of a wry chuckle. "And thus is my own advice turned back on me, as frequently happens," he said. Then explained, "I gave Chara much the same advice about the meaningful nature of small acts of kindness when they were upset and frightened before the boat arrived. Partly in hopes that they would at least attempt to behave like a civilized child, but also because it is true. Your friend, it seems, is wise. Or at the least, very good at putting into words for people what some part of them already knows."

"That said, as is the case with many things, keeping Chara from a dark path will be a deed much easier said than done. I expect that having witnessed small glimpses of it without the added influence of this other child's perspective has already gone quite a long way to that end; after that, they wished for nothing more than to return to their adopted family and live peacefully. But for such determination to last, the root cause of its opposite must be addressed, and in large part, for Chara, that seems to be fear, as is the case for many of Eorzea's internal troubles."

"In this dark future, they dealt with this fear by lashing out at anyone and anything in their path until nothing was left and they themselves were twisted by it, becoming a monster in a far truer sense of the word than those they came to know in the Underground. It can, to some degree, be soothed away by a gentle hand and kind words, yet these things are often a poor shield when one must stand on their own. Thus do I plan to institute a program of exercise for them, to increase not only their strength and endurance, but confidence and discipline. One who has confidence in their own ability does not need to resort to desperate or underhanded means in order to achieve power, and with discipline, one learns to judge when and how it is appropriate to use their strength. To become a protector, rather than a destroyer."

"You... sound a lot like someone who is in Auradon right now. Could have sworn I heard Aqua giving a similar speech a few times. Still, sounds good so long as you're not including me in that exercise regimen. I can do that or I can help Sun and work on the tech here and this equation that I need back home. Can't do it all, and given the choice I'd rather do what I'm here to do and leave physical workouts to my characters in video games."

A deep breath. "Still, if there is som other way I can help with Chara, let me know?"

He honestly wasn't sure how he felt about being compared to someone in Auradon, but outwardly waved it off slightly. "Tis a fairly widely used method, so far as I'm aware," he said. "But you needn't worry. If you have the patience and discipline to learn to understand even half of this-", he gestured to the mass of scrawlings- ,"then I doubt there is anything you could learn from me in that regard. But if there is aught you might do to help with them, other than helping Sun- which I suspect will go a long way in itself-, I'll let you know."

"Though speaking of Sun, I must also tell you some about the abominable way he was treated by his former masters before his arrival here. How much of it may be relevant to repairing Moon- if any- I don't know, but I feel it's important that you know regardless, if only to better understand him."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't Be Afraid To Be Who You Are - Isle Side

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CW: child abuse and suicide mentions

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CW: self harm, death, murder mentions. Also major Undetale endgame spoilers from here on out.

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