caretaker-au:

eloquentstars submitted:

hello

i am probably late to the speculation, but i kept thinking about the backstory for this au.

since this is not a swap story, i assume the buttercup incident happened very differently to what we know in canon. (perhaps didn’t happen at all.) the real question is: did asriel survive as well? we haven’t seen flowey, so it would support my theory and it would explain toriel’s absence.

asriel living » asriel growing up » toriel&asgore growing older » toriel&asgore dying » their absence.

it is also questionable on what terms chara is with asriel. did they have a dispute over the fate of humanity? did chara suggest war and asriel (who had become a king) opposed them, causing chara to leave new home and move all the way to ruins? or is asriel oblivious to chara’s plans and chara made an excuse for leaving to ruins?

in their bio it does say they’re dutiful, so perhaps it’s ´a mission´ from asriel. but because of the way the ruins are isolated from the rest of the underground, asriel doesn’t have reliable information about what is going on there.

either way, i think it is safe to assume that there are 6 human souls stocked up somewhere in chara’s basement. (which would also mean that DT wasn’t extracted and amalgamated don’t exist… because i simply cannot see chara just handing out the human souls to alphys or whoever else, they strike me as a kind of person who wants to have everything under control.)

this could mean a huge impact on alphys‘ personality and her and undyne’s friendship/relationship. and how would it affect sans, who also seems to have some connection to lab, i wonder. and since (i pressume) asriel is the king, does the royal guard exist? if so, it must have different purpose than the original one in canon. did undyne ever meet asgore (i hate and absolutely love how ambiguous is the amount of time that passed since the buttercup incident in canon) or did she connect to asriel in similar way? mettaton could more or less turn out similar, minding his own business, being fabulous and all.

the biggest mystery to me is, however, all the timey-wimey save/reset stuff. what about chara’s determination? do they know about resetting? /can/ (or could) they ever reset? were they able to reset but once frisk’s determination overrode theirs they aren’t able to save/reset and remember the resets anymore?

also, what is with the year? it would make sense if saves and resets didn’t affect the world on the surface and would explain chara’s physical youth. it would also point towards chara being able to save and reset in the past (at least until frisk fell down and ´stole´ this ability from them), since flowey would’t exist and therefore could not be responsible for the resets.

that all being said, my final theory is:

the buttercup incident happens like it did in canon. chara resets (i do believe they love the dreemurrs and the monsterkind and couldn’t stand the grief from losing asriel). perhaps there are several (or several hundred) tries to re-do the whole thing, but every single outcome is disastrous. the time resets only in the underground, but the time on the surface continues to flow normally. finally, they resolve to patient waiting. surely, they won’t be the last human to fall.

as asriel grows up, his parents grow older, until they pass away naturally. asriel inherits the throne. potential argument between chara and asriel, but perhaps not, i am not too sure about that.

in any case, chara leaves new home and becomes the caretaker with only one objective – get the human souls. which goes well until frisk shows up with their determination and fucks up chara’s plan.

the question of does chara remember frisk’s resets becomes irrelevant once you realize that chara would be able to recognize the signs and deduce that frisk has that power now from their behavior. but personally, i like to think they remember, but don’t let frisk know because they don’t want to give up their ‘advantage’ remembering.

finally, yellow eyes = high determination (which is needed for saves and resets, but would, for example, also show up during the “*but it refused” not-dying scenes during the asriel fight in canon.)

anyway, that’s my speculation on the caretaker au, i’m looking forward to finding out whether i was right or completely wrong.

sorry for the long post, it turned a bit out of hand, heh. i just really love this au! ❤