Finally... Another person who has seen the vision of Martlet and Red. These two are genuinely amazing regardless of how small the interactions they had in-game were. In fact, I am now going to use this incredible art as an excuse to go on a rant about them and how much Martlet and Red being friends adds to Red's character as a whole.
In Undertale Red/UnREDtale, a part of Red's character is that she is afraid of meeting and befriending a human. No human has made it past Asgore so she fears that if she ever made friends with one, she would inevitably have to see as they met the same fate as all the other humans.
While you can simply chalk this up, in part, to her implied backstory of losing people important to her—Red saying she "didn't want to lose anyone else" as well as Undyne mentioning the Guard is the only family she has—this explanation doesn't really explain why she became so afraid of specifically losing a HUMAN friend. Not fellow monsters, a human. You know, the species the Underground calls their enemy and key to their freedom.
And while, yes, Red says she heard the Canine Unit talking about you, how they all considered you a friend, and how it scared her, the way she said this always, at least to me, sounded more like she was terrified of a fear she already had prior to Frisk/The Player showing up in the Underground coming true rather than her just suddenly gaining this fear the moment you showed up.
Hell, Undyne literally posted Red somewhere she was certain a human would NEVER reach and gave Red direct orders to not confront any humans unless absolutely necessary, just collect their SOUL if they are defeated by someone else. Undyne has absolutely been aware of this fear since Red joined the Guard, even mentioning how she felt it was silly during the phone call at the end of the Pacifist scenario of the fight.
This isn't some new development, Red has been terrified of losing a human friend for quite some time. There is a big difference between a monster being scared of losing friends who are fellow monsters and being scared of losing a human friend.
And the moment you add Undertale Yellow into the equation, you suddenly gain a lot of context that was never there before.
In Undertale Yellow, Martlet offered to show Red the ropes of being a Royal Guard during their conversation at Oasis Valley, and this meetup would've taken place after the Pacifist Ending where Clover has given up their SOUL, or has it taken by Asgore if we're talking Flawed Pacifist, since they planned to meet up next week.
So you have Red, who by the time the events of Undertale are taking place is terrified of losing a human friend, meeting up with Martlet, who is probably still processing her grief over Clover's death, which means that Red is going to directly witness how heartbroken Martlet is over her human friend's death.
This event likely stuck with Red afterwards and when she became part of the very same guard that Martlet was a part of and then quit after what happened to Clover, it makes sense Red would become afraid of going through the same thing Martlet did.
Red isn't afraid of losing a human friend purely because she's doesn't want to lose more people she cares about (though it is a part of it), she is afraid of losing a human friend because she has seen the grief and pain tied to that scenario first-hand and wants to avoid going through the same.
Now sure, a lot of this wasn't planned by Taxiderby or the Undertale Yellow devs since Red is just supposed to be a cameo character in the game, it's all just a big coincidence, but my god does it tie in so perfectly well.
I absolutely love Martlet and Red and I wish more people talked about the dynamic these two have.
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