Underzom Asks!!!

Very happy 1st birthday to Underzom! Each year, in celebration of its creation, I'll be hosting an askblog.

Submissions are easy, and I'm very lenient on what info I give out.

Questions will be answered by the character it pertains to (if possible), or even by me, the creator.

Overview:

Underzom is a zombie apocalypse AU. Despite the original game taking place in an underground cave, Underzom takes place on the surface due to a peaceful ending to the monster-human war. The apocalypse started from an outbreak causing people to act aggressively and irrationally.

The story follows Alphys as she tries to find the cause (and cure) while living in a commune consisting of other monsters that grouped up to survive.

There's a lot to learn; there's a lot to ask! I try to keep the story as vague as possible to leave people questioning, but I have no intentions on hiding any information on this blog. The chances of an actual comic are... slim, but it IS what I want.

Plot:

Each year will follow a new installment/chapter of the Underzom story. This year, the first year, will follow the very beginning;

Alphys and the team of scientists struggle to find a cure after Sans left the department to focus on his militia work. Rumors got around the militia team, and later the small colony, of a peculiar zombie that seems to not movie, even if noise is made nearby. The word spread to Alphys, and she got an idea.

With the help of Sans and the militia member that started the rumor (Asriel), Alphys sets out to find the zombie and bring it back to the compound without getting detected. Her plans are to experiment on and try to find a cure without using mindless lab rats.

That zombie, of course, is Frisk.

Major Character Differences:

Asriel is alive and grown up, about young adult age. He had no reason to die in this AU (yet). Despite this, Chara is still dead.

Papyrus died.

Napstablook found a physical body to pair with.

Toriel and Asgore are still married, but are definitely feuding.

You won't find many of the minor UT cast (Vendors and characters like froggit, vulkin, and snowdrake.) This may be due to the fact that there's no major role for them to have, or because they just haven't been introduced yet.

Frisk is unable to communicate.

Any asks pertaining characters that have died, can't communicate, or aren't in the story can STILL be asked about, but will either be answered by another character or by me.

Start date: August 25th, 2024

End Date: December 31st, 2024.

Masterlist:

Why are you so great?

Also would it be okay if I drew fanart of a few of your au characters?

ill try to get some done tomorrow

i mean. they all lost someone. i doubt it was easy for them to endure and a lot of people cope in ways like that. or maybe in the midst of everything going on, they just,,,,, didn’t have the time to grieve or for it to hit yet.

(would prefer if it was answered by you cuz i wanna peer into your mind,,, i wanna know about this au SO bad,,)

Sans frequently talks with Papyrus when he goes to bed. He’ll whisper under his breath telling him about his day and how all of Papyrus’s friends are doing. He does it at night when he’s about to sleep and doesn’t tell anyone about it. He also projects a lot of Papyrus onto Asriel. Considering Asriel took Papyrus’s jacket and glasses after his death, and both wore some kind of scarf/bandanna, the similarities are too frequent for Sans to really ignore it. In response to this, he ends up acting pretty brotherly with Asriel. He had tried turning to faith, but. It didn’t pan out.

Asriel substitutes Frisk (zombie stage) for Chara and talks to them instead. He’ll sit by their cage for an hour and talk to the, just how he would Chara. When late winter came around, he went back into the old Dreemurr house to find a sweater of Chara’s from their preteen years and struggled to put it on Frisk to keep them warm. He also left behind Chara’s locket after everyone evacuated the area later on in the story.

Toriel turned to faith, and prays every night. Maybe not to a Christian God, but to some higher entity out there. She’ll kneel by her bed with her head hung low and whisper under her breath, indirectly talking to Chara while muttering about getting out alive.

Asgore doesn’t talk about Chara’s death. He chooses to not acknowledge it, and feels incredibly guilty. He refuses to leave the commune unless necessary under the disguise of his injured leg and needing to stay put in case help is needed. The unfortunate reality is that looking around at the slow corpses reminds him of Chara, and he prefers not to be reminded of that.

Spoilers..! For next year’s and the years following it Ask blog.

Later on in the story when, yeah you probably guessed it, Frisk is cured, the Dreemurrs project a lot onto them. The similarities are uncanny, and them wearing Chara’s sweater for the majority of seeing them doesn’t help any. Frisk is their own person, however, and ends up being way different from Chara personality-wise. The illusion breaks for Toriel and Asgore, but Asriel became way too attached to give them up.

Beyond the monster ghosts (Napstablook, Mettaton, the dummies, etc), ghosts dont exist. Their death impacted the Dreemurrs and that was it.

Papyrus was killed off mostly for character building purposes with Sans. and also bcz i cant and refuse to draw him. 😭

I promise you its for good reason. He’s naive and eager to help people. Personally, id dont think hed last long without toughening up a little. I love papyrus, but a zombie apocalypse is not where he belongs. Its not where a lot of these characters belong, which is why they all depend on each other.

In the comic. or. book. or whatever im gonna do with this au, there is gonna be a scene about his death, and theres gonna be reactions to it.

For how it impacts the characters, id prefer to. write it rather than show it with images, because its a LOT to draw out.

For one;

Sans was devastated. He tried to save Papyrus in the moment, but in an attempt he had used more magic than hes used to. Since monsters have gone years without use of immense amounts of magic (Modern commodities made it easier to live), summoning a powerful magic attack blinded him temporarily and left him visually impaired. After it settled in, he stopped doing a lot of things. He stopped getting up for militia work, quit working in the lab, and refused to leave his bed. He was useless for months until Alphys proposed an elaborate plan to, hopefully, find a cure.

Undyne was upset as well, but took a different approach to it. Prior to the incident, she was full of energy and determined to get through it. She tried to remain positive and keep people looking up, but that all .. fell apart once Papyrus died. She continued her work, but she got meaner. Straight to the point, no time for chit chat. She got impatient and demanding. Whatever the militia had been doing before, they were doing tenfold now. It lost a few members. Unlike Sans, she became more cautious and careful. Any sign of danger? She’d go in first ti make sure the others didn’t get hurt. She wasnt reckless; she wasnt cowardly. Undyne saw that without Papyrus, things got more serious, dangerous. She acted accordingly to such.

Mettaton didnt get a chance to know Papyrus until after the apocalypse started and he was called to come spend time with family instead of travelling. When the commune started and everyone had to go into groups, Papyrus was originally ordered to stay at base and help ration. Occasionally, he’d dabble in medical work while helping others under the supervision of his father, Gaster, or he’d help in entertaining other and keep them distracted. Thats where he met Mettaton. They talked, they bantered, and they hit off. They made good friends, and it stayed that way. A couple months after the apocalypse started, Muffet had joined the group and took over Papyrus’s position, which pushed him to join the militia. Mettaton, among others, urged him not to. When he did join, Mettaton was pretty upset. They saw eachother less and less, but when they did, he acted in support. After papyrus died, Mettaton’s life didnt change much. His routines seemed more… lackluster. He didnt seem as happy and distracting as he thought, and his attempts to cheer everyone up went pretty sour. He didnt put as much effort into his job as he should have been. Luckily, he made good recovery after some time of grief. He confided in Sans and Alphys, where Alphys was more of a help than Sans was.

Considering they werent… the best of friends, he got over it quicker than the others, but he was still down,

Other notable characters;

Alphys, who was upset for Sans and because Papyrus was usually great to be around. She seemed more unwilling to work for a week or two.

Dentin and Sid, who liked having Papyrus around. Dentin smiled less and Sid became more irritable, but they got through it.

Grillby was upset and tried to get Sans to talk about it with him, but to no prevail.

=,]

It’s highly discouraged to distract the zombies whatsoever, but when need be Zom usually steps up to do it. He’s reckless, he’s dumb, and he doesnt care enough about himself to take care of himself. He’ll knock something over, make a loud noise, or throw something at one.

live zom reaction of this imagr pls