I really like your take on Defernull Ch.5! The whole flower-pressing angle really adds an interesting twist to it all. The act of turning the flowers from their not-quite-darkner, not-quite-lightner status to proper darkners…but at the loss of their original identity…which they are completely unaware of…is so haunting and provides as perfectly valid in-universe reason for why Flowery would embody your typical edgy anime protag. He lost all of his friends at the hands of the one who was previously taking care of them.
For Flowery, do you think that, as opposed to his goals in canon DR of making Asgore as happy as possible in the limited amount of time he has, would DF!Flowery be trying to guilt-trip DF!Asgore for what he did and trying to make him feel bad?
(Also, bonus question, how would do you go about tackling his more meta knowledge/his perspective on it in comparison to DR!Flowery?)
I accidentally deleted my initial response to this ask I'm heartbroken. Anyways-
One of the biggest influences for my characterizations of DN!Flowery is Flowey's last scenes in the genocide route of Undertale, where he realized the indiscriminate violence of the player would extend to him too, and in the end he tries to bargain with you and pleads for his life. It was really haunting how he reverts to a scared and helpless child in that scene, especially in contrast to the malicious, unfeeling, and powerful persona he always tried to put up everywhere else.
I wanted to expand on that kind of dynamic with DN!Flowery and DN!Asgore. So, in that sense, I imagined their relationship as more like a child trying to appease and impress their abusive parent, internalizing the responsibility and fault of their caretaker as their own instead.
DN!Flowery wouldn't resent Asgore for pressing the other flowers. He and the other flowers were only supposed to live for one day, after all. He took careful (and near obsessive) care of them, making sure they were as healthy as possible. Their lives were extended so much farther than they were meant to live, and for what in exchange? Their lives were a gift mercifully given, so it seems reasonable to Flowery that Asgore got to decide when his care for them would end. If he decided they should be pressed, they should be grateful.
… But he still couldn't really shake off his fear of death. Moreso than the OG Flowery, DN!Flowery is motivated by his fear of the inevitability of fate, his mortality, and of his complex surrounding his nature as a flower. Because, to him, the consequences of his failures is so much more direct and dire. If he isn't strong enough to fight fate, it will kill him. If he fails Asgore, he will kill him. Because he is a flower, so many things could easily kill him and he could do basically nothing about it. He was just a dumb useless flower only good for looking pretty… and even then he still was failing.
If there was anyone he'd resent, it would actually be the pressed flowers.
He didn't actually understand at first they weren't the flowers he knew when they were alive. He didn't understand why they acted so differently to what he expected. He didn't understand why they didn't really like him. He didn't understand why they didn't seem to appreciate or revere Asgore in the ways he did, even if some of them did respect him. Why did they- not remember what he did for them? Why… did they not remember him?
When he realized they were just- strangers walking around in the husks of his actual friends, he would Despise them.
He still loves Asgore. He is his rock, his foundation. A strong leader whose strength (control over him and the other plants) remained constant through the worldwind of confusion that was Asgore's outside life. The only one he recognized in this new dark world. The only one left who still loved and cared for him. He would want to, not just return that care, but also try to impress him with the new abilities he's gained in the dark world. He'd hate to lose his favor.
Will probably continue with the bonus question in a separate reblog...
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