Erin

Characters shown here: Asgore Dreemurr → Rudolph Holiday Toriel → Dess Asriel → Noelle Flowey (Asriel) → Flowey (Chara) *NOTE: Chara is still the first human to fall down. They switch story roles with Noelle. Papyrus ↔ Undyne Sans ↔ Alphys Mettaton ↔ Mad Mew Mew Napstablook ↔ Ruins Dummy Annoying Dog ↔ Temmie

Characters not shown here: Monster Kid ↔ Snowdrake Muffet ↔ Burgerpants Grillby ↔ Nice Cream Guy Gerson Boom ↔ Snowdin Inn Keeper (QC) Bratty & Catty ↔ Royal Guard 01 & 02 *NOTE: Any character not mentioned thus far is either unchanged or has not been thought about yet.

---

The Underground: The Ruins → The Depths

The deepest part of the Underground. The Depths are composed of dark, volcanic caverns and serve as the entrance to the rest of the Underground.

Snowdin → Clearwater

A tropical paradise with a resort at its heart, run by Gerson Boom. It's considered the nicest part of the Underground and many monsters wish to live here.

Waterfall → Forestgrove

Forestgrove has a temperate climate, lush vegetation, and fields of Golden Flowers. The vast tangle of forest makes it easy to get lost in, unless you know your way around.

Hotland → Highpeaks

A vast and densely populated city built into craggy cliffsides of the Underground. The city features many apartments, restaurants, shady back alleys, and the Royal Science center.

THE CORE

Located within Highpeaks is the large cold-fusion reactor facility that supplies the Underground with electricity. It was created by the former Royal Scientist.

New Home/The Capital

The highest point of the Underground. Just beyond it is the Barrier, but seldom few live here anyways. The frosted-over castle is always decorated like it's Christmas Eve.

---

Important info: OTHERSWAP is not being developed as a fangame, mod, comic, or anything of that nature. This is just an AU setting created for funsies. It is not trying to replace or "improve" the original Underswap AU.

This AU was first conceptualized shortly after the release of DELTARUNE Chapter 2. At the time of posting, there is no official design for Dess or Mayor Holiday. Dess' design may be changed in the future if she ever appears in official UTDR content and Mayor Holiday has not been included in OTHERSWAP at all. Although she takes the role of Toriel in this AU, Dess is still the eldest daughter of Rudolph Holiday and is treated accordingly. This AU has decided to replace the Dreemurrs with the Holidays as they also exist within UNDERTALE canon (UNDERTALE 5th Anniversary Alarm Clock Winter Dialogue - Asgore, UNDERTALE Xbox port exclusive dialogue).

Sir Handel jumps in before Rusty can even answer with “you have to be a he or a she.” 

Rusty explains. They are very clear with themselves on why they like this pronoun and they explain it in a way that makes sense to everyone present who isn’t determined to be a dick about this: “You know when a train is coming in, and you don’t know the engine pulling it?” 

Some digression as their audience relates the junctions or the lack of junctions and subsequent unfamiliar engines in their personal histories. Duncan is the one who is the most ‘yeah yeah i’m sorry you guys are stupid it’s a simple question’ about it. 

“You don’t know if the engine is a he or a she. So what do you say when you see the new engine in the distance? Everyone says ‘ah, there they are.’” 

A beat while everyone digests this. 

“ ‘I don’t see them.’ ‘Give them a minute, they’re almost ‘round the bend.’ ‘They’re here, lads, get ready!’ With most engines, you meet them and learn that they’re a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. But I’m always the ‘they’ in ‘ah, there they are.’” 

“Oh,” says Peter Sam, brow furrowed in thought. “How come?” 

“It’s just me,” smiles Rusty. 

Peter Sam likes that smile, likes Rusty, and smiles back. He will spend the rest of the night and the following couple of days’ conversation needing to slow down and visibly screw up his face to think through diagramming his sentence whenever he refers to them (it’s a very cute expression). After this period of earnest practice he never has to think twice about it again. It’s just Rusty. 

Sir Handel doesn’t like Rusty. He doesn’t like strangers. He doesn’t like engines who smile too much (unless they’re Peter Sam, and even that’s… complicated). He certainly doesn’t like engines who Peter Sam looks on the road to making friends with (everybody. that’s basically everybody.) And he instinctively hates this whole “difference” thing. He’d be fussed about it in anyone. Engines should be he or she!!! And if anyone is going to be fussy and high-maintenance and go against that, it oughtn’t be a shunter and utility engine!!!!1!

He starts in being a real heel, arguing with Rusty about their pronouns, their (poor) manners, and their (stupid) face. He thinks he can prove to Rusty that you have to be a he or a she. It’s all the classic transphobic moves. Sir Handel starts in on them with no hesitation and no subtlety. ‘They’ is for more than one engine, it doesn’t make sense for one engine. You’d think he’d never heard Rusty bring up the example of singular they one damn minute ago. You’d think he’d somehow been watching Fox News for twenty years, he’s so pitch-perfect. Natural talent.

Duncan also doesn’t like Rusty. He doesn’t like diesels. He doesn’t like Rusty’s general air. He can tell Rusty is the sort of suck-up that managers like better than him, and that already has him sulking and glowering. 

However, Duncan has zero problem with their pronouns (indeed, he is able to use them effortlessly from the first, and is eternally impatient with anyone who will ever have even the slightest difficulty getting used to them). 

And, though he already doesn’t like Rusty, Sir Handel harassing them about so stupid and pointless a thing pisses him off. 

So their first night together features Sir Handel trying to bully Rusty – and Duncan just sailing in to argue with Sir Handel until the air is rather blue. (Peter Sam is shocked by the language he’s hearing!) 

The crux of Duncan’s argument and discontent is that 

Sir Handel should stop being fookin stupid 

At this point, Sir Handel is already gasping in indignation. 

Sir Handel has no business giving anyone else shit about what they’re called when he goes around being called Sir Handel (Duncan spits here, and spits again every time for the rest of the night he sarcastically says the name). Engines shouldn’t be theys? Yeah, well. Engines shouldn’t go around with titles! 

Sir Handel is furious. It’s the name of their OWNER! 

Yeah, well, people shouldn’t have titles either! Duncan proclaims that he’s, like, a democrat. [small d]

Sir Handel’s brain explodes. 

The two of them are at each other’s throats until Mr Hugh arrives in his nightcap to sternly explain to the “new” engines the concept of bedtime. (Duncan and especially Sir Handel ain’t that new around here anymore, but allow a tired man his sarcasm.) 

Look at this mess. Look at this absolutely perfect bitchfest. There are a total of zero brain cells in this conversation. Venting to your work bestie and and letting loose your inner mean girl. A classic RWS dynamic! It's just the diesel (& the female) version of the Thomas and Percy relationship: They make each other worse.

But, they need each other.

But, they make each other worse...!

Despite their lack of screentime following this, you cannot convince me that these two don't remain peas in a pod, just like 1 and 6 after 6 is transferred to the branch line.

I do think it's rather sad that Mavis is holed up in the quarry. :( There's a real bummer of a line when she appears in a later Christopher story...

"Besides, she sometimes finds it dull up at the Quarry with no one to talk to but trucks." I know it's realistic, but I want better for her. LET 👏 HER 👏 OUT 👏

Once smartphones became a thing, I like to imagine that they videocalled from the quarry to the carriage shed every night. (Annie, Clarabel, and Henrietta are very understanding about this when the call lasts half an hour. If ever the workers try to indulge Daisy and Mavis with a longer call, however, the coaches start murmuring...)

One great thing about this convo is that it's the first time I feel like I'm really, genuinely looking at lasting steam/diesel coexistence on Sodor's 'big railway.' Coz this is a target Awdry has been trying to hit for at least a dozen books now, yeah? Due mostly to his publishers' pressures, he's been trying to have beloved diesel characters while keeping his 1920-cosplay steam railway too, and this is where I think he finally hits the target. Daisy's first appearance was hamstrung because the turning point where she changes her haughty new-engine attitude and where the others accept her despite all the shit she's already pulled is off-screen, we're just told "they're friends now" and have to be all "right. sure." Probably because he got negative feedback on his Daisy hash, Awdry played it suuuuper safe with BoCo and Bear — less so Bear, but that's another post; for now I will just say that in contrast to Daisy they are presented as very clean-as-a-whistle, and their acceptance by the railway is made so much of that it doesn't feel natural, they both feel like one-offs. But then, ahhh. Now we've got Mavis, and Awdry has the bright idea to let her talk to Daisy, and BANG. Now we're here. This doesn't feel Informed, or starch-and-stiff, or tokenistic. You read this and you're like oh, yeah. Even the sleepiest branch line on this railway is now part dieselised. They're acting like characters! Everybody is acting like squabbling coworkers! It's like sinking at last into a warm relaxing soak. Ahhhhh. Here's the good stuff.

Because they don't need to be Representatives of dieselkind? They can just kinda suck for a moment, without being villains? When TVS subs out Daisy for Diesel, it automatically gives this conversation a sinister air. He's the devil on Mavis's shoulder. But in the original, there's nothing sinister here; it's homey. They're just venting to each other. Their behavior is kinda crappy, but also very normal and recognisable. New work besties fr. They are both three drinks in.

Daisy: He said what to you? Omg babe. I cannot believe that old garden shed said that to youuu.

Mavis: Right?????

Daisy: raising a glass Anything steam engines do, we diesels can do BETTER!

Mavis: hauling herself a bit unsteadily to her feet so that her gesticulation can be its most dramatic and sweeping You are RIGHT and you should SAY IT!

(Narrator: mildly ... Daisy was not right and, being probably the most specialised and least versatile engine then on her railway, she definitely should not have been saying it.)

(Above: The quintessential moment. Mavis & Daisy are commiserating/carping, and Annie & Clarabel are trying so hard to not hear their shit.)

Now, I've always had a question here...

Did Toby really say that only steam engines can shunt trucks?

The text indicates only that he was annoyed that she kept re-arranging things, they had a tiff, she rejected his input and left.

Then again, the text doesn't reveal that Percy calls Mavis's shunting "a ---- ------ ------ mess!", so, y'know. We get the minimum detail necessary in these stories. ;)

We never see Toby express any such sentiment about diesel engines. I'm inclined to think he never said this — and I suspect we're not supposed to believe he said this, only that Mavis is in stroppy teen mode and exaggerating and embellishing her grievances to the point where she's straight-up making shit up.

Still, I'm not sure. Usually in the RWS if a character is lying they are slyly or explicitly called out for it in the nearby text and this time the claim is just... sitting here.

Ultimately, I don't think he ever said that to her, but (considering how salty everyone on the Ffarquhar line can get: some have quicker fuses than others but they're all so provoke-able) I don't think Mavis just made this up completely. If she were making up stories from whole cloth, that would be... well, that would be 'Devious' Diesel behavior! I suspect, however, that Toby and Percy (comparing notes on her shunting) are at least thinking it, or have said it to each other, and Mavis has picked up on these vibes. All of which would be incredibly realistic.

Anyway, I bring this up because the answer does color my read of this conversation a little. If Mavis is completely making up attitudes that Toby never dreamed of having, and Daisy just eats it up and eggs her on, that makes this conversation somehow even 10x messier (and somehow I'm still rooting for their friendship). If this is a sentiment that is real or implied when Mavis or Daisy annoy the other Ffarquhar engines (and they can both be annoying, no question) then the bond between these two characters, with their very different personalities, just becomes even more 'understandable.'

Anyway, about those differences. Mainly, Daisy is ultimately very conventional. (This reminds me I have a nearly-finished essay about Daisy lying around somewhere. For now...) Mavis is the original, creative one, the mover-and-shaker. All Daisy's initial behaviors, as Hazel observed recently, are things we've seen from proud new engines before! She wants lots of attention, she boasts, she tries her damnedest to get out of work that she thinks is beneath her. What Mavis wants is to improve things, to have more responsibility, to get to stretch her wheels. Furthermore, Daisy by nature is keen to avoid work that's too heavy (she's a railcar with limited pulling power, so, you know, understandable); Mavis doesn't mind work — she just doesn't like being told how to do it, and she doesn't like being bored!

A point where they can be contrasted is in how they accept Toby's help and friendship at the end of their initial... "arcs." (All right, Daisy's "arc" is ended so clumsily that you can barely call it that, but you get me.) I'm not saying Mavis is devious or calculating, but for her Toby's offer of friendship is just as important as a pathway to her getting out of the quarry sometimes as it is for his forgiveness. It is her ticket out. For Daisy, Toby's offer of friendship was important because she wants friends, now she's making a friend yay!! — and I think that was pretty much it. Daisy just wants positive attention; that's what all her 'modern and right-up-to-date' stuff was about, but that failed to get her the positive attention she wanted and it turned out that being a team player did, so she had little trouble re-orienting herself. She resisted the pressure of everyone on the platform for her first train because she clung to the memory of her friend the fitter, but I don't think she's one to resist peer pressure in general, and as time passed and the Ffarquhar line residents became her peers, it was completely inevitable that she start to conform to their ways.

So (although, again, annoyingly — we aren't shown) I reckon that Daisy panicked after Percy's accident when she realized that she would be in trouble too (all right, someone probably had to point it out to her). And so for the first time she pitches in and does some hard work. Toby can't help but own "you did well to get all your half cleared, Daisy" and Daisy's entire system lights up because compliment, baby!!! That's all she ever wanted. She's Toby's man now (so to speak).

I can also easily imagine that, in trying to get adjusted to Mavis, Toby remembered how thing went last time. He must have tried from the first to tell himself, through slightly gritted teeth, "Just find something to compliment the new engine on, just anything. Helps build trust." But he was stymied twice over. 1) She keeps re-arranging the trucks in some crazy-ass unapproved way and he can't find ANYTHING nice to say! 2) It wouldn't have worked, anyway. Mavis wouldn't have been satisfied with just some friendly attention. Mavis wants to do. shit.

Mavis is bright — possibly has little common sense, but she's bright. I do wonder sometimes if her shunting arrangements are actually bad, or if they're just different and Toby and Percy can't adjust. (The text does own that due to the siding arrangements it's inefficient to put the trucks where Toby expects them. She probably does optimize things — from her point of view, anyhow.) Either way, though, here is an active and creative mind at work. Plus, her ploy to slo-o-owly expand her pathway down the line in "Toby's Tightrope" shows long-term planning, which is hardly something we've ever seen any vehicle do! So yeah, she's well above-average bright for an engine.

Hilariously, in Their Own Scene she is easily impressed by Daisy's lofty confidence (another classic RWS dynamic — it's giving Duncan staring amazed at James's boasting), but she's also super young, hasn't been Toby-fied yet, and in short I expect that as the years go by Mavis is likely to see Daisy as less of a role model and more of a crony/partner-in-crime. Daisy might instigate things sometimes — but she needs Mavis and Mavis's bright ideas before she really makes much headway! And I expect Mavis is often the instigator anyway. In her literary-device role of Second Coming of Thomas (Dieselised Flavour), she probably continues to want all sorts of things that engines aren't supposed to pine for (silly stick-in-the-muds!) Daisy is quite content to grumble but put up. Mavis will find a way to make stuff happen.

(Which is the only explanation we're going to get for how Mavis is at large on every quarry and some not-remotely-a-quarry sets on the island, come TVS!)

That was a light rap on the TVS there, but not a very hard knock; at least TVS insisted (in spite of all logic) on using her character for stuff. Christopher lets me down, personally, by finding so little for Mavis to do — and never having her and Daisy interact! I want more of this shit so badly.