Via's Corner

It's supposed to be a fandom space for adults :3

I really struggle making friends and joining pre existing communities is even harder so I thought i'd open my own community to make meeting people easier!

It's still pretty barebones but it's supposed to be a chill space to have fun!

Like

For one i think the canonical "the original Nightmare is dead and he's only the corrupted evil eldritch cryptid thing" is such a lazy cop out and takes any possibility of depth from Nightmare. Because now he's just evil and cruel for the sake of being evil and cruel. Like even most cartoonishly evil villains have more layers than that.

It's so much more interesting to keep the original Nightmare, just incredibly badly damaged. Morally grey characters rule. Like yes, he's still incredibly cruel and ruthless, but at the same time he actually has to deal with the pain he went through and, more importantly, the consequences of his actions as well as somehow dealing with his own emotions. Because as a completely unrelated cryptid he doesn't have any of that nuance. The cryptid doesn't have the connection to everything that Nightmare actually has. So many possibilities go lost with this.

He doesn't even need a redemption arc. Just let him suffer through conflicting feelings. How he deals with them is still up to how you write him. He can push everything he doesn't like or understand far down and continue on the same path he already is. That in itself is already much more interesting than whatever the fuck canon is doing.

But my favorite way for this to go is cutting Nightmare up into 3 phases. Early Nightmare, crisis Nightmare and late Nightmare.

Early Nightmare is the one that is active when he corrupts, fights Dream and takes in the other Bad Sanses (primarily the Murder Time Trio, although only Killer can go for this as well) as minions. He's fully cruel, sadistic, ruthless and acting fully and knowingly as a villain. He's pushing everything down that doesn't currently fit in his world view, probably not even aware of these feelings because he never explored them. He's protecting himself by being in massive denial.

Crisis Nightmare is beginning to have clashing feelings. He finds himself beginning to care, beginning to hurt and beginning to truly feel. His mask of sadistic cruelty and might is cracking and the humanity in him begins to peek through. He's at so many conflicts. "I once cared for Dream but he hurt me" "They're my minions, tools, so why do I feel protective over them?" "Why do i feel bad for what I've done to them?" "Why does the pain not go away and why does hating feel so heavy?" This version of him decides Nightmare's entire development going forward. He's confused, the child that never had a chance to grow up is finally getting a voice and it overwhelms him. Either he pushes all of this down and doubles down on his behavior or we go to late Nightmare.

This Nightmare has found ways to cope. He is allowing himself to care and let his guard down. He wants to make sure the misfits under his wing are taken care of, nobody cared for him so he could be different and care for them. It puts him at a disadvantage but it makes his heart hurt less so it's a win. This Nightmare is also more mature, mellow and emotionally intelligent. He's had so, so many years to figure out who he is and what he wants. He could reconcile with Dream or at the very least move on and do what he has to do for the sake of balance in the multiverse.

Point is though, he reflects, matures and deals with his boatload of baggage. Man has centuries for that, he quite literally lives outside of time and by the time him and Dream fight he's already had 500 years of stagnation when it comes to his personal development, so why not let him grow up at the prospect of responsibility and having to deal with actual people on a day to day basis?

Up until like, what, 2022/2023 i didn't have Nightmare on my radar at all. I knew he existed but didn't particularly care for him. Then i read Blue joins the Bad Sanses by @/darkxsoulzyx and how they wrote Nightmare and I loved that characterization so much because it adds so much depth to him. It was eye opening to me tbh.

And isn't that the point of Undertale to begin with? You always have choices. You can always make a good choice instead of a bad one. No one forces you to make a bad one. At any given time you can be better, even if your track record is horrible. Why shouldn't we hold AU characters to the same standard?

Like there's obviously bad ones no questions asked. In and out of AUs. Like what the early fandom did to Blue/Swap Sans or how heavily people infantilized Papyrus or how Chara was turned into a literal demon even though they did literally nothing to warrant that or literally every character blogthegreatrouge ever wrote

But like

Then there's takes that are hated that i can't quite get behind.

There used to be an uproar in the community about how fanon Sans' reaction to Papyrus' death was unrealistic as canon Sans doesn't appear to care that much, instead now shifting into the other extreme where he doesn't give a fuck about Papyrus' death at all. And like- where did people gather that Sans didn't care? Iirc in every neutral judgement or phone call he calls Frisk a dirty brother killer. He may not be outwardly emotional towards Frisk but that doesn't mean he can't grieve off screen. Sans and Papyrus are incredibly close and the idea that Sans wouldn't be all that bothered if he died is arrogant and lacking empathy imo. "But why does Sans only fight in the Genocide route" Because Sans generally avoids confrontation. He takes the path of least resistance and gives up quickly. Man's depressed and hopeless. But in genocide he HAS to do something. He's the only one who CAN do something given his powers. He's weak but in his own terms he's determined and he cheats at every turn. I really hate people making Sans this apathetic creature who doesn't have any big feelings when he's the opposite of. I replayed undertale pacifist recently and there was a great line from him. This is slightly paraphrased but "Papyrus likes to nag me on how lazy I am even though i'm the farthest thing from". We need to stop looking at the surface of a character and really analyze how they act before we throw them from one extreme to the next.

Or another thing where i really adore fanon is fanon Dreamtale, as talked about at length in a previous post, and i also really like the current fanon Underswap Sans. We abandoned Blueberry, turning him into a meme/parody for the most part, and now have a really interesting and competent character in Blue. Is he still mischaracterized from what his creator originally envisioned? Probably. But he's still really nuanced and three dimensional. The current version of him has turned him into a favorite of mine.

There's so many more instances of where a fanon interpretation is viewed as bad but I don't see an issues with it because especially when it's a community effort the character ends up nuanced and interesting.

The Undertale fandom is so incredibly creative, with AUs too. Is it just a glorified OC maker at this point? Yeah. But it doesn't change all the masterpieces that came of it. We need to give ourselves more credit. The fandom is too big and too old so people will always dig out bad stuff and people will always call this community cringe and bad. But in all honesty? Most people here are really chill. A few bad apples don't ruin the batch. I've been in this fandom on and off when i was in 6th grade in 2017. I've witnessed a large part of what this fandom can do and has experienced. The worst people we've weeded out and we evolved their works from what was sparkly garbage to something more worthwhile and fun. Or everyone that landed in a cringe compilation back in the day was literally just a child and grew up by now.

The community turned Dream from a perfect little hero and somewhat of a doormat iirc into someone who has deep struggles of morality, who often doubts himself and is a people pleaser by design. People around him become happy automatically, he's a walking drug, so to keep everyone happy he lets himself be used that way. His priorities are torn between wanting to talk sense into his brother and fighting him in order to protect everyone from him. He wants to make sure everyone's happy and satisfied with no collateral, and the fact that it's not possible is getting to him. I think the concept that a character that physically embodies positivity can and does feel genuine, deep depression is so very interesting. Also from my memory the original Dream lacked a significant backbone and the fandom just made him badass. Love it. Whenever someone writes Dream jaded and Done With This Shit™ i get really happy. Also i adore that people made Dream able to hurt those around him without really realizing he's being a bad friend due to being so far up his own head. Like yes, give him the capacity to hurt even if accidentally!!

And Nightmare, my favorite in terms of how the fandom developed him. Because we have a spectrum, essentially. On one hand we have a cartoonishly evil eldritch monster, who (other than the original characterization that made literally no sense whatsoever) still has nuance and moments of clarity and sympathy. On the other hand we also have an incredibly jaded and wounded man who had been betrayed and hurt by the one person he trusted, who was raised in an environment of hurt only for his brother to betray him too. He still feels that very pain and hurt even multiple centuries later. And yet he still has so much humanity and affection in him once his walls are broken down. This is the Nightmare that takes care of his underlings, the one that is something other than just a selfish prick. This is the Nightmare who switches from cruel to caring in an instant. He is still a person. And it's again that beautiful contrast of the psychical embodiment of negativity having the capacity to love deeply. If someone writes Nightmare it's always within this spectrum between cruel but nuanced to genuine grey and i absolutely adore it.

I also adore how the fandom understood that if Nightmare and Dream would genuinely kill eachother there would be a problem. Because positivity and negativity can't exist without one another. Otherwise we have mania or deep depression and neither are good. Then there's also the question of what qualifies as positive and negative emotions. You can't exactly define it because the matter of emotions and feelings is incredibly nuanced and complicated. Not to mention the fact that we need 'negative' emotions to survive. Without fear we'd die of recklessness, without greed we'd never want for anything etc. The issue is in how strong these emotions are. Same goes with 'positive' ones. If you're constantly happy and jolly that's mania and manic people aren't exactly good at taking care of themselves. Likewise without positive emotions no one would have a reason to live. The key is balance. So i really like scenarios where especially Nightmare understands this (Dream was in a rock for however many years it was. Like 500? I don't remember it's been a while. Anyway my point is he is lacking centuries of development and education that Nightmare had) and thus their constant fighting is less just personal grudges (which it absolutely is no question) but also just of enforcing THEIR version of balance. Also Dream doesn't want to see anyone hurt, so it makes sense he wants to stop Nightmare from taking AUs under his thumb. While it's cruel and terrible, there's method in Nightmare's actions and him and Dream need to find a solid middle ground.

I mean, logically i get where people are coming from. Dick took an important nurturing role in Damian's life and was a big support in terms of Damian figuring out who he is and who he wants to be

But like

At the end of the day he's Damian's big brother. Yeah he took care of him and raised him solo for like a year or however long Bruce was away, but that doesn't make him a father. Big siblings, especially adult big siblings, tend to take care often of their kid siblings. I have 4 big sisters, 3 of which were adults when i was a kid because they're from my mom's first marriage, and given my mom was a single mother to me and my 1 year older sister, we were often watched by one of the three big ones, sleeping over at their places for a night or sometimes even a week or two when we had school vacation. Given my mom worked a lot and was also heavily depressed for a while it sometimes felt like we were spending more time with our sisters than with our mom. Two of those sisters even were moms to multiple children at the time so we grew up closely with our nephews. But that never made our mom less our mom and them less our sisters, get what i mean?

Likewise there are many cases where the parents are shit or unavailable or whatever else and a late teen/young adult sibling takes full custody and raises their kid siblings. First, incredibly random, example that comes to my mind right now is ICarly and how Spencer takes care of Carly. That doesn't make him her father though, he's still her brother. Fictional example but situations like that or more extreme ones exist irl.

Dick is a big brother that stepped up but that doesn't make him a parent, ever. Bruce is Damian's father, even if not always a stellar one, him being Damian's dad is undeniable.

I won't deny that Damian being Dick's Robin is accurate or that jokes like "Damian is Dick's kid" are funny, but please lets not invalidate the status of a big brother by calling him a father because a big sibling who gave so much for their little sibling deserves respect in their own right.

Like let's view just Bruce's disappearing from Dick's POV. Suddenly your sorta-kind-of dad is dead, one of your brothers is having a crashout in Europe, the other is having another crashout and just fucking disappeared after you suggested he could go to therapy to cope and your youngest brother, a very troubled 10 year old, is basically all alone. Oh and you have to be Batman against your will now because otherwise Gotham goes to shit. So you try to somehow juggle this entire mess and decide to take care of your youngest brother because who else will?

Ich bin der Feuerball, vor dem sich manche Sonne schon verkroch

I'm the fireball from which some suns already hid away

Ich rase durch das All und wo ich war bleibt nur ein schwarzes Loch

I race through space and where I was only black holes remain

Und was ich tu vergesst ihr nie

And you'll never forget what I do

Selbst aus der Liebe mach ich Krieg

Even love I'll turn to war

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, i'm Hate, i'm Hate

Und stolz darauf

And proud of it

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Zerstören macht mir Spaß

Destroying is fun to me

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Und Satans Sohn

And son of Satan

Ich raube euch das Licht, denn von alleine strahlen kann ich nicht

I rob you of your light because I can't shine on my own

Dafür schenk ich euch Lügen, bis auch eure Fantasie zerbrich

In turn I give you lies until even your imagination breaks apart

Ich tausche täglich meine Haut deshalb bin ich euch so vertraut

I change my skin every day, that's why i'm so familiar to you

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Und stolz darauf

And proud of it

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Zerstören macht mir Spaß

Destroying is fun to me

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Und Satans Sohn

And son of Satan

Ich wirke wie ein süßes Gift, das jeden von euch einmal trifft

I act like a sweet poison that hits each of you eventually

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Und stolz darauf

And proud of it

Ich bin der Hass, ich bin der Hass

I'm Hate, I'm Hate

Zerstören macht mir Spaß

Like the entire concept, with that being primarily Nightmares (and by extension Dreams) backstory, was because of 2, somewhat 3 very specific songs from an old German webseries i was obsessed with as a kid.

Or the sole reason i made Horror a dragon (that sounds so fucking odd out of context lmao) was because I read a book about dragons at the time and then bulshitted a reason to have a dragon in my story.

I think it was only like a year or so later when i actually started making up more coherent and in depth stuff, like Inks and Errors characterizations. I don't think i ever mentioned anything about them proper and i can make a post about it, or about the AU in general, if anyone's interested, but like they initially had no discernable personalities. I don't think Error was even relevant/present until i began developing him. And the sole reason i developed either of them was because i had Ink, as well as other DEAU characters, in an RP at the time and i bulshitted a random interaction, got attached to it and rsn with it.

Unfortunately i forgot a handful of different concepts i had in the past because smart as i am i never wrote down anything proper and i no longer have any chats from that time of my life where i did write down my thoughts and ideas, but that doesn't mean i can't make up new stuff that fits in the AU