Clusterverse

Author's Note

So, StarCloakedDragon is the whole reason I'm writing this. She got me back into the Undertale fandom recently, and has been really encouraging.

This was an idea I had a while ago, right around the times that AUs were getting popular. I brought it up to Star during one of our chats, and she asked me to write a story for it. So, I decided I would.

So, thank you Star!

Edit: So, I recently went on a creative spree and ended up with 6 more AUs. Now I have 7, the exact number I was hoping to have! 7 AUs, 7 Souls, and a nice uneven. This works out really well for me, since I can now do what I had originally wanted to.

Clusterverse was the first idea I had brought up to Star. As much as it sounded like a good idea, I didn't feel comfortable using someone else's AUs.

Let me explain. This story is based around a part of the Multiverse that's grouped closely together; Hence, a cluster. Originally, I was planning to use the most popular AUs to make this story, but, like I said earlier, that thought made me a tad bit uncomfortable.

Then, I had another idea. What if I made the AUs? I wouldn't be constricted to a personality decided by someone else, and I wouldn't be disrespectful to someone else's hard work. That's where I began working on Underguardian. Because it was my first AU, and I didn't really have a good idea for the other 6 I needed, I decided to just write a story about one world.

However, I went on YouTube to look for some good fanmade Undertale songs. Lo and behold, I found Hard Drive, a song about Mettaton. Just listening to the lyrics got me thinking. What if, instead of Souls persisting, they left behind little devices called hard drives? This spiral led into its own AU, thus giving rise to HardDrive.

The next AU is a bit more difficult to explain. You see, I had a dream about Frisk, alone in the forest, with no one else around. The forest scene stuck with me, and I wanted to find a way to connect it to Clusterverse. Then, an idea. I'm a pessimist at heart, so I imagined a world where the monsters were sealed into a forest, instead of underground. My mind began to think about how things would change, and I was reminded of many stories where people went into forests, but never came out. That's the inspiration for PursuitTale. (The name makes more sense if I told you the story)

MythologyTale, at least the plot, started as an original idea I had come up with. I'm very interested in mythology and things like that, so it was absolutely necessary I incorporated that into my AUs. But how? It's simple. Take an original idea and replace the characters. At first, I was going to do Greek vs. Egyptian vs. Norse, but then I thought about how messed up those stories were. Plus, it's an unbelievable amount of research. I'd much rather spend that time working on actually writing my AUs. That's not to say I don't do any research, just less.

UnderFragment is inspired purely by one line in the actual game. "Gaster shattered across time and space." It seemed so fascinating to me. What if Sans was there when he shattered. On top of that, what if a piece of Gaster's soul wound up in Sans. It was definitely something I thought about for a while. After making the basic plot, I filled in the rest with equally tragic moments, from Papyrus being tortured and used as a power source to Gaster's soul driving Sans mad. So, yeah, fun times ahead for this AU.

SuppressionTale was, like MythologyTale, born from an original idea. Well, mostly. I was inspired by Undyne melting because of her determination. It sounds really bad, and it is, but hear me out. From what I gathered, (Don't quote me because I might be completely wrong) monsters will melt if they feel too much of one thing. So, what if I magnified that effect, to the point where it was threatening monster's survival. Clearly, they'd adopted ways to prevent such things from happening. Hence, the Suppression Force. After that, I once again filled in the details with elements that I could easily link in.

And finally, the very last AU I came up with. A close relative of mine makes jewelry for a living. UnderQuartz just seemed so perfect. And when I finally came up with the idea, I smacked myself for not thinking of it sooner. I practically live with someone who works with quartz for a living. (He mostly uses quartz because it's beautiful and comes in a lot of colors) Anyways, I already knew quite a bit about quartz, and it can change energy. Basically, a bunch of science terms, and I sound smart! In any case, once I thought about it, monsters with crystals growing out of them sounded absolutely awesome! I can keep justifying myself, or I can let you go read the dang story!

Enjoy!