The characters page for Handplates. Beware of main game spoilers
The Main Trio
1-S/Sans
Papyrus' twin brother, cloned from Dr. Gaster. Although physically weak and fragile, like in the game proper, there's more to him than meets the eye and he's extremely intelligent.
- Big Brother Instinct: Although they're twins and Sans is the littler of the two, he looks out for Papyrus exactly like a big brother would. After Gaster is erased he makes a point to keep protecting him as best he can, like going to check out if Undyne really had Papyrus' best interests at heart when she starts giving him cooking lessons.
- Character Narrator: After Gaster is erased from the timeline and the boys leave from Asgore's care, Sans starts fulfilling this role via the journals he keeps.
- Deadpan Snarker: Most of his dialogue with Gaster is little flat jabs about how he keeps torturing them and what an awful guy he is, delivered with the same deadpan that Sans delivers to No Mercy players in the main game.
- Despair Event Horizon: The revelation of living inside a game has pushed him right to the edge of this trope, but he hasn't crossed it yet.
- Handicapped Badass:
- Much is made of how weak and fragile Sans is. After Gaster is erased, he obtains his Karma ability which more than makes up for it.
- There's also the fact that in this comic he's actually blind in one eye after an experiment with him went wrong.
- Heavy Sleeper: He can sleep for days and one incident in the lab had him sleeping so deeply that neither Papyrus nor Gaster could wake him. It's apparently a result of the stress he's exposed to constantly.
2-P/Papyrus
Sans' twin brother, cloned from Dr. Gaster. Though not as intelligent as Sans, Papyrus has an unbreakable spirit and is more physically capable than his brother besides.
- Actual Pacifist: He refuses to hurt or kill anyone for any reason, even hypothetically. He refuses to even let Gaster die by inaction, as he heals him in one comic where he's been mortally wounded, at the cost of being able to escape.
- Bad Liar: By virtue of always using a Suspiciously Specific Denial when he lies, or just not knowing what to say under pressure.
- Desperately Craves Affection: He's extremely clingy to Sans and Gaster for affection, considering how starved he is of it. After Gaster is erased, this turns into a need to be popular, hence wanting to be in the royal guard.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Or Dreaming of Times Gone By. Either way, Papyrus sometimes sees snippets of other timelines. Sans does this too, but it's more frequent for Papyrus.
- Hidden Depths: Gaster dismisses him as unintelligent, but he pays more attention to how Gaster reacts to even small things than either he or Sans might think. This is what leads him to believe that Gaster doesn't really want to hurt him and can be talked out of it.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Despite everything Gaster puts him through, he remains unfailingly kind and adamantly against violence and killing, and unwaveringly believes that Gaster could become a kinder person too, if only he wanted to. Gaster is greatly frustrated by this trait, because all he sees it as is Papyrus repeating his own mistakes.
- Stepford Smiler: Although naturally cheery, energetic and hopeful, Papyrus also carries a lot of baggage and at least some of his optimism is a mask so that he doesn't break under all the bad stuff that happens to them in the lab. This also applies to how he behaves when he and Sans are free and he's struggling to make friends.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: He sees the good in everyone he meets and either can't see or refuses to look for the bad in them as well. In one comic, when trying to make him choose to kill people in hypothetical situations, Gaster dismisses his constant insistence on taking a third option as a refusal to deal with the "real world."
Dr. W. D. Gaster
Sans and Papyrus' mysterious creator, who is erased from the timeline by the time of the main game. He clones the boys from his own bone mass and uses them as guinea pigs to form alternative means of breaking the barrier.
- Character Narrator: He serves this role via his research notes and internal monologues until he's erased.
- Character Tics: He visibly shudders every time his shame and moral scruples over what he is doing overtakes him.
- Deuteragonist: While Sans and Papyrus are the main characters of the comic, until he gets erased the comic features Gaster's perspective prominently, and he continues to show up in various side comics.
- Disc-One Final Boss: After he's been erased from the timeline, Flowey takes his place as the antagonist.
- Does Not Know How to Say "Thanks": He has a hard time knowing how to respond to the nice things Papyrus does or says for him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He's unable to understand how Papyrus is so willing to forgive him and show him mercy in spite of everything he's done, particularly in one incident where it ruined their escape attempt. This is partially because he knows Papyrus came from a part of him and doesn't get how Papyrus isn't as ruthless as he sees himself. He is particularly distraught when Papyrus unwittingly tells him You Did Everything You Could when he brings up the story of how he came to be the last member his species.
- The Faceless: In the comic proper his face is depicted as covered by white, glitched out flames much like the Lost Souls in the pacifist ending of the main game. This is to represent how he's been erased from the timeline and everything the reader is seeing is technically a flashback. His face is only shown in some of the non-canon comics.
- Good Costume Switch: In non-canon "mercyplates" comics where he chose to stop the experiments, Gaster is shown wearing a white sweater in contrast to his usual dark grey one.
- Last of His Kind: Until he made Sans and Papyrus, he was the only skeleton to survive the war between monsters and humans.
- Mr. Exposition: Until he's erased, in the story whenever the boys were confused about something he'd be the one to give them a lengthy explanation about it (and even after he's erased he's shown doing it in flashbacks.) Zarla has commented that deep down he loves teaching them what he knows and can't help himself.
- My God, What Have I Done?: A key part of Gaster's character is how many times he reaches the point where he's horrified with himself, and then keeps going anyway. The part where he first drilled the handplates into Sans and Papyrus' hands is a big one.
- Pride: One of his more glaring faults; he's immensely proud of his own intellect, the work he's done for the underground, and of his heritage as one of the last skeletons alive. This gets parodied in non canon comics, like one speculative comic where he gets captured by humans and then stops trying to escape because they start talking about how smart he is.
- Survivor's Guilt: He blames for not fighting alongside the other skeletons in the war between the monsters and the humans; the war ended up killing every other skeleton, but he alone survived because he was a kind person and refused to fight. He has blamed himself for it ever since, and one of the main reasons why he is especially hard on Papyrus is because he sees the same kindness in him, and sees it as naivety.
- That Thing Is Not My Child!: He tries his hardest to invoke this in regards to Sans and Papyrus, as he believes developing feelings for them will only hider him, but he ultimately remains unable to do it entirely.
- Undying Loyalty: He has this for Asgore — and Toriel when she was still around—thanks to how they more or less took him in after the war. A huge part of his motivation is to break the barrier in a way that keeps Asgore from having to kill anyone else. In one comic he outright promises that he will never leave him no matter what he does or has to become.
- Unreliable Narrator: When he narrates what's going on, he conveniently leaves out details and downplays anything that might mess with his psychological distance from the boys.Gaster's narration: Check-up on 2-P. He's healing very well.
Papyrus: I'm sor—
Gaster: Quiet. Be quiet.
Gaster's narration: He did not say anything. - You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Papyrus heals him as he is injured, rather than using the opportunity to escape, Gaster is shocked, asking Papyrus how he how can be so kind, even to him, even after everything he has done to him and his brother, and even at his own expense. Papyrus earnestly replies, seeing how he is made from Gaster, he must get it from him somehow. Gaster finds himself unable to formulate an immediate answer and even has a temporary breakdown afterwards.
Supporting Cast
Frisk
The player character of the main game, a human who fell underground and befriends the brothers. Their first appearance in the comic is asking Sans and Papyrus about their hand-plates, which leads to the comic elaborating on their backstory. Sans and Papyrus' future vision implies they're not as friendly as they appear.
- Ambiguously Human: They're seemingly being puppeted as a way for an unnerving shadow creature to interact with the world of the game. Apparently Frisk can only borrow the shadow creature's soul, since they have none of their own.
- Ambiguous Situation: Has Frisk already broken the barrier in the first comic, or does it take place before the barrier is broken? Does Frisk reload later and do a No Mercy Route, or does this take place after they decided to give up on a No Mercy route?
- Dark Is Not Evil: The shadow creature, being a representation of the author while playing the game, does want the best for the cast... They just happen to be terrifying to look at.
- Demoted to Extra: For being the main character in the game, Frisk hardly shows up at all in the comic, Justified as the comic takes place before they’ve fallen into the underground.
- The Voiceless: Frisk is the only one who doesn't actually talk in the comic, which other characters revealing their dialogue via Repeating So the Audience Can Hear.
Alphys
Gaster's colleague who later takes his place as the Royal Scientist. Not knowing his dark secret, she gets increasingly worried about him as the experiments he's doing take their toll on his mental health.
- Apologizes a Lot: Like in the main game, she's very apologetic and easily embarrassed.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She's the one who brought Sans and Papyrus out of the lab and incidentally showed Sans where Gaster was. Because of this, Gaster got erased from the timeline.
Asgore Dreemurr
The king of monsters. After Toriel left, Asgore relied on Gaster for emotional support and takes a fatherly role towards him, this resulting in Gaster wanting to do anything to save Asgore from having to kill more people. He takes a slightly bigger role in the comic after Gaster is erased from the timeline.
- Beware the Nice Ones: One flashback shows the day that Asriel died, and Asgore was furious enough to make his declaration of war on all humans. The way he roars and rages at Gaster's attempts to calm him down are a stark contrast to his every other appearance in the comic. There's also the fact that, as guilty as he is about it, he has killed multiple children by the time the comic has started.
- Character Narrator: For a brief time, he narrates the comic once Gaster has been erased and the boys are living with him.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Flashbacks show that he was like this when Toriel left; after spending hundreds of years married to someone he loved, Asgore became near catatonic and extremely clingy towards Gaster.
- Foil: He serves as one to Gaster; both of them have done terrible things under the belief that they had to do it for the good of monsters, but while Asgore sits idly by and hopes for a better way, Gaster actively does even more wrong in the hopes it will improve the situation. Asgore is also warm and friendly to everyone despite the things he's done, while Gaster is closed off, unsociable, and hides whatever good there is in himself.
- Parental Substitute: The comic posits that he was one for Gaster, as he and Toriel took him in after the war killed off all other skeletons. He also becomes one for the brothers when Gaster is erased, albeit temporarily.
Toriel Dreemurr
The lost queen of monsters, who has already left for the ruins by the time the comic proper takes place. Despite this, she shows up from time to time, albeit mostly in flashbacks. She also stars as the titular "mom" in the Momplates comics, adopting the boys in an AU where they escaped to the ruins.
- Parental Substitute: Flashbacks eventually reveal that she was a sort of surrogate mother for Gaster after his family was killed in the war. She also becomes a mother to Sans and Papyrus in the Momplates comics.
- My God, What Have I Done?: During one flashback she talks to Gaster about how it felt when she first killed someone in self-defense, describing it as being like her soul shattered and then reformed differently in an instant. The art depicts her sobbing into her hands after it happened
Other Antagonists
The Tar Monster
A strange being pulled from another dimension by one of Gaster's later experiments with the brothers. It naturally tries to attack them. It appears to know Gaster from after he's erased.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Among other things, it appears to be a personification of the "anomaly" of saving and loading and a representation of the Undertale player, as well as being connected in some way to Gaster's "followers" and the F value that allows you to see them. Turns out it's Gaster's Literal Spit Personality and Enemy Without.
- For the Evulz: Its motivation for attacking Sans and Papyrus, as it's curious how hard it would be to kill them.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Its true nature is obscure, but while Gaster is merely Sans and Papyrus' captor this creature is clearly a malevolent entity lurking through space and time.
- I Always Wanted to Say That: As it prepares to leave, it notes that it always wanted to give a cryptic warning and warns Gaster about how he'll disappear from existence.
Flowey the Flower
The antagonist after Gaster is erased from the timeline; he takes an interest in Sans and Papyrus and starts becoming "friends" with the latter.
- False Friend: Much like in canon, he's taking this role towards Papyrus. One comic shows him playing up their friendship in order to see Papyrus' hand plate and question him on it, and a previous comic revealed that he'd killed the brothers several times using the SAVE function.
- A Momplatesnote comic has him doing this too, tricking Papyrus into going back to Gaster by pretending to be giving him some friendly info on how much Gaster has "changed."
- Kubrick Stare: He gives an unsettling one in one comic where he's trying to get Papyrus to tell him about the hand-plates.Flowey: Because friends always tell each other their secrets, especially BEST friends. And we're BEST friends, aren't we Papyrus?
- Reminiscing About Your Victims: A sympathetic one as impossible as it sounds, after the True Pacifist ending, he tells Frisk Papyrus was his favourite.
- Save Scumming: The comic shows Flowey doing this to Sans and Papyrus, implying he'd killed them both in various ways on their very first meeting, only to load and cause them to forget it.
Spoiler Character
The Player
A shadow creature, a representation of the author while playing the game.- Adaptational Abomination: The entity's Cosmic Horror Story implications are played more notably here and it manifests, (or rather is only perceivable as) a Living Shadow with Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Animalistic Abomination: Resembles a cat-fox-human thing that's otherwordly, unnaturally eldritch and very much neither Human or Monster.
- Anti-Hero: Byronic Hero. Heavily implied to have done an aborted Genocide Run and is opposed by the main cast.
- Dark Is Evil: Formerly. The Player is an Eldritch Abomination manifesting as a Living Shadow with Glowing Eyes of Doom and is an Ex-Big Bad who Gaster fears is still evil.
- Dark Is Not Evil: The shadow creature, being a representation of the author while playing the game, does want the best for the cast... They just happen to be terrifying to look at.
- Eldritch Abomination:A being beyond comprehension, only perceivable as a Living Shadow that just barely qualifies as a Humanoid Abomination, the same species as the creator of the world, utterly beyond punishment and capable of altering reality with ease. Powers include possessing Frisk, returning lost beings back into existence, resetting the world, and, yes, even undoing what cannot be undone. Sans, Gaster and Papyrus can only speculate why such a being would do what it does, where it comes from and what it even is.
- Ex-Big Bad / Greater-Scope Villain: See Anti-Hero above.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Gaster refers to them as this, in their case it's the "Eldritch Abomination too alien to empathize with" variant.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: It's Living Shadow form has these.
- Living Shadow: How it manifests, (or rather is only perceivable as).
- Villainous BSoD: Sans is able to cause it one with his I Surrender, Suckers move, something that saves the timeline by causing them to abort their Genocide Run (after killing him). This is a case of Real Life Writes the Plot as the writer admits this scene did give them a Villainous BSoD.
