Web Animation / Interlopers

"Let's mess someone up."

"A common interest will unite them... an unholy alliance many would say. But I beg to differ, as an unlikely camaraderie develops a different outlook on certain things is possible. But make no mistake, this isn't going to be a pacifist run. Fighting is still in their nature, and they can both be as violent as ever to anyone who stands in their way. But... Well, you just have to wait to see for yourself."

— Core Frisk, Interlopers Introduction

Interlopers or Interlopers: The Chronicles of Chara & Buddy is a fanmade Crossover Spin-Off of Undertale and LISA, created and directed by Strelok, in collaboration with various other well-known fan-artists, such as TC-96, the creator of Endertale and animator Absolute Dream.

The series started on June 1st, 2018 with the video Chara vs Buddy in which the titular characters duke it out for a while, before a mysterious being known only as "Kiwi-Frisk" interrupts the fight by easily defeating both of them.

Utterly humiliated, Chara and Buddy decide to put their differences aside to pursue, find and take their revenge on Kiwi. Their journey leads them across the multiverse. And along the way they might be forced to undergo a much-needed introspection on themselves and their goals.

What our "heroes" don't know: Their entire adventure has been foretold and orchestrated by The Man Who Speaks In Hands and a mysterious child named CORE Frisk, who will watch it with interest.

The series is comprised of several animated shorts and episodes, each showcasing either a battle or the point of view of a character on certain events. A comic hosted on TC-96's Deviantart page details what happens between the videos. The sequel series INTERLOPERS: Hopes & Dreams from Olathe was announced and released in December, 2021.

Main Series

• "Chara vs Buddy" - A prequel to the series. A mysterious power transfers Buddy from the world of Olathe into the Underground's last corridor. Chara, having just finished a genocide run, decides to greet her in their own special way.
• "Interlopers 0.0" - Beaten and humiliated, Buddy and Chara temporarily halt their dispute to team up against Kiwi-Frisk.
• "Chara vs Jim Sterling" - While tracking down Kiwi-Frisk, Chara and Buddy encounter a strange man wearing a bird mask who wants to avenge Papyrus' death by Chara's hands.
• "VS Béte Noire" - Chara and Buddy leave the main universe to continue their search for Kiwi-Frisk, but a mysterious girl dressed in pink seems to have other plans for them.
• "Chara's Hate" - Chara has a hard time keeping the hatred in their soul under control when they see Buddy helping a human.
• "The Good, the Bad and the Kiwi Pt.1" - Chara and Buddy confront alternate versions of Frisk and Asriel.
• "The Good, the Bad and the Kiwi Pt.2" - Chara and Buddy finally catch up to Kiwi. Have they finally grown strong enough to defeat him?

Shorts

• "Waltz of LOVE" - An extension of one of Gaster's Ship Tease visions from Chara Vs Buddy
• "Interloper Shots: Patching Things Up" - Continuing on from Chara Vs Buddy. After a quick stroll through waterfall, Chara presents their new ally with a gift.
• "Interlopers: Introduction" - A reflection on events from Chara's point of view.
  • "Buddy's perspective" - A reflection on events from Buddy's point of view.
  • "Core's POV" - A reflection on events from Core Frisk's point of view.
• "Alphys & Gaster's Dilemma" - Gaster has a small talk with Core Frisk on how to proceed with the Chara and Buddy situation.
• "Buddy remembers Big Lincoln" - Buddy tells Chara about her fight with Big Lincoln.
• "When Buddy met Astell" - What was going through Buddy's head when she first saw Astell?
• "The Starting Point" - A small prequel to Chara vs Buddy.

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Interlopers provides examples of:

• Almost Kiss: After getting drunk, Buddy leans in to kiss Chara — who promptly throws up, though whether it was due to the alcohol, disgust, or both is left unclear.
• Always Someone Better: Unlike in her home series, Bete Noire has just awakened when the duo encounters her, and being found out by Chara leaves her no room to use any of the trickery that got her as far as she did. Her opponents are also much more powerful than Glitchtale's main cast, with Chara being higher in LV than Frisk was at his best. Naturally, she is subjected to a complete Curb-Stomp Battle. Even making the duo hallucinate does little to slow them down as Chara recovers quick enough to deprive Betty of her arms, allowing a very pissed Buddy to brutally finish her off.
• Ambiguous Gender: Chara is referred to solely with they/them pronouns and there is nothing about their appearance that would hint at them being male or female.
• And the Adventure Continues: Interlopers ends with Chara and Buddy embarking on a journey through Olathe, in order to find a second Joy-vaccine for Chara.
• Antagonist Title: Chara and Buddy are the titular "Interlopers". And the people they fight during their search for Kiwi-Frisk are either only defending themselves or have very good reason to attack them. Béte Noire is just about the only exception.
• Back from the Dead: Chara was originally dead, but managed to come back to life by taking over Frisk's body.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: After teaming up in Chara's Hate, Chara and Buddy defeat Hate's army in a matter of seconds.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Chara, at the end of "Chara vs Jim Sterling". Jim has them literally pinned down to the floor, with their legs broken and prepares to make them go through a Fate Worse than Death in order to avenge Papyrus. If it hadn't been for Buddy's intervention, Chara's journey would have been over right then and there.
  • Buddy, in "VS Béte Noire". Betty makes her hallucinate Rando in the middle of their fight, effectively horrifying and stunning her. Chara narrowly manages to break out of Béte's spell and cut off her arms shortly before she's able to axe off Buddy.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • The "The Battles To Come"-trailer showed silhouettes of and a short fight scene with what looked to be Asriel and Frisk from Endertale. In the Interlopers webcomic it's revealed that the Asriel and Frisk in said trailer actually hail from Siblingtale, which takes place a significant amount of time after Endertale and symbolizes a possible Good Ending to that story.
  • When Chara is close to dying in The Good, the Bad and the Kiwi, Pt.2, they lose control of Hate, who announces that it's had enough of Chara's waste of their determination and prepares to take over their body again — only for Kiwi to violently murder it in the middle of its villainous speech.
• Bathos: Interlopers is a story about two child-warriors embarking on an intense journey of introspection and death — with tons of memes, pop-culture references, and no small amount of jokes at the protagonists' expense.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: "Chara's Hate" sees the hatred Chara harbors in their soul spin out of control and attempt to take over their body. It almost makes them kill Buddy, before she manages to enter their mindscape and convince them that she won't stab them in the back, after which they reconcile and fight and defeat Hate together.
• Berserk Button: Gaster is vehemently opposed to shipping Buddy and Chara.
• Big Good: Downplayed, but since Core Frisk and Gaster were the ones to bring Chara and Buddy together and at least one of them wants them to have a change of heart and improve themselves, they can be counted as this.
• Blood Knight: Chara delights in fighting and violence and is almost always the most eager between them and Buddy to charge at an enemy.
• Bittersweet Ending: Chara and Buddy finally manage to defeat Kiwi (or at least come out alive at the end of the confrontation), but Chara had to take Joy to ensure their victory. Not only will they become addicted to it now, the Joy's side effects will eventually turn Chara into a mutant. But their shared adventure has caused a strong bond to develop between Buddy and Chara and both of them have become overall better people through the experience. Buddy also remembers that there might still be vaccines in her world. And so, with a bit of help from Kiwi, the two of them enter Olathe in search of a cure for Chara, leaving Chara's old world and their bloody past behind for good.
• Body Horror: Fitting for its Darker and Edgier nature, Interlopers has a lot of this. The fight between Chara and Buddy especially features a lot of on-screen dismemberment, Eye Scream, and gore.
• Came Back Wrong: Chara managed to come back to life by taking over the body of Frisk, after they'd collected enough LOVE in a genocide run. However, several scenes in the animated shorts and the comic point to them not being entirely human anymore.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the comics, Chara picks up the chocolate bar from Toriel's fridge shortly before they and Buddy embark on their journey across dimensions. After the events of Chara's Hate, they share it with Buddy as a show of trust and to prove that they don't hate her.
• Creepy Child:
  • Chara is a Humanoid Abomination, who performed a Genocide from the Inside in their own universe and wants to kill a child-like being simply for "mocking" them.
  • Betty is a soul-stealing creature made to look like a cute little girl, who preys on others to gain more power.
• Darker and Edgier: If you thought Glitchtale was brutal, Interlopers makes sure to top it and then some. The fights get absolutely brutal at times, with gore and blood being the norm during the initial fight between Chara and Buddy.
• Dimensional Traveler: The premise of the series. With the help of Buddy's void-matter particle-coated sword, her and Chara are able to track down Kiwi-Frisk over multiple alternate universes.
• Evil Is Petty: What's Chara's and Buddy's reason for starting a multiversal journey that could potentially end in one or both of them getting killed? A chubby kid beat them up and their egos can't handle it.
• Evil Versus Evil: Pretty much the entirety of "VS Béte Noire". Chara, a genocidal Megalomaniac and Buddy, a selfish Jerkass with a Utopia Justifies the Means-mentality, find themselves fighting a Humanoid Abomination who seeks to destroy all monsters. None of them are people you would root for under normal circumstances.
• Eyepatch of Power: During their trek through Waterfall, Chara finds Undyne's eyepatch and gives it to Buddy to replace her bandages.
• Ground Hog Day Loop: Gaster's original plan, when he transported Buddy to the Underground. He wanted to trap both her and Chara in a never-ending battle where they would kill each other over and over with neither side ever coming out on top. The appearance of Kiwi-Frisk throws a wrench into that plan.
• Ignored Aesop: Played for Laughs: During The Good, the Bad and the Kiwi Pt.1, Siblingtale-Chara gives Chara and Buddy a heartwarming speech about how fighting out of hatred is ultimately pointless and how everyone can change for the better if they try. It briefly looks like at least Buddy is starting to come around — only for her and Chara to revert right back to murderous rage when they notice Kiwi is standing behind them.
• Mirror Character: A major re-occuring theme of the show is just how similar Chara and Buddy are. Both of them are children who were tasked with saving an entire species due to being the only one of their respective kind among said species. But both of them chose to go down a dark path in order to achieve that goal and ultimately lost themselves in their violent urges, leading to them indirectly causing the death of a loved one.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Downplayed. Buddy and Chara beating Betty to a pulp leads to Betty's plans being postponed and the Glitchtale cast gets to enjoy happiness for at least a little longer.
• Nightmare Face: Chara often pulls one during or when they're about to engage in a fight. Their eyes and mouth start dripping with a dark liquid while they let loose a horrifying scream.
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Buddy frequently swears, moreso when she's angry. Chara isn't too fond of it.
• Ship Tease: Zig-zagged. Chara and Buddy getting together romantically is played for laughs at first, with the idea being Gaster's Berserk Button. However, their chemistry and dynamic seems to support this outcome more with every episode. In the comics, when Buddy tries to make a move on Chara while drunk, Chara becomes so disgusted they throw up. The final episode, however, has Chara admit that they do care about Buddy — though it's left ambiguous as to whether this is romantic or platonic.
• Shout-Out:
  • In "Patching Things Up", Gaster has a vision of Chara and Buddy flirting while the Underground burns around them, their dialogue quoting Zuko and Mai's angsty love confession from Avatar: The Last Airbender "The Beach".
  • The intro to "Chara's Hate" has Buddy channelling Gunnery Sergeant Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, challenging Chara to show her their war face.
• Sealed Evil in a Duel: Gaster's original intention when he brought Buddy to the Underground. Buddy and Chara fighting each other for all eternity would have locked Chara in a basically inescapable And I Must Scream situation. Too bad Kiwi chose to get involved.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: At the beginning of the series, Buddy doesn't particularly like Chara, but she's willing to work with them to defeat Kiwi-Frisk, and Chara's feelings towards Buddy are neutral at best.
• Villainous Friendship: Chara and Buddy start to develop a genuine friendship as time goes on, but they're still murderous Creepy Children who won't hesitate to kill if it gets them what they want.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The series epilogue has Core inform the viewers of the fates of the people Chara and Buddy have encountered on their journey. Siblingtale-Asriel and Siblingtale-Frisk remained on edge for a while after their encounter with Chara and Buddy, but ultimately gave up their search for them. Asriel decides to give Chara's abandoned heart locket to Astell. Jim meets with Alphys, who gifts him with a robotic arm to replace the one Buddy cut off. The two become good friends and later on, Alphys rises to queen of the Underground and leads it to her best ability with Jim by her side. The woman Buddy rescued escapes from the war-zone with this universe's baby Chara and lives to raise him lovingly. She also searches for Buddy for a good while, but after being unable to find her, decides to use her talents as a painter to make a portrait of Buddy to at least thank her in some way. Betty has to both physically and emotionally recover from her loss against Chara and Buddy, leading to her having to put her plans on hold. While this doesn't lead to her abandoning them completely, the Glitchtale-cast at least gets a bit more time to be happy before Betty attacks.
• Worthy Opponent: Chara and Buddy come to consider each other as this at the end of "Chara vs Buddy".
• Would Hurt a Child: Gaster was more than willing to let Chara and Buddy kill each other. While it's more than understandable that he wouldn't care about Chara, Buddy had absolutely nothing to do with the carnage in his world, yet he was still willing to use her as a potential Sacrificial Lamb.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Siblingtale-Chara briefly takes over Siblingtale-Frisk's body to try and talk Chara down, telling them that the birth of Astell allowed them to feel hope for future generations and that determination to protect loved ones will always be stronger than determination born of hatred. The moment is then ruined by Kiwi's reappearance.

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