Fanfic / Undertale: Falling

What about you makes me feel like this?

"Right now, you might feel so alone, but there are people that you'll meet that will take away the loneliness. They'll make you smile, be there for you when you cry, help you when you're lost. But you need to live to meet them! [...] Who knows, maybe you just met one."

Frisk is in a dark and lonely place, she had been bullied and forgotten her whole life following a tragedy that befell her family. Now as life seems to become too much, can a curious Chara save Frisk from this darkness or will she be lost to it forever?

Falling is an Undertale fanfiction by A Simple Dragon detailing the life and trials of Frisk and Chara after the latter stops the former from committing suicide. Taking place in a Boarding School AU where the monsters never went Underground and where all humans wield magic, Frisk stands out as someone with both a phobia and inability to use magic—and for it she is tormented with all the viciousness children and teenagers can come up with. But when Chara enters her life, everything takes a change for the better... even if it becomes a lot more complicated. Love has a way of doing that.

In the world of Falling, the monsters have a more humanoid appearance than in the game, with monster features merged into a more human base which is slowly overtaken by their more magical, monstrous side as they grow older.

It can be found at Fanfiction.net.

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Falling provides examples of:

• Absurd Phobia: Played with. While Frisk's phobia of magic is completely rational to anyone who knows her Dark and Troubled Past, other people just think she's a freak who's afraid of something that is as natural as breathing in this AU.
• Action Girlfriend: Chara and Undyne are the two strongest students in school, and the girlfriends of Frisk and Alphys, respectvely.
• Adults Are Useless: They may be doing something now but that hardly excuses the years of neglect for Frisk's welfare. Especially when it seems to be that there's supposed to be a whole secret group devoted to protecting her.
• Anger Born of Worry: Chara, when Frisk resolves to challenge the Tamnour over the right to Chara's hand in marriage. The Tamnour are a noble family, who are taught to duel from the time they are young. Dueling also involves magic. Not only is Frisk absolutely terrified of magic, but she can't access her own, or even access her own SOUL.
  • Related to the above, when Frisk first tries to reach her SOUL to discover what her magic is, her heart stops and she technically dies for a short period. The resulting panic and split intentions among her friends—half not wanting her to put herself at risk anymore, half not wanting her to toss aside her only chance at keeping herself and Chara from a loveless life—nearly sets them at one another's throats.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Frisk has possibly preternatural abilities of observation. She can figure out things about people that they've managed to keep secret even from their closest family, see the good in the people who bully her, and can even guess which tram cars are going to be one of the randomly chosen "Trolley Costers".
• Beware the Nice Ones: Frisk hates the idea of hurting people, but just thinking about the man who killed her mother and father caused her to produce enough HATE to vomit up a puddle of it.
• Boarding School: The Ebott Institute of Advanced Learning and Social Development is one, and one of the foremost schools in the world at that. And it was founded by royalty, too.
• Break the Cutie: As far as can be figured out, pretty much everything since Cain showed up at her doorway and the first scene of the story have consisted of one long breaking of the cutie.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Chara and Frisk. Although Frisk has her brooding times too—she self-harms for crying out loud—she manages to maintain a kindness and gentleness that amazes Chara.
• Bungled Suicide: It is all but stated that Frisk has tried to kill themselves a number of times before the first chapter.
• Charles Atlas Superpower: Frisk supposedly gained her powers of observation because she was always on the outside looking in on other people's interactions.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Frisk's parents were magically burned to death by a man who hunts and kills people with Red SOULS. She was left with a handprint-shaped scar on her torso, and a mental blockage and trauma preventing her from using magic.
  • Chara's parents were killed in the middle of a thunderstorm by a woman who thought people with Red SOULS were demons. She was found by the Dreemurrs, who adopted her when Toriel could not bear to let her go into the foster system (despite the great personal difficulties it could bring their family), but Chara always thought her mother thought of her as a pet charity project.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Both Frisk and Chara have been orphaned. Unlike Frisk, however, Chara is happily (for the most part) adopted.
• Defacement Insult: Just another thing Frisk's had to put up with in the past. After she hooks up with Chara it stops.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Tylor Grendish asks Chara to joing the football team less than a day after she beats the everloving hell out of him. And at some point, he starts getting along with Frisk.
  • Chara nearly kills Tammy and scares the shit out of Fae after they and Iris cause Frisk to cut herself. They get a talking-to by someone implied to be Sans while recovering in the hospital, forcing Frisk's circumstances down their throat. Needless to say, they changed their mind. Tammy and Chara eventually made up with one another as well (although Chara was still upset that Frisk forgave them so easily). Iris... didn't.
• The Dreaded: Chara is this to the majority of Mt. Ebott, and it's only once Frisk starts to rub off on her that people start to show something other than fear in response to her.
• Driven to Suicide: This is where Frisk stands at the start of the story. Things get better from there.
• Eldritch Location: Gaster's Office, despite seeming to be just another room in the school, it is completely devoid of all color—not the plants, not the books, not even the fire burning in the fireplace. Everything is perfectly grey.
• Elegant Classical Musician: Chara can play the violin.
• Elemental Magic: The Great Four Gifts were used to create the world, and were gifted to Man and Monster by the Forgotten Children; the Resilient Earth, the Reaching Winds, the Raging Flames, and the Restoring Waters. All of these have disappeared except the Raging Flames (although more ordinary elemental magic is seen to still exist).
• Elevator School: Mt. Ebott goes all the way from lower education to university.
• Emotional Powers: The full details of how magic works have only been released in bits and pieces, but characters have been seen to lose some control over their magic when angry. HATE (Harm All That Exists) is a force related to LOVE and caused by immense levels of hatred. It leaks out of the body as black ooze and twists magic into having different effects. Enough of it can lead to insanity, and a Red SOUL who loses themselves to HATE will become something that can only be called a demon.
• Erotic Dream: Frisk may not be ready to move on to a more sexual relationship, but she sure as hell thinks about it.
• Extranormal Institute: The school was created by royalty, is attended to by both ordinary people and the nobility, teaches magic, and has yearly tournaments where the students can fight one another to rank their mastery of magic and combat ability. That's without going into however many conspiracies appear to revolve around it.
• Face Your Fears: After being shown that there was a way to keep Chara from being forced into an arranged marriage, Frisk is determined to do so. But it involves her overcoming her fear of magic—which the readers may have thought that they understood, but that selfsame chapter reveals just how horribly deep-set that terror is.
• Food Fight: Chara fell asleep on her sandwich. This somehow escalated into a food fight so massive that Dr. Gaster took part in it.
• Functional Magic: The story has a complex system of magic that has only been observed in part.
• Gayngst: Undyne's father, Undine, rejected her when she came out as lesbian, and apparently went through a period of this following that. They haven't made up.
• Gold Digger: Chara's had her heart broken by them before, and Asriel's unkind attitude towards Frisk for much of the early story is based on the assumption that she's another one. His dislike spoils into something much worse when he starts to realize it's actually serious between them.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Tammy is part monster. "Half-breed" has been slung at her as an insult before.
• Hated by All: Frisk has had this among the student population for a long, long time. If they didn't outright hate or dislike her, they ignored her and the abuse she went through. Anyone who might have intervened either didn't know or didn't care enough to stop it. It's suggested that there might have been other reasons, but they haven't been revealed yet.
• Heel Realization: Tam and Fae were hit really hard by this. A good deal of said hitting involved Chara's fists.
• Hellfire: Cain, the man who killed Frisk's parents uses the "Flames of Loathing".
• Heroic BSoD: Chara enters one after she learns about her arranged marriage. No one but Frisk can pull her out of it.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Chara enjoys playing the violin, and despite her rough ways around the school she can function perfectly fine in high society. If she wants to, that is.
  • Asriel has to fight against something within him (Flowey) that drives him towards horribly violent things (like murdering Frisk).
  • Chara hates humanity, and just the thought of people hurting Frisk is enough to make her eyes and mouth start dripping HATE. But it only takes Frisk a moment of thought about the man who killed her parents for her to produce so much HATE that she vomits up a puddle of it.
• High School: The majority of the cast attends a boarding school. Alphys and Undyne are in university.
• Holding Hands: Even a short after they met one another, they kept doing so without thinking.
• Humanoid Abomination: [[spoiler: Flowey/Asriel. Although "Monsterous Abomination" might fit better.
• I'll Kill You!: Chara is a Violently Protective Girlfriend. Frisk was the target of enough bullying that it lead her to attempt suicide. Enough said.
• Inevitable Tournament: Each year there is a competition to rank the magic and combat skills amongst the students. One can only imagine what it's like for Frisk.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Chara manages to stay in school despite constantly getting in fights (including beating a guy in front of the entire school), hospitilizing a number of humans, nearly killing at least a couple of people (in the backstory), and threatening more in a HATE-fueled rage. While there have been some consequences, they aren't nearly proportional to what she's done. Although a significant amount of it is implied to be warranted.
  • Although many, if not all, members of "Ebott's Friend Zone" were identified by Alphys and the list of names was given to Undyne to enact punitive measures, it is unlikely that every person who tormented her is on the website, and a fair number of the people who've bullied her will escape scot-free.
• Let's Wait a While: Both Chara and Frisk agree not to move their relationship into sex too quickly.
• Lonely Together: Frisk lived most of her life alone. She was the first person to see past the mask Chara put up even to her family, as she had feelings of loneliness and isolation because of thinking that she was just Toriel's charity case adoption.
• Love Triangle: Chara and Frisk are in love, but Inis has started falling for Frisk, too. But Inis's feelings aren't returned.
• Magic A Is Magic A: Magic Theory is even a class. Although that makes sense in a world where everyone can use it. As it isn't about using magic, Frisk can actually follow what happens in the course.
• Master of Illusion: Iris used one to leave a fake of herself behind when she fetched Asriel to calm down an angry Chara.
• Medical Monarch: Queen Toriel is quite skilled at healing magic and was the one to teach her children.
• Morality Pet: Chara certainly wasn't evil, but she definitely wasn't a nice person at all. She's improved drastically since Frisk showed up.
• Mundane Utility: Magic has plenty of non-combat uses. The third chapter even introduces a magical arts district of the city of Ebott.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Flowey really doesn't like Frisk getting in the way of what he and Chara have. It isn't romantic on his part, however.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: At first Asriel acted this way to protect Chara from what he viewed as another parasite trying to take advantage of her. When he later realizes how serious this could be, he becomes dangerously upset at the idea of her leaving him behind for Frisk.
• Non-Indicative Name: "Ebott's Friend Zone". It's the title of an entire website devoted solely to physically and emotionally tormenting Frisk.
• Ordinary High-School Student: It certainly looks like Frisk is one (barring her various mental traumas), but it is quickly apparent that this is in no way the case, even if she doesn't seem to be aware of it. Inis's attempts to pass herself off as one don't do much to fool the readers, either.
• Personality Powers: Humans get magic from the traits of their SOULS. The Six common traits are Integrity, Patience, Justice, Perseverance, Kindness, and Bravery. The Three rarest are Hope, Loyalty, and Determination. Chara's the only Determined SOUL that the main characters even know of.
• Playing with Fire: A few characters, most notably the Dreemurrs including Chara via the Raging Flames, and Cain via the unrelated Flames of Loathing.
• Power Glows: The stronger a SOUL is, the brighter it glows when it is outside the body.
• The Power of Hate: HATE (Harm All That Exists) is produced by immense levels of hatred. It amplifies magic and strengthens the body, and also seems to change how the magic functions. Determined SOULS get the most benefit out of this, possibly because they can resist the corrupting effects the most.
• Ransacked Room: Happens often enough to Frisk that she stopped caring about cleaning up. Having people actually visit her again changed that.
• Rescue Romance: They both came to care for one another very quickly after Chara saved Frisk. It's been suggested that there's more to it than meets the eye.
• Restraining Bolt: Albeit a metaphysical one. Frisk's own trauma is what prevents her from using her magic.
• Romantic Rain: It seems to be one when Frisk and Chara nearly started getting physically intimate... only to find out that Chara has a crippling fear of storms.
• Royalty Super Power: The Dreemurrs are the only ones to retain any of the four original magics that made the world, being the masters of the Raging Flame. Despite not being related by blood, Chara's starting to get that power, too.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: A number of prefects got their positions with their family's money, and fully intended to abuse that authority. When Headmaster Gaster disabused them of that notion, they tried to fire back with this—only for him to point out that their family's contributions were much, much less than what the Monster Royal Family put into Ebott.
• Self-Harm: Frisk engages in this as a form of emotional pain relief. An accident with this nearly kills her.
• Shipper on Deck: Most of the known characters are trying to help Frisk and Chara get and/or stay together.
• Shout-Out: Frisk sings a song from a musician she and Chara are going to see. It's "Stronger Than You", a song from Steven Universe, one which the Undertale fandom has done a quintillion covers of.
• Sorry, I'm Gay: Not NEARLY as polite as that, but this is Chara's response to Toriel when she learns about her arranged marriage. Unfortunately, Toriel can't just end the engagement, and this knowledge sends Chara into a temporary BSOD.
• Stronger with Age: Monsters become more monstrous as time passes and their own magic changes them more. Eventually they either let themselves die or transform into something that needs to be put down.
• Supreme Chef: Dust, one of Chara's few human friends and an excellent maker of desserts and chocolate.
• Take My Hand!: How Chara saves Frisk in the first chapter, one hand holding Frisk and the other holding the railing on the roof. Frisk nearly slips until Chara convinces her to try to hold on in return.
• Talented Princess, Regular Guy: Chara and Frisk at first seem to be this. Although her magiclessness is actually quite unusual, at first she doesn't appear to be that strange. But more and more secrets related to her show up...
• Teens Are Monsters: Some of Frisk's past abusers have definitely gone into this territory.
• The Tease: Frisk is an incorrigable flirt, as always. Chara manages to turn the tables on her from time to time, though.
• There Are No Therapists: Zig-zagged. Frisk doesn't seem to have received any up until her visit to Jane. However, her abuse has been going on for years, and appears to have been rather open. She's surprised that her latest suicide attempt didn't leave any wounds (before she remembers that Chara rescued her), so she must have needed medical care in the past. But up until this suicide attempt (likely the most public one), there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to help her.
• Training the Gift of Magic: Since Frisk's access to her SOUL and magic are blocked due to the trauma of seeing her parents die, she requires special training to overcome that limit.
• Transflormation: Surprise! Flowey's in Asriel. When he shows up, he makes vines start crawling in and out of Asriel. Frisk even saw one start to root in his eye.
• Trauma Conga Line: There's a good reason Frisk has been trying to commit suicide.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Frisk first used her powers when her family was attacked by the burning man, but the trauma of the event gave her a sort of "lock" preventing her from accessing her SOUL. Trying to reawaken it actually stopped her heart for a few seconds, but she could briefly start to see what might be her magic/SOUL. She intends to continue more of this traumatic training.
• Un-Sorcerer: In a world where every human has magic, Frisk has none. She doesn't even know what her SOUL color is, and can't pull it forth. It is later revealed that this is eventually discovered to be because she did, in fact, use magic once; when her family was attacked by Cain. This event, "SOUL Shock", greatly empowered that burst of magic, but the trauma established a mental block in her mind. But it's one she can overcome.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: The villain in this case being Frisk's innumerable bullies. She regularly has break-ins into her room and has her stuff destroyed, tossed around the room, or stolen. Sometimes they leave magic behind.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Chara. Her violent tendencies are established right off the bat, but it only takes a few chapters to find out what happens when you really piss her off.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Seeing magic is enough to send Frisk into a breakdown. This is a world where every human can use magic from the age of five or so, and there are classes on it in schools.
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • The burning man melted an imprint of his hand onto Frisk's torso. We learn that it was an accident and he was trying to pull her to safety from the fire he had caused. Although he was perfectly willing to kill her parents.
  • Chara was almost murdered as a child; unlike with Frisk, this was very deliberate.
• Wrestler in All of Us: Despite being easily overwhelmed (along with her Girl Posse) by Chara, Tammy's good enough at wrestling to defeat her grandfather, a former pro.
• You Are What You Hate: Although she cares for some individuals, Chara hates humans as a whole. The only people she's ever beaten to the point of hospitalization have been humans, and Chara might not fully think of herself as human in the first place.
• You Are Worth Hell: Frisk is terrified of magic beyond all reason. For the sake of saving Chara from a political marriage, she not only endeavors to learn to use magic herself, but does so when each attempt at contacting her own SOUL has her temporarily dying.

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