Tear Jerker / Inverted Fate

“but tori’s been through hell, and now it’s taken its toll.”

This story has even more emotional moments than in canon.

ALL SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED

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Main Comic

• Frisk's first death in the ruins and their reaction upon reloading. They're shown to have found it traumatic, fleeing from battle encounters afterwards, as well as having a dislike towards Looxes and Migosps.
• Though we don't learn exactly what caused his guilt until later, it's clear that Asgore feels regret over his actions in the past, and is strongly implied to be trying to get Frisk to kill him in his boss fight.
  • In the playable version of the Asgore fight, Frisk will confess their feelings about their "nice kid" act to Asgore early if you manage to figure out how to spare him without having to reset.
  • We eventually found out that he killed the first human to fall after he decalred war on humanity, but realised he couldn't go through with his plan afterwards, mainly from the feeling that he'd killed them more than once due to reloads.
• Part 17 has us learn some of the lore regarding what made the Inverted Fate timeline turn out differently. We learn that when Asgore exiled himself to the Ruins and Toriel instated the controversial policy of bringing humans to her to be judged instead of executing them immediately, the underground were less than pleased. She apparently, in response, gave only two words: Remember Chara. This causes both Flowey and Chara themself to react differently, the former just giving a saddened expression and having no comment to make, and the latter having nothing to say at the nearby SAVE point and being seemingly taken aback by the words to the point of thinking they're a joke. Frisk, visibly unhappy themself, seems to catch on and tells them it's okay they have nothing to say and to stay determined.
• All illustrations of Toriel in this AU thus far show her depressed and disheveled. Knowing that everything regarding Chara and Asriel still happened in this timeline, that Asgore apparently fled to the Ruins one day after getting the first SOUL only to never return, and that the Waterfall incident wouldn't have happened were it not for her policy, and her statement of only "Never again." regarding Fort Aquarius' creation, it's now pretty easy to see why.
• During Waterfall, Frisk's mood is clearly greatly dampened by what they find out regarding the history of humans and monsterkind, ultimately culminating in part 21, where they get so upset that they question Papyrus for having trust in them, run off, and pretty much list the positives of if he were to take their own SOUL and how he'd be regarded as a hero for doing so, as well as revealing their own self-hatred they bury underneath their wit and friendliness. Thankfully, Papyrus not only relating but assuring them that they truly are important to him and worthwhile manages to help and also be massively heartwarming, albeit still tearjerking, simply in a less sad manner. The two songs used during the scene help a lot, with the second of which even taking a lot of inspiration from "Defend Globe".
• Part 24 introduces the town of Forgespring, which was built in the aftermath of the Waterfall Incident. The track that plays here is quite sad yet hopeful, but it's the gravesite for the Waterfall Incident that’s the most heartbreaking. Every monster who was killed in the incident had their favourite possession sprinkled with their dust and placed on the site as their grave.
  • One of these is a Toriel plushie that once belonged to a child...
  • To top it all off, the track “Just an Act” plays during the scene...
• As if the monsters' distrust of humans wasn't bad enough, it turns out they were made aware of Chara's actions that led to the deaths of Asriel and themself because unlike Alphys, Undyne didn't keep the tapes a secret. It's because of this that Toriel hasn't left the castle in three years.
• Interlude 2 starts off as a funny news broadcast recapping the events of the TV shows in Hotland so far, but then gets more serious when various guests are invited to share their thoughts on Frisk and how humans have been involved in the past. Then we see a much more sympathetic side to Undyne, who desperately tries to assure everyone that she will free them all, feeling that it is her duty that she must do for them, and does a bad attempt at keeping a positive attitude about it.
• On the surface, Frisk was abandoned at a young age and brought up in a children's home. No one ever came to foster or adopt them, which gave them self-esteem issues. They also had a friend who felt a similar way, but Frisk feels like they ruined their friendship with her after they went to Mount Ebott, only for their friend to have second thoughts about exploring. Frisk got angry at her and started a fight, which is implied to have ended in her falling from the mountain and getting seriously injured. After that, they never saw her again.
  Frisk: I made a mistake. She didn't die... but she could've...
• The aftermath of the Undyne fight. Frisk attacks Undyne out of desperation when they're low on HP with no healing items left thanks to Undyne's Save Scumming, only for it to be fatal... but instead of dying, she starts to melt, right as Papyrus and Mettaton show up. Frisk can only stare in horror as Mettaton tries to take her away to the lab, but she ends up melting through his metal body and merging with his ghost. Papyrus tries to deny to himself that this is happening, while Frisk runs off to the elevator and cries, and eventually sits in a Troubled Fetal Position as it takes them to New Home.
  Papyrus: NO. NO!!! THIS IS ALL JUST A BAD DREAM. IT ISN'T REAL! IT CAN'T BE...
  • "ACTing Out", a Dark Reprise of "Just an Act", plays during the end credits. It's even more heat-wrenching than the latter.
• In the next part, Papyrus blames himself for what happened to Undyne and Mettaton, who are arguing with each other. However, when he starts to cry and say that it must be because he was too naive for wanting Undyne and Frisk to get along, they both interrupt him:
  Papyrus: THIS IS ALL MY FAULT JUST LIKE BEFORE, I... I FAILED YOU. I COULDN’T—
  Undyne and Mettaton: STOP... It’s our fault...
• Toriel's house is in a state of extreme disarray. All the plants have died, there are cracks forming on the walls and ceiling, and most of the surfaces are covered in cobwebs and dust; Papyrus implies it hasn't been cleaned since the tapes were released three years prior. Chara and Asriel’s room is in even worse shape, as it has more grime than the rest of the house and the lights don't seem to work. Toriel's room has debris strewn about and scorch marks all over the place. The only part of the house that's been kept tidy is the Mage's room.
• Flowey genuinely feeling replaced by Toriel after the Mage's room looked all nice while the rest of the house, including Asriel and Chara's room, was left to rot.
  Flowey: Hmph. No wonder the other room's a wreck. She must've replaced them!
  Papyrus: FLOWEY, ISN'T THAT A BIT EXTREME?
  Flowey: No, it's a fact. She let the other room turn into cobweb city. She left it rot. Shows how much her REAL kids mattered.
• Chara and Flowey both blame themselves for their deaths. Hearing their lines for the first time will make you sad.
  Chara: That foolish human, blinded by rage... Sought to claim six SOULs by force. They forced their brother to carry their corpse toward the city. They urged him to FIGHT... But his gentle SOUL refused to harm a single human. In the end, they both met a tragic fate.
  Flowey: That IDIOT was too soft! They could have fixed EVERYTHING! But he was too STUPID. Too WEAK. And that weakness cost him his life.
• The Mage's journal in their room details their life under Toriel's care. While it started out heartwarming and hopeful, tragedy quickly struck, as the other four children fell down to the Underground. Perhaps the worst were the Perseverance and Justice children; the former was Driven to Suicide out of guilt, with they, Gerson, and Toriel arriving too late and only seeing the SOUL floating by the riverbank alongside a note saying "Goodbye, and I'm sorry." It's clear that to this day, Gerson still holds deep guilt over not having been able to prevent it.
  • The Justice child, on the other hand, felt conflicted about her freedom apparently being shooting this kindly goat monster who really did not want to fight her and take her SOUL, but forced herself to push forward by the desire of reuniting with her family. The battle went on for several reloads, with the Justice child being aware of time rewinding too, and in one of them, her desperation caused her to land a direct shot on the Mage, killing them. When they reloaded again, however, she was frigid and at a loss for words from what she just did, even though the Mage was able to undo it with their ability. Having been pushed past the Despair Event Horizon, she simply gave up in the most painful and horrifying way possible.
    (from the Mage's journal) And when I woke, when I found the girl again, she was on her knees, shaking. "You win! I can't do this anymore. I'm through!" I tried to stop her. But she touched the star and pulled the trigger. And now we have five.
• Chara's guilt is witnessed in full swing when Frisk, Papyrus, and Mettaton watch a controversial movie he made to confront the monsters' hatred for Chara in regards to their disastrous plan to free monsterkind. It is not pretty.
  Chara: It doesn't matter. It still happened. I still did it! Stop defending me. Stop defending-
  Chara: (as Mettaton is gently comforting Frisk) Make it stop, make it stop, make it STOP...
• Flowey's betrayal is as heartbreaking as expected, with Frisk outright attacking him while expressing disbelief, getting angry enough for their eyes to turn red, and even Papyrus tries to get him to stop by using Gaster Blasters.
  Frisk: I DEFENDED you, and THIS is what you do?!
  • If you look closely when Flowey has most of the characters trapped in vines, you'll see that Undyne is struggling to free herself much like she did in Undertale. However, she stops when the previous timeline is brought up and she realises what the memoryheads are.
  • In the end, Papyrus surrenders to Flowey, letting him take his SOUL as well as those of his friends in the hope that no one else will get hurt and that the barrier will be broken, and telling Frisk to run as far as they can. When they hesitate, he gradually blocks all the buttons except for MERCY, and then blocks the spare option so that all they can do is flee.
  • It's been hinted through a few conversations and side material that Chara wanted to be alive again, and Frisk also wanted that for them. Now that's happened under the worst possible circumstances.
• The new intro that plays after Asriel breaks the barrier has him talk about how he feels like the world was unfair to himself and Chara, and how he believes he has to take what he wants and create his own world. He also doesn't seem to understand why Chara is against his plans.
  Asriel: After ALL the pain we suffered through, this is our chance for TRUE freedom.
  Asriel: So why... ? Why can't we just be friends again...?
• When everything is reset, Frisk finds themself all alone back at the start. Remembering Flowey's betrayal, they desperately try to reset to no avail, then try to call Papyrus, Sans, and Asgore and receives no response. Then they find Chara, who is incredibly pissed about what happened, blaming themself for it and believing there is no hope left, and they try to get Frisk to leave them alone by fighting them. As the fight goes on, Frisk and Chara have a difficult conversation where they blame themselves for their current situation, Chara being especially regretful for their inaction leading Frisk to trust Flowey.
  Chara: I... I don't deserve this body. I don't deserve to BE here...
  • The menu and the battle UI have an empty space where Chara's name was.
  • During the fight, Chara purposely misses their knife attacks and their magic attacks are very easy to avoid. As much as they want Frisk to go away, they do NOT want to kill them.
    • This actually goes both ways, as the battle begins with the "FIGHT" button automatically greyed out. Frisk doesn't want to hurt them either.
    • The playable version of the fight reveals that you can survive the fight without even needing to move. In fact, moving is the only way to get hit by Chara's attacks. Furthermore, you can't get killed by them on purpose (especially since dying at this point would canonically be permanent) because they stop attacking if your HP gets low enough.
  • The battle ends with Frisk giving Chara a Cooldown Hug, resulting in them starting to cry and hating that they're doing so, with Frisk assuring them that crying is alright.
  • With the fate of the monsters up in the air, Chara is the only friend who Frisk has left.
• Word of God states that Flowey's betrayal caused Frisk to completely hate him. The reason Frisk was willing to be Flowey's friend in the original timeline was because Flowey always offered them an "If you beat me, I'll let you have what you want" deal whenever he was overpowered. Here? Flowey relentlessly bullied Frisk, abusing them both physically and verbally, laughing when they cried, and hammering in the nail by reminding them of their incident with Lilac. It's really sad to know that Flowey managed to hurt Frisk so badly that they probably don't even want to be his friend anymore. A second reply to another post explains that Frisk would feel uncomfortable around Asriels from other AUs and would rather distance themself from them.
• When the humans reach Snowdin in "null_2," Frisk offers to give Chara their winter clothes before remembering that their clothes were with Papyrus, who is currently absorbed by Asriel.
• In "null_3," Asriel messes with Frisk by showing them an illusion of Papyrus and Sans being safe before immediately dispelling it.
• Optional dialogue in "null_5" reveals that a statue of Chara was made by the people on the surface after their death. Meaning that for 100 years, humans have remembered Chara's fate without knowing that they had horrible parents and that Asriel didn't kill them.
• "null_6," expectedly, starts with Frisk and Lilac in an argument, elaborating on parts such as how Frisk "held Lilac back" from finding a good family. Thankfully, it doesn't last very long.
• After making it to the city on the surface in "null_7", Frisk, Chara, and Lilac find several soulless humans around the place, not dead but not fully alive either. Then Lilac ends up losing her own soul, causing Frisk to break down once again. What makes it worse is the fact that Asriel doesn't even show up to taunt Frisk over it, he just casually takes her soul as if it's as insignificant as all the others even though it's later shown that he does have plans for it.
• The post-credits scene of "null_7" shows that while the absorbed monsters aren't fully aware of what's happened to them, they are still at least partially conscious enough to have feelings of guilt and despair over Flowey's betrayal:
  Sans: it was my fault. i shoulda tried harder
  Alphys: I-I just wanted to keep people safe.
  Undyne: Everything is... fine... My... promise
  Mettaton: This... happened before
  Asgore: He came back...
  Toriel: My baby... my precious child...
  Mad Mew Mew: Can’t... split everyone... Too many souls.
  Dohj: I failed my kingdom and my crown...
  Gerson: Wa... ha ha... couldn’t save anyone, could I?
• The first Rift episode features plenty of sad moments involving references to the old timeline.
  • Frisk is once again reminded that Papyrus isn't with them when they see a memory of him as a Royal Guard wannabe.
  • Frisk is distressed when they learn that they killed Toriel and Undyne once each.
  • There's a puzzle that, once assembled, is revealed to be a picture of Asriel and Chara resembling the cutscene slide from the true pacifist route in Undertale. Chara is clearly saddened by this, knowing that things will never be like how they used to be.
• Asriel taunts Frisk with Lilac's SOUL.
• The Rift 1 post-credits reveals that Spamton found Lilac's empty body. Shockingly, Spamton is genuinely saddened by his customer's fate and angrily jumps into the Rift to find some way to avenge her.
• The Rift 3 boss basically represents Asriel's unwillingness to let Chara go. As Chara continues rejecting it and gives the healing items which were meant for them to Frisk, the figment gets sadder and sadder and the fight is ended when both of the humans flee together, leaving the figment to die due to loneliness. As evil as it is, this creature's reaction speaks volumes about how Asriel feels on the inside.
• Rift_4 shows that Asriel's last day alive and his death was immensely traumatic for him. In the past, Chara had pushed Asriel into absorbing their soul to break the barrier which criticizing Asriel for not fighting back against their human aggressors. Worse still, it's implied that Asriel (aka Flowey)'s "kill or be killed" philosophy originates from him internalizing Chara's constant criticism of his weaknesses, with Asriel blaming himself for being too weak. During a sequence where Frisk and Chara read several tombstones, most of the text is Asriel lamenting the futility of his own death and blaming himself for ruining Chara's life. The boss of the chapter, Fiend of Fatality is even an embodiment of Asriel's death and associated trauma who blames themselves for getting killed.
  • It may just be a misjudging of the sprite, but Asriel looks legitimately shaken and upset after the Fiend, before descending into Insane Troll Logic to try and justify Chara's apology. It's clear that, even with how he's acting, he was legitimately hurt by Chara's actions in the past.
• At the beginning of Rift 5, Chara explains a bit more about their life on the Surface to Frisk, explaining that they internalized the way their birth parents treated them to the point where they did a similar thing to Asriel to get him to toughen up, which ended up working too well, and they believe they haven't changed since then.
• The encounter with Papyrus as a lost soul. Frisk and Chara try to talk to him, but he won't listen, instead just talking about how he blames himself for what happened and how he thinks he failed everyone. It gets to the point where Chara suggests they flee so they can try to come up with a plan, which Frisk reluctantly agrees with. Thankfully, after some advice from Spamton and Frisk swapping out some of their items, they manage to get through to him, and the cutscene afterwards becomes a happy tearjerker.
• Chara's part in their and Frisk's journey to stop Asriel's apocalyptic plans gains another layer of tragedy when you realize that their parents are described as people who only cared about parading Chara around as a trophy and invalidating them as an individual; throughout RIFT, Chara endures Asriel's attempts to appeal to a version of them that doesn't exist, unwittingly causing Asriel to act similarly to Chara's parents. Assuming that Chara hasn't already come to this conclusion themselves, its possible that they'll call Asriel out for being no better than Chara's parents.
• Rift 6 has the Entity of Emptiness as the next figment, representing Asriel's lack of compassion from being a soulless flower. After several failed attempts at talking to it and fighting, the party decides to keep sparing it, which almost works, and it starts to talk about how Asriel won't accept the figment as a part of himself. But then the party's progess seems to be undone when the Entity realises that even if he won't accept it, it will still exist, and starts to insult Asriel by saying he will never truly be happy. This then causes Asriel himself to put a stop to the fight by destroying the Entity. It's hard not to feel sorry for the figment when it's rejected by the one who created it.
  • Earlier, the recounting of Flowey's history shows specters of everyone who he originally helped, effectively ensuring as close to a Golden Ending as he could get... before he undoes it all and acts like a jerk because he can. Even Sans was shown to genuinely appreciate Flowey's efforts before it was wiped from his memory.
    • In the "Good" timeline, it's shown that Flowey convinced Undyne to tell Papyrus the truth about her "training" him for the Royal Guard, Mettaton to reunite with Shyren and Napstablook, and Alphys to release the Amalgamates to their families. Frisk and Chara note that in the original timeline, they weren't able to do the former two, and the latter took them a while. So the fact that Flowey had previously done so only to take it away from them must have stung.
    • The following timeline shows that not only was Flowey rude and hurtful to most of the monsters, but he told Papyrus that Undyne was lying to him about letting him be in the Royal Guard, putting a big strain on their friendship. He also told Mettaton that Alphys was purposefully stalling with making his new body out of fear of him leaving her, causing him to distrust her and call her out on preventing the Amalgamates from seeing their families.
    • In the timeline where Flowey killed everyone, Undyne is shown to be in her Undying form, yet still says "I WON'T DIE", implying that she didn't go out smiling with hope like she did in Undertale's Genocide Run. Additionally, it's shown that despite Alphys' attempts to keep as many monsters as she could safe, Flowey still found them and killed them. Papyrus also learns that not only did Flowey kill him and his friends, but he also managed to kill Sans after many attempts.

GASTOS

• The pages about Chara's past after they arrived underground for the first time are this when you know what will happen. Especially page 56, which shows that they really didn't mean to poison Asgore with the buttercups; using them instead of butter was Asriel's idea and neither of them knew it was dangerous, and Chara thought it wouldn't matter too much anyway because goats are stereotypically known to eat anything without any consequences. How wrong they were...
• Page 53 is about when Undyne revealed the tapes to the Underground, from Toriel's perspective. Not only did she have to hear the voices of her deceased children and estranged husband, but also learn that the death of one of them was willingly caused, which then caused the death of the other. The page also highlights the moment where she gave up trying to convince everyone to accept humans, and the beginning of her living in seclusion.

Other Side Content

• After Part 47 was released, a few responses to asks directed at the amalgamated Undyne and Mettaton were posted, with them both arguing about how they ended up in this situation:
  Undyne: i'D rATheR dIe tRyInG tHaN fAIL eVeRyOnE. BeSiDeS, PaPyRuS DoESn'T NEeD mE AnyMoRE.
  Mettaton: THAT'S NOT TRUE AND YOU KNOW IT.
  • Someone also sent an ask to Frisk, which had this response:
    But nobody came.
• The "specialhappytime" Discord session post null_5 contained multiple instances of the characters being unable to answer questions because Frisk and Lilac were getting into arguments and Frisk was extra irritated by any mention of Asriel.