Fanfic / Monster in the Mountain

The Prince of an Empty Kingdom

“Frisk… I need you to know...that I’m a liar, I’m probably the biggest liar you will ever come to know…”

— Asriel Dreemurr, the Absolute God of Hyperdeath

Stubborn twenty year old Frisk makes a secret and dangerous expedition inside the mysterious and quiet MT. Ebott, lead by only the strange dreams they've had since they were a kid, on their way to somehow make a compromise with the soul stealing beast inside, whom they come to know as The God Of Hyperdeath...they can only hope the rumors they'd heard of him aren't all true.

Monster in the Mountain is an Undertale romance fanfiction that combines a Friskriel shipfic with two rarely used premises:

1. What if Frisk never went to the Underground as a child?
2. What if one of the first monsters they meet is the Absolute God of Hyperdeath?

The story can be found on Archive of Our Own here.Warning: this story is NSFW (the parings are adults in this AU).

Unmarked spoilers for Undertale ahead

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Provides examples of:

• Adaptational Backstory Change: Frisk, whose life before falling into the Underground is a complete unknown in canon, was orphaned in a car crash in proximity to Mt. Ebott when they were nine. They then fell under the care of their aunt and cousin for the next 11 years.
• Adaptational Nationality: Frisk comes from a family of Filipino descent, where previously their nationality was ambiguous.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: Asriel is cautious whenever he engages intimately with Frisk, as he is powerful enough that if he were to force anything, it runs a great risk of harming Frisk.
• A God Am I: Justified. Asriel proudly declares himself as the Absolute God of Hyperdeath, but while his power isn't actually absolute, he is still more than powerful enough to qualify as a Physical God.
• Apocalypse How: Frisk dreams of a hail of massive fireballs that destroy the world, implying Asriel once succeeded in wiping humanity out. It's later revealed in chapter 22 that Asriel has done this thousands of times, and even repeats this very act in front of a horrified Frisk to emphasize to Frisk his vile nature.
• Affectionate Nick Name: The three residents of the Underground each have a nickname.
  • Napstablook: T-Drop
  • Frisk: Frisky
  • Asriel: Az
• All Non-Binaries Want Bad Boys: Frisk, a true pacifist at heart, is deeply in love with Asriel Dreemurr, a Jerkass who only shows any kindness to someone if that person is Frisk.
  • Gender-Inverted Trope(?) for Frisk's cousin Andres, who is in love with a girl that committed robbery, albeit under great financial duress.
• Alternate Universe Fic: The story takes place in an AU where Frisk, instead of falling into the hole in Mt. Ebott, wanders around the forest long enough to be rescued by their fellow humans. As a result, Frisk is not present to stop Flowey from stealing the souls of the entire Underground and becoming Asriel again. They would not arrive in the Underground until 11 years later as an adult.
  • It then turns out that the AU is a divergence from the author's other AU Growing Pains, caused by Flowey driving Frisk away at a crucial moment which would have resulted in him coming to the surface. Instead, without that impetus, Flowey gathers six human souls to gain his body back, then absorbs all the monster souls in desperation.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Frisk initially find's Asriel's Universe Pocket, a pocket dimension Asriel uses for storage, to be impossible even for gods, even though a) gods are generally believed to have impossible abilities, and b) by that point he has already proven the existence of levitation, teleportation, telepathy, and magic contracts.
• Berserk Button: Asriel hates it whenever Frisk makes lewd thoughts or comments, or misconstrues his requests for sexual favors. He also particularly doesn't care for being given the nickname "Az" by Frisk. Frisk, being that they are in no physical danger because of their contract, just finds it hilarious, and at most will receive duct tape to the mouth.
• Bilingual Bonus: Asriel is self-taught in Latin and can be found reading books in the language, though he sometimes pigeons English in when he can't find a proper translation. Translating the book titles and Asriel's Latin sentences reveal a romantic subtext.
  • Fabulae Amor In Astronmia — Love Story in Astronmia
  • cor Aquæ furtivæ — Stolen Heart
  • "Idiot Pulchra meum..." — "My beautiful idiot..."
• …But He Sounds Handsome: Downplayed. When Frisk describes having a dream about Flowey, Asriel's soulless form, Asriel only describes it as weird, at most saying "life can be hard for even flowers".
• Cannot Spit It Out: Asriel wanted to date Frisk from day 1, but his self-loathing and fears of further ruining Frisk's life and well-being beyond their de-facto slavery to him kept him playing as the aloof, hateful god. It is not until chapter 13 that he finally confesses his love to Frisk.
• Confession Triggers Consummation: Surprisingly, for a Porn with Plot fanfic, Defied with prejudice. Frisk suggested this when Asriel gets an erection after their first makeout, but Asriel shoots it down with a harsh "No".
• Consummate Liar: Asriel claims to be this, and has lied to Frisk about certain things about himself. Given the stated ship, the most obvious one is that he is unattracted to Frisk.
• Continuity Nod:
  • T-Drop (Napstablook) is the only other monster in the Underground besides Asriel. ^note In Undertale, he was the only monster Flowey did not absorb to become Asriel again thanks to sheer luck that he was indoors with closed blinds at the time.
  • Ariel can detach extremities including his head without any apparent harm to himself, taking the Exorcist Head trick he performed in canon with the Chaos Sabers to their logical conclusion.
• Cool Crown: As a birthday gift, Asriel makes Frisk a black crown inlaid with gems. The black metal is a material he fabricated himself, while the gems were stolen from a racist collector one foot in the grave.
• Cool Chair: Asriel made a throne of his own in New Home. Some unique traits include points to match Asriel's horns, and a frame made with a black metal fabricated by Asriel.
• Crazy-Prepared: Asriel had planned to make Frisk's stay in the Underground as comfortable as possible, and executed the movement of all of Frisk's belongings to New Home the moment they agreed to his contract. He has also gone as far as install internet and a bathroom, the later of which monsters do not seem to require, only humans.
• Cry Atop Head: Asriel has difficulty handling hugs, trembling and sobbing at the first two times Frisk hugs him. This was the first time he has been hugged since he was a child, and it brings to him great relief.
• Didn't Think This Through: Frisk came into the Underground to subdue the Monster in the Mountain (Asriel Dreemurr), a creature that eleven years ago is said to have taken the souls of multiple exploration and rescue teams, and in canon is nominally invincible and had infinite attack power, yet all they brought with them as a weapon was...a multitool pocket knife. Asriel's first words even Lampshade how utterly unprepared they were for the endpoint of this journey.
  Asriel: “For someone who has come to subdue me and had all the time in the world to prepare, you have made a huge mistake in not bringing a weapon,”
• Distracted by the Sexy: When Asriel points out the above, however, Frisk is unable to take the situation seriously because they almost immediately find him sexually attractive.
  Frisk: "Whoa, hot...mamamia...you are definitely not what I expected."
  Asriel: "And what did you expect...?"
  Frisk: "Not this tall, dark, and handsome creature standing before me that's for sure."
• Dramatic Irony: Absolutely dripping with it. Frisk, the POV character, never went went to the Underground as a child, and is thus completely unaware that Asriel is actually a flower containing the souls of six humans and every monster in the Underground. And then there are hints that this takes place after the Pacifist Ending.
  • As one of their duties assigned to them by Asriel, Frisk takes care of the flowers around the Underground, including the ones at Chara's grave in the Ruins. Frisk is unaware that this person was once Asriel's best friend, nor that this person was human.
  • Frisk's aunt Ligaya approves of Frisk's relationship with Asriel, but not her son Andre's relationship with a convicted robber. She is completely unaware that a) Frisk's boyfriend is a supernatural goat-man, and b) that Asriel is guilty of mass murder at an apocalyptic scale.
• Dream Land: Frisk dreams of a church filled with iconography of Asriel's Final Form and Frisk's soul, and is populated by shades in the shape of the monsters of the Underground who are waiting for the reappearance of Asriel, their god. This is implied to be Asriel's Mental World, used to trap the consciousnesses of the monsters.
• Duct Tape for Everything: The go to solution for Asriel when Frisk says too much from their "filthy mouth" is to summon a roll of duct tape from his Universe Pocket and slap a piece onto their mouth.
• The Empath: Asriel, as a result of binding Frisk's soul to the shrine, has an empathic link to Frisk, and can thus feel their emotions. Amusingly, Asriel exploits this to improve the gratification of sex for himself by feeling Frisk's own enjoyment of sex.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite being directly responsible for tormenting and killing thousands and possibly billions in previous timelines, Asriel has shown genuine care and love for Frisk.
• Exorcist Head: Asriel pulls this on Naptstablook while the ghost was muttering an apology to Frisk, annoyed at the ghost's presence.
• Fantasy Metal: Asriel is able to create a black metal which he used to craft his own throne, as well as craft a crown for Frisk's birthday gift. It is currently unknown what distinguishing properties it has other than its dark color.
• Fate Drives Us Together: Despite Asriel wiping Frisk's memories of him and the monsters away, he repeatedly encounters Frisk across the timelines.
• Foreshadowing: There are hints across the story that indicate that Asriel choosing Frisk as a companion is not a Contrived Coincidence, and that this AU is in fact a Post-Pacifist AU.
  • Napstablook had no memories of events prior to Asriel's appearance until Frisk arrives 11 years later, whereupon they learn their real name the next day. At the same time, Asriel's time traveling causes Frisk to have flashbacks to previous timelines.
  • Whenever Asriel's attention lingers on Frisk, his face betrays hidden emotions that don't align with his stated opinions about Frisk, often betraying a sadder, softer, and more flustered individual than the angry, aloof, and asexual deity he presents himself as.
  • Frisk has a flashback of a conversation with Asriel as a child, something which could not occur in this timeline.
  • Frisk has a dream of goats in purple robes and pink sweaters.
  • The car crash that killed Frisk's parents happened in proximity to Mount Ebott, and Frisk was found by rescuers with a stick and bandage.
  • Frisk's favorite cup is a Halloween mug depicting various Halloween monsters.
  • Frisk is unable to remember the word determination.
• Give Them A Normal Life: As it turns out, a driver of both Asriel's and Frisk's love insecurities is the desire for Frisk to have an out to return to normalcy. For Frisk, this meant being able to return to human civilization and raise a family of their own. For Asriel, it means Frisk does not have to tie themself down to him and all his supernatural and emotional baggage, including the fact he is someone they knew before becoming a god and is a murderer who destroyed the world at least once. Further information reveals that his schemes on the surface frequently caused Frisk to be killed in the crossfire, eventually prompting him to just stay and hide inside Mt. Ebott.
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: Asriel can instantaneously teleport clothes and garments on and off himself or Frisk at the snap of a finger, and uses it to switch Frisk to Toriel's robes. This practice is put to a halt almost immediately for Frisk as it represents a loss of autonomy that distresses them greatly.
  • Asriel would later use this ability to teleport Frisk's socks on when they requested them. As the socks were something Frisk intended to wear, it did not draw the same ire as before.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Red-eyed actually, but nonetheless, Asriel is very possessive of Frisk, thinking of them as his, and becomes very jealous and irritable when forced to share Frisk's time with Napstablook. Worse, he can't do anything because of his agreement never to hurt or command Napstablook, and would not risk loosing Frisk to a failed attempt at a Loophole Abuse to get rid of him.
• Happy Ending Override: Monster in the Mountain takes place in a Post-Pacifist timeline. As revealed in chapter 23, Flowey had secretly gathered donated souls to become Asriel again, but the monsters caught him before he could find a seventh. In desperation, he took the monster souls as a substitute and erased the memory of their existence from humans, ruining the lives of not only the monsters, but Frisk as well.
• Hidden Depths: All three characters of the Underground have artistic talents that they share with one another, and to Frisk especially.
  • Napstablook, as in canon, is a DJ, and while he cannot use the instruments he collects from the garbage dump in Waterfall, he is able to compose mixtapes that he and Frisk can listen to.
  • Frisk is a painter and makes a portrait for both Asriel and Napstablook.
  • Asriel is a craftsmonster who can use his magic to construct shrines, thrones, and crowns out of various materials, including ones he created. He was also taught tailoring by his parents, made his own robe, and hemmed his mother's robes to fit Frisk. He also promises to grant Frisk a painting one day.
  • Despite his stated hatred for humanity, Asriel has abandoned any attempts at destroying them (albeit partly because it's too much of a hassle), and he finds himself actually enjoying human culture, primarily their literature. He has even taught himself to read and speak Latin.
• Innocently Insensitive: Frisk causes Asriel to have visible discomfort whenever they make a comment that reminds him of his past as Flowey. As Frisk does not know of Flowey, they remain unaware of the root cause of this issue.
• Insecure Love Interest: Even though both are attracted to each other from day 1, Frisk and Asriel have hang-ups over their affection to each other. Frisk due to Asriel's behavior, a conflicted desire to one day return to normal life, and the incompatability between them as different species. For Asriel, it is because they believe a romantic relationship would ultimately bring misery to Frisk, but this is less likely to be due to the same hang-ups as Frisk and more to do with his horrific crimes in previous timelines.
• I've Come Too Far: By the time his crimes finally come to light, Asriel is still unwilling to release the monster souls even if he could swap them with a human soul, as he is so terrified of monsters’ judgement that he can’t bring himself to free them. He feels so strongly about this that he breaks up with Frisk.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Asriel is a possessive, spoiled, misanthropic god-prince that verbally abuses Napstablook, regularly steals things from the surface, stalked Frisk for eleven years, manipulated them into staying in the Underground, regularly calls them an idiot, and has most likely murdered the exploration teams that came eleven years ago. However, the killings appear to be cases of self-defense, and in spite of all of his cruel behavior, he shows genuine care for the well-being of Frisk and goes to great efforts to ensure their comfort in the Underground. He never physically harms Frisk nor Napstablook, and willingly includes prohibitions against him harming anyone in his Magically-Binding Contract with Frisk.
• Karmic Thief: Played With. Asriel acquires food ingredients and human-made items through theft, but claims he takes it from those he finds "unworthy". In two specific cases, he steals a coffee from a husband that abuses his wife, and gems from a racist collector. Because he is a Consummate Liar, however, it's unclear if this is true or to what degree the average victim is "unworthy".
• Killing in Self-Defense: According to Asriel, the explorers and rescuers who found him inside the Mountain immediately tried to kill him, forcing him to kill them in response. So far, they are the only people Asriel has killed in this timeline.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Zig-Zagged, Asriel Dreemurr is a Walking Spoiler in Undertale. The method by which he became a god however, revived as a psychopathic flower and absorbing the souls of all monsters, is as of yet unmentioned, and Frisk is completely unaware.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Napstablook has no memories of his life prior to Asriel's appearance in the Underground. Only 11 years later, on the day after Frisk arrived, did he learn his real name. Asriel later reveals he used an ability to affect the memories of Napstablook and wiped away the entire year where Frisk and humanity interacted with monsters.
• Living Apart: Asriel can detach his extremities from his body, including his head. He uses this ability mostly to extend the reach of his hands, and once detaches his head to allow Frisk to more conveniently polish the horns on his head.
• Magically-Binding Contract: In the contract with Asriel, Frisk is essentially forced to be Asriel's house slave in exchange for Napstablook's emancipation and Asriel's good behavior, with Frisk's soul as collateral. If someone breaks their end of the deal, Frisk's soul will be claimed by the other person.
• Manipulative Bastard: Asriel successfully engineered an 11-year-long plan to lure Frisk to Mt. Ebott by drip-feeding them dreams of various locations in the Underground until he finally reveals the location of the hole to the Ruins when they become 20. Once they arrived, he then exploited their sympathy for Napstablook's suffering (which he caused) by offering the ghost's freedom as a condition for their servitude to him.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Lampshaded by Asriel to Frisk. He wants to prioritize making Frisk feel good over himself in their relationship because while he has eternity to find pleasure, Frisk does not.
• Meaningful Name: The characters' nicknames reflect certain aspects of themselves.
  • Napstablook: T-Drop could stand for "tear-drop", which Napstablook's bullet patterns are shaped as. It also sounds like an stage name for a DJ, which Napstablook happens to be in addition to a collector of musical instruments.
  • Frisk Bulalacao: Frisky is a fitting nickname for someone who is...well, frisky. Bulalacao is the hispanization of Bulalakaw, a word for shooting stars in most Filipino languages. In Visayan mythology, however, it also refers to the God of Meteors, a bird-man hybrid that lives in Mount Madia-as, and the sight of him or his meteors will herald death. While the deity can be male, it is sometimes depicted as genderless. Now what gender-neutral individual has worked with objects easily mistaken for stars, and what other male, winged, star-themed, self-proclaimed deity of death lives in a mountain?
  • Asriel: Az is analogous to Oz, a powerful wizard and a liar that conceals a very compromising secret about himself.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: If Asriel is to be believed, he states in chapter 3 that while he was able to become a god, in every timeline he reveals himself to humanity they always succeed in almost killing him, forcing him to stay in the Underground against his will. "Almost", however, means he is still alive to kill them all.
• Misanthrope Supreme: Zig-Zagged. Asriel despises human beings and makes a point of stating he finds them unattractive. He steals from them regularly killed billions, even trillions, of humans throughout his resets. He also finds the idea of hypothetically becoming a human extremely repulsive. Yet in spite of this, he enjoys human culture, reads and speaks a dead human language, had a human for a best (and only) friend, and is deeply in love with another human.
• Mood Whiplash: Two instances which are Played for Drama
  • In chapter 9, a mean-spirited prank by Asriel splashing Frisk with water ends up causing the later to slip and fall into a magma chamber, leading to a terrifying sequence of them falling while Asriel tries to catch them. Fortunately, while he was too late to stop their arm from burning, Asriel was able to load a save and prevent the events from happening.
  • In chapter 22, Asriel Dreemurr takes Frisk on a tour of space before he reveals to them the truth of his terrible actions. The romantic tour transforms into a nightmare when Asriel confesses to destroying the world thousands of times in anger and hatred, then proceeds to demonstrate this live to a horrified Frisk.
• My Parents Are Dead: Frisk's parents died in a car crash next to Mt. Ebott when they were nine. Frisk survived, and ended up wandering around the mountain's forest before being rescued, and was raised by a loving aunt and cousin in the stead of their parents.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Napstablook is the only other monster present in the Underground. This is in reference to his post-game dialog from Undertale where it is revealed he was never absorbed by Asriel.
  • As in the author's other series Growing Pains, Asriel's lack of knowledge on monster reproduction had him assume he was incapable of procreating due to lacking normal biological functions, never realizing monsters can induce pregnancy magically until after he conceived a child.
• Named by the Adaptation: Frisk is given the surname of Bulalacao, which they share with their aunt and cousin.
• No Antagonist: Despite being the Big Bad of Undertale, Asriel is not truly antagonistic towards Frisk barring some early confrontations, instead serving as a Deuteragonist from whom Frisk wants to connect to and learn more about.
• Noodle Incident: Asriel's godhood was preceded by a "horrible event" which he refuses to elaborate on to Frisk. This is Subverted for readers familiar with Undertale's ending, as they would know this "horrible event" is Asriel's fault, and is the reason all the monsters save him and Napstablook have disappeared.
• Porn with Plot: Downplayed. The fanfiction is advertised as such, and Frisk and Asriel are adults in this AU. However, the story has focused almost entirely on the plot, with the consummation of their love not occurring until chapters 15 and 16.
• Pun: Asriel finds Frisk's puns hilarious with the sole exception of plant-related puns. This is presumably because of...his history with plants.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Asriel's eyes, as the Absolute God of Hyperdeath have changed from their canonical white slits to black slits with red irises. ZigZagged in that while yes, Asriel is a complete Jerkass that has inspired an urban legend by causing the disappearance of an exploration and rescue team, he is almost completely harmless to Frisk, who actually finds his eyes to be the most beautiful feature about him.
• Raging Stiffie: Frisk and Asriel's first makeout session end up giving Asriel an erection, much to his humiliation. Frisk thinks of relieving it with sex, but Asriel shoots it down before they could even suggest it because he just confessed his love a minute ago, and he believes jumping to sex would be unhealthy to their relationship.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: After binding their soul with Asriel, Frisk is able to retain their memories when he resets time. It also causes them to recall previous timelines when they sleep, and during the process of reseting the timeline.
• Self-Inflicted Hell: Asriel's need to have power and a monster body have continuously tortured his conscience and mental health. First, by betraying every monster and Frisk to get the souls needed to gain that power, he lost everyone who could have given him affection. Second, by refusing to give up the souls when his ruse was revealed, he lost both Frisk for a lover, and the child he had just conceived with them. All these actions have brought him nothing but misery in spite of how hard he wanted to no longer be a flower.
• Slumber Party: Frisk suggests a slumber party to follow up their camping trip to Devils Garden, in Utah. After a few days, Asriel takes the offer up. It is at this party that he finally confesses his love to Frisk.
• Soul Jar: Frisk's soul is kept by Asriel in two parts:
  • The Whisper Soul, a construct made by Asriel that forms the outline of a soul. This serves as a replacement soul for Frisk, and ensures that they can still experience the full range of human emotions. It is linked to Frisk's real soul, causing Asriel to feel Frisk's emotions.
  • The Shrine, a stone structure in the throne room made in the shape of hundreds of monster hands brought together to contain Frisk's real soul.
• Stalker with a Crush: Asriel has been sending Frisk dreams of the Underground since they were nine, and has watched them for just as long through the use of telepathy and invisibility. When Frisk arrives, he plays cruel pranks that accentuate this (signing a message with "=)", giving them a Jump Scare with a disembodied voice, and placing a snowperson in the shape of Frisk when they were nine) before formally introducing himself, and then creeps into their room one night and whispers his ownership over them. Understandably, this creeps Frisk to no end in their initial meeting. And, as the trope implies, he is madly in love with them and just couldn't spit it out for months.
  Asriel: “Play with me all you want, but don’t you ever forget Frisk… you’re.. mine…”
• Stating the Simple Solution: When Frisk learns the truth, they quickly point out how he could have easily freed the monsters by finding a seventh human soul. Justified in that while Asriel is fully aware of the solution, by the time he contemplated it, he has grown too fearful of facing the monsters after all that he has done.
• Sudden Game Interface: The monster encounter UI from Undertale is an accurate representation of encounters in Monster in the Mountain, buttons and all. Asriel has to cut through the box holding the soul in order to reach it.
• Switching P.O.V.: Chapter 24, unlike every other chapter, is told from the perspective of Asriel, summarizing his childhood all the way to severing his relationship with Frisk.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Said word-for-word by Frisk on their first meeting with Asriel. Asriel, for their part, are at least eight feet (2.44 meters) tall, wear a black, ragged robe, has black eyes and black fascial markings, and Frisk finds them to be really handsome.
• Telepathy: Asriel can read minds, project his vision telepathically, and send images into Frisk's mind. However, he finds mind reading very disorienting, and the images of the Underground might not be projections, but suppressed memories. It also appears to allow Frisk to access the monster souls.
• Teleportation: Asriel has several modes of fast travel available to him, including teleportation, which according to Frisk produces an "odd noise".
• Teleportation Sickness: However, if Asriel teleports anyone with him, his passenger will experience extreme sensations of all kinds on both ends of the spectrum. If this person is Frisk, he experiences it too because of their empathic link. By that same token, however, holding them in a very close and intimate position allows Frisk, and only Frisk, to bypass this issue.
  It was so powerful and felt almost too overwhelming, they felt heavy and light as a feather at the same time, both strong and weak, both pleasure and pain, it was all extreme and there was no middle ground.

  and for a second, their vision went white and then black.
• That Came Out Wrong: On two occasions, Frisk misconstrues Asriel's requests as sexual favors, much to his rage.
  • The first is when he wants Frisk to "do something nice for [him]" or "keep [him] entertained", which he meant by performing tasks, holding conversations, or letting him watch them do something entertaining (like solving puzzles).
  • The second is when Asriel asks Frisk to polish his horns, which flusters Frisk under the mistaken belief he meant oral sex instead of literally.
• The Tease: Even before coming to the mountain, Frisk was known to be "amazingly flirty," and their humor includes various sex jokes. Hell, Frisk's first action on meeting Asriel was to flirt with him.
• Took a Level in Badass: Asriel gained or learned new powers that were not present in Undertale. While he only had his powers for a few minutes in Undertale, it has been eleven years plus an unknown number of timelines since he acquired his powers in Monster in the Mountain, giving him time to learn and train with his powers.
  • He can produce a black metal of unknown properties and unknown means.
  • He can now use the Void for teleportation, portals, and storage.
  • The Whisper Soul is a technique specifically designed to allow him to take Frisk's soul without depriving them of emotion. This technique has a side-effect of giving him an empathic link to Frisk.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Asriel's behavior as an adult is cruder and more malicious than when he was a child. This is because the decade-long isolation and repeated failures to be able to go to the surface have made him misanthropic and socially stunted, and without Frisk saving him, his behavior aligns closer to his time as Flowey.
• Took a Level in Kindness: However, as Frisk spends more time with him, his anti-social behavior starts to fall apart. This is in part because some (but not all) of it was an act so that he and Frisk do not have to confront their affection for the other. When he finally confesses his love in chapter 13, his hostile demeanor has all but dropped, and he was even willing to let Frisk visit their aunt on their own.
• Unconventional Formatting: The author often center-aligns short paragraphs and switches between bolding and italicizing to emphasize text.
• Urban Legend: Asriel is known to humanity as the legendary "Monster in the Mountain", a creature that lives beyond the cave entrance that mysteriously appeared in Mount Ebott eleven years ago. He had caused the disappearance of cave exploration teams and the rescue team sent to find them, and is said to have taken their souls. Frisk was partially inspired to investigate the legend so that the threat could be neutralized for good.
• Wham Line:
  • We get hints in the story that there is more to Asriel's relationship with Frisk than is initially shown. He goes to unusual lengths to ensure their stay is comfortable, swings back and forth between annoyed and melancholic around Frisk, and really, really wants them to be his. Then Frisk nearly fall into lava and Asriel has to LOAD a SAVE. During which, we read this:
  It was then they heard a little boy’s voice speak up “Remember what I said Frisk, don’t kill and don’t be killed, don’t... don’t be like me.”
  • Frisk has a dream where massive fireballs bombard the Earth, destroying humanity and everything else. It would otherwise be a vivid nightmare if not for a phrase revealing how monstrous Asriel had been in past timelines.
  They’d never seen so beautiful yet terrifying at the same time…
  Or… wait, yes they had…
• Vague Age: Asriel has gone through an unknown number of timelines of unknown length as the Absolute God of Hyperdeath with no known upper limit, as such his age in terms of total experienced time is unknown to the reader. He has, however, traveled through time enough that he does not recall his exact age, only that he is in his early twenties in the present timeline.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Asriel can change his physical appearance at will or even what creature he is. He would eventually use this power in chapter 18 to temporarily assume the form of a human so he can go out in public.
• Vulgar Humor: Part of Frisk's humor as The Tease involves crude jokes which, to both her consternation and amusement, prompts Asriel to duct tape her mouth. This escalates one day to her painting him as a penis "for being a dick", causing Asriel to throw it into the CORE and erase it from existence.
• You Idiot!: Just like when he was Flowey, Asriel frequently calls Frisk an "idiot", but now mixes it up with "moron" and "filthy". Over time, these insults evolve from caustic barbs to light jabs at Frisk's expense.