Epictale is an Alternate Universe fancomic by Yugogeer012 of the video game Undertale, where everything is truly epic.
Many years ago, a young human by the name of Frisk fell into the Underground. Though their kind nature made them many friends among the monsters living there, some, like the Royal Scientist Gaster, hated them for being human. Eventually tensions escalated and Gaster murdered the child to harvest their soul. After an intense battle with their adoptive mother and queen of the monsters Toriel, Gaster fled and was presumed to have died.
Decades later, the royal family has adopted a second fallen child by the name of Chara and raised them alongside their biological son Asriel. All seems right with the world - until an old enemy resurfaces, hellbent on finishing what he started all these years ago.
The comic is available for free on Yugo's tumblr
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Epic Tropes:
- Abusive Parent: Gaster is a horrid parent, no matter how you look at it. He experimented on Sans, causing him lasting trauma and suicidal depression, as well as the inability to sleep, and didn't even give Papyrus the time of day. He also murders both of his sons to get his special eyes back from them without any hesitation and shows absolutely no remorse for his actions at any point afterward.
- Adaptational Badass: Pretty much every character has been given some over the top superpower they certainly didn't have in the original Undertale.
- Adaptational Curves: Undyne has a much bigger bust and rear than she does in canon, to the point of being an in-universe Ms. Fanservice. This is downplayed, as in the comic proper she's mostly depicted wearing armor, which hides her figure and makes her appear more androgynous.
- An Arm and a Leg: Chara loses one of their arms in their battle against Follower-Undyne.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Toriel is the queen of the Underground and the only character able to go toe-to-toe with Perfect Gaster.
- Bad Boss: Gaster's old followers are rewarded for their tireless devotion to their boss by being impaled and having their bodies remolded into a new form for him.
- Big Bad: Gaster, the former Royal Scientist, whose grudge against humanity is so great he will stop at nothing to exterminate them for good. At least, that's what he lets everybody believe. In reality, Gaster is aware that Epictale is on its second run and actually does what he does to create a story that their creator and the readers will not abandon.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Gaster's new followers are innocent monsters morphed into soulless minions by his power.
- Bullying a Dragon: While in the process of converting her into one of his brainwashed followers, Gaster decides it would be a great idea to taunt Toriel with the fact that Chara will most likely be killed in the current war. This blatant threat to her child's safety gives Toriel the major power boost she needs to break through his mind control powers and prepare to put him in the ground once and for all.
- Canon Foreigner: Red, a popular fan-character, is part of the main cast. This surprises Gaster, who was assuming he'd only go up against canon characters.
- Creepy Child: Gaster's first form is a mixture of Frisk's original body and some of Gaster's own traits, like skeletal eyes and cut-like markings. It also lacks a mouth.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Muffet attempts to murder Chara, because Chara nicked some chocolate from her shop.
- Eviler than Thou: Follower-Alphys and her minions decide to try their luck with Muffet, of all monsters. They're very swiftly informed that they picked the wrong spider-woman to mess with.
- Face Death with Dignity: Zig-zagged. When Sans realizes Gaster with Frisk's soul in his possession is just too powerful to beat and is about to kill him, he is at first ecstatic about the fact that he'll die and his life of suffering will end. But then he remembers Frisk is still Gaster's captive and pulls himself back up for one heroic last stand. Sadly it's still not enough, but even while being disintegrated, Sans keeps his composure, only grumbling for a bit that he totally would have won if Gaster hadn't stolen his special eye.
- Heroic Willpower: Frisk managed to keep Gaster from absorbing their soul for literal decades. It's implied the only reason they eventually tire out is because Gaster's original followers helped their boss through artificially weakening Frisk with their experiments.
- Honor Before Reason: Even as things steadily keep getting worse, Frisk refuses to reset the timeline because they promised to Sans that they wouldn't years ago. By the time they finally break and try to reset to save their remaining friends, Gaster is already far too powerful and stops them from doing so.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: After noticing how much their messing with the timeline negatively affected Sans, Frisk made a promise to him that they wouldn't reset time anymore, no matter what. Gaster overheard them making that promise and took advantage of the fact that Frisk had sworn off their time-travel powers to murder them in cold blood and get his hands on their soul.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Gaster aims to destroy the barrier and obliterate all of humanity, so that monsterkind may live in peace. However, the methods he uses to achieve this are incredibly cruel and immoral and he doesn't seem to care who he has to hurt or kill along the way. Several monsters call him out on this, until he at one point flat-out states he doesn't care that what he's doing is just plain evil. In his mind, the ends justify the means. The same could be said about his true motivation of making Epictale a more interesting story through making it darker, so the comic won't be canceled again. Sure, by giving their world a conflict with extremely high stakes, the story is less likely to be abandoned prematurely, but Gaster is still putting nearly every character within it through an immense amount of trauma and death and it's implied that his desperation to keep the story going has less to do with the greater good of keeping their world from being erased and more with his fear of his own mortality.
- Offing the Offspring: Gaster and Sans' battle ends with Sans' death. Papyrus follows some time after when Gaster crushes his skull.
- Sacrificial Lion:
- Sans is the first character to actually die against Gaster, but he puts up one hell of a fight beforehand and doesn't stop until he's literally disintegrated.
- Papyrus, a member of Undyne's Royal Guard squad, has his skull crushed underneath Gaster's boot to signal that things are getting serious and "darker" from now on.
- Spirit Advisor: Frisk appeared to Chara as a ghost thoughout Chara's childhood, less to give advice and more to just act as a friend and shoulder to lean on. They disappeared when Chara became a young adult, most likely due to their control over their soul slowly being usurped by Gaster.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Intentionally averted with Sans this time around. While it seems like the story is setting him up to be the main character at first, he's in fact the first major character to be Killed Off for Real.
- Token Human:
- Frisk was the only human child living among the monsters. The royal family used them as an example that humans and monsters could get along after the war, but sadly not everyone agreed.
- Chara is this to the Underground in the present. It's implied they feel immense pressure about basically being the hope of future monster-human relationships.
- Would Hurt a Child: Gaster killed Frisk, a small child, without a smidge of remorse.
