spaghettimonster | flower!au planning

So I'm slowly planning a fic: an AU (intended to be canon compliant, in timeline(s) prior to Frisk showing up) where Flowey continues Alphys' DTE experiments.

He starts out hoping the same thing she did; solidify a monster's soul enough to last after death, and he can eventually gather enough soul power to equal a human's soul. Then Asgore's reticence with the souls won't be an obstacle for him, and he can get himself through the barrier.

Unfortunately for his plans, he doesn't figure out a solution to the melting problem she found. After a number of resets, he gives up on that path... but has a clever idea, to replicate the experiment that made Flowey out of Asriel. A flower, covered in a monster's dust, injected with a good amount of DTE... to let him play god on somebody just like him, and to validate to himself that anybody in his position would become just like him.

This AU is designed first and foremost for me to explore how a flower!Papyrus might change, considering the differences that a soul makes. I also want to explore how Papyrus might not change as much as Flowey did, given the differences of his circumstances/personality with Asriel's.

If I get far enough that I want to revise this to make a story that others might enjoy, though... it'll probably end up being more about the people around Papyrus.

One side is the grieving process that Sans and Undyne would go through; being a soulless flower would change him, no matter how much he might try to pretend it doesn't. And the effects on those two would ripple.

The other side is Flowey's arc, confirming the beliefs he holds at the start of the game; (a) that it's Kill or Be Killed, (b) pretending to be friendly and nice at first, then revealing the truth when he has the power to hurt people, is amusing, and (c) letting Sans find out about him is fucking annoying. He needs to come out of this story to resetting back to his awakening in the garden.

Asriel : Flowey :: Papyrus : ???

It's easy to think that Flowey is a good example of what soullessness means for a monster, but Flowey's kind of an extreme case. He's got a lot of backstory and baggage.

Here's my history for Flowey, partly direct from canon and partly speculative:

(1) Asriel, an emotional, sensitive child whose morality is based largely on caring about people.

(2) Who grows up alongside a human child with a Great and Secret plan for saving all the monsters.

(3) Who follows through on that plan, despite his misgivings, yielding to their idea of what's right.

(4) Who kills that sibling/friend on their request, through a slow and painful death by poisoning, watching his parents grieve while keeping the cause, and his guilt and hope and dreams, secret from them.

(5) Who absorbs that sibling/friend's soul when they die... and is then possessed by that soul, aware of his body moving without him, carrying their corpse out into the surface world.

(6) Who is betrayed by that trusted sibling/friend by their unplanned, unanticipated murderous intentions against innocent people who thought they were protecting each other.

(7) Who manages to wrest back control of his own, changed body, as they deal blow after blow until he is critically injured, and returns to his home and prison with the corpse still in hand.

(8) Who dies a short time later, though presumably after he has a chance to tell someone at part of the story (as the random New Home monsters' version of the story sufficiently matches Asriel's version.)

(9) Who wakes, an unspecified amount of time later in the garden, unable to feel his body, alone and confused and frightened.

(10) * But nobody came.

(11) Who is eventually found by the king, to whom he explains the situation, and who he sees cry for him... but feels no emotions for the king, about the king, and is confused and frightened and frustrated as to why.

(12) Who, after a few weeks of still not caring about his dad, runs away. Eventually he finds his mom in the ruins, and hopes and dreams that she'll have that special something so he can care about her. She doesn't, because what's missing is in him. He alternates between realizing that and blaming them.

(13) Who tries to kill himself rather than continue existing this way... But in the attempt, he fears dying without a soul, and some mix of the determination injected into the flower, his fear of dying, and the magic of a monster boss that absorbed a human soul (though neither soul is in this vessel) mixes together to give him the power of SAVE, LOAD, and RESET.

(14) Who wakes up again in the flower bed, alone, confused, and is eventually discovered by the king again. Maybe he explains, maybe he doesn't. And he goes about exploring the Underworld, meeting everybody, getting to know what they're unhappy about, and fixing their problems for them.

(15) Who has the ability to rewind time and fix mistakes, so he uses it. He tries to get a 100% perfect score, where everyone is happy.

(16) Who learns, in the many resets it takes to learn them all well enough to get them their happy endings, to know everyone well enough that they're like scripted characters. Press this hope at this time, and they'll always do that. Between not feeling love/care for them like monsters normally do, and the sheer predictability, they stop being people and start being really boring toys.

(17) Who still feels unacknowledged feelings of betrayal he felt at Chara's actions, and betrayal at the humans for killing him when he did nothing to hurt them, and regret for not following through on the plan anyway. Sweet little caring Asriel died because he cared too much to protect himself. Kill or be killed.

(18) Who learns that lesson, and tries killing people. And it was something different, finally, after the monotony of fixing these cardboard cutouts.

Compare the Flowey we meet at the start of the game to the Flowey at the very end of a true pacifist run.

Start!Flowey is nasty and sarcastic, saccharine just long enough to laugh at people for falling for his trick. He's been lonely and unable to get comfort from friends or family despite trying in at least one timeline, stewing in his frustration and guilt and betrayal for a very long time.

Post-True-Pacifist!Flowey has re-experienced Asriel's emotions, made the decision to let everyone move on instead of resetting forever in his playground, and come to terms with the fact that Chara was not as good a friend as Frisk. That Flowey takes the chance to get what he'd started all this for, if at a different cost than he intended. That flowey isolates himself in the Underworld with the flowers, and removes himself from the temptation of hurting people.

Though... I can't help but notice that, after he asks the player not to reset for Frisk's sake, he then goads us to reset again, by addressing us as "[Fallen Human's Name]" again. A sly wink and nod to the fact that there's more to be found, if we, like Flowey, are willing to go back and start killing everyone for the heck of it.

Anyway. My point is, the Flowey we meet at the start of the game is a monumental jerk, but only part of that is due to not having a soul. He blames it on being soulless, sure, and at the end of a true pacifist run Asriel acknowledges he "did a lot of weird things as a flower." But I think there's two other things that are big factors: the whole tangle of emotions around Chara, and the reset power.

After he tried to kill himself, and discovered his reset power, flower!Asriel spent a number of resets going around helping people be happier. He didn't feel anything about them, didn't care in the way he used to, but he went through the motions of doing it because it was what Asriel would have wanted to do.

The degradation of his personality from Asriel into Flowey took more than just being soulless. Flowey just blames it on his lack of a soul and the idea that once he could do anything, he had to. He fixates on the idea of getting enough human souls to replace what he lost.

So I wondered...

What If Flowey decided to test that theory? He could get tired of looking for a way to get the souls from Asgore, tired of wishing for Chara to come back, and followed up on Alphys' research to get monster souls instead. And then, frustrated with his lack of success and bored, he might decide to repeat the experiment that made him. Get a monster's dust to scatter over some flower seeds, letting a flower rapidly grow from those seeds, and injecting that flower with determination... then waiting for a new, soulless, flower person to grow out of it.

If he did all that... He might be seeking to make himself a new 'friend' that should be able to understand his perspective on the "truths of this world." Or he might be seeking validation for what he'd become, making another soulless monster to prove to himself that anybody in his situation would be just like him.

Either way, who would be better and more amusing to use, in repeating that degradation from best friend to best nightmare, than the most idealistic character in the game... Papyrus?

PAPYRUS WOULD NEVER BETRAY YOU.
I AM NOT A CRUEL PERSON.
I STRIVE TO BE COMFORTING AND PLEASANT.
PAPYRUS! HE SMELLS LIKE THE MOON.
SO, BECAUSE OF MY INHERENT GOODNESS...

Papyrus is one of the characters in the game least inclined to hurt you, and he'd be the second to tell you so. (Sans would be the first, and Undyne the third.)

So...

Assume Flowey [shenanigans] his way into the lab when Alphys isn't there, having already done his research and strategized everything with save scumming.

Assume Flowey gets the DTE by extracting it from the amalgamates with the big fucking skull machine (dusting them, the only way they could be killed).

Assume Papyrus, from some time before the start of the game.

Assume Flowey (knowing how to manipulate Papyrus) invites the skeleton to the lab under the premise of helping the great Dr Alphys with her research. And then murders him, and spreads the dust on the flower, and recreates the experiment that made him.

Assume Papyrus awakens as a soulless flower. Who would he be? Who would he choose to be? Who would he become regardless of his choices?