Warning! Very wordy!! TL;DR: I'm proud of how much the community has advanced in terms of project quality and I hope people do even bigger and better things!

I was talking with a friend about something to do with AU takes and such and it got me thinking:

How come people make AU takes in the first place, instead of branching off to do something more original and just inspired by the AU of your choosing? Once you're past the point where you're done making your take on whatever portion you were reworking, there's nowhere else to go but doing more original things now, and at that point you should've just done your own unique AU just inspired by the original in the first place.

The only reason I could think someone would want to keep the name of the previous AU is just for brand recognition. TS!Underswap thought about changing their name for a long time, but TS is already such a popular name and is too attached to the project to suddenly change it now.

Why do people choose to work off of someone else's hard work and change little bits and bobs here, instead of making something that you can actually call your own thing? Wouldn't you like to own a piece of fiction and not be just another version of someone else's work? Is it the thought of how daunting it could be to make everything completely yourself? Or is it simply fun to imagine how things would be different if you were, say, playing as a monster instead of a human, but don't want to fully go through with the idea of something bigger? This is not me being against AU takes btw(it'd be hypocritical to be against takes when I literally work for one). I just want to start a conversation and understand the fun of NegativeShiftDustFell, or whatever.

But then that also got me thinking about something else. The community has made a lot of advancements over the years. Concepts that most people are used to now were things the community of before were so shocked to see. Before, AUs were just essentially palette swaps, role swaps, or personality alterations. Undertale, but in space, or Undertale, but the people are stressed and heavily flawed, Undertale, but certain "roles" have been swapped, etc. etc. People before were more focused on changing up designs of the main cast than anything. Story, locations, etc. weren't nearly as thought about as before, it's why AUs made before 2017 were filled with aesthetic AUs and just reused the same locations, story beats, etc., but the characters themselves are changed.

But as more ambitious projects started popping up(e.g. Dreemurr Reborn, Unitale and Create Your Frisk, Undertale Red, etc.), people started realizing that they could actually do more than just character changes. Now people could own a piece of fiction, that isn't a broad concept like Underswap, Underfell, and the like, and it would be their own personal project with their own lore, characters, music, etc. With this huge influx of new creativity and endless possibilities, aesthetic AUs sort of died. You don't hear about aesthetic AUs like Oceantale, Undersail, Candytale, or whatever else anymore. Now people see more grand projects like Deltatraveler, Undertale Yellow, True Geno, Don't Forget: Connected, etc. etc., and those types of projects are now just common place around here and that's really awesome! I feel like some people take all these advancements the community has made over the years for granted and don't give people nearly enough time to cook. Concepts that are common place here weren't even a thought back then, compared to something like, idk, the Sonic fangaming community, where making new and original zones, bosses, characters, and such is already common there and is practically necessary.

If there's anything to take away from this post, it's that I hope to see more passionate people create things for themselves and feel proud enough to show it off to the rest of the world! No matter the quality of what you make, whether it appeals to a specific subset of a community or not, I just hope to see, play, and get involved with whatever new fandom thing the community gets infatuated with. And I also hope people start being kinder to project creators that are just having fun with a hobby of theirs, and don't be afraid to curate your community space and block people that get on your nerves. Who knows... You just might make the next big advancement, if that's what you desire, or just a project most people love.

Stay soupy!! :D