Warning: Soup rant
Okay real talk, and this has probably been said to death by now, but I think the central problem with UTDR AUs, at least in my opinion, is that most of them just feel too formulaic. This isn't a huge issue and at the end of the day, it's all just people having fun, but hear me out...
Before I get more comments that are like "well you gotta understand not everyone wants to change and people do this for fun" yes, I know. I already acknowledged that and addressed it.
For people looking for new, creative things done with their favorite characters, they may, often than not, be disappointed. What I always see in UTDR AUs is that there is a strict pattern they follow. UT, for instance, they must always encounter a Flowey-type character. You must meet the Toriel of the AU and go through the Ruins. Gotta meet the two goofball Sans and Papyrus replacements of the AU and forever be cursed with seeing fanart and fangames of those two characters only. You get what I mean. And for DR... Well you just gotta have the brute character, the healer, the shy one, and the smart one, obviously. Events must play out exactly the same as Deltarune. Meeting the Spamton role at an alley, the secret bosses just being another crazy Spamton-like character, etc.
The problem is that because it's a UTDR AU, people think they need to do the same story beats and structure, point from point, but people don't leverage the fact that it's a UTDR AU. Most people don't take advantage of the fact that you can do some wild concepts in an AU. People used to rag on PS!Outertale when it released for being just Undertale again, but those same people go back to liking AUs like original Underswap or hyping up Sans battle fangames where it's literally the same thing, but with different attack patterns. Like yeah, while it might be cool to meet the Sans and Papyrus replacements in your, idk... swapfell take and all, wouldn't it be cool if there was an AU about Flowey meeting Sans and they partner up together to explore other AUs? Well don't I have the recommendation for you!
How about a DR AU where Kris is trying to kill Rudy's cancer? Sure, why the hell not. It's peak! You're not gonna see your typical roleswap or chapter take explore concepts like these.
Now, I know what some of you are begging to say to me: "Well of course! Those AUs are so much more bigger than us and they got whole teams of people" and that may be the case, but why should that stop you from getting experimental? I remember joining this fandom and seeing so many people making such creative and huge AUs like Inverted Fate, Dreemurr Reborn, Undertale Yellow, etc. and being like "I want to do that!" and so... I did. Of course, it was a struggle. It's so easy to have ideas, but actually executing them is tough, whether that be from a lack of skill, not enough time, lack of motivation, etc. but that didn't stop kid me. Kid me was so full of passion and ideas and he wanted people to know about them. So, I started where most people would: I made a fangame, several, to be exact. They were obviously terrible, but the passion was still there. I listened to feedback, made lots of friends, meet a lot of awesome UTDR creator, until eventually now. I made several shit fangames, but people stuck around and now I have a cult following of people that are not only interested in seeing my projects, but also seeing what I'm up to as well. And I never would've gotten here if I didn't try and go that extra mile of experimenting.
So TL;DR don't be afraid of trying new things. You may not succeed the first time, but that's where you use the criticism given to you to make something better. It's so easy to make UT or DR, but again, but it'd be even better in the long run if you explored new concepts. It's so easy to stick to a template, but if you really want to grow as a creative, you gotta get experimental. So many awesome things came out of the UTDR sphere because people, like me, had an idea, motivation, and ambition, and childlike wonder and went for it!
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