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#undertale meta
earlgraytay · 3 days
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I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy 6 lately and the more I get into the game
The more I wonder why I haven't seen a single bit of fandom meta/analysis about how it influenced Undertale
because dear gods, the similarities are not subtle, and they go so much deeper than the Mettaton Opera gag
.......like, I don't want to make sweeping statements before finishing FF6, because I haven't even hit the big twist/spoiler of that game yet...
but it seems like the central question of Undertale is less "what makes people kill each other" and more "what makes someone become Kefka Palazzo, specifically"
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inbarfink · 1 year
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One common Undertale misconception that really frustrates me is when Sans is portrayed with a strong innate sense for RESETs and alternative timelines. Like, that he remembers the RESET timelines better than the other characters who only have occasional feelings of deja vu or even that he can sense when a timeline is RESET.
And that’s, like, almost the opposite of the actual text of the game. While pretty much every main character can have slightly-different dialogue in a Not-True-RESET, especially if the Player had previously befriended them, based on the idea that they have lingering memories/feelings from before the RESET - 
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Sans has no real dialogue changes based on this conceit. All of his changes are based around noticing Frisk has different reactions based on their memories of the precious timelines. 
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Other characters do also make observations like that about Frisk, like Mettaton and Toriel. But Sans is distinctive because this is the only way his comments change between RESETs and there are a lot of them from him.
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Because that is what really frustrates me about this misconception. People mention it as one more thing that makes Sans cool - but the actual truth is far more badass. Sans is one of the people in the Underground who remembers RESETs the least. I think memory-resistance to RESETs is probably tied to Determination. Flowey, the second-most Determined person in the Underground after Frisk, can remember everything perfectly.
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Everyone else has some vague feelings and deja vus. And Sans, he’s the least motivated person in the Underground - both in the sense he’s lazy and in the sense he’s fucking depressed.
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That probably means he has very little Determination. Thus, he doesn’t remember anything that happens between RESETs.
And yet, he is still the character most aware of them. Because he has the technological know-how to read and analyze timelines.
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And because he has the observation and analytical skill to notice a RESET from other people’s reactions and behavior. Whatever it’s Papyrus thinking he recognizes someone or Frisk’s behavior implying that they know something they shouldn’t have. Sans main RESET-related skill is just being able to identify these moments and come to the correct conclusion about them. And with that he manages to be the most aware character in the entire Underground.
Like, the one point where it might seem like Sans remembers something from a previous Timeline is the Fake Spare scene during his boss battle. 
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But it’s all pretend. Unlike the previous lines from other characters that I mentioned, this dialogue plays even if the Murder Route is the first time the player touched the game. Sans isn’t remembering anything in this scene. But he makes an educated guess that the Immoral Time God probably tried using their powers for good at first, so they were likely ‘friends’ in a previous timeline. And in most cases, his guess is right on the money - tricking many players into thinking this is another case of the game actually reacting to their past actions.
And as always, Sans can only tell if his lil’ trick worked or not based on the expression of the Player Character.
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Arguably, Sans even uses his lack of Determination and cross-RESET memory to his advantage in his boss battle. After all, the whole point of this fight isn’t to kill the Player - Sans understands this is impossible. This is a war of attrition, trying to get the Player so frustrated and annoyed with the unfair fight that they just ragequit or RESET the Timeline. And this war of the Player’s patience versus Sans’ stamina and will is infinitely easier for him when he doesn’t actually perceive all the Player’s previous attempts against him.
Like, for the Player this might be the billion time they go up against him, they’re aware of some of his patterns and tricks now but they’re probably also frustrated and angry and exhausted. Meanwhile, from Sans’ POV, this is still the first time this is happening. He knows it’s not from the Player’s behavior and Frisk’s expression - but he doesn’t feel it like the Player does. 
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He doesn’t feel the frustration and repetition of the endless stalemate. So he’s always as fresh as a daisy no matter how rugged the Player is getting.
And that’s part of why Sans is so cool in the first place, like, in general. He’s technically the weakest person in the Underground, lacking in every standard evaluation of power in the setting - no ATK, no DEF, no HP, no DETERMINATION. But he’s darn clever enough to overcome these weaknesses and even use them in ways that make them into strengths, enough to be one of the most dangerous and most aware guys in this whole setting.
Sans can’t remember anything, and that makes him awesome.
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megaderping · 1 month
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Time and time again, people have tried to discredit Alphys' work in the Determination Experiments by crediting at least some of the True Lab entries to Gaster. A recent theory making the rounds has once again misled people into taking this as fact, and in this video, I take a critical look at the entries to prove that Alphys wrote all of them as well as debunking several of the arguments used to claim that Gaster was involved. Sources include both Undertale and Deltarune, the Undertale Gaster twitter takeovers, the Legends of Localization book, and the recent Valentines newsletter. My goal in this video is to put this argument to rest, as it relies on many cherrypicked pieces of information that really don't hold up under scrutiny and are a disservice to Alphys and Gaster both.
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midnightfox450 · 10 months
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Love undertale and deltarune and the stanley parable and the beginner's guide. Love games that have you sit down and think about what you've done. Love games that just want you to feel normal about them. Love games that beg you to stop playing them over and over and over again but still give you new content on successive playthroughs because they know you'll do it anyway. Love games that assert that participating in someone else's creation is more than just an act of love, it can be an act of invasion, of violation. LOVE METAFICTION IN MY VIDEO GAMES!!!!!
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stainedglassthreads · 9 months
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One thing I think I just realized is, in addition to being dissatisfied with how stories deal with Toriel’s grief compared to Asgore’s and Asriel’s, and how I don’t see many instances of Toriel and Asgore’s quarrel being addressed in a way that satisfied me... I don’t think I see that many AUs that quite get the responsibility Asgore feels... right.
Yes, I’ve seen several that portray his grief, depression, and how badly he doesn’t want to be in this position well, even if it’s disappointing how not everyone seems to be aware of what you learn about him in a Neutral run where you’ve previously killed Flowey. A lot of people can get aspects of his characterization very well, the broken man, the goofy dad, the intimidating monarch. But I think the reason I don’t see people capture the weight of his responsibility quite as well in fanfics and comics is... well. Oddly enough it’s in the way the monsters treat him.
It’s not just the fandom that has issues with idolizing or demonizing characters. It’s also the Kingdom of Monsters themselves--and they all idolize Asgore. Yes, he’s a very grounded and compassionate individual who invites his subjects to share all their problems with him, and who Papyrus insists will just let you pass through the Barrier. But he’s also a bit of the subject of a cult of personality for his subjects. When they say he’ll absorb seven souls and become a GOD, it’s not an expression of his arrogance, but rather their own adoration. While out-of-universe the Angel is generally agreed to be either Asriel or Chara(or us), in-universe I wouldn’t be surprised if Asgore was considered the Angel.
It’s not long now. King Asgore will let us go. King Asgore will give us hope. King Asgore will save us all.
Yes, individual monsters may want to collect a human soul for their own individual wants and desires. But it’s only the capture of a human soul, or using a single soul for their own benefit, that they really aspire to. (With the exception of Toriel, who wants no souls, and Flowey, who is Flowey.) Of those area bosses who earnestly try to take just one soul, Papyrus and Undyne both want to hand you over to Asgore, and Mettaton wants to protect humanity FROM Asgore. Literally everyone in the Underground seems to fully believe that Asgore will be the one taking all the Souls and fulfilling his promises, and all are content. (Again, barring Toriel, MTT, Flowey.) No one seems to ever doubt he’ll do as he says, even his ex-wife, and no one’s greedy to take the power for themselves or take the burden of being a savior for themself, except his kid who has both a God Complex and a Savior Complex.
With Chara, and with Asgore. They take a person and turn them into a representation of something More than any singular person could ever be. And then in the worst route Chara does it again, to themself. Asgore is freedom and salvation and retribution itself, and everyone including the woman who was once married to him agrees and reinforces the role. Chara is the feeling of a number going up, and the fandom agrees and reinforces the role.
And I dunno. There are fics and AUs where Asgore never lost his kids and always remained an affable, friendly guy. There are AUs where Asgore is the main antagonist and an awful villain with few redeeming qualities. There are fics and AUs where Asgore gets to recover in a post-pacifist setting. But I’m not sure any fics or AUs have ever quite captured how everyone else just talks about the guy, for me. Toriel is simply ‘intimidating’. But Asgore is a GOD.
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basilpaste · 3 months
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anyways i like that the ut fandom has fully embraced the narrator chara style characterization for chara nowadays. the murder child thing was a lot less interesting. 'since when were you the one in control' is much more poignant if it comes from a character who isnt in control, either.
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undertalethingems · 1 year
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Hello, I have a question you mention that Papyrus not knowing anything is fanon and not canon. Im not saying your wrong but tbh i can't recal moments from the game that would prove that statment. But i also haven't play Undertale in a while and was wondering if you could give examples from the game.
Heheh, well, it's hard to say exactly what papyrus does know, but there are indeed hints he knows more than many people, especially early on in the fandom, realized. Like.... there were people who thought he doesn't know what death or murder is (and maybe there still are, though I shudder to think of it)... despite having multiple lines of dialogue that disprove this. Anyway! Evidence Papyrus knows more than he lets on include the following:
He refers to Mettaton having eyes in a call you can get well before the fight with Mettaton that reveals his EX form:
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And the jetpack phone all the way back in freaking waterfall
He references the game having multiple endings in True Pacifist:
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As well as other game mechanics like repeating dialogue or the keyboard
his nerves here and his really specific denial of you witnessing his first conversation with undyne, which implies he is aware you were in fact there
and then of course there's this:
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and plenty more that are more ambiguous, like hints about the amalgamates (be nice to people made of strange materials), trying to make a puzzle resemble his face (from a perspective he shouldn't be able to view?), or even possibly not knowing what happens when you get to the capital because well... a lot of things could happen when you get there. It's not as certain as any other monster might think.
Even if you don't really consider those last ones, Papyrus obviously hints at much of the same stuff about the game as his brother. It's just that they're almost all in his phone calls, which many people never do... So while it's maybe not canon that he has a vast amount of meta knowledge, it's definitely fanon that he's super naive to everything or just outright stupid. That's not true in the slightest.
Anyway, for even more Papyrus facts and musings, I have a few more links: a compilation of facts made by @insanelyadd, and this old post about mysterious papyrus things--though note that some of the links no longer work. You may also want to check out my undertale meta tag, which is a catch-all for interesting headcanons and analysis of the game, including some of papyrus' oddities.
All screenshots I posted above come from @undertale-encyclopedia, which is a truly invaluable resource for all the game's dialogue. I definitely recommend checking it out if you ever need a refresher ^^
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pempempemto · 3 months
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i was kind of wondering something just today im. not sure if its a coincidence or something
allegedly- chara’s symbolic number is usually 9, to my knowledge.
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which yeah stands for completion the end of a cycle because- player allegory thing
but then gaster’s so called symbolic number is 6, to my knowledge
IF im correct his datamined stats were all in sixes(sorry the picture is blurry i cant. find good pictures)
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also intentional or not his name has six letters
and that if you set your fun value to 66 there’s a ten percent chance of getting the mystery man room(and he’s commonly assumed to be gaster)
six im not as sure what it means- the stuff i’ve seen on it usually ties it to love
copying this from what i typed on discord i found that uhh
“six is the highest number on a dice, a number of luck???? and also the sixth sense. people call it a. perfect number apparently huh. six is tthe card of the lovers, which reverse mmmmaybe symbolises seperation or temptation? does it mean something just wondering how all that might tie to gaster”
there’s those- some stuff i found might be misinformation but I can’t be too sure- do tell if i get anything wrong
and then take it another step and there’s the fact that gaster’s number and chara’s number- if you take either number and flip them upside down they look the same- in certain fonts. like if you took 6 and flipped that upside down, you’d get 9. its easier to see in that tumblr default font.
if i’m not wrong, this applies to the aster font as well. and the undertale font
and another small but probably insignificant similarity that they both smile?? and they can have those. creepy black eye things
i think the tl dr of all that is that chara and gaster’s symbolic numbers parallel each other in some kind of way, and with how sometimes they’re depicted being in the afterlife(????) together i just- wondered if it was something intentional or not. or if that small fact means anything.
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prior-medium · 2 months
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"Your choices do(n't) matter" -> Deltarune to Undertale
I have been wanting to make a post for a long time, but I have a free hour on my hand and a mind full of Deltarune soo allow me to draw my favorite parallels about how Undertale and Deltarune both tackle the concept of choice, and how they are distinct but both still tell a necessary story.
Also, if you are reading this post, I am assuming you have played through Undertale and Deltarune Chapters 1 and 2, because this post will have spoilers for both. Without further ado…
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Undertale’s approach when it comes to choice is one that directly targets and addresses the player. Much of the characters’ dialogue with Frisk often address them as “the human”, which, depending on your stance, could be a comment meant to speak to Frisk as a character, or to you, the player, as a human being.
In fact, as much as I adore Frisk as a character all of their own, they aren’t necessarily given any defining personality traits. They are, in the purest of senses, meant to directly be an in-game representation for the whims and desires of the player. “They” act, “they” fight, “they” flee, but it’s always you, the player, making the decisions. This isn’t necessarily a unique concept, but it’s the way that this is applied that makes this particular idea special in Undertale. 
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Obviously, the most noticeable instance of this is when Sans calls the player out towards the end of the game, explaining that those little levels and numbers that we, as the player, loved seeing go up, were affecting the world that we had just spent the last few hours immersing ourselves in. There is a direct effect of our choices on this universe. It is a pre-established place, and it will continue without us, the player, making an impact. In fact, in the neutral and genocide routes, you are actively making this universe a worse place! It puts the player in the position to act as themselves and make a decision about how they want to impact this virtual world. In essence, the decisions made by Frisk and you, the player, are presented as one in the same. Frisk isn’t necessarily seen as a vessel for your intentions, but rather, as your intentions themselves. 
This created a unique meta-narrative when it came to the idea of how we, as players, consume media in universes. It presented the idea that universes made by creators aren’t just things to pick up and put down, but that each game world has their own story that continues onwards, with or without input. You aren’t seen as some great hero, but rather a nuisance at best, a mass murderer at worst. This was the way that Undertale addressed the idea of stories in their universe: you, the player, were seen as synonymous with Frisk, the character.
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Deltarune took a different approach to this. Of course, it becomes instantly recognizable to players that “our choices don’t matter”, which is told to us almost immediately in the game. There are some sections of the game where the decisions you make don't directly influence the storyline, which differs from the narrative set by Undertale. It takes this idea of “choice” that we had pre-established going into the Deltarune experience by Toby Fox’s other works and toys with it.
Kris is their own individual. Kris has had a hard time making friends. Kris has a brother at college, and is a known town citizen. Kris is greeted by neighbors, classmates, and teachers. Kris loves chocolate and pies, shows anger at Spamton’s demise, and has a tendency to make some scary jokes (as referenced by Noelle). They are their own person. This is when Undertale and Deltarune start to split on the concept of choice.
Frisk was seen as the culmination of the player themselves, but Kris isn’t the player. This is what makes the ending of Chapter 1 particularly shocking– the idea that Kris could directly address us, the players, and our influence on them, by removing their soul. They don’t want to be the culmination of our actions. They want to be Kris. 
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This is where the idea of choices is twisted from our prior conceptions. Just like in Undertale, our choices in Deltarune are either praised or criticized depending on how we interact with the world we are given. However, in Undertale, we are judged as players by the characters aware of our influence. In Deltarune, we are judged in a far more intimate setting: directly by the person we are instructing to do our bidding. Because, at the end of the day, our choices do matter in Deltarune. They just matter on a smaller scale. They matter to Kris.
In this way, both games address the way our choices are impactful; they just happen to do so in two, unique settings. I think this is what makes both Undertale and Deltarune so interesting– they have a similar concept, but they completely flip the script on what that concept means, and how it applies to universes. 
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What are the salient features of Asriel, post-canon, that keep us from "saving" him from life alone in the Underground?
He's soulless (a practical problem),
he'll soon return to being a flower (a practical problem) and would prefer that you think of him like this rather than Flowey (a personal and interpersonal problem), and
he's decided to stay and tend the grave of the fallen child (and this is not really a problem at all; rather, a decision, which the boundary conditions of Undertale require us to respect).
There is a lot of UT post-canon fic out there which treats all these as practical problems. Frisk can just get a soul from somewhere, throw Alphys technobabble or soul arcanobabble at the body issue; get Flowey in therapy; and... also get Flowey in therapy for that last one, because his decision isn't really legitimate, in save-the-goat stories. It's self-harm. Which, personally, is both understandable and missing the point of one of the game's core themes: no matter how many times you restart the story, there are things you can't do; you are not getting a 100% Complete Perfect Pacifist where even Asriel is saved, and it's okay to be wistful about it, but you still need to put down the controller eventually. Getting him to the surface happens a lot in fic, because we all want the goldenest ending, but it could never happen in canon and we just have to live with it. It's thematically potent and I'd lose a lot of respect for Undertale's commitment to its story if you could circumvent it.
(Incidentally, this feels to me like it stems from the same ideas as making "* I have places to be" the wrong answer, a giving-in to Frisk's self-sacrificing, self-disregarding nature which must be corrected. Sometimes, you have to let people live and make their own decisions, outside the boundaries of the story's frame. Your perspective only goes so far.)
...now, fluffier, more sympathetically-traumatized Asriel, on the other hand...!
Ralsei's woes in Deltarune are very visibly the same kind of isolation as what Asriel's dealing with at the end of Undertale, but a) it's worse (a whole lifetime of waiting in a very deliberately empty, lifeless, three-screen-long kingdom) and b) he's stuck there for purely practical reasons. Darkners can't enter the Light World without becoming objects. He never made a decision to be here.
It's not something we can technobabble our way out of right now, but we're only in Chapter 2, right? We can save him, in a way we can't save Asriel: the deadlock we can't resolve has been removed; we don't really have to think about his preferences any more, because the preferences that kept us from helping him and left him stuck in the Underground I mean Dark World are just gone.
His issues are also much more obvious from the get-go, and seem designed to be something we talk him out of – not Asriel's decision to stay by his lost friend's grave, with a weight of meaning and feeling behind it, but hero worship, subservience, religious dedication to the Prophecy and self-image issues, all clear and visible dysfunctions. Giving Asriel therapy has left the realm of fanfiction and wish fulfillment and become part of canon... and the real disagreements we had with UT!Asriel over what he was and meant and deserved have become simple roadblocks for DR!Asriel whoops I mean Ralsei, things we have to help him through. Practical problems where the solution is friendship speech + therapy.
To make a slightly heavy-handed comparison, Ralsei saying we exist to serve Lightners and gratefully referring to himself as Kris's lackey is Anthy saying I'm the Rose Bride because I like it. It's the kind of reason we're inclined to reflexively overrule without working to deal with it at its root. Ralsei is Asriel, minus the irreconcilable and bittersweet parts, someone whose objections to being helped have either been removed or simplified down until we can feel good about disabusing him of them. He's our wish fulfillment in the way that candy on trees might be Susie's and a city of shining lights might be Noelle's and Giant Arcade Consoles might be Berdly's: an Asriel you can help, who you can make go to therapy and deal with the problems that keep him from caring for himself; who'll shut up, comply and let himself be saved.
...so the fact that Kris – whose personal issues are opaque, complex, and frustrating; who appears to be actively hiding parts of their life and motives from us; who clearly doesn't want our help or an improved social life at the expense of their agency – finds him so distasteful might not just be because he's a parody of their brother or Secretly Evil or whatever. If Ralsei is "the kid they're supposed to be" it's not just his fluff and horns!
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drowninnoodles · 3 months
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ULTIMATE (not really) GASTER CONNECTIONS LIST THING
Finally, I wrote down everything that came to my mind, most of them were theories. So if I missed something, please let me know. Plus, I'll probably update this when I find something new.
Devil connections:
- His stats are with numbers 666
- He fell (into his creation)
- his font has the word Wing in its name
-the first version of deltarune was 0.666
-religious connections of characters in Deltarune
- Possibility that he is an Angel
-Dark, Darker, Yet Darker
- Speaks through the Device - Ouija board reference?
- Shadow Crystals as pieces of him
- is associated with the most hell-like place in the Underground
Enemies in Undertale are similar to the Main Boss of the area-
Characters in the core:
- Final Froggit: Searching for Life Meaning/ Giving life its own meaning. Threaten/Mystify
-Whimsalot: "There's still hope", "I've made my choice", "No regrets", Prayers, Butterflies,
-Madjick: Clear Mind, Magican, Emits Cross-shaped bullets
-Knight Knight: Sleeping, Good Morningstar, Knight
Following this lead, Mettaton should not be a Core Boss -> there is no connection. This is Gaster's place
Uncategorized things:
-The core we see is redesigned by Mettaton, we do not know its previous layout
-Into voice's typer text value is the same as Gaster's
-Everything related to him in the files is written in caps
-His theme plays in Bunker
-He is described as always listening
-Like the corrupted characters he has voice lines (the word Deltarune spoken in the intro, laugh in Undertale files and BIG SHOT)
- can break the fourth wall ( takes over Twitter account)
- Deltarune crashes after typing "Gaster"
-"Man.ogg" is Yume Nikki Fansong
- talks to us in Vessel maker
- is in the Void
-Ms.Zarves and Ray as Inspiration for Gaster
-Possibly a Skeleton
- is the creator of Deltarune
- speaks in hands (probably WingDings font)
- He knows Chara personally (they work together)
- Deltarune is owned by ROYAL SCIENCES, LLC
-is scientist
-He worked for Asgore
-Dark Totems in Core - Dark Fountains first version?
-Memoryhead emits Gaster-like bullets
-Memoryhead says “Lorem Ipsum Docet” -> It means something like "Pain teaches”
-Memoryhead can give you a piece of themself
-Piece is called “Bad Memory”, Follower 3 is recalling Bad Memory connected to Gaster
-Noelle’s Blog page is reference to MysteryMan’s appearance in Undertale
-The entirety of Deltarune is an experiment
-Freezing is both reference to Freezing computer and Dante’s Inferno
-is connected to phones - Part of Memoryhead looks like phone
-”Another Him” uses Giygas soundfont
-Gaster seems to be heavily inspired by Uboa from Yume Nikki and Giygas from Earthboud
-Giygas and Gaster have a machines tied to them. Both are strongly associated with the theme of the devil and prayers.
HIS CREATION = BLACK HOLE:
-“A jump into a black hole is a one-way trip. Black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape them, not even light. Even before you reach the event horizon – the point of no return – you would be “spaghettified” by the black hole's tidal forces.” -Supernova
-You fall into a Black Hole
-“Of course, no matter what type of black hole you plunge into, you're ultimately going to get torn apart by its extreme gravity and die a horrible death. No material that falls inside a black hole could survive intact.” - Spacendbeyondthebox
-is everywhere at the same time - after being torn apart
-“Negative Photons reading”
-He was scattered across time and space
-theory made by Reddit user Garble365:
“in Interstellar (the sci-fi movie), Cooper falls into a blackhole, and he gets access to every place in the universe, in this infinitely small blackhole. Basically he is everywhere, at the same time. He can look at his daughter and hear her. But he cannot speak to her with his voice, the sound doesn't reach her due to some reason. So he resolves to knocking a few books in a bookshelf in his daughter's bedroom. Her daughter thought it was a ghost, being small. When she grew up, she realizes it was morse code in the form of books being knocked over. It was her father. He was speaking with his hand”
VIRUS CONNECTIONS:
- causes the files to become corrupted - the characters go insane after the meeting
-“The virus starts propagating, which is multiplying and replicating itself. The virus places a copy of itself into other programs” - Wikipedia
EGG CONNECTIONS:
- mysteryman head shape
- Scientists/intellectual people are called Eggheads
- Humpty Dumpty Reference
- Eggs given by the Man - possible Gaster pieces?
-The eggs stick together into one piece
-eggs break the game's fourth wall and move between save files
-When you drop an egg it says "what egg?" as if it doesn't exist
GERSON AND GASTER CONNECTIONS
-They were both replaced by Alphys after they left
-They are both highly respected by the people
-Religion references - Gerson’s son is priest
-Gaster in tarot card deck was replaced by Gerson
-GERSON is an anagram of the word GONERS
-Gerson in Undertale has knowledge that other monsters do not have
GASTER’S THEME:
-Gaster Blaster looks like Turtle skull
DRAGON CONNECTIONS
-Noelle is playing dragon blazer's 3. She is currently at the snow drake.
- Gaster blaster resembles a dragon's skull and the "beams" could easily be snow, similar to the snow grave spell
- "knight knight" who has a strange reoccurring motifs of day, nights, and dreams. Her sprite is labeled as a dragon
-susie's axe, which is said to be made of a dragon's mane. Implying that susie herself is a dragon
“must.Him.Ogg”
Another Him
Darkness Falls
Scarlet Forest
Card Castle
Rouxls Kaard
Chaos King
The Circus
The World Revolving
The Holy
Friendship
Man
Girl Next Door
Queen
Welcome to the City
A cyber’s world?
Giga Size
BIG SHOT
Spamton
Dialtone
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inbarfink · 6 months
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Any analysis of how Undertale deals with Pacifism and how it tries to guide the Player towards it has to take a deep look at Papyrus. Because Papyrus is the one character in the game who will never kill, the one actual ‘True Pacifist’ in the game’s main cast. 
I mean, the Player can be an even bigger Pacifist. Papyrus does still FIGHT, and the Player can get through an entire run without draining a single sliver of HP. But… they can also be the world’s biggest murderbastard and literally stab reality to death. 
Toriel would very much like to not kill, but she is also fully capable of doing so.
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Same with Asgore, but he has a lot more actual blood on his hands. Undyne and Mettaton are both fully 100% willing to kill to accomplish their goals. Sans is non-violent in most runs because he’s too lazy and depressed to do anything, and when he is motivated into actions - it is in the form of a FIGHT to the death. Alphys… the timeline is a bit fuzzy cause both she and Mettaton love lying so much, but it seems like she did sincerely add deadly weapons to Mettaton cause killing humans would make him more 'useful' and then had second thoughts once she developed a parasocial relationship with the Human Child and THEN she and Mettaton started hatching their little play-acting plan. I think??
With Papyrus there is NONE of this ambiguity, we know for sure - no matter what timeline or what may come - The Great Papyrus will always choose MERCY.
And the interesting thing about that is on a Meta-Sense, Papyrus is a very rare example of the game giving MERCY towards the Player. 
Because the game starts out being really obtuse with the Sparing mechanic and how it works. If you want to be a Pacifist in Undertale from the get-go, you’re gonna have to work for it. You're gonna have to figure it out on your own and commit to it and believe that it's possible. It's basically a test of your own belief in non-violence and your moral integrity. Then, the RUINS end with the Toriel boss battle - in a way, that’s probably the hardest Sparing puzzle in the whole game. And it’s very very easy to accidentally kill her. (I’d almost say that’s the intention of the battle, to try to goad the Player into Resetting so they can see how the game remembers across RESETs)
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And then we have Papyrus, and it’s not just that his ‘Sparing Puzzle’ is something as simple as outlasting him and letting him run out of dialogue - and it’s not just that he’s the only boss that will just give up and let you continue if you lose to him enough times. it’s also that, just as Papyrus is the only boss incapable of accidentally killing the Player - he’s also the only boss that the player is incapable of accidentally killing.
(Okay, fine, to be pedantic, there’s also Asgore)
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I mean, the Player can certainly kill him if they want to - but draining Papyrus’s HP just makes him skip through his battle dialogue right to the end of it. It’s designed in such a way that, no matter what Route you're on and no matter what approach you take with Papyrus - you will always end up on this screen.
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Unlike basically any other Monster in this game, including the major boss battle just before him - you can’t kill Papyrus accidently. You can't kill him without also having Sparing him as an option. The game kinda treats killing Papyrus as one of the Worst Things You Can Do because killing Papyrus will always be a deliberate, considered action done to a person who will not kill you and who has stopped wanting to FIGHT and has extended a hand of Mercy. With the game clearly communicating what you need to do to Spare him at that moment.
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And that means that - even if you killed before, even if you don’t have the patience of a True Pacifist, even if you spent all this time in the game without even trying to engage with the Sparing mechanic… as long as you don’t want to be a Huge Rat Bastard, the game is basically gifting you with the very very easy option to not be. Being a Pacifist in Undertale is usually a challenge - a puzzle to be solved, a test to pass. But as long as you aren’t intentionally trying to be the Worst Person - the game is basically giving you Papyrus. 
If you accept his Mercy, you are accepting the game’s Mercy. That sort of benefit-of-the-doubt assumption that maybe all of the LOVE you might have accumulated so far was all due to honest mistakes or panic or an attempt in self-defense. That you still deserve this one chance to prove that you are not intentionally, maliciously cruel - or at least not like the Worst Person in the World. Even if you did kill before, you still deserve at least one friend.
And Sparing Papyrus leads you to his wonderful Hangout/Dating Sequence and to his Phone Calls and they all add so much wholesome charm to the Undertale experience and no matter what happens Papyrus will always think the best of the Player and he will always trust them and it also makes Sans also kinda your buddy by default. And more than just adding a little bit of wholesome charm into even the more LOVE-filled Playthroughs, I think this is meant to try and incentivize these players into trying out the Mercy mechanic a bit more.
Whatever it’s, like, for future playthroughs or Resetting the game right there to try a True Pacifist Run right there and then or just trying to be a little kinder for the rest of this current playthrough - especially since there’s an emphasis about the close friendship Papyrus has with the upcoming boss Undyne, and to a lesser extent with his idol and next-next boss battle Mettaton. It’s like “well, if you didn’t figure out how to spare before, this is how you do it? And isn’t it nice to have a friend? Isn’t it nice to not have to kill this lovable skeleton man? You should do this more often wink wink nudge nudge!”
And it’s like… all of Papyrus’ loved ones care about him so much but they also look down on his pacifism. They see his inability to kill and desire to make friends as simple naivete and that’s why all tend to hide the truth from him all the time. About what will happen to the Human he will capture, about what his new Human friend might’ve done, about the fact that they view him as so naïve. 
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They admire it on some level, that’s why they want to protect it, but they also see it as a weakness which is why they want to protect it by lying to him all the time. But, you know, Undyne says that if Papyrus goes into battle he’ll be ‘ripped into little smiling shreds’ and that is certainly what happens every time a Player chooses to refuse Papyrus’ Mercy and the game’s Mercy and press that FIGHT button…
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But have you thought about all the times that doesn’t happen? All the careless or violent players who were offered that skeletal hand of friendship, accepted it and then carried that offered kindness forward for the rest of the game? All the players motivated to do good for the sake of their buddy Papyrus? All the Murder Routes stopped because the player just didn’t have it in them to kill someone who believes in them so earnestly?
Like, no, it’s not a surefire thing - especially since Papyrus has so much less narrative power than the Actual Unkillable Time God that is the Player. But it happened, and it happened many many times to many players. Papyrus offered Mercy, the game offered Mercy. And much like Frisk’s Pacifism, it comes from a place of seeing the honest goodness in your ‘enemy’ and can inspire them to become a better person - this little sparkle of goodness being passed forwards. 
And I think that’s beautiful, even if it didn’t happen in every timeline. Any potential future where Papyrus’ kindness can have such an effect on the Player and thus the entire trajectory of the Underground validates his kindness and pacifism on some level - even if there are also always the potential worlds that it backfires completely. 
And there’s also one other way in which the Great Papyrus Proves Pacifism Pays. One that is a bit more practical, perhaps. And one that Papyrus himself is not even aware of. 
Papyrus’ boss battle can be a surprisingly challenging one specifically because he is the only one who doesn’t kill the Player.
Like there is a reason why Papyrus will just offer you to skip his Fight after you lose to him three times, because if he didn’t do that - there’s an honest risk that the Player can get stuck in a much stuckier way than anywhere else in the game. 
Because, like, for basically any other character in the game, being killed is the Worst Thing that could ever happen to them. For everyone except the actual Player Character because we are an Actual Unkillable Time God and dying is nothing more than a minor annoyance that sets you back to your last SAVE Point. So, leaving aside Papyrus’ admirably kind intentions - there is not much material difference from the Player’s perspective between getting Captured and getting a more traditional GAME OVER. Except…
Except getting Captured does not undo everything that happened in your inventory during the battle. In every other Undertale battle, if you use all of your items but still lose - the GAME OVER at least means you get your stuff back. But because Papyrus doesn’t kill you, any healing item you’ve used during the battle is still used. I have watched so many Undertale Let’s Players waste all of their valuable items on their first Papyrus battle and then have to face him again without them and thus do even worse in their second go… and then their third go... and thankfully then Papyrus offers them to skip the fight.
And while that technically can be circumvented by just manually closing the game and opening it back again on their pre-battle SAVE Point, a lot of players are gonna reflexively Save over it if they pop over to the Shop or the Snowed Inn before their second attempt at the battle. If Papyrus didn’t offer that chance to skip his battle, it could’ve easily become a softlock situation for a huge chunk of players - because he doesn’t kill the Player.
Most of Undertale deals with the value of non-violence from a standpoint of morality and kindness and personal connections. Since most people do die when they get killed. But when dealing with an Unkillable Time God like the Player, Papyrus proves that not-killing might actually be the most practical solution.
Of course, it doesn’t seem like Papyrus is aware of any of this. From his perspective, he is just offering genuine mercy to a being just as ephemeral as he is. But it accidentally turned into one of the most effective methods of blocking the Player’s way… at least he didn’t offer us an opt out so soon after that. 
And it’s interesting when comparing him to how his brother Sans - one of the few people actually aware of the existence of SAVEs and RESETs - deals with the Player. Because the Sans boss battle at the end of the Murder Route is entirely based on the concept that death is nothing but an annoyance to the Player. Sans is less trying to kill the Player (the way Undyne the Undying did), he is simply trying to annoy the Player into a ragequit. But he is still killing the Player.
Now imagine a Sans battle where he has all of his usual annoying tricks, but also instead of killing you - he captures you just like his brother would’ve in a happier timeline. And while it’s not a fool-proof plan to stop the Player in their tracks - he could very easily stick them in that sort of softlock situation where they have to battle him again and again without any Healing Items. Forcing them to either abandon the game or RESET the whole world back the way it was - just like Sans wants them too. 
But instead, by killing the Player, he is just allowing that perfect second-third-fourth-fifth-sixth-try where they get all of their Stuff back. And he does actually knows that. And why doesn’t he do that? (Speaking here from an in-universe character study perspective. Obviously the Doylist answer is that the game doesn’t want to Softlock you even in the most deliberately-frustrating part of the game).
Maybe, even though he intellectually knows that killing the Player will be of no help - he still does it because he wants to. Because he just wants to get back at the evil murderous monster that took his brother from him and destroyed his entire world even if he knows it’s actually ineffective. And this thirst for bloodshed is, ironically, blinding him from a new exciting way to actually practically stop that murderous bastard who is themself motivated entirely by bloodshed. 
Maybe he just can’t do something like that. Reducing an enemy to exactly one HP and then stopping is not a feat anyone else in the game is capable of pulling off - even the ones who would obviously use such a thing (like Toriel or a Player with a Pacifist intentions). Maybe it’s something that requires a lot of hard practice and discipline and carefulness, that Sans never thought to put in because he didn’t see it as a useful skill the way Papyrus did. 
Maybe that wouldn’t have worked anyways. After all, and that’s something I kinda touched on in a previous Overly Long Rambly Hot Take - Sans’ War of Attrition against the Player is greatly helped by the fact he can’t remember every single previous try and so he can’t get exhausted the way the Player can get. Obviously, without a GAME OVER induced RESET that will not apply. Which is especially notable because… Sans’ laziness is literally what brings him down at the end of that Boss Battle. 
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So maybe, while Papyrus, as long as you decline his offer to skip the battle, is capable of offering just the same Battle as before over and over and over again.... It’s possible that Sans just won’t be able to pull off two or three or more battles of the same intensity and difficulty in a row without a RESET to undo his own exhaustion. 
But I think it’s at least worth considering the option, y’know? That after all this time of viewing Papyrus’ kindness as sweet-and-yet-kinda-foolish-naïveté - that exact viewpoint made Sans overlook the perfect solution to dealing with his little Murderous Time God problem. Cause he just never considered that while killing might be fully morally justifiable in this situation and very very satisfying, that does not necessarily mean it is actually the most practical solution. And that maybe, in a weirdly twisted way, Pacifism WAS the answer.  
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megaderping · 4 days
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Undertale's No Mercy Run is vastly misunderstood, as the fandom fixates so much on hyping up the Sans battle that many of the route's brilliant deconstructive elements fall by the wayside. In this video, I go in-depth about the route and the way it functions as a deconstruction of RPG tropes, an exploration of how we as players relate to video games, how it sets up a mirror for the players through Flowey, and also just break down the cool elements and writing in each section of the route in addition to those hyped up moments.
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centipedelightning · 1 year
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Hey. Hey psstttt Valentine you should totally tell us all the ways Papyrus shows his Autismcore Swagger(tm) 👁️ 👁️
This is gonna be a dissertation good god. Toni you don’t know what you’ve brought into the world. Also this isn’t really gonna be a “look at all the way’s he Is autistic!!” As much as look at all the correct reasons he’s autistic so I will be covering a lot of character misconceptions.
The correct and lore accurate reasons why Papyrus is autistic (and debunking some incorrect points bc I can’t stand misinformation) in no particular order. A whole lot more under cut.
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Safe Food
a lot of people consider spaghetti to be Papyrus’ safe food or something but papyrus hasn’t even eaten his own food.
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You might be able to argue that him making spaghetti all the time is a weird habit or missed social cue, but it isn’t a “safe food”. Hell, him not eating his own food is why he constantly misses social cues about how it’s actually super bad.
Face Blind
Is face blindness an autism trait? Tbh I’m not sure, but I‘m autistic and mildly face blind so I’m bringing it up. Papyrus seems relatively unable to tell the difference between faces. He does not recognize that Toriel is a different person from Asgore.
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You might also be able to make a case about how he refers to Frisk as “Human” the whole time because he can’t differentiate than from others but that’s not really a strong point, so it’s being skipped.
Sarcasm/Humor
Humor is under this section for a very important reason: PAPYRUS’ MAIN SENSE OF HUMOR IS DEADPAN SARCASM. I’m not sure where people got the idea that he misses sarcasm tbh.
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He’s joking here.
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Another joke.
Listen, I am autistic and make the exact same types of jokes. Deadpan, obvious lies are so funny, but people usually miss that it’s a joke. That’s the case here. He’s just making jokes without making it clear with tone or phrasing that it’s a joke.
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I just want to highlight some of his wordplay/puns bc people refuse to acknowledge that he likes puns too.
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Another joke. Also he has a style of humor where he just stumbles into what he thinks is funny and commits to the bit even if the joke doesn’t really work and he’s so real for it.
Difficulty Lying
I don’t have any screenshots for this section because I’m not actually sure where people came up with this. Maybe it’s that his lies are super easy to see through, but he actually lies All The Time.
This is jumping ahead a bit, but the reason Papyrus’ speech is all caps is because he’s lying. If you go back a bit and reference fighting Migosp, until you get rid of the Whimsum that fights with them, they’ll speak in all caps. Once you spare the Whimsum, the Migosp’s case goes standard because it is not putting up a front.
Papyrus speaks in all caps because he is constantly lying about how cool and confidant he is. In reality, he’s very lonely person with a lot of insecurities.
If I can find the post about case setting and lying that I saw years ago, I’ll link it here.
Special Interests
He absolutely has a special interest in puzzles/puzzle making.
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he spends a lot of his time making, thinking, and reading about puzzles. There’s no way this isn’t his main special interest. He also gets annoyed that Sans doesn’t recalibrate his puzzles as often which is so reflective of someone that’s into your special interest but not as much, so you get really annoyed when they aren’t as involved as you are.
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tbh he might be joking here but if taken as a fact, that’s not normal!! That is not a normal level of enjoying something! (If true) he walked his ass over to the cliff and spent who knows how long painting it to make it look like a rope bridge, all for the sake of one puzzle. That’s autism levels of liking things baby.
He also has a lot of robot action figures so I’m saying he likes to collect them bc I collects dolls. MTT might also be a special interest, but I think it’s more that Mettaton is like the only celebrity other than Undyne down there.
Misses Social Cues
This one is easy and the most obvious. Very often Papyrus will miss social cues and facial expressions.
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We know that his food is practically inedible, so this would obviously not be a scrunch of pleasure.
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And here we see that he completely misreads Frisk’s face. Maybe he’s intentionally being dense but I highly doubt it. This paired with the supposed face blindness is screaming autism.
Voice Level
…..
I think people aren’t gonna like this one but it’s so often cited as a reason he’s autistic that I need to acknowledge it. I don’t think Papyrus has a volume issue. I think if the theory about all caps=lying then we can pretty safely assume all caps are not inherently indicative of loud speaking.
Undyne is a loud character. A lot of her voice lines end with lots of exclamation marks and very expressive sprites. She specifically only has words in all caps for emphasis because italics (as far as I can recall) aren’t used. Papyrus, on the other hand, is always in all caps, but rarely has things like added exclamation points to denotaste loudness.
That’s all to say I don’t have a strong opinion about the matter. You can bring up how, psychologically, people tend to raise or lift their voices in volume or octave when telling lies, so Papyrus may still be a louder character than most.
Love of Organizing
This one I found while looking for certain voice lines so there’s not much commentary.
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He greatly appreciates when things are organized in a certain way, and especially when that way is visual.
Echolalia/Making Up Words
Another small section.
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small example of repeating words (echolalia)
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One of a few examples of him making up words
Difficulty Making Friends
Yeah this is one of the few sections people so manage to correctly cite. Papyrus has a huge problem making friends. Hell, most of his voice lines are about how he wants friends and capturing a human/joining the Royal Guard will get him that.
Other than his brother, Undyne is the only person Papyrus can really call a friend. Even then, the only reason the two are friends is because Undyne pitied him and agreed to “train” him. That’s not exactly standard friend making.
When Papyrus does have the chance to make a friend a bit more normally, he gets a manual from the Library.
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*note that this voice line is only from the hangout, if the player chose to flirt with him, i would be a dating manual*
Do you think allistics need a manual on how to act normal and make friends? No of course not. He also is very strict in following the manual closely as to make sure he makes a friend “properly”.
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he’s flying blind here y’all.
Also, he’s very emotionally intelligent and I think people overlook that. In the hangout, he’ll tell the player that he doesn’t like how they’re speaking to him and gives them genuine (and good) advice about having more than on friend so you don’t obsess over/overwhelm said friend.
Routine
Unless Sans was joking, which in this case I doubt, Papyrus has been wearing his battle body every day. For weeks.
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It’s a comfort item and something that he clearly has gotten very comfortable having on all the time.
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Whether or not the puzzles need recalibration, Papyrus makes it clear he has a set routine and needs it to be done. This specific screenshot is also an example of the “wanting people to be as into your special interest as you are” thing I mentioned earlier.
Strong Sense of Justice
Papyrus feels very bad telling a lie that conflicts with his friendships, and has to come up with a convoluted reason to eat around it.
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I don't think this needs further commentary.
That’s all folks! I can’t say just how exhaustive this meta is, but it’s damn near it. I tried to pull up a list of basic autistic traits but gave up once damn near immediately. Autism Speaks I am hunting you down. Anyway, there’s more examples I could have pulled but I really dont want this to be a mile long post.
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stainedglassthreads · 1 month
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Okay but what is up with Asgore and Flowey's relationship
I'm not extremely surprised that Flowey doesn't care a great deal about Asgore. It's pretty clear if you know where to look that Toriel was Asriel's favorite(and Flowey's still as fond of her as he's able to be) while Asgore was Chara's favorite(knitted a large sweater for him, shared love of plants, he grows their favorite flowers.)
But like. I've seen analyses pointing out that Asgore refers to Chara strangely--he talks about the death of his 'son' or 'child', not 'children,' and often refers to Chara as things like 'a human who fell here long ago'. Some people take this to mean that Asgore does not, or perhaps never did, consider Chara his child, or is uncomfortable with the fact that they're human after all that's happened.
But like?? The guy seems to absolutely ADORE Chara. Flowey in No Mercy speaks like, while he'd never show the Souls to Asriel, he'd show the Souls to Chara in a heartbeat. Flowey implies he's never been able to kill or even trick Asgore without Frisk distracting him, and Undyne talks about how good Asgore is at dodging--but Frisk is capable of hitting Asgore easily, even in No Mercy. Asgore talks about the hope he sees in Frisk's eyes that reminds him of Chara, and the memory we receive from Chara upon a game over is of Asgore encouraging them.
So like?? In a lot of fanworks I see about Flowey's past, Asgore is usually depicted as really kind and caring towards a newly-awakened Flowey. And I do think he absolutely loves Asriel and would be trying his best with Flowey. But?? Were things more awkward between Asgore and Flowey than we assume?? Did the LV and the endless resets make it harder for Asgore to recognize Asriel as his son by the time of Undertale, like how it's so hard for him to recognize Frisk/Chara as human? Why did Asgore let his guard down for a LV 20 Frisk/Chara and fail to dodge their attack, but never any previous run of Flowey's? Does he remember previous resets well enough to sense this flower is bad news, even in runs where Flowey hasn't killed anyone yet? Is he just so baffled by 'talking flower' that his guard remains instinctively up? What is up with the obvious favoritism here, Asgore.
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autisticasgore · 11 months
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sorry i’m still so fucked up over how tragic asgore’s fight prologue is. when he says “It was nice to meet you. Goodbye.” he is not just saying goodbye to you as in you’re going to die - he is literally saying goodbye to YOU, as he forces you to fight him. 
if he was fully planning to kill you once and for all, he would have destroyed the FIGHT button instead, to make it impossible for you to defend yourself.
but why does he destroy the MERCY button instead? we all know the reason why, but the more we look at it, the more tragic it is.
asgore didn’t want you to spare him. 
sparing monsters is not just a game mechanic that you use to “win” battles the “correct” way, though. 
what do you get when you take away the mercy button? 
nothing but violence. 
you have absolutely no other option, no other way of ending the battle without killing the other opponent. and before someone says “well that’s the point-” see above, with the FIGHT button. he is literally forcing you to kill him. 
asgore knows how dangerous humans are. he’s been through the war and he’s already likely experienced it for himself. so why take such a huge risk if he was so apparently deadset on killing humans- oh, wait. because he WASN’T.
my conclusion? asgore was planning to die in that battle from the very beginning.
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