#true lab

[agentravensong]

thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

[shimmershy]

*But it wasn't funny.

Chara Week Day 3: Laughter

[Image Description: An Undertale comic that takes place in the True Lab. Panel 1: Frisk and Chara stand side-by-side, looking at something off-screen to the right. Frisk looks scared and is hugging themself while holding a stick. Chara, a ghost, is translucent and has a similar look of distress on their face. Panel 2: The amalgamate that resembles Snowdrake stands at the opposite end of the room, saying "Sn...o...wy..." Panel 3: A close up of Frisk's face. There are tears in their eyes. They hold their stick in front of themself as they open their mouth to speak, but Chara cuts them off with a laugh from off-screen. Panel 4: Chara holds a hand up to their face, smiling with their eyebrows knit together. They say, "...hehe. You laugh, and keep laughing." Panel 5: Chara is laughing in the foreground, hovering with their knees curled up to their chest and their arms wrapped around themself. They say, "It's SO funny, you can't stop." Frisk is in the background glancing sideways at them with concern. Panel 6: A closeup of Chara's face on a black background. They're laughing even harder and covering their eyes with their hand as tears run down their face. They say, "Tears run down your face." Panel 7: Chara looks to the side at Frisk, hand still covering one side of their face and still smiling, but their laughter dies out. They say, "... What?" Panel 8: Chara floats on a black background, alone, beside Frisk's red soul. They ask, "You didn't do that?" /End ID]

[megaderping]

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.

[re--ve--rie]

sometimes I wonder what the soul in the true lab implies

[fernpellerin]

hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry

[buttercupdemise]

but the experiment failed.

[maxladcomics]

[darkcandy-starfait]

ut month 2023 ❤ - 22. true lab

the true lab instills such a strange feeling in me, but this particulary narration, when laughing at snowdrake's mother... it makes we wonder if the narration is freaking out at the sight here too.

info on UT month 2023 here!

* PROSHIPPERS DNI

[windmills123]

undertale month 2023 day 22 - true lab

* You take out your CELL PHONE. You can hear voices through the receiver...!

[buttercupshands]

I love drawing reaper bird

[undertale-accessibility]

Entry Number 11 is proof that Sans did not write half of the true lab entries.

Some people have theorized that Sans wrote about half of the entries in the true lab. Their reasoning is that some entries don't use proper capitalization, similar to Sans's dialog. However, entry number 11 does not use proper capitalization, but is clearly written by Alphys. She writes about her work on Mettaton’s body, and how she fears she will become useless to him if she finishes. Sans never worked on Mettaton, and wouldn't care about becoming obsolete. The lack of capitalization does not indicate a different author. It indicates Alphys's stress level.

[neorouxls]

* no No NO NO NO NO NO

[shimmershy]

Chara Week Day 5: Ghost

Every time I see that machine in the True Lab, I wonder if it could possibly be Chara's soul in there? Probably unlikely, but not impossible... It's interesting to think about what the implications of that would be.

A version with no text and then a version with just the machine, because I think it looks pretty cool and ominous alone as well.....

[megaderping]

True Lab is one of Undertale's most iconic moments and a fantastic example of the game's use of subtlety in conveying atmospheric horror. In a fandom with works that lean so heavily into in your face darkness, blood, and death, I thought it would be worthwhile to return to the original game and analyze the techniques Toby used to give True Lab its eerie atmosphere. In this analysis, I discuss these techniques in depth, taking into account the buildup to True Lab and the way it plays with player comfort and expectation.

[smoonship]

En[D0g}3^y

"ENTRY 16: no No NO NO NO NO NO

ENTRY 17: monsters' physical forms can't handle "DETERMINATION" like humans' can... everyone's melted together..."

(looks like matching pfp lmao)

[meanpersonaart]

Unstable

It’s funny how I always post silly art of the science man, but on 1st of April you get this. (also It’s my first digital piece since like 3 months so forgive me for the quality)