#ut meta

[prodigaldaughteralice]

am I the only one losing my goddamn mind about this

nowhere in the underground has green grass

Hometown has green grass

obviously many other places also have green grass but aaaaaaaaaaa

[a-snow-decahedron]

NOnonono but the entire point of the promise Sans makes to Toriel about "protecting the human coming through the door". Is that he really doesn't know who she is beyond the conversations they've had so far. And he doesn't know who the human coming out from there is. But they still trust each other to make it happen, regardless of timeline.

This happens regardless of Toriel's fate in the game. If you kill her, but not Papyrus, he still comments on this promise.

And here's the thing. He has to make the decision of trusting this woman he is fond of, but ultimately doesn't know beyond what they've shared together.

And Toriel had to make the decision of trusting him too. She is convinved that the world outside the Ruins will be hostile, because she knows what's happened before. And it fucking hurts to think it could happen again. And yeah I've heard all about it how she "rejected" her duty and didn't make the right choice back then. I think Toriel is somewhat aware of that. Her moving to the Ruins was a choice she made while grieving too, but it is a decsion that goes according to her integrity as well.

ANYWAYS I'm getting sidetracked. What I mean with this post is that the implications of trusting someone else with something that is so personal, because you know your limitations (because of flaws or any other cause), and having that person receive this in a good way is so important.

And while Sans is not the best at actively doing that job, it is still remarkable how much this promise is on his mind.

The VERY LAST THING he does before his No Mery fight is apologizing to Toriel, or his memory of her, because he had to break that promise.

This post is a mess but... I need to rotate them. And also I always get a little mad when people assume that Sans doesn't make that promise when Toriel dies, like in No-Mercy. Because the whole deal about the promise is that it happens before the game, it is not something anyone, not even Flowey, can affect, and it is a reflection of the closeness the two have, so placing this as something Toriel does only if she deems the human a good person, and something Sans only "keeps" when Frisk is pacifist just takes away that weight.

Also go play neutral routes they're super interesting to make character analysis. Different events affect different characters in specific ways.

[homunculusalphonse]

You know, people make fun of Asgore for not fighting you in the Genocide Route... but like. To him, you’re not even human. Why would he fight a monster?

[inbarfink]

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 - 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

[fitilechka]

JUST GIVE UP!!!

[morrysonando]

(HUMONGOUS UTY SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

"Let's entertain each other a while longer....after all, in this world......IT'S KILL OR BE KILLED." I Finally completed another drawing yay^^, super proud of this one lol I hope y’all like it as much as I do, more finished pieces coming soon I can’t keep these as wips forever lmao...also sorry for disappearing for a month lol, was busy:3

[pempempemto]

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.

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)

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.

[lpwrites]

On Wasted Potential

(The return of the early morning meta post before work.)

It’s been hard to put into words what is so odd about fandom’s reaction to Stiles and Scott and the concept of being a werewolf in Teen Wolf, but a recent comment I saw mentioned something that maybe puts things into better perspective.

The comment boiled down to the idea that being a werewolf and having powers was wasted on Scott. I don’t recall having seen comments like that before, but it makes sense if people are looking at it in that way. He’s wasting his powers, he’s not using them to their full potential and therefore he’s not a good werewolf.

The thing that clicked for me with that comment is that people are treating Scott’s werewolf powers the same way Stiles did in early Season 1: with excitement, like it’s something cool that should be used always to solve every problem, including using it to murder people (but only the Right people, of course).

That in itself isn’t too weird to me: we see the same kind of suspension of disbelief in all sorts of media, especially those involving kids or teenagers. If you give a kid a sword in order to go on a question (Percy Jackson, for example), it’s not a bad thing, it’s part of the story. You obviously wouldn’t give an actual 11-year old a weapon, because they could hurt themselves or someone else, but for the sake of the story? Hell yeah, go around waving that thing, no problem.

Teenager has superpowers that could very easily be used to do bad things if so inclined? Yeah, that sounds about right, as long as an adult figure reminds them that they need to be responsible with their newfound abilities. (Uncle Ben’s only line in any Spiderman project comes to mind, obviously.) There is a lack of weight behind the statement, though, until something bad happens and our teenage hero realizes they have a real responsibility to be good or save lives or whatever, but the real consequences of those powers are never really touched on unless it’s a specific plot beat.

Teen Wolf doesn’t do that. 

From the very beginning, the bite is framed like a horror movie. A kid is attacked in the woods in the middle of the night by a monster and he’s left to walk home alone in the dark. He tells his best friend about it the next day and the very real, very terrifying attack is treated like a joke. (And in his defense, Stiles didn’t know, so I don’t actually hold it against him too much at this point.)

He starts experiencing weird changes in his body, hearing and seeing things he’s not used to, and while some are benefits -- no asthma is a plus -- he’s clearly shown to be unnerved by it. He snaps at Jackson and spills almost everything because he’s scared, and that’s completely reasonable. Scott doesn’t get a cool little montage set to catchy music where he gets to practice his Cool New Abilities in his room while his mom calls out from another room asking if he’s okay. He’s immediately thrust into a situation where he is being manipulated by the Alpha, thrust into a world he doesn’t fully understand, and is intimidated and threatened by the only other werewolf around.

Derek calls the bite a gift, and I partially blame that scene for fandom’s idea of it, but you wouldn’t have to change much to make Scott’s werewolf origins into a full-blown horror series. He’s been given a weapon he can’t control, that he knows he needs to control, while there’s an active threat of death and violence hanging over his head. The Sheriff gets injured peripherally to what’s happening to him, and Stiles loses it and hurts him because in his teenage brain that’s all he can do, and fandom thinks Scott’s in the wrong? He’s living a nightmare and all people can focus on is the fact that he’s not following the trope, so obviously having these powers is wasted on him.

Even in later seasons, fandom holds Scott’s reluctance to embrace his powers to the fullest against him. He doesn’t want to be a killing machine, he never wanted the powers in the first place, and even if he had been asked I don’t think Scott would have agreed. He was fine being normal, and all he’s gotten since the bite is death and violence and threats against the people he loves. Peter gave a teenager a gun and set people after him, and fandom is angry that the teenager isn’t going full John Wick on his enemies so it’s a waste.

Teen Wolf’s writing isn’t always the best, but it does a good job of flipping tropes around and exploring interesting concepts. Scott’s story isn’t a hero origin story: it’s a horror story where the victim becomes a hero in the end without losing his humanity. And fandom hates the idea of it, because fandom has been conditioned to believe a hero is only ever good if they embrace violence to the fullest.

[descendant-of-truth]

I know it's been analyzed to death at this point, but I rewatched the Sans fight and it's only now occuring to me just how... weird it is to witness??

Like we can talk about lore implications all we want and it'd be fun but when you take a step back for a moment, it's really just. Sans venting at you for about ten minutes straight.

Everything he knows about the timelines, his nihilism regarding resets, going out of his way to call the player out on their motivations multiple times. It's like everything he was repressing in all the other timelines finally broke to the surface, and he still somehow manages to be fairly composed with his word choice.

(He's significantly less composed when he's throwing you around the battle box as fast as he physically can until he just can't do it anymore. All the more evidence that this fight is just him losing it)

But here's the thing. He's also doing his best to get you to give up. And as much as I applaud him for breaking the game's mechanics wide open, disabling invincibility frames and attacking you in the menu... he really fails at making you want to give up.

Because as much as he claims to know "our type," he forgets one crucial detail: we love being told things.

He understands that we're doing the No Mercy route just because we can, but he neglects "curiosity" as a motivating factor. We want to learn more by exploring different routes, and in his frustration, Sans gives us exactly what we want.

(We also get a challenge from him, and what gamer dedicated enough to get past Undyne wouldn't enjoy that)

And that's kind of. Sad, in a way?? Even when he locks us into his turn, he can't stop himself from talking. Everything he does to make us frustrated or bored doesn't work because despite everything, we still like Sans. We want to hear what he has to say. And he has a lot to say that he would normally keep close to his chest otherwise.

I don't know if that's what the dynamic is meant to be like in canon, given how ambiguous Frisk's motivations are and how we don't technically know if there's a "player" involved in the first place, but that's just how it reads to me. And I think Sans having this slightly flawed perception of what the anomaly wants from him is a really interesting angle for his character and the fight as a whole

[centipedelightning]

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.

Safe Food

a lot of people consider spaghetti to be Papyrus’ safe food or something but papyrus hasn’t even eaten his own food.

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.

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.

He’s joking here.

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.

I just want to highlight some of his wordplay/puns bc people refuse to acknowledge that he likes puns too.

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.

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.

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.

We know that his food is practically inedible, so this would obviously not be a scrunch of pleasure.

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.

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.

small example of repeating words (echolalia)

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.

*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”.

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.

It’s a comfort item and something that he clearly has gotten very comfortable having on all the time.

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.

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.

[prodigaldaughteralice]

Random realization about Madsy from last night:

When you part ways with her in game, she hasn’t actually bonded with her new body yet; Frisk sparing her tipped her off that love was a better emotion than hate to do that with but she says something along the lines of “this might take a while but I’ll manage it”.

but then in Mettaton’s alarm clock app dialogue, he says that he and Mad Mew Mew got into a fight and upset Blookie, and ended up watching them cry outside… “drinking ghost juice… that neither of us could taste”

Which is sad bc it’s a little microcosm of how bad this family is at communicating but!

If Madsy couldn’t taste the juice either then that means she’s fully corporeal now! She did it!

[a-snow-decahedron]

Loving A World

I can't speak for Deltarune because the game isn't completed yet, but I think Undertale is a game about Loving A Story. And the game is written with the assumption it will be loved, to the point of wanting to find every secret.

What do I mean by that?

Undertale is a game that can take multiple routes, but one of the most well known routes is one where the player, through determination, travels across the Underground, making new friends, and eventunally finds the tools to reach a happy ending for all, by freeing the monsters. The point of this story is that thanks to all our hardwork and perseverance, we manage to improve things for everyone.

It is also just a very fun world, full of complex and solid characters, and filled with secrets, some you may find by sheer luck. I believe this is the element that's made so many people be involved with the story, willing to keep going even when you seem powerless (for example: during Flowey's neutral ending fight).

Let's talk about some of the ways in which Undertale uses its mechanics to push your curiosity, and how the way it reacts enhances your experience and rewards you for your choices (even the "bad" ones).

One thing that stands out to me about Undertale is that every neutral route gives you a sense that things could be different. The biggest exponent (or at least the one most players have seen at some point) is the ending phonecall during the neutral route in which no EXP has been gained, and the conversation with Flowey afterwards.

In the phonecall. you learn that the Underground misses its king, that the monsters miss you (i won't get into the details of who "you" represents), and Alphys has things that never got resolved. You get the sense that the game has more to offer and the world is bigger than what you saw. Right after that, Flowey makes this sentiment even more explicit

You made all these great friends… But now, you'll probably never see them again. Not to mention how much they've been set back by you. Hurts, doesn't it? If you had just gone without caring about anyone... You wouldn't have to feel bad now.

If we didn't care about the story, then there would be no reason for us to try to look deeper into it, and follow its use of the reset and loading mechanics. We could feel disappointed by the ending, but resgined. Except things aren't over.

Say. What if I told you… I knew some way to get you a better ending?

And this is what prompts you to reload your save, and look for what you missed. The neutral routes repeatedly do this as well. You are told of friendships you couldn't make because "she says she won't talk to a murderer" (Papyrus about Undyne, if talked to in front of Undyne's house if EXP has been gained), or of people you have killed and have left a mark around them (the members of the Canine Unit missing each other when entering Grillby's. The point is, there is always some version of the story that you cannot know of, because you have made specific choices.

The game tries to lead us to a true pacifist ending, which will give people happiness. And you've got that!

But what if you wanted to know more? What if you wished to explore grief and loss?

The game has you covered. There are multiple neutral endings, that all depend on which bosses and common encounters you have spared or killed. Undertale lends itself to be replayed multiple times, because the curiosity that the players feel for the world can lead them to make different choices. And it's because, for one reason or another, they care about the world.

It is thanks to the Pacifist route that we know that Undyne is a goofy person, or that she is very close to Asgore. It is thanks to the Merciless routes that we know that we know she is too determined to let death stop her. It is through them that we know that she will sacrifice herself for another monster. And that builds to her character even more. In a way, the game does reward you for your curiosity, by showing you that your actions do matter.

Merciless or neutral runs help us get answers to all the "what if" questons we may have, and our drive to engage with a story we care about is what pushes us to find them, and not only that, but let us Be affected and involved with it. Not everyone needs to experience them to truly enjoy Undertale, but they do add to the characters, the world they live in, and it can show different values, that, at least in my opinion, are worth looking into as well.

In conclussion, I believe that Undertale is a game with a story that's made for you to get attached too and it promotes its save and reload mechanics to enhance the choices you can make. It also creates a sense of agency and rewards the player with different information and character themes. I think that, whether you wish to acknowledge this actions as Undertale being written with awareness of its medium (as in, the game talking to the player), or prefer to center on the story itself, the game works well because the story is flexible and engaging. And the best part in my opnion will always be that you're free to play and create as you wish.

[homunculusalphonse]

I think it’s hilarious that Papyrus would be thrilled to be a Mom, and at the same time he thinks children love spikes and other dangerous things

[inbarfink]

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.

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)

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)

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.

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.

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. 

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…

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. 

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.  

[gothcatgirlfriend]

undertale yellow spoilers!

spoilers for the end of undertale yellow's no mercy route, neutral route, and major parts of pacifist. please do not read if you do not wish to be spoiled. you have been warned.

i apologize for any possible inaccuracies. i tried to be as accurate as possible by rewatching cutscenes, but there's always a chance i got things wrong. it also might be a bit rambly because i wrote them as messages. still, i have a lot of thoughts on this decision undertale yellow made, which i'd like to believe i backed with solid evidence. and in the end, it is only my opinion. i'd just like to have my point of view seen.

so, in regards to martlet and undertale yellow's no mercy route:

i think martlet is the perfect choice as no mercy's last stand, actually.

in undertale, it's sans, and yeah, he shows that he's menacing no matter what route you're on, but for the most part he comes off as a goofy slacker with some mysteries.

it's the fact that the player drives him to the state where he has to do something, because they're on a killing spree with nobody spared, literally. and he reveals that he's actually been working hard on all the time anomaly shenanigans behind the scenes that make sans such a good character to be the last defense between the player and asgore (until flowey kills him, and then the player kills flowey, and then chara kills the player...)

with undertale yellow, martlet is a very optimistic and genuine person. she's a bit of an airhead, but she still tries her best as a member of the royal guard. all the other major bosses fight clover in pacifist for reasons such as mistaking clover for the blue soul believing to be tracked down by them and defending themselves (dalv), blaming clover for their ruined relationships and believing that bringing in their soul themselves will repair their reputation (starlo), and of course, requiring clover's soul in a last-ditch effort to save their daughter from being at death's door (ceroba).

martlet is literally going by protocol. she's following the rules to the letter, and gets confused when clover refuses to attack, not even doing so herself before she gets to the part where she's allowed to. and the part where clover insults her behavior as a royal guard is where she falters and decides to spare clover, because it's true. her best isn't enough for them. the royal guard is under asgore's rule to take human's souls for monsterkind, but that isn't enough for her to finish the job.

this is where you keep in mind martlet and chujin's conversation that clover sees in the no mercy route. her mentor, that she admired and was close to, is extremely cautious of humans due to the incident with the blue soul. but even after knowing the damage they can cause, she has hope that not all of them are bad, as she'll say in no mercy herself.

so that's why in no mercy, when clover is delivering their twisted sense of justice and killing every monster they can, she knows she has to stop them. in the first encounter, after she realizes clover is the culprit, she tosses the guide book and puts everything she's got into the fight. but that, just as well, isn't enough. she has to retreat because they're too powerful, even though clover could continue their rampage. but still, after almost dying to them, she tries to convince them to end the violence because she wants to believe that they have an ounce of sympathy for their victims.

if no mercy is aborted, when clover meets her on the roof, she throws away the determination serum she picked up from the lab just like in regular neutral. because she sees that, at least in one instance, they didn't choose murder. and that's good enough for her. that's all it takes, even if flowey goes in for the kill and martlet blames clover. she only goes so far to do so in her dying moments, and because flowey purposefully hid in the shadows, so how would she know it wasn't them?

when no mercy is fully initiated, she doesn't even instigate the combat; clover does. they're so trigger-happy that they waste no time. and at that point she has to use the last weapon monsterkind has to prevent clover from reaching asgore. she waited until the last moment, hoping clover would change their mind. but when there's no hope for them, she harnesses that determination to become the most powerful monster in the underground, the zenith of monsterkind. she'll wield the determination to deliver justice unto clover.

even if it kills her.

[morrysonando]

(HUMONGOUS UTY SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) "Let's entertain each other a while longer....after all, in this world......IT'S KILL OR BE KILLED."

went extra hard on this boss pic, since they're so important and all, I like this fight a lot, Flowey is written so fricking well in this game i swear ahhhhh, and that martlet moment was peak horror! I wanted to do it justice, so I tried extra super hard, I don't know if coloring it digitally would be excessive or not at this point lol, but we'll see lol! either way I hope ya'll enjoy!

play undertale yellow please- (no link this time flowey keeps overwriting my save help)