Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

I'm a dorkwad who thought about what my Undertale OC's soul color would be, and what unique mechanism that would impart on the game.

Her soul color would be lime green, and she'd be able to teleport spam inside the 'box' abstraction, but only to a specific grid of points, and she couldn't move freely unless her soul temporarily turned red.

 

So, um... I see Sans made the news over in the USA?

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHA i just read the article from Destructoid. best comment: "Skeletons are demonic? I've got a skeleton in me. Am I a demon?" "yes." "Oh, cool!"

 

The best part is, it was a prank letter, so there's no need to worry about some poor Undertale fan having overbearing fundamentalist parents.

 

OH MY GOSH

 

Links?

 

Hey, remember way back when I mentioned ghost!mettaton or napstablook as an encounter in the bad times run? WELL look what someone drew oh my gosh

 

Headcanon song for Frisk.

So, then one afternoon I dressed myself alone
I packed my pillowcase with everything I owned
And in my head I said "goodbye," then I was gone
And I set out on the heels of the unknown
So my folks could have a new life of their own
So that maybe I could find someone
Who could hear the only words that I'd known

 

I beat the Flowey fight on my first try. I honestly thought that you couldn't lose, cause all I was doing was the soul equivalent of running around the room shrieking and flailing my arms, and I just wouldn't die. The Mettaton fight was the hardest thing for me on the neutral run. Think it took me at least 10 tries to beat. But I got him in one my Pacifist run. Same for Muffet. On the other hand, I never died to random mobs as a Neutral, but I died like twelve times as a Pacifist to whoever and their mom. Weird the difference four extra health makes when you're trying to conserve your resources.

 

My first playthrough, I was so bad at bullet hell that I died at least once in the Ruins... and at the jumping timing, so that I accidentally lost to Papyrus enough times that he just gave up on fighting me.

 

God, I am so terrible at Papyrus's fight, holy shit. The only reason I ever beat him was cause it was an "outlast the dude" spare and I hoard healing items.

 

A friend of mine just posted a really great and really upsetting short fic about pre-game Chara.

 

I'm watching Markiplier's playthrough and I am so relieved he figured out how to spare Toriel. Partially because I don't want her to die and partially because fucking ouch.

 

So...

Spoiler: Genocide Spoilers

At the end of the Genocide run, Chara themselves state that they didn't know what to do until Frisk showed them the way via genociding murder. So why do so many people interpret that as 'Frisk was only killing because Chara was possessing them'? That's exactly what the game doesn't say. You could argue that Frisk IS being unnaturally influenced by someone else, ie, you, the player, but that's not Chara's direct influence. Chara is... well. you can't argue they're a GREAT person. They were fully intending to wipe out an entire village for reasons that are never stated, and they do manipulate Asriel in what is undeniably an unhealthy relationship. But I don't think you can make them out to be a demonic entity of pure evil until you MAKE them that via the genocide run. They're normally a messed up kid?

 

Spoiler: Quotes from the geno route to back up what Petra said

"Why was I brought back to life? ... You. With your guidance. I realized the purpose of my reincarnation. Power. Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong. HP. ATK. DEF. GOLD. EXP. LV. Every time a number increases, that feeling...That's me. 'Alex'. Now. Now, we have reached the absolute."

"I am Alex. Thank you. Your power awakened me from death. My 'human soul'. My 'determination'. They were not mine, but YOURS."

 

Also she pointed out something that I've thought about this interpretation before. Namely that it is basically absolving Frisk and the player of all possible blame. Basically presenting them as blameless. "It's not really me. It's me possessed by this evil child". So a refusal to accept responsibility and a refusal to accept that there might be something wrong with either the player or Frisk. So Frisk is placed on a pedestal and the First Human is made a scapegoat and in the end we've dehumanized them both while trying to ignore that we might have flaws.

 

it's kind of weird how many people in the fandom refuse to take blame for the genocide run?

Spoiler

The game is actually very vocal about blaming YOU, as in, you know, the ACTUAL malevolent forces influencing Frisk. Chara being revealed at the end of the genocide run is another one of the consequences of your actions, ultimately having compromised Frisk enough that you can sell their soul (and not your own!) and even have to to continue playing, giving Chara a solid foothold that allows them to also influence Frisk (like in the post-geno!pacifist endings)

 

Spoiler: Yeah.

It's an easy characterization. It's a lazy characterization. It gives a false sense of someone to blame for the start of everything that's gone wrong. It gives the player someone to blame besides Frisk, and besides Flowey or Asriel. It's that bullshit mentality where ~things are not really their fault~ if they can show it's someone else's fault. As if Ace Attorney was a good model for life; guilty until someone else is proven guilty.

That being said... I'll give them one point. Chara doesn't show up in any sort of normal or pacifist run. The death message and some of Flowey's remarks address Chara, but Chara doesn't appear or speak for themselves in any route but a geno route. Which says something. I'm not sure what, but that's something.

I tend to think of the end-geno Chara who offers the ERASE / REFUSE illusion of choice as not being the kid called Chara, but like, an echo of them. A ghost, a discarded shell. Like if you get your hair cut, the part that's cut off won't keep growing, it's not your life, it's just a remnant. This isn't the kid Chara, this isn't even Chara's soul.

That doesn't sound like a ghost deliberately messing with an innocent kid. That sounds like a LOST SOUL unthinkingly acting out a pattern, like some of Chara's traits rubbed off on a murderous version of Frisk and gained life as Frisk kept it up.

 

I don't really find it weird. More to be expected if anything. I do find it somewhat annoying though. Not as annoying as the people who act like judgmental dickbags to people who play the genocide run. Or who think that wanting some sort of fourth post-genocide route means that you don't want to take blame.

Because really I think one of the big reasons people care about Flowey so much and forgive him is because the game explicitly tells you to. When left to their own devices however they can't bring themselves to feel for something evil because mercy and compassion are very fucking hard.