Undertale - Pet dogs and date a skeleton!

Yeah, it was really sad and I had thought I reblogged it but I apparently didn't and I have no idea who the artist was, so. I'm just kind of hoping either someone else here will have seen it, or it'll show back up on my dash again.

 

Spoiler: I'm so glad the internet made this possible.

 

So, I was thinking about this piece of lore from Waterfall...

"If a monster defeats a human, they can take its SOUL.
A monster with a human SOUL...
A horrible beast with unfathomable power.
(It's an illustration of a strange creature...)
(There's something very unsettling about this drawing.)"​

Now, monsters' souls are incredibly weak, to the point that "it would take the SOUL of nearly every monster... just to equal the power of a single human SOUL." This caused me to wonder... if monsters' SOULs are so weak, then acquiring a human SOUL should only bring them up to the level of a human (or barely above it), power-wise. So what would make a monster with a human SOUL a "horrible beast with unfathomable power"?

Spoiler: Spoilered for length, though there are some actual spoilers in here as well.

Two possibilities immediately present themselves:

1. It was not so much the acquisition of one human SOUL that terrified the humans, but rather the possibility for a monster to accumulate them, each additional soul multiplying their power more and more.
2. Monsters have much more innate magic than humans do, it seems; while there were 7 human magicians that were powerful enough to seal the Underground, magic does not seem to be prevalent among the humans, especially not in present times. Perhaps, then, amplifying a monster's natural magic with the power of a human SOUL elevates them to having "unfathomable power"?

However, #1 seems less likely, since the same lore does say that a monster with a human soul would be a horrible beast with unfathomable power - not to mention that when Asriel took Chara's SOUL and went to the village, the monsters' tale says that "he could have destroyed them all" or something similar. Clearly, the addition of a single human SOUL to a monster's weak SOUL is not simple addition, for Asriel ends up much more powerful than the human villagers.

Which leaves #2 as being possible, but also leads me to consider a third possibility: what if the addition of a monster SOUL to a human SOUL somehow multiplies, amplifies the power of the combined SOULs, until they are an "unsettling" "horrible beast" with, of course, "unfathomable power." And what if it is this same amplification which allows Chara's spirit to linger so long after death, even after Asriel's death? Chara's presence is most obvious on an obliteration run, but even on a neutral or pacifist run, Chara's influence/presence/whatever seems to be still there... after all, Frisk dreams of Chara meeting Asriel when they fall into the garbage dump in Waterfall, and when they die, they hear Asgore telling Chara to stay determined. (And that's leaving aside the fun Chara flavortext headcanons.)

This also makes me think about Asgore:

Spoiler: obliteration route spoilers

I posted a few weeks ago some rambling thoughts about the obliteration route, including Asgore. In summary, upon death, Undyne the Undying says that Alphys has been watching, and she'll evacuate the Underground and tell Asgore to absorb the 6 human souls. But he never did. Why not? I was confused about it before, but... Maybe, knowing that a monster who absorbed even a single human soul became a "horrible beast," Asgore was averse to absorbing the souls unless a) it would let him destroy the barrier, freeing monsterkind, or b) it was absolutely necessary.

And since he doesn't even recognize you as human when you step into his throne room, he doesn't realize that the moment of 'absolutely necessary' had come (although honestly, 'absolutely necessary' should have been when you slew Mettaton NEO, but considering Asgore's desire for peace, and possibly the desire not to become a "horrible beast," well...) and as such he doesn't have time to absorb the 6 human souls before you/Chara murder him.

 

Spoiler: One thing about the end of a Geno run that confuses me

Yeah, Asgore doesn't recognize you as a human being. But he seems as pleasant and kindly as ever, trying to calmly ask Flowey what he's talking about. As if he doesn't know someone's been murdering half the kingdom. Alphys hates making phone calls. The stress of evacuating people (possibly to the true lab) and knowing that her friends were going out to die trying to stop you may have pushed her past the point where she could make the willpower check to call Asgore.


One thing that really gets me about the soul lore is... in order for them to know all this stuff, at some point in history a monster must have absorbed a human soul.

Another thing that gets me is... where are any of the other monster bosses? Did too many die in the war, so now it's just down to the last two living? Would that have been dooming Asriel to an immortal life, or could he have had a kid with any other sort of monster...?

 

@swirlingflight

Spoiler

That's actually... a really good point. If he knew someone was murdering their way through the underground, he probably would've been a lot more stressed/worried/etc. (And, judging by the Alphys phone call at the end of the neutral run that occurs if you whiff your attack on Mettaton NEO, she probably did evacuate people to the true lab: "I realized I had to do something. Even if it meant everybody would... Have to learn the truth about me.")

Also, a brief addendum to my previous post: the walls of Waterfall also say that "A Boss Monster's SOUL is strong enough to persist after death... If only for a few moments. A human could absorb this SOUL. But this has never happened. And now it never will." I wonder if my theorized amplification of power would also happen if a human absorbed the SOUL of a boss monster, rather than the other way around...?

And... yikes. Maybe there are other boss monsters living obscure lives in the capital? Or... yeah, hopefully he could have had a kid with any other sort of monster. Which once again brings us back to how does monster reproduction work. Is it limited to reproduction between members of the same species? All of the families we see in-game do seem to be of the same species (the Snowdrake family, the various dog families, the ghost family, and of course the royal goat family. Not to mention our favorite skeleton brothers (& Gaster, probably.)) This seems to imply that, if nothing else, reproduction between members of the same species is at least more common than between members of different species, but is it actually impossible...?

 

Spoiler: re your addendum, I have a theory about that one.

We know from multiple sources that Chara died and Asriel absorbed Chara's soul.

We know from just what Asriel told us that Chara controlled his body through the barrier, into the town, and attempted to kill the humans there. Asriel said that he then took over his body, avoided retaliating as the humans fatally wounded him, and stumbled back into the underground (still carrying Chara's body).

Seeds of the golden flowers stuck to him as he walked back, and he died in the New Home garden, scattering dust and seeds across the soil. At least one of the flowers grew in the time between their deaths and Toriel leaving. That flower seems to have absorbed enough of Asriel's dust to have his memories.

That flower is the one that Alphys experimented on with injecting DETERMINATION.

So we're very specifically told "a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL"

Can a human absorb a monster SOUL? Could Chara's have absorbed Asriel's boss monster SOUL as he died?

Because early in a geno run, after murdering Toriel, you chat with Flowey, and he says something interesting that I keep thinking about.

Bolding mine for emphasis. Screenshots if you like:

Spoiler: screenshots

So yeah, I'm pretty sure that the amplification of power is what happened. Chara's human SOUL absorbed Asriel's Boss Monster SOUL, and gained a strange ability to linger after death. Not as a full person, but fragments of memory and selfhood lingering in their body, buried under the flowers in the Ruins, that latched onto Frisk as they landed in the flower patch. A phantasm that can grow stronger as they gain EXP... until they're strong enough to trap a human in the ultimatum of giving up their soul or lingering in the void forever.

Maybe Chara's the anomaly all a long; a phantasm with the potential to be a "horrible beast with unfathomable power," the power to reset, save, and load. In which case they lingered with Flowey, first, and switched off to Frisk when Flowey first tries to kill you.

 

Spoiler: images related to my possible fanfic vn

i have been working on this a bit, and finished some bgs and other stuff, that I'd like to keep mostly a secret because surprising people in story is fun! But you guys can have a peek at the main character of the thing. It's an AU fic, so this is NOT Frisk. This human falls down before Frisk comes.

 

I'm so happy about this one too.

 

In my dream last night, a friend from high school died and I watched him turn into dust.

I've been wanting to have an Undertale dream, but... not like that. Be careful what you wish for, I guess?

 

I'm sorry, I haven't caught up with the thread yet, but I finally got around to playing undertale, and it's wonderful, even though it's REALLY punishing me for my completionist compulsion :c

Spoiler: spoilers for endings?

I got the neutral and true ending, and am currently fighting Sans on my genocide run (and man, I FELT SO BAD FOR RESETTING), and HOLY FUCK HE IS BR00TAL! I like it though, because him giving his all really fits with the narrative. I had a feeling he was capable of more than he let on, even on my first playthrough. Does anyone have any advice? Everyone seems to know about the genocide route ending so I assume it can't be that difficult and I'm just being a scrublord!

 

no, it's pretty dang difficult. i have zero advice, cuz undyne stopped me dead in my tracks haha...

 

That's where I'm at. XP

 

Spoiler

I haven't managed to beat Sans because a few of his attacks just seriously confuse me. I've gotten close, but not all the way yet. I just haxed my way into teleporting past his room and watching the ending play out. And then rewatched it on peoples' youtube Let's Plays like a scrub.

Point of warning, though! Do you know about the thing that happens at the end of the geno run? And how to avoid it or fix it?

 

Spoiler: im sorry i haven't played bad timez myself yet but i watche dmy brother give up

the only tip i can give you is learn his patterns by heart. try to waste as few turns as possible on healing, ideally you wanna heal when he offers to spare you bc he won't do anything then and the fight won't progress until you attack him again.
Get used to menuing quickly and rythmically because he is a terrible terrible ass and puts bones on your user interface later into the fight. and most importantly STAY DETERMINED *gets booed off stage*

 

Spoiler: Related advice for dirty hackers

If you have an item that heals you 1 hp a turn, like, say, temmie armor? Once you reach the SPARE point you can spend as many turns checking Sans to heal as you like. Sans is probably just as glad for the long break as you are.

Or at least that's what I told myself. >:)

 

I can tell you how I did it!

Spoiler: for the genocide run to the middle

• get all three snow pieces
• stock up on a bunch of cinnamon buns just in case, since they're, uh, "free"
• get astronaut food from the fridge from the garbage dump
• get spider cider and the abandoned quiche
• use the ballet shoes and the cloudy glasses (equipping the book as well didn't make that much of a difference to me regarding the invincibility time frame, so it's better to have something that deals more damage - not getting hit in the first place is priority!)
• try to land critical hits as often as possible
• memorize her attacks! ideally you won't have to waste time on healing, but if you get your hp below 25, it's probably best to heal just in case
• during the attack where her spears circle around you, wait a bit until they slow down - but don't wait too long - and slip through the gaps! Mind the direction they're circling in.
• during the attack where she seems to just spam spears everywhere on the broader screen, don't pay attention to the spear points but look for the gaps. The ends of the spears won't hurt you. Seriously, that attack used to fuck me up even when I had full hp, until I just aimed for the gaps and managed to not get hit at all! It's also a good idea to move away from the borders.

Definitely took me several tries though (but it was fine, because Undyne is my waifu and seeing her fight tooth and nail to protect her friends was amazing! Undyne, anime will always be real in your heart ;-;)

Spoiler: for later part

Yeah, he just seems to break all the rules! I was caught so off-guard when he suddenly broke off his monologue to attack. It's actually really cool because I love characters being self-aware like that, but it's also hard as hell. I thought it would be a cakewalk with the final equipment, but pffffff.
Also, I don't know about the end. Does it break the game? Can I still play when I finished the genocide route?

HOLY SHIT, WHAT? Sans, you magnificent motherfucker! But yeah, that's how I've been motivating myself since Undying Undyne - DETERMINATION! Man, and I thought she was hard, but Sans...

I actually wanted to get it, but the temmie armor doesn't seem accessible during the genocide run for me ;-; As dorky as the temmies seem, looks like they know giving me that armor would be a bad idea. I wish I kept the apron and pan!

 

Spoiler: genocide and post-geno!pacifist

it doesn't break the game forever, you can still replay, BUT you will never get a pure pacifist ending again if you complete a genocide run. the post-geno!pacifist ending gets called 'tainted' or 'soulless' pacifist sometimes. it gives the cute endings a bit of a nasty thorn.

 

Spoiler: OH JEEZ SO WINKWONK

It kinda does and kinda doesn't??? It's complicated and I'm not sure how you've avoided that spoiler and I don't want to be the one to ruin it. So, instead of directly answering, let me ask a question:
Did you get your copy of the game through stream or another way?

Spoiler: If you don't mind having the meta of the spoiler spoiled for you...

At the end of a geno run, you'll be offered a CHOICE. If you select either option of the choice, certain variables will be changed and a secret little file will be added to your game. If that file's in there, it has a permanent effect on your game. One that some might say ruins your ability to get the true happy ending. Depends on how you look at it.

If you're playing on Steam online, your steam account backs up the fact that you made The Choice. So even if you're a dirty hacker like me and learn how to unroot the choice, Steam will keep putting it back. From what I've heard, you would have to uninstall the entire game, reinstall it on the computer with someone else's clean account, and then try playing again to get rid of it. And that's a big pain in the ass.

SO! If you got your copy through Steam?

Make sure Steam is offline when you finish Sans' fight and go through the rest of the game.

Spoiler: And yeah.

Temmie armor on a geno run is only for people who fuck with the save files to give themselves haxed things.

I was playing with max health, temmie armor, 8 slices of butterscotch pie, and I still couldn't beat Sans.

 

Spoiler

Beating Sans relies on pure muscle memory, in my exp. I beat him and it took me at least 30 tries, just slowly memorising each of his attacks so I could instinctively do them without really thinking about it. I do 100% recommend not eating any food until you get past him sparing you, the hard shit happens after that and you're definitely going to need those instant noodles and all the other shit.