#I think sometimes we just gotta admit that a story just isn't perfect and cannot be fully justifiable by itself

[whiterazorbill]

Undertale: What works and what doesn’t

Watching a disheartened Let’s Player playing Undertale made me ponder about attitudes I don’t really like about some fans. Namely, that many felt compelled to just outright spoil or bash Let’s Players who weren’t “playing the game the right way”.

Now, people throwing spoilers at new players is nothing new in any fandom, really. There will always be “those people” who will either judge you for playing badly, or “backseating” like crazy even when it’s not asked. But my personal impression is that Undertale brings out a very specific kind of excited fans who will feel stressed out when they see the game not being played “the correct way”.

The game has a multiple paths systems, and without even taking this into consideration, there should be no “incorrect” way to play a game. They are interactive medias; the player should make the experience. A case can be made for a Let’s Player to “play incorrectly” if they deliberately do not seek to progress in a game, but that isn’t what all those Undertale new Let’s Players were doing.

By all accounts, those people yelling at the new Let’s Players are wrong. But I had to wonder: what made the Undertale fans doing this compelled to act this way? What make those people believe that there is a correct way to play? And are they right?

I had to wonder: is that an attitude which originated from an inherent fault within the game itself?

(Disclaimer: This is but an opinion piece, which by no mean changes the fact that I believe Undertale to be a great game. I do think, however, that it’s a show of appreciation to be critical of something you love, and recognize its issues while still loving it. Spoilers are of course expected. And with that, let’s get on with it.)

After two years, I can say:

What I think works in Undertale:

A simple, but effective story, with a good narrative execution (At least, for the neutral/pacifist run)

A colorful cast of characters with endearing traits and compelling backstories.

A good natured sense of humor, which can tiptoe into meta*(1) without ever truly crossing it.

The combat system tries something unique, and if you like Earthbound type of witty combat dialogue, it can be pretty entertaining. The ‘defensive phase’ in bullet hell fashion is also a good experience in countering the usual RNG*(2) types of attacks you encounter in RPG. You’re not powerless against the monsters’ offenses, and trying to do a ‘no hit run’ is completely possible.

What I think doesn’t work as well:

Crossing through the underground can be long and boring if you’re not on your first run.

Combats can get repetitive, even with the SPARE type of dialogue mechanism. It’s something that can arguably go with the genre of the game, which is turn-based RPG inspired, and the encounter rate is fairly low overall, so I’m personally more lenient. It can be a deterrent for some, however.

The game may be ‘too easy’. I know the people who never played bullet hell type of game may not think so, and I know that people who play through the first time can have a hard time; but overall, unless you go ‘genocide’, the learning curve is fairly low, and it will only get easier with every new runs you do (I guess this is when we scream for a ‘hard mode’).

The multiple endings system is severely limited by something critical, and that is that the game itself does not value the multiple endings system, in spite of including this mechanism within the game’s story.

I believe this is the very last point which made the people commenting so insistent on making LPers play ‘the right way’, and I believe this may be the weakest point of the game. Both as a game and as a narrative experience.

The multiple endings system is undervalued, because only one ending matters

There may be many different runs you can experiment with, but the neutral ‘endings’ are basically the same thing: Sans calls you and you get a rundown on what happened after you/Frisk left the underground, which is fine, but doesn’t exactly inspire much. It may be a reason why, in spite of branching to interesting timelines, those neutral runs are much more rarely explored in the fandom.

The True Pacifist run is very clearly the ‘favored’ run. While playing through a neutral run is necessary to get it, you can pretty much finish a neutral pacifist run, then reload your SAVE to a point prior and finish the pacifist branch without issues. And while this is convenient, this is a deterrent from experimenting with the other routes. Flowey himself does a whole speech to emotionally compel you NOT to experiment. And while this is a good character piece that shows his growth? It also very much demonstrates that the game has a clear judgment on the players who DO try out other routes.

Now, maybe this is not the creator’s intent. I can’t possibly know. But what I see is that players are edged from the beginning to follow a clear line, and that is: the pacifist route. Flowey himself hints at it at the end of your first neutral run if you missed the memo before, that the game really wants you to go pacifist.

And while this is overall understandable for the characters to push you this way, the truth, is, however, that players are used to be led by such clues, and that most of everyone will follow the directions. This is how most of us learned to play our games. Thus, only dedicated players will start a game again after pacifist.

Compare and contrast with other multiple endings games. I can think of two types: one is a SMT or Mass Effect sort of choice, where the ending you chose is about your personal values, instead of an ‘objectively good’ ending for mostly everyone like what the True Pacifist ending in Undertale is.

The second type is something I’ve seen in visual novel types of games, like 9 Hours 9 persons 9 doors, where not only there are multiple endings, but the endings are required to obtain in order to unlock the ‘true ending’. It works similarly to Undertale in this way, except all the endings are shown as important for the game’s progression.

We don’t see that in Undertale. You can ‘finish’ the game with having done a single neutral and a single pacifist (and yeah, I’d use the term ‘finish’ for the True Pacifist route. It’s the only route with full credits). There is no reward for going through a neutral route apart from going through the neutral route itself. There is no incentive for a player to go through those, and worse, you’re ‘punished’ for ‘choosing’ a non pacifist neutral routes compared to the pacifist one, because you HAVE to start over to reach the ‘good end’ after you ‘mess up’.

This is never explicitly said, but it’s something the people who watch and criticize LPers who picks ‘bad options’ knows, which is a further reason for them to get upset about it, even if this is counter-intuitive to blame others like that, and far from the LPer’s fault. The truth is the game, in spite of having a multiple ending system, doesn’t particularly care for it.

And that’s the best case. The worst case is the genocide run, where the "you’re a figurative monster for doing this" message is pretty clear.

And… I believe the genocide ending’s message in particular works in detriment to the game’s scenario.

The genocide run ending is a narrative mess, because the game is too busy judging the player’s actions

Now, the truth is, Undertale’s story is excellent for being such a simple premise. It’s well-presented and executed. However, this, I personally believe, is only the case for the neutral/pacifist runs. To me, it’s clear that Toby Fox was mainly interested by this part. The royal family’s story IS the most compelling and deepest part of the lore, and there are good reasons to get invested in it. It also unfortunately helps in contrasting how confusing and badly executed the genocide run ending is.

Not everything is uninteresting in the genocide run. In fact, it can pack up a good emotional punch if you’ve already done a pacifist run and become invested in the characters (which, as I mentioned before, is the most common route). The characters themselves are showing greatly compelling new facets of themselves when faced with the menace that you/Frisk have become. It gives a nice change of path to the repetitive nature of the neutral runs.

But of course, the game is ‘punishing’ you, the player, for daring to do something so vile as to kill everyone. In order to unlock the genocide route, you had to go out of your way to kill every monsters in each area, which means going through the boring battle system ordeal many many times. The game does not want you to have fun in this route (Ironically, the two biggest fights of that routes can be a reason to do the route, if only for their challenging aspect).

The issue I have with this route, especially its ending, is that the excellent narration appears to have been forsaken and replaced by an ‘eff you for playing’ message. And that message takes the form of Chara.

Now, Chara is actually of fairly low importance to the game story itself, in spite of being present in all routes, on your character’s name screen, and as an ‘adequate red herring’ of sort, even if it’s solely from the player’s perspective. You’re encouraged to believe the ‘fallen human’ you named is the human you control, Frisk, when it actually is what the genocide run hints to be the lingering spirit of the first dead human, Chara, who latched onto Frisk’s soul when they landed on their grave at the beginning of the game. That’s a decent twist for the player, and gives an excuse for Flowey’s obsession with Frisk, but the story can actually be told without Chara’s spirit to ever be relevant if you skip the genocide run, like most people did.

And within the genocide run itself? This is where Chara’s characterization gets messy.

I’m not going into any theories about them; whether they were ‘bad from the start’, misunderstood’, a ‘massive manipulator’ or ‘the actual narrator of the game’ changes nothing in what I will say: The speech Chara gives at the end makes very little sense in the narration. That speech is put in a way which is toeing with ‘meta’ without ever making the line clear, like the game often does with its humor. In here, not only does it make what the ending is about very confusing, but it’s like trying to do a ‘take that’ at the player, without fully committing to it.

And no, I don’t believe this is a good characterization moment for Chara if you remove ‘the player factor’, simply because the speech makes little sense when addressed to Frisk, as it should be if you ignore the meta-toeing. Because Frisk SHOULD KNOW about Chara, since at least Home. Chara literally says ‘it’s me, Chara’ in front of the mirror. Frisk, as THE CHARACTER, not the player, should have either been contacted or tried to contact Chara much earlier and should be aware of Chara’s presence already.

This was, I believe, mostly done for a twist factor for the player, rather than a logical narrative choice. It may explain why so many AUs and fanfictions go with the ‘Chara possesses Frisk throughout the genocide route’ path, even if it’s something that is neither supported by gameplay, nor by the narration (people who mentions the occasional times when your character moves on your own shouldn’t ignore that this happens in pacifist runs as well, and is not a mark of genocide run specifically. And either way, at no point until the endgame are you prevented from RESETTING, loading, or even lose control in battle). In truth, Frisk being possessed is contradictory to Chara’s speech as well, but it’s a way people reconcile with the utter lack of characterization/actions of Frisk.

Was Frisk treated as a character, instead of a prop for the player to get judged by the game, I personally believe the Genocide run’s story would be logically more sound. Chara is as much of a prop in this. As stated previously, their impact on the other runs is minor/non existent. Here, they do not exist primarily as a character, but as a judge for your (the player’s) actions. And while they’re supposed to be a judge for Frisk? Story-wise, the speech is nonsensical at that specific moment, and as it is formulated.

Were it a proper story, Chara would have ‘greeted’ Frisk much earlier. But this would of course mean removing the player/Frisk’s confusion the game wants to keep so much. Frisk would have needed to be shown as their own character prior to the True Pacifist run. This is where it fails to me; when it substitutes a chance at story-telling for a ‘look at what you’ve done’ speech.

Most likely, this was a deliberate choice on Toby’s part. The gameplay is overall a downgrade in fun because the player ‘tried to be smart and go against the morally right’s obvious choice’. It makes some sense for the story to break apart in this run as well, for ‘no fun is allowed’ here. It’s not a choice I approve of personally, but it’s a choice.

But the entire scenario falls apart at that point as well. Chara “erases” the world you play in through no means that are explained in game. There are no logical reasons presented within the game as to how or why they have that power. Sans hints at the timeline being in danger of being erased, but that in no way constitutes an explanation for what happens.

The True Pacifist Run story is decently established, while the other runs’s endings have plot-holes with no in-game explainations

Compare and contrast the Genocide Run with the Pacifist Run and the Neutral Run. In the pacifist run, Flowey’s ability to absorb both humans and monsters’ souls at the end? It was straight out set up and explained in the True Lab’s logs. It was explained that he was a vessel created for the purpose of hosting both kinds of souls, something monsters and humans are established to be unable to do. The way monster and human’s souls works is something the game took a long time to set up, just as it set up Asgore as a conflicted ruler with a lot of depth.

The neutral run, in comparison, has more explained, but also more things left in the air. Flowey’s battle has him use ‘savestates’. Which is both a meta reference and something that had been established very early on in the game. If you RESET/load in the ruins at the point Toriel asks you about your food preferences, she will mentions having feelings of already knowing the other humans she met before she met them, which strongly hints that other humans within this universe have a SAVE as well. And this makes sense of the Omega Flowey’s fight mechanism of his six ‘savestates’.

Things become less comprehensible at the neutral run ending, when Sans phones Frisk to fill you in on the underground’s situation. At that point, Frisk’s whereabouts are unknown, but they have definitely not been spotted in the underground. This is strange, because from what the game told us, Frisk should not have been able to escape the underground. They failed in absorbing a Boss Monster soul, which is what they would need to pass through the barrier.

Now, there are many theories for this (Frisk died, the barrier wasn’t that strong, the last battle pushed them out, etc.) I have my theories as well, and I’ve read many good pieces about them. I have read good pieces explaining the genocide run ending as well… but in the end? Those are just that. Theories. Within the game, you will not find a definitive answer for either how Chara ‘erased’ the world, or what happen to Frisk after the neutral run.

And my personal belief for why that is? I don’t think the creator was interested in those timelines as much as he was in the True Pacifist run, which is the most complete and explainable timeline. That’s the most complete story. That’s the one that matters.

In the other runs, the narration is taken over by the game’s need to comunicate to the player

The actual non-narrative answer for why Sans phones Frisk at the neutral end, and the universe hasn’t RESET yet, in spite of Frisk’s potential demise? The player had to be informed of what their impact on the world was. It wasn’t thought of as a much as a speech to Frisk, as it was to the player. For all the game tries to make Frisk their own character at the end of the True Pacifist, Frisk is treated as a prop for the player throughout the game.

The actual non-narrative answer for how and why Chara erased the world in the genocidal run? The game ‘needed’ to punish you for what you’ve done. This is the very reason why your True Pacifist ending gets ‘tainted’ by the creepy pasta vibes. And this is why there are no narrative impact within the true pacifist run itself when it becomes a ‘souless pacifist run’ after a genocide.

The story potential is treated as unimportant compared to teaching you, the player, how ‘actions have consequences’ (regardless if the way you play a game has any impact on whether you’re a good person or not. I doubt most of the people who killed monsters in games are devious killers IRL). I’m personally not fond of this ‘judging’ attitude the game has over you when playing it. Especially when it’s done in detriment to potentially thrilling storylines. But that’s a creator’s choice, and I respect that.

How the game’s weakness may have turned in its popularity’s favor

If anything, an argument could be made that those ‘unfinished’ worlds that are the genocide and the neutral runs have done great in inspiring fan authors to explore them, and make sense of them in the way the game hasn’t. Just as Flowey’s ultimate fate in the True Pacifist run have inspired people to do their own takes at ‘saving’ him. And just as ‘the Gaster mystery’ inspired, even if it’s just a bunch of creepy stuffs thrown in at the end of the game programing (from the game code itself).

There are plenty of good stories that haven’t inspired as many works as Undertale, and this is because, I believe, if a world feels ‘complete’, we’re less inclined to work with it. Undertale’s world doesn’t feel ‘complete’ (in my opinion, because the creator himself did not think everything through, or cared enough for those elements). This makes it ripe for imagination.

My conclusion

The most surprising thing about the alternate runs is that Toby has even programmed them at all, given the clear bias for the pacifist ending. But I guess the choice ‘had’ to be presented, even a choice that is disapproved of.

I don’t believe this was a necessary choice, though. From the genocide run’s rushed and muddy story, I think it’s clear Toby was mostly interested in the True Pacifist Run. Would the game have suffered from removing the ‘choice’ of the equation? And just sticking Frisk as a pacifist kid freeing a race of warmongering monsters through the power of lowercase love? Maybe. Maybe not. As it is, I personally think that the game is not really the multiple endings choice it’s presented as. And I don’t believe it wants to be, for better or worse.

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*(1)Meta: (from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/meta) “(of a creative work) referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential”. In this case, it would mean the game makes reference within its universe that it is a game. Self-referential games exists, but Undertale actually never makes the step to crosses into meta references fully.

*(2)RNG: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_number_generation) is a gamer term used to talk about Random Number Generation, which is when an element of ‘luck’ is introduced in the gameplay via a program that will generate a random result. An example is how in Pokémon, an attack can occasionally miss, or cause additional effect such as ‘poison’ or ‘burn’ regardless of the player’s input. This is a widespread mechanism in old style RPGs, but Undertale circumvents this by giving the player an action phase to counter the enemy’s attack instead.

#UT #Undertale #genocide run #pacifist run #Chara #Frisk #the player #toby fox #rant #blackrazorbill rant #long winded rant #this is just my personal opinion #theories and headcanons are great though #except when they start warring on each others because it's dumb #I think sometimes we just gotta admit that a story just isn't perfect and cannot be fully justifiable by itself #it's ok

[owowatsdiss]

Gays in Space

In light of recent troubles you may be asking yourself, "What the hell, can't I have one good thing?"

Well as a matter of fact,

you can.

Welcome to gays in space, a masterpost

~

Perhaps japan has stolen your heart and dyed your hair when you were thirteen, if so maybe Sailor Moon is right for you

I'll admit this probably isn't your introduction to sailor moon but you also didnt realize how incredibly gay it actually is.

Thats because for this you're going to have to be exceptionally careful about where you watch it.

The sailor moon on your tv as a kid had all the gay erased and told you they were cousins. With the right kind of japanese dub thats faithful to the original you get playful flirty quips and uncensored lesbian romance.

~

Perhaps you like to locally source your entertainment and only the freshest, indieist, content can brew your morning cup of joe, if so maybe what you need is On a Sunbeam

Words cannot describe how gay this is. Its only job is to be a lesbian romance in space and it is fucking acing it. This comic is beautiful and more importantly should get you that fix of positive gay space content you crave.

~

We've all gotten a plastic lightsaber as a child and subsequently broken it over the side of a tree, or at least I think we all have, lets not debate it too hard, point being what you need is some gays in Star Wars

~

Star Wars: Aftermath

Welcome to your new favorite book trilogy. Forget lord of the rings, hunger games is over, and for the love of fuck, burn those copies of fifty shades because I've got something better.

Thats right our man Sinjir is one of the main characters of this book and taking us on a gay journey through space while a bunch of assholes lose their shit about it.

Admittedly it takes until about book two to get to the level of gay you crave. But with the introduction of Conder we've got full on gay romance, gay tension, gay pinning, in star wars.

Now this is the first thing I've pointed you towards that isn't free, here's how youre gonna make it cheaper.

Check your local library. Maybe it's free for you. Who knows. Sit in barnes and noble and read it in it's entirety. What are they gonna do kick you out?(maybe)

If all else fails check your email and see if google play sent you five bucks off a book, which they do sometimes.(use the email search bar)

~

Another gay star wars book, sortof, From a Certain Point of View

From a Certain Point of View is a collection of 40 starwars related short storys and we care about exactly one of them.

MSE-6 and Men by Glen Weldon is a short story about a mouse droid capturing the love affair of a stormtrooper and an imperial officer.

It's cute, it's short, and near as I can tell it's the only star wars story that's sole focus is gay romance.

Now I probably wouldn't buy the whole book, for this one you've seriously just gotta head into a book store and read the part you're interested in.(not to say the book isn't good but alas the other 39 aren't gay related)

~

The Kotor series

A series of videogames taking place in the extended universe it's got space combat, space romance, and writing so sharp it could kill a man.

Kotor is a game series riddled with gay romance, but for this one you'll have to look up whichever one you're interested in and see what your gay romance options are. There are sooooo many choices. I actually can't list them all. Seriously look them up. In a world where you get maybe one token character on the side, here you'll have more gays then you can romance.

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Perhaps you hate Star Wars, perhaps you're bummed out that the only videogames options mentioned involved my favorite laser space jesus, worry not because Mass Effect 3 is what you need

I've got only one thing I need to say about Mass Effect 3. Gay sex controversy. That is a real honest to god article. Shit my life is a gay sex controversy. Fucking iconic.

For this one yet again not really free.(for kotor games it depends.) But its also kind of an old game. So you'll find a used copy or maybe even pirate it.

~

Well you knew it was coming. Honestly shocked I managed to hold it back this long. So with all the casualness someone can recommend a webcomic longer than war and peace, let me tell you about Homestuck

It's beautiful guys. It's just literary perfection. I love everything about it. It's hilarious. It definitely understands life better than I do. The characters bounce off eachother and you can actually see the way they make a dent in eachothers live. The interests they have they actually geniunely have those interests. I'm almost positive hussie actually has all of the hobbies he's given his characters. It's just shockingly well written. And I recommend it more than anything else on this list.

Not to mention it's gay. It's so gay. Every grey character in the picture above is a gay space alien. And thats just the people I can show you.(tumblr says im at my photo limit)

It's literally a race of pansexual polyamorous space aliens. Seriously find me something gayer than that. You can't.

~

Honorable mention Neon Genesis Evangelion

Gay for only the briefest briefest sliver of a second. In a series this interesting it warrants perhaps a moment of your consideration.

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Well I'll admit this is sortof for the voltron fandom. They definitely seem to be having a rough time of it. And recommending steven universe a million times doesn't really do them justice.(but if you haven't gotten a steven universe recommend yet it is also well worth your time) And if anyone knows of any others I'm very interested and I'll add them to this list.

#voltron #vld #klance #voltron legendary defender #voltron legendary discourse #voltron legendary queerbait