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#creator plays undertale

creatorworldau · 7 months

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Inktobertale Day 5: Theater play

BWAHHASHHAHAHAHAHAH >:D

Ink: *sings in spanish*

Error: Wth??

#inktobertale2023 #ink sans #error sans #mettaton #like a puss in boots?? eh??#theater play #создатель #creator #рисунок #art #арт #ibispaint art #undertale #undertale au

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funishment-time · 2 months

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i think one of the weirdest things i see from Internet Commentary Folk is the assumption that anyone who consumes non-intellectual YouTube content or whatever has to be a child. (like, a Minor, not just a young adult.)

remembering a few years back when there was a slight Tiff Around The Internet about the Game Grumps selling fursona body pillows of themselves because their fanbase had to be children, of course, it had to be minors, how gross it is for two adult men to sell body pillows of themselves to kids.

...which is obviously very gross, except the GG demographic is not and has never been Minors, i'm p sure. young people who are adults, sure, and i'm certain many minors watch, but they never geared their content towards 13 year olds.

always strikes me as very High and Mighty from Internet Commentary Folk, like watching some idiots poorly play a Sonic game is lowbrow - but your borderline racist and somehow also transphobic "video essay" completely trashing Japanese culture because you saw an anime you didn't like, that's totally where it's at, dog

#i don't even know what to tag this #brief rant unrelated to anything i suppose #anyway every time i see a Content Creator assume everyone who watches Let's Plays is a lobotomized 10 year old #they inevitably have videos that are called like #“The Problem With Anime”#(racist thumbnail)#“Why It's Actually OK To Give Money To JK Rowling”#(fake surprised YT expression w Harry Potter scar)#“I Saw MHA And Now I Hate Japan”#(boob window thumbnail)#“Is AI Art Useful?”#(thumbnail they clearly paid an artist to do that is still labeled AI art)#“My Cringey Undertale Phase”#(video entirely making fun of autistic people)#etc etc

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insertdisc5 · 5 months

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🎮 HEY I WANNA MAKE A GAME! 🎮

Yeah I getcha. I was once like you. Pure and naive. Great news. I AM STILL PURE AND NAIVE, GAME DEV IS FUN! But where to start?

To start, here are a couple of entry level softwares you can use! source: I just made a game called In Stars and Time and people are asking me how to start making vidy gaems. Now, without further ado:

SOFTWARES AND ENGINES FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW HOW TO CODE!!!

Ren'py (and also a link to it if you click here do it): THE visual novel software. Comic artists, look no further ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It has great documentation! It has a bunch of plugins and UI stuff and assets for you to buy! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) You can also port your game to a BUNCH of consoles! ✨Cons: None really <3 Some games to look at: Doki Doki Literature Club, Bad End Theater, Butterfly Soup

Twine: Great for text-based games! GREAT FOR WRITERS WHO DONT WANNA DRAW!!!!!!!!! (but you can draw if you want) ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's versatile! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! (You'll just need to read the doc a bunch) ✨Cons: You can add pictures, but it's a pain. Some games to look at: The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo, Queers In love At The End of The World, Escape Velocity

Bitsy: Little topdown games! ✨Pros: It's free! It's simple! It's (somewhat) intuitive! It has great documentation! It can be used even if you have LITERALLY no programming experience! You can make everything in it, from text to sprites to code! Those games sure are small! ✨Cons: Those games sure are small. This is to make THE simplest game. Barely any animation for your sprites, can barely fit a line of text in there. But honestly, the restrictions are refreshing! Some games to look at: honestly I haven't played that many bitsy games because i am a fake gamer. The picture above is from Under A Star Called Sun though and that looks so pretty

RPGMaker: To make RPGs! LIKE ME!!!!! NOTE: I recommend getting the latest version if you can, but all have their pros and cons. You can get a better idea by looking at this post. ✨Pros: Literally everything you need to make an RPG. Has a tutorial inside the software itself that will teach you the basics. Pretty simple to understand, even if you have no coding experience! Also I made a post helping you out with RPGMaker right here! ✨Cons: Some stuff can be hard to figure out. Also, the latest version is expensive. Get it on sale! Some games to look at: Yume Nikki, Hylics, In Stars and Time (hehe. I made it)

engine.lol: collage worlds! it is relatively new so I don't know much about it, but it seems fascinating. picture is from Garden! NOTE: There's a bunch of smaller engines to find out there. Just yesterday I found out there's an Idle Game Maker made by the Cookie Clicker creator. Isn't life wonderful?

✨more advice under the cut. this is Long ok✨

ENGINES I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT AND THEY SEEM HARD BUT ALSO GIVE IT A TRY I GUESS!!!! :

Unity and Unreal: I don't know anything about those! That looks hard to learn! But indie devs use them! It seems expensive! Follow your dreams though! Don't ask me how!

GameMaker: Wuh I just don't know anything about it either! I just know it's now free if your game is non-commercial (aka, you're not selling it), and Undertale was made on it! It seems good! You probably need some coding experience though!!!

Godot: Man I know even less about this one. Heard good things though!

BUNCHA RANDOM ADVICE!!!!

-Make something small first! Try making simple: a character is in a room, and exits the room. The character can look around, decide to take an item with them, can leave, and maybe the door is locked and you have to find the key. Figuring out how to code something like that, whether it is as a fully text-based game or as an RPGMaker map, should be a good start to figure out how your software of choice works!

-After that, if you have an idea, try first to make the simplest version of that idea. For my timeloop RPG, my simplest version was two rooms: first room you can walk in, second room with the King, where a cutscene automatically plays and the battle starts, you immediately die, and loop back to the first room, with the text from this point on reflecting this change. I think I also added a loop counter. This helped me figure out the most important thing: Can This Game Be Made? After that, the rest is just fun stuff. So if you want to make a dating sim, try and figure out how to add choices, and how to have affection points go up and down depending on your choices! If you want to make a platformer, figure out how to make your character move and jump and how to create a simple level! If you just want to make a kinetic visual novel with no choices, figure out how to add text, and how to add portraits! You'll be surprised at how powerful you'll feel after having figured even those simple things out.

-If you have a programming problem or just get confused, never underestimate the power of asking Google! You most likely won't be the only person asking this question, and you will learn some useful tips! If you are powerful enough, you can even… Ask people??? On forums??? Not me though.

-Yeah I know you probably want to make Your Big Idea RIGHT NOW but please. Make a smaller prototype first. You need to get that experience. Trust me.

-If you are not a womanthing of many skills like me, you might realize you need help. Maybe you need an artist, or a programmer. So! Game jams on itch.io are a great way to get to work and meet other game devs that have different strengths! Or ask around! Maybe your artist friend secretly always wanted to draw for a game. Ask! Collaborate! Have fun!!!

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

#reference #gamedev #indie dev #game dev #tutorial #video game #ACTUAL GAME DEVS DO NOT INTERACT!!!1!!!!!#this is for people who are afraid of coding. do not come at me and say 'actually godot is easy if you just--' I JUST WILL NOT.#long post

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atwas-gaming · 2 months

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I've been thinking about this for quite a while and worried about saying this and coming across like some crazy UTDR fan (which I will readily admit to be guilty of, anyway, lol), but the OST's for both Undertale and Axiom Verge have some similar leitmotifs.

First off, I AM NOT SUGGESTING ANY CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TWO SOUNDTRACKS, MUCH LESS THE TWO GAMES. To my knowledge, Tom Happ and Toby Fox may never have even met. They may not have even played each other's games. I'm 99% certain they had no influence on each other.

But I do have a conclusion that I will get to at the end (and yes, a lot of you will probably think it's crazy), so please keep reading.

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Undertale fans will probably notice a familiar 3-note arpeggio in Apocalypse. It's the one we call "Gaster's Theme." It's not exactly the same, but it's similar enough to make a UT fan rewind and re-listen.

This 3-note arpeggio appears in other tracks in both AV games, it's just most noticeable in Apocalypse.

The other one I noticed is a little easier to miss. It's at the very end of Inexorable:

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Listen closely and you can hear the intro to Another Medium. Listen even more closely, and you realize that this leitmotif is just The Axiom, slightly rearranged.

But what's interesting is, there's no connection between Axiom Verge and Undertale! At least, none that I can imagine (and I have quite the imagination). Axiom Verge was released on March 31, 2015; Undertale was released on September 15, 2015- the same year, but almost 9 months apart. Since AV came out first, there's no way Tom Happ was borrowing ideas from Toby Fox, unless the 2 men actually have met IRL- I don't know, but I kinda doubt it, as Toby was nothing but a ROM-hacking, clickbait-posting, Homestuck composer working on Undertale at the time of AV's release. And I highly doubt Toby was stealing anything from Axiom Verge- Toby's a highly prolific musical composer in his own right, and while he's not above taking inspiration from others, he's always been open about where he got his ideas. So far, none of my research is indicating that he took inspiration from Tom Happ. And we know how Toby feels about giving credit where it's due:

So, if there's no connection between the two, and no known crossover of ideas, what point am I trying to make?

That this is evidence of God's presence in the creative community. Disbelieve that if you want, but that's the hill I'm standing on. God is everywhere, and He doesn't just favor the "good little Christians" with wisdom. He gives ideas to everyone. And it seems to me that, in 2015 and the years leading up to it, He decided to give 2 different men the same 2 prominent leitmotifs for their games.

And if that's not enough, let me also remind you that both games have a similar core theme of being stranded in some alternate universe (which may or may not be just a dream, in both AV and UTDR); AND both Tom Happ and Toby Fox have made statements that suggest the possibility of divine inspiration. Tom Happ's statement can be found here; and while I can't find the post anymore, I do remember Toby saying at one point that he has been surprised by the number of connections that fans have found in Undertale that even he himself didn't notice.

If this isn't God's hand at work, then I don't know what to call it, because it's just plain awesome.

#axiom verge #undertale #tom happ #toby fox #God's will #divine inspiration #call it crazy if you want but this is what i believe #God. is. EVERYwhere.#play both games yourself #listen to both soundtracks yourself #read and listen to interviews with the creators yourself #you can't tell me you don't see any similarities at all #i'm convinced that God is in this #in both of these

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lesbiannova · 6 months

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I am not the first person who has said this, but it is indeed surprising that Cassette Beasts does not have a big fandom on Tumblr, given that it has just about everything average Tumblr users want:

A wide variety of creatures whose forms you can collect, so you can transform into them in battle

Multiverse setting, which provides unlimited fanfiction potential

Character creator with pronouns options, including they/them

LGBTQ+ representation, including all the human party members who are bi and can be romanced regardless of the player's gender, a pair of NPCs are an actual canon old married lesbian couple, and an NPC who is canonically non-binary and uses they/them pronouns

Romanceable party members also mean you can form a battle couple with your favourite party member

Racially diverse cast of human characters: There are visibly Black and brown characters in both the main and supporting cast, including the party members

A playable dog character

Anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist messages

You can literally beat up estate agents and their boss

Higher friendship with your companion allows you to fuse your monster forms and makes you stronger in battle

etc. etc.

The only reason I can think of is the fact that Cassette Beasts is an indie game, but Tumblr has a fair amount of indie video game darlings, such as Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium, Undertale, Night in the Woods, etc.

Another reason is that many Pokémon fans are frustratingly reluctant to try or dismissive of monster collecting games that are not Pokémon, even if they complain about the latest Pokémon titles.

So here is your reminder to go play Cassette Beasts if you have not already.

#cassette beasts #vg: cassette beasts #leilukin does meta #llkmeta: cb

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simpletale-officiale · 8 months

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INTRODUCTION!

SIMPLETALE is an AU that aims to parody undertale. while also giving it its own original twist, although its not just limited to undertale, as we also aim to parody other silly little bits of the multiverse. like underfell, underswap, heck. maybe even underverse! you can find some of the AU's included in the lineup drawn above, as well as in the descriptions for the askable AU's further on in this post

the AU uses old concepts for undertale, and some fanon misconceptions. to make a funny and entertaining story, but also one with worldbuilding and some slightly more serious bits. unfortunately we cannot show the rest of the cast for simpletale currently because that's spoilers and we want to keep it secret for later (;

(be sure to frequently check this post, as characters could be added to be askable in the future)

questions are not just limited to characters though, you can also ask us, the creators, questions about the production of simpletale, or even our own opinions on it! maybe even some questions about areas...? but ill be nice and give some suggestions. "whats your favorite thing about simpletale?" "whats your least favorite thing about simpletale" dont be shy, ask!

moving onto the characters.

the simple. the basics. the one and only's!

the simpletale bros!

sans- a rather cheeky, clumsy, and humerus fella. likes getting a laugh out of others, often through humerus actions, he ends up annoying the shit out of his brother a lot of the time, and they argue a lot, they love being brothers though, and most of the time they make up rather quickly. usually tries to speak as little as possible and be as straight to the point as possible. has a fast food addiction

papyrus- a bumbling perfectionist imperialist. believes himself to be superior to others, even when in a low position of power, he was accepted into the guard because..... they needed someone to do the paperwork, dogs ain't that good for writing. despite this he believes himself to be the most important and supreme member of the guard, despite the most important thing he does being signing the occasional tax document or punting a trespasser (usually just random preteens) 20 feet into the air. a bit of a narcissist with a sailors mouth but he does actually care for the people in his life, despite coming off so rude most people find him annoying though ):. basically papyrus autism thrown to a hundred. banters with sans often when he tries to knock papyrus ego down a peg. tries to act menacing, but hes really just an 80's cartoon villain goofball. cooks the most delicious food you will ever taste, we let bro cook for a REASON.

the simpled is swapped?

the simpleswap bros!

they started out exactly like simpletale sans and papyrus, but decided to parody each other for shits and giggles, and then got all their friends along, which created simpleswap. their personalities are a bit altered from the simpletale brothers due to reasons but their whole swapped personality thing is a gag and they might break character once you say something outlandish or spook them.

papyrus- apathetic, and a bit apolitical with almost everything. started smoking weed to parody sans fast food addiction but actually started smoking it regularly, so hes like.... high. always. once you get through his apathetic and at times, cold and careless character, he can be surprisingly kind and humble, honestly a pretty decent guy. finds his old self cringey and dumb. works as an accountant on the side, cooks pretty tasty food, and often makes tasty weed brownies????

sans- cheeky, energetic, and plays this character of perfection to parody papyrus narcissism, think of the character of perfection kind of like how liquid chris works, effectively doing anything papyrus did, but better. still tries his best to get a laugh out of everyone, hes in better shape then simpletale sans and is overall more athletic, playful and energetic, takes the whole parodying eachother thing less seriously then his brother. him and fellsimple sans are best pals

their bold, their brash, they certainly dont belong in the trash, an-OUCH I FELL AND BROKE MY FUCKING KNEEES-

fellsimple.

this one goes slightly more heavy into parodying fanon

sans- has anger issues, plays up this role of being a punk, "fuck the government" "acab" "i dont believe in consistency" you get the point, a bit of a greedy fuck, loves gold, as well as sharp stuff and gold, he has some.... taboo fetishes like hes probably into bdsm. being the only one out of the skeletons to not be asexual as well as being the only one to be straight. rides a motorcycle, but likes trucks more, probably secretly works with trucking, simpleswap sans is his best friend and he loves to drink with simpletale sans, tough attitude, but is secretly just as silly as the others.

papyrus-has a job as a guard but ends up skipping most of the time because the guards are pretty horrible people and they make him pretty stressed, likes books and philosophy, probably plays this fake role of an evil, heinous guard at work, if ever does it that is. hes a real cheapskate compared to sans, but will buy good books or vinyl albums at a high price if he feels their high enough of quality. hes shy compared to the other papyruses.

sans

....aaaand error.

a bit of a sleazy fella with a PLAN. he doesnt destroy aus here but does more heinous stuff, like rob banks in AU's, make illegal businesses or currencies, clash with rival gangs, and occasionally fights with ink (although their relationship is very sexual, parodying the fanon misconception that errink is canon) ask him the right questions, and he might even bring some of his gang members along to answer (; his personality is somewhat apathetic, but he always has a PLAN!!!!!! AND YOU CANT FIGHT NATURE JOHN......

NOW, THE FIRST ERROR GANG MEMBER!

killer: nickname: assassin has been unlocked!

coming from an alternate timeline of simpletale where sans got bored? varisk (frisk replacement) decided to mentally manipulate him into thinking that robbing and killing is a better option then doing nothing. and pays him for it eventually papyrus was killed in crossfire and sans murdered varisk, the pin on his jacket is a soul, but souls are useless in the simpleverse, blood is much more valuable. he's a silent but professional skeleton. cares deeply about his boss and coworkers.

EXTREMELY good with firearms as well as chains. its hard for him to move his mouth, so its almost always locked in a constant smile the liquid that leaks out of him is like an oil like substance, touching it for too long burns your skin, its incredibly cold though. he's ruthless and aggressive in battle and is often the tank/brute in whatever operation dysfunct has going on. usually smug and professional, but can also be very gentle around those he deems friendly enough.

picked up by error after an.... incident in his au.

the nightmare and dream brothers!

nightmare: claims to have been "betrayed" by his brother (dream stole his sandwich) believes dream causes all his misfortunes and bad luck moments. kind of acts like a spoiled rich kid with a military obsession. started the gang by feeding into errors idea of a free multiverse, where there are no governments and an independent existence for everyone. a world with anarchy and fun. he can be a good manipulator at times, but is all bark no bite. pretty cringe, both him and his brother claim to be "gods" but in truth, their both mutations/byproducts of the simpleswap universe "glitching" creating this disgusting blob and a ball of light (think like sans bad time eye) inside of a husk body. both are amortal and seek to destroy the other, or at least piss each other off for as long as possible.

dream: LOVES shit talking about his brother plays this role of an innocent cutesy kind emperor, when he is everything opposite to that, except for emperor I guess. he is an emperor. believes causing nightmare misfortune will bring him luck in some form (it doesn't, but hes too stupid to realize) if he gets the chance he would probably torture and give his enemies a VERY painful, but quick death. he wants his brother to be at the bottom of life, the worst point in his life, before he plans to KILL. speaks in a very Shakespearian way. is a snobby fuck. not really greedy. but will do ANYTHING in his power to make his enemies die the most painful death he can give them. not cruel to his people, but gaslights them a lot. claims what he does is for the "greater good" acts nice, and very kind to his "friends" but would betray them the moment he finds anything better. the type of guy to give you puppydog eyes after burning down your house

AND ME!!!

thanks to kyne for activating my dastardly plan to take over this tumblr, im not just gonna be thrown away as a simple outcast at that pub anymore, im fuckin important goddamn it!!!!!

i also may edit the intros a bit add my own flare you know but the importance is i am now your stand in if you ask anyone thats in the multi-bar!!!!

bio: 404 was born omnipotent, automatically more powerful then all the other simpletons. he would become aware of how through an alternative reality known as the prescratch timeline where that version of him speaks of what he was destined for. nobody believes him however and that bitch error keeps harassing me about talking shit well guess what whore i dont fucking need you anymore because ive found myself somebody who won't just use me and then throw me away when its most fitting fuck you never talk to me again bitch

liks: chaos, delinquency, anarchy, NOT following the rules, 100 gecs (the one with the stupid horse), being powerful, super transformations, hyperpop, chains, gold, copypastas, big hot strong men that could absolutely penetrate me hard, 100 gecks (literally, i have 100 of them as pets and its awesome!!!), flexing, being totally dripped out, colors associated with errors, busting it down (gay kind not cool kind)

dislinks: order, rules, politics, leaders, having to follow instructions, horror sans from the evil guys fuck you you stole my place on that group which im not that upset about anymore after realising they all suck anyways but i still hate you because you refuse to actually fight and keeps saying random quips everytime youre on screen like actually shut the fuck up, gex, women because im severely femalephobic and extremely homosexual so they terrify me, error (cheater and liar dont ever trust him with anything), ink who stole my man with her fuckin cursed woman parts and apparently in the prescratch timeline everyone calls her mommy????? kinda sussy BUT THE SIMPLEVERSE IS LIMITLESS! Because there is a multibar just down the road > (https://simpletale-officiale.tumblr.com/post/727125546167828480/farm-sans)

CREDITS

Undertale by @fwugradiation

Underswap by popcornprince and @underswapped3

Underfell by @underfell

error sans by @loverofpiggies

Killer sans by @rahafwabas

Dream and nightmare by @jokublog

Sigh.... 404 by.... @vibeless15

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andreabandrea · 4 months

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The AndreaBandrea UTY post

I need some place to put my Undertale Yellow (UTY for short) thoughts & criticism, and this is my blog, so I might as well put them here. If you don't want to see constructive criticism about Undertale Yellow, don't click below the readmore!

Pretty much everyone I talk to really likes this game, and honestly, I'm really sad that I don't like it more. I like some parts of it quite a bit! But I have mixed feelings about other parts-- I think the writing and characterization could have been a little more impactful than they were, and I’ll be discussing that here. I don’t want to just rag on this game without expressing suggestions and parts that I do like in more detail, so those will be covered as well.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't have negative feelings towards the development team or fans of this game in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for the creators of Undertale Yellow. This project was obviously a massive undertaking with a lot of love behind it, and I'm glad to see that it's found success and a community of people who do enjoy it.

The reason I’m writing this post is that, again, I liked parts of this game and wish I enjoyed it more. If I didn’t like it at all, I just wouldn’t engage with it at all anymore. I also haven’t really seen any other people expressing constructive criticism on the game’s writing, so it’s felt more important for me to express these thoughts, be heard, and see if others feel the same way.

The Good

I'll start off with the things I like. The art, the animation, and the music are all fantastic. I was very impressed by the battle backgrounds and the little touches, like the way Clover runs. Clover doing things like reaching for other’s hands, giving fistbumps, drawing their weapon, changing their expression at times-- they feel very dynamic and fun to play as.

The music is really catchy and fun. I love the iterations on the battle theme-- Snowdin’s battle theme having bells, for example.

I also had fun with most of the fights in the game! I liked the unique mechanics that came into play (e.g. the lasso in North Star's battle). I think that changing the way Clover attacks compared to Frisk feels organic and fun.

I also love the mail system. Ever since you could deliver and receive letters in Paper Mario 64, I’ve been hooked on mail as a storytelling system in video games. I think the letters you receive are interesting and clever, and it’s a great way to keep past characters relevant in lieu of a cell phone.

I’m going to be discussing criticism of the characters later, so I’m going to take a moment to talk a little about things I liked about them. I really like Martlet’s optimism and belief in humans. Starlo made me laugh quite a few times and the Feisty Five have a great dynamic with each other. A lot of the background characters in the game are fun-- I like the one who serves you at the Honeydew Resort. The fact that you can go back to these vendors later on and get four new topics to talk about is fantastic and makes the world feel a lot more alive.

The Slightly Less-Good (and more disclaimers)

The writing is where the game falls short for me-- and it’s sad for me, because the writing is the heart of Undertale. I don’t think that the writing is bad by any means! I like the characters and story well enough, but- again- I just wish that I liked them more. I’ll try to incorporate suggestions so this isn’t just a total downer post without anything backing it up.

I want to express something about the ‘suggestions’ that I’ll be offering after the criticism. I know that Undertale Yellow is now out, and the team isn’t going to go back and change it now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to make it sound as if the team should change Undertale Yellow just because I have some reservations about it. I’m just one fan out of many. In the very off chance that a member of the Undertale Yellow development team is reading this--

First of all, hi!

Second of all, I know that changing major parts of Undertale Yellow at this point is very unrealistic, and I wouldn’t want you to. If anything, I’m honored you’re reading my ramblings at all. I’d be touched if you’d be willing to take some of my words to heart as you move onto your next creative projects.

The reason I’m including suggestions, therefore, isn’t because I think that the team should or must make these changes, but because I don’t want to just sound excessively negative about this game without offering a little feedback.

I don’t presume that my criticism and suggestions are objectively correct or better than what the Undertale Yellow team created. This is my personal blog, and these are my personal rambly thoughts about Undertale Yellow. The reason I’m including so many disclaimers is because I’ve gotten into discourse before due to poorly thought-out posts about Undertale, and I hope to avoid that this time. I don’t want to just not post something on my own blog, though, because I’m afraid it could be misconstrued or possibly upset somebody. So, I’m trying to discuss this as carefully as I can.

As one final disclaimer, I'll say that I know that it was more likely than not that I'd be at least a little disappointed by Undertale Yellow. The original Undertale was a very important game for me, and very little could reach that standard. (I think this is one reason why Toby decided to do Deltarune, a sort of AU/spinoff rather than a full-on "Undertale 2", and I respect that decision.)

I also think that quite a bit of my criticism is subjective-- several of the characters didn't fully click with me and several of the jokes just didn't land for me, personally. More people than you might think just didn’t connect with the regular Undertale, either. I’ll be talking a little about my subjective opinion on characters, but I’ll try to explain why I feel the way I do rather than just say, “XYZ character sucks because they’re lame, moving on.”

With that said, the post. I’ll be addressing my criticisms from smallest to largest. To begin, I’ll recap the plot of UTY to better analyze aspects that I do and don’t quite like. Spoilers abound.

Undertale Yellow Plot Recap!!!!

The central story of UTY, to my memory and understanding, is as follows:

In the past, a fallen human being went on a rampage in Snowdin and hurt Kanako, the daughter of Chujin, a former royal scientist and monster who happens to be a boss monster. Dalv, an unrelated monster, was also hurt in this incident and sealed himself away in the Ruins in a self-imposed isolation. Chujin’s family (presumably him or Kanako, but not Ceroba, as she doesn’t recognize Dalv) felt bad about this and left him corn from Starlo’s farm as a gift. But, when Chujin died, the corn gifts stopped coming.

Stepping back a bit, after the incident, Chujin developed a deep hatred for humanity. He invented a security robot called Axis and told it to go kill the human. Axis did this (and we will return to this later). Chujin kept the soul (at least, for a time) to experiment on.

At some point in this, Axis failed to impress Asgore and Chujin was fired as the royal scientist. At some point as well, he began to teach Martlet how to build puzzles. Martlet got a job in the royal guard and Chujin disapproved because humans are very dangerous.

Due to experimenting on his own boss monster soul in an attempt to find a way to turn regular monsters into boss monsters so that monsterkind could potentially stand up to the threat of humanity, Chujin wound up very ill and then passed away. He left video tapes to his wife, Ceroba, asking her to finish his research. However, he asked her to leave Kanako out of this so she could live a normal life.

Ceroba agreed to finish this research, but Kanako found out about it and asked to be experimented on because she, like her father, has the power of a boss monster. Ceroba agreed to experiment on her, which injured Kanako and caused her to ‘fall down’. Ceroba sent the near-death Kanako to Dr. Alphys, the new royal scientist, who was collecting ‘fallen down’ monsters for her own experiments with determination.

Plot summary over. I’ll take a closer look at some of these aspects going forward.

UTY Plot Criticism

I don’t feel like this is a bad story, necessarily. With that said, it doesn’t feel quite as tied together as Undertale’s story does, and I think certain aspects don’t land.

First, I feel that the majority of the plot elements about Chujin & Kanako get dumped on you at the last minute. You might be thinking that the story about Chara & Asriel is also dumped on you at the last minute-- and to an extent, this is true. You do get a massive amount of information regarding their story near the end of the game, in the True Lab.

However, Chara & Asriel's story is a massive part of the narrative from the very beginning. You meet 'Asriel' (Flowey) in the very beginning of the game. Toriel is in the Ruins due to the fallout of Chara & Asriel's deaths. Asgore and the monsters are trying to kill Frisk and steal their soul because of this, and the royal guard has taken it up as their mission. Sans is aware of an anomaly that will end everything (implied to be the player), and he would have 'killed Frisk where they stand' had he not made a promise to Toriel. And so on.

I’ll be reviewing criticism of the game’s plot in sections themed around each major character. I will be discussing suggestions about each character in their respective section here, as I discuss things I didn’t quite like about each character, my suggestions are intrinsically tied to why I didn’t quite like them.

Dalv

The connections between characters and the Chujin & Kanako plot feel a bit tenuous to me. Similarly to Toriel, Dalv is in a self-imposed isolation in the Ruins due to a major incident in his past. He fears humans due to the attack he suffered in Snowdin, and he suffers loneliness after losing his friend (who left him corn). When he sees Clover, he wonders if this is “some sort of haunting” (implying he knows that the human who attacked him was killed).

In the pacifist route, Clover can prove to Dalv that not all humans are evil and Dalv can move out and learn how to trust people again. This becomes a recurring theme-- Clover, pure of heart, proving to monsters that humanity isn’t that bad after all.

However, Dalv then disappears from the story. His motivation is to basically be left alone, but once you prove to him that humanity isn’t so bad, his role in the story is essentially complete.

I feel that, by comparison, Toriel’s motivation is more active-- to protect humans who fall down from Asgore. It’s this motivation that drives her to return at the end of the true pacifist route and ultimately make the true ending of Undertale possible.

Dalv’s passiveness makes him a weaker character to me. Now that you’ve proven that you’re his friend and humanity isn’t so bad, I would have liked to have seen him take an active motivation to protect his friend or help them in some way. We don’t have to copy Undertale beat for beat and have him dramatically save Clover from Asgore or anything, but it would have been nice to see him vouch for Clover in some way at some point.

Now, for the final time, I know that UTY is released and major changes aren’t likely. Some of my suggestions are “I would have liked to see this, but this change would require redoing the entire game,” which I don’t think should or could be done at this stage. This is just daydreaming and- if I’m praising myself highly- potential considerations for the devs’ future works (and the works of any other creatives who are reading this).

With this proposed major change to Dalv’s character out of the way, I’ll suggest instead the most minimal possible change that I would like to see, so my suggestions don’t feel entirely like just daydreaming.

I really like how Dalv sends Clover a letter about his moving out to Snowdin. This is active of him in terms of motivation-- Clover is his friend and he wants to keep in touch with his friend. I’d be absolutely thrilled to see a little bit of extra dialogue for him in an update. After you go back to Snowdin and see him, I think the dialogue he already has is totally fine! But, I’d be really happy if he’d take initiative and tell Clover a little more about his experience with the past human, or invite them to rely on him, too.

Martlet

Martlet felt… a bit restrained in terms of her writing, to me. I think that one aspect of Undertale’s writing is that it’s not afraid to go over the top. Papyrus isn’t just silly, he wears a costume every day and cartoon eyes pop out of his head when he’s surprised. Undyne isn’t just determined, she aspires to be a badass anime heroine. I like Martlet just fine, but she never had a moment where she really stood out to me in this way.

Martlet’s defining traits are that she likes puzzles, she loves reading and abiding by the rules of the royal guard, and she believes in humanity and wants to help Clover. As I said before, I really like this optimism and belief. I’d like to see more of it.

Near the end of the true pacifist route, Martlet says that she was taught in the royal guard that humans are scary, but Clover proved to her that humans are kind. This felt very abrupt to me at the time-- we know that Chujin disapproved of her joining the royal guard due to his own trauma, but Martlet had no personal involvement in the last human’s violent actions.

Martlet doesn’t seem to have any reason to dislike humans more than any other monster. We learn in her diary that she essentially joined the royal guard out of a desire to help people and build puzzles, and also because she needed a job.

If she’s just supposed to be a representative of the average monster and their feelings toward humanity, and her growing to like Clover is meant to represent how all of monsterkind could grow to like humankind, that would be one thing-- but I think that she specifically is meant to represent a person who wholeheartedly believes that humans can be good and that humans and monsters can live in harmony. In the no mercy route, she repeatedly pleads to Clover to do better, that they don’t have to act this way, that she wants to help them. That’s not the response of the average monster, who fights Clover or tries to flee from them.

I believe the intention is that Chujin & Martlet represent either end of an ideology axis (no pun intended). Chujin believes all humans are evil no matter what, but Martlet believes that humans can choose to be good. But why does she choose to believe in humans other than a sense of personal optimism?

I would have liked to have seen some defining event that made Martlet choose to believe in the goodness of humanity. I would have liked to have her being kind and optimistic to a fault be more of a defining trait-- to have that go over the top in an Undertale-style way. A lot of her interactions with other characters just personally weren’t very memorable to me.

Martlet spends a lot of the game sidelined. She loses you in the Mines. She gets thrown in jail in the Wild East. She has to go back to Snowdin once you're freed. Yes, she's there for you in the true pacifist route, but she's otherwise pretty absent through the neutral/true pacifist routes.

I recognize that the main characters in Undertale can be absent after you leave their respective sections of the game. However, you're able to call Papyrus & Undyne as much as you want, and you get a major hang-out (or “date”) with each of them and Alphys which gives time to expand on their backstory and character arc. Martlet doesn't get that. We even get a little bit of time to hang out with Dalv after we become his friend, but Martlet shoves us on a boat and hurries us to the next area as soon as we beat her. And sure, we get to talk to her on the boat, but it’s just a bit of silly dialogue-- it doesn’t really expand on her character. It feels like a missed opportunity.

So, yes, my major suggestion on her would be to zoom in more on her belief in you and let her be a liiiiitle sillier and more over the top, and give more opportunity for Clover to hang out with her.

At this stage, however? In this proposed minor ‘dialogue update’, I’d be really excited to see a little something more from her. Maybe a letter? She does send you one, but only in the neutral route to tell you to meet her on top of the apartments. It would be a good opportunity to either let her be silly or explain a bit about when she came to want to believe in humans-- or both, ideally.

Starlo

I honestly have very little to say on Starlo. He seems to be the fan favorite, and I did find his section fun! Ultimately, though, he's just kind of… there? I mean, he's on the periphery of Ceroba's (and Chujin and Kanako’s) story because he's her childhood friend (and his family grew the corn that Chujin gives to Dalv), and yes, he later on reminds her that she can still choose to be a better person because he also almost killed Clover! However, every monster in the game almost killed Clover.

There’s nothing wrong with having a silly character who wears a costume and isn’t a major player in the plot. I feel like Starlo is similar to Papyrus in this way. But Papyrus isn’t just a goofball, he’s the monster in Undertale who believes unerringly in Frisk & the player’s ability to do better because he firmly believes that you can make anything happen if you just try. This belief helps elevate Papyrus from comic relief to an actual rounded character.

I don’t feel like Starlo has any sort of strong conviction like that. We do learn that he wants to bring hope to the Underground by roleplaying as a sheriff in the Wild East town, giving them a slice of (supposed) surface life. I think this is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more of it. In the no mercy route, he does bravely stand against you because he’s a sheriff and it’s his job to bring justice to murderers like Clover.

My expectation when I first met him, a fellow cowboy (gender-neutral), was that he’d have his own ideas about justice. I expected that he would clash with Clover about these ideals, and neither of them would be quite right or wrong-- and this would prove that justice can’t be measured mathematically, and one outcome can’t be applied to all situations.

But, he’s not at all bad the way he is. He has a lot of fans, after all. The minor change I’d suggest now that the game is out is that I’d be interested in learning why the cowboy aesthetic specifically appealed to him. Maybe a diary in his room explaining that Westerns are the epitome of ‘justice’ to him? I’d like to see a peek into the motivation that transformed an ordinary farm boy into someone who could bravely stand against a murderous human.

Ceroba

I’ll be honest. I want to like Ceroba, but I don’t.

I understand that there's an attempt to mirror Asgore in that the war against humanity, in general, has taken Ceroba's partner and her child from her-- and ultimately, Clover forgives her and helps her learn how to move on. It's about letting go, just like Undertale. I get that. But Ceroba’s story doesn't land for me, personally. In order to talk about Ceroba, I need to talk about her husband, Chujin, because Ceroba spends so much of the story acting out Chujin's will.

Whereas monsters in Undertale do attempt to kill Frisk and steal their soul, and Asgore has killed other children before, it's framed in a very 'video game' violence sort of way (again, Undertale has these meta elements). Ultimately, in the True Pacifist route, none of Frisk's deaths have stuck, and Asgore's actions- while reprehensible- allowed for Asriel to break the barrier once and for all.

Chujin, in the video tapes he leaves for Ceroba, implies that Axis’s murder of the human- presumably a child, like Clover and Frisk- was very violent and bloody. It feels a tiny step beyond the 'video game violence' aspect, for me. While it’s shown that Chujin regrets this, it still doesn’t change the way that this violence is expressed in the game.

Instead of giving the human’s soul right to Asgore to bring monsterkind closer to freedom, Chujin- who has already been fired by Asgore, I should add- chooses to keep the soul and experiment with it.

This is very selfish, even though he has good intentions. He’s told nobody else about his experiments with his soul at this point- not even his wife- and Asgore has told him to cease all activities as the royal scientist.

While monsters do want Frisk's soul for their own selfish reasons, they notably do not butcher them violently, succeed in this, and still try to get painted with the same quirky and fun brush that the other characters get.

After Chujin dies, he leaves detailed instructions for his wife to continue his work-- and although he says "don't involve Kanako", he leaves her all the tools she would need to experiment on Kanako, and notably, no other way to finish his work except to experiment on Kanako.

As I said, Kanako finds out about this and asks to be experimented on. And while she does give consent, she is a child. I cannot stress this enough-- she is a child who just lost her father and is still wracked by grief. Kanako is a child who cannot possibly know what she is consenting to.

Ceroba chooses to experiment on Kanako and more or less kills her. And then she chooses to send her 'fallen down' daughter to Alphys's experiment, despite the fact that Kanako presumably has some sort of trace of human soul/determination left in her-- which could have compromised Alphys's work as well.

Let's return to how I said that Ceroba is a mirror for Asgore. She's made so many mistakes and it's cost her her family and she can't stop now or it will all be for nothing. She's done horrible things, just like Asgore.

But the difference is that Asgore is the king of monsterkind. Asgore has no desire to kill human beings. He declared war on humanity in a fit of anger and grief, but the Underground had lost hope due to the loss of Chara & Asriel. Believing that Asgore could gather seven human souls and free them all brought hope back to the Underground.

His actions, while wrong, are selfless-- and much less explicitly violent and more 'cartoon violence'-like. Chujin & Ceroba have the well-being of monsterkind as their own pure intentions, but their actions are far more selfish and violent. Axis, Chujin’s creation, massacred a human being. Yet we're still expected to find them silly and fun and relatable-- it just feels unusual.

I’m not someone who hates nuance or morally gray characters. One reason I’m so sad that I don’t quite like Ceroba is that I love morally gray women. It’s just that we’re not allowed to really dislike Chujin or Ceroba for what they’ve done, and instead we’re supposed to see Ceroba- and Axis- as silly and relatable like the rest of the characters.

Immediately after Ceroba’s boss battle, instead of processing what just happened to a greater extent, Clover chooses to sacrifice their soul for monsterkind.

I understand that the intention is that Ceroba's grief and Chujin's desperation to protect monsters from humanity contributed to Clover's decision to sacrifice their soul. However, the idea is- to me- abrupt. Ultimately, too, Clover's decision is just as much about how much they love their friends (and how it's impossible for them to hide out in the Underground forever) as it is about Ceroba and her family.

Chara & Asriel’s deaths, Asgore’s war on humanity, the war of humans and monsters-- these elements impact every part of Frisk’s journey. But Chujin and Ceroba’s actions, while impactful on Martlet and Dalv to varying extents, are only part of Clover’s journey. And Chujin and Ceroba did awful things for this comparatively minor impact on the plot.

EDIT: Further analysis about how Ceroba doesn't have a lot of agency and spends a lot of the plot just acting out Chujin's will, as well as the inconsistency in her characterization (and feelings about sacrificing Clover and the well-being of Kanako), with input from @carlyraejepsans. Thank you!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more from Ceroba without any influence from Chujin- maybe an interaction explaining her relationship with Martlet and an additional conversation about Martlet’s nearly unwavering belief in humans vs Ceroba’s inherited grudge against humanity- but I don’t know where this would fit in. Adding more time for Clover to process Ceroba’s boss fight before sacrificing their soul might throw off the pacing.

In general, though, Ceroba's boss fight- while flashy and fun- ultimately feels pointless with how little she learns from it and how quickly she changes her stance on using Clover's soul for the benefit of monsterkind, and what will happen to monsters after they break the barrier. To quote @carlyraejepsans in the ask linked above:

In addition, it's like the writing didn't want to commit to her delusions and little character development. She feels that her daughter is alive and thinks she can save her—wait no that was a lie—wait it wasn't. The moment she's defeated she goes "Agh, what was I thinking!" out loud (which is already a questionable writing choice imo but i digress), and recognizes that sacrificing Clover for her plans is horrible... and then 5 seconds later Clover chooses to sacrifice themself to break the barrier and whoops nevermind she's suddenly the one getting the others onboard with the idea... wait. didn't she say she was making the serum because the humans would've only slaughtered them again if they broke the barrier? oh wait wasn't that also chujin again? whoops.

I would have felt better if there were more room to view Chujin and Ceroba in a critical light (and time to view Ceroba outside of just being a mom and wife). I can’t think of any ‘minor’ suggestion that wouldn’t require a lot of editing.

Axis…

And... okay. Let's talk about Axis real quick.

I want to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, but I need to point out that this security robot's name is "Axis 014." If you don't know what I mean by pointing this out, I'll just say that both of these terms are nazi dog whistles and allow you to look up the specifics.

I recognize that, by this point, it’s too late to change his name. I’d at least be grateful if the team would acknowledge this and confirm that they aren’t nazis.

Axis’s name makes his actions far worse in retrospect. He, as a security robot wants to kill a child, but he isn't able to anymore because his programming has changed. So, as a legal loophole, he forces them to hold 'a weapon' (a trash can lid) so he can justifiably kill them. This is the same robot that brutalized and murdered a human being in the past at Chujin's behest.

It feels tone deaf and ultimately the one thing I’d just outright call bad about UTY. I don’t think it was intentionally done this way, but I don't like that we're supposed to find this nazi-aesthetic police brutality robot "quirky and relatable" like the Undertale cast. In the true pacifist ending, he falls in love with a robot made out of a trash can and his eyes turn into cartoon hearts and etc. It’s even more jarring than viewing Chujin & Ceroba in a fun/relatable way.

In the no mercy route, Axis will defend himself and claim that his programming forced him to kill the human and he didn't want to. This "just following orders" defense feels weak to me as well, personally. Axis clearly delights in harming humans, going out of his way to try to kill Clover. But also, Axis spends a significant amount of the game displaying a very similar amount of free will to the other characters. He’s not just a janitor robot that sweeps back and forth.

He’s a nearly sentient being-- and the fact that there are these nearly sentient robots makes Alphys’s accomplishment of creating “a robot with a soul” (at least, so she claims-- Mettaton is only the ghost in a machine) much less impactful to me, personally. Yes, Asgore thinks that Chujin failed in creating a sentient robot, and so it’s impressive that Alphys supposedly did it. But I don’t know why Asgore wouldn’t be more skeptical of Alphys’s accomplishment after Chujin failed more than eight times and set fire to his flowers.

I think that Axis is ultimately a missed opportunity to make a really villainous character. This concept that he disobeys his programming- used as sort of a parallel for law, as a security robot- to attack Clover could have been explored to further the ‘justice’ theme. He doesn’t write his programming (the laws), he just carries it out (violently enforces the laws).

The ‘minor’ suggestion I’d make, though, is to just acknowledge the name.

Undertale & Meta Elements

Now, we’ll be addressing my largest criticisms-- the omission of meta elements and the way Flowey is written.

Undertale Yellow never quite stopped feeling like a fan game to me. And it is, of course-- but I think that it feels as if it tries so hard to be Undertale (in the writing style, the humor, etc) that it fails to forge an identity of its own, and that holds it back from being just a fangame to a fangame that succeeds in expanding on the original creative work.

At the same time, although UTY tries to feel like Undertale, I don’t think it captures certain elements that make Undertale be Undertale.

Whereas Undertale was ultimately about video games as a medium and the normalization of violence in them, UTY doesn’t have this level of metatextual commentary. UTY does have a running theme of 'justice'-- and I don’t think this is bad! After all, if Undertale already said all there was to say about video games and violence, why retread that path? I respect that UTY knows its limits and simply focuses on justice as a concept instead.

At the same time, Undertale isn’t just an RPG about mercy-- it’s an RPG about RPGs. The fact that you can talk to and spare enemies isn’t just a quirk of the game, it’s what the game is about. This is one thing that makes Undertale great that UTY doesn’t focus on.

UTY doesn’t completely ignore these elements, of course. Flowey takes over resetting for you, and you do have three distinct paths based on whether or not you kill enemies-- the ‘true pacifist’ path, the ‘neutral’ path, and the ‘no mercy’ path (I will not be calling it the ‘genocide’ route, especially in light of recent world events). Through whether or not you choose to kill enemies, the theme of ‘justice’ is explored-- who is Clover seeking justice for? In the true pacifist route, Clover seeks justice for the monsters, while in the no mercy route, Clover seeks justice for the fallen humans before them.

However, Flowey taking over the mechanics of saving and resetting for you makes concept of ‘the player’ obsolete. I recognize that not everyone in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom quite enjoys the concept of 'the player' and the meta elements of these games due to the fact that there can be implications that playing Deltarune (as an example, which ups the meta elements quite a bit) can actively hurt Kris and make their world a worse place. However, Deltarune isn’t a complete work and we don’t know this for certain. Additionally, I feel as if at least acknowledging Toby's intentions are important to analyzing the work, no matter what one's personal feelings are about them.

The Importance of the Player

The presence of you, the player, is important in Undertale. Frisk is a subversion of the 'blank slate protagonist' trope. You think that you're able to name them and control them, but in the True Pacifist route, Frisk begins to act on their own (they walk slowly in some parts of the True Lab because they're presumably afraid, etc). In the end, you realize that Frisk is their own person with their own name, and you as the player have to let go-- when Frisk & the monsters go to the surface, Flowey (a mirror of the player themselves) urges you to let them go. Don't treat this as a game anymore-- don't replay and wring out any last drops of content you can. You enjoyed it, now move on.

But many players want to see the No Mercy route because it’s the last thing they haven’t done in the game, and they don’t want to let go. And that's where the role of you, the player, becomes undeniable in the game's story. What is the No Mercy route except playing a 'typical' RPG in the way it's meant to be played? You grind to become stronger, killing every enemy that stands in your way. And when you've killed all the monsters and become as strong as you can be, you've won.

Many players didn't do this because they hate the characters in Undertale and want to hurt them-- if they hate them, they likely just wouldn't play the game. Many players did it because they like the characters in Undertale, and wanted to see what would happen. They couldn't stop playing. And this is exactly what Sans means in his dialogue during his boss battle-- to paraphrase, "you think that because you can, that means you have to."

This is one of the ways that Flowey is a mirror of the player. Flowey didn't start killing out of malicious intent, but because he had become so bored and isolated that he just "had to see what happens".

Chara's role at the very end of the No Mercy route is to call you out directly for this. They tell you that their power was yours. Their words were very misconstrued by fans for a long time, and they themselves wound up as a scapegoat for the No Mercy route-- but ultimately, there's no reason for Chara or Frisk to kill every monster in the Underground. The only reason is because of you, personally. You want to see what would happen. You want to grind and play it like a typical RPG.

They call you out for this if you don't want to delete the game world at the end. Why go back to that world that you've already destroyed? Why play nice with the monsters that you just massacred because you can?

Why am I talking about this at such length? Because I believe that ‘the player’ and how they interact with the world of Undertale is important. Characters lampshade the UI and battle mechanics often-- Flowey talking about the world as a game and ‘saving’ and ‘loading’, Papyrus telling you to “press C to open the dating HUD”, Sans explaining ‘LV’ and ‘EXP’, and so on.

This is my personal opinion, and I recognize this is very nitpicky, but I feel that not acknowledging this or adding to these meta elements in some way makes UTY weaker for me.

Flowey’s Role in UTY

Flowey essentially saves and resets for you because he's bored, and he wants to use Clover as a tool to access Asgore’s five stored human souls. His role as a mirror for the player becomes him essentially just acting as a stand-in for the player. While this in itself can invite self-reflection, I think that the execution of his role is a little awkward.

We learn at the end of the neutral route that Flowey has already reset the timeline hundreds of times by the time we first start playing the game. According to him, Clover always ends up at a dead end (they choose to stay in the Underground for the rest of their life) or they die (and they can’t reset of their own power). Thus, Flowey chose to set Clover on an alternate path by sabotaging a lever in the Ruins, which made them fall into the Dark Ruins and meet Dalv.

Flowey then tries to kill Clover and absorb their soul because they, again, hit a dead end. Yet he gives up on it after a while because Clover won’t stop fighting back, and he thinks he can just reset and try again anyway.

At the end of the true pacifist route, Clover instead opts to sacrifice their soul willingly to Asgore & monsterkind. Flowey comments that he could just reset (and you still can, if you want to play again), but Clover “earned their rest” and he calls them a friend.

This progression from “Clover is a tool that Flowey is using to access the 5 human souls” to “Clover is a friend and Flowey willingly lets them die and stay dead” feels undeserved and underdeveloped to me.

"But, Andrea," you might say, "Flowey went from trying to kill Frisk as Omega/Photoshop Flowey to hugging Frisk as Asriel really quickly too!"

Yes, but in that short time, Frisk and Flowey/Asriel had a Whole Thing where Frisk 'saved' him like everyone else and he learned he needs to let go, too. It was a short time, but it was a poignant time. By contrast, Flowey is pretty much absent throughout most of UTY's true pacifist route. Sure, you could easily say that he just got bored of Clover and gave up-- but that, too, doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I really hate to say this, but I feel that Flowey’s writing in UTY cheapens the original Undertale for me, which is why this is one of my major criticisms of the game.

Flowey's entire character arc in Undertale is about how he was stuck with the same places and same people for an endless amount of resets. In my opinion, the limited amount of places and characters for him to interact with in Undertale only adds to how trapped he is (and the Underground being so small really strengthens the concept of "there's overpopulation and the monsters are running out of time to find a solution/earn their freedom" that we see in the game, but I digress).

So when something finally changes and he meets Frisk, it's deeply impactful to him. Finally, someone new to play with! Finally, potential for change! Even though Flowey admits that, even if Chara came back, there's a great chance that he couldn't really love them due to his lack of soul, just experiencing something new for the first time in ages is as close to love as he can possibly get. So Flowey:

Starts to believe that Frisk is Chara, this person he ‘loves’ or wants to love, or some manifestation of Chara.

Refuses to let Frisk go, even if that means- when Asriel has the power of seven human souls- just resetting the Undertale timeline over and over instead of going to the surface or doing anything else.

For Flowey to have gone through everything that he does in UTY- all these new places, all these new people, Clover included- weakens this, in my opinion. And sure, there's very heavily implied to be lots of places that Frisk doesn't explore and people they don't meet-- 99% of New Home and its residents, for instance. But Clover themselves is the real problem for me.

No matter how many times Flowey reset with Clover, I really struggle to believe that he would get bored of a human being that easily. He even said that Clover's actions and choices would sometimes change from reset to reset, and he only recently learned how dramatically he could alter their path by sabotaging that lever in the Ruins. Clover isn't a static being-- and even if they were, they're at least a new static being.

And although we learn in the neutral route that Flowey can't really absorb Clover's soul because they fight back too much, I can't believe that would stop Flowey so easily. What about at the end of the pacifist route, where Clover has given it up willingly and it's being transported in a little jar? Clover’s body is separated from the soul, now-- could Clover still fight back?

Or, what about if Flowey tried to kill them as soon as they entered the Ruins? Or, what if Flowey played nice the entire route and then at the end tried to convince Clover that if they sacrificed their soul, he would take it to Asgore for them? With access to full control of the timeline, I don't think Flowey would give up on this. We learn in Undertale how painful it is for him to be soulless and how desperate he is to access power so that things will change.

For Flowey to acknowledge Clover as a 'friend'- maybe even a true person, not just a compilation of dialogue- suggests character growth. It suggests remorse for his resets that he isn't capable of having and doesn't have until the events of Undertale. I just don't feel like it’s earned.

Flowey is, of course, an unreliable narrator.

At the end of the no mercy route of UTY, Flowey expresses that he never saw Clover as a friend-- he only enjoyed watching them die over and over again. It should be noted that this was said while under extreme duress (Clover is LV 20 by this point and has killed everyone save for Asgore), and this route isn’t canon in the way that the neutral and pacifist routes are.

With that said, if we agree that Flowey can’t feel love as a soulless being, then I could argue that this is about as much of a ‘friend’ as anyone could be. This is how he wanted to keep Frisk (“Chara”, in his mind) for eternity when he had the six human souls + the entirety of monsterkinds’ souls-- just watch them try over and over again, for eternity.

Why am I contradicting myself? Because, let’s suppose that Flowey doesn’t mean Clover is a ‘friend’ in the traditional sense- that they earned his respect and he cares for them in some way- but Clover is a new toy that he got bored with and gave up on. I feel like this, too, makes Undertale a little weaker.

If Flowey did have some type of positive regard for Clover, but was willing to let them go, then it feels- to me- like Frisk’s role in his story isn’t that significant. Frisk helped him learn how to let go and move on, but Flowey has already demonstrated being capable of this. The circumstances are different- if Flowey gives up at the end of Undertale’s true pacifist route, it’s over for real, whereas if he gives up at the end of UTY, he can just wait for another human to fall- but I feel like the core feeling is the same. Flowey, by the start of Undertale, doesn’t strike me as someone who’s capable of letting go.

So, how would I have changed this?

I recognize that- again- Undertale already made these points about video games and violence, and Flowey has his entire character arc in that game. For Flowey to have more of an arc in this game would potentially make this game no longer line up with canon Undertale or weaken Undertale further. And why retread old ground that Undertale already talked about?

I respect the decision to tell a self-contained story, but the meta commentary about video games in Undertale is so significant for me that I personally would have liked to see a bit more of it in Undertale Yellow. I also recognize how much of my criticism of Flowey’s writing in UTY is subjective. It feels unrealistic for me, his arc feels abrupt for me, it makes Undertale less poignant for me.

A lot of people love his inclusion in this game, and it’s very novel to see Flowey as a friend throughout most of UTY and hear his snarky commentary on demand rather than having him as an enemy who’s absent through most of the game, as he is in Undertale.

The Flowey Suggestions

First, I’ll be honest. I know this is not and has never been possible, but my easiest solution to the dilemma of Flowey’s lack of a character arc- and the lack of an ability to give him a character arc- would have been to just remove him from UTY.

I think that Flowey’s inclusion in the story of the yellow soul human and his role saving and loading could have been interesting. It goes against certain story elements implied in Undertale, and popular fan theories-- and I don’t mind that, if something meaningful is done with it. But, I feel as if Flowey’s relationship to Clover isn’t impactful enough to justify including him.

To clarify on ‘implied story elements’ and ‘popular fan theories’:

While I might be misremembering, I thought that it was implied in Undertale that Flowey came into being after Asgore had already collected six human souls, and that a significant amount of time had passed since the last human had fallen down.

I won’t go into it at length because this post is long enough and I, again, am not an Undertale expert. With that said, it’s also implied that all human souls are capable of saving/loading/resetting in the Underground. If you make Frisk tell Asgore that he killed them before, he just nods as if he’s used to it-- and he’s the one character who we know has killed humans before.

Now, how did Asgore successfully kill beings that can just reset the game whenever they die? Well, Sans faces the same dilemma in Undertale’s no mercy route. There’s no way that he can permanently defeat you, the player, who is a real being. Therefore, the way he ‘wins’ is by infuriating you enough with his difficult boss fight until you give up and stop playing Undertale (or, at least, reset and make better choices).

Think about all the times you’ve played a game, got stuck on a hard boss, and never played it again. While it’s not ‘canon’ to the story- giving up on your copy of Mario doesn’t mean Bowser really wins- functionally, giving up on a game means that the story ends for you. This is how I believe Asgore captured the six human souls, even if they were also capable of resetting like Frisk is-- he fought them until they gave up.

Humans all are said to have great amounts of ‘determination’, not just red soul bearers. We don’t even know what trait the red soul exemplifies. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s determination itself.

The bottom line is that I don’t think it would be unrealistic for Clover to be able to save/load/reset on their own, or for Flowey to not exist yet during the time they fell down.

But, I get it, Flowey was in UTY’s demo that has been out for seven years. He’s in the trailers. He couldn’t be removed at any part of development, and he sure as hell can’t be removed now.

My second suggestion would have been to zoom in on him, instead. While the prequel is about Clover, the yellow soul human, I would have liked to see it be about Flowey in a significant way. I kept hoping for Clover to have an opportunity to ask Flowey at some point, “why are you helping me, anyway?”.

This is my personal interpretation, but I’ve come to believe that Flowey thinks that the reason he’s stuck as a flower is that it’s a punishment. Because he, as Asriel, refused to fight back, he failed Chara, and now they’re dead. Now he’s stuck as a rinky-dink flower with no soul, he can’t love his former family, and he can’t stop playing this game.

In the no mercy route of Undertale, Flowey feels very much like he’s trying to appeal to Frisk- the person he believes is Chara- in a way like a younger sibling trying to impress an older sibling. He says he’s impressed by how you killed everyone. He helps solves puzzles so you won’t have to slow down. He brags to you about how he’s also a heartless killer.

Notably, he talks about his past. He tells ‘Chara’ that he was afraid to start killing, at first. He said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but he just had to know what would happen.

Then, Flowey laughs and says that you (Chara) know how liberating it is to be this way-- to kill people and shape their fates. He ‘recognizes’ Frisk as being actually Chara because of how they killed everyone in the Ruins.

But we have no indication that Chara was a violent or evil person in their life. I believe that Flowey is partially projecting and partially recognizes Chara because, in the last moments of their life, they were telling him to kill. He always knew that Chara hated humanity and wanted power to better the position of monsterkind. This is why Flowey brags about how he has a plan to get the human souls, and once they do so, they can go to the surface and “finish what [they] started.”

To Flowey, in my opinion, killing people isn’t just about seeing what happens. It’s about trying to understand and appease Chara and doing what he thinks he should have done all that time ago, as Asriel.

I bring this up because I think that I would have liked to have seen this be explored in Undertale Yellow. Flowey is still a very misunderstood character today due to being an unreliable narrator. I believe that a lot of Flowey misinterpretations are due to taking him at face value-- hearing him say that he’s an unfeeling, manipulative, patient killer and agreeing with him.

But Flowey contradicts himself at several points. He gives up his “catch these friendliness pellets” trick after you dodging just a few times. These aren’t the makings of a perfect manipulative killer, but an impatient child. That’s who Flowey is at his core-- a child.

I recognize that, again, if Flowey told all of his tragic backstory to Clover and they became true friends, this wouldn’t fit with canon Undertale and his actions in that game. Flowey and Asriel distance themselves from each other, and it wouldn’t make sense for Flowey to tell this to Clover-- especially if he just views them as a tool to use and play with.

I think, however, it wouldn’t have been impossible for Clover to have learned this information about Flowey in a way that could still be canon compliant with Undertale itself. Hypothetically, maybe the “hopes and dreams” statue in the UG Apartments near the Core could have sparked intrigue in Flowey.

Maybe analysis of Flowey could have come up during his neutral route boss fight-- after all, Clover appears to peek into the minds of Ceroba and Martlet during the true pacifist and no mercy run boss fights, respectively. We already get a little of this- Clover has to run through a hallway of flowers in Flowey’s boss fight, and we hear sad and scared dialogue that’s presumably from a past version of Flowey himself. However, it’s not necessarily new and doesn’t quite add to Flowey’s character in my personal opinion.

I feel that including Flowey’s story more in some way would justify having Flowey in the game, and knowing the history of Asriel & Chara could factor into Clover’s decision to give up their soul for the sake of monsterkind. Chara, too, sacrificed themselves willingly, after all.

I don’t have a ‘realistic suggestion’ that could be implemented with a dialogue update because these suggestions are so vast-- and, ultimately, very personal and subjective. I have very strong feelings about Flowey.

Meta Elements of Undertale

In Undertale, you’re asked when you should or shouldn’t fight. As a pacifist, you can get through the Ruins without killing anyone. Flowey will then ask you what you would do if you met a relentless killer. Would you betray your morals and fight? Or would you give up and let yourself die?

Undertale is the friendly RPG where nobody has to die. While you have to kill Asgore at least once to do the neutral route, and you do have to fight back against Omega/Photoshop Flowey to end his battle, the game ultimately posits that there never is a good time to fight. You don’t beat Omega Flowey by being stronger than him, you do it by appealing to the souls and allowing them to rebel. You don’t beat God of Hyperdeath Asriel Dreemurr by beating him up, you do it by saving your friends- him included. The game, again, is about an inversion of the necessity of violence in video games to me.

I would have been interested in seeing an exploration of when it is necessary to fight, and this could be done through the lens of ‘justice’. Would Clover fight if it brought them closer to justice (on a pacifist route)? Is it morally correct to kill one person if it saves thousands?

Sparing someone is always the correct option in Undertale. In that way, the true route is quite linear-- there’s one solution that works for everyone. What if there were situations in UTY in which there is no single correct option that works for everyone? What if Clover were placed in situations in which they had to act as arbiter and decide between two outcomes and what is right? It could have been like how they get forced to solve the trolley problem in the Wild East, but with consequences.

Adding to putting a ‘twist’ on the elements that Undertale introduces with its combat system-- what if sparing someone ultimately enabled them to keep hurting others? What if fighting to weaken someone was the correct solution for once? These inversions could have built on the meta elements of Undertale, and I think that it would make Clover’s decision to sacrifice themselves to bring justice to monsterkind more poignant to me.

Again, I have no ‘realistic’ suggestion for this in the full release of UTY. I think that the plot about justice alone isn’t bad, but I would have been happy to see it tie into the gameplay a little more.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that UTY tries too hard to be Undertale without iterating on the aspects that made Undertale memorable. The characters feel like they fail to pop or relate to the game’s story in meaningful ways, and to me, the main story isn’t executed as well as it could have been (and far darker than the main Undertale in ways that don’t feel as if they’re handled sensitively).

I will say, again, that this project is very impressive in scope, and I applaud the dev team for finishing it and releasing it. I recognize that a lot of my distaste is subjective, and creating another Undertale is a fool's errand considering the acclaim that Undertale got. I recognize one final time that my suggestions are just daydreaming, and this game has already found a lot of success-- which I think it deserves.

I tend to criticize a lot of media I like, which might sound contradictory to some, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I don’t like something, I won’t engage with it. I think that the original Undertale has its flaws, too. At the end of the day, I like UTY, but no media is perfect. This is how I think it could have been better, and I hope that I think other creatives who want to make Undertale fanworks (or any creative works, for that matter) will take these thoughts into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

#bandrea blabbers #long post #the uty post

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king-magppi · 1 year

Text

Yellow Guy's Age

DHMIS Fandom, we need to talk about the infantilization of Yellow Guy. It's Papyrus from Undertale all over again😭😭 seriously. Anyways, I'm tired of seeing a GROWN MAN get depicted as a child by this fandom (I'm not talking about AUs or whatever, I'm talking about in casual fanart and the like). There is plenty of evidence from the show to support that Yellow Guy is, in fact, an adult, and I will list some out for you here:

In episode 1 (Jobs), Yellow Guy falls in love and marries Claire (the wrench person) in the span of the 40 years of working for Peterson's and Son's and Friends Bits and Parts Limited! This would be weird if Yellow Guy had met her as a child and grew up to marry her, wouldn't it? "But all that never even happened!" Yes, it did, because if we're using that logic, nothing from ANY of the other episodes happened because they always end up right back at home with no memory of the day prior regardless! Stay with me here!

In episode 3 (Family), Yellow Guy is seen as old enough by Todney and Lily to be forced into the role of the "Mother" and successfully order the Grolton's Chicken family tub. When the three get home, they proceed to try and open the packet of Chuddle Dollops again. During this scene, Red Guy refers to Yellow Guy as his "brother" rather than a son or any other family member.

In episode 4 (Friendship), it is revealed that Yellow Guy has a maiden name (it's "Rat Eyes" apparently), implying he has been married and/or divorced! Also, this next point might be a stretch which is why it isn't the main one for this bullet, but the first thing Yellow Guy wants to do when they finally get on the computer is "Do Gambling".

In episode 6 (Electricity), Lesley refers to Yellow as "NOT their real son". If they DO in fact happen to be his creator/parental figure, and Roy is his father, then that makes it very well possible that Yellow is at VERY LEAST in his late 20s-30s if Lesley is between 60-70 (the actress that plays Lesley, Vivienne Soan, is 67 years old, so it's safe to assume her character is supposed to be presented as around that age range). Another bit that might be a stretch is that after getting fresh batteries, Yellow Guy is able to do taxes, and even speaks more clearly and "mature" sounding.

Yellow is never referred to as a child by the others and is treated as an equal by all members of the household. They constantly pick on each other and even get in a fistfight at the end of episode 4.

Yellow Guy's voice is deep and does not SOUND like one of a child. If he were supposed to be one, wouldn't they give him a more "childish" voice?

And now I will debunk a few arguments I've seen used against people claiming Yellow Guy being an adult:

"But he dresses in overalls!"

Roy wears overalls too. Does this make him a child? Anyone can wear overalls.

"He's child sized! He MUST be a child!"

Actually, Duck/Green is the smallest one, and they're all puppets. They're gonna be pretty small compared to Red Guy. Also, height =/= age. Remember when the smallest in the house in the Family episode was revealed to be the father? Also, if we're going by height, why isn't Duck considered a child too then?

"He's too stupid/doesn't act like an adult."

We see in episode 6 that the reason he acts the way he does is because his batteries are dying. Also "stupidity" =/= age. Half the time Red Guy and Duck are just as dumb (if not more) than Yellow Guy in their actions So I really don't get why people use this one as an argument. It also feels a bit ableist to consider "not smart" people as children.

Wow. All of this even when I've fully disregarded the Pilot episode (I did this because some of you may consider it "not canon" because it was scrapped) and the webseries. I can't believe I even had to make this post, but it had to be done or else I'd lose my head! Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

#magppi meeps #dhmis #dont hug me im scared #dhmis yellow guy #dhmis manny #dhmis doi #what else do yall call him even #fluffybird #<< to get people to actually see this

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punkeropercyjackson · 2 months

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My 2000s/2010s kid medias wisdom:

Azula deserved a redemption arc and Ty Lee is the girl who got shafted by not being Zuko's love interest

The Soul Society is a military state and Ichigo was a good person for never joining it and Orihime was the best Bleach character

Sasuke was right and Kishimito made him an extremist as ableist victim blaming propaganda and Sakura and Hinata are equally good

Ben 10,including the sequels,is better than Danny Phantom

Flynn Ryder was a creep and a dickhead who didn't deserve Rapunzel

Hiccup was trans but so was Astrid,only transfem instead

Teen Titans is a beyond good show but the influence it's had on DC's comics is bad and Young Justice Animated should've never existed

The Hunger Games and Chronicles of Narnia derserve better than to be grouped in with Harry Potter because Thg is an anti-bigotry story rather than liberal bs and you can actually pull 'Death of the Author' with the problematic elements of Tcon because C.S Lewis is actually dead

Adventure Time is an almost perfect show and so're it's comics and sequel miniseries' and you can't pull 'It's bad because it got too serious in later seasons!!!' as a fact because that was the point,that it was trying to be different from most kids cartoons and it not being your thing dosen't mean it's not good writing

Winx Club,W.i.t.c.h,Totally Spies,The Powerpuff Girls,Kim Possible and MLP are feminist even if they have their flaws and they're brought in a girly packaging because they're meant to be heroes for little girls

Johnny Test is fine and y'all are weird fow visceral your reaction to it was

Percy Jackson and the Olympians dropped the ball by having Percy end up with Annabeth because they're 'destined to' since the point of Percy's story is that he never gets to choose what they actually want and they should've either ended up with Rachel or stayed single to work on character development and healing,Luke never actually cared about other demigods and was only using them as ammo against the gods because if he actually cared he wouldn't have abused them,Toa should've instead been a third Percy series of them destroying Olympus' corruption because they've had enough of the gods and replacing it with an actual good societal system and Percy is a super cool autistic Team Parent who'd be femme and kidcore if Rick bothered to develop their interests

Star Vs The Forces of Evil should've made trans Marco and autistic Star canon,endgamed them with Tom and Janna instead of eachother,made Jackie an mc and done none of that 'no magic' shit

Gravity Falls,We Bare Bears and Undertale/Deltarune's icon status are well-deserved

Craig of the Creek only gets ignored because it's a black show that's good

And She Ra and the Princesses of Power is called cringe nonstop because it's fanbase is largely wlw and trans women who're loud and proud with their queerness and the creator at the time of it's airing identified as a nonbinary lesbian and people hate female queerness while hyping up male kinds that play into stereotypes(Stiles and Derek from Teen Wolf,Magnus and Alec from The Mortal Instruments,the Shiro/Keith discourse,the Boyfriends Webtoon,Marauder's Era even being a thing,etc.Note that i am not calling Stevenson female but rather saying he knows what lesbophobic experiences are)

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moved-to-mettatonsbestie · 6 months

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You know what. I DO wanna know about the religious imagery with Mettaton. Tell me all about it *laying on my chest kicking my feet up in the air*

@therowansweeps @mtt-brand-idiot

Let us start with his name. Remember that majority of the names in Undertale/Deltarune are very particular, whether it be for a funny joke or something with a dual meaning (ex: Toriel is just Tutorial, Undyne being Undying, etc). The etymology is rather important with characters, and Mettaton is certainly no exception. His name is most likely derived from the angel Metatron, found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He was one of the only two humans to attain Heaven in the form of an angel, he was originally a righteous man named Enoch who was gifted with the form of an angel by God once he died. Now, the names being similar could very well be a coincidence, but one must also take note of the fact that Metatron is transliterated as MTT in Greek; which is too much of a coincidence to not be intentional.

So... his name is taken from an angel, which is already an allusion to the notion of deities and religion. Furthermore, this angel in particular is a rather interesting candidate to be compared with Mettaton... Both of these figures were something else entirely before they obtained their true forms, and changed their name along the way. They have even further parallels when you look at the name's meaning and Mettaton's actions. Metatron is most likely derived from the verb memater, which means to guard or protect; very striking when one considers the fact that Mettaton is very much a protector in Genocide/No Mercy Route; he quite literally gives his life to protect the Underground, as a guardian angel would do.

Furthermore, he is quite literally a celebrity, an idol. He even says it himself, he is the idol everyone craves. This is a double entendre, referring to him being a celebrity or figure to look up to, or a literal deity. Deities are all considered idols, they are to be worshipped; the very notion is entirely what his character is about. He loses his humanity, he is no longer a person. Hell, he is not even seen as alive, in his quest to be the true idol for humanity and monsterkind. He is worshipped and adored, yet is it genuine? Do the people know and love the real him? No. He is the heater, the Underground's sexiest rectangle, he is seen as just a robot. He is complacent in this, yet to hide his past and help Alphys he gave his humanity away.

It is a rather cruel twist on the story of Metatron actually... Metatron was given a wonderful gift by his creator, God gave him immortality and the blessing of being truly holy. This transformation into something else was divine, yet the same cannot be said about Mettaton. He was given the body of his dreams, yet it will never come without a terrible cost. His humanity and agency was given away, he even got used for functions he would be completely against; such as his creator giving him human eradication functions to "make him more useful", something the human loving ghost would never agree to until the last possible moments in a Pacifist run. Regardless, Mettaton falls into both the categories of being the idol and being God's pawn, which is rather interesting.

And of course... he is not without true fans either, take Spamton for example. Spamton supposedly spent all of his time praying to an artifact, the very machine that created NEO; which evidently has direct ties towards Mettaton NEO. I honestly never played the Spamton NEO fight yet, so I cannot comment too much on it, however Mettaton is quite literally an overworld being being unknowingly worshipped and prayed to by someone who resides below; this blind faith being found in every religion.

So yeah... Whether it was directly intentional or not, Mettaton as a whole has a decent amount of religious imagery and themes with his character that it becomes rather important to properly dissect him fully. I barely remember writing any of this, he probably possessed me and made me write this.

#asks #mettaton #undertale #sorry for the tagging i just wanted to let yall know i am replying to you #oliver.txt

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