sooo i heard people are now harassing Toby over the So Sorry thing on twitter. Like, calling him a piece of shit and stuff.
Harassing either party makes literally none of this better, for anyone, in any way. Maybe Samael should have created a new character for his backer reward; maybe Toby shouldn’t have put off talking to Sam about his concerns for so long. What happened happened, and being a rude internet dickwad doesn’t undo it or make the other party happy.
i’ve got… a few thoughts… about a thing… that i’ve been seeing a lot recently. i’ll try to keep this as low-sodium as i can lmao
undertale fandom as a whole is a lot more accepting of the idea of chara as a nuanced character with flaws and virtues like the rest of the game’s cast than it used to be. it helps that over the past six months a lot of evidence has been found supporting chara-as-the-game’s-narrator as a real thing. there are still plenty of folks who disagree, but there’s a lot more breathing room for folks who are into that reading.
(if you hadn’t played undertale or interacted much with the fanbase yet back in september/october, for the record back then us team chara folks legit needed our own term for chara-as-not-innately-evil because the evil chara reading was so overwhelmingly popular and the content we wanted to engage with was so difficult to find. we needed our own term so badly that people took my silly soft grunge/a softer world jokes and made them a thing – that’s where the phrase “soft chara” originated. some fun trivia for the day.)
so, before i get too sidetracked recounting Ye Olde Fandom History – my point is, there are a lot more people willing to believe in chara’s potential for goodness now, and thus willing to believe that the no mercy route isn’t chara’s doing.
this growing acceptance generally makes me very happy, but it also leads to the discussion of “so whose fault IS no mercy then?” and, uh.
spoilers: the correct answer to this question is not and will never be “it’s frisk’s fault.”
I cannot remember the last time I saw a piece of American media this sincere.
It’s so passionate and 100% unafraid to be that. The most powerful thing that happens is a ten-year-old shooting rainbow laser beams all over the universe. The world’s best mom and dad parent you and make you feel better. Everyone loves the autistic lizard who cannot slow down her torrential speech about her special interests. You win by trading LOVE for love. There is no snark and snobbery, no deliberate ironic detachment. It’s just real.
And then you come back out into the “real world” and you look around and everything is so pale and distanced by comparison.
So you just want to go back. Over and over and over again. And you’re even tempted to do (or watch) violence to this world you love because you want more of it so badly and that’s the only way to see something new. And then you realize that’s exactly what the ten-year-old with rainbow lasers is actually screaming about and why he’s doing it.
Every time you’ve loved something and didn’t want it to be over, that’s the same thing you’re struggling against. This time, and every other time you’ve felt that way, that’s what he’s feeling, and why he’s fighting you. He just wants more of this game so badly he’s willing to do it all over again for even just a little bit more. You get it. You feel like that about this too.
He says you’re the only one who still understands him, and why he wants to do this over and over. And it’s true. You are, in fact, literally resonating with his feelings. You also want to see it again, and you want to see more, and differently, and yet it feels like the world is ending– in the past you wanted to see the finale, but now you don’t want it to end.
But even if you both want it to go on, even if you want to let him win, you aren’t in control of what’s going to happen anymore. The battle proceeds automatically. You have to endure it and then accept when it’s over. You can’t just let him win so you have a reason to play it again.
In the end you have to give in and let everyone go, but it hurts that it’s done. Everyone please love the Flowey who asks you not to reset, all right? Because when you’re sad for things to end and you want to replay, that’s how he feels about it, too, but he won’t make you do that. And you’re the only one who shares that feeling, and you’re even leaving him behind. And he’s letting you go.
as we know, monster souls are made of love, compassion, and hope.
losing hope or love or compassion can result in a monster ‘falling down’ or essentially dying.
chara is continually called ‘the future of humans and monsters’. monsters would have known of the Prophecy, that an angel will descend and bring the monsters freedom. there had to have been some that believed that Chara, fallen from the surface, would be that angel.
asriel was their prince, their next ruler. between the two of them, there was finally hope in the underground.
when that was taken away, at the least, 13% of monsters died.
we know approximately how many monsters there are total at ‘present times’, due to the countdowns in no mercy runs, where the goal is to grind, to kill every single monster that can be encountered. ( 20 for ruins, 16 for snowdin, 18 for waterfall, 40 for hotland/core, plus boss monsters ( toriel, papyrus, glad dummy, undyne, muffet, royal guards, mettaton neo, sans, asgore, flowey ) 105 total.
then those npcs who evacuate or are able to get out your way ( known ones: 22 for snowdin, about 10 for waterfall, 13 for hotland, 11 for the resort, 8 shopkeepers. ) bringing our total to 169
then, on the generous end, add in about? 75 monsters for those in New Home. there are roughly 239 monsters in the entire underground at the time of Frisk’s run.
we know a minimum for how many monsters ‘fell down’ in alphys time, which couldn’t have been much before Frisk falls into the Underground. at least, we know how many monsters fell down ‘outside the city’, as we can determine how many monsters make up each amalgamate. ( 6 for each memoryhead, at least 5 for endogeny, 3 for reaper bird, at least 3 for lemon bread, 17 for snowdrake’s mom, at least 1 for the one that tucks Frisk in ) 35 monsters at a minimum.
265 monsters total and even with six souls in their possession, when there was only one more soul to go, when hope should be at it’s peak, 13% of monsters died.
how many monsters had fallen done before? when hope was initially taken way? how many monsters died when they learned that ‘the future of humans and monsters’, that their prince had died, at humans hands?
with huge percentages of his kingdom literally dying because they did not have hope, no wonder asgore acted as he did. not to excuse the lives he took, but to put it into some form of perspective. his people were dying.
Yes, I totally agree with the above.
A hopeless monster would likely be more physically vulnerable to “falling down” then a monster with hope in their hearts.
Since monsters don’t get “sick” like humans do, because we have to maintain physical health for our physical bodies, monsters on the other hand have t stay emotionally healthy to maintain their magical bodies. They have to keep their spirits up in order to thrive.
Which explains how a monster like laughing, smiling old Gerson:
is able to live for so long without “falling down.”
This could also explain why at Chara’s deathbed Toriel and Asgore are trying to encourage Chara to wake up by staying determined:
Because for a monster hope is the best medicine.
Interesting idea. Potentially puts Mettaton’s role as an entertainer and Undyne’s as The Heroine Who Never Gives Up in a new light too.
For creating a character whose name is both a combination of his mother and father’s name, and an anagram for SERIAL MURDERER (which he later becomes) AT THE SAME TIME.
Also a reference to the Archangel of Death, Azrael.
(Plus both parents have names that stand up well in their own right. Toriel sounds like tutorial, which is kinda what she is, and Asgore sounds appropriately menacing and medievally regal while Dreemur sounds fluffy, friendly, and idealistic.)
honestly just really like undertale 