#'Don't just spare characters because this is an Undertale game and that's what you're 'supposed' to do. I want you to actually think about

[abandoned-quiche]

i think what undertale fangames should really strive for is to push undertale's themes of mercy to the edge - push the PLAYER to see what their limits are on who deserves mercy.

[panie-wanie-dean-bean]

Ok, sorry, I just need to rant about my version of Swap Sans

So, to me, the main building blocks of Underswap is that the characters who are swapped swap both their vibe and their place. What does this mean? Well, the place thing is easy, it just means that whenever you're supposed to meet a character you will meet their swapped counter part instead (That's why Asgore is in the Ruins) The vibes thing is a little trickier

I say vibes rather than personality for a reason, they don't swap personalities in my version of the au. Sans still loves puns, Papyrus is still a little obsessed with humans and puzzles, and Asgore still loves to garden! Their vibes are just a little different. Sans actually has the motivation to get up in the morning, Papyrus can now sit still on occasion, stuff like that. But they're still themselves, and that's what I find so fun about them

See, when you get to Snowdin town the boss you have to beat to get to Waterfall is Sans, as you may expect. But this Sans is still the Sans you meet in Undertale proper, and we all know how he can fight when he goes all out. So he doesn't!

So long as you're doing a neutral or pacifist run his fight is more like a test! He straight up tells you that he has 1 HP and any hit will kill him, so you'll need to show him how good you are at ACTing and talking your way out of fights. This is for a few reasons, but one I'll mention is that he's still really close to Toriel in this au. And some part of him wants to hope that maybe, maybe if you're skilled enough, his friend won't have to kill another human and break herself down even further

So it's a pretty easy fight, about as easy as the Papyrus fight in Undertale. He even offers to take you on a date for all the trouble, which is just as silly as the Papyrus date. But all of that is assuming that you play along

If you take your chance to attack him during the fight, he'll dodge out of the way. He'll scold you but chalk it up to butter fingers and let you off the hook. Do it three times though, and his eyelights go out. His smile drops. and he lets out a great sigh

"Huh, I don't know what I expected. Jokes on me for thinking it might be different this time I guess. Alright kid, you want a fight? I'll give you one"

And the fun little fight you were supposed to have early in the game goes full genocide run. He does not hold back, he does not show mercy, and he will taunt you about how many times he's killed you if you try hitting him again once you respawn. This Sans is VERY aware of your timeline shenanigans and unlike Undertale Sans, he has the motivation to cut your little game short before you can do any real harm

If you're doing a geno run he doesn't even pretend to like you once Pap is out of ear shot. He wants you dead, and the only reason he waits at all when he sees you step out of the Ruins covered in dust is because of how much faith he has in his brother. Surely someone as nice, and confident, and cool and Papyrus could get you to turn your ways around, right? If you were doing a geno run but don't clear out all the monsters before you fight Sans he'll have something to say about it

"Wow, look at you. Honestly, I didn't think it would work, but look at you! You've changed a lot huh? Sure, all that dust won't come out easy, but you haven't added to it since you got here. Want a medal? Look, I still don't trust you, but you've shown me there's at least some part of you that doesn't want to murder anything that moves. So I'll let you pass though to Waterfall, we don't even have to fight. Just hit that Spare button and we walk away like none of this ever happened"

He's true to his word too. You can go on a neutral run from here. But if you take this moment of Mercy to show Sans your true colors, he isn't prepared for it. Your attack hits him hard, bringing him to his knees as he starts to bleed. He laughs, telling you he should have expected as much from you, giving you one last warning to stay the fuck away from his brother before walking off screen. Getting to the tree line before his dust scatters into the snow, only leaving his little blue bandana for Papyrus to find later

[invertedfate]

Hey different anon here, i always thought floweys actions in the canon was supposed to be a kind of dark reflection of the players own actions, and a parallel with how WE treat video games. I never really thought it had anything to do with trauma, cause like think about it, how many players abuse save states in video games to get away with evil shit? Most of them i would wager, and if you had the power to save, load, and reset, maybe you WOULD start to treat even your own reality like a video game.

Like, is it wrong when flowey does these things when we do the same? Because to him its real but to us its just a game or is it ok for him to do so because it really IS a game.

And flowey DID say he also spared everyone, in the same sentence he said he killed everyone, implying both are things he doesnt really place value in doing, he didnt do it for fun, he did it because he got bored, and we do the exact same things in video games when we play one a bunch, we start to experiment, we start seeing how different "npcs" react to different situations, we start making challenges for ourselves, we start analyzing characters and putting way more thought into their actions then the person who wrote them probably did.

When flowey has that power taken away from him, only then does he start to change from this desensitizing and feel intense emotion like rage when you don't do what he wants, or fear when you're about to kill him, both are caused by him not being used to not being in control, he spent so long being the one who gets to "play" the world that he can't accept a world he's not the "player" in.

Another factor might be that not having a soul inhibits his ability to feel empathy, but thats just headcanon, sorry for this long tangent, i just really like flowey, favorite character in undertale, just wanted to express my thoughts since everyones talking about him.

I think from a metatextual level, Flowey 100% is meant to be a dark mirror of the player, which is likely why his full backstory is only given in geno, since at that point you're treading a similar path as him if you go all the way on that route. That being said, I don't think there's a lack of trauma. At the end of the day, the buttercup plan involved watching his best friend/sibling die, said sibling sharing control of his transformed body (which is implied to be VERY unsettling in appearance), his refusal to take a single SOUL, which led to his death, and then awakening in a new form, unable to connect to others the way he used to and assuming he was broken as a result of it. He did try to take his own life, after all, and only came back from it because he got scared and his determination brought him back. His power allowed him to avoid consequences and grow detached, of course, but there is absolutely room to read trauma as a PART of how he got to be this way. Not the sole factor, but a pretty significant one, especially if you interpret his loss of compassion as an undiagnosed PTSD symptom misunderstood due to toxic positivity culture among monsters. e.g. this idea that their souls are made of love, hope, and compassion and that makes them different/better than humans. Considering how many monsters force smiles to deal with their pain, I legit this mindset is super harmful to all monsters and they might not even realize it. Flowey is a great and complex character, and losing his abilities definitely also impacted his actions, for sure. I definitely am not a fan of the immense woobification of Asriel in the fandom, like, at all, and it's part of why this arc in IF is taking its time to do more character exploration and stuff since in UT, a lot of his depth is locked behind a route the game actively doesn't want you playing.

[star-light-shadows]

You know, a lot of people cite that we can beat up or ally enemies in Deltarune and it doesn't drastically change the ending as evidence that "Your choices don't matter" is the real theme of the game, but, like, when you think about it, doesn't that just give the player freedom to make that choice without ruining the ending they're going for?

Like, narratively, the big difference between Undertale and Deltarune is that Deltarune doesn't portray fighting as a sin. In the Deltarune universe, defeating enemies through attacking them just results in the enemy running away. Unless you actively seek out the weird route, Kris and co aren't murderers.

You are (sort of) encouraged to play without violence in chapter 1, but that's moreso a part of Chapter 1's specific narrative arc. An arc that ends with a message that falls more in the middle. Then chapter 2 doesn't actively encourage it at all.

You're allowed to play Deltarune like a normal RPG and use force to get through everyone in your path to the salvation of the world. And there are changes that this causes, but they aren't like Undertale where you've got an inescapable mark on your soul(LoVe) that disqualifies the player from getting the best ending.

And really, when you think about it, the ability to choose between Fighting and Mercy has always played second fiddle.

Even in Undertale, where it was central to the themes of mercy and the subversion of RPGs' idea of Monsters, it still ultimately plays second fiddle to the story and writing. Mainly because it boils down to choosing one of 3 narratively rigid routes and doing the same thing the entire game in order to pursue said route. (The only real changes you can do being in the Neutral route, which by design, gets the player nowhere aside from understanding the ins and outs of the characters a little more.)

And if you take that away, and look at it purely in the context of the basic RPG Battle System that both games use as the foundation of their encounters, it's even more of a second fiddle to the bullet hell mechanics.

If the theme of Deltarune is supposed to be the power of choices, that our choices DO matter, then it actually makes infinitely more sense to do what Deltarune is doing.

Making it so that the player can choose to fight or ally normal enemies, and it won't drastically change the narrative. It will change things and have consequences, but not game-changing consequences that dictate the entire story you experience.

The choice to fight or spare plays second fiddle to the bigger, more important, storyline focused choices you make throughout the game.

[a-snow-decahedron]

Hi! I hope that you're doing well. For the Send Me a Character meme, would you like to talk about Flowey? Thank you!

FLOWEYYY It's always a good time to talk about him ngngnlf

First impression

"i know people who play Undertale distrust flowers i bet im gonna do the same but let's pretend i'm going blind- Oh crap." He's so mean and awful and uuuuugh once i finished the game i felt like he was the type of character you're supposed to prove wrong.

Now, the stuff he says if you spare him in neutral routes got me intrigued and well, they pushed me to look more into him.

Impression now

He's so important to me! I think his arc and ideals are so interesting to explore. I LOOOVE the way that he's an example of what a player would try to do with the power of resets and loads. I honestly just wished we got to see more of him mid game, but I guess getting glimpses of his influence is good too. I did walk on him stalking Frisk on my first playthrough.

Favorite moment

No Mercy conversation in New Home. All of it. The transition between his first life and his second, the tragedy of it, the way his views are affected by the paths he's explored. God I love that so much.

Idea for a story

Him piecing together how the world has changed after his death, him calling out other characters... And another with him questioning his identity and his choices. Like, if you could pick any route, which route is more authentic to yourself? I'd love to read or make a story to explore the dillution of identity brought by the multiple routes and attempts.

Unpopular opinion

He does not need a soul or be able to have feelings to be saved and live a good life. As much as the idea of saving Asriel is attractive, I don't like it when that it undoes who he became when he was a flower. I just look at the dialogue he has if you try to do a true reset and cannot see him as just a shell of what he once was. He's changed, sure, but the route to recovery doen't have to be about reverting who he was. I think accepting that is a lot better and welcoming to those who have trouble understanding other's feelings too.

Favorite relationship

I'm intrigued by his friendship with Papyrus. I think it's a genuine friendship, at least, he genuinely cares about Papyrus enough to know about him more than the average person. Papyrus would make him better to.

Alphys is also an interesting one, because she Would recognize him as a product of her experiments. God that would be so messed up. I would love to read more about that.

Favorite headcanon

He plays drums, he can have multiple limbs and he's gonna use them to be loud and obnoxious. But he could be a great drummer eventually so, good for him. He lurks on the surface, but doesn't wanna face most of the main cast, except maybe Frisk and Papyrus.

[wendell-or-something]

I never really felt like Undertale itself was being self righteous... I felt like it was trying to be self aware, but this addition is correct in saying that the genocide route is a significant part of the game. I think Flowey, the one that calls out the player, isn't meant to be taken as an objectively correct character. Flowey is just the one that happens to know everything, and this is just what he has to say about it. besides... the reason why Flowey calls you out isn't really to call you a sicko. it's to draw a parallel between you and him. he places himself in an antagonistic role in the story, for the same reason that you eventually do the same. curiousity... wanting to see what happens.

basically, he's saying "don't blame me, you did it too!" which aligns you with the villain, sure... but this isn't a villain you were meant to destroy. you weren't supposed to kill him. you're not supposed to condemn yourself either. Undertale isn't about blame, it's about forgiveness. and maybe overexposure, or time, or precedent is making the message feel cheap nowadays, but it's an interesting thing to explore from a story angle.

I think that in the pacifist run, when you spare Flowey, you do it because you know you're supposed to. you're doing the "spare everything" run, and by that point, it's just pushing buttons. but Flowey really hasn't made a case for himself yet. in the genocide route, you come to understand his motives, because you are doing everything for the same reason he does. by the time you've done all that work, you really do end up asking yourself why you're doing it. and if you come up with an answer for yourself, then you'll have your answer for him too.

from there, it's really up to you to decide how you feel about that. you have to make a choice about how real or fake you want this game to be to you. it can be real enough that you vow not to replay it after you finish the pacifist route, or fake enough that you can do the genocide route without batting an eye. but I don't think leaning 100% in either direction is the intended experience. you're supposed to do both, and feel what it's like to situationally invest or detach. Flowey actively makes a case for detachment from the story, while the other characters actively make a case for attachment to the story. I think it's intentional that certain parts of the game make you want to lean in or maintain distance. it's cool to see Undertale wring so many different responses and interpretations out of people.

Dont know if you’ve talked about it anywhere, but what problems did you have with Undertale? Im super curious!

Messaging is too heavy handed, the game gives you multiple ways to play where one is the Correct way and one is the Bad way and the correct way to play the game is frustrating, it's an RPG that actively insults you for wanting to play an RPG and more than anything it's an entire video game based around what should have been a shitty college humor skit from 2011 (like "OMG what if you stomped on a goomba but the goomba had a whole life with like goals and ambitions and dreams and he had a wife and kids at home" like that kinda hokey ass game theory ass "MARIO is actually a GENOCIDAL MANIAC" type beat you know?)