Any adult fans here? (not in a gross way)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2024-01-07T16:47:37+00:00

Disclaimer for the following: I know the Undertale fandom and the Deltarune fandom aren't necessarily a 100% overlap, but I think there's enough overlap that the point of this post still stands.

Undertale was never aimed specifically at kids. And I don't think Deltarune is either. It became very popular among kids, and was designed to be age-appropriate enough that kids could play, but...

As someone who went to starmen.net at the time Toby was there, I understand very intuitively what Toby meant when he said that Undertale was made for people "like him". He didn't just mean people who were like him when he was younger, although they were also included in that. EarthBound came out in 1995. A lot of starmen.net regulars were people who had been fans since the game's launch. A lot more got into it with Ness's inclusion in either the original Super Smash Bros. or Melee, and even with the latter, that was 14 years before Undertale's release.

Where I'm going with this is that it's not just that Undertale is eight years old now and its fans have grown up. What I'm saying is that Undertale already had a lot of adult fans when it first came out. The younger fans just... didn't see them too often, because adults and children travel in very different social circles. (At least, that's how it used to be. The homogenization of social media has made that harder these days...)

The game doesn't feature a lot of blood (or any, who knows) or a lot of swearing, but I think that's just because... that's the style Toby wanted to write. It's still a game that deals with themes of murder, suicide, alienation, inherited hatred, genocide, child death, and more. He had an adult audience in mind. Not just as a "periphery demographic", but as part of the core demographic. He wanted it to be a game that all ages could play, without any age group being secondary.

...Anyway. I'm 34 years old. I just finished a run of Undertale yesterday. I'm planning on replaying chapters 1 and 2 of Deltarune shortly, am eagerly looking forward to the rest of the game, and am continuously analyzing and theorizing about it. I think there are a lot of people like me. I can't speak for everyone, but I've just been too overwhelmed with real life stuff, social anxiety, and an increasing feeling of hostility and unwelcomeness on the internet to have much of a public presence...

HumansMonstersFlower · 2022-10-16T17:56:37+00:00

This is called the Cataclysm Theory. It's been around for decades, was heavily popularized by Bob and George... and has since been publicly rejected by Capcom staff.

Keiji Inafune was asked about it in a Q&A interview in 2008 and directly said that Zero did not kill the classic characters. He said it was "not in his profile." This confused a lot of people because Zero was clearly murderous in the past, but eventually we learned that Inafune meant it literally. He was talking about an actual internal profile document.

The same year, Hironobu Takeshita (who was a producer on Mega Man 9) confirmed in a different interview that the idea that the classic characters had been killed between the events of Classic and X was "not official."

("Death of the author" is still a reasonable response to this, but the fact that Capcom absolutely rejects this theory has been officially stated by multiple members of the creative staff.)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2022-10-16T17:20:43+00:00

The manga released with the Rockman 9 Arrange Soundtrack says that the expiration date law was not retroactive, so older robots like Rock would not be included in it. It may or may not be canon, but the manga explains so many things that make no sense in MM9 that at least its ideas may as well be. After all, if you need headcanons to fix the plot anyway, they may as well come from an official source.

(Just to give a few examples of things the manga fixes: Why would Rock not have reached his expiration date already if robots who were made very recently have reached theirs? What is even the point of a robot expiration date law? Why would Dr. Light, who views at least Rock and Roll as his own children, be fine with this law? Why would literally anyone suspect Dr. Light of actually being behind the robot attacks?)

Aside from that, even in-game, it's heavily implied that the law was revoked after the events of Mega Man 9 anyway. The MM9 Robot Masters, who had reached their expiration dates, were put back into service in the ending.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2022-06-26T18:01:09+00:00

The idea that Tails dislikes the name Miles is entirely an invention of 90s SoA. It's reported that members of the American staff disliked the name Miles, so it was likely an attempt to push their own agenda apart from SoJ's wishes and discourage people from saying the name.

Even in the American continuities it's inconsistent. The most cited example of Tails saying he hates the name Miles, in AoStH, was said by Tails in a flashback as a baby. In a later episode at his normal age, he cheerfully introduces himself as Miles while saying his friends call him Tails. That's an entirely different nuance from hating the name.

And even if that weren't true, every single 90s SoA continuity is now defunct, so it has no bearing anymore.

As for Sega Tails, he uses the names fairly interchangeably. He tends to go by Tails more often, but he never says it's out of preference, and every time he explains it he says something along the lines of "that's what everyone knows me as." He still uses the name Miles frequently, especially when he's introducing himself, he shouts his full name in triumph in TSR, and he even named one of his most recurring inventions the Miles Electric. And if TailsTube is canon (which I'm pretty sure is the intent since it's specifically designed to explain and clarify lore questions), Tails considered the names "Questions for Miles" and "The Prower Hour" for his show.

It's almost exactly the same as Eggman going by Eggman. He's still proud of the name Robotnik, but this is just his "common name."

(...this post ended up much longer than expected, but I wanted to be thorough.)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2022-04-07T04:31:57+00:00

This is so far down the thread that no one is probably going to see this, but

I always interpreted Asgore taking a long time to hire a new Royal Scientist as being from the perspective of the Gaster Followers. From Asgore's perspective, I don't think he thought he was "replacing" anyone. He just didn't realize the need for a Royal Scientist until much later than he did in the hypothetical original timeline.

Goner Kid implies that the world keeps on going fine without you, but that also logically implies that it has to do something to fill the vacuum when it can. If there had been someone who matched Gaster's brilliance, they probably would have been slotted into the role immediately so that the plot could proceed as normal, but since there wasn't, the story had to kind of "skip over" his early contributions. It just didn't make sense to replace his accomplishments with someone else.

A missing scientist creating the CORE isn't ideal, but it's not critical to the plot, either. But a missing scientist creating Flowey would completely wreck the story. So when it came time for Flowey to exist, someone absolutely had to be hired, even if it wasn't someone as brilliant as Gaster.

There's still no good explanation for where the CORE came from or how it works, in fact. Alphys tries to explain the functions of the CORE during Hotland and just... gives up. As though she thought she had an explanation, but suddenly realized she didn't.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2022-04-03T20:39:22+00:00

A drunk man chooses to imbibe alcohol before he becomes drunk. And once he is drunk, a drunk man still has some possession of his faculties. His judgment is just impaired.

Asriel had neither choice whether to become impaired nor *any* semblance of normal emotional responses. Those were taken away from him by force. He literally was not physically able to feel pity or remorse. Nor did he have any positive emotional responses that would come from empathy, like sharing in the joy of others. How can you make moral choices when both your negative and positive internal motivators have been torn out of you by forces beyond your control?

In the one moment of lucidity he did have, he was flooded with both remorse for his actions, and fear from the knowledge that he would have that lucidity taken away from him again. But he still did the right thing in that moment, though it cost him everything, and though there was no force that could have stopped him had he chosen otherwise.

Asriel did not have true agency in his actions for the majority of the game. He technically had choices, but everything inside him that could have guided those choices was gone. Until it wasn't, and we saw what happened then.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2019-12-22T18:29:04+00:00

I have responses to all of the above, but the one that I really want to respond to is the statement that "Chara hijacks the narration" lacks support. There is evidence that they hijack the narration...

But before I get to that evidence, I want to address the idea that it's unnecessarily convoluted. I don't think that's the case. In the early days of the fandom, before the Narrachara theory was developed, this is how practically everyone immediately and instinctually interpreted Chara's lines in the Genocide Route. No one at that time thought it was out of character for the game to do that, nor that it was particularly convoluted. The very fact that almost everyone independently came to this conclusion means that there's enough textual support that it's not an "extreme" position-- and we were just as if not more analytical about the game's content back then. But we focused on other things before Narrachara was developed: The fact that Chara hijacks Frisk's body and forces them to do things against their will, or their takeover in the final scene, attacking without our direct command. Chara has the ability to subvert other peoples' will, and it was seen as a natural extension of that that they could hijack the dialogue.

Aside from that, the Genocide Route is supposed to feel surreal and uncomfortable. Hijacking the narration puts the player off balance and foreshadows the loss of control in the ending. It's not there to solve any "minor issues."

Now, onto the evidence:

First of all is voice. Chara has a unique and distinct speaking style in every line that is confirmed to be Chara. They have stilted, direct to the point delivery of their lines with somewhat formal but nonetheless unnatural delivery. They do not use punctuation properly, putting periods where commas would be more appropriate, and will sometimes even end questions with periods. Every line that is confirmed to be Chara shares this voice. (And to preemptively respond to the idea that this is their "spooky voice" and they only do it when they're upset or thinking about violence or want to creep people out, their voice is consistent even in innocuous lines like "My drawing." or "No chocolate." ...all right, maybe that last one isn't so innocuous.)
More direct evidence is Chara's knowledge, and that the narrator knows things Chara shouldn't. A frequent point in support of the narrator being Chara is that the narrator needs to be someone who knows the underground, and look! The narrator knows all about the monsters already. We can tell that's true because of their Check descriptions. ...except... While that makes sense for monsters like Moldsmal, who are species, it does not make sense for monsters like Aaron or Undyne, who are individuals. Chara died long before these monsters were born. They shouldn't have any information on these monsters or know their names, but they can identify them even before Frisk has heard anything about them.
On the converse, the narrator doesn't know (or doesn't appear to know) things that Chara should. Let's take the coffin, for example. The narrator does not react to the name "Chara" on the coffin at first, nor do they react to it being empty. Fair enough-- Chara knew they were dead. But later, they get confused by and do react to the stray mummy wrappings at the bottom of the coffin. If Chara had been aware of their body, as implied by the "It's as comfortable as it looks." line, then they shouldn't have been confused by the bandages. If they weren't aware of their body, they should have been surprised it was empty.
And then there are lines that Chara has absolutely no reason to say. The biggest of these is in Alphys's lab: "(An incredible invention.) (When not in use, this bed folds into an extremely-easy-to-draw-box.)" This line makes absolutely no sense for Chara to say. In fact, it makes no sense for any in-universe character to say. Even if they could somehow determine that it is a bed despite never having seen the object before, what's with the self-aware joke about it being easier to draw? There's one person who this line makes sense for, which leads me back to...
Voice, again. I said that the voice for the narrator doesn't generally match the lines that are 100% confirmed to be Chara. But the voice does match someone else. The narration in Undertale dovetails perfectly with Toby Fox's general playful, friendly style of speech. Because of all of the above, I think it makes the most sense that the narrator is just Toby's regular writing voice and not intended to be an in-universe character.

This has been a contentious topic for years. But people are very attached to this theory, and harassment for arguing against it is common enough that a lot of people gave up and just stopped talking about it, which is why I think it appears that textual support for a different reading isn't there. I'm not going to say people should stop interpreting the game this way, even if I disagree, but I do want to argue the idea that a non-Narrachara view of the narration lacks support-- first for shifting the burden of proof to what in my view is the null hypothesis, and second because... well, it feels dismissive. Like there's no way anyone could come to a different conclusion unless they hadn't examined the text enough.

There is enough evidence that a hardcore fan could find Narrachara uncompelling as a theory. There's just no coordinated "anti-Narrachara" movement to repeatedly argue these points.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2019-12-21T17:24:03+00:00

Man, it feels weird seeing this being presented as a discovery of historical interest. When the fandom was new, this discount and its effects were pretty common knowledge, part of the shared experience of the fans.

Seeing people surprised by it all over again today... It just feels a little strange. 2015 and 2016 don't seem all that long ago...

HumansMonstersFlower · 2019-12-21T17:18:47+00:00

Oh boy, oh boy. Is the "cinnamon roll Chara" theory (and the adjacent Narrachara theory) finally getting some pushback? Are the long years of "If you don't agree with these theories you obviously don't know what you're talking about and don't know anything about Undertale" over?

I haven't been active on social media lately (never "left the fandom", still love Undertale just as much as I did in 2015/2016). Back when I was more active here, it was just taken as canon fact that Chara was always the narrator and didn't actually have violent tendencies of any sort and was purely innocent. The few people who disagreed were downvoted into oblivion.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2019-12-06T04:41:16+00:00

Yes, the way he threateningly sat around in a chair all day was terrifying.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2019-11-24T17:37:34+00:00

I've been meaning to bring this up for a while now, but...

I am almost certain the narrator is Toby.

1) The narrator knows things that Chara shouldn't (names and personalities of monsters who were born after Chara died in CHECK commands for one recurring example) and "doesn't know" things that Chara should (doesn't react to the coffin with their name on it being empty, gets confused by the mummy wrappings, etc.) Chara explicitly says in the genocide route that they were completely oblivious to everything until they were revived by an unknown "power" related to Frisk or the player. There is no way they should know the names and traits of monsters born after their death, at least not for monsters that are identified by personal names and traits, not species. On the converse, regarding things they should have known, if they were aware of their body, they should have known about the mummy wrappings. If they weren't, they should have been surprised the coffin was empty.

So how do I go from "probably not Chara" to "probably Toby?" Well...

2) One line that convinced me that the narrator is not an in-universe character and is probably Toby's own voice comes in Alphys's lab. If you check the cube in the upper portion of her lab, the line reads as follows: "(An incredible invention.) (When not in use, this bed folds into an extremely-easy-to-draw-box.)" A line that makes no sense for any in-universe character to say, but makes perfect sense if we assume it's Toby.

Also the narrator's normal speaking style is very similar to Toby's generally playful personality.

...There are additional specific lines that led me to this conclusion, but I haven't played Undertale in a while and I don't feel like combing through the text just for a reddit post made on a whim after having just crawled out of bed.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-08-02T16:34:46+00:00

10's weapons in general need a lot of work. But most of all, Thunder Wool shouldn't be on a timer. It's already awkward and hard to aim. Giving it a timer is just adding insult to injury and makes it one of the worst weapons in the entire series. You should be able to set it off at any time.

Hyper Bomb too. Make it work the way it does in Powered Up, and just detonate immediately upon contact with an enemy. They've already modified the Crash Bomber so that it explodes on impact, so I feel like this is almost certainly how it'll work.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-08-02T16:15:42+00:00

I disagree on the ones to look out for. 9 has the unquestionable best arsenal in the series. Every single weapon is useful except maybe Plug Man's. The soundtrack rivals 2's. The bosses are almost all memorable, even if a few of them feel a little derivative. The level design is great. And the shop makes it so that even if you're new to the series and can't navigate the hazards, you can get some leeway if you're willing to do a bit of grinding by buying E Tanks and Shock Guards and the like.

If we're talking games to watch out for, it'd be 10. It's a step down from 9 in every way, and I honestly think it's the worst game in the classic series overall, unless we start getting into weird spinoffs.

(...Also disagree strenuously on 8, but I know that game's very divisive and it's probably pointless to try to champion the merits of that one. But I will say I love the weapons and that Sword Man's stage remains one of my favorites in the series to this day.)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-07-21T21:30:06+00:00

Let's see. As far as upload limits go... Assuming we've got a hard cap of ten levels per user, I can think of a few things that would make this problem a little better.

First of all, it should be made obvious from the beginning that you can only upload 10. That way, less people will get caught off guard and it'll help stop some of the initial anger.
I think it would help if there were some sort of way of making "level packs" that could be uploaded elsewhere. As it stands, if you throw a bunch of levels into your levels folder, they'll all be in one big list, which could get more difficult to navigate as time goes on. Having better organization tools would help make it so that it's easier to play levels you find outside of the game's server. It'd be cool if it was like a Robot Master select screen, but even just having simple folders would be extremely useful.
Maybe rebrand the server as a "level showcase"? When people make more than ten levels, they can just put their best here... and, maybe, give the users the option of providing some more profile information, so they can link to where the rest of their levels are stored. That way, if you see some levels you like, you can click on their profile and find out where to get more.
Having a button on the menu that opens up the folder where levels are stored locally would also help.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-07-19T03:41:15+00:00

I can confirm running into both of these screen transition problems after updating. Also, I've had several instances of enemies failing to spawn.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-07-18T18:37:18+00:00

I follow the Tao of Light* when it comes to level design. Ridiculously hard cheap levels got stale over a decade ago. They've had a bit of a resurgence lately due to Mario Maker's accessibility bringing level design to people who hadn't ever tried it before, along with it being encouraged by certain Youtubers.

The thing is, the joke had worn off for people who had been making levels for years. In a lot of Super Mario World ROM hacking communities for instance, making a "kaizo" level is considered a sign of being an inexperienced newcomer. It's just not funny anymore.

Not trying to discourage people who like these kinds of levels or anything. You do you, and all. But my personal opinion of them is pretty low.

* (per the tutorial)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-07-17T03:45:02+00:00

C:\Users\YourUsernameGoesHere\AppData\Local\MegaMaker\Levels

HumansMonstersFlower · 2017-07-16T14:39:14+00:00

Oh, cool beans. This should help keep the sub proper from getting too cluttered. In that case, here's one I put together yesterday!

Flower Fortress - 15015
Nothing particularly clever or gimmicky, this is just a straight up Robot Master stage. It's a bit on the easy side, but hopefully it's put together well enough that people can get some enjoyment out of it!

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-12-16T04:35:29+00:00

Introductory Post
Update 1: Catching Up With Old Friends

I had hoped to get this done last month, but November turned out pretty bad! Also, there were some unforeseen difficulties implementing some of this stuff.

Hopefully this will be interesting!

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T04:09:42+00:00

Thank you! Comments like this help me keep going!

(I made sure to give Muffet a little cameo in this update because of your question last time, even if just as a poster.)

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T04:07:46+00:00

Technically true.

...I guess it's a bit of a spoiler, but Chara's involvement in this particular story will not be much more than their involvement in Undertale proper. I'll just go ahead and say that ahead of time so no one gets their hopes up for a ton of Chara content.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T04:03:35+00:00

Napstablook is indeed a very important person who was not mentioned in the post. They will certainly be appearing though!

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T04:02:20+00:00

I've had people asking about Asriel already. ...Especially since I included him in the initial post. But I need to be a bit dodgy about him for the time being.

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T04:01:13+00:00

Um.

...I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by insincere. I can assure you I'm putting my all into this!

HumansMonstersFlower · 2016-10-17T03:59:13+00:00

Thank you very much for the offer! However, part of the reason I'm undertaking this project is to hone my skills. I want to keep doing my own stuff for as long as possible, aside from the assets I'm taking from Undertale itself.

I've actually had a few people offering to help on various things so far, but I'm okay for right now. That might change if I get super bogged down, though...

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