UNDERTALE DAY 4

[prismaticbleed]

undertale TAKE 4!



welp time to finally beat undyne come hell or high water.

i still have the biggest squish-crush on her ever, i can't even lie


(i initially wasn't typing at all during this as i got so into this confrontation my hands were shaking but it was AWESOME.)
(also. note to people watching me play video games... i get 100% anchored in and i start talking to the characters and i forget anyone else is watching or listening. so of course i ended up calling undyne "sweetheart" while trying to dodge her spears. it happens)


DUDE I HAD TO CHECK ONLINE HOW TO BEAT HER
i ran out of health items and had 4hp left and she still wouldn't change her mind about not letting me spare her, and i'd never gotten so far before so i had to look.
apparently that "if you're green you can't escape" bit was a hint, which i missed entirely. at least this is teaching me to be more clever about listening to the dialogue, there are things hidden like that.


so now we're running and PAPYRUS WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME NOW
oh geez and he's asking if we can ALL hang out. man what bittersweet irony.
i'd love to buddy but uh. we're having a bit of a situation right now.
"I think you would make great pals!" yes bro I've been trying to tell her that for the PAST 20 MINUTES STRAIGHT


what a convenient water cooler. (just like that lamp!)
the simple caring of that setup is really sweet though. especially after all that buildup-- undyne's been chasing you for this whole level, so to speak, and now she's fighting you tooth and nail and she's hellbent on killing you, but the instant she collapses do you run? do you hide? nope.
really i feel like i am frisk while playing this. and as soon as she fell my own knee-jerk reaction was "oh dude is she okay, what do i do," and if i could have carried that entire water cooler over i would have.
but me, and frisk by extension (sweetest kid ever btw), really just can't find it in our hearts to hate anyone. in the end we really just want to find a way to be friends, for everyone to make it out of the situation happy and safe.
...realizing i'm saying that about myself too, no matter how true it is, still makes me pause. i guess i don't like describing myself as anything. if i'm a good person then let my actions speak for me.


well i'm at at undyne's house now. (she has a piano, that is fantastic)
papyrus is still the cutest thing. he's also surprisingly clever, even if he does it in a goofy way. i like that.

oh my lord as if i didn't already like undyne enough already now she's fiercely trying to BEFRIEND ME. this is adorable and hilarious.
but i'm still sad-eyed here, because it's not genuine. (not yet anyway, i can hope.) she still sees me as standing in the way of everyone's hopes and dreams, and i admire/respect that devotion so much... but i can't talk in this game, how can i tell her i want that too, but there has to be a third option and now that i know of the prophecy well hey i want to BE that third option.

so yeah. let's be besties. fake it till you make it. i already like you, haha. the work's half done!


Oh, I forgot to tell you. Earlier I bought sushi, to get the full experience of this of course, and now I'm standing here at my laptop eating it while, on Undertale, I'm drinking tea and listening intently to Undyne talk about her personal history.
LIFE IS NICE.

...She's really opening up here. It's... seconds ago she was still doing this revenge-ship thing, and now, she just... let that slip by the wayside. It was so easy for her to forget that she considered me an enemy, however temporarily, and trust me with this personal tale. That says a lot about her, I think. God I love this lass, she's great.

And this dialogue is even worse, because again, it feels too much like Laurie talking about me.

"I don't know if... I can ever let Papyrus into the Royal Guard. Don't tell him I said that! He's just, well... I mean, it's not that he's weak. He's actually pretty freaking tough! It's just that... he's too innocent and nice! I mean, look, he was SUPPOSED to capture you, and he ended up being friends with you instead! I could never send him into battle! He'd get ripped into little smiling shreds."

Also the more I hear about Asgore the more I want to meet this guy, he sounds SO SWEET.
The only issue is what Toriel said about him at the beginning-- how she said he was the one who was killing the humans. So all this conflicting information is highly intriguing and just as worrying.
Either way. I want to meet this guy.


COOKING LESSON TIME
I can't stop laughing, this is GENIUS. She's so hardcore about everything.
(and she even picks me up by the hair oh geez)
Jewel would love this. She's just as fiery as Undyne, they'd both be gleefully punching tomatoes.

...oh. and this post-fire dialogue just confirmed what i was just saying.
"I can't force you to like me, human." (BABE YOU DON'T HAVE TO)

Ohhhh dude REMATCH.
...Her motivations for this struck me though. She couldn't defeat me, she set her own house on fire, she thinks she's failed at befriending me... so now we're fighting all-out because "It's the only way I can regain my lost pride!" As someone who doesn't think that way, that made me stop and wonder.

and here comes the straight-to-the-heart dialogue again, no brakes with this i swear.

"Even attacking at full force... you just can't muster any intent to hurt me, huh? ...I don't actually want to hurt you either."

"Now I know you aren't just some wimpy loser. You're a wimpy loser with a BIG HEART!"

"Eventually, some mean human will fall down here, and I'll take THEIR soul instead."
"oh, and if you DO hurt Asgore... i'll take the human souls... cross the barrier... and beat the hell out of you!! that's what friends are for, right?"

hello headspace.
oh. also. when undyne says i'll likely end up fighting asgore but he won't want to either, she says "talk to him."
that made me think, again, of all the other "fated battles" i'm likely to hit in here, with all the headvoices who don't really want to fight but feel they have no choice, for some reason or another.
talk to them. why in the world aren't we already talking to them, more often i mean? we know they're hurt and we know some ways out of that hurt, how to move past it, but far too often we don't start a conversation until something is triggered. i can't help but feel that's unfair to them. i just... i'm not sure how to reach them otherwise? like even if i just casually approached one of them, that ugly frightening stuff is going to come up.


"now let's get the hell out of this flaming house!"
undyne darling you have to meet laurie, the two of you are going to get along just as well as this incinerated structure behind us


aaaand alphys is CUTER THAN I EXPECTED THIS IS GREAT.
really she's lovely. good gracious. i want to hug her.

and mettaton.
BEST.
i already like him tons and i haven't even gotten to face his other forms (?) yet. so i'm excited.

QUIZ SHOOOOW
these questions are SOLID GOLD.
(also heck yeah i'd smooch a ghost)

and of course i know alphys has a crush on undyne (me too love) but i had to check online to see what the other options were... and i really like what mettaton says if you pick "the human"=

"...And while you are completely wrong, you deserve some credit. I've seen her watch you on her computer screen. Smiling when you succeed. Shrieking when you fail. And always, always, whispering... "No! Wrong! You have to go that way!" In its own way, is this not love??"

that's so nice. i really really like that.


back to snowdin!
did i mention i love that little orange horned dude by grillby's? he's so cute.
so is that mousy girl next to him, with the massive scarf.

"to a human, monster food would be interesting. as soon as you eat it, it converts perfectly into energy."
HELLO AGAIN DREAM WORLD!

and the shed puns. that was fantastic.
i love the dynamic between undyne and papyrus, they complement each other so well.


Back to Hotland we go, to (eventually) fight everyone's favorite flamboyant homicidal game show robot. again!
(I think part of why I like Mettaton is because he has my speech pattern cranked up to 11, haha.)

This place creeps me out-- not jut the music, but those glowing walls. they're disturbingly electronic, against all this raw rock and magma. It feels very ominous.

(this next bit was written by someone else and left here)
Alphys's status update system is just as cute as she is.
The contrast between her social 'awkwardness' (i can relate) and her more casual, open manner online... we're like that too. A lot of people are, it seems. Either way it makes me feel a lot of affection, to see that.
...And just as I type that, we get "I HATE USING THE PHONE I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS LMAO ^. ^"
I always found that weird, how people bury their real feelings under humor and smiles. "I hate this," "I don't want to do this," but then she throws in an emote and a "laughing my ass off" bit. Why?

oh and the music just got super cool. this entire soundtrack is so good.

just got a save point, but before i quit i want to mention that I am SO PROUD of Alphys having the courage to make that phone call on my behalf!
i think at one point, one of us hated making phone calls, because there's a dim feeling of "i can empathize" even if i personally can't, at least not much. i'm more nervous of "forced conversations"... which, now that i think of it, might be what alphys is afraid of too? usually when you make a phone call you're often socially expected to "fit the protocol," to ask certain questions and respond in certain ways... i can't do that, and alphys likely can't either. so NOW i get it.
it's amazing how much stress could be avoided if people were more willing to be open with each other on these things. if i could tell alphys that there were no expectations on her to call or not to call, maybe that would help. i wish i could say that to a lot of people, and i wish i could say that about myself too.
and there's the empathy. i suppose, in truth, i don't like using the phone either, because i don't like talking. i LISTEN. i'm only really capable of talking when i'm talking introspectively, or in brief interrogative response to someone else who's talking up a storm. me, personally, i cannot do "chats," i can't do two-way conversations because my function does not include that sort of self-presentation. does that make sense?
i talk best here because i'm not talking, i'm writing, and if someone reads it, cool. i can't work with an audience, i'm supposed to be in the background, glowing.
alphys seems more comfortable with her status updates and they're super cute so, if they do work well for her, i'm very happy she found a medium that she can use comfortably. geez i'm just wishing the best for her in everything, she's a real sweetheart.
i hope she doesn't mind hanging out with me and undyne eventually because girl we're gonna do it, it's going to be boss.
but no rush! she's dealing with a crush and it can take time to feel like you're able to be around that person one-on-one, for whatever reason. could be self-worth, could be feeling like you have to 'perform,' could be social stress, et cetera. we have memory data of that too, from multiple sources. for me it's "what's situationally appropriate here" because you all know how naively affectionate i naturally am and that's not always safe or smart right off the bat. but either way me and the lizard lady are both blushing fit to burn so yeah. take your time.



i am really, really, really dissociated today. i apologize if i sound out of character for this, the 'energy boost' is making me very uneasy in my stomach and it's not really me, at least not in expression. so i'm sorry.
am i trying too hard? it feels like there's too much "personal" talk in here and it's leaning very much towards red, so there's probably some slippage and/or unconscious cofronting in here. for the record.

i need to recover from this, all this red is making me nauseous. no offense intended, just, it's tied to bad vibes and i'm starting to get pulled into past timeline mindsets and that's not safe. i need to recuperate.
either way i still adore this game, can't wait to play it again tomorrow.