a little bit about the thing

brazenautomaton:

nostalgebraist:

I feel a bit pathetic for being bothered by this as much as I am, but, well, here we are, so …

@raggedjackscarlet​‘s post “A Remake Without An Original,” which introduced the concept of “Undertale Prime,” was not a one-off post, but was a contribution to a conversation that @cyborgbutterflies​ was having with me and also with @freezeflare.

You can see some of @cyborgbutterflies​‘ posts here, here, and here.  (In the second post she links to this blog post of a person who had a reaction similar to mine.)  My own contribution was here.

Of all the people in this conversation, I was probably the most emotionally bothered by Undertale.  But everyone involved thought that the game’s treatment of morality was at least imperfect.

@raggedjackscarlet​‘s post says it will provide an “explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre.”  But before he says that, RJS says he’s been thinking about the conversation that cyborgbutterflies and I were having.  The idea that Undertale is “morally bizarre” is not something he was introducing out of nowhere – it was something previously agreed upon in the conversation he was entering.

---

RJS’ post has 590 notes as of this writing and seems to be getting a minor reputation as some sort of instant classic of abysmal fanwank.  It’s not just that many people argued against it.  There were also several spin-off posts going around mocking it; I think I saw something like four of them until I managed to get my blacklist fully in place.  Also screencaps of the post tagged with things like “#i’m cringing so hard” and the like.

It doesn’t bother me that that RJS’ post made people angry.  I get angry at tumblr posts all the time.

But the post, as I read it, did help me understand why Undertale might have worked so well for so many people and yet gotten under my skin so badly.  It helped me understand, which was good, as it was part of a conversation with me.

And so it does bother me that this thing which helped me, and was written in response to my own emotional reaction to a work of art (a work of art which made me so uncomfortable I couldn’t even finish it) … became an instant meme because of how obviously bad, wrong, inane, gross it supposedly was.

Like, that post was not just some bit of nonsense some guy chose to type up to piss you off.  It was written to explain the emotional responses of people like me.  So if your reaction is “oh my god, why would anyone ever come up with this terrible, pretentious meta, what a tool,” then come talk to me, because I am why someone would come up with it.

I completely, 100% understand this is not what people are intending, but when people act like RJS’ post was baffling, was obviously ludicrous and terrible, it sounds like they’re saying, “I can’t even imagine someone having the emotional reaction you had.  What a silly idea.”

I know people aren’t trying to say that.  But I did have that reaction.  And so this has gotten under my skin.

I don’t want to make people feel bad, or start arguments (I am trying to stick to a “no arguments on tumblr” rule right now), but I hope this post clarifies some things?

do we have permission to point other people to this post in an effort to show them that what they are doing is wrong and why

I would prefer it not be framed that way, TBH.

You can point people to this post to say “there is context here you may be missing.”

(via brazenautomaton)

a little bit about the thing

I feel a bit pathetic for being bothered by this as much as I am, but, well, here we are, so …

@raggedjackscarlet​‘s post “A Remake Without An Original,” which introduced the concept of “Undertale Prime,” was not a one-off post, but was a contribution to a conversation that @cyborgbutterflies​ was having with me and also with @freezeflare.

You can see some of @cyborgbutterflies​‘ posts here, here, and here.  (In the second post she links to this blog post of a person who had a reaction similar to mine.)  My own contribution was here.

Of all the people in this conversation, I was probably the most emotionally bothered by Undertale.  But everyone involved thought that the game’s treatment of morality was at least imperfect.

@raggedjackscarlet​‘s post says it will provide an “explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre.”  But before he says that, RJS says he’s been thinking about the conversation that cyborgbutterflies and I were having.  The idea that Undertale is “morally bizarre” is not something he was introducing out of nowhere – it was something previously agreed upon in the conversation he was entering.

RJS’ post has 590 notes as of this writing and seems to be getting a minor reputation as some sort of instant classic of abysmal fanwank.  It’s not just that many people argued against it.  There were also several spin-off posts going around mocking it; I think I saw something like four of them until I managed to get my blacklist fully in place.  Also screencaps of the post tagged with things like “#i’m cringing so hard” and the like.

It doesn’t bother me that that RJS’ post made people angry.  I get angry at tumblr posts all the time.

But the post, as I read it, did help me understand why Undertale might have worked so well for so many people and yet gotten under my skin so badly.  It helped me understand, which was good, as it was part of a conversation with me.

And so it does bother me that this thing which helped me, and was written in response to my own emotional reaction to a work of art (a work of art which made me so uncomfortable I couldn’t even finish it) … became an instant meme because of how obviously bad, wrong, inane, gross it supposedly was.

Like, that post was not just some bit of nonsense some guy chose to type up to piss you off.  It was written to explain the emotional responses of people like me.  So if your reaction is “oh my god, why would anyone ever come up with this terrible, pretentious meta, what a tool,” then come talk to me, because I am why someone would come up with it.

I completely, 100% understand this is not what people are intending, but when people act like RJS’ post was baffling, was obviously ludicrous and terrible, it sounds like they’re saying, “I can’t even imagine someone having the emotional reaction you had.  What a silly idea.”

I know people aren’t trying to say that.  But I did have that reaction.  And so this has gotten under my skin.

I don’t want to make people feel bad, or start arguments (I am trying to stick to a “no arguments on tumblr” rule right now), but I hope this post clarifies some things?

nostalgebraist:

Re: the long conversation about Undertale between @cyborgbutterflies and @freezeflare, which I would reblog except it’s long and we can’t snip posts anymore.

cyborgbutterflies expressed a lot of the things that bother me emotionally about the game.  But I think there’s another aspect to it as well, which may well not apply to anyone but me.  But it does apply to me, and it was almost eerie how on-the-nose the game was about it.

I was talking to someone yesterday about the fact that in the past I seem to have spent a remarkable amount of time interacting with people who (on some level) dislike or don’t respect me, and doing so of my own free will.  Of course in my moments of lower self-esteem I figure that this is just because I am an person who virtually anyone would dislike or disrepect, but I don’t really believe that’s true.

I went on to say that I think the actual reason is that when a person is hostile toward me (and I’m including casual disrespect and other kinds of “low-grade hostility” here), my natural response is not to back away, but to lean in.  Specifically, I think: “I have a hard time simply living with the fact that this person dislikes/disrespects me.  (Low self-esteem or vulnerability, again.)  But think about the possibilities here.  Maybe they are right, and I really am doing something wrong, in which case I should ask them to tell me more about it, and try to change.  Or maybe it’s all a big misunderstanding, and we can fix it and have a good and equal relationship.  Or maybe it’s not quite either of those, but they have some sort of ‘backstory’ that’s making them act like this, and dammit, I’m curious about that backstory.“

So I start interacting with them more rather than less, and trying a variety of “dialogue choices” to prod at the issue: what exactly is the shape of my error?  Are you actually trying to help me, and I just don’t realize it?  Do I resemble people who have hurt you in the past?  Should I accept that the way you are behaving is just a common human thing and grow a thicker skin toward it?  Etc.  (Obviously I don’t ask these questions in these literal forms, but I investigate them in more natural and tactful ways.)

Then, in the conversation about this, I said: “You know, it’s like Undertale.  Actually, wait … it’s exactly like Undertale.”

I’m treating the other person’s hostility as a puzzle, and hoping that I can find the correct things to say to “resolve” the hostility.  This “resolution” (as in Undertale) doesn’t tend to involve the other person realizing they were doing a bad thing by harming me – it usually reveals it as “actually” justified or blameless or otherwise somehow “okay.”  If I can’t do this, I feel like I’ve failed.  If I respond to hostility with hostility, I feel like I’ve really failed, on an ethical level.  The ultimate goal is an imagined idyllic harmony with the person despite the initial hostility (cf. the “friendships” in Undertale).

One thing to note about this is that it simply doesn’t work very well.  When people dislike or disrespect you, there’s often a reason for it, often an interesting reason or even a “good” one, but you still won’t generally be able to work your way towards a satisfying friendship or relationship.  Surprise surprise: when someone finds you distasteful, they’re probably going to continue finding you distasteful, even if you’re “talked over it” ad nauseam.  A deeply moving lecture on the cultural history of a cuisine you simply don’t like will not make you any more relish a bite of it.

A better way to have satisfying interactions is instead to find people with whom you don’t start out on the wrong foot.  These people exist.  People with low opinions of themselves may believe that this is false, that they will start out on the wrong foot with everyone and that “rescuing” these relationships is the best they can hope for.  I believe this is almost always false.

In Undertale, it is more or less true.  The vast majority of the interactions in the game involve “rescuing relationships from hostility.”  The majority of the major characters attack you at some point, although you can become friends with them later.  The idea that this sort of interaction is the norm is captured metaphorically through the fact that the game’s characters are called “monsters,” i.e. the sort of beings who attack you randomly in other games.  The game clarifies that in the real world there are “a lot of Floweys,” i.e. people who are somehow so bad that you can’t even “rescue” your relationships with them.  But relationships that don’t have to be rescued are both rare and not a part of the game’s moral or emotional focus.

In Undertale, you can Flee (metaphorically, backing away from a hostile interaction), but although morally permitted, this is boring: you’re missing a lot of gameplay, as well as a lot of money.  You can also attack and then Spare; I’m not sure how to parse this metaphorically, but whatever it is, it’s not something I’d like to constitute a majority of my human interactions.  What you cannot do, not in any nontrivial way, is engage in “dialogue choices” with someone who is not attacking you.  Want to find friends who don’t start off trying to hurt you?  Ha, good luck.  Don’t you remember that everyone’s natural reaction to you is to try to hurt you?

This is a depiction of the world I used to think I lived it.  It was not a good world, and it was also not the real world.

If the “Undertale Prime” post confuses you, note that it was written in response to the above.

(It was helpful.)

to complete the pacifist route of the undertale fandom, even @raggedjackscarlet​ must be left unkilled

A Remake Without an Original

golemprivilege:

raggedjackscarlet:

Hold on tight, folks. We’re going full post-structuralist.

So. I’ve been thinking about the discussions that @nostalgebraist and @cyborgbutterflies​ have been having about Undertale fairly recently.

And I think I’ve hit upon a Doylist explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre:

All the characters in Undertale have no canonical existence, they have all been preemptively rewritten as the characters that fandom would have turned them into.

Undertale as it exists now, is like the fanon version of a game that never existed.

Let’s call this hypothetical game-that-never-was “Undertale Prime”.

In Undertale Prime, Papyrus is pretty much an exact duplicate of Skeletor: an evil mastermind whose plans never come to fruition. Constantly frustrated, taking out his anger on his minions in the most hilariously melodramatic ways.

In Undertale Prime, Undyne is a deadly serious super-soldier. Even a bit of a sadist. She is acquainted with Alphys, but there’s no romance between them.

In Undertale Prime, Mettaton has no Mettaton EX form. He remains a rectangular robot for the entire game, but his personality shows small signs of the sass and flamboyance of Mettaton EX.

In Undertale Prime, Alphys is a tetchy mad scientist, more like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock than anything else. Prickly on the surface, lonely underneath. There’s no mention of anime or internet arguments or anything like that.

In Undertale Prime, Asgore is stern and serious, and completely in charge, but tormented by the necessary evils he has committed to protect his kingdom. Like a more sympathetic version of a king from a Shakespearean tragedy.

And finally, in Undertale Prime, all bosses are killed without remorse or punishment.

We’ve seen these character archetypes before, and we can guess how a typical fandom would reinterpret these archetypes:

the Thwarted Mastermind becomes a Bumbling Narcissist.

the Deadly Soldier becomes a Hot-Blooded Blockhead.

the Mad Scientist becomes an Adorable Nerd.

The Geometric Robot becomes a Svelte Bishonen.(look at Bill Cipher fanart)

The Tormented King becomes Sad Dad.

(and the most sympathetic/admirable women become lesbians)

But most importantly, all these villains would become sympathetic.

They’d become comedy relief, or even woobies.

Undertale takes the most probable fanon reinterpretations of Undertale Prime, and makes them canon. Why are the villains actions treated so cavalierly? Because typical fandom wouldn’t care. Typical fandom forgives villains, typical fandom makes villains cute.

But the discrepancy is this: in Undertale, the characters’ actions all remain the same as they would be in the dark and serious story of Undertale Prime. They play the same role in the plot, they are still Villains. The only things that change are their personalities, and the manner in which they are presented to the audience.

The result is that Undertale Prime makes moral sense, but Undertale does not.

It’s as if the Avengers canonically considered Bucky Barnes a family friend and acted as if the events of The Winter Soldier had never happened, as fandom wishes it were– But Bucky was still a terrorist.

It’s as if the characters in Borderlands 2 saw Handsome Jack as charming comic relief, the way the audience does– but Handsome Jack was still a murderous psychopath.

It’s as if, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Organization XIII were portrayed as the bickering sitcom family that the KH fandom made them into– but they were still trying to kill Sora and friends.

Every playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts franchise involves killing every member of Organization XIII.

But I guarantee you every Kingdom Hearts fan has their favorite Organization member.

None of the characters in Undertale are “held responsible” for attacking Frisk, because a game audience typically does not hold boss characters responsible for attacking the player. Instead, the audience sees them, through a Doylist/Mechanics-oriented lens, as a welcome addition to the game: a challenging battle and an entertaining character.

Undertale takes the player’s expected affectionate attitude towards bosses, and makes it the “objectively morally right” choice, according to the game’s in-world metaphysics.

Undertale is not just a game that preaches pathological altruism, it is, in itself, a pathologically altruistic text– a text that privileges the interpretation it expects to be subjected to over its own internal structure and logic, and preemptively changes itself to make those expected interpretations into objective truth, even when those changes create plotholes and morally repugnant implications.

A game, suffering to make itself everything the world expects it to be, about a child who suffers to make itself everything the world expects it to be.

this is terrible 

it seems to imply that the hypothetical bosses of undertale prime are somehow better writing than the bosses of undertale. i’m also really uncomfortable with the suggestion that gay ships are bad fanon writing and also that mettaton’s flamboyance is also bad writing. like. do you not see what you’re implying there? that The Queers are ~bad fanon interpretations~ of something purer

also papyrus is not a narcissist and, like, as someone who’s been diagnosed with NPD traits twice, i’d really prefer if you didn’t casually throw that label around

I can’t speak for the OP, but what I got out of it was not “fanon is bad and Undertale Prime would have been better” but “Undertale feels like fanon characters have been used without changing the storyline in any other ways, when a fanfic or something would have done both”

And that seemed to clarify why Undertale felt so weird to me.

I mean, I don’t know what Undertale Prime would have been like, but to me it sounds boring, and not like a game I’d want to play.  If OP wanted to make it sound “well-written,” he didn’t succeed, I don’t think.

I think the point is more that putting fanon characters in the canon storyline is a weird thing to do, and from a certain viewpoint Undertale feels as though someone did this.  The fanon characters aren’t bad, and in this case they sound a lot more interesting than the canon characters.  But usually with fanon, both the characters and the plot/setting get changed; you get AUs and stuff.  Combining the characterization of a light-hearted AU with the plot of the original, non-light-hearted canon is a weird thing to do.  (It’s not what fans usually do, for one thing.)

(via golemprivilege-deactivated20160)

A Remake Without an Original

raggedjackscarlet:

Hold on tight, folks. We’re going full post-structuralist.

So. I’ve been thinking about the discussions that @nostalgebraist and @cyborgbutterflies​ have been having about Undertale fairly recently.

And I think I’ve hit upon a Doylist explanation for why Undertale is so morally bizarre:

All the characters in Undertale have no canonical existence, they have all been preemptively rewritten as the characters that fandom would have turned them into.

Undertale as it exists now, is like the fanon version of a game that never existed.

Let’s call this hypothetical game-that-never-was “Undertale Prime”.

In Undertale Prime, Papyrus is pretty much an exact duplicate of Skeletor: an evil mastermind whose plans never come to fruition. Constantly frustrated, taking out his anger on his minions in the most hilariously melodramatic ways.

In Undertale Prime, Undyne is a deadly serious super-soldier. Even a bit of a sadist. She is acquainted with Alphys, but there’s no romance between them.

In Undertale Prime, Mettaton has no Mettaton EX form. He remains a rectangular robot for the entire game, but his personality shows small signs of the sass and flamboyance of Mettaton EX.

In Undertale Prime, Alphys is a tetchy mad scientist, more like Cumberbatch’s Sherlock than anything else. Prickly on the surface, lonely underneath. There’s no mention of anime or internet arguments or anything like that.

In Undertale Prime, Asgore is stern and serious, and completely in charge, but tormented by the necessary evils he has committed to protect his kingdom. Like a more sympathetic version of a king from a Shakespearean tragedy.

And finally, in Undertale Prime, all bosses are killed without remorse or punishment.

We’ve seen these character archetypes before, and we can guess how a typical fandom would reinterpret these archetypes:

the Thwarted Mastermind becomes a Bumbling Narcissist.

the Deadly Soldier becomes a Hot-Blooded Blockhead.

the Mad Scientist becomes an Adorable Nerd.

The Geometric Robot becomes a Svelte Bishonen.(look at Bill Cipher fanart)

The Tormented King becomes Sad Dad.

(and the most sympathetic/admirable women become lesbians)

But most importantly, all these villains would become sympathetic.

They’d become comedy relief, or even woobies.

Undertale takes the most probable fanon reinterpretations of Undertale Prime, and makes them canon. Why are the villains actions treated so cavalierly? Because typical fandom wouldn’t care. Typical fandom forgives villains, typical fandom makes villains cute.

But the discrepancy is this: in Undertale, the characters’ actions all remain the same as they would be in the dark and serious story of Undertale Prime. They play the same role in the plot, they are still Villains. The only things that change are their personalities, and the manner in which they are presented to the audience.

The result is that Undertale Prime makes moral sense, but Undertale does not.

It’s as if the Avengers canonically considered Bucky Barnes a family friend and acted as if the events of The Winter Soldier had never happened, as fandom wishes it were– But Bucky was still a terrorist.

It’s as if the characters in Borderlands 2 saw Handsome Jack as charming comic relief, the way the audience does– but Handsome Jack was still a murderous psychopath.

It’s as if, in Kingdom Hearts 2, Organization XIII were portrayed as the bickering sitcom family that the KH fandom made them into– but they were still trying to kill Sora and friends.

Every playthrough of the Kingdom Hearts franchise involves killing every member of Organization XIII.

But I guarantee you every Kingdom Hearts fan has their favorite Organization member.

None of the characters in Undertale are “held responsible” for attacking Frisk, because a game audience typically does not hold boss characters responsible for attacking the player. Instead, the audience sees them, through a Doylist/Mechanics-oriented lens, as a welcome addition to the game: a challenging battle and an entertaining character.

Undertale takes the player’s expected affectionate attitude towards bosses, and makes it the “objectively morally right” choice, according to the game’s in-world metaphysics.

Undertale is not just a game that preaches pathological altruism, it is, in itself, a pathologically altruistic text– a text that privileges the interpretation it expects to be subjected to over its own internal structure and logic, and preemptively changes itself to make those expected interpretations into objective truth, even when those changes create plotholes and morally repugnant implications.

A game, suffering to make itself everything the world expects it to be, about a child who suffers to make itself everything the world expects it to be.

oh my god

I am never going to be able to un-see this.

nostalgebraist:

Oh huh I haven’t checked in on David Auerbach in a while, I wonder what he’s up to

Oh he’s complaining about Undertale’s morality, that’s cool

I don’t always agree with David Auerbach but he seems to be interested in everything interesting that exists

Check out this thread too, fun times

Oh huh I haven’t checked in on David Auerbach in a while, I wonder what he’s up to

Oh he’s complaining about Undertale’s morality, that’s cool

I don’t always agree with David Auerbach but he seems to be interested in everything interesting that exists