So one of the things I find really cool about Magia exedra is exploring how magical girls work in alternate universes. the holy quintet swimsuit alts got recontextualized into being magical island guardians, the Kyosaya Christmas alts are from a universe where magical girls get their powers from Santa, and the Kyomami Pastry chef alts are from a universe where magical girls are called “Sorceresses” and the two run a magic pastry shop.
So I wanted to speculate how some old magireco event units might get recontextualized into AU versions:
Haregi Alts,and Miko iroha and Ui: Magical girls are instead shrine maidens who protect people from demons. They get their powers from the gods
Tanabata Yachiyo: Magical girls are instead demigods who walk amongst mortals and disguise themselves as ordinary people to protect mortals from curses. Yachiyo in particular is a goddess of the stars.
Eternal Sakura Swimsuit Alt: The world is a digital program and magical girls are instead called “Admins” who protect people from Viruses. Eternal Sakura is an admin of an underwater resort.
Vampire Kanagi, vampire juri, vampire Yuna, and Sister Momoko: Magical girls are instead nuns who get their powers from god. Instead of witching out because their soul gems get corrupted by curses, they become vampires when their soul gems get corrupted by sin.
Momoko and Mitama Mermaid alts: Magical girls are instead called “Sea Maidens” and they are able to shift between a human form and a mermaid form. they become Sea Monsters instead of witches. (An event like this would be perfect for Sayaka lol).
Holy Mami and Holy Alina (I know that these are mainline story forms but they got recontextualized for events in magireco): Magical girls are instead angels who spread goodwill amongst humans. instead of witches, they become fallen angels.
Touka and Nemu and Nayuta and Mikage Christmas alts: in a world where it’s Christmas year-round, Magical girls get their powers from wishing upon a star when they have potential. Their job is to spread Christmas cheer and to keep witches at bay, since witches are instead monsters who feed on negative emotions and cause blizzards (think the wendigos from My little pony)
Nagisa Valentine’s version: Honestly I think this version would already fit pretty well into the Kyomami pastry chef au, tbh. I can see her being adopted taken in as an apprentice by Kyoko and Mami.
Doppel Kyoko: Instead of girls making wishes to become magical girls, girls make wishes to become witches. They harvest emotions from humans and convert it into magical energy to give to the incubators.
Darkness Kanagi and Darkness Mitama: Instead of the Wings of Magius, the magical girls of kamihama are instead antagonized by Kanagi and Mitama. the wings of magius are instead a secret resistance instead of a cult.
Demon parade Kagome: Magical girls are instead called “Spirit Guides” and their duty is to guide souls to the afterlife.
Valentine’s Sudachi: Magical girls are instead called “fairies” and are born from the love some pours into a sweet. When the sweets are done, the fairy hatches from the sweet and scampers away before anyone can see them. They are tiny people who protect humans and improve their lives from the shadows. (Think the borrowers for comparison). Sudachi in particular was born from a batch of cookies, and she lives in a mousehole in Yozuru and Livia’s apartment.
I think fandom analysis on the whole would be a lot more fun and interesting if it took the sort of attitude a great many of my lit professors did, and the idea was to look at the text, see what you think it's saying, or even COULD be saying, and let's fuck around with that idea. I got four years of hearing insane takes on stuff and I was extremely fortunate to go a school with small enough class sizes and a dedicated enough faculty that in many respects, wild theorizing was encouraged.
One of my professors was straight up like "I don't want you reading papers about this book until we finish it!" and we had writing things for the first 20 minutes of every class because he wanted to know what WE thought, not what we had become convinced was THE thing to think.
When I was in my second year of college, I spiraled out into this whole "Jane Eyre is a lesbian!" thing, and my professor (not the same guy as above but delightfully insane in her own right) was like, "Wow, I've never heard this from anyone," and instead of being like, "um this is not what has been agreed upon by everyone else" went "Tell me more." Now, as a forty year old woman who has never stopped engaging with stories on both an enjoyment and academic level, the paper I would write with age and distance would be more "Homosociality, desire, and the domesticated male in Jane Eyre" or something like that, nineteen year old me was a little reductive and simple, but same vibes.
But my professor did not think I was right, she thought I was being INTERESTING, and so she encouraged me and championed me to write that paper and I actually presented it at the student division of a conference! The cool thing about that was, that when I was defending it, I was having to think about it, but it was in the spirit of collaboration, it felt like. No one was trying to 'win' the conversation.
Doc, what the fuck are you--I saw a really interesting thing this morning, someone talking about Shrek, of all things, and how they thought it was about how you cannot turn an ogre into a man, but he can make you become an ogre. And I immediately went, "Wow! Okay, interesting, not how I read that at all, TELL ME MORE." It was really jarring for me, then, to see pretty much every comment be like, 'uh you are wrong and also stupid." Sure, maybe that's not the intention of the work, but I don't for one goddamn motherfucking second think Charlie Bronte was sitting down going "I am going to write a woman so gay..." nor do I think the read of her as same sex-attracted is the end all be all of interpretations. It's mine, for sure! But like...talking about stories is supposed to be fun and it's supposed to be about possibility.
That one post got me thinking about how we are, in fandom often all looking at this same text, and there's immense pressure to have a 'right' interpretation--I was at the nexus of so many Sailor Moon fandom wars, and while I got into a few tussles, I was also stupid to do that. This characters are not real, and I was shutting down POSSIBILITY. And even after I was like, 'Wow, I don't think this is actually a very fun way to do stuff" it turns out you can't magically give everyone the same revelation you have simultaneously. Which is upsetting. And I see these same patterns repeat over and over and over again.
In my old age, I'm less interested in he "He would not say that" and more interested in "Cool, tell me why he would say that?"
Don't misunderstand me, there are points of view and ideas on different texts where I'm like, "Hm. I don't care to engage with that." Remember that the window we're looking out of is as important as what we're looking at, and will DOUBTLESS change the appearance. But the whole reason we have each other is to try and find other windows! It's not actually to find someone who is the next pane of glass in your same window. I miss that environment, where you could trust that everyone coming to the table was engaging with the same ground rules and that there was an expectation of, detachment doesn't quite get to the heart of what I'm talking about, but we were expected not to take the text or the analysis of it personally, even when it was hard. And sometimes it was. But I think it led to me having--for example it's crazy to me to have one 'right read' on any given text. I had a SUPER FUCKING ANIMATED conversation with a fellow lit nerd about whether or not GdT's Frankenstein was emotionally faithful to the text (which is not the same as being literally faithful nor the same as being good)and it was so fun, EVEN THOUGH we were coming at it completely opposed. But it was so fucking fun.
I wish I could do that with anime and cartoons, but you can't. People take Shrek personally. So I'll never have that same fun.
ANYWAY SORRY I AM DRINKING COFFEE AND MY DAUGHTER ISN'T HERE I HAVE TOO MUCH FREE TIME.
It has been very lonely and alienating to be on the We All Love To Talk About Stories part of the internet with the heart of an English Major when most of the people I encounter are....ah....approaching fandom and media discussion with a very different sort of lens.
I just worry I’m missing things others are getting and I wanna actually be able to describe why I like certain things without sounding like a broken record.
I can’t analyze to save my life but I wanna learn
I think the place to start is with the consciousness that all media is a collection of choices. All of it. Everything that is in a piece of media is a decision that someone made, from the big themes to the individual pixels on the screen in a video game, those are only there because someone made a decision that caused them to be there.
With that as the foundation, you can start asking the needful questions.
I find a useful place to start asking questions is "why X rather than Y?"
In any given piece of media you want to analyze, pick a choice that is being made and imagine what it would be like if a different (or opposite) choice had been made.
Say, in Star Wars, what if Luke had decided to join his father and overthrow the Emperor? If the movie had made that choice, how would it have changed the film? What would it feel like is the point the movie is trying to make then? What if Vader was not Luke's father?
Or, what if the good guys' lightsabers were red and the bad guys' sabers were blue? What does that change? What are the things you instinctively associate with those colors, why would swapping them around feel wrong? (or would it actually feel really right? If so, why?)
You can do this for the very big questions, like themes and entire plots, but you can also do it in the very minute. Read a poem and ask yourself why the author picked this word rather than one of its synonyms. Maybe it's for the meter, maybe it's for the tone, maybe it's to match vocabulary. Imagining a different word or a different phrase in the poem, how would that change how it feels to read? What it feels like to hear it spoken out loud?
The answer to many questions you'll ask about a piece of media are entirely banal. Like, in 3D animation, some things look the way they do because that's just how a particular software suite handles that particular task. Light reflections, physics simulation, motion blur, etc. Plenty of video games look the way they do in no small part because they are built within the constraints of their engines. Sometimes paintings have the colors they do not because an artiste is imbuing every choice with profound meaning, but because those are the colors the painter could afford, or which were available at the time. And those banal answers are still useful, even if they don't sound deep.
But the important bit is, the more questions you ask (however banal), the more answers you'll learn, and the more you'll understand about the mediums you're interested in, and the more you'll become able to interpret the choices that are made and work towards building an understanding and constructing a reading.
If you start from the understanding that everything (everything! literally every single thing!) in a piece of media is a choice, a decision that could have been made differently, and you ask yourself why it wasn't, you'll be in a decent position to start to interrogate the art you enjoy.
Outside of that, there are lots of books on art appreciation, and tons of people doing videos on media literacy on YouTube. I think Crash Course has some high-school level courses in English and Theatre and Film on their channel, which can be another good place to start.
Also, just, generally... Media literacy is a skill, not a trait. It's a thing which you practise doing, and in practising it you inevitably become better at it. Nobody starts out good at it, literally everybody is improving with practise all the time, and literally the only way to get any better is to try to do it to the best of your ability as much as possible, working the muscle so it will start to grow.
kind of a side thought from a couple of my posts about writing but I think it deserves its own post, so here goes:
when you’re writing a conflict between two characters or factions of characters, you need to consider whether their disagreement over the premise or over the methods. put another way: do they disagree on the problem or the solution?
this is a genuinely tricky thing to identify, especially in very complex narratives, so let’s do some very simple examples.
the situation: pacifist nation X is about to be invaded by empire Y. the laws and cultural practices of the Xians make violence and death so abhorrent that even accidental death is as minimized as possible. the Ylings, on the other hand, are totally cool with straight up murder and think diplomacy is for wimps, but are also pragmatic enough that they won’t waste troops if they don’t need to. the king of X calls in his council and asks for their opinions.
character A: It is more noble to die for one’s beliefs than to live having broken them. We should allow the Ylings to invade us and if we die, we die.
character B: If all life is sacred, then our lives are also sacred. We must fight back against the Ylings, even though that means we’d be committing violence.
A and B agree on premise but not solution: they both acknowledge that the Yling invasion is a bad thing that will lead to their deaths if unopposed and that the nonviolence code is important; what they disagree on is priorities and methods.
character C: We should invite them into our nation as honored guests. Maybe they’ll spare us or at least kill us more mercifully.
character D: We should propose an alliance and intentional annexation in exchange for our lives. Being part of the Yling Empire is a pretty sweet deal, actually.
C and D agree on solution but not premise: they’re both okay with just letting the empire walk in and invade, but C thinks the invasion would be a bad thing and is just trying to minimize the damage, and D thinks it would be a good thing and wants to maximize the rewards.
character E: We should fight the Ylings and stay a sovereign nation; the nonviolence code is stupid and holding us back.
character D: We shouldn’t fight the Ylings and try to be peacefully part of their empire instead; we’d be true to our code and reap the rewards of an alliance.
E and F disagree on both premise and solution.
Now, all possible permutations of this argument are fine. “Is this the best way to solve the problem?” and “What actually is the problem?” are both great sources of conflict. Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s entire plot is an argument over the methods to prevent death and crime, but everyone agrees that crime is bad; one of Zuko’s big character development moments is when he realizes that the problem with the world isn’t the other nations ungratefully rejecting the prosperity and unity offered by the Fire Nation, but that the Fire Nation routinely commits genocide in their quest to colonize the rest of the world.
The issue is when a disagreement over methods is treated like a disagreement over premise. The characters are positioned like one side’s entire worldview is correct and the other is wrong, but it turns out they actually disagree with what the other does rather than what the other believes.
A big giveaway that what you’re seeing is about methods and not underlying beliefs? If at any point it is said or implied that one character “goes too far.” “Too far” implies a point before that cutoff that the other characters or the reader would be okay with. You can’t go too far if going any distance in that direction is wrong. “Frollo in the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame goes too far when he tries to kill all the Romani in the city” implies that the problem isn’t racism in general, but mass murder specifically, and that if Frollo was only nonviolently racist, that would be fine!
Like, you know the joke about the guy who offers a woman a million dollars to sleep with him, then ten dollars after she accepts the million dollar offer, and when she’s offended and says she’s “not that kind of woman,” he says, “Oh, we agreed you were that kind of woman, now we’re just haggling over price”? If your characters are arguing about the best way to solve a problem, they have already agreed about the existence and nature of the problem. Now they’re just haggling over price.
Again: that kind of storyline is okay if you actually do want to discuss extremism v. moderation of the same basic principle. It’s okay for two characters to argue over the best way to free all of their country’s slaves. It’s also okay for two characters to discuss the best way of practicing slavery, if you want to show how ingrained it is in society or how even the character you think is a moderate is still evil or something. What doesn’t work is if your intention is to say how awful slavery is, but then the entire conflict is over the treatment of slaves rather than whether slavery is okay.
tl;dr: setting up the conflict as one over premise and then having all the action be a fight over methods undermines your story; at best it’s just confusing, at worst it turns your characters into hypocrites.
I would add a third piece to this (or really split out “solution” into two pieces):
There is the problem, the end, and the means, and those are all things that can be disagreed with in different ways.
Let’s take a very basic scenario. Two people live together. There is a bookshelf full of books and there are books all over the floor.
Disagreement on the problem:
Person 1 thinks there are too many books on the floor. Person 2 likes having books on the floor because it makes the house feel lived-in.
Disagreement on the end:
Person 1 and 2 have agreed that there are too many books on the floor. Person 1 thinks the ideal end is that the house has exactly one bookshelf worth of books in it. Person 2 thinks the ideal solution is every book remaining in the house but simply being somewhere that is not the floor.
Disagreement on the means:
Person 1 and 2 have agreed that the ideal solution is every book remaining in the house and being on a bookshelf. Person 1 thinks they should buy more bookshelves to fit every book. Person 2 thinks they should double- or triple-stack their shelves rather than spend money on new bookshelves.
This is obviously a very light example, but I think it’s not just problem/solution but “do we agree what problem we are solving, do we agree what the solution should be, do we agree on how to get there.”
The gothic-romantic nonbinary #yuri / #GL visual novel "Horologiorum Ancilla" will release its Demo/First 3 Chapters on its website & itchio on the 12.07.26, containing circa 14.000 words - around 1-3 hours of playtime.
What can be said about Undertale that hasn't been said already? Since its release in 2015, passionate fans the world over have dissected and over-analyzed this game to its very core— appropriate, too, seeing as there's just so much to work with (The same can be said for its ongoing successor, Deltarune).
But I'm not here to throw my hat into the ring with a new groundbreaking theory, nor am I here to do a deep-dive on a main character of choice whose personality and goals are all but common sense to the average Undertale fan. Instead, I've come to try something a little different, something a smidge unheard of...
Analyzing the dialogue of just one NPC.
The Business Manticore, a character met at the posh MTT Resort, stands idle in front of an elevator regardless of your story progression or what route you choose. I can say with full certainty that I am the #1 Business Manticore fan, and I'd like for this post to be proof on the matter.
Where some might see her as inconsequential and others see her only as the "Jade Harley ass manticore" Toby coined her as during the 10th Anniversary stream, the Business Manticore is an extremely special character to me in particular. Why might that be, you ask?
... I dunno. I just think she's neat. And super cute. Like, really really cute. Her glasses are darling. And her hair. Oh, and her little heels, too, and her... ahem. Pardon, I'm getting ahead of myself.
In this post, I will be going over all ten of her known dialogue boxes (Seven from Undertale, and three from the fourth chapter of Deltarune) in great detail in an attempt to unearth her overall character. She has a surprising amount of dialogue for an NPC, and there's a lot to work with in pertains to extracting a clear personality.
Moreso, I'm still relatively new to analyzing a character's dialogue, so there will be a fair share of speculation and headcanons on my part... on the side, this post is mostly just going to be me having fun with what-ifs instead of being taken as facts, so let's go ahead and get down to business!
(SPOILERS AHEAD FOR BOTH UNDERTALE AND DELTARUNE. Please read at your own discretion!)
PACIFIST / NEUTRAL ROUTE:
"This elevator goes straight to the captial. But it stopped working."
The Business Manticore doesn't waste any of your time, and straight away tells you what you need to know— there's an elevator in the lobby, and it's out of service. Upon interacting with her for the first time, you aren't aware of what (Or who) could be the reason behind its state of disrepair, so your guess is as good as hers.
Though, something about this text box has intrigued me, so much so that I'd wager that it's the reason I wanted to craft this analysis in the first place (Aside from being totally infatuated with her)— she's en route, with an unmarked briefcase, to the capital... New Home.
We are never told what it is that the Business Manticore does for a living, though it fascinates me that she works over in Asgore's neck of the woods. I doubt that she works as a royal scientist, or anything even close to such a position, though I have the slightest suspicion that she works for him in some capacity given the location and her relationship with Asgore in Deltarune. Merely a theoretical.
Whatever it is that the Business Manticore does, I have to imagine it's of high importance for her to have any business (Nice) boarding an elevator to the capital of all places. I'm almost shocked nobody's done so much as consider the implications of this in the last ten years... then again, no one is as obsessed with the Business Manticore as much as I, so let's see what else she's got going on.
"The hotel's doing its best to accommodate everybody stuck here."
Staying true to her previous spoken line, the Business Manticore doesn't beat around the bush, and even seems to stick up for the establishment in spite of the inconvenience. Her wording here makes me think that, of the elevator triad (The Sad Dragon, the Shambling Mass and herself), she was the first person to note the defunct elevator and take her concern straight to the receptionist for answers.
She appears to be a sort of mediator in such a situation, simply telling others verbatim what she was told as to prevent further confusion. I imagine that she offered the same explanation to both the Sad Dragon and the Shambling Mass upon their arrival (Perhaps coercing the former to call home). But, most importantly, where the Sad Dragon is visibly distraught over the setback, and the Shambling Mass bluntly makes their outrage known...
... the Business Manticore seems oddly neutral on the matter at hand.
She's not upset, she's not angry— in fact, the nonchalant look on her face almost gives off the impression that the broken elevator is no skin off her nose. This is our first real discovery pertaining to her character; she may press for answers if something is awry, though she is also very patient and willing to explain any goings-on to others.
Speaking of...
"Me? I just like explaining things to passerby."
Gee, that's a self-aware NPC line if I've ever read one. We can deduce that the Business Manticore is of the talkative sort from this line of dialogue. Where some might view that personality trait as a negative one, the Business Manticore doesn't seem like the type to yap to no end just to hear herself talk. If she has something to say, it's of importance to those around her.
It also backs up my assumption a few paragraphs ago that she jumped at the chance in explaining the elevator's operative status to the Sad Dragon and the Shambling Mass the first moment she was able to. After all, you can't tell me she watched both of them waltz up to the elevator to only find that it's broken themselves; she had to say something.
Such is the elevator's fate, until you return to her prior for one last chat before destroying the barrier separating humans and monsters at the tail end of the True Pacifist route, where it's revealed that...
POST TRUE PACIFIST:
"Good news! The elevator started working again."
Still assuming the mediator role, the Business Manticore delightfully tells you the elevator she's been waiting on is up and running again. We aren't told when the elevator began working again; it could be either just after Alphys' intentions are brought to the player's attention by Mettaton, or just then at the end of the story, but it's a nice resolution to a menial plot point established hours before.
Now, it's unclear if her soul was absorbed alongside the scores of others during Flowey's final traitorous act, though it seems equally as likely that she just stayed put at her post during said final confrontation. It's a funny thought and completely within her character to wait it out.
With the elevator up and running, she can get straight to work, right?
"But now it's been so busy, we still haven't gotten the chance to ride it."
Well, that figures. Personally, I think it would have been funnier if the Business Manticore's position Post-True Pacifist was moved to the elevator in the capital, though the only difference is now she can't travel back down, but I digress. Some might see this line of dialogue being the perfect cherry on top to the punchline of a setup established hours ago, though something else has my attention...
Don't you think that the Business Manticore would have, at the earliest possible convenience, boarded the elevator upon its reactivation? It's a bit strange that she hasn't yet, moreso that she claims that "it's been so busy" which seems to imply that others have gotten the chance to use it before her. Why has she not?
By this point in the story, several monsters in other parts of the Underground are aware of their fate: they're at last free, so it would only make sense that the elevator leading up to their ticket out of the Underground is seeing heavy traffic. I think that, because everyone is aware that they're free to leave the Underground at last, the Business Manticore is no longer in a hurry to see herself to whatever business she had up in the capital...
... and is instead allowing other monsters from further on down in the Underground (Think early game areas like the RUINS or Snowdin) ascend the elevator to access the barrier first. She now knows there is no reason to rush as freedom awaits everyone and, in an admirable act of selflessness, allows others to seek their way to the soon-to-be shattered barrier before she can.
I'm tearing up at the idea of the final monsters to board the elevator being her, the Sad Dragon and the Shambling Mass.
So ends the True Pacifist route, where all monsters— the Business Manticore included— are treated with the happy ending they deserve. But what becomes of her in the chilling Genocide Route? Luckily, she is not slain on-screen unlike many other monsters before her, though what we do see from her is very, very interesting.
GENOCIDE ROUTE:
"Mettaton hasn't made a performance for more than five minutes..."
I imagine there's not much for the Business Manticore to do while waiting for the elevator's repair, ESPECIALLY in the Genocide Route. The dialogue she has for this path in the story is, naturally, rather off-putting (Though maybe a touch funny given the insinuation of the time span between Mettaton's numerous performances), though, of the elevator triad, only the Business Manticore has taken notice of Mettaton's absence.
It's worth noting that Mettaton, by this point in the story, has not been reduced to scrap metal yet. He has interacted with the player in Alphys' Lab beforehand, though tauntingly refuses to battle them knowing what they did in the preceding areas before fleeing.
The Business Manticore's dialogue here seems to confirm that he has gone into hiding, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take down the murderous human (Which, as we see later in the CORE, seems to be the case). It also shows that, even while she's keeping a close eye on the elevator's status, that she is extremely perceptive of those around her.
I'd like to take a moment to talk about the Business Manticore's talk sprite animation— esoteric, I know, though there's a point to make in doing so. As a counter-example, the Sad Dragon's talk sprite simply has his mouth bob up and down as well as a few of his other features such as his tail.
When speaking to the Business Manticore, however, she has a particularly jarring talk sprite animation wherein her eyes dart back and forth, as though fervently scanning the area for information. It could just be an attempt to make her talk sprite animation feel more lively, though I find that it plays into her 'perceptive' trait almost perfectly. She is well-aware of what is going on around her...
... but not here. Not in the Genocide Route. She may have noticed Mettaton's uncharacteristic disappearance, but she is blissfully unaware as to why this could be, potentially assuming it to be a hiccup in his showtime schedule. And then, suddenly...
"What's happening...? Can you explain it?"
SHE is the one pressing YOU for answers.
She doesn't know of the carnage you've left in your wake just beyond the door leading into the MTT Resort. She doesn't know that Mettaton's disappearance is a result of your own filthy actions. And, worst of all, she doesn't know that she is speaking face-to-face to the person who intends to wipe out the entire Underground.
It's haunting. All this time, she's been portrayed as a knowledgeable monster who, for the few things she doesn't know or understand, is quick to figure out why and act as a mediator to others on such matters... but here? She's helpless, both in seeking out the truth and in standing out in the open where you could do away with her in one swift slash if you could.
There has never been a better time to be an NPC, however, as Gerson Boom himself previously said upon being threatened by the player:
"I've lived too long to be afraid of something like you. Try it, kiddo! … I know you can't here."
This would be the Business Manticore's first and only canonical appearance for exactly a decade. She'd show up in merch, sure (Try and see if you can spot her!), though she wouldn't grace the player's screen again until just this year, 2025, where she appears in Hometown in the fourth chapter of Deltarune.
In another time, one where her existence isn't waiting on an elevator... what does she have to say?
DURING DELTARUNE: CHAPTER 4:
"That Asgore guy... it's a shame he lost everything after he... You know."
There is something strange going on about Asgore Dreemurr's past in this timeline, and Deltarune does NOT shy away from teasing the player on the matter. Through flavor text and dialogue from previous chapters, we learn that he was the chief of the police force, though due to an (As of writing this) unclear incident, was terminated and quickly replaced.
Everyone seems to know what Asgore did— residents of Hometown, his friends and family, and most explicitly, his own child Kris, who is quick to stop reading upon finding an article on the matter and refusing to read past the headline. We, as the player, are left in the dark as to what may have happened, but others clearly are aware, the Business Manticore in particular.
The choice to have her deliver this cryptic dialogue is ESPECIALLY interesting. It could have just been any old throwaway NPC, whether they starred in Undertale or were designed explicitly for Deltarune... but it's the Business Manticore who not only comments on Asgore and his misdeeds, but right outside his flower shop no less.
All that separates them is a door.
This really doesn't seem like a coincidence, at least not to me. To anyone else, the Business Manticore is incidental enough to have been lazily copy-pasted into Hometown at literally any point prior to Chapter 4... and yet, the first time she appears, it's here.
Do you think that she was one of the first monsters in town to know what he did?
"Now he has to sell flowers to make ends meet, but... What? He's your father? Sorry."
From here, she tells us what we have already been able to deduce; Asgore is not doing well financially (As evident by the notice you can find in his quarters written by Carol Holiday), and him merely giving flowers away to patrons rather than charging for them isn't doing much to help.
But the Business Manticore stops before she can finish her thought. This appears to be one of the rare instances where Kris speaks, though it goes unheard of by the player (A similar example would be Ralsei commenting that Kris is yelling after you select 'no' upon being asked if they feel okay after the Spamton NEO battle).
Obviously, whatever must have happened, Kris is deeply uncomfortable on the matter, and didn't hesitate to make the Business Manticore quit while she was ahead. Upon learning that Asgore is Kris' father, however, the first thing she does is apologize to them.
One could assume that she is apologizing for speaking ill of Asgore, which is a fair enough judgement to make, though her next line...
"Well, I hope for your sake he quits being so... obsessed with that stuff."
... seems to come across as though she's sorry FOR Kris.
Where others in town are clearly disgusted over Asgore's actions, the Business Manticore is less angry at him and more concerned, voicing that she hopes that Asgore knocks off whatever he's obsessed with for his own well-being, echoing her fear for Mettaton's safety back in Undertale.
And it's not just concern for Asgore; it's concern for Kris, too. There's no way that the Business Manticore wouldn't pry after learning that Kris is the child of Asgore and Toriel and, knowing full well the burdens they already carry, (Being the only human in town, the splitting of their parents, etc.) does nothing more than stay in her lane and wish Kris and their family well.
Well, ten text boxes and a myriad of paragraphs over-analyzing them later... what have we learned about the sort of character the Business Manticore is? To summarize, we've learned that:
The Business Manticore is an extremely insightful monster and is (For the most part) well-aware of her surroundings.
She isn't one to grow impatient or frustrated, instead keeping a level head should anything go awry.
Should anything go awry or be out of the ordinary, the Business Manticore is quick to investigate for an explanation.
She only asks for something beyond her know-how to be explained to her as a last ditch effort.
The Business Manticore is a natural mediator and revels in filling those around her in with what's going on. She's less of a snoop and more of an informant.
She is particularly selfless, putting others before herself and apologizing should she ever say the wrong thing.
And lastly, she has a caring heart (Befitting her lion-esque body type), only wishing the best for those that are less fortunate than her.
... hopefully, that all answers the question I started this analysis with: "Can you explain it?". It only felt right to go as far as I did analyzing the Business Manticore given her inquisitive nature. If you've chosen to read all the way through this post, I only extend to you my greatest thanks for putting up with my incessant comfort character rambles.
Moreso, I intend to do more with the Business Manticore than her canonical roles in both Undertale and Deltarune. I'm working on getting an overview of my Deltarune AU up some time very soon, and I'm pleased to announce that she will have a starring role! 🤍
... hmm... now, how to round off such a gargantuan post... how about...
The Business Manticore x Me is canon because I said so <33333
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