Undertale Dating Simulator: Why I’m Not Writing or Playing it.
So I imagine that a few people have glanced at this lovely project with interest, as me and a few friends did. The idea of a dating sim that aged up Frisk, Chara and Asriel/Flowey, but still only allowed a friendship route, was awe-inspiring. In fact, two of us were interested enough that we applied to be writers, and surprise of all surprises, we actually got the parts!
And this is how we were writers on a dating sim project for a good half a week before refusing to write for them.
The Frisk/Chara friendship arc plays blatantly on mental health stereotyping to do the same tried and true mental health arc that people know and love: Evil is “illness” and needs to be “cured”.
Honestly, coming into this as a writer, both me and my friend had some really high hopes. The premise they originally had for Frisk and Chara’s arc was not only respectful to the characters, but to the fandom. Think Chara’s evil? They had you covered. Think they’re good? They had you covered. In between? Heck, they had you covered. It didn’t rely on mental health issues AT ALL to make a point, or carry the plot, and abruptly, this changed.
Be respectful of the fact that this plot was “written in a day”, because that’s what you do when people feed you a pile of shit. You be respectful
We were horrified. There was an immense amount of pulling hair and disbelieving laughter as we tried to comprehend how this could go from something so respectful to essentially putting these kids out for the mental health slaughter. Mental health hadn’t come up for this route before. Mental health didn’t need to.
But it just kept getting better.
Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn how much or how little Chara is in the game. The fact that the outline relies on blurring the lines between DID and schizophrenia, and taking the time to remind us that Chara as a character has no real reason to exist outside of being the culmination of someone else’s mental illness, something that can be expunged, is literally disgusting. This is what players will be forced to comply with going down this route. This is what the younger fans of this fandom will be influenced by.
And this is precisely what you’ll be getting. A lovely serve of “haha well I minored in psychology before dropping out so it’s fine” and “well my brother’s wife’s brothers twice removed (WHO HAVE BPD I KNOW PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS) said this was fine so it is”.
I want to make it clear we addressed these concerns. We spoke with them in regards to how this reads, we made very clear what it was that we were not happy with. And call it absolute cynicism, but it was the one chance we were willing to give.
When “handicap” became the official, medical term of the day, well. That’s when we knew it was time to get the fuck out of dodge.
You can read the whole plot outline here! This is the one that took a day to write.
You can also read our response to it! This is the one that took an hour or two.
