Current hyperfixation: In Stars And Time
Hyperfixations lying in wait: Undertale/Deltarune, Hollow Knight, Pokemon, Dungeons & Dragons, Reptiles, EPIC: The Musical, Studio Investigrave games
Undertale theory - Papyrus was planning to fight you in the genocide run
We all know the story. We approach Papyrus, and he welcomes us with open arms, to return our "hug of acceptance". In battle, he spares us... and we murder him in one hit.
"W-WELL, THAT'S NOT WHAT I EXPECTED..."
Except it is what he expected. In the game's data, a monster's defence gets drastically lower when they spare you, representing their trust and allowing for betrayal kills. But Papyrus is the only monster who's defence goes UP when they spare you, instead of down. He literally has his guard up when he offers you that hug. And if you do spare him, he says
"WOWIE!! YOU DID IT!!!"
"YOU DIDN'T DO A VIOLENCE!!!"
*sweats* "TO BE HONEST, I WAS A LITTLE AFRAID...
BUT YOU'RE ALREADY BECOMING A GREAT PERSON!"
All the evidence seems to suggest that Papyrus was expecting you to attack him. But if that was what he was expecting, why so shocked when you kill him?
Maybe it's because he wasn't expecting you to do it in one hit. I think that Papyrus was planning an Undertale Red, giving you one last chance to turn back and choose a better path, and if you refused he would try to stop you by force... except he never got a chance to. He thought raising his defence would prevent an instant kill, but he was wrong. With his HP gone and his head on the snow, all that could be done was to say "I believe in you!", one last plea to stop this genocide.
If you abort the genocide run by sparing papyrus, go to hang out with him, and then inspect his box of bones, he says this. Not in a neutral. Not in a pacifist. Only in an aborted genocide does he tell you about how lucky you are to have not been blasted to pieces by his special attack.
Hello there!
This is my first deltarune animatic! Watch out! There are spoilers for chapter 3 and chapter 4! Hope you like it!
Here is my concept that at the latest chapters Kris, Susie and Ralsei will meet Vessel/The Player who will be the main boss of the game and Vessel themselves represents the angel from the Deltarune prophecy.
I’ve seen this headcanon/reading of her before, but, I haven’t seen any posts doing an analysis of that. So, I’ve decided to do that myself. For this post, I’m going to talk about symptoms of autism mentioned in diagnostic criteria and how Carol fits into it. Long post ahead.
Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts.
Carol struggles a lot socially. One of her workers describes her as quite literally having “negative charisma.”
Carol comes off as rude or cold, and from this dialogue we can tell that this isn’t something that just happens with the characters we’ve seen interact with her. Carol seems also to struggle with empathizing with others— she can’t place herself in the shoes of Noelle, and because of this, her assumptions of what is the best for her is often inaccurate. (Yes, being autistic can cause you to have low empathy— it can also cause high empathy. It’s a spectrum. Low empathy doesn’t make you a bad person and it’s not demonizing to talk about unpalatable autism symptoms.)
Autism can also effect general abilities to healthily manage relationships- and we see how strained her relationship with almost everyone around her. This includes her toxic behavior towards her daughters. Carol being autistic would not excuse abusive behavior— nor does being autistic inherently cause that, but, it can play into that. I believe she also has some sort of strained relationship with Rudy. She wasn’t sleeping in the same bed with Rudy before he went to the hospital.
Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities.
Carol has a lot of insistence on sameness and heavily dislikes change— which is a way this symptom can present. She bronzes the snowflakes that Noelle & Dess makes, for example, as a way to perserve them.
Carol’s interest in Christmas is also massive to the point of where it seems obsessive. She insists on having the entire house Christmas themed to an extent, and has the people in her family behave in line with the Christmas theme. All of the doors in the house have the same christmas garland on top.
I also feel like Carol’s design indicates her being very restrictive. Carol stands in a way that’s extremely stiff and restrictive feeling. Her entire design is sharp edges.
Hyper - or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment.
Carol keeps the house cold at all times and she herself is physically cold— this ties into her special interest in Christmas, but also, shows she may have a sensory fixation on cold things. It may cause sensory issues for her to not be cold.
Carol also uses a katana for cutting instead of normal knives because she thinks that normal knives aren’t sharp enough. I’m autistic myself and, I experience something similar. I can’t use “normal” pencils unless I’m constantly sharpening them because if they aren’t sharp enough, it gives me sensory issues. So I only use mechanical pencils or pens.
I also think that Carol’s collection of the Santa dolls and heart shaped objects can be a way her autism presents. How autism effects sensory inputs can sometimes cause people to have an intense fixation on a certain kind of object, if they like the sensory input they get from it. The santa dolls all make the same noise, stop making sound the same way, etc. The santa dolls would also tie into her Christmas special interest. With the heart shaped objects, they could give her a sensory input that she enjoys in some way which leads her to collecting it obsessively. This symptom of hers relates to the repetitive behaviors I just talked about as well.
General thoughts on how Carol as an autistic woman is important to her character
I think this helps contextualize her character in a way that’s interesting. Given how obvious a lot of symptoms of hers are to me, yet her being very conformist in mindset, I think that maybe her workaholic attitude could be a way that she tries to make up for her autism. When characters talk about why they like Carol as a mayor, they’ll often talk about Carol having a poor demeanor and finding her sensory needs to be strange or an issue— but they excuse this because she “works hard.” I think Carol defines a lot of her worth based on her work as a way to “fit back in,” even when it doesn’t seem to make her very happy.
I also think it’s why she generally gets angry at characters who break the norm at all. She’s been forcing herself into boxes for a while now, and if it was good or safe for people to break out of it, then what did she hurt herself for? Carol can’t let it of been for nothing. She tries to make her daughters conform, because she knows that “weird” (aka anything indicative of autism) behaviors will potentially have them shunned. Carol thinks it’s protecting them to restrict them because she restricts herself. It’s all she’s ever known, really.
the thing is that every time they invent a new thing that everybody has to be able to do to get along in society, that also involves making some people disabled who weren't before, because they can't do the thing. and they never could do the thing, but it didn't used to be a disability.
driving a car. making a phone call. navigating the internet. getting a mortgage. you know? they keep adding new things that everybody has to be able to do or else there's something wrong with you. well maybe there's something wrong with driving a car. maybe it's a hideous activity. did they ever think of that
I think one of the crazier things that has given me a very doom-and-gloom attitude about contemporary art teaching or whatever is left of ""the industry"" is the experience I had offering critique in a studio art class (during critique time) where some guy had drawn this really hideous boardwalk-caricature-esque piece that they described more or less as "just a drawing of a really stupid guy, idk, I wanted him to look stupid". and I (gently) (calmly) asked why the artist in question had chosen to visually depict a lack of intelligence through traits like uneven pupils or a unibrow or otherwise "ugly", exaggerated features, and everyone in the room immediately exploded like I had just walked into their house and personally pissed in their cereal. the whole nine yards of "it's not that deep" and "why does it have to be political" and "it's Clearly just supposed to be a stupid person why are you taking it so seriously" etc. and not only did I not use scary words like "ableism" or "caricature" but up until that point I was on good terms with literally everyone in that room. I just sat there in silent shock for the rest of the day because what do you even do when your adult peers are so hyper-sensitive to even the slightest criticism for some real fucking garbage art that you can't even ask a benign question. and I'm supposed to want to work with these people?
lowkey highkey I don't want to be part of this ongoing trend where people act like art is the purest most important goodliest thing we have and if someone makes any art at all it means they're Passionate and if they're Passionate then it's Always Morally Good and you should never, ever call any work of Real art bad, because then we're losing to the AI slop, or whatever. you sound like the democratic party.
