it has been almost 13 years, 20k+ playtime hours.. seen it hundreds of times. but the part of the ARR opener with Louisoix teleporting the WoLs away will never not make me cry a manly little cry. heartshreddingly good
tw2: i am about to talk Mega Mean Asshole Shit about the UT community and gen-z for the beginning of this if u do not want to hear that skip down to paragraph 5 💘
so. the year was 2016. i was a humble Tumbler User. i had been here since 2009, but hadnt been super active until 2012ish. for the past two years, i had seen roughly eight million thousand quadrillion fucking memes and pictures of this little skeleton man with one blue eye. i had heard megalovania roughly twenty thousand jimbillion times. 105% of the posts were made by people who seemed so unbelievably insufferable, socially impotent, Annoying As Fuck Dumbos (tm). im one of the younger millenials and lots of gen z meepsters were suddenly coming to teenagehood, flooding social media... and just. none of them took ANYTHING seriously. everything was a joke, back in the day even serious stuff was just. a meme to them. and it really Pissed me off....... that combination of new-to-me, insufferably immature attitude with the little skellington man just. made me slowly hate his ass more. and more. and more. i was so sick of hearing about undertale, it had to be fucking annoying and terrible if these idiots liked it. my internal lava boiled hotter with each post, with each passing year for this surely stupid game.
in 2017, i had just gotten out of a long-term relationship and after a few months was dipping my toes into dating again. i was 24, and was starting to talk to this 20 yo guy. he was ok, he could be very funny, he was clearly intelligent, but he was uh also the type to NEVER take anything seriously. in matters of Luv, i am very cringe.. after some funnyman time, in close moments, i WILL wax poetic, very seriously!! and i want a partner who will wax back. i also dont like making fun of each other, the world already does enough of that to me daily. my partner is my refuge where we both be very Sweet and Loving and Supportive to each other, hype each other up, and make mean jokes about OTHER people or mostly things hehe. :0) privately. anyway. this guy........ many gen z are not shy about openly roasting each other, even moreso when in love it seems. and thats cool for them if theyre comfortable with it. i am not. i reaaaally hated him clowning on me tbh. he would NEVER take flirting seriously, he would always clown on me... u can imagine having a serious convo about our strong feelings was hysterically laughable and never going to happen. and like hey if thats ur thing, thats cool, but it is NOT mine and it slowly gave me a very bitter taste in my mouth when i interacted w this guy.
so. he really, really liked undertale. he kept trying to get me to play it, but 1) my first paragraph was still within me, and 2) now this guy who i REALLY am starting to hate - not just him, but getting Pissed Off that the entirety of gen z seeming to be this way, dating in a meaningful loving way was feeling fucking impossible... my rage boiled over. i stopped talking to him, and in my furious darkness, bought and booted up Undertale.
now. i will preface this by saying my outward and mostly inward self, truly, is a Nice Meepster. though i can have very mean opinions about others, they always have a core of 'they can't help it/they were raised this way/mostly: you suck ass too and way worse so check urself...' but i do really labor to be nice to others, to empathize, to be Kind. cringe warning: even to the devil, sadly. no matter what i am thinking internally. i find true joy and power in lifting others up tbh, i just physically cannot say anything that would even be interpretable as mean/rude/critical to someone to their face, for the joke. i am wholly unable, i got both seriously and 'jokingly' bullied way too much growing up and it Just Ended Up This Way
and especially in a game, i will always try my hardest to be The Nice Guy. (yes insanely cringe i know. i know . i am trying to be fully Honest right now despite how embarrassingly Lame it sounds lol but trust me i know) i cannot stress enough how i have never. ever. gone into a game bloodthirsty. ever. not to the NPCs, anyway. not seriously, and definitely not for the Joake. but this...... we may yet live to see it, but just imagine Ralsei's pain and rage boiling over and him transforming into Hyperdeath Asriel, lmfao. can you feel where this is going yet?
i was hellbent. powered by hell itself. to be as mean, destructive, rude, whatever, i could be in this game. i had NO clue what the hell undertale was even about, didn't know if there would even be a way to be mean or destructive, but if there was ANY chance to be a huge piece of shit, i was determined to do it. i wanted to unleash all my rage out on this stupid fucking game everyone i loathed wouldnt shut the hell up about.
the first thing i still remember was the two loverdogs fight (dogamy and dogaressa). i will never, ever forget how i felt when that first dog died. after i killed it. the little heartbreak attack that came up from the surviving dog. i was horrified. my eyes are getting watery just thinking about it.. i cried when that happened. i was not a big crier, and.. i did not get watery. i did not tear up. i cried. i had NEVER seen such a thing in a video game before. .......the first chip in my heart's armor had just been nailed into, quite hard.
but i was still determined. i was crying, but i was still determined to keep on committing evil. i had made a vow, to fuck this game up in my anger, and i was going to fulfill it.
the next thing i remember clearly was undyne's fight.
jesus christ, i cried so hard. i didn't want to do it. this was a nightmare. this was horrifying. there are MANY things i've forgotten over my life, especially in the past 10 years since having health and memory issues, but i will never. ever. forget how that fight made me feel. ...i didn't want to kill her.... i didn't want to think about everyone else i had already killed.... please.. don't... say that... don't....... do it........... but i had made a vow...........
i went the whole game. i killed anyone in my path, the whole game. i cried so many times. it was close to the most disgusted i have ever felt with myself. having to watch all these meepsters die, cold, sad, alone.. beg, or be in pain, or be at the cuff of life's end.. ugh. after undyne, i knew i was intentionally doing it to inflict pain on myself for even having the audacity, the cruelty, to enter a world and make this choice purely out of spite and anger. "look. look at what the choice you made in anger has done. look at what your loathing has brought."
like. i know this sounds insane, definitely sounds cringe, i know this sounds made up, but i swear on my life that is what happened. toby fox made an entire goddamn video game that punished -- at least, taught a lesson or told a story about -- not only wanton violence.. it unintentionally, unexpectedly punished my very specific lashing out in anger, very like. unbelievably. specific to my current scenario at that time. i went in to stab everything in this game as hard as possible, and all i ended up doing was stabbing myself, over and over and over. my own pain and anger were stabbing me to death, wielded by myself. i dont think i will EVER experience anything like it again, it was so fucking insanely prophetic, so self-fulfilling, i never shut the hell up about it lmfao because it was so. just. transcendental. emotionally. and JUST. ALMOST DIDN'T HAPPEN. IT LITERALLY ONLY HAPPENED BECAUSE I WAS ANGRIER THAN IVE ALMOST EVER BEEN. I WAS PERSONALLY IN SO MUCH PAIN OVER THE CHANGING WORLD AND SOCIALIZATION I FELT LIKE I NEEDED TO KILL THIS GAME LMFAO......
..................YEAH UM I NEVER DID A VIOLENT PLAYTHROUGH EVER AGAIN. NOT IN UNDERTALE AND NOT IN DELTARUNE. AND I NEVER WILL. EVER. EVER. AGAIN. NOT EVEN TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. THAT BROKE MY HEART INTO 200000000000000 PIECES AND BURNED THEM AND SMASHED THEM AND SLICED THEM AND CHEWED THEM AND ... and.. the worst part is? it did, but it didn't. *i* did that. i did it to myself. i know i keep saying that but oh my god i just will never get over it holy fucking shit
but the most important part to me, truly, is the amount of creativity, specificity, planning and writing and storytelling power, character design, artistic love, and MUSICAL GENIUS... that Toby Fox and Temmie put into Undertale. obviously like many others, i had played many games with twist deaths, feel bad for killing the villain, heart-wrenching, gut-punching moments, etc... this was horrifying on another level. i just. so, so well done. heartshatteringly made. i am just a simple creature.. i don't. have words in the english language. for it.
hehe going back and doing a pacifist playthrough revived my heart though ;;;; u ;;;; i went around crying irl and internally groveled to every character saying the deepest sorry, and patted them, and promised to make it right ;u; and then got to enjoy the deeply soul-healing experience of getting to know them all fully, defend them, befriend them. i also had a Very Deep Thinking Moment about being gentler on my opinion of gen z and...... unbreakable-shield-jokesters....... entirely. it softened my anger in a major way tbh. i've been in gen z jokester world for so long now im honestly used to it and dont take it as personally anymore. Time is Epic (tm)
i could make another post about my bff mei finally LISTENING to me and Playing (i think he had a distaste for the annoying Sans memes in the 2010s and kinda jokingly hated UTs existence too so it took him a while to come around even with ME begging him lmfao)... i begged him from 2017 until literally this year, 2025, 0 u o... BUT WELL HE CAME AROUND WE DID IT BOY'S AND WE'RE IN DEEP
so now mei and i are Both Also Extremely Annoying Motherfucking UT/DR Fans And I Totally Fucking Get Why Everyone Was So Annoying About It It Is So Fucking Good And Change My Life Thank You Tobey Fox What The Fuck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💗🧡💛💚💙💜
like. i didn't know about starwalker until mei got determined to get that Bird . I didn't even consider it was something that could be done my first 73849 playthroughs . ...and thus. the Original Starwalker my beloved entered my life. many such occurrences after getting mei to play as well ....
friendship is magic or whatever those little animals were saying .
