#alphys analysis

[localcoffeeshop]

i like when alphys talks about mew mew kissy cutie and i can psychoanalyze her for it like such an anxious person being so obsessed with a character who has kissing-mind control powers is so alphys. the most insecure part of her would really like to have people be completely transparent to her at all times. she finds mew mew’s control powers so attractive for the same reason that she purposefully works on mettaton’s body slowly in order to keep him around. it’s an attempt to control what she can and hold on to what she has left when her life is out of control. at the same time she seems completely unawares when she’s talking about the story of mew mew not realizing that none of her friends like the snail ice cream and she’s the only one that can eat it. alphys praises that but doesn’t seen to apply it to her own life. she doesn’t realize when she’s making her friend go along with a killer robot bit for attention from either asgore or the human; she doesn’t have a problem calling him the heater and begging him to sit under her table in the winter. she’s a bit obtuse when it comes to being a friend, despite the fact that she clearly truly LOVES the people in her life.

it’s also so serious to me that she likes the cute fluffy all ages mew mew kissy cutie 1 because she’s in need of something easy to digest like that while being relentlessly traumatized by the situation she’s in, meanwhile deltarune alphys rejects it and prefers the edgier sequel because she’s not carrying the amalgamate baggage. I THINK ABOUT IT SOOO OFTEN.

[localcoffeeshop]

real mess enjoyers can appreciate the sheer messiness of the scheme behind the "Killer Robot" body thing. i don't think alphys realized it but pulling off the scheme involving her best friend cutting off every single other person in his life other than her was seriously part of the damage of their friendship. like mettaton is an egomaniac who would've let the fame go to his head regardless, but i feel (and toby agrees i can sense it) that he distanced himself also because he was fostering resentment SIMULTANEOUSLY TO immense gratitude ("thank you for making my dreams come true"). and it's not like everything is her fault, and of course he agreed, he chose this, he wanted this more than anything and would've gone to any length for it. but you can still make that hard but wonderful choice and still have a feeling that you shouldn't have had to make it at all. and for mettaton i think he felt like... "oh i cant face blooky, i cant go home... i feel guilty............. damn you alphys" in a way like that' s just a very realistic semi-unfair guilt-absolving way of feeling about things. it's easy for him to blame her because she did provide the bones of the plan and she did necessitate him not really having anyone else in his life who really knew him. and he wants to be REALLY known, so he writes individualized letters in response to fanmail, and that just expedited the deterioration of their friendship to its absolute limit until they TALKED.

and alphys btw is super valid for feeling like "now that mettatons made it big, he doesnt talk to me anymore" because it was his incessant need to climb higher and higher that drove that wedge, bolstered by his resentment, and in turn, she clung because no one else knew her like him either. secrets can create immense codependency. she felt for a while that even undyne wouldn't like her because of all these lies. so she didn't work on the EX body to keep him around longer which just made him even MORE resentful and impatient. this is literally such a fascinating dynamic to me my munches crunches

[localcoffeeshop]

I’ve spent the past hour obsessed with the realization that alphys being alive makes everyone else’s life better — helping her realize the necessity of her life gets you the true pacifist ending, and indirectly killing her (obviously, she makes the choice herself but you push her too it) by killing mettaton or undyne literally makes the entire underground a nightmare or at the very least ruins lives. all hell breaks loose in an alphysless world. undyne and mettaton are unstable rulers without alphys - they would have been better off if she was alive. and she thinks so lowly of herself this probably never once crosses her mind, and she sabotages herself and her relationships too much to see it, but she really does make others’ lives worth living and she functions as a glue that can unknowingly literally make or break monsterkind’s entire wellbeing. she’s so loved, man. she’s the only main character you can’t directly kill, and her death is literally this

[localcoffeeshop]

honestly this whole video is really interesting because every time you "fail" mettaton's set ups, you get dialogue of alphys basically beating herself up and freaking out about being a bad person and feeling guilty, but once you get to the MTT news segment, and after you've seen that every time Alphys has messed up, Mettaton has been able to sweep in and help her, her switch up to suddenly saying "it's mettaton's fault if you're in danger, not mine" is so interesting.

one thing is that she's so invested in trying to believe that she's not a bad person when she feels horribly guilty about what she's done in general, and including to you and to mettaton. her entire plan hinges on making her feel good, she's got her best friend piling compliments on and she's fishing more compliments out of you. i think when people feel guilty they tend to try to offload that guilt wherever they can, especially onto others, because feeling guilty SUCKS. and... i think on a deeper level, this line is kind of representative of the way alphys managed to convince herself that mettaton was the problem in their friendship falling apart, specifically. the lab entry about how he won't talk to her anymore with the reason being that he "made it big" shows that she kind of needs things to be his fault, he did something wrong, he's negligent, and I think she feels like if they were still as close as they used to be, she would have someone to lean on and support her with the amalgamates. i think she feels a bit resentful that he isn't helping her with her mess, which is a very real way to feel when you've got something going on that is so terribly out of control. you just want someone to make it better. obviously, mettaton has more understandable reasons to be growing distant from alphys beyond just "making it big."

it's also that mettaton is clearly her yes-man, she's used to him saying yes to her and making her feel better. and this is supported by him even agreeing to this, and by his own admission even when things are better between them, he doesn't tell her "no." so in a way,

he kind of exists as a bit of a shield for her. when you mess up the can of artificial soul jetpack minigame, she can tell that he's coming in with the right line at the right time to save her and to keep her bit going and shut down her negative feelings. (it's also how mettaton treats his own negative feelings, by avoiding them entirely — literally "pretending the mystery key isn't there" when it's right in front of him in the ex fight). he's a good friend, but i think his solution with problems is to try and pretend they're not there, and that especially includes when alphys is involved. so, if there's no mettaton buffer for the problem, then it's his fault anyways.

it's also apparent how unhealthy her mindset is that her confidence is entirely reliant on everything going right, mostly because she's horrified that up until now everything in her life has gone wrong and she is traumatized. she literally can't handle another thing going wrong, another thing being her fault, because at this point it's a life-or-death matter to her. she is actively doing all of this to try and walk herself back down from a ledge, and it works too well, but that doesn't mean it's healthy. building her confidence in this way harms her in the long run and harms her relationship with her best friend. eventually after true lab she's able to notice that, but i think the way that the hotland segments involve her throwing mettaton under the bus to basically pull herself out of the hole she's in, thereby actually worsening said hole, is sooo interesting... my shaylas need therapy....

[localcoffeeshop]

in retrospect the reason he asked this question isn't just him being petty but also like this feeling he has that... it's hard to explain. but she built him a robot body in the first place as a mutually beneficial set-up so she could impress Asgore and it was the conditions of the impressing Asgore thing (claiming she built a robot with a soul) that siloed Mettaton into excommunicating himself from everyone in his life. It's not that he's some kind of incel about it at all but I think the fact that he's in love with her and it's unrequited and the only time he feels like she gives a shit about him is when she's got someone else to impress. like - "you'd take anyone over me." which isn't founded because she will kill herself if you kill mettaton, that's the devotion level, but you have to remember she's so desperate to keep mettaton around and her way of doing that has been dragging her feet with working on the ex body, which makes him feel like he isn't a priority to her at all, which causes the rift to grow bigger, which makes her more anxious, which makes her work slower... etc. etc. but it's kind of sad, cus both of them really feel low-priority to the other despite being each other's numba one

[localcoffeeshop]

Honestly the saddest thing to me is the way alphys believes that undyne won’t like her anymore if she finds out the truth and that people wont like the real her period is like… A consequence in large part from having been given the cold shoulder by mettaton (for reasons that are honestly valid but to alphys it just reinforced the idea that the more people know her the more they’ll hate her or the more distance they’ll want from her). Like that is so destructive. They isolated each other...

[simonsoys]

What if US! Undyne has a fight with UT Alphys about Mew Mew Kissie Cutie??? How do you think that would end??? XD

Sorry, I don’t really know anything about US!Undyne. I thought she was essentially the same as regular Alphys? So I think if they both liked it, they’d probably gush about it for a week before dissolving into nitpicking for 3 years, as nerds are wont to do with things they love.

I dunno, I’m picturing two Alphys-types having a nerd argument and I think it would be polite disagreement publicly, but deep passive-aggressive judgment in private. Anonymous posting on message boards late at night: “MRW people defend MMKC2… [meme picture of a side-eyeing llama] smh irl”

[simonsoys]

I personally still don't agree but I can understand the angle you're coming from and can respect it. I just think that while yes, she needs help with her personal issues of self loathing and the like, it doesn't mean she should be excused from the consequences of her action when it hurt others. (Cont)

The prime examples I can think of are snowy and shyren in losing their mother and sister respectively since snowy’s dad talks about how it’s effected him while someone (I forget who) mentions how shyren became very reclusive and withdrawn after the loss of her sister. Again, I can understand your view point and I really hope I’m not coming across as argumentative or anything OTL 

That’s fine, and I don’t really have much more to say that I haven’t already mentioned so this will be my last take on the subject. 

My final point is regarding Mrs. Snowdrake and Shiren’s sister– that it’s not Alphys that caused them to fall down in the first place, so she shouldn’t be held responsible for this grief. She may have exacerbated an already difficult time for their loved ones, but the families would still be grieving regardless of whether Alphys was involved or not.

I don’t think it’s fair to hold her accountable for the sense of loss those monsters have. At worst, she’s a doctor who can’t perform miracles but accidentally prematurely announced to the families that she did.