Austice: Application
Oct. 12th, 2022 11:16 pmPLAYER
CHARACTER
Name: Papyrus
Canon: Undertale
Canon point: Neutral ending: Royal Guardener Papyrus
Age: Unspecified in canon, but he's not one of the teenagers - I usually go with low-to-mid 20s. He feels like somebody on the fifth or sixth year of undergrad, on his fifth or sixth attempted major, you know?
Summary: Papyrus is one of the backbones of Undertale, being the character with the most lines, the boss of the second region, and the first of the friends the player needs to 'date' to bring about the happier endings of the game. He's introduced as the loud, human-hunting brother of jokester Sans, giving monologues of dramatic threats in between bantering and bickering with his brother, slowing the player with the array of puzzles and traps he's built along the road... And this is largely a persona, one he drops after his boss fight - when he gives up on capturing the human as his avenue to popularity - and switches gears to one of fostering friendship.
His motivations between both these personas, his underlying motivation, is one of wanting to be important - to be memorable and to matter, rather than be forgettable or irrelevant. He usually approaches this as wanting to be Important, from that first impression of wanting to join the royal guard, to seeking other positions of influence in the underground. In most of the neutral endings, he's close to the rulership of the underground as an assistant or figurehead; in the endings where he isn't, it's because he's dead, or helping Undyne through her grief and depression, or helping exiled queen Toriel protect future humans, or because he's following Flowey's plan to prevent the final battle of king vs human. Even in the happiest ending he's quick to run ahead of the others, seeking to make the first impression of the humans on monsterkind's behalf, and he volunteers to be ambassador if no one else claims the position.
If Papyrus has a past inspiring this motivation, no one in the game mentions a word of it - he is a character of the present and near future, full of quirky comments and no childhood stories, quick to jump from dream to dream when the circumstances change and he sees a new way to gain the approval and standing he craves. Papyrus doesn't restrict himself to the practical or even the plausible, either - his skin care products and exercise routines are only making him more moisturized and muscular in his own mind, and his thoughtlessness in knocking on a front door for training at midnight only paid off because Undyne was impressed by his tenacity in staying there until morning for the answer. He's self-absorbed in ways where he's quick to announce his own greatness, but eager to cheer others on and willing to give special and inconveniencing help - what he thinks is best, or interesting, rather than necessarily helpful.
Powers/abilities: Skeleton #2 here with a similarly long power list:
Inventory: Ceremonial Royal Guard armor, t-shirt and shorts underneath, cell phone (with hammerspace inventory now reduced to 5 slots), a spare decorative bone, some gold (currency)
Canon: Undertale
Canon point: Neutral ending: Royal Guardener Papyrus
Age: Unspecified in canon, but he's not one of the teenagers - I usually go with low-to-mid 20s. He feels like somebody on the fifth or sixth year of undergrad, on his fifth or sixth attempted major, you know?
Summary: Papyrus is one of the backbones of Undertale, being the character with the most lines, the boss of the second region, and the first of the friends the player needs to 'date' to bring about the happier endings of the game. He's introduced as the loud, human-hunting brother of jokester Sans, giving monologues of dramatic threats in between bantering and bickering with his brother, slowing the player with the array of puzzles and traps he's built along the road... And this is largely a persona, one he drops after his boss fight - when he gives up on capturing the human as his avenue to popularity - and switches gears to one of fostering friendship.
His motivations between both these personas, his underlying motivation, is one of wanting to be important - to be memorable and to matter, rather than be forgettable or irrelevant. He usually approaches this as wanting to be Important, from that first impression of wanting to join the royal guard, to seeking other positions of influence in the underground. In most of the neutral endings, he's close to the rulership of the underground as an assistant or figurehead; in the endings where he isn't, it's because he's dead, or helping Undyne through her grief and depression, or helping exiled queen Toriel protect future humans, or because he's following Flowey's plan to prevent the final battle of king vs human. Even in the happiest ending he's quick to run ahead of the others, seeking to make the first impression of the humans on monsterkind's behalf, and he volunteers to be ambassador if no one else claims the position.
If Papyrus has a past inspiring this motivation, no one in the game mentions a word of it - he is a character of the present and near future, full of quirky comments and no childhood stories, quick to jump from dream to dream when the circumstances change and he sees a new way to gain the approval and standing he craves. Papyrus doesn't restrict himself to the practical or even the plausible, either - his skin care products and exercise routines are only making him more moisturized and muscular in his own mind, and his thoughtlessness in knocking on a front door for training at midnight only paid off because Undyne was impressed by his tenacity in staying there until morning for the answer. He's self-absorbed in ways where he's quick to announce his own greatness, but eager to cheer others on and willing to give special and inconveniencing help - what he thinks is best, or interesting, rather than necessarily helpful.
Powers/abilities: Skeleton #2 here with a similarly long power list:
- Skeleton monster: Undertale's monsters are made mostly of magic, with very little physical matter to them. Skeletons are solid bones while alive, small piles of dust if killed - and they are very vulnerable to the intention behind attacks on them. An adult could playfully punch his shoulder painfully hard and it would only hurt, while a child with enough murdering experience could kill him with only a single whack of a feather duster. While death isn't really in the picture in Austice, the increased severity of injuries from a murderous attacker means it may come up.
Monster magic: monsters make projectiles of magic as a form of expression and a way of interacting with the world, used both for day-to-day tasks like cooking and punching holes in cards, and as their primary resort in combat. Papyrus's are mostly shaped like bones. They come in white (solid, hurt on impact) and blue (semi-solid, hurt only if the target is intentionally moving).
Precise control: Papyrus is one of the only two characters in the game who demonstrates the ability to hit hard enough to kill and stop the attack partway, leaving the human alive. (We knows this ability isn't typical, as at least one monster very specifically doesn't mean to kill the human, and will look briefly horrified if they accidentally do.) This precision is also used for showing off, spelling words with his bone attack patterns at one point.
Blue magic: used in the game to turn the skeletons' fights into platforming puzzles, it's best translated into narrative as a momentum- or gravity-manipulation kind of magic. Where Sans seems to fling the human against the walls/floor/ceiling, Papyrus seems to use it on himself, (1a) repeatedly sliding around (1b) without walking, (2) double-jumping in the air, and (3) leaping unnaturally far from a standing position. With this interpretation, we see him increase gravity for a couple minutes of combat, and change/reduce gravity for bursts of several seconds. We don't see any extended flight, and he gets tired after exerting himself for the combat.
Slow/limited healing magic: Undertale has hitpoints as the abstraction for measuring injuries from magical and physical altercations, and healing magic restores the points lost. It does not seem to help with things like poisoning, heatstroke, or illness, and can't help with lethal injuries - no monsters heal themselves or their dying friends. Papyrus doesn't seem to have the knack for quick healing in combat, but he can and will heal the human while monologuing before his fight if they arrive injured, as well as restoring them to full hp if he captures them. I'm happy to accept other limitations if they're helpful for keeping game balance!
Gaster blasters: I should say upfront, we never actually see Papyrus use these - he mentions a 'special attack' that the dog steals and prevents him from using at any point in gameplay. But in a specific set of circumstances, Papyrus brags that "had I only used my special attack, you surely would have been blasted to...," without elaborating further. Given that phrasing and not wanting to create powers out of nowhere, the simplest interpretation about what the special attack could be is a similar blaster attack to what Sans uses. The main difference that, as Papyrus's magic doesn't have the rapid papercuts approach that Sans's has, his blaster presumably does a single large burst of damage.
Teleportation, barely: There is one instance in the game where Papyrus uses the same "shortcut" ability that Sans does: during the prank of Frisk walking in the dark. The blacked out screen and sound effect are notably slower than when Sans teleports away, as though Papyrus is out of practice with the ability. I'm extrapolating that Papyrus has the potential to teleport, but doesn't use it nearly as much as his brother does, and so lacks the skill and speed Sans displays. It may not be relevant - unless Papyrus loses the memories involved in his decision not to use the power, he won't use it.
There's also some oddities, like when Papyrus mentions seeing through the phone before he hastily changes the subject, or turns to watch the human go by underground... but these may just be humorous videogame shenanigans. I include these here mainly because they're fun to be aggravated by - I don't know how to begin to turn these into powers for a dwrp game.
Beyond magical/exceptional powers, he also displays some skill with visual arts (painting, snow sculpture), carpentry and plumbing (tall sink), electrical mechanics (puzzles), taxes and bureaucratic reading (following the latest legalese re: puzzle mandates), wordplay (makes a lot of puns), and mostly functional insomnia (he admits to snoozing occasionally, but does not sleep 8 hours a day).
Inventory: Ceremonial Royal Guard armor, t-shirt and shorts underneath, cell phone (with hammerspace inventory now reduced to 5 slots), a spare decorative bone, some gold (currency)
OTHER
Sentimental item: A blue teacup in the shape of a fish. It belongs to Undyne, Papyrus's ex-boss and now-friend, and had been gifted to her by the (now-deceased) King Asgore. In Undyne Papyrus found a friend as willing to be loud and enthusiastically herself as he tries/pretends to be, someone who appreciates his company in a way few do. He values her happiness enough to scheme on her behalf, manipulating her into actions he's sure are best for her (namely, attempting friendship with the human and confessing to her crush).
Gemstone: A piece of snowflake obsidian, black and white, carved into a simple, small skull. It has a crack extending up from one eye socket, and a chunk of the other cheekbone missing from the mouth to the eye.
Lost memory #1: Papyrus will forget Flowey's existence. 'Flowey the flower' had control of the timeline before Frisk fell, and in his many time loops he got to know the rest of the monsters very well - including what buttons to push to get various reactions out of them. In the timeline that game's beginning interrupts, Flowey had secretly befriended Papyrus, giving him predictions of the future and advice on what to do about it. This friendship had been going on for weeks, if not months or longer - the specific timeframe isn't clear - but the relevant things are that some of Papyrus's hopes and fears at the game's start were tweaked by the flower's input, some of his actions in the game were based on the flower's advice, and Flowey had been the first seemingly effortless friend Papyrus ever made. Without that, his tendencies towards overconfidence and insecurity will both be exaggerated - he'll know he's succeeded at making friends and other dreams, but he won't be able to replicate the ease he had with some of it, and the apparent increased difficult will feel like he's reverting to old habits.
Lost memory #2: Some of the details about the magic barrier. He'll remember that the barrier traps monsters inside, that human souls are more powerful than monster souls, and that it would take the power of about seven human souls to destroy the barrier. He won't remember that it takes the power of a human soul and a monster soul to exit the barrier, or that passage is based solely on soul power. Without those details, he'll think that the human could have left without incident just by asking Asgore to let them pass. And with his altered memory, he'll be under the impression that he and Sans had the ability to go through at any time, and simply weren't using it for some reason - which will leave him more frustrated with Sans's tendencies towards laziness.
Altered memory: Papyrus's childhood / background. Instead of growing up wherever and however he did in canon - never specified - he's now solidly under the impression that he's a reanimated human skeleton. It's uncommon knowledge in Undertale that ghosts are capable of not just briefly possessing objects, but of becoming them - binding their souls to the objects and bringing them to life, by experiencing strong enough emotions to fill the bodies with their magic. Papyrus won't believe that he's outright an ex-ghost, but he will believe that something similar happened - that someone, maybe the king or the previous royal scientist, used a lot of spiritual power to bring two skeletons to life. The memories of his creation and immediate aftermath will be muddled, being the equivalent to childhood's learning process. He'll remember that Sans is older than him and was already used to being a person, that Papyrus was disoriented and distressed by Hotland's steam vents, and that he honed his blue magic to feel more confident navigating the area. His clearest memories are primarily based when the skeletons moved to Snowdin, including the events actually mentioned / portrayed in the game. This altered background will give Papyrus a stronger sense of kinship with the humans in the game, a fun potential hook with the necromancers and anyone horrified by necromancy, and mutual bewilderment with his brother's conflicting memories.
Sample: TDM top level
Gemstone: A piece of snowflake obsidian, black and white, carved into a simple, small skull. It has a crack extending up from one eye socket, and a chunk of the other cheekbone missing from the mouth to the eye.
Lost memory #1: Papyrus will forget Flowey's existence. 'Flowey the flower' had control of the timeline before Frisk fell, and in his many time loops he got to know the rest of the monsters very well - including what buttons to push to get various reactions out of them. In the timeline that game's beginning interrupts, Flowey had secretly befriended Papyrus, giving him predictions of the future and advice on what to do about it. This friendship had been going on for weeks, if not months or longer - the specific timeframe isn't clear - but the relevant things are that some of Papyrus's hopes and fears at the game's start were tweaked by the flower's input, some of his actions in the game were based on the flower's advice, and Flowey had been the first seemingly effortless friend Papyrus ever made. Without that, his tendencies towards overconfidence and insecurity will both be exaggerated - he'll know he's succeeded at making friends and other dreams, but he won't be able to replicate the ease he had with some of it, and the apparent increased difficult will feel like he's reverting to old habits.
Lost memory #2: Some of the details about the magic barrier. He'll remember that the barrier traps monsters inside, that human souls are more powerful than monster souls, and that it would take the power of about seven human souls to destroy the barrier. He won't remember that it takes the power of a human soul and a monster soul to exit the barrier, or that passage is based solely on soul power. Without those details, he'll think that the human could have left without incident just by asking Asgore to let them pass. And with his altered memory, he'll be under the impression that he and Sans had the ability to go through at any time, and simply weren't using it for some reason - which will leave him more frustrated with Sans's tendencies towards laziness.
Altered memory: Papyrus's childhood / background. Instead of growing up wherever and however he did in canon - never specified - he's now solidly under the impression that he's a reanimated human skeleton. It's uncommon knowledge in Undertale that ghosts are capable of not just briefly possessing objects, but of becoming them - binding their souls to the objects and bringing them to life, by experiencing strong enough emotions to fill the bodies with their magic. Papyrus won't believe that he's outright an ex-ghost, but he will believe that something similar happened - that someone, maybe the king or the previous royal scientist, used a lot of spiritual power to bring two skeletons to life. The memories of his creation and immediate aftermath will be muddled, being the equivalent to childhood's learning process. He'll remember that Sans is older than him and was already used to being a person, that Papyrus was disoriented and distressed by Hotland's steam vents, and that he honed his blue magic to feel more confident navigating the area. His clearest memories are primarily based when the skeletons moved to Snowdin, including the events actually mentioned / portrayed in the game. This altered background will give Papyrus a stronger sense of kinship with the humans in the game, a fun potential hook with the necromancers and anyone horrified by necromancy, and mutual bewilderment with his brother's conflicting memories.
Sample: TDM top level
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