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spaghettimonster) wrote2021-05-15 05:15 am
spaghettimonster) wrote2021-05-15 05:15 am
Geno run history w/ headcanons
Worldbuilding: where/when is Undertale?
Undertale takes place in an Earth-like world, similar enough to ours for jukeboxes and televisions and anime and cars... but one where humans and monsters coexisted in the distant past. In that past, during the age of spears and swords, they went to war - reportedly due to human fear of what monsters might do if they absorbed human souls. The war ended with very few surviving monsters, and human mages trapping them behind a barrier in the caves under Mount Ebott.
The first human to venture into the caves was a child who fell (intentionally) in 201X, only to be rescued by the monsters' prince. Raised by the king and queen for a time, their adoption ushered in hopes of new peace between monsters and humans. When the human died in an unfortunate chain of events, the prince was killed by other humans, the king renewed his vow of war, the people took hope, and the queen fled the kingdom for disgust with them cheering the killing of people like her adopted child.
An unspecified number of years pass between those deaths and the start of the game, but it's long enough that only the oldest of monsters remember the queen anymore. Undyne, captain of the royal guard, was half-raised by King Asgore, but she never met the queen. A comment by Sans implies it's been a century, setting our headcanon date for the game at 211X. The monsters of the underground know little to nothing about human history, and monster technology is roughly modern to 202X standards, thanks to the mix of scavenged human garbage and magical enhancements they work with.
Skeleton backstories and headcanons
Papyrus and Sans have conspicuously unspecified personal histories. The rest of the main characters have anecdotes about their pasts, with friends or relatives who tell stories about them. The brothers don't. Sans seems to have been in science at some point, theoretical things like space and quantum physics and reports about the branching of timelines. Papyrus demonstrates an eclectic mix of practical engineering and artistic skills, now put to use for improving the Snowdin forest experience with art and puzzles. Neither offers any stories about gaining these skills, or mentions where they lived before moving to Snowdin a few years before the game's start.
Among other unexplained things in Undertale is an easter egg character referred to as Dr. W. D. Gaster, the previous royal scientist who "fell into his creation" and "shattered across time and space." On a meta level, he seems to be a joke about game construction, how a character can be unwritten from a story but the game play on. But among the hidden content is a secret lab entry in Wingdings font, and a black and white sprite that could be a melted skeleton. The theory goes, the font-named scientist was the skeleton brothers' father, and that he experimented with something that retconned himself from general memory - or time itself. A forgotten scientist dad gives a source for their more scientific and technological leanings, plus context to their otherwise mysterious unhappiness: Sans thinks it's useless to do anything, since time resets his actions without his remembering it - a lesson Flowey has confirmed - while Papyrus worries about being forgettable, and struggles for popularity or ways to feel he matters to people.
Whatever their origins, we know this about canon: a few years before the events of the game, Papyrus and Sans settled into the small town of Snowdin. They divvied up the housework and bills (Papyrus did the housework, Sans provided funds to pay rent through mysterious means), got jobs as sentries, and generally entertained the town with their banter and bothering. Papyrus strove to join the royal guard in hopes of gaining friends, pestering the head of the guard into personal training when she didn't accept him on the spot. He established himself online, semi-befriending other important people (like the current royal scientist, Alphys)... and met a talking flower.
This was Flowey, the flower with the memories (but not the compassion) of the dead prince and the ability to reset time to a given starting point. Traumatized by death and grief and his transformation, Flowey had been looping time - first in attempts to befriend everyone and help them with their problems, then various ways of hurting and playing with them. In this last timeloop of Flowey's, he mostly only spoke with Papyrus, sharing secrets, predictions, and advice... and pushing the skeleton towards making decisions he might not have made on his own. It's unclear how much Papyrus actually knows about Flowey's plans, and how much the flower manipulated him with lies, but it's clear Papyrus thinks of the flower as someone who has his back. This doesn't work out for him in this timeline, when the latest fallen human becomes the one with the time powers.
Game events
In our chosen timeline, the human that falls turns out to be a relentless killer - one who doesn't just kill everyone in their way, but actively hunts around for anyone they can murder. Seeing this approach, Flowey treats the human as a friend once they go to leave the ruins, and helpfully shuts down some of the puzzles to further simplify their path. He doesn't bother to get in touch with Papyrus again, but the skeletons are near the Ruins door in time to intercept the human anyway.
Sans and Papyrus go about bantering and monologuing at the human along the way through the Snowdin forest, even as the human continues killing along the way, accumulating dust on their decreasingly pink gloves. Papyrus complains with each ruined puzzle, a mix of frustration with their rudeness and almost lampshaded appeals to his brother for help. At his final puzzle, Papyrus baits the human with the idea of friendship, bragging about the great time he'll have with Undyne since they couldn't be bothered to enjoy the experience. He then rushes forward, pushing the residents of Snowdin to finish their evacuation.
(After all, when the people of Snowdin need word to get to someone official, they talk to a skeleton who'll talk to a fish - Papyrus or Sans talks to Undyne. Having weighed up the human early on, Sans has multiple opportunities to shortcut into town and warn the residents to pack up and get moving.)
Papyrus doesn't evacuate with the rest of the town. He waits at the edge of Snowdin and Waterfall for the human to confront him in the snow drift, where he has a speech ready. With a mix of scolding and encouragement, he tells the human that they can stop fighting, that he'll accept their friendship with open arms, and that he offers a hug. (If spared, he admits to being nervous, and can even admit he'd been prepared to blast them. In some versions of the game, he visibly braces for an attack, dropping his ATK and raising his DEF to try to take their first blow.)
Unfortunately for him, the human hits far harder than he anticipated - his body quickly crumbles under him. He takes the chance of his last words to reiterate his encouragement that they can do better - a final attempt to persuade them against killing anyone else - before his skull dissolves as well.
Undertale takes place in an Earth-like world, similar enough to ours for jukeboxes and televisions and anime and cars... but one where humans and monsters coexisted in the distant past. In that past, during the age of spears and swords, they went to war - reportedly due to human fear of what monsters might do if they absorbed human souls. The war ended with very few surviving monsters, and human mages trapping them behind a barrier in the caves under Mount Ebott.
The first human to venture into the caves was a child who fell (intentionally) in 201X, only to be rescued by the monsters' prince. Raised by the king and queen for a time, their adoption ushered in hopes of new peace between monsters and humans. When the human died in an unfortunate chain of events, the prince was killed by other humans, the king renewed his vow of war, the people took hope, and the queen fled the kingdom for disgust with them cheering the killing of people like her adopted child.
An unspecified number of years pass between those deaths and the start of the game, but it's long enough that only the oldest of monsters remember the queen anymore. Undyne, captain of the royal guard, was half-raised by King Asgore, but she never met the queen. A comment by Sans implies it's been a century, setting our headcanon date for the game at 211X. The monsters of the underground know little to nothing about human history, and monster technology is roughly modern to 202X standards, thanks to the mix of scavenged human garbage and magical enhancements they work with.
Skeleton backstories and headcanons
Papyrus and Sans have conspicuously unspecified personal histories. The rest of the main characters have anecdotes about their pasts, with friends or relatives who tell stories about them. The brothers don't. Sans seems to have been in science at some point, theoretical things like space and quantum physics and reports about the branching of timelines. Papyrus demonstrates an eclectic mix of practical engineering and artistic skills, now put to use for improving the Snowdin forest experience with art and puzzles. Neither offers any stories about gaining these skills, or mentions where they lived before moving to Snowdin a few years before the game's start.
Among other unexplained things in Undertale is an easter egg character referred to as Dr. W. D. Gaster, the previous royal scientist who "fell into his creation" and "shattered across time and space." On a meta level, he seems to be a joke about game construction, how a character can be unwritten from a story but the game play on. But among the hidden content is a secret lab entry in Wingdings font, and a black and white sprite that could be a melted skeleton. The theory goes, the font-named scientist was the skeleton brothers' father, and that he experimented with something that retconned himself from general memory - or time itself. A forgotten scientist dad gives a source for their more scientific and technological leanings, plus context to their otherwise mysterious unhappiness: Sans thinks it's useless to do anything, since time resets his actions without his remembering it - a lesson Flowey has confirmed - while Papyrus worries about being forgettable, and struggles for popularity or ways to feel he matters to people.
Whatever their origins, we know this about canon: a few years before the events of the game, Papyrus and Sans settled into the small town of Snowdin. They divvied up the housework and bills (Papyrus did the housework, Sans provided funds to pay rent through mysterious means), got jobs as sentries, and generally entertained the town with their banter and bothering. Papyrus strove to join the royal guard in hopes of gaining friends, pestering the head of the guard into personal training when she didn't accept him on the spot. He established himself online, semi-befriending other important people (like the current royal scientist, Alphys)... and met a talking flower.
This was Flowey, the flower with the memories (but not the compassion) of the dead prince and the ability to reset time to a given starting point. Traumatized by death and grief and his transformation, Flowey had been looping time - first in attempts to befriend everyone and help them with their problems, then various ways of hurting and playing with them. In this last timeloop of Flowey's, he mostly only spoke with Papyrus, sharing secrets, predictions, and advice... and pushing the skeleton towards making decisions he might not have made on his own. It's unclear how much Papyrus actually knows about Flowey's plans, and how much the flower manipulated him with lies, but it's clear Papyrus thinks of the flower as someone who has his back. This doesn't work out for him in this timeline, when the latest fallen human becomes the one with the time powers.
Game events
In our chosen timeline, the human that falls turns out to be a relentless killer - one who doesn't just kill everyone in their way, but actively hunts around for anyone they can murder. Seeing this approach, Flowey treats the human as a friend once they go to leave the ruins, and helpfully shuts down some of the puzzles to further simplify their path. He doesn't bother to get in touch with Papyrus again, but the skeletons are near the Ruins door in time to intercept the human anyway.
Sans and Papyrus go about bantering and monologuing at the human along the way through the Snowdin forest, even as the human continues killing along the way, accumulating dust on their decreasingly pink gloves. Papyrus complains with each ruined puzzle, a mix of frustration with their rudeness and almost lampshaded appeals to his brother for help. At his final puzzle, Papyrus baits the human with the idea of friendship, bragging about the great time he'll have with Undyne since they couldn't be bothered to enjoy the experience. He then rushes forward, pushing the residents of Snowdin to finish their evacuation.
(After all, when the people of Snowdin need word to get to someone official, they talk to a skeleton who'll talk to a fish - Papyrus or Sans talks to Undyne. Having weighed up the human early on, Sans has multiple opportunities to shortcut into town and warn the residents to pack up and get moving.)
Papyrus doesn't evacuate with the rest of the town. He waits at the edge of Snowdin and Waterfall for the human to confront him in the snow drift, where he has a speech ready. With a mix of scolding and encouragement, he tells the human that they can stop fighting, that he'll accept their friendship with open arms, and that he offers a hug. (If spared, he admits to being nervous, and can even admit he'd been prepared to blast them. In some versions of the game, he visibly braces for an attack, dropping his ATK and raising his DEF to try to take their first blow.)
Unfortunately for him, the human hits far harder than he anticipated - his body quickly crumbles under him. He takes the chance of his last words to reiterate his encouragement that they can do better - a final attempt to persuade them against killing anyone else - before his skull dissolves as well.