Okay but while I’m nabbing bits and pieces and screenshots off Lets Plays, I’m gonna go and add a bit on to another theory I made last night. This time with some actual coherent thoughts. Not with a Skype screenshot.

So. As you all know: After the Alphys date, Undyne sends Alphys to train with Papyrus in what’s basically learning to love herself.

Which all seems pretty fine and dandy. (Unless you focus on why exactly Papyrus would know how to give people self confidence training. Did he need that kind of thing in the past, himself? Who knows. That’s not the point of this post.) At least, until you get to the True Lab.

There you meet quite a few horrifying, albeit sad and misunderstood, Amalgamates. And at the end you find Alphys. And what does she talk about?

She talks as if she was going to die down there. In her own lab. For a second you’re led on to believe she means the Amalgamations would have killed her, but she quickly perishes that thought.

She doesn’t emphasize on what said cowardly thing is. But as quite a few people know, Alphys is coded with depression. Not even coded, really. More like outright stated to have depression and suicidal thoughts. In quite a few neutral endings she kills herself. And she’s implied to have been considering committing suicide before she met Undyne. Think of this situation. What’s something “cowardly” (Although I disagree with that adjective for it, it’s still her own thoughts on it) that Alphys would hesitate to go into detail on in front of Frisk, who’s supposedly a child?

That’s right. Alphys was considering offing herself down there.

But how? How could such a cheerful, jokey, mood deteriorate into this? How can silliness like Undyne slam dunking Alphys into the garbage can, and Papyrus cheerily helping out her self confidence become suicidal thoughts? What happened while she and Papyrus were training? Certainly it wasn’t something that kindly Papyrus said that made her feel like this.

No. It was indirectly what you, the player, said.

You push Alphys to tell the truth. And it’s a noble thing to do. No bad intentions were had. But as you push her to tell the truth about silly anxious things like actually liking anime, and not being as cool as she said she was, surely something else; a different kind of truth; weighed on her mind. The truth of her past. The truth of the Amalgamations. The truth of what horrors she’d created. If it’s wrong to lie about one thing… Then is it wrong to lie about that, too?

Obviously those thoughts weighed on her. As telling the truth about that is what she was talking about in the True Lab. It’s very likely that as she was training with Papyrus, thoughts of what to do were weighing on her mind. What if it was those thoughts that made her consider doing such a dark thing to herself?

Now. Let’s look at another thing.

She talks as if she didn’t expect you to come down here, when you meet her in the True Lab. As if she didn’t expect you to back her up. As if she gave you a choice. But let’s look back on another thing: At when Papyrus calls you, to urge you to go to the True Lab.

At first the whole conversation comes off as very awkward, and just another gag that Toby put in. But in hindsight… Doesn’t it almost seem… Forced? Or, dare I say, the most nervous we’ve ever seen Papyrus? Sure, the tall skeleton always comes off as a bit silly, but this gives off awkward vibes, even for his standards. As if he’s trying to get a point across.

He doesn’t seem to give you a choice, either. While Alphys herself seemed as if she was certain it was more “Hey, you can come to the lab if you want”, not “YOU SHOULD GO TO THE LAB. IT WILL END WELL.” It’s very likely that Papyrus was asked by Alphys to call you, and invite you there, since she was too nervous to ask you herself. But why did he seem so… Desperate? And why DID he send Alphys home, anyways?

Well… What if Alphys said some offhand things while training with him? Obviously she wouldn’t completely break down, or anything. But what if she mentioned some things about how much she didn’t like herself. Or what if she seemed really nervous during the training? Papyrus is not stupid. He’s silly and good natured. But he’s certainly not daft. What if he saw that she wasn’t feeling that well, and sent her home for her own safety?

Still… Why did he seem so determined (No pun intended) to get you to the lab? Surely he didn’t know what Alphys was planning, just from her asking him to call you. How would Papyrus know signs of depression and suicide, just from the vaguest of comments while training with a complete stranger? It doesn’t seem likely that he would have noticed. Until you think about one other character. One that he knows OH-so well.

Because someone with just as many, if not MORE symptoms lives within his own household. Someone he loves dearly. His brother and best friend.

And let me reiterate this clearly. Papyrus is not stupid. Papyrus is not dumb. Papyrus is a lot smarter and cleverer than people give him credit for. He, more than anyone, would know when someone’s not doing okay. He’d know when someone’s life was in danger.

And so he sent you a sign. In the most purposely-conspicuous way he could.