GSamuel

aight i 100 percent do not believe papyrus ever actually canonically had a crush on mettaton during the events of the undertale game.

the purpose of this post is not to make people feel dumb for the interpretation that papyrus does have a crush on mettaton. that interpretation of the canon events is just as valid as the interpretation that he does not. the purpose of this post is simply that i’m tired of hearing people claim that papyrus is canonically attracted to men when there’s no canon attraction from him in the game. ultimately, you do not have to have sexual or romantic attraction to someone to acknowledge that they are attractive or “sexy”, you just have to have noticed or perceived them at some point. i’m aroace and not attracted to anyone, but i can tell that zendaya is hot. it doesn’t mean i’m attracted to her. it just means that i’d use adjectives that imply that she’s good looking to describe her. just like papyrus does with mettaton. when someone claims that papyrus is aroace, there is no erasure happening. the other purpose of this post is i’m exhausted of hearing people try to claim that a major tenet of playing the pacifist route involves shipping p/apyton when i played through it and interpreted both of them as aro and never once even considered that it would be something anyone would even want to ship until i went onto the internet looking for mettaton content.

i headcannon papyrus to be aroace. i believe this is extremely supported in the canon context of the game. this post will not be about defending the aroace interpretation but rather about defending the idea that papyrus is pretending to have a crush on mettaton for popularity.

papyrus' main goal in the events of the game is to become popular. he has decided that undyne is the figurehead of popularity, hence why he thinks becoming a royal guard will grant him popularity. he tries to emulate her behavior often in the hopes of becoming popular in the way he thinks she is.

papyrus is also undyne's best friend. he's who she confides in, theyre who they joke together with. papyrus is fully aware of undynes feelings towards alphys, and he understands the topic of having crushes and desiring romance and sexual relations very well. this is shown clearly in the phone call dialogues where he teases undyne over her crush on alphys, talks about calling her and talking in a sexy voice, etc. he KNOWS what all that shit is and what it entails. but more importantly he knows that it is something his self imposed figurehead of popularity, undyne, finds very important in her life. and he can't fucking relate. but he's gotta pretend, to be like her, to be relatable to popular people like her.

when i chose a "figurehead of popularity" as a child, i ended up also choosing someone else, who was deemed attractive by the population, to fake a crush on so i could be more relatable to people. i ended up choosing dean winchester. the most visually and conventionally attractive famous person/character i could find. well, papyrus chose mettaton. he's an obvious choice, being the only star of the underground. and honestly, he never actually says he has a crush. he’s just saying words and allowing people to assume whatever they want about it. he says mettaton is his favorite sexy rectangle, not that he actually likes mettaton in a romantic or sexual nature. but he’s certainly saying it in a way that would lead people who probably don’t know him very well or don’t pay much attention to him to think that’s what he means. because all throughout the game, he says shit like that, where you won’t know what he means unless you stop and think. it’s for the bit.

but in reality, papyrus has no idea what a desire for romance or a sexual or romantic relationship feels like. he knows what all of these things are and what they entail. but he hasn't gotten a damn clue what its like to want them. its like, if you could not care less about drinking coffee and do not like being caffienated, you can understand coffee all you want, hell, you can understand it so well you can grow and sell it and open a coffee shop and brew every kind of coffee imaginable and become the number one coffee shop in the nation, but ultimatley you do not know what it feels like to want coffee and caffiene in your system.

this is how papyrus is with romance. and you can tell, because he thinks that feelings are supposed to develop only after getting to know the person. no, i don’t think him being unable to force himself to feel attraction to frisk is what supports the idea that he’s aroace. that’s pretty gross, and i’ll block you if you think that’s why. the main point of that is, he thinks romance happens when you force yourself to feel attraction. which is not how it works. if he’d ever felt attraction before, he wouldn’t have bothered, because he would know better than to think it is possible to force attraction to happen. and if you observe allo-romantics or allo-sexuals enough, you can notice that they often tend to want romance and those kinds of relationships before they even know the person really well.