METAL CRUSHER

disclaimer im saying things definitively here bc i dont wanna clutter every paragraph with "in my opinion" but this is all my opinion i am not an expert

figuring out what to do for "monster" was so difficult for me- Monster. what does that word mean to Mettaton? his relationship with monsterkind, and in turn, humankind, varies in every iteration of him... i thought about this the whole day yesterday, and the day before, and the ramble you're about to see is my conclusion (for now, until I think about this again).

i used the heart chamber to represent this day because of its significance- it's his soul. and he chose to design it upside down. working backwards from that ...

as a ghost, he is fully embedded in monsterkind. he has no reason Not to be. side tangent; ghosts in utdr are unique in the way they interact with the world... not being fully corporeal and possessing an object has clear ties to darkners, and i especially see this in how box mettaton is portrayed {will come back to this}.

as a ghost, he became friends with alphys and she began to create his body. it's up to interpretation which of the three bodies was his dream one (box, ex, or neo; in my mind it was originally neo, but his dreams evolved to become ex), but regardless, we can see a heart present in both EX and NEO.

NEO is a sacrifice for monsterkind. his soul reflects this; it is upside down like every other monster's. his design (and song) also echo elements of undyne the undying. mettaton is a performer! an actor! he is acting as monsterkind's saviour here, after their real one died, all to buy some time for his beloved audience and friends, knowing full well he's weak in the neo body. YET!! if you dont kill Every enemy in hotland/core, his last words are "HA... HA. AT LEAST NOW, I CAN REST EASY.KNOWING ALPHYS AND THE HUMANS WILL LIVE ON...!". adding onto this he calls himself a "human eradication robot".

we know why he brings humanity up so much. he wants to be humanity's star. he wants to be on TV, he founded the human fanclub (just now realised he did that while The King was fully enacting his plan of killing humans to get to the surface. which also ? he was also intending to kill frisk to get to the surface alone ? he lets you die in his fight so im assuming Yeah. oh mettaton your morals are so fun to study). so anyway. even in his final moments as neo, the only monster he brings up by name is alphys (AHEM he also deeply cares about napstablook & shyren and all his mtt resort workers But alphys is his best friend also he wouldnt out himself). lets circle back to EX.

METTATON EX!!! EX is his body modelled after humanity- ESPECIALLY the heart. EX's heart is right side up (or upside-down, bc monster). in my own headcanon, i imagine it to Not be an LED display and instead it's his soul trapped inside a glass chamber that alphys intentionally put upside-down. it's kinda like gender-affirming surgery, but with species(??), Except i don't think he wants to be human... mettaton wants to be Adored by humans. but he wants to be a robot while doing it. a human shaped-robot. i think if he could pick between being human or being a robot he'd pick robot. see how happy he is in the box mtt body. he Loves being a machine.

There's another layer to this. there's so many.

Coming back to box mtt and darkners... mettaton isn't a monster anymore; he doesnt fit precisely into either humanity or monsterkind, because, in the eyes of everyone but those who Know he's trans, he is Alphys' Robot, made of magic & metal. he is Everyones' entertainer, especially after you fight him and he realises there's a lot of people whose hearts he's touched in mt ebott. this in-between (hi gaster) state reminds me of darkners because they are objects in one world and people in the other- it's hard to explain, and it's a little out of place in this whole ramble, but they're Different from lightners who get to have a stable form across worlds. i think the most important example I have for this is how alphys talks about him like he's disposable- if you take that at face value, the fact that he's replaceable and Just a machine she can rebuild- there's a lot of similarities there with tenna! alphys would never destroy mettaton, because she knows he's irreplaceable, but tenna doesn't have that grace because the people who he belongs to do just see him as an object.

okay. with all that written down... how did i portray it in my drawing?

to be honest, i have a lot more ideas for how to represent this. i have 3 pages in my sketchbook i spent just trying to come up with ideas for this, and i'm still a little unsatisfied... its a good thing we've got a lot more days to go! for this attempt though...

i put mettaton's heart in the centre, with two chambers facing opposite ways. ideally, this should put in the viewer's mind that the heart remains still, but the perception of whether it's monster or human changes. on the left is the human side, the surface. the sun is there because that's His spotlight. that's where he wants to go, the light he wants to be under. inversely, his life as a monster was something he probably doesn't want to think about, it's like a pretransition self. hence, the key, thrown in the garbage dump, before bratty & catty find it. it too, is a star (thank you paintedhen if you're the one who chose what was inside the mtt plushie and if u chose that design for the key . I Really Like It).

ALL IN ALL. i probably missed a lot of stuff. if i've worded this in a way that makes it seem like he resents monsters or humans that was not my intent ... apologies if this doesn't make any sense it is a Huge topic for me to think about. and thank you for reading ! ^w^

okay and now wips