Like the confidence he has now in getting up on stage was absolutely born from pushing himself to be more forward and more the big and grand star he knew he could be.
As he got older and he got better and once he got his body his confidence skyrocketed and there's not much he has nightmares about anymore. Though, I would say closer to when Undertale the game starts proper, his nightmares were more centered around no longer having relevance and never being able to be the big star on the surface he wanted to be.
Mettaton 34. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?
Ohhh I like this one! Mettaton is absolutely the type to change things up when his first try didn't work. He is very much a "get this done no matter what if it means a lot to me" kind of guy.
He's try lots of different variations on his first attempt, he'll do something completely new, so long as it ends up how he wants it to, it doesn't matter to him too much how he gets there.
Flexibility. A sense of humor. A drive to do things, like, whatever this person may want. He also likes eccentricity, flashy and bright personalities; basically anything bright and vibrant that can catch his eye.
As much as he doesn't want to be considered boring, he doesn't like to be around people he considers boring. This of course lead to him not having that many friends like at all once he was a big star because he was kind of shallow about that concept, but before when he was a ghost what drew him to Alphys and helped form that pivotal relationship was laughter
He stuck to that as a star of course since there is a lot of evidence to suggest that he really loved his employees except for Burgerpants but since he was so far up his own ass he never let himself make any deep meaningful connections beyond being a good boss.
In all seriousness, most of the time if he's comparing himself to others, it's to make himself feel better about what he's doing and how he is doing it.
He loves feeling superior. In Eway however he's been beset with a little more insecurity because like. He has the knowledge that he's been a selfish prick for most of his life but he doesn't have the proper tools to engage with it to fix that without resorting to tearing himself down.
And while some destruction of the ego is certainly needed, he has trouble finding that balance of being a better person and still having that healthy grasp on his love for himself.
In general though if he's comparing himself musically or performance-wise to something, most of the time he'll either think he is better or in the case of liking whoever is being better than him in the moment, strive to to meet them at their level and go beyond.
Mettaton 21. If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?
Mettaton initially in the Underground absolutely blamed others for negative things happening to him. 100%. He's a star! Everyone loves him! If everyone loves you, you can't do anything wrong!
Once he started trying to deal with his selfishness though that's when he started realizing that hey.... a lot of his problems came from his lack of empathy for other people...
His knee jerk reaction is always to try to blame others but nowadays he tries to think about his own hand in it first. And sometimes this results in him blaming himself for something that honestly was outside of his control which in the past he would have realized.
Competence. Grit. Loyalty. She likes people who are confident in what they do and stand strong in their beliefs. She's got a kind of simple mindset thanks to growing up on the streets and then being trained for the military for most of her life so people who are steadfast and strong she likes.
She does like a certain amount of whimsy however. She likes to see people being people. Whenever she's let her guard down it is always because the other person was honest with her in a way that read as making themselves vulnerable and that takes a lot of courage in her eyes to do.
Slimey-ness, manipulation, a lack of regard for the people who have been good to you. If you throw people who have given you everything under the bus for your own gain, you're on her shit list.
He clearly only wanted her on board because he wanted to get that shiny trophy of the first human spectre under his political belt and when it came down to standing up for her over the Reapers being a thing, he bent over to his political ambition and nearly got everyone killed.
Thanks to her past she is so, so sensitive to the idea of being used and while she knows that being part of the military means that she always will be used in some capacity for other people's agendas, at least with the Alliance she believes she is a tool for a good cause.
Absolutely when he is facing the human during his fight in a No Mercy run. He's putting it all on the line and still trying to play it off like a show but like... this has real consequences? He is absolutely going to die here?
But beyond that there is also the fear that like what he's doing is just. Not going to work. That this play, this distraction, is just the latest domino in a series of runs that ultimately won't change anything.
And he's right about that. NEO goes down in one hit no matter what. Though sometimes if you don't kill everyone (or if you forget to kill everyone) there's that tiny glimmer of hope there that he clings to. Which was always a very interesting thing.
But I think the calmest he has ever been will always be lying on the floor of his old home next to Napstablook, listening to music and looking at the stars.
It's so very... home. There's no big plans to worry about, nothing to set up in place, nothing has to be perfect. It's just him and his family and even if they may not be 100% ok in that moment, there's nothing else but them. And that makes it special. That makes it safe.
This is so, so tough but I thiiiink I'm gonna give that honor to the first time she realized that oh god, the Reapers aren't just a race in giant ships... they are those ships. These skyscrapers of ships with enough fire power to level the entire Alliance military in one goddamn tentacle.
Virmire was a place of horrible shit for her, but that cosmic horror of realizing that this enemy was far greater than anything this cycle has ever seen made her feel so small despite her big words to Sovereign.
After that that horror got turned into the pragmatic, nose-to-the-grindstone "gotta destroy them at any cost" so the horror kind of deadened but. Yeah. That's some huge shit right there.
Probably any periods of rest she got on the Normandy where she got to hang out with her crew. For a more canon complicit idea, probably the calm parts of her Citadel party during Mass Effect 3.
Though... now that I think about it... I think the most calm she ever was after becoming a soldier and fighting the Reapers is when she was sitting next to Anderson on the ruined Citadel after setting off the Crucible and waiting to die for the second time.
Death isn't that scary anymore. She's already died once. She's away from all of the major fighting. She's done everything she can to win this war and now there is nothing more she can do.
Her psuedo-father figure, the man who taught her to care about other people and taught her that there was more to her than just some dirty orphan on the streets has died next to her. And she'll be going pretty soon.
To die with her family... honestly, it was more than she ever thought she could ask for. More than she ever thought she would get. So those few moments before she gets called back into the conflict by Hackett... I think that's the calmest she's ever been.
Like if he doesn't care about you it doesn't matter but if you're someone he's trying to actively become better friends with or cares about in some fashion but he still doesn't know you well if you start crying he'll be very ??????
Any big emotional display where he's expected to be more than just a fun pop star can get him off balance because like, he's here to be admired, not get to know people on an interpersonal level
Oh that's a good one. I honestly don't think Mettaton lets himself dwell on it all that much. He is so much more interested in being alive and staying alive.
I think the idea of there being more and the idea of there being nothing are both equally scary to him. Especially since becoming a robot meant now he can die a lot easier than when he was a ghost.
except for Burgerpantsbut since he was so far up his own ass he never let himself make any deep meaningful connections beyond being a good boss.