#tried replicating the style of the short for this one

[michax-forever]

💜🖤💜 MORGANA 💜🖤💜

[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok yay I'm back from my vacation yipeeeeeee. I started this drawing of Keiki before I left and I was half considering just giving up on it.... until I did a short study of facial planes and then got motivated to work on this again! I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as I'm actually really happy with this one!

Artist's Notes;

So as I mentioned in my last post about Touhou 17, I wanted to finish this by the game's five year anniversary but with how progress was going I didn't want to rush this so I decided to take a long break from it. Mainly because of the face. For a while now I was kind of feeling like I was stagnating with my drawings, not really in the clothing but in the bodies. There was something about the way I was rendering them that I just wasn't happy with, and after talking with someone else about this issue, I realized that the reason I felt this way was because the faces were too flat and didn't match the rest of the drawing and that I needed to find a way to make the rendering of the face feel consistent with everything else. So after doing a short study of the plains of the face (I used this 3D head model from art station as a reference for my short study, please go give this person some love as they are a lifesaver) I went back into this drawing and applied what I learned here. It was only after that that I finally became motivated to finish the piece, and while it started off as just a simple character sketch like Saki and Yachie's were, the moment I added in Keiki's little fire dragon I knew I had gotten in too deep and now here we are with a full on background. OK it's not super crazy or anything, but it gets the job done and it's better than there just being an empty void behind her. It's rare moments like this when I use brushes other than the Clip Studio Default Charcoal Brush and use the Clip Studio Default Paint Brushes as well (god bless the oil paint and dry gouache clip studio brushes, they were amazing). I don't know why but painting fire has always been really fun for me, there's something oddly satisfying about it y'know? I do think that another reason for this problem was because I was drawing faces like I would in my more sketchy style that didn't mesh well with my lineless style, so I'm glad I've started remedying that.

After adding in the fire dragon I had an idea to kinda make it feel like splash art in the way the composition works... probably because I have been playing Reverse 1999 again and it has taken over my brain. I do feel like Keiki's tools get a little lost in the composition, and I didn't fully render the metal parts of them mainly because I didn't feel like they needed it, but that's just something for me to improve on later down the line.

If you guys are wondering where I went for my vacation, I went to New York and got to go to the MET and the Museum of Natural History. In both places I found Kofun period stuff and I was so happy to see it you have no idea. I remember one of the Haniwa I saw had some neat face paint under the eyes that I tried to replicate with the makeup under Keiki's eyes in my drawing, though I think I'll gave to figure out how to draw makeup on characters because this reads more like blush to me than anything. While drawing this I also looked up some references of Kofun period jewelry and really liked the stuff I found, which also meant that now she has proper Kofun earrings instead of earrings shaped like Kofun tombs. I put some of the things I referenced with a closeup of Keiki's face as well down below. I made her outfit more reminiscent of the outfit I gave her at the beginning of the year with the buttons and all, though I do want to try and draw her in some more period accurate clothing like the Haniwa I took a picture of at the Museum of Natural History. I wish I could find a way to make her handercheif look better though as I wish I made it a little bit bigger, though I think I'm saying this because I've looked at this drawing for too long lmao. Once again something to work on for when I next draw her. Also want to get better at rendering hair, as some details (like the little strands in front of her ears) kinda got unreadable due to the similarities in colour lol.

Now you may have also noticed the little cracks I added onto Keiki's face, and that's because I have fallen in love with the idea of Keiki's body being made from ceramic and that she crafted her body herself. While they aren't very visible I also tried to add some doll joints to her body, which is an idea I played around with in the past but never went to far with. I also want to get better at rendering cracks in ceramic, porcelain, etc, as I'm not sure how those read in the drawing. I also have a headcanon where the cracks in Keiki's face show up because of heightened emotions, and while Keiki is aware of this and does her best to make sure her face doesn't break off.... she will still end up with at least a few cracks during any given day, and she can often forget to repair her own body quite frequently so Mayumi has to remind her quite a lot. Mayumi even taught herself some basic sculpting techniques to help repair parts of her body that are so badly damaged to the point where Keiki can't repair them herself, i.e. if both her arms broke off, Mayumi would put them back together for her so Keiki can at least have something to repair herself with rather than nothing. I also like to imagine that if Keiki created her own body, if you took a look at Keiki from the beginning of her life she would look completely different compared to now.

BTW If you guys are wondering what a very very angry Keiki looks like....ok in order for this to make sense have any of you read volume 11 of Land of The Lustrous? Am I bringing back some memories for those of you that have? Ok good, glad we all got that mental image brewing in our minds, I'll probably draw a version of Keiki that is somewhat inspired by that one day as it's an idea I've had for a little while now. And to those who haven't gotten to that volume yet and are confused.... don't worry about it, just keep reading :)

[oh-no-its-bird]

You know how when you spend a lot of time moving— on a boat, on a plane, in a car. Or doing a repetitive activity— dancing, skating, gymnastics; Later that night you can still feel the pull of movment?

You'll lay there and feel your body sway as it tries to keep it's balance through the remembered lull of tide and turbulance; Or close your eyes and imagine yourself falling into a spin in a way that feels so viscerally real that for a moment you can even feel the vertigo of going that fast. The movement so ingrained into your body and consciousness that you find yourself falling back into it whenever your mind quiets and your body falls still.

So anyways that but for Tobirama and Izuna's fighting. They've fought eachother since they were children, they know eachothers moves moves like the back of their own hands. After so many years it's such a familiar dance that when they go home and close their eyes, they can still feel their bodies being pulled into the well practiced movements. They remain still but can feel the way their hands fly through seals so viscerally that they have to be careful not to accidentally start cycling chakra.

Or they'll feel the familiar push and pull dance of battle so strongly that their muscles twitch as they're tricked into thinking they're still moving. The phantom pains and patterns of the fight they know so well

"I could fight you in my sleep" taken to it's extreme, it's quite possible that they could fall into the familiar and fight eachother in their sleep

Actually running with that, I think one of them should be a sleep walker but like. Instead of just walking around they start to phantom fight the other in familiar movements.

Where's my fic where Izuna sleep fights an imagined Tobirama I need that on my desk immediatley. Madara worriedly watches over his brother but, having read somewhere that its unwise to wake sleepwalking up (especially so when they're activley holding a weapon lmao) he just kinda. Watches over him. And after a couple times of this happening he starts to recognize a pattern in Izuna's movements, and after a little longer still he realizes Izuna is tracing through the same battles

Just a short thing of Madara idly watching his brother sleep fight, piecing together bits and pieces ab thus person he's fighting through the cues of how Izuna defends and attacks against them

Later for whatever reason, probably later in peace time, I need Tobirama and Madara to have a spar. And at first it's going kinda whatever, they're both very talented, but then Madara kinda gets a brain itch and remembers those sleep fights he'd always see Izuna moving through. And without even thinking ab it, he flawlessly replicates one of the moves exactly where Izuna would have (thanks sharingan)

And like. Ok so if this is an Izuna died canon compliant thing, Tobirama instinctivley reacts how he would with Izuna then probably goes dead white and immediatley loses the fight bc hes thrown off so fucking hard he can't compute

And if it's an Izuna lives you get kind of the same reaction but minus the angst. So Tobirama is totally thrown off, and his movment kinda just. Stutters. He mindlessly slides into continuing to try to react like he would to Izuna, this muscle memory that's so ingrained into him that he could quite literally do it in his sleep. But Madara isn't Izuna, so when he flips back into fighting like himself, Tobirama just totally fucks himself over

Madara almost fucking beheads him by going for the head in an easily blockable move when Izuna would have immediatley gone for his side instead, and so Tobirama instinctivley defends his side

He gets yelled at for that one but is too busy laying on his back staring up at the sky with a deeply offended, shocked and confused expression to hear any of it

Tobirama's one true infallible weakness: He's so used to fighting Izuna that if you manage to replicate Izuna's style of fighting in the right way and trick his muscle memory into flipping that switch, you can totally fuck him up and over

Anyways, Madara, who can replicate Izuna's moves bc smthn smthn sharingan and having seen him do that sleep fight against Tobirama so many times, using this as an excuse to drag Tobirama into tons of training matches where he absoloutley beats his ass. And Tobirama letting this happen bc holy shit he needs to be trained out of that bad habit

It goes both ways tho too, if someone does that to Izuna but w Tobirama's moves then he's FUCKED. Luckily no one can replicate the way he fights nearly well enough to do that, and Izuna's also aided by the fact that Tobirama is really tall so the pool of people who might be able to pull it off right is narrowed down even further bc your height and weight absoloutley effects the specific angle of how you fight and their blades might meet

Ohhh actually maybe that could be a thing too. Someone replicates Tobirama's style of fighting and fights Izuna, and Izuna keeps getting tripped up bc these are Tobirama's moves but they aren't coming from the right angle or with the right amount of force

Anyways that's ur word vomit for the day time to clock out 👍

[chere-indolente]

Half Moon Manicure Set

@therococoprometheus and I teamed up to bring you a set inspired by 1930's nail polish ads ! On my side of this collab you'll find cc nails perfectly suited for 20's, 30's and 40's looks. Check out @therococoprometheus's side here for nail and beauty related vintage clothes and objects ! More pics and download below

In the West, in the 19th and early 20th century, nails were usually cared for and tinted using faintly colored oils or powders that had to be buffed into the nail to achieve a slightly rosier and shinier look. At least by 1917 there was also "nail white", used to get a whiter nail end. Indeed the sought after look in the late 10's and 20's was a pink shiny nails with light contrasting sole and ends. The white nail ends as a beauty standart was pretty classist as it was initially a way to show you didn't belong to the manual laborers (...or at least give the appearance of it) who usually had to dirty their hands (and nails) at work. When liquid nail polish became more widely available in the 20's, this look was emulated by applying the polish solely to the middle of the nail in a crescent shape, and such giving us the half moon manicure an iconic style sported by about every fashionable lady from the late 20s to the late 30s. By the 40's, the half moon manicure started to decline in popularity, the most fashionable looks being either fully painted nails or a version of the half moon manicure with painted ends. By then longer nails were also more popular as can be seen on the likes of Rita Hayworth or Marlene Dietrich. Those nail polishes were quite shiny and a bit sheer so I tried my best to replicate these characteristics in my own cc. The color palette for these cc nails is also directly taken from old nail polish ads.

————————  Short Almond Nails  ————————

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These nails with their short and oval shape fit the style most popular in the 20s especially in their (20's) half moon manicure version. Though they could also suit later decade for a shorter more work friendly nail especially in the 40s and solid version.

3 versions : 20s half moon, 40s half moon and solids

for each : 1 bare swatch and 47 colored ones

only available for adults

male and female frame versions

————————— Long Almond Nails ————————

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In the 30's longer and pointier nails became more fashionable and as such these long almond nails in their half moon versions would be perfect for a 30's look. They would also fit perfectly in the 40's in either their solid or 40's half moon version.

3 versions : 30s half moon, 40s half moon and solids

for each : 1 bare swatch and 47 colored ones

only available for adults

male and female frame versions

—————————— Coffin Nails ——————————

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Such long nails would not suit 20s or early 30's looks, but would be perfect for 40s or late 30s.

2 versions : 40s half moon and solids

for each : 1 bare swatch and 47 colored ones

only available for adults

male and female frame versions

————————  Short Rounded Nails ————————

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Short nails have always been around as they are quite practical at all times but I couldn't fit the half moon design on these in a satisfactory manner so enjoy these nails in a bare (timeless) and solid (40s and up) swatches.

1 bare swatch and 47 solid coloured swatches

only available for adults

male and female frame versions

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Download : dropbox — simfileshare

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Get therococoprometheus's part here

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[strawbbella]

Helloo~ I was bored in class one day so I thought "why not do an art study of the artists I like" except it incredibly scuffed and I really just looked at a bunch of art on their page and i tried my best to replicate one of em

So these are the 2 'studies' i did that day

1st:

My ver:

(Art by @izuke-the-zombie )

ref pic:

What I noticed first while sketching is ofc the super gorgeous cute style. Though not long into the sketching phase noticed her lines are quite sharp and pronouced, for most of her works she keeps her sketch lines making it seem more mmm hazy is the right word? Or effortless, but with every sharp line a rounded(?) line contrasts it, giving it that signature fluffiness. I absolutely adore how well this all mixes together, i dunno just sonethin bout her lines bro

I love the expression, really gives off absolutely love sick, I didn't capture the eyes quite well (I blame my chonk pen because all good artists blames their materials/j) Macaque looks more scared than breath taken and I put the eyes too far apart. I basically deprived the eyes of its soul lmao note for next time I do a study.

Ok this part has not much to do with the ref pic but her art in general and that includes her writing. I adore the cute HCs and little stories/AUs she would post, just so much creativity and its always so comforting to read as theyre so wholesome and cute. Im so sure one of my first posts here were a drawing of one of her HCs LIKE SRSLY SO CREATIVE. I was also surprised as I saw in some artworks she's able to draw structures and environments that draws your into the scene, its fits the universe so well, just adding to that little wonderment of awe. Shes amazing at coloring too, real soft, but still makes the characters pop, i'd say more but my brain is short-circuiting from all this analyzing. Shes just all round incredibly talented and creative honestly. Her style is exactly what i wanted to have as a kid and what im striving to have now. So cuteee

So far 11/10 art style, love the chibiness, cuteness, expressions, the pure and pastel feel and colors, and details. Just love her in general<3 check out her page lol

2nd:

My ver:

(Art by @clatteringbats )

ref pic:

Ok so immediately off the bat I knew I was gonna have some trouble here since I've been drawing chibis from the very start.

Just from observing her art I alr saw it has a lot of movement in em, lots of dynamic poses, and LOTS of embraces, really just pouring with that fluff/angst energy. At first I tried the anime body guidelines and boom instant error. Though not all that noticable the heads have sum chonk in em, especially the cheeks, giving that cute factor despite not being a chibi style. Im all for it. The lines are very soft, not a lot of sharp edges and if there are theyre placed in a very subtle way. The expressions are wonderful: from a subtle hopeless smile from an overwhelming roar of grief and anger, she's mastered the the art of slight details that give these effects their magic. Her lines are sketchy but not messy (does that make sense) they clump together neatly, giving the illustration clarity.

AND OMG HAVE YOU SEEN HER ANIMATICS? THE MOVEMENT, THE PACING, THE SMOOTHNESS, THE INTERACTIONS, THE EMOTIONS, THE EVERYTHING. THEYRE SO AAAA ITS LIKE A PROFESSIONAL STORYBOARD FOR A TV SHOW.

The way she uses color too— just o h m y g o d .

Her colors are so bright and clear, so nicely blended together, so bold, but not in the way that burns your eyes, she keeps them neutral in a way, that envokes that sense of harmony; like a sunset. (I legit have one of her colored artworks as my wallpaper) I have lots more to observe, but so far this is all I have to say. The skill of overflowing

Anways, back to the task at hand. I made the heads bigger than i shoulda , cause well chibi artist ehe. Again, I blame my chonk pencil. I didn't get the embrace quite right, but Ion think I could level with the queen of LITERALLY DRAWING TEARJERKING HUGS LIKE? I tried with the hands, I swear. I knew they were a little small but only now am I realizing its that way cause I made the heads too big. I wanna try drawing more in her style as its really just full of movement and flowiness, I wanna try mastering the way she draws perspectives too. I noticed for perspective shots theres this grid for the sky and ground (which is genius) will try that out when I actually pick up digital art again.

Check out her page, theres lots to see shes amazing 11/10 artstyle<3

[vgfm]

A Lily Gilded: A Review and Analysis of Undertale Yellow

The Short, Spoiler-Free Review (TL;DR)

Any Undertale fan who owns a PC should play Undertale Yellow, even if they previously weren’t interested or have any doubts or reservations.

No criticism that I levy at Undertale Yellow, big or small, is intended to dissuade anyone who hasn’t played it from trying it: you should play it and there is no reason not to aside from a lack of free time or not owning a PC.

Although I have some criticisms of Undertale Yellow, my overall opinion of it is still very positive. I’m glad to have experienced this game.

If you haven’t played the game yet, then I recommend starting with the neutral route. Pacifist is much harder in this game and there are story segments exclusive to the neutral route that make it worth the time investment.

My analysis from this point forward will include spoilers for all three major routes of Undertale Yellow. It will also be very long (close to 60 pages), so be warned.

My Background

I’ve completed all routes of Undertale, Deltarune (Ch 1-2), and Undertale Yellow

I primarily engage with UTDR fandom by reading and writing theories. I like to think that I’m decently knowledgeable about the series, at least

I have no professional background in game development

I’m usually a purist when it comes to games and the topic of fangames and mods. I’m a “picky eater” in particular when it comes to UT/DR fan content:

I’ve never played an Undertale fangame prior to Yellow

Most UT and DR fangames have either not appealed to me personally or have not been finished

I don’t engage with most story-driven Undertale/Deltarune Aus or fanworks if I feel they don’t capture the spirit of the original games

Saying Something Nice

Undertale Yellow is the best fangame that I’ve played in recent memory. I think it’s very likely that Undertale Yellow is not only the best Undertale fangame ever made but that it will remain the best Undertale fangame of its kind for the foreseeable future. It’s not just a good fangame but a good game in general--had Undertale Yellow been a completely original game with no ties to Undertale, it very likely would have become a cult classic in its own right.

Of the long-form fan content I’ve seen, Undertale Yellow is among those that come the closest to replicating the style and tone of the original game without feeling like it’s simply cribbing the story or jokes.

It goes without saying that Undertale Yellow’s spritework and animations far surpass those of Undertale in sheer effort, and at times they rival and surpass those of Deltarune as well. There are some stylistic differences between Yellow and the canon games, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say Yellow’s visuals are always better in every conceivable aspect, but the general quality difference is night and day.

Yellow’s music comes close to rivaling Toby’s work, though frankly I think this is a barrier that no fangame will ever overcome for me. It’s a better impression of Toby’s style than most who’ve tried, but it’s still noticeably an impression. One thing that I immensely appreciate is that Yellow has battle theme variants for each major area in the game. “Enemy Approaching” is a fine song, but I always start to get sick of it by the time I reach the end of Waterfall in the original game.

Most of all, what I respect about Undertale Yellow is when it shows restraint: the restraint to largely omit cameos and callbacks to Undertale’s characters except when it feels warranted to do so. I respect that the game doesn’t try to smuggle in characters or worldbuilding elements from Deltarune and instead sticks to its guns as an Undertale prequel. I also appreciate that, for the most part, it sidesteps the trap that most prequels fall into of trying to tell a bigger story than the original—the story of Undertale Yellow still feels impactful and meaningful, but it does not overshadow or diminish the events of Undertale.

I wanted to frontload my praises for this game because a lot of my more detailed analyses to follow will come across more negative and nitpicky. Admittedly, it’s much easier to point out something that doesn’t work in a story or game that’s otherwise good because it sticks out like a sore thumb and takes you out of the experience. Additionally, so many things are done well in this game that I’d be here all day if I listed every single thing that worked. If there’s an aspect of the game that I don’t comment on then just assume that I found it at least serviceable, if not great.

My Criteria

Since Undertale Yellow is based on the world of Undertale and borrows many gameplay elements from it, it’s virtually impossible to review or analyze the game without inviting at least some comparisons to Undertale.

Having said that, I’m going to avoid criticizing differences between Yellow and the original game if the criticism would boil down to “it’s different from Undertale, therefore it’s bad.” There are things that Yellow does differently that I find worse, but I’ll argue those on their own merit rather than pointing solely to the fact that they’re different. On the flip side, there are a few places where Yellow differs from the original game because Yellow does something better—I’ll be sure to point out these instances as well.

Overall, I’m grading Undertale Yellow on a curve because I can’t help but compare it to the original game. I don’t feel it’s unfair for me to do so, since Yellow relies on Undertale not only for its conceit but also for some of its story beats—Yellow would not make sense or feel complete as an experience if Undertale did not exist.

If Undertale Yellow had been a completely original game, with whatever tweaks or rewrites would have been necessary to make it such, my overall tone would probably be more positive, since I’d be comparing it to the average game experience rather than to one of my favorite games of all time. This is not to say that Yellow would have necessarily been better as an original game, nor am I saying that it should have been—it just would have made the comparisons to Undertale less warranted.

Lastly, I’m going to try to avoid comparing Undertale Yellow to Deltarune. I feel like this is a less fair comparison since Deltarune is not a finished game and Yellow lifts very little from Deltarune beyond a run button and the charge shot.

Bosses

Undertale Yellow’s bosses were the most contentious issue for me during my initial playthroughs. Subsequent playthroughs caused me to warm up a bit to some of the problematic ones, but most of my gameplay-related gripes are tied to its bosses.

My three biggest issues with this game’s bosses are the strategies for sparing bosses, the telegraphing of their attacks, and the attack variety that each boss has.

Sparing Strategies

To start with the simpler complaint, half the bosses and minibosses in this game have pacifist fights that consist of waiting for the boss’s dialogue and attacks to run out before you can spare them, sometimes requiring a token act only at the very end of the fight.

This is a problem because it reduces these fights to waiting games that can be brute-forced with a full supply of healing items. Annoyingly, these same fights also come with 2-3 options in the ACT menu that often do nothing and in most cases don’t even prompt any reaction or different dialogue from the boss.

By comparison, Undertale’s pacifist route only has two (and a half) bosses that require waiting out the opponent: Papyrus and Muffet, and both of these fights have alternate completion conditions that can be used to bypass the wait.

Conversely, Napstablook’s fight requires acting, Toriel requires constant sparing, the Snowdin dogs all have unique acts, Mad Dummy requires redirecting her attacks back at her, Undyne requires running away, the Royal Guards require acting, Mettaton must pass a ratings threshold tied to unique acts, Asgore and Flowey require fighting; Asriel’s fight is half waiting but the second phase requires the lost soul segments to be completed.

Every Undertale boss felt like a puzzle on pacifist and some like Undyne and Mad Dummy were genuine brain-teasers. None of Yellow’s fights ever quite scratch that itch, though a couple come close like Guardener and Axis.

It baffles me a little that this issue is even present because the common enemy encounters in Yellow don’t fall prey to this. In fact, a few enemy encounters in Yellow cleverly require using multiple different acts in a specific (and usually intuitive) order to achieve victory—something that even Undertale seldom did.

It seems that most bosses in Yellow were designed around distinguishing themselves via their attack patterns rather than their spare method, though this leads into anther major issue: how these attacks are conveyed, paced, and telegraphed to the player.

Attack Telegraphing

Undertale Yellow is meant to have harder combat than Undertale, which had me a bit wary going in. The average enemy encounter in Yellow feels harder than Undertale, and the same is certainly true of the bosses. However, I’m not sure if I’d say any of Yellow’s hardest bosses quite rival the Sans fight in terms of sheer difficulty, at least in terms of the number of attempts it took me to complete them.

This could be chalked up to me coming into Undertale Yellow with more experience than when I first played Undertale, or Yellow’s 1.1 patch toning down a few of the harder fights. For the record, I’ve beaten all fights in Yellow without the use of the game’s “easy mode” option—I used it for certain bosses in my very first pacifist and no mercy runs, but I later replayed those runs with the setting disabled in order to have a “proper” experience.

Many fights in Yellow, big and small, feel less “fair” than the fights in Undertale and even now I’m not 100% sure I can nail down why. A lot of this boils down to the “feel” of the fights, but part of this could be due to me already being familiar with Undertale’s attack patterns and not Yellow’s. OG Undertale does have a handful of battle moments that feel “unfair” or not designed as optimally for new players as they could have been, which is easy for a player like me to gloss over after I’ve become familiar with the game. One such example is the Lemon Bread amalgamate, which (imo) is one of the hardest fights in the pacifist route.

Still, I noticed many instances in Yellow where incoming attacks would give little or seemingly no warning before they were able to hurt you. Some examples off the top of my head would be Mooch’s moneybag attack, Guardener’s triple stomp attack that fills the whole box, Starlo’s horseshoe attack that blends into his head before it drops, and Ceroba’s paralyzing diamond attack.

The only consistent way I found to avoid attacks like these was either to know in advance where they were going to enter the bullet box or to already be moving before they appear. It doesn’t help that often attacks that come from outside the bullet box will spawn in immediately outside the box, minimizing the travel time where players could see them coming and act accordingly.

Another common issue I found is the frequent use of blue and orange attacks, often paired with each other and/or with regular attacks, and often without properly telegraphing which will be used until they’re already onscreen. In contrast, Undertale generally used these types of attacks one at a time or, in Asgore’s case, clearly telegraphed them before they were used in tandem.

Yellow’s approach presents a problem because dodging orange and blue attacks demands either movement or lack of movement, which can force the player to take a hit if there’s already another attack onscreen that demands the opposite. In my experience the solution was either to know in advance where the blue and orange attacks would come from (and when) to get into optimal position, or simply tank the hit and hope you make up for it later.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I struggled for a time with Ceroba’s No Mercy fight when I went in blind—she has multiple deadly attacks with little to no telegraphing as well as color attacks that can overlap each other if you’re not already in an optimal position. I was only able to complete this fight on normal after I watched a no-hit run so that I could memorize her patterns. This is something I’ve never had to do for any Undertale or Deltarune fight, including Sans, and it doesn’t really feel like it’s in the spirit of the franchise. I always try to go into each of these games blind and I don’t think it’s unreasonable that a new player, even on a harder route, should be able to intuit what is expected of them in a fight. A few attacks might be challenging or counter-intuitive at first, but having to rely on rote memorization or a guide just doesn’t feel fun or organic to me.

On that note, some of you may be nodding toward the Sans fight as an example of some of the things I’m complaining about, particularly the lack of proper telegraphing and a reliance on memorization. Well, let’s unpack that.

To start, I’ll say that the Sans fight is not my favorite fight in Undertale from a pure gameplay perspective and that I don’t fully agree with some of its design choices. One reason I don’t play fan battles in general is because many of them seem to emulate the style of the Sans fight or double down on it without understanding it.

Despite my minor issues with it, I find the “unfair” aspects of the Sans fight to be more justified and acceptable within the context of Undertale than I find the seeming “unfairness” of Yellow’s harder fights to be in the context of that game. One reason is that the Sans fight is the only fight in Undertale (or Deltarune) that works the way that it does, whereas Yellow has several, even if they’re overall less hard than the Sans fight.

More importantly, the Sans fight has proper buildup, feels appropriate for the character and story, and (most important of all) the game itself acknowledges the fact that it’s unfair and the fight is designed around that admission. Sans literally has over a dozen different dialogue variations depending on how many times you die in his fight and when.

The game is even aware of the fact that most new players won’t survive Sans’ first attack and creates multiple variants of just the dialogue before and after that attack. Undertale fully anticipates your deaths and cultivates a unique experience for you along the way as you learn Sans’ patterns.

To put it simply, the Sans fight is the exception that proves the rule: it makes you realize how much fairer the other fights in Undertale are and how easy it is to take those design principles for granted. Conversely, the attack patterns in the hardest Yellow fights didn’t feel radically different or radically “less fair” in philosophy from Yellow’s moderately difficult boss fights—both feel varying degrees of “unfair,” but the harder fights are just “more” with the occasional twist added on top.

My platonic ideal of a challenging boss fight in an Undertale game would be Undyne the Undying. Undyne the Undying is a massive difficulty spike in her respective run, at times she requires ridiculous reaction time, and it’s easy to psych yourself out and get double-tapped by her barrages and die quickly. Nonetheless, her fight feels fair—it’s a culmination of the rules you’ve been taught and it doesn’t needlessly subvert them. Even though she has her dreaded reverse-arrow attacks that trip up new players, these are still properly telegraphed and manageable. Looking at footage of it now, it’s surprising how this fight looks more honest and straightforward than many of Yellow’s later boss fights.

Attack Variety

Another contributing factor to my issues with Yellow’s boss fights is the sheer number and variety of attacks that some bosses have, particularly in the latter half of the game. To wit, most bosses in Undertale have about 4-5 unique attacks that are repeated with variations, while Undertale Yellow’s bosses can have upwards of 9-10 unique types of attacks, not including variations. Ceroba alone has ten completely different unique attack patterns in just the first phase of her pacifist fight—every single turn is a completely different attack requiring different dodging strategies and none are repeated.

Some may be asking why this is a problem. Isn’t more variety a good thing? This just shows that the Yellow team put more effort in, right? My issue here is that many of these attacks don’t seem to exist for any reason except for the sake of artificial variety and because the devs (presumably) thought they’d be a cool-looking thing to dodge. If you’re confused as to the point I’m trying to make, let’s look at how Undertale utilized its attack patterns with Mettaton EX.

The Mettaton EX fight is a favorite of fans and mine, and one reason I like it so much is for how it uses eclectic and seemingly chaotic attacks to teach the player new mechanics while offering a spare mechanic that relies on strategic thinking to optimize. The fight offers the following types of attacks: moving legs, bombs, boxes, miniature mettatons, gates, a disco ball, and Mettaton’s heart. Not counting the joke/gimmick turns like the essay or break time, this is seven main attack archetypes, each with their own variations and crossover with each other.

Note that all seven of these attack types interact with the fight’s core mechanic: the yellow soul mode. More importantly, each of these attacks teaches the player something about how the soul mode works with no need for an onscreen prompt. Boxes and bombs teach you that there are some attacks you should shoot and some that you should not. The hand gates initially teach you that some bullets are unaffected by your shots, but later you’re given gates with yellow buttons that will open them, teaching you that some targets require precision. The miniature mettatons teach you that some attacks will become a bigger problem for you if you don’t take them out right away. The moving legs teach you that shooting can stop certain attacks from moving and that the timing of your shots is important. The disco ball builds on this lesson, requiring the need to plan your next movements when shooting the ball. The heart serves as the culmination, featuring the bombs and mini-mettatons from before while also giving you a precise moving target to hit repeatedly.

All of Mettaton EX’s attacks tie into a common theme and reinforce one another—learning to dodge and utilize the mechanics of one attack will make you better-equipped to deal with the others. It’s by no means a perfect fight, nor does it teach all of its lessons perfectly—I remember it taking me several attempts to complete and some mechanics like the disco ball and legs didn’t “click” with me immediately, but there’s clear intent behind every attack and it’s remarkable how utilitarian the whole thing is structured, despite its reputation for being one of the game’s longer and more self-indulgent fights.

Let’s bring things back to Ceroba for comparison. Her first phase has 10 unique attacks, only half of which feature mechanics that appear in the later phases: her paralyzing diamonds, her spinning bullets that circle around you, her bells that create colored shockwaves, and the vortex that opens in the center of the arena.

The other attacks are only used once, have little-to-no pattern commonality with each other or with her later attacks, and teach nothing other than how to dodge each of these one-off attacks. At most, a few attacks share a flower motif but move with completely different behaviors (straight line, fanning out, circling, homing in). While this isn’t horrible design, I can’t help but find it a bit wasteful considering what other fights have done with less and how chaotic the later phases of Ceroba’s fight get—something that players could have been eased into by having her first phase present more of her later attacks in a more controlled environment.

In the end, I remember being frustrated with the Ceroba pacifist fight when I first played it. Part of this was due to my own mistake of going past the point of no return without a full stock of items, but the lack of cohesion in the first phase and its lacking relevance to the mechanics of the second phase made it hard for me to “gel” with the gameplay and, as a result of my own frustration and confusion, I had a harder time getting invested in the narrative. I’ve seen some fans label the Ceroba fight the best fight in the series, but I wouldn’t even put it in my top 25, despite the overwhelming effort on display from the developers.

To bring the comparison home, I cried the first time I saw Mettaton say goodbye to his call-in viewers, but not once did I cry during Ceroba’s fight. A flamboyant robot making a single pained expression leaves a bigger impact when his attacks are unintrusive to the experience, and a lovingly-animated grieving fox’s backstory doesn’t hit as hard when I’m distracted by a hodgepodge of visually stunning but incoherent bullet hells. Less is more.

I realize I’ve been a bit mean to Yellow during this segment. In fairness, I did replay the pacifist route and tried the Ceroba fight in a more prepared state. I enjoyed the fight more my second time around, but I still would not rank it among my favorites in the franchise. And to be clear, I don’t hate this fight at all—I just think it represents the excesses in Yellow’s battle design and how they can sour a first-time experience, which is the most important experience for a narrative-driven game. Even the weaker aspects of Yellow’s design are, by and large, serviceable by the standards of typical game design. Compared to Undertale, though, I was disappointed in the areas where it lacked or, more accurately, overstepped.

Having fewer types of attacks is not a result of less effort—it allows more room for variations on each type of attack and it can make difficult or poorly-telegraphed attacks more forgivable if the attack is used multiple times with the first instance training the player for the future variations. I feel that having too many unique attacks for each boss resulted in each attack not receiving the necessary polish and balancing that it should have, and it also made each fight feel less instructive and lacking in a clear design goal.

To close this off, I’d like to give a positive example of a boss fight from Undertale Yellow: Axis. For the most part, Axis successfully walks the tightrope of Yellow’s more complex late-game fights while still maintaining a consistent theme and introducing concepts to the player gradually. The whole fight revolves around blocking Axis’ attacks with a trashcan lid—first with a ground-based lid, then with a lid that rotates around an axis (get it?). As the fight progresses, new types of projectiles and hazards are introduced, usually first using the ground-based lid to avoid overwhelming the player.

As if that weren’t enough, the fight comes with its own unique sparing strategy where players fill a meter by blocking attacks and then attempt to reflect an orb back at Axis once the meter is full. The fight’s not perfect—there’s still the occasional one-off attack that doesn’t really teach any relevant lesson to the player, the orb reflection mechanic is finicky, and the fight is perhaps slightly more difficult than I’d prefer from a typical boss fight, but if all Yellow bosses had been of a similar caliber then I wouldn’t have needed to go on this massive detour about boss design in the first place.

Since some might ask, I might as well weigh in on Yellow’s most controversial boss: El Bailador. I initially had difficulty with this fight due to my lack of experience with rhythm games (and the lack of preparation that the game gives you). I also found the need to press a direction key and the Z key for each note to be a tad clunky. Beyond that? I actually didn’t mind the fight all that much. It introduces a simple concept and builds upon it gradually in a way that felt satisfying to me as I began to master it. The last turn maybe goes on for too long, but I can’t say that I hated it. I promise I’m not trying to piss off the Undertale Yellow fandom (who, if memes are anything to go by, seem to despise this fight), but I found the simplicity of Bailador refreshing considering how chaotic the later fights get. That said, I turned on the auto-rhythm setting in future playthroughs to make this fight less of a difficulty spike.

Themes

To start off, I’d like to acknowledge the fact that Undertale Yellow largely avoids most of the “meta” themes that Undertale and Deltarune touch upon, nor does the game try to go in its own direction in regards to metatextual concepts. Undertale Yellow generally leaves the topic untouched, aside from continuing to use in-universe mechanics established in Undertale such as saving and EXP/LV. Some fans might view this as disappointing or even a betrayal of the tones and themes previously established in Toby’s work. Me? I don’t mind at all, honestly. If anything, it’s refreshing to see an Undertale fan project that takes the setting of Undertale at face value rather than trying to outsmart it or put their own meta spin on it. Far too often have I seen fanworks that swing the pendulum in the other direction and have characters just flat out address the player and shatter the verisimilitude of the setting with no buildup.

None of this is to say that Undertale Yellow is lacking in themes. The most prominent theme I noticed, unsurprisingly, is that of justice. Undertale strongly implies that the yellow human soul is the soul that represents justice, and fanworks ever since have ran with the idea. Undertale Yellow represents the culmination of this concept by turning each of its routes into differing interpretations of what justice means.

As a refresher, Undertale Yellow has three main routes with four endings: true pacifist, “false” pacifist, neutral, and no mercy. I see each ending as its own realization of and commentary on the concept of justice.

Neutral

In Undertale Yellow, the neutral ending acts as something of a “bad ending” from classic video games. These are the kind of endings you get when you fail to 100% complete a game and you’re told to go back and do it again, complete with Flowey’s laugh imposed over the “Thank you for playing!” end credits message.

Who wore it better?

Thematically, the neutral route represents justice as subjective and personal—Clover can spare or kill whoever they wish. It’s hard to argue that any one monster in Undertale Yellow is more guilty than any other in this route, so killing monsters in neutral largely comes off as the capricious whims of Clover rather than being based on any consistent law or greater principle.

This outlook ultimately blows up in Clover’s face when they come to a head with their foil in this route: Flowey, who exercises his own form of justice, or “judgment” as he prefers. Flowey only cares about freeing himself from his current situation and will use any means to achieve this goal. In his eyes, your failure to follow his directions or be of further use of him is a slight against him that demands punishment as he sees fit.

Fitting this individualistic outlook, Flowey takes “might makes right” to its logical conclusion by trapping you in his own personal hell while he acts as a wannabe-God looking down on high. Ultimately Clover can only escape when Flowey wills it, cementing Clover’s status as a pawn subject to the whims of the powerful despite their illusions of independence. Without laws to protect them, the weak will be trampled by the powerful.

Pacifist

Pacifist presents two outlooks depending on whether Clover spares or kills Ceroba in the final battle. Of all the monsters Clover meets, Ceroba is the most culpable for a serious real-world crime other than Asgore and Axis (the latter of whom may not meet the definition of culpability or competence to stand trial).

Clover lacks the fore-knowledge that Ceroba’s daughter will likely survive thanks to Alphys’ efforts, so Clover would view Ceroba’s actions toward Kanako as manslaughter, or at least reckless endangerment. Unlike the neutral route, Clover’s choice can’t solely be chalked up to their own personal whims—actual harm has been done by Ceroba, but more harm may yet be done if she’s killed.

False Pacifist

If Clover kills Ceroba, then this choice seems to represent justice as following the law to the letter, for good or ill. Starlo, who’s most upset by Ceroba’s passing, reluctantly echoes this sentiment:

Even if Clover stands by their choice deep down, it’s reasonable to assume that hurting Starlo this way left a bitter taste in their mouth. Not long after this, Clover reaps what they’ve sewn as they come face to face with their foil for this ending: Asgore.

Initially I thought it was strange that Asgore doesn’t appear if you spare Ceroba, but this ending illustrates why Asgore’s entrance is most appropriate here. Asgore finds himself in a similar situation as Clover. Asgore is keeping his word to his people for good or ill, and a king’s word is law. In all likelihood, Clover probably hated killing Ceroba in much the same way that Asgore hates killing humans. But both are trapped within the confines of their own rigid principles.

Martlet, who acts as an onlooker, first argues on behalf of Clover’s killing of Ceroba on the basis of the law, but just as quickly turns around to plead that Asgore bend the rules of his kingdom to spare Clover. In the end, she can’t have it both ways. No one is happy with how things turn out and the only thing served is the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of justice.

True Pacifist

If Clover spares Ceroba, it might be for her own sake or because killing her will benefit no one and will only serve to harm Starlo. In much the same way, killing the monsters who harmed the five humans won’t bring any benefit to monster or human alike and will instead only fan the flames of war.

Clover came to the Underground armed in search of five humans, no doubt willing to enact justice on anyone or anything that harmed them. Instead they find a world of good-hearted people who have ample reason to distrust humans. Through acts of kindness, this distrust is cast aside and many friendships are made.

In the Wild East, Clover is presented with the classic trolley problem. Starlo emphasizes that Clover could let a large group of monsters die while incurring no personal responsibility. Clover didn’t tie those monsters to the tracks in much the same way that Clover is not personally responsible for monsters being trapped Underground. However, Clover can save them by sacrificing a single life—an anonymous other, but eventually Clover is faced with the possibility of becoming that sacrifice willingly.

Clover choosing to give up their soul is not only an ultimate act of selflessness but also interprets justice as a principle higher than any mere law or person’s whim—laws should not exist solely for their own sake because laws should be a means for the betterment of all. Any “justice” that loses sight of this higher principle has no meaning or value, so one must act in service to the greater good.

Clover doesn’t deserve to die, but sitting on the sidelines so that monsters or the next fallen human can suffer in their place would be a greater injustice in their eyes. Ultimately they decide that their own sacrifice, while tragic, will create the best outcome for everyone and act as a step towards restorative justice for monsterkind.

No Mercy

No mercy was a bit of an enigma for me initially. It starts off largely the same as Undertale’s no mercy route, only without the one-shot kills and commentary on completionism. It’s not until Steamworks when the aim of this run starts to come together. We see a role reversal where Clover chases down Axis, and Flowey of all people questions Clover’s craving for destruction.

When fighting Axis, we see him admit that he had killed a previous fallen human. Although this information can be uncovered through a hidden tape in the pacifist route, here we see this revelation enrage Clover to the point that their LV increases on the spot. Normally I’d nitpick something like this, since Undertale states that cruel intentions can make a human’s individual attacks stronger but their LV is tied to their EXP. However, I can overlook this since the rules are bent in service of a good character moment that defines the run for me.

This moment and the ending recontextualize the whole run up until now: Clover isn’t killing indiscriminately like Frisk was. On the contrary, Clover is quite discriminate with their killing: they specifically want monsters (and their creations) destroyed, but not humans. Up until now we haven’t had an Undertale protagonist who is unabashedly pro-human. Chara was very much the opposite and some lines in Deltarune imply Kris may feel similarly. Frisk seems ambivalent, but from the beginning Clover has been acting for the sake of the five missing humans.

In neutral and pacifist, Clover judges monsters on an individual basis, but in no mercy all monsters are deemed guilty. What distinguishes this run from the others, besides the brutality of Clover’s actions, is that their actions can’t solely be chalked up to dogmatic obedience of the law or their own selfish desires.

Throughout the run, Clover can choose to steal from shops, commit armed robbery against Mo, and even cheat in their “dual” with Starlo—all of these indicate some degree of underhandedness or dishonor, but Clover’s outlook is seemingly that monsters don’t deserve fair play or the benefit of the doubt.

Conversely, we see from the ending that Clover goes out of their way to free the five human souls—they don’t leave them behind or try to go on a power trip and use them for their own ends (as far as we’re aware). No mercy is a dark reflection of true pacifist, where “justice” has transcended the letter of the law as well as personal desires. Instead of “justice” being in service to the greater good of all, it’s in service to division, tribalism, and vengeance.

Even so, one can debate whether Clover’s actions are motivated more by a love of humanity or purely by a hatred of monsters. Asgore points out that Clover’s actions will only worsen the conflict between humans and monsters, and more humans will die in the future as a result.

This doesn’t seem to give Clover any pause, so one can assume they either don’t believe Asgore or they don’t care—they’re here to make monsterkind pay, and if more conflict arises then that means more opportunities for payback in the future. Make them pay and never stop making them pay.

Characters

Character writing is a crucial component of any Undertale-adjacent game and it’s often the biggest stumbling block I encounter when I’ve tried to get into fanworks. I mean that in no way as a slight against fan creators, but rather to illustrate how high the bar has been set by Toby. This is a bar that’s set just as high, if not higher than Toby’s musical abilities, imo. In all the ways that I would describe myself as a “picky eater” when it comes to Undertale content, I’d say character writing is where I’m by far the pickiest.

To give Undertale Yellow a fair and thorough analysis, I’ll be going over all of the major characters one by one to give my impressions of them as well as what I feel works and what doesn’t, starting from the top:

Clover

There isn’t a ton to say about Clover compared to the other characters, but this isn’t a bad thing. What’s apparent is that Clover has more personality and initiative on display throughout the game than Frisk did, though in some ways not as much as Kris—Clover is something of a middleground between the two canon protags. At several points we’re only given a single dialogue “choice,” meant to illustrate when Clover has made a decision on their own.

We’re told Clover’s surface-level motivation: to find the five humans who disappeared, but we’re not given any context as to what connection (if any) Clover has to these humans or what their own history is beyond one or two vague bits of flavor text.

Clover’s motivations can evolve or outright change course depending on which choices the player makes throughout the game. I already went over this in the themes section, but the fact that Yellow largely eschews the broader metatextual commentary found in Undertale means that Clover’s actions are much easier to attribute as their own in-universe decisions, rather than something imposed on them by a controlling entity.

Beyond this, we also see Clover display various quirks via their character animations, such as kicking their feet while seated, tugging on Ceroba’s sleeve, or standing on their tippy-toes when handing their hat to Martlet. We ultimately can’t say much about Clover’s overall personality or interests outside the context of game events, but these little flourishes help to make the character memorable.

By default I’d argue that Clover’s “better written” as a character than Frisk was, barring the metatextual baggage attached to the latter. Overall, not a bad start.

Dalv

I wasn’t sure what to make of Dalv initially. Confession time: Dalv was the deciding factor that led to me not checking out the Undertale Yellow demo when it first dropped. I’ve got nothing against the guy, but at the time I didn’t really “get” his character—I wasn’t sure what his motives were and I couldn’t even understand what his first lines of dialogue were meant to convey.

Even now I’m still not 100% sure whether his first line of dialogue is him rehearsing a conversation with another Ruins monster, with the monster that used to leave him corn, or with the previous human that he encountered. The fact that Dalv is known by the other monsters for talking to himself and having imaginary friends only blurs the lines further, though this doesn’t feel intentional.

This is part of a broader, though minor, issue with some of Yellow’s writing where characters will allude to events and other characters that a first-time player wouldn’t be familiar with. To be fair, Undertale does this as well early on but usually with enough context clues to help you figure things out—Papyrus namedrops Undyne and Alphys in Snowdin, but we learn from context clues within Snowdin that Undyne is a monster of authority that Papyrus knows and Alphys is a doctor and apparent inventor.

To draw a more direct comparison, we know early on that Toriel is a motherly figure and we see in her house that she has taken in other children who’ve met an unknown fate—this mystery leads to some first-timers speculating whether Toriel is the one responsible for said fate. Right before her boss fight she explains her motives more clearly--her actions, though overbearing, have been to protect Frisk. You can also infer, though not stated directly, that her actions towards Frisk may be some attempt on her part to recreate or make up for her past experiences with children that she’s lost. Later on we learn that she’s Asgore’s ex-wife and lost her two children tragically, but this is not something that needs to be spelled out in order to get a basic grasp on Toriel as a character.

Dalv, on the other hand, has an implied backstory that is never outright stated but instead needs to be pieced together from context clues given much later in the game, some of which are tied to optional secrets and randomly-generated fun events. In short, Dalv was a monster living in Snowdin who met Kanako when she and Chujin came to visit. During that visit, Dalv was attacked by a human (implied to be the one carrying the blue soul), who was later killed by Axis. It’s implied that this experience was so traumatic that Dalv retreated into the Ruins and cut off all contact with those around him. Conceptually? This is a solid backstory. No notes. It’s a shame, then, that most players don’t even seem to be aware of it after finishing the game.

Now, a character doesn’t need a tragic backstory in order to be likable or compelling. In fairness, I do enjoy the aspects of Dalv’s character that are given upfront in his house—his neatness, his social awkwardness, his creative side, and his “imaginary” friends. The problem is that we don’t see these sides of him until after his boss fight, when most players likely won’t see him again for the rest of the game.

Characters don’t need to front-load their entire personality or backstory into their first encounter, but doing the opposite isn’t helpful either. First impressions matter in fiction, and unfortunately Dalv gave very little for me to latch onto for most of his screentime. It’s really only through hindsight that I began to appreciate Dalv as a character, but even then he isn’t one of my favorites in Yellow, let alone comparable to Undertale’s core cast.

Martlet

Martlet is the most recurring character in the game aside from Flowey. Although her personality is quite different, I get the sense that her role is meant to be analogous to that of Sans and Papyrus, namely as a comic relief character that drops into your adventure regularly and presents a crucial turning point right before the game’s ending.

Martlet’s introduction gave me flashbacks of Dalv—namely that she never even interacts with Clover until the end of Snowdin, making me fear that once again a new character’s story was going to be backloaded into their final appearance before they disappear from the narrative. Thankfully this wasn’t the case. Martlet’s in it for the long haul and her boss fight is more of an introduction to her character than a conclusion.

So what do I think of Martlet? I’d say that I like her more than Dalv, or at least she’s better utilized than Dalv. Still, it took a while for Martlet to “click” with me. I think what I got hung up on was that a lot of her early gags revolve around royal guard protocol and the handbook that she keeps around. In many ways this feels at odds with what’s later established about her character, namely that she’s scatterbrained, wishy-washy, and lacks long-term goals or planning skills.

Martlet doesn’t seem like the type of person who’d follow a handbook in the first place, given how often she disregards it anyway. Perhaps the intent was for Martlet’s “arc” to be her unlearning what she’s learned from other monsters regarding humans and for her increasing disregard of the handbook to symbolize this. While I think the former is true—she says as much on the apartment rooftop at the end of the game, she seems to waffle back and forth on following her royal guard duties as the plot demands—ignoring them when it means accompanying Clover but following them when it means having to be separated from Clover.

I think this ties into a bigger issue that I have with Martlet, which is that at times she feels like she’s a character of convenience for the story rather than a character acting on a clear want or need. I think this is most blatant when viewing the various “abort” points in a no mercy run.

No matter how badly you beat Martlet in Snowdin and how resolute she is at stopping you, she’ll turn on a dime if you’ve aborted a run prior to Oasis or Hotland just so that she can play out her allotted part.

Other times it feels like she’ll show up just so that there’s someone for Clover to talk to and someone to react to what Clover sees. Now, it would be reductive of me to write off Martlet as a mere plot device—she isn’t, and any appearance otherwise is more so a flaw of the narrative than of her as a character.

You’ll notice I haven’t said much about how I feel about Martlet’s personality, her dynamic with other characters, or her overall “vibe” and honestly she’s just… fine? It’s hard for me to say anything because she feels a bit lukewarm to me—she’s not undercooked like Dalv, but she’s not as memorable as many of the other characters either. She says some funny things, but she’s not the funniest. She has some great and heartfelt lines during the pacifist ending, particularly this one:

But as a whole? She’s just fine. She's competently written, no major complaints.

I think maybe what Martlet lacks is a “larger than life” quality to her character. I’m not saying that her role within the setting should be larger than life, but rather she could use at least one exaggerated trait to help her stand out from the pack—Papyrus has his bravado, Sans has laziness and jokes, Undyne has intensity, Alphys has awkwardness, and Mettaton has his showmanship. Not every Undertale character is like this, but I feel like Martlet was intended to fit a similar mold—we catch glimpses of it, like her overly long “P.S.” messages amended to her first puzzle, but imo she doesn’t go far enough consistently enough (assuming that was the intent).

One last thing that I want to touch on is Martlet’s contingency plan for Clover that comes into play in the No Mercy run, where she injects herself and becomes “Zenith Martlet,” as fans have dubbed her. Conceptually I’m fine with the idea of Martlet having an ace up her sleeve that she’s too indecisive to actually use in most scenarios.

This feels in-character for her and I can even look past a scatterbrained character with no planning skills having a plan like this since it’s largely Martlet appropriating another character’s plan. The main thing that I find questionable about Martlet’s plan is that it relies on Alphys’ determination extraction experiments.

We the audience know what that is, but how does Martlet know about them or even what to look for? We do know that underground residents were asked to donate fallen down monsters to the lab, but seemingly nothing is revealed to the public about the nature of the experiments. Even Ceroba, who had a vested interest in learning all she could, seems to be completely in the dark. In the pacifist ending, Martlet offers to investigate the experiment for Ceroba, implying she didn’t know the full story either. I also question how Martlet would’ve been able to venture into the true lab seemingly without running into a single amalgamate, given that she never brings them up in pacifist.

Now, my issue here is not the supposed “plothole” that this creates. My main issue is that a more reasonable solution was sitting right there: Chujin’s monster serum. I legitimately wonder if earlier drafts of this game’s story had Martlet using Chujin’s serum instead of Alphys’ extract, because the former would bring everything full-circle and it would tie in more naturally with the flashback scene of Martlet with Chujin.

Now, the obvious answer is that Chujin’s serum was never completed, but I can’t help but wonder if perhaps this wasn’t always the case. During Ceroba’s flashback, we can see a case with two syringes—one full and the other seemingly empty.

This is just my own speculation, but I can’t help but wonder if it was once intended for Ceroba to use one syringe on Kanako and for Martlet to have taken the other. Obviously this doesn’t jive with the story as it’s currently written—Martlet is clearly taken aback when she learns of the experiments that Chujin conducted. Still, part of me wonders if an earlier draft had Chujin entrust Martlet with a prototype of the serum to keep her safe.

I think it’d be fitting if the no mercy route were to reveal that Martlet was a lot more privy to Chujin’s less savory actions than she let on, and that even in pacifist she kept this knowledge to herself of self-preservation or shame. This would fit with a line of hers in the no mercy fight after her flashback of Chujin:

It would be fitting for the NM run if we were to learn that there was always a seed of doubt and mistrust between Martlet and Clover, even during the best of times.

The Feisty Five

I’ll be brief, but when these guys first showed up my first thought was “great, I’ll never remember all these new characters” and I’m glad I was wrong. While they don’t have quite the depth that the main characters do, they’re all memorable in their own way. They’re also the first characters in the game to get a serious chuckle out of me and I wish we got more of them. If we’re comparing quirky miniboss squads, these guys clear the Snowdin canine unit and Sweet Cap’n Cakes. There, I said it.

Starlo

This is the coldest take ever and I won’t even try to bury the lede: Starlo is the best Undertale Yellow character. He’s funny, he’s charming, he’s flawed, he has layers, he has great moments of pathos with Ceroba, and he has a backstory that isn’t tragic yet still feels necessary to his character.

Here’s another cold take: Dunes/Wild East is the best part of the game. Dark Ruins and Snowdin, while not bad, still feel very much like typical fare for a romhack or fangame. Wild East is the first area that truly feels like Undertale, which is ironic since it’s also the first completely-original area.

By extension, Starlo is the one original character who feels most like he could be an Undertale character. It’s easy to take for granted all the little nuances that Toby injects into his characters to make them stand out, which is probably why I felt so lukewarm towards Yellow’s cast up until Starlo’s introduction.

One thing I admire about Undertale’s core cast is that each character has their own unique manner of speaking, to the point where you can identify a character’s dialogue without needing a dialogue portrait or typer sound. Starlo shares this trait, speaking in a semi-stereotypical drawl while occasionally misspelling words (FEISTYJ, dual vs duel). It’s a small touch but it goes a long way to endearing me to the characters in these games.

Although Starlo is mostly a comedic character, he still has plenty of depth. Another hallmark trait of Toby Fox characters is that they have multiple sides to them that seem contradictory at first glance but actually tell you something profound about the character (Papyrus’ bravado masking his loneliness, Sans’ joking to cope with his harsh outlook, Alphys’ awkwardness stemming from her guilt).

Starlo also fits this trend, first presented as a dashing and charismatic lawman that is nothing more than the mask of a nerdy and immature farmboy. And I would say Starlo’s fatal flaw is immaturity—not because of his interests, but because of his attitude. Starlo treats his friends like playthings, takes what he wants from Clover and Martlet when he first meets them, and he acts utterly irresponsible with his (or rather, Blackjack’s) firearms.

We learn from Starlo’s mom that he once pined after Ceroba and that he took a long time to move on.

It’s also implied that Starlo had a grudge against Chujin, which could have been due to the two having differing opinions on human culture or Starlo’s own jealousy over Ceroba.

We can also see this immaturity reach an ugly conclusion if Ceroba is killed in the so-called false or “flawed” pacifist ending. Starlo previously trained Clover to carry the weight of taking a life and also taught them the value of sacrificing one life to save many, but Starlo immediately throws this out the window as soon as Clover acts (as far as he’s aware) in self-defense.

This is a case where I’d argue that Starlo is right but for the wrong reasons. Starlo’s not so much recanting his earlier philosophy as he’s simply upset because someone he cared about was sacrificed this time—had it been a stranger or a ne’er-do-well like Vengeful Virgil then I doubt Starlo would���ve parted ways with Clover so bitterly. That’s just my interpretation, anyway.

None of this is to say that Starlo is always immature. When it comes to his interactions with Ceroba he’s often the most sensitive and emotionally-mature person in the room, which is a trait that we only see grow in him after he gets a reality check in the Wild East. When trying to talk Ceroba down we see Starlo give his respect to Chujin, despite their past differences, and he’s patient and understanding to the utmost once the fight is finally over.

This doesn’t mean that Starlo is a doormat for Ceroba either, as we earlier see him confront her and call her out when he suspects foul play involving Kanako—he clearly cares for Ceroba a lot but won’t sit idly by while she ruins her life or the lives of others.

Honestly, Starlo’s bond with Ceroba is a contender for the most wholesome relationship (platonic or otherwise) in the entire franchise—yes, I’m actually saying that there’s an aspect of this game’s writing that rivals and perhaps even surpasses Undertale and Deltarune.

I realize a lot of my analysis of Yellow’s writing has skewed negative, but as a reminder I am grading this game on a curve because it’s a companion piece to one of the best-written games of all time. To give Yellow a bit more praise, I think it might actually do a better job than Undertale at portraying characters’ moments of vulnerability and allowing them to cut to the emotional core of an issue, as seen with Starlo and Ceroba’s late-game interactions as well as Clover’s ultimate fate and its aftermath.

Unlike Undertale, there was no moment in Yellow that quite made me cry, but moments in the pacifist ending came close. I consider this quite the feat because the final outcome of Yellow’s pacifist ending is easily predicted from the start and the way that it plays out is a concept that would be difficult for any writer to sell. Yellow was backed into a corner by being a prequel, whereas Undertale had free reign to tell whatever story it wanted. In many ways I feel Yellow’s ending did just about the best job it could with the hand that it was dealt—it’s not perfect, and in one or two areas I feel it overplays its hand (which I’ll cover shortly), but the writing succeeds far more than I would’ve thought it would have with such a concept.

Axis

This’ll be another brief entry, but I wanted to include Axis since he always seems to get left out of fanworks. I enjoy Axis but I’m not sure I fully understand him. His overall arc and goals are very straightforward, but for the life of me I can’t really nail down what his personality is. He’s funny and memorable, which goes a long way for me, but I can’t really wax poetic about him beyond saying that he’s your stock quirky robot. It is a bit of a shame that, like Dalv, he’s largely isolated to one area and has little to no interaction with the rest of the cast.

I suppose one thing that bothers me is how robots in this game aren’t treated as people, which feels at odds with the broader themes of Undertale. We’re taught that amalgamates and even a soulless flower are still people, so having robots that lack free will and don’t even count as EXP kinda rubs me the wrong way. I generally don’t like when fictional works treat sentient robots as less than human or “soulless.” In my view, the true point behind sentient robot stories isn’t to debate whether robots have souls, but rather to question what a soul is and who gets to decide who has one and who doesn’t, or whether they exist at all.

Robots in fiction are meant to be a reflection of humans, and the robots in Yellow could have been presented as a reflection of video game characters as a whole—can free will exist when you’re programmed to fulfill a function? Unlike in our world, souls are a scientifically measurable quantity in Undertale’s universe, so I guess Yellow’s portrayal of “soulless” robots works on a technicality, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Ceroba

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Ceroba is the most controversial character in the game, and I find my own opinions of her (and her family) to be polarized as well. In a neutral run she’s barely noticeable but in pacifist she eventually becomes the main focus of the story. I’ve seen some people criticize Ceroba’s level of focus, but I’d liken it to Alphys and Flowey’s elevated level of focus in Undertale’s true pacifist ending. In other words, it doesn’t bother me.

Ceroba’s personality is a bit of an anomaly for me in the sense that she’s not quirky like a typical Undertale character, and yet I feel that aspect of her works for the story that Yellow tells. Previously I mentioned how Martlet didn’t really “wow” me as a character in part due to her lacking a sufficiently “larger than life” personality, but I feel Ceroba succeeds where Martlet didn’t for me because (1) Ceroba is clearly not intended to be a comic relief character and (2) Ceroba often acts as the straight man to other characters like Starlo and the Steamworks machines, whereas Martlet often feels like she has no one to work off of her besides Clover (for whatever that’s worth). In many cases, Ceroba’s understated reaction to things or her attempts to parse or explain them rationally end up making scenes funnier, such as when Starlo cuts off her piece on the ethical quandary of his trolley problem.

Having said that, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity that the game doesn’t expand more on Ceroba’s own interests or quirks outside of her family. While showcasing a character’s hobbies can sometimes feel like checking an item off of a list, it helps add a bit of texture to a character that makes them that much more believable.

Not knowing this information doesn’t “ruin” Ceroba or anything, but it’s a bit disappointing that most of her “talk” dialogue in the steamworks, while interesting, pertains to her immediate surroundings or her family and friends instead of herself. The most we get is that she used to have a gym membership and (if I recall) she was once a waitress. We later get to see her room and all that’s in there is a bed, a photo, and her clothes. After seeing all the loving detail put into Papyrus and Alphys’ living areas in Undertale, it’s such a shame to see Ceroba’s opportunity squandered.

Oddly enough, if there’s one existing bit of characterization that I think could’ve been retooled sightly, it’d be Ceroba’s dynamic with Clover. Ceroba is a mother who lost a child around Clover’s age (or younger) but she’s also distrustful of humans and had a husband who hated them. You’d think that Ceroba would react strongly to Clover one way or the other, either distrusting them as a human or having a soft spot for them due to Clover being a child, or feeling conflicted between these two outlooks. Instead Ceroba seems utterly casual around Clover.

Initially her laid back attitude served as a nice contrast to the overbearing wackiness of Starlo and the Feisty Five and helped endear Ceroba to me as a character, but it begins to feel a bit out of place when she says things like "I respect the hell out of you" to a child.

Maybe I’m overthinking it, but the way Ceroba treats Clover makes sense for how she’d treat a stranger who was a monster, given what we see of her personality, but I’m just not sure it makes sense that she’d treat Clover that way specifically. I’d be fine with it if the narrative unpacked the idea—maybe she’s casual around Clover because she’s too world-weary to muster a strong reaction, or maybe she’s forcing herself to act casual to hide her true plans for Clover, or maybe she never fully agreed with Chujin’s rhetoric on humans and is acting against them out of pragmatism, or maybe she never liked kids until she had one of her own, etc.

Speaking of kids, I guess there’s no avoiding the elephant in the room: Ceroba’s backstory. If I had to guess, I’d wager this is probably the most controversial portion of Undertale Yellow’s entire narrative, and I have a lot to say about it.

To start, I’ll say that I really like the way that (most) of Ceroba’s backstory is doled out to the player piece by piece over the course of a playthrough. As early as Snowdin you hear mention of Chujin, then in Wild East you can piece together from various bits of dialogue that Ceroba had a family that she’s reluctant to speak about. Steamworks fleshes out Ceroba and Chujin’s pasts considerably, albeit mostly hidden behind optional talk dialogue.

Steamworks also has one of my favorite scenes in the game when Ceroba learns why Chujin got fired—it technically doesn’t contribute anything major to the main plot, but it helps illustrate Chujin’s flawed methods that Ceroba willfully overlooks so that she can double down on furthering his “legacy.”

Right before Hotland is when the other shoe drops and Starlo confronts Ceroba—this was the moment that had me hooked on uncovering the mystery of Ceroba’s past. This leads right into the abandoned Ketsukane estate, which is another of my favorite sequences in the game. I was always a huge fan of Undertale’s True Lab and Ceroba’s house scratches that itch for me. The two locations have a very different tone and style of gameplay (or lack of), but both are dripping with unsettling atmosphere and environmental storytelling. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve always been creeped out by abandoned houses—not decrepit haunted mansions per se, but places that were abandoned so recently that you’re not sure whether someone might still be lurking inside.

Unfortunately, I start to run out of nice things to say about this storyline as soon as Clover and Martlet enter the estate’s basement. Before we descend into that chasm, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I am not a “Cinema Sins” kind of guy. I do not go into a work of fiction looking for inconsistencies to complain about. My philosophy is that I can overlook the occasional plothole or retcon or bending of the rules if it’s done in service to a good story or memorable character moment.

If anything, I find it annoying when a story tries too hard to cover all its bases with exposition out of fear that some smartass is going to find some plot detail to complain about—this just draws more attention to potential “plotholes” that could’ve easily been ignored. I don’t care if the eagles could’ve carried the ring to Mordor and I don’t care whether the ark of the covenant would’ve killed the bad guys in Raiders if Indy wasn’t there. At the end of the day, if a story is well told then I can overlook things like that, and if it’s not well told then my mind wanders and I begin to notice those sorts of things, but those nitpicks (more often than not) are not the underlying cause of the problem—lack of a compelling story or believable characters is.

So, getting back to the basement. Here we see Chujin’s tapes and the plot begins to lose me. Chujin wants to create a serum that will strengthen monsterkind and give normal monsters the power of a boss monster. All well and good. Where I start to take issue is the convoluted method of creating this serum and what it means for the story.

As a point of comparison, I always thought that the rule in Undertale of requiring a human soul plus a monster soul to pass through the barrier felt a little convoluted and contrived, but it seems to exist for the sake of forcing a “kill or be killed” confrontation between Frisk and Asgore as well as explaining why Asriel passed through the barrier with Chara’s soul but (presumably) Chara alone couldn’t. In this way, the rule acts in service to the story and creates memorable character moments with Alphys and Asgore and gives Frisk a stronger temptation to kill Asgore during their fight. The two soul rule is a bit clunky, but I can begrudgingly accept it. Chujin’s serum fulfills a similar purpose but is clumsier in its execution.

To start, Chujin’s serum also requires a human soul and a boss monster soul—this makes sense, as the goal is to turn monsters into boss monsters and one can assume that human souls have some kind of preserving property that would keep the serum stable.

On top of that, the human soul must also be “pure of heart, uncorrupted.” I thought nothing of this line initially until it was reiterated during Ceroba’s flashback and I realized why it was in the story.

This concept bothers me for a number of reasons and it’s technically not even a plothole or inconsistency. It feels out of character for Chujin to frame things this way given how he views all humans as evil, and this purity rule seems to exist solely as a plot device to explain why Ceroba enacts her plan in pacifist but not in neutral runs. I feel like the story could’ve come up with a more organic method of explaining why Ceroba couldn’t be present or was otherwise occupied during the steamworks section in a neutral run, plus I feel like she wouldn’t let something like “purity” get in the way of attempting her plan if she was that dead-set on it, given how rarely humans appear in the Underground.

Lastly, we learn that Chujin and Kanako are both boss monsters, or at least “carry the boss monster gene,” which is an odd concept to me. You could argue that this revelation technically doesn’t contradict anything established in Undertale, but like the pure soul rule it just bugs me. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the early days when the fandom thought that all bosses in Undertale were boss monsters instead of just the Dreemurr family. I won’t waste time rambling about the particulars of boss monster lore, but I think what bothers me with Chujin and Kanako is that it feels like yet another contrivance to explain why Ceroba’s actions had to involve Kanako specifically.

I’ve mentioned that Undertale’s two soul rule feels somewhat like a contrivance. One could argue that the Barrier requiring seven human souls to shatter is also a contrivance, but I think what makes that easier to swallow is that it’s a rule that’s established fairly early in the game. The reveals of the Barrier’s two “rules” are spaced apart from one another and each are given dramatic weight and time for the player to dwell on their implications.

The mechanics of Chujin’s serum, on the other hand, rely on multiple contrivances that are all spilled out onto the floor at once in the final stretch of the game right before they become necessary to explain Ceroba’s motivations, which only makes their narrative purpose feel all the more transparent.

Getting back to Ceroba, we’re left with her plan and what she did to Kanako. Now, I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt here and say that I don’t mind the particulars of whether Ceroba’s plan involving Clover would have worked or not—as far as I’m concerned, Chujin’s plans could have been doomed from the start even with a “pure” soul. The point wasn’t whether Chujin’s plan would’ve worked but rather how Ceroba’s grief has turned her own life (and by extension the lives of her family) into a sunk cost—she feels that she has to go through with her plan or else all her family’s suffering was for nothing.

In many ways this makes the contrived requirements for Chujin’s serum feel less necessary, since the serum’s mechanics could’ve been kept vague or it could’ve even been implied that Ceroba was simply repeating the same experiments as before hoping for different results.

I’ve put it off long enough, but it’s time to talk about that scene. You know the one: the big reveal flashback at the climax of Ceroba’s pacifist fight. Again, I’ll try to be charitable and say that I don’t absolutely hate the idea of Ceroba testing Chujin’s serum on Kanako. I mean, I would hate the act on a moral level if she were a real person, but I don’t hate the idea as a story concept. Still, my charity has its limits.

I’ll just come right out and say it: the scene where Ceroba injects Kanako is hard to watch—not because it’s tragic, but because it’s just not a good scene. My original write-up for this part was far harsher, but I’ll spare the vitriol. This scene has been memed to hell and back by people more critical of the game and… I can’t disagree with them—this is my least-favorite scene in the game.

(Image from ScottFalco's "Undertale Yellow with a side of salt" video)

The most obvious criticism I’ve seen is the fact that Chujin specifically told Ceroba not to do the exact thing that she does. That’s a fair point and honestly, yeah, I think the simplest writing fix would’ve been for that line not to have been in Chujin’s tape to begin with so that Ceroba doesn’t look willfully ignorant on top of being recklessly negligent.

Tbh, it feels a little out of character for Chujin to say something like that because I got the impression that Chujin wasn’t always the most thoughtful or attentive dad. His own tapes mention that he didn’t keep an eye on Kanako when a monster was attacked in Snowdin, and even then Chujin was more preoccupied with tracking down the human than with comforting his own daughter. He made nice things for Kanako, sure, but even that could be explained as him being more wrapped up in the work than her. It’d be wrong to say that he didn’t care about Kanako at all, but I got the impression that he had the wrong priorities and it’d be fitting if Ceroba’s own actions followed that pattern.

That being said, I can’t solely blame Chujin’s warning for why Ceroba’s flashback doesn’t work. The scene as a whole is just dreadful, even when viewed in isolation from the rest of the narrative. There’s so many issues big and small with this scene, like Kanako being able to read the word “corruption” but not “extract,” Ceroba’s immediate turnaround after the slightest prodding, or the predictable outcome of the whole thing that’s dragged out for what feels like an eternity.

You know, I’ve heard some people critical of Undertale say that the true pacifist ending to that game felt maudlin—I disagree, but in some places I could see where they were coming from. Calling the Kanako flashback maudlin would honestly feel like letting it off easy. If I wanted to be mean I’d call it manipulative, but honestly I think a more fitting term would be a comedy of errors. It feels less like tragedy and more like dark humor bordering on self-parody of what an Undertale character’s sad backstory would be.

So what should’ve been done differently? The easy and safer option I’ve seen suggested would be for Kanako to stumble across Chujin’s research and inject herself, with Ceroba feeling guilt for allowing it to happen. I would prefer this over what we got, but I said earlier that I don’t completely hate the concept of Ceroba experimenting on Kanako, so how can that idea possibly work? Besides getting rid of Chujin’s overly-specific warning, I honestly think the best fix for this scene would simply be to not show it. Don’t remove the events from the backstory, but just don’t reenact them onscreen. Normally it’s better to show than tell, but there have always been exceptions to that rule.

I’m reminded of how Undertale didn’t show us Asriel’s death or the Dreemurrs’ divorce, and only offered a glimpse of Chara’s buttercup plan. These were cases where less was more—letting the players imagine these events in their heads sidestepped any potential tastelessness and seeing the aftermath of these events and how they affected the characters involved painted a vivid enough picture. I think Ceroba would be a perfect fit for a similar approach.

If we need to see something, then either portray it via montage like Asriel’s memories or only portray Kanako finding Chujin’s basement and Ceroba stumbling upon her after she’s viewed the tapes. Ceroba could then explain to Clover that Kanako pleaded with her for months or even years to let her help with Chujin’s experiments. With time Kanako only become more stubborn and their relationship more strained. The whole time Ceroba knew that only Kanako’s soul would work for the experiment but she tried to remain in denial and hope an alternative would present itself. After countless research dead-ends used up all but one vial of the leftover human soul extract, Ceroba gave in to Kanako’s demands in a moment of weakness. And that’s all it took—one moment she was there and the next she was gone.

Not to toot my own horn, but I feel this kind of summary would’ve worked better because it leaves things up to interpretation. Was Kanako still a child when this happened or was it many years later? Did Kanako understand what she was signing up for? Is Ceroba’s recounting of the events reliable or is she merely rationalizing her actions after the fact? It’s not perfect and it’s still somewhat “safe” compared to the game’s swing for the fences. Unfortunately, a big swing means nothing if it misses, and even less if the bat goes flying and hits someone.

Despite what I just said, the Kanako scene doesn’t ruin Ceroba for me as a character. It blemishes her boss fight for me, though I have other issues with that fight besides the flashback (as I’ve mentioned). When thinking back on this game’s characters and story, I mostly just ignore the particulars of the Kanako scene unless if I need to sit through it again. I view it as the equivalent of a flubbed line read or a boom mic visible in a shot--I can see the pieces that were meant to be there underneath the lackluster execution.

Surprisingly, Ceroba’s still my 2nd favorite original character in Yellow, though a lot of this is owed to her dynamic with Star, and part of me wonders if I like her more for the character she could’ve been rather than the character we got. Still, I’ll always remember the buildup to the mystery of Ceroba’s backstory, even if the reveal failed to deliver.

Flowey

Flowey is one of my favorite Undertale characters as well as the only character from Undertale featured in a recurring lead role in Yellow, so I was curious to see how this game would handle him.

When this game was first announced, many fans debated the “canonicity” of whether Flowey would have encountered the human who fell prior to Frisk and whether Flowey would retain his save abilities in such a scenario. Often this debate overshadowed the other aspects of Flowey’s portrayal, so to avoid doing the same, I’ll just say that I don’t believe Toby ever intended for Flowey’s save abilities to function in relation to a human like how they’re portrayed in Undertale Yellow. However, I don’t take issue with this “lore contradiction” because I feel that the way Flowey is utilized in this aspect works for the story that Yellow is trying to tell. Flowey’s role is to limit Clover’s own powers and to keep their story on-track.

It’s easier to tell a prequel story where the main character is destined to die if that character doesn’t also have the ability to return from the dead at will or turn back time, so having Flowey fill that power vacuum makes sense. Despite this, Clover is still given plenty of agency. Flowey only railroads their story in two notable instances: whenever Clover is going to live with Toriel or when Martlet offers to have Clover come live with her in a neutral run. Both outcomes would be a bit of a cop-out for the game’s main conflict and would be the boring option as well (sorry fanfic authors)—Flowey agrees with this sentiment, making it feel justified that he’d intervene.

Having gotten that out of the way, what do I think of Flowey’s portrayal? Compared to Undertale, it’s interesting to think how much more screentime Flowey receives in Undertale Yellow, despite Flowey being the main antagonist and ostensible central character of Undertale. Since Flowey’s story can’t be allowed to conclude in Yellow, his character is kept in some degree of stasis—in many ways, Yellow’s portrayal can be seen as “Flowey, but more.” That might sound like a pejorative, but for the most part I think it works here. Flowey’s interactions with Clover honestly make him feel a little underutilized in Undertale by comparison.

That said, Undertale was a game intended to have moments of isolation, so having Flowey chime in at every save point likely would have diminished that effect and also made Flowey less threatening due to overexposure. I think Yellow can get away with giving more screentime to Flowey because for most of the game his mask hasn’t dropped—he has every bit of ill intent that he did in Undertale, but for the sake of his plans he has to play along at being your friend for far longer than he did in Undertale.

The result is that very little of what Flowey says in Yellow can be taken at face value once you know his aims. Until that point, however, I think the game does a good enough job at keeping you guessing as to how far gone Flowey is and at what point in his moral decline this story is meant to take place. If someone played this game without playing Undertale first, they’d probably chalk up Flowey’s mannerisms to him just having an odd and occasionally morbid sense of humor, which isn’t far from the truth.

One thing that I appreciate about Yellow’s portrayal of Flowey is his dynamic with Clover—the game manages to thread the needle of not making their relationship an also-ran of Flowey and Frisk or Flowey and “Chara” from Undertale’s No Mercy run. For most of the game you get the sense that Flowey views Clover as a means to an end that he’s forced to humor and put up with, but that deep down he likely has some small sentimentality towards them (mainly shown in the pacifist ending).

I think Flowey’s relationship with Clover in neutral and pacifist gives us a look into how he likely acted around the other monsters of the underground back when he tried to solve their problems or form bonds with them—he can’t fully relate to them but is willing to fake it ‘til he makes it, or rather until they make it to the outcome that he wants. If I were to draw a more direct comparison, I think Flowey’s bond with Clover might be the most similar to his bond with Papyrus—he’s implied to have spent a lot of time with each of them and found them each amusing in their own regard, but ultimately Flowey isn’t above using them or casting them aside.

What I find especially compelling about Flowey and Clover is the turn that their partnership takes in Yellow’s No Mercy route. Here Flowey initially seems to be cautiously optimistic about Clover’s rampage, but as his advice is ignored he grows increasingly exasperated with their actions. It’s strange to say, but it’s a refreshing dynamic to see Flowey outright grow to hate his human companion—while he voiced plenty of insults and disdain towards Frisk, it came off more as condescension or an attempt at intimidation.

In Yellow, however, you can really feel Flowey becomng absolutely fed up with Clover, not just for their pushiness and disobedience in the no mercy route but also for the hundreds of runs where Flowey has had to string them along and, in the process, be strung along himself. This development is much better-paced in Yellow than Flowey’s turn toward fearing Chara in Undertale—it’s amazing what can be done when you’re allowed to have more than four conversations with a character.

That said, I don’t think there’s any one Flowey moment in Yellow that quite lives up to Flowey’s speech in New Home or the conclusion to his story in the form of Asriel—those two moments will forever be peak Flowey to me. When comparing Undertale Flowey to Yellow Flowey, it’s a case of quantity vs quality, but in this case the “quantity” is still pretty good.

If I had to voice any complaints for Yellow Flowey beyond a broad “it’s not as good as something near-perfect”, I will say that when Flowey’s mask does drop in Yellow, he doesn’t sound quite as crass or childish as he does in Undertale—something I feel is important to him as a villain, but this is a very minor nitpick since he has plenty of lines in this game that go hard. I didn’t even notice the difference in speech styles until I went back and watched footage of Undertale and realized “oh yeah, I guess he sounds a bit more childish here.”

I suppose there’s one other thing I should discuss regarding Flowey. This is a topic that I intentionally saved for last since I find it’s a perfect capstone for Undertale Yellow and my opinions on it: Flowey’s boss fight. If ever there was a case of “Flowey, but more,” it would be this fight. For years Undertale fans have speculated and wished and wondered what a fight against plain old vanilla Flowey would be like. Countless fangames and fan battles have tried.

Yellow opts for an unorthodox approach by centering the entire fight within Flowey’s mind—this framing is used to its fullest and then some, allowing for interface-screws and psychedelic attack patterns showcasing Flowey’s twistedness, his self-loathing, and his various forms of retraumatization.

Players are attacked by phantoms of any bosses that they killed, complete with Floweytale-esque corrupted designs. This aspect of the fight dovetails perfectly with Flowey’s comment about only enjoying the moments of Clover’s run where they “gave in” to their violent urges, and clearly these moments are etched in Flowey’s memories for Clover to relive.

Afterwards we’re treated to a peek behind the curtain at Flowey’s subconscious, featuring a collage of his first runs as a flower—this whole sequence adapts my favorite Flowey moment from Undertale while not tipping its hand too much by revealing Flowey’s true identity, as it easily could have in less-skilled hands. We’re given just enough to ponder without spoiling things for the mythical gamer who tries playing Yellow before Undertale.

Next up is a brief horror fakeout where Clover “reunites” with Martlet. I don’t have much to add other than the telegraphing being a bit obvious but not in a way that majorly detracts from the moment. Overall it just makes me consider that this fight as a whole might be scarier than anything in Undertale

Finally we have the climax of the fight. I’m not quite sure what to call it. Photoshop Flowey 2.0? To be brief, the visual spectacle shown in this phase surpasses not only the visuals of any sequence (so far) in Undertale or Deltarune, but I think it’s unlikely that future chapters of Deltarune will feature anything with visual flare on the level of this finale.

That’s probably the highest praise I’ve given to Undertale Yellow so far, which is what makes this next part so difficult. I’m sure this will go down as my hottest take in this entire review, and it breaks my heart to say it given the clear effort on display from the developers, but…

I did not care for the Flowey fight.

How can I even say that? Was all of my prior praise just a lie? Not at all—I meant every word of it and then some. So how is it possible that I didn’t like this fight? You’ll notice that I broke down the Flowey fight into its individual phases and aspects, praising each in isolation. You might also notice that my praise was aimed at the spectacle and underlying concepts of the fight, which are fantastic, but I had very little to say about the actual experience of playing the fight—and that’s because I found the fight to be an utter slog to get through. In hindsight, it might actually be my least-favorite fight in the entire Undertale franchise if we’re solely talking about the gameplay. I’d rather fight a Jerry than have to fight this thing again.

I’ll admit up front that I sucked at this fight when I played it. I sucked at all of Yellow’s final bosses and initially didn’t care for their gameplay. I eventually warmed up to Ceroba and Martlet’s fights as I got better and learned to beat them without needing easy mode, but the Flowey fight never clicked for me in the same way despite arguably being the easiest of the three.

So what’s the problem? There are little things here and there—I found some of the phase 1 attacks a bit obnoxious to dodge, though nothing major. I found the collision detection in the vine chase sequences to be a bit clunky, resulting in one or two deaths that felt unearned, but none of these issues are enough to sink the fight.

No, two major missteps that come to my mind are length and repetition.

Out of curiosity, after my neutral run I looked up gameplay videos of the Yellow Flowey fight and the Omega Flowey fight from Undertale: on average, Yellow’s fight took players twice as long to complete as the Omega Flowey fight. The difference is so stark that a “no hit” speedrun of Yellow’s fight with dialogue skipped, the intro cutscene edited out, and no attacks from killed bosses is still longer than an Omega fight played normally.

I want to be clear that my criticism here is not “it’s different from the Omega fight, therefore it’s bad.” The Omega Flowey fight, in my opinion, already drags at times, and it’s probably my least-favorite final boss in Undertale despite having the most effort put into it. I already take (minor) issue with the Omega Flowey fight for overstaying its welcome, but Yellow’s fight is beyond the pale. One nice thing I can say is that Yellow’s fight at least tries to break itself up with an intermission of sorts in the middle, but the whole experience is still technically one fight, so in some ways this just feels like padding, particularly the Martlet scene.

To give a non-Undertale point of comparison, the Flowey fight reminded me (oddly enough) of Darth Vader’s hallway fight scene in the film Rogue One. For many fans this scene was considered the highlight of the entire film, but a vocal minority at the time criticized this scene for being irrelevant to the film’s central characters and unnecessary to the overall plot—it was just something thrown in for fan service that could have been cut at no detriment to the overall narrative. While I can understand the latter perspective, I have no issues with the Vader scene at all—if anything I think it enhances the third act’s feeling of desperation. but overall it’s just a cool scene and that alone makes its inclusion feel warranted.

So why do I feel different about Vader’s scene compared to Flowey’s fight? After all, both are action-heavy “scenes” featuring the main villain of the original installment doing what they do best at the end of a prequel that wasn’t centered on them. The difference is that Vader’s scene is less than 2 minutes long. It’s closer to 60-90 seconds if we only count the portion where he’s onscreen and it’s less than 1% of the film’s runtime. Conversely, there’s a no commentary neutral run of Undertale Yellow on Youtube where the Flowey fight takes up about 15% of the overall run. Had Vader’s scene been that long, even if it were expertly shot and choreographed while being broken up with bits of pathos, I would’ve been checking my watch and waiting for it to be over.

Still, I could forgive the Flowey fight’s length if it had variety and was building toward something. Surely this is true of the Yellow fight, right? Well, I would say that the Yellow Flowey fight probably has the widest variety of total attacks in the game—it has six unique photoshop phases as well as copied attacks from previous bosses in the first phase. The problem is that these are part of his total attacks but not necessarily his most common attacks—half of the ones I just listed are optional depending on who you killed and the other half are for brief one-off phases.

For the majority of the fight you’ll be dealing with Flowey’s other attacks: his standard attacks, which are recycled ad nauseam with little variation and no iteration. In phase 1 this isn’t too noticeable if you only killed one or two bosses, but if you killed most (like I did) then every unique boss attack is sandwiched between a standard Flowey attack and a vine chase sequence, which really bloats the runtime of the fight. Still, I’d argue that phase 2 is the worse culprit in this regard.

For those who’ve played, let me know if this sounds familiar to you: four vines shoot up out of the floor, four piranha plants emerge twice spitting up bullets, two hands scroll across the screen lazily scattering pellets, three guns materialize and fire at your location, a bomb with an “X” or “+” shape detonates, a small circle with spikes orbiting it homes in on your position, and two cowboys riding horses gallop by until one explodes, all while the song “Afterlife” plays from the beginning. Now tell me: which part of the fight am I referring to? If you guessed “more than half of all attacks in the 2nd phase,” then you’d be right!

Now, some of you might be questioning why I’m complaining about lack of “variety” when I just listed off seven individual attacks and earlier I complained about Yellow bosses using too many types of attacks. Well, the problem is that these same seven attacks are all used in sequence with each other over and over and over with no progression—each phase of this lasts 25-30 seconds and it’s repeated at least 7 times in the fight (more if you die).

Combined, no joke, this one sequence of attacks lasts 3 minutes, longer than an entire pacifist Toriel fight (dialogue included). Don’t believe me? Look it up on Youtube. You spend at least 10% of the Flowey fight dodging this one attack pattern. You literally spend an entire Toriel fight dodging just one prolonged attack pattern. And as the cherry on top, “Afterlife” always starts over from the beginning each time this sequence plays—just to drill into your head how repetitive this all is.

To be fair, Omega Flowey has a similar problem of repeating a ~25 second attack phase multiple times, but I find it more bearable there because:

Omega Flowey randomly uses 3-4 types of attacks from his larger arsenal per phase instead of trying to cram nearly every single one in every time like in Yellow, which (ironically) makes the Omega sequences feel less samey

Omega Flowey makes use of loading, which spices up the encounters by feeling unfair initially until you notice the save messages in the corner that telegraph them

Each of Omega’s sequences has a Fight button that, though optional, acts as a goal and motivator, as opposed to the player just impotently killing time until the phase ends, and

Omega Flowey’s music doesn’t start over from the beginning each time he attacks.

Those last two might seem minor since they don’t directly affect the overall gameplay, but I honestly think they’re the most crucial because they give the player a goal and a feeling of progression, even if it’s illusory.

Probably my biggest issue with Yellow’s Flowey fight, even more so than the length and the repetition, is that it ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. It pretty much can’t be allowed to go anywhere due to the aforementioned “stasis” of Flowey’s character arc. Flowey can’t suffer a grand defeat or learn a lesson that impacts his character in any major way, which only makes me question why this fight is here at all.

Omega Flowey, while feeling hopeless and repetitive in some places, has a clear progression, goal, and conclusion that leads to Frisk either reinforcing Flowey’s beliefs or causing Flowey to seemingly question them and offer a path to the true pacifist ending. There’s a reason why the song “Finale” is considered an underrated gem—because it shows a clear turning point and building momentum in that fight. I’m not saying Yellow’s fight needed to copy this same moment, but instead it just peters out with nothing to show for itself. I mean, do I even need to say anything when the game itself basically makes my case for me?

So what would have been better? Personally, I think the first phase of the fight is largely fine as-is. Phase 1 is by no means without its flaws, but it’s the phase that’s most relevant to Clover and the overall story on a thematic level—the boss attacks are a consequence of Clover’s actions and the vine chases (though repetitive) are meant to symbolize Clover’s endlessly repeated runs. And the thing is? The pieces are already there for the fight to end in a more natural way that respects the player’s time.

If the fight were to be given a page 1 rewrite, then I would end it at the section with Flowey’s subconscious that shows his past. Why?

It’s a great scene on its own that should be kept,

The scene would actually be relevant to the fight instead of it going unremarked on like it currently is (seriously, Flowey has nothing to say about it?),

It would fit the central conceit of the fight—Flowey is able to peer into Clover’s memories but Clover can do the same to Flowey and that scares him, and as a result...

It would be a more believable and character-driven “off ramp” for Flowey to back out of the fight.

This last point is especially important because we see throughout Undertale Yellow that Flowey is constantly hiding from other monsters—he clearly doesn’t want to entangle himself with them or have them interfere in his affairs. We can also pick up from his dialogue in Undertale and, to a lesser degree, Yellow that Flowey doesn’t want to talk about his past life as Asriel.

Having Clover intrude upon that territory would likely spur a strong reaction from Flowey, to the point where he’d rather abandon his plans, albeit temporarily, than open up that side of himself to a stranger. This would not only make the fight shorter and end it on a more emotionally resonant note, but I feel it also makes more sense for the narrative and themes of Yellow.

Flowey’s rationalization for letting Clover go could be something to the effect of needing to “tidy up” his head space before he’s ready to share it with someone else. Perhaps in the process he could drop a hint that he’s only opened himself up like this once before (with Chara) or that he had thought he had buried those old memories for good.

I also feel like this explanation would work better in the greater context of Flowey’s actions—Flowey quitting the fight out of boredom raises the question of why he’d repeat the fight on future neutral runs or why he’d be so confident that he could absorb the six souls in Undertale if one was too stubborn for him. Instead, having Flowey be emotionally unprepared for his plan but trying to find a workaround would lend itself better to him trying again in the future—to him it was just a little slip-up that he can overcome with enough attempts.

I don’t want to give the impression that my critique here is “the Flowey fight wasn’t done the way I’d have done it, therefore it’s bad.” My suggested “rewrite” to the fight is merely piggybacking off of what was already there, which are great concepts that I could never have dreamed up myself. The problem is that there’s just too much. Way too much. It feels like not enough was cut during the planning stage and what we’re left with is the epitome of “less than the sum of its parts.”

Of course, my rewrite omits the 2nd phase entirely—something that couldn’t be done with the current fight since it’s the most visually stunning segment of the entire game—like it or not, that genie is out of the bottle.

If I had to give any suggestions to improve the fight that we currently have? I’d say that I don’t think the “afterlife” portions of the 2nd phase need to be repeated so often. I think the phase would be better paced if afterlife only occurred at the very beginning and very end, and instead each mini-phase just brought you right back to Flowey’s petal roulette wheel to take you into the next mini-phase.

None of this is to say that I hated the Flowey fight overall. I still love many of the concepts that the fight brings to the table and I’ll watch moments of it on Youtube from time to time, but I just don’t care to experience it again firsthand any time soon, which is pretty much the opposite of how I felt with the Omega Flowey fight.

Looking at Yellow’s final bosses now that I’ve completed them all, I think my favorite might actually be Zenith Martlet? Which is insane to me because I hated that fight the first time I tried it—anyone who shared a Discord with me can attest that I was complaining nonstop when I attempted that fight.

Even now I’d say the Zenith fight is sloppy and the bandaid solutions for it in the 1.1 patch only illustrate how unbalanced this fight originally was. I’ve never beaten it on 1.0, nor do I intend to, yet in 1.1 I’d say I probably enjoyed myself the most with this fight. It doesn’t overstay its welcome like Flowey, nor does it have anything as egregious as the Kanako cutscene in the Ceroba fight. It respects my time, it has great music (though that’s par for all the bosses), the attacks (while chaotic) mostly stick to a consistent handful of themes, and the narrative context of the fight works (minus the bit with Alphys’ lab).

At first I found the Zenith fight unfitting for Martlet as a character. I thought “what? Martlet isn’t some hidden badass,” but that was exactly the point—this isn’t who Martlet is, and reality catches up with her. The 2nd phase is my favorite part of the fight as we see, in typical Martlet fashion, she didn’t plan ahead and can only hopelessly flail about as the “enemy retreating” motif overtakes her theme. It’s a somewhat understated and undignified ending to the character and that’s exactly what makes it work—it’s another example of the game showing restraint and being all the better for it, as opposed to overreaching.

That said, if I wanted to cheat, I’d say my real favorite final boss is the Asgore “fight” from the false pacifist ending. It’s focused on the characters and their goals and it doesn’t try to be anything too flashy. It’s an even more understated yet fitting final boss than Martlet, though the rest of the “false” ending outside of Asgore is a bit lackluster since it’s just a glorified neutral ending.

Conclusion

To wrap things up, I’m sure you’ve all noticed the throughline here: Undertale Yellow is at its best when it’s tasteful and restrained, and at its worst when its ambitions run wild. Of course, that’s easy for me to say from the outside looking in. It’s likely that many of the things I enjoyed about Yellow were ambitious in their conception but were handled carefully enough to appear restrained and effortless. I have no intention of downplaying that—the project as a whole was ambitious, given the time and effort lovingly poured into it.

As I mentioned in the beginning, my criticisms are not intended to dissuade anyone from trying this game. I would not want this game to be forgotten, but I also would not want it to be uncritically praised as some flawless masterpiece that eclipses the original game—that not only does a disservice to the people who worked on Undertale but also to the people who worked on Undertale Yellow. Both games were carefully crafted and both games have their triumphs as well as their flaws.

The last thing that I would want any fan creator to take way from Undertale Yellow OR the original game would be “this was perfect, just copy what they did.” What’s important is understanding why things worked and where they could be improved. Despite Undertale Yellow’s reverence for Undertale, it takes risks and finds places to innovate over the original game. Not all of it works, but I can respect the effort.

And that sums up my overall opinion of the game—it’s a game that I like but a game that I respect even more. The best complement that I can give is that even the parts of the game I didn’t like still had good ideas evident within them. The pieces were there.

With some tweaks, fine-tuning, and the courage to reign in a couple aspects, I honestly think this game could be made to rival the original one day. But even if that day never comes, Undertale Yellow is still a fine game as-is. It’s not a game I consider “canon” like some fans have argued, but I still plan to replay it alongside the original in the future, and I can’t think of higher praise to give than that.

[hobiebrownismygod]

My OC but I can't draw - The Widow

Maitreyi Jokhar (she/her & South Indian), Earth-206202, Present day, Spider-man/Black Widow (kind of) variant

I doubt anyone's gonna see this, but if you do and you like my character, let me know, cuz idk whether I should try to write stuff about her like other creators on Tumblr or if I should just keep her within the confinement of my mind lol.

Summary: She's basically the Black Widow if she was Spider-man and Indian. She went through a very similar process as the MCU Black Widow when it comes to her backstory. As for her suit, I got inspiration from Cindy Moon/Silk Spider and she basically wears a black face mask with a silver and black suit with straight black pants/jeans over them. She has her black hair pulled back in a braid that falls to her mid-back with curtain bangs to frame her face. For her backstory, I tried to make it as accurate to the MCU universe as I could because shes a product of H.Y.D.R.A, and I also tried to follow the storyline of ATSV but if there are any mistakes, please correct me! I made her bisexual and it'll briefly mention that below too. I'm going to ship her with Hobie Brown, cuz I'm obsessed with him, so some of that will be down as well. If you have any feedback or anything, that would be greatly appreciated, because I'm still pretty new to Tumblr and this is my first Spider-sona/OC! Also, if anyone can think of a better name for her, please let me know, cuz "The Widow" feels kind of cliche, lol.

This is a MEDIUM-LENGTH POST (About 1.2k words)

Backstory, Personality, Looks, Relationship, Fighting Style and Canon Events are all under the cut! 💜

I think I gave her too much trauma but whatever, character development and all that great stuff :p

Backstory:

Kidnapped and sold into child trafficking at the age of 5

Eventually forced into the Red Room/Black Widow Program from the ages of 7-14(the same one that Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow was subject to)

In this universe, the Red Room Program is an extension of Hydra

Chosen to be part of one of Hydra's new super-soldier experiments at the age of 15 after hundreds of failed attempts at replicated the super-serum used on Captain America during WWII

Gave her the same powers as the normal Spider-man except she has a limited amount of webs and has fangs which inject extremely deadly venom

Continued to be trained by Hydra until the age of 16, when the Avengers of her universe were finally able to find the base and invade it

Captain America/Steve Rogers of her universe took her in and treated her like a daughter, because she reminded him of Bucky who he lost in the war

She became an Avenger until her universe's version of Avengers Infinity War happened, except they weren't able to bring everyone back, and they were only able to get rid of the infinity stones

Half of the universe disappeared, including most of her Avenger friends

The world blamed superheroes for this and superheroes were no longer revered in this universe and were instead hated

She gave up her mask until she was eventually recruited by Miguel at the age of 18, only a few months after she gave it up

Looks:

I can't draw her out but this is what I imagine her to look like in my head

Fairly short, about 5'5ish

Black hair that she pulls back into a loose braid that falls to her mid-back with curtain bangs framing her face

Medium brown skin cuz she's South Indian, so probably an almond brown color with big dark brown eyes and long lashes

Wears a black face mask instead of a normal Spider-man mask, kind of like Silk/Cindy Moon's

Her suit is a black and silver spider-man suit and she wears straight black pants, kind of like straight jeans over them.

Has a big silver spider emblem on her back

Fingerless gloves to make it easier to stick onto walls

Has a side pocket in her pants where she hides a knife given to her by her version of Aunt May (expanded on in the canon events section of the post below)

Personality:

Cold, and doesn't really like to open up to people because of her trauma

When she does open up it comes out very emotionally and she kind of bursts

She has anger issues, and can get pretty heated, especially if she's performed badly during a mission or missed a punch during a fight

She beats herself up over little things, and expects perfection from herself (trauma)

She has a punching bag for this reason and she's always in the conditioning/training area of the Spider Society, trying to be better, to be the best

Despite this, she's really gentle and quiet around people she cares about (Hobie, Margo, Pav, etc...)

Doesn't enjoy physical touch unless its from someone she really cares about or feels safe around

Her love language is physical touch and quality time and if she's around someone she cares about, she'll constantly be touching them, whether its holding their hand, holding their finger or having her arm around their waist

Doesn't crack jokes like the average spider-man, has a very dry sense of humor when she does make jokes

Once someone get really close to her, she'll never let them go, always being really clingy and hugging on to them, cuz shes afraid of losing them like she lost everyone else

She never got the chance to be a kid, so she can seem a little clingy and childish at times.

She tries hard not to be, but its so difficult when she's so afraid of being alone again

Fighting Style:

She's very acrobatic

She tends to fight differently than the average Spider-person because she was trained to be more of an assassin

Uses anything in the environment she can get her hands on, like sticks, knives, sharp rocks, even pencils

Shes very handy with guns

Stopped holding back her punches after her canon event (expanded on in the canon events section of this post below)

Relationships:

After joining the Spider-Society, she met Hobie Brown and fell head over heels for him, although she would never admit it

He reminded her of Captain America/Steve cuz of how vocal Hobie is about his values and beliefs

Steve was the same way and she always admired that so it fueled her crush on Hobie

They became friends shortly after she arrived

She told Hobie about how people in her universe don't like superheroes after what happened and he immediately asked her if she wanted to stay with him in his dimension instead

She got very flustered but eventually said yes and now she stays in his spare room

He's trying to teach her how to play the guitar, but she's not that good at it

But she has a really nice singing voice

Sometimes she'll sit down next to Hobie when he plays the guitar and softly sing along to the music with her head on her knees

Its comforting for her and she likes being around him

Maitreyi isn't ACAB like Hobie, but she supports him either way, going with him to protests and being in the audience when his band plays

Since she was brought up in present-day she doesn't have as many bad experiences with racism as he does, but she, as a brown-skinned individual, has dealt with it before

She found that after moving to Brooklyn, there was a lot of prejudice against dark-skinned people, especially since she lived in the upscale, predominantly white neighborhood with her version of Aunt May

Because of this, she can somewhat relate to him, but not on the same level

Maitreyi also became close with Margo Kess/Spider-byte

They clicked when they first met

Margo likes to show Maitreyi all the cool tech she makes because her universe is a lot more advanced than Maitreyi's

She loves silently sitting in the corner while Margo works because she feels safe with her

She and Pavitr immediately clicked when they first met

Hobie introduced her to him and she was absolutely in awe of this optimistic, colorful young man who was basically the exact opposite of her in personality terms

They're both South Indian so they quickly bonded over their shared culture

Despite Maitreyi being South Indian, she does speak some Hindi, along with German, English and Russian

She doesn't speak her mother-tongue or even know what it is because she was taken from her parents so young, but she tried to learn Hindi after moving to Brooklyn because she wanted to be closer to her culture

Pav and Maitreyi talk in Hindi to each other sometimes, which confused Hobie whenever he's with them

She looks up to Miguel O'Hara

She thinks he's a good leader and aspires to be like him, even though she hates his justification of canon events

They have similar powers (they both have fangs) and he taught her how to talk without showing her fangs so she can be less intimidating

She likes Mexican food and they often go to the cafeteria together to eat empanadas and etc...

Both of them enjoy silence and quality time, so when they do get food together, they don't talk, they just quietly enjoy the vibes

Its the same with Jess Drew

She thinks she's freaking awesome

Jess was Maitreyi's mentor, similarly to how she was Gwen's mentor in ATSV

Jess taught her how to drive a motorcycle and she fell in love with it

Sometimes when she needs to blow off steam, she'll ask Jess to take her motorcycle out for a drive (She'll always say yes)

She does NOT like Peter B. Parker

She doesn't find him funny and doesn't like his vibes

She doesn't appreciate the fact that he brings his baby on dangerous missions, because she has a major spot spot for children

She DOES however love Mayday

She especially loves babysitting her with Hobie and watching him play with her

She finds it very comforting and sometimes she'll find herself staring at Hobie, just admiring his features and his voice and has to snap herself back to reality before he notices

He 100% has no idea about her major crush on him because he's kind of dense about those things

Also she's not vocal about it and tries her best to be inconspicuous about how attracted she is to him

Canon Events:

Maitreyi's first canon event was the experiment in which she gained her powers

It functions as her version of the "Spider-bite"

Her second canon event was losing Gwen Stacy

After being saved from H.Y.D.R.A. by the Avengers, she tried to live her life out as a normal teenager, under the protection of the S.H.I.E.L.D.

S.H.I.E.L.D wanted her to assimilate with the public quickly in order to prevent the possibility of her falling under the influence of H.Y.D.R.A again, and believed that by engaging with people her age and creating emotional connections, it wouldn't happen

They allowed her to use her powers to protect Brooklyn as they wanted her to hone her abilities in a safe way, while also being able to ward off the possibility of Kingpin, Green Goblin or any of the other New York villains becoming Avengers-level threats

She was given a new name, Mary-Jane Watson, and sent to live in Brooklyn under the protection of May Parker, a retired S.H.I.E.L.D agent

She met Gwen Stacy at Brooklyn High and fell in love with her

They dated for a few months and Gwen quickly found out that she was Spider-woman

Maitreyi lost Gwen Stacy during a battle with her nemesis, Norman Osborne/Green Goblin

Maitreyi dropped out of school immediately after Gwen's death and turned her attention toward becoming a full-time Avenger

She also got rid of the alias, Mary-Jane Watson, because she wasn't fond of it in the first place and started using her original name instead

Her third canon event was losing her mentor, Steve Rogers/Captain America

In her universe's version of MCU Infinity War, where Thanos collected all the infinity stones, they were only able to stop him by killing him

Thanos destroyed the stones right before he died, and dusted away 50% of the population

Iron Man/Tony Stark was one of those 50% and therefore, they were never able to travel back in time to get the stones or do any of the things that happened in MCU Endgame

Steve Rogers was one of the people who was snapped away as well and Maitreyi held his hand as he died

Her fourth canon event was giving up her mask

Only a week after Thanos happened, she threw away her mask and went back to live with May, who was perfectly willing to house her

About two months after she gave up her mask, Miguel approached her and asked to recruit her to the Spider-Society

At first she was hesitant, but she accepted, taking back her mask and once again becoming, The Widow

This is all before the events of ATSV by the way, I have no idea how I'm gonna introduce her to ATSV-Gwen Stacy or Miles yet lol

You must be exhausted from reading all this, so here's a Hobie to refresh you!

Definitely one of my favorite pictures of him, he's so gorgeous mwah

[mrcatfishing]

Do you have any recommendations for ai image generation models/programa for making nsfw comics? There's obviously lots of free online porn image generators, but they tend to be pretty limited, whereas the only programs I know of with img-to-img stuff and in painting, or with character reference abilities, are midjourney and some stable diffusion models, both of which dont allow nsfw art.

Stable Diffusion is actually your best option, so long as you stick to the various offshoots. I prefer WebUI Forge, but if you're starting fresh I'd recommend going for ComfyUI as it's the most supported right now.

That is of course assuming you're running the model locally. I'd recommend only trying so with a 30xx series or better NVidia GPU, otherwise you can use some of the generators available through web-hosting.

For both the best selection of models, and access to a freemium image generator to use with those models, you should go to Civitai.com. It has articulate and detailed tutorials available too, for anything I didn't cover here.

Character/style refrence is a midjourney exclusive as far as I know. Next best thing is making a tiny Lora for the character or style, or just searching Civitai to see if that Lora has already been made.

Using character loras in conjunction with detailed physical descriptions is just about the only way to get a consistent enough appearance across generations for use in a comic. And you definitely want to make the art panel-by-panel, rather than whole pages at a time.

One last tip. Try and look into how the source image database tagged the images, and try to replicate that style of image description. For example, compare the following two image descriptions for a PonyXL model.

score_9, score_8_up, score_7_up, score_6_up, score_5_up, score_4_up, BREAK 1girl, tent interior, sleeping bag, on floor, crossed legs, fanning self, hand fan, holding fan, brown hair, jimiko, double bun, looking at viewer, from above, sweat, t-shirt, white shirt, short shorts, rating_safe

In a tent interior, a mousy girl with brown hair in double bun style is sitting cross-legged on the floor, fanning herself with a hand fan she's holding and wearing a white t-shirt and short shorts while sweating and looking up at the viewer

As you can see, even with very similar descriptions, by being aware of what the model is specifically looking for we can substantially improve the end result. For PonyXL, that's danbooru tags and the quality/rating tags. For other models this can look very different. The recent Flux ai processes natural language very well, for example.

I hope all of this has been helpful, I tried to cover all the bases from your question, but feel free to ask any follow ups you might have.

[patheticbatman]

As of Chapter 81, this is crew of the Courageous from Time to Orbit: Unknown, a marvellous space drama and mystery by @derinthescarletpescatarian . Original sketches & character guide below. Many of the character appearances are based on headcanon, but the ones with asterisks are based on canon sources.

I drew Celi first! I figured I would do the people in front, who I would have to draw most of their bodies, and work from left to right. Celi has had multiple organ issues, so she looks a little drawn (lol) and is still recovering in her wheelchair :). I drew her with small braids just hanging from the top of her head, as I imagine she’s too tired to take care of her hair very often, but still wants to keep some, so she has a sort of cap of braids. There’s probably a term for the style, but idk. Celi is of North African descent.

Next to Celi is Renn. His head looks wonky because I was drawing at an angle at the time. He’s been mostly depilated, and I imagine him in a sort of Aang-meets-European-in-a-tracksuit outfit because he’s calm and tries not to do much drama, but is condescending. Renn is of West Asian/American/Tarandran descent.

Then we have Public Universal Friend (PUF) 2 with the twists. I figure it doesn’t want a lot of hair to take care of, and this style keeps it out of its face. Same clothes as the other PUF. It is kneeling, with one leg propped up. It is of coastal Southern East African descent.

*Then laying on the ground is Tal. Ke is looking at kes tablet because ke doesn’t like focusing on other things. Tal is unfortunately at the wrong angle to show off ke’s face tattoo. Small afro kept stylishly kept, along with some garters and a short skirt. Ke is laying down because ke feels like it. Ke is of West African/American/Texan descent.

*Then we have Aspen, the POV character, smack dab in the middle. Canonically, they’d don’t have a headband as far as we know, but I think their hair looks nice pushed up like that. They are wearing a jumpsuit like last time, but this time has a belt for flair, because Tal and Sunset convinced them. Aspen sits cross cross because they can and it’s a common sitting posture in Arborea. They are of West African/American/Arborea Atlantican descent.

Lina is kneeling like PUF2, but facing the other way. I gave her buns and square jewelery because I based her off of a Hopi woman’s ’do that I really liked, and Lina can be short for names like Catalina. She has freckles because they’re fun. She’s gained some muscle and weight since the last picture, which is great! She is of Hopi/Latin American descent.

Last is Sunset. She is a zeelite, a subculture interested in replicating and investigating pre-Neocambrian (aka our time) cultures. She is largely inspired by what she knows of punk, pastel goths, drag, and to be honest, Barbie (2023). She is voguing because she knows and appreciates the importance of looking good. Sunset is of Central African/of Sirius descent.

Now for the top row, left to right again!

First, we have Heli. She wears functional but pretty clothes because she appreciates utility but always wants to show off what she’s got. The newest addition to the crew, she’s a little spiky, but has a soft spot for Adin. She was inspired by a picture of a Sistergirl from Australia (my headcanon, I only saw a picture of her and was unable to find more specific information). Heli is of Indigenous Australian descent.

*Next, we have Adin. I keep forgetting to draw him with tattoos, so I added a neck one last minute. His look has probably changed the most - his canon picture came out only a few months ago, so I drew him differently the first time. Adin cooks a lot, so he doesn’t try to wear anything or have a hairdo that could be ruined by cooking. Adin is of West African/Arborea Atlantican/American/Texan descent.

*Next up, the tallest of the bunch (and I forgot to draw his left arm until last minute, we have Denish! He’s doing the Arnold Schwarzenegger pose. The gentle Giant of the group, I was unable to recapture his face quite the same way as last time, but I still think he turned out well. He’s one of my favorite space pirates. I think he wears high collars to hide Tinera’s hickeys. Denish is of West African/American/Texan descent.

Right in front of Denish is PUF 1, AKA Dr. PUF. Still has tousled hair, still has the same robe. PUF is kneeling. It is of European descent.

*Hanging off of Denish is Tinera! She’s changed also, as her official looks came out, though I think I’ve kept her pretty nice looking still! I forgot to give her glasses though :(. I gave her Garnet (Steven Universe) finger gloves because they look cool. Tinera is of Central African/Lunarian descent.

Under Tinera is Sam. He’s partly visually inspired by the Dad of some kids I watch, and Ballister from Nimona. He likes to gaze at the stars and wonder about all the stories that will be told about them. Sam is of South Asian descent.

*Lastly is Keldin (AKA Captain Sands). He’s always dressed well and keeps his hair well-coifed. Hardly anyone from the ‘first’ crew likes him. He is standing awkwardly farther away because he knows everyone near him isn’t his tan. Keldin is of West African/American/Trandran descent.

[neiacrockets]

It’s middle league sports!! (A post dedicated to my backyard sports oc)

I decided to repurpose my old OC for this, the main reason why i titled this as “middle league sports” is that she is slightly older than the other kids like 12-14 yo and i just though it was funny bc she is a mid baseball player (according to stats)

She is sort of a friendly rival to the backyard kids i guess she would randomly join their games for fun or to mess with them like in a slightly older sibling way yk

it took me a long time trying to replicate the classic og 97’ art style well my hands are litterally fried

Veronica (Nika) !!

Her main weakness in her stats is running, she is wearing platform boots so obviously its gonna take her longer just to get to the next base + she is like short 😭😭 at least she is cracked at pitching though

would describe her as very enthusiastic but slightly snarky when she has to be. Her main passion in life is fashion/beauty, she takes a lot of time perfecting her hair & mascara skills.

Other info & headcanons :

• veronica is 12 yo

• her mbti is esfp

• she is the same height as dimitri in her lil platform boots (same height as marky without them)

• veronica’s ethnicity is mexican & filipino

• veronica’s best sport is skateboarding but her worst sport is football

• she would literally pull out a portable mirror in the middle of a baseball game when its her turn

• she both bats and throws with her right hand

• she was that one kid who would throw a whole dance routine and perform it to her parents to convince them to let her go to a sleep over

• i headcanon her to sound like louise belcher

Relationships/ headcanons (they contribute to buffing her if on the same team)

• i feel like maria would instantly think she is the coolest looking girl ever just because she’s slightly emo & also loves pink

• she would also get along with billie jean i believe because they have similar interests in beauty stuff since billie was a pageant girl at one point

• she also gets along with both of the kahn siblings because she has a similar music taste as them when it comes down to rock

Negative relationships (would debuff her if put on the same team as them)

• veronica would definitely get into arguments with sally if sally ever tries bossing her around (this also applys to jorge, veronica also dislikes him)

also i have a lil extra sketch of her in the atari era art style!!!

i decided for a more emo/mall goth style for her bc it was popular in the early 2000’s and her main design leaned sort of into being ambiguously alternative

anyways thanks 4 reading this !!

[persephoneflowerpetals]

Can someone please explain to me how Disney’s Descendants had Hades (before he was revealed to be Mal’s father) going from looking like this in the cartoon shorts:

Extremely accurate to his original design. No fire hair since I guess he’s supposed to look more “normal and human-like” but at least the hair style suits him. Looks like a slicked back, sleazy business man hairdo lol.

To frickin this?:

Looks NOTHING like his original design (not even with the hair) and hardly acts like the original Hades (he acts and dresses like a washed up rock star rather than a sleazy, bitter used car salesman, I could tell they tried to make up for it with him being all sarcastic and sassy, but it didn’t have the same effect the original Hades had).

So bizarre to me lmao. I mean, I know the original Hades is hard to replicate since his facial structure borderlines inhuman, but c’mon. I’ve seen the live actors at Disneyworld and Disneyland and I’ve seen cosplayers that do a better Hades than this. I know this is basically a big ol “modern fairytale au” of the Disney universe so everyone looks fairly human, but I mean, if you can’t look like Hades then at least ACT like Hades, y’know?

But then again, I’m not surprised because a lot of the original villains in the Descendants series were ooc. Like Cruella was no longer this snobbish woman who loves all things fashion. She was basically insane. Talking to a fake dog plushie and acting crazy while also having a huge fear/hatred of dogs. Maleficent was no longer the mistress of all evil, very regal and refined, and scared you out of your wits with one look from her. She was turned into this silly, quirky Broadway singing villainess that was obsessed with power. So…yeah, as I said, doesn’t surprise me that Hades’ personality changed in the movie series. But still as a Hades simp, I would’ve really liked to see Hades portrayed accurately.

[thesconesyard]

Time for more Scones otp answers:

21. Movie Night?

Neither one is going to admit it to anyone else, but they like to watch cheesy romcoms. If someone asks, Scotty will reply about the latest action movie and McCoy will name a drama, but it’s definitely romcoms for them.

22. Who is the photo bug?

Who’s taking them? McCoy. He takes charge of the camera because he doesn’t want to be in the pictures. But Scotty gets some good ones of McCoy when he isn’t looking.

23. How well do they know each other’s favorite foods?

Scotty may have slyly copied a few of Mrs. McCoy’s recipes from her books on a trip to Georgia and surprises the doctor from time to time with his favorite dinner (and dessert if they’ve been close enough for fresh fruit- McCoy says he knows the difference between fresh and replicated.)

McCoy knows Scotty’s favorites, though he isn’t a fan of all of them. He tries to keep them eating healthy, but he knows a man must have his indulgences and tries to keep quiet about some of the monstrosities Scotty puts between two slices of bread.

24. What do their texts look like?

Scotty is the emoji guy. His lack of punctuation can cause some frowns and misunderstandings at first. McCoy keeps it short (he’s the one to give you a ‘k’ or his one emoji, the 👍) If he had to write something longer, he keeps it neat and to the point.

25. Parenting style?

Scotty: the extra fun uncle. But he’s no pushover. He’s parent first, then your friend. He’s ready to play and have a laugh, but he can be firm when need be. Bedtime is bedtime yet wee bairn. He’s ready to teach when you’ve done wrong and show you how to do it better/right.

McCoy: comes off as the stern parent, but he’s soft in all the right places. He may get mad, but he will give and take apologies as appropriate and everything will be water under the bridge with him and you.

[mamushroomoracorn]

Why AI "Artwork" won't last in the long run and Why companies are probing themselves in the ass.

As someone who is a perusing artist and learning coder.

I will tell you why this will be like NFTs 2.0

Basically cool idea but piss poor results.

On why This will be a short term "purge"

☆彡彡 whys? ミミ☆

What to worry about ★ AI artwork is just a over glorified filter and gacha app.

Resources and how the AI process this information

Overflooding of the market /poor planning/Trends 1.0

Legal uncertainty/destroyed future relationships

Trends 2.0 and how it will dull out with from the AI process|| Then how it will go down most likely then how to protect yourself now

▂▃▄▅▆▇█▓▒░What is a AI░▒▓█▇▆▅▄▃▂

What's a AI? it is artificial intelligence that collects data/information.

Although it can "function" like any code it is not only relay on a "language" it also relays on its resources, user/code and sometimes equipment.

Otherwise the AI will not intend or reach a "limit" to what it can do.

─────────ೋღ 🍄 ღೋ─────────

Context𖠄

A lot of people know about the situation with AI but for people who don't know.

There have been multiple AI that could replicate the imagery of art—although it is debated on if it is art, I will not dive deep into it only be focusing on the AI functions.

It is in hot water for “developing” a “style” with

oversears(Non-American/US artist) art, 

dead people art, 

people who did not consent for their art to be used in this manner.

All I know it does have a “art style” due to how it works, and companies who made this is claiming profit.

What to worry about is mostly concept artists will be replaced by AI major wise in companies that require character design. 

Some jobs will not return in those areas 

In indie development or in comics not made by companies there's a huge possibly it will stay.

But basically they will be hit the hardest in payment and employment by the looks of it.

Then for commission based artists it will be temporary pain

As for the rest I am unsure but looking at the AI, it works just like a filter but the results are more randomized.

Now analyzing the “art” I notice it mess up hands and also it depends on the style it is taking from.

Realistic art doesn’t actually do people well in fact they mix a bunch of races if you taking a photo of yourself.

I learned that because my mother tried it unknowing the negatives of AI “art” and won’t be posting hers results

Even “real” ones.

“Real” ones will mix up two people into different objects, expressly if there’s two races. Which gives me the ick but not surprised on what happens.                      It will change the darker out of the 2+ into monkeys/apes.

Further explained in 2 on why this happen

 I explained in the beginning AI Needs Resources ‘ and what they are feeding on.

The AI feeds on online posted art from any country server. 

Now we identify that Online posted art is the resource. How it uses it? Takes it, Then meshes the images together to create a new one.

It will also add on to a image with the source. That’s why people can have selfies then use this like a filter.

As you know many cultures have different cultures which involves art because it relates to identity. Which often is the people and objects around you. 

People can take inspiration

AI CANNOT DO THAT, it can’t separate that idea fully because on how it works.

Programs can input/process so many colors, values and hues know where to put them. Can only process so much shapes.

They can only add or break out never truly delete + that's why there's residue on devices even after you delete.

Because that’s why they “understand” but never could be creative with concept.

That's why also the colors look so dull in certain AI, whitewashing, or the same portions  (Anime)

That it only look like a mixture of race or even mistaking color people for animals(Realist ones)

Or the fantasy is just only Eurocentric(Fantasy)

Making it stuck on the same “art style”, per AI version. Which will not be a issue for a small amount of production like commission artists but for mass production it is a different tale

The Overflooding of the market will de-value AI “art” or (filters is what they are).

⎝⎝𝕀𝕟 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕪?⎠⎠

Okay so lets start with cash value and trends because it is really important for products to thrive. 

For different things it will always depend on the market supply and demand. That’s why it is easier for things like (annoyingly) Food, Clothes, Water and Housing to be always on the market.’

All or Majority of products have laws on it to keep the finances state of the country stable and citizens.

Entertainment is really hard because you will have to rely on culture or adaption to change for trends.

Things like NSFW, Holidays and Country will mostly be permit Trends

Memes, Anime/Shows, and Movies will fall under fast Trends.

Also it is important to take notice their peers in a market

There’s Rivals, Providers Consumers and Platforms.

Platforms like Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and YouTube needs to have a friendly family bases with their ad providers. While also needs respecting CC laws.

Trends will have a play: With Consumers you want a stable fanbase and a concentrated amount of new consumers on your product. 

But with art it is important to have a royal fanbase, expressly for companies like Adobe who is relent to keep users on.

Best way is to invested in education

Then also add variety to your products but it is hard with AI.

contracts protect both sides and written consent is given.

So AI artwork will have to most likely to look for artists/providers who is willing to provide their artwork but it is going to be harder now due to poor decisions of taking art without permission. (expanded on 4)

Which Majority of theses AI corps don’t have anything to really say their property against trademark brands like Disney. 

If in the future will likely sue to get rid of competition. 

Even if things does ran like adobe they could face lawsuits due to violating potential CC laws. Since some of the AI have Official artwork from other companies, trademarked properties.

(wink wink)

If Disney does go into AI you will most likely see mass suing of rivals to force their property to only be used by them for AI purposes.

Best way to evade this is to have those contracts and boundaries in user use in the first place on which AI corps lacked.

Legal issues will arise with competition in the future because not only many artists will be less incline now further to make a contract. Due to the approached theses companies made.

Then of course already lawsuits that took place for the fight on what is fair 

Example:

https://www.wired.com/2011/01/hope-image-flap/

The image print of Barack Obama ‘Hope’ poster where a lawsuit took place due to a artist taking a image a photographer made then recoloring it.

The Artist loss due to how it violates the photographer rights to a extent.

But the settlement in that both parties will profit from the image.

Now this can be easily applied to AI “art”, because the issue is how the “artist” took a resource without paying or consenting to the original party holder.

Now also looking at this in whole, there's international problems because AI corps took internationally too with their sources. Which can be more lawsuits on the way or even banning from certain areas.

Also the families of dead artists might also take legal action.

Protecting your art starts with a statement. Even if it might be “useless” it is better to have evidence they violated your clear boundaries. Do something like this of course do research.

“if you repurpose my art or redistribute it outside of my written consent under a contract. I have permission to sue you for (insert what you are own in percentages) amount of commerce. You are agreeing when you take my artwork you are violating my rights and property same if you are using AI version containing my art” Or something similar. As for the future, I feel like this will be a short trend that literally just a filter. NFTs did the exact same thing and look at them now in the dumpster.

This trend is the same as the NFTs, had the same problems It will be alright, people would still want original art work being made, expressly since the program cost money, just a filter and not for long term use in the long run.

- <3

[schismusic]

Æon Flux and the end of all things

I don't remember the first time I heard of Æon Flux but I sure as hell remember the first time I watched it, and it wasn't too long ago which would technically not warrant the level of obsession I have for that shit, but here we are anyway.

I was knocked the fuck out on painkillers, two of my wisdom teeth freshly removed, not even remotely worried about the exam that I had coming up in like two days from then. So I was barely moving away from my swivel chair and sleeping on a whole ass armored pillow to prevent from tossing and turning and shit felt so surreal to me. It was like the eating chair from the last Cronenberg movie. So I delved into Æon Flux essentially blind and bingewatched the shit out of it. Twice. Ended up downloading the whole thing from some sketchy ass 1080p remastered torrent, rewatched it again, and spread it around personally in a more cauterized Google Drive folder (so if you guys got a nasty ass virtual STD from it, my bad I guess), not even a month after watching the series. Shit was fucked, in short, and every rewatch just fueled this obsession even further.

(image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

One thing about me: when I obsess over stuff I want to draw something at the very least inspired by it. Happens to me a lot with Autechre, who are actually one of maybe three bands I would not hesitate to call my favourite based on an absolutely objective principle which is absolutely not up for discussion and which might be the object of a future post at this point. But the point is fucking Æon Flux is essentially impossible to replicate because Peter Chung's character designs are so recognizable that you start seeing them in literally every other movie that came out in the late '90s/early 2000s - and for reference, Æon Flux was brought to an end in 1995. Consequently, all attempts at drawing Æon Flux-inspired stuff end up either feeling very derivative or looking like fucking trash. Artistry is a weird thing because sometimes it inspires other people, other times it just inspires man-slaughtering rage.

Somewhat many of my friends are or have at one point tried to be accomplished visual artists. Some have made it to professional/teaching level, some others have an art school diploma or degree - and I'll be using this space to shout out @coto-letta aka V., who has recently rejoined Tumblr after years of absence. We met on here, when her handle was much different, and I mistook her for an ex of mine (whom, surprisingly, we are still on relatively good - if quiet - terms with) so I slid into her DMs as you do, and she was like "yeah actually I have no clue who the fuck you are I just think your blog is neat and dropped a follow" which was quite a fundamental moment in understanding that while my life was written like a dodgy soap-opera, that didn't mean I was the centre of the entire world. Anyway, the reason I'm shouting her out is because sometimes something deeper and older than you remember has a way of finding you again when you least expect it and that's what happened when in January 2023 (after V. had left Tumblr for at that point about two years and we had exchanged Instagram accounts) I somehow ended up on her Insta and found out she had been tagged in a picture taken somewhere that looked suspiciously like my university's conference hall and I could not fucking believe she was in my city. I slid into her DMs again, as you do, and found out that no, that wasn't my uni's aula magna, but yes, she was in fact relocating in my city for her master's. So we met up after maybe seven years of on-and-off Internet friendship. It's a neat story, sure, but how the fuck do we tie it into Æon Flux?

(image taken from Episode 3, Season 2: Leisure)

Not trying to be overly dramatic here, but Æon Flux to me is just about a condensation of everything that "art" can mean. Not just visual flare or style, not just deep meaning or interesting ways of putting across one or more questions and never a definitive answer to any of them (more often than not, it's sets of possible answers - usually two, neither of which ends up covering the whole array of possibilities, both of which actually leave a lot to be desired in a number of different ways), not just this insane fucking music that toys with everything you expect from animation courtesy of Drew Neumann who may just rank as one of the best soundtrack artists ever in virtue of this single work. It's the whole package. You would think it'd work taken in pieces, and it does, no objection to that: but it works even better as a whole package. If the moral questioning (and the philosophical musings of season 3, which is unjustly underrated because "it's too normal" by hipster wannabe critic dilettantes who like to think that they could do better than that. Everybody else on the other hand is generally able to stop pull their head out their own ass and recognize, at the very least, the excellent craftsmanship and talent that went into the ten long episodes) wasn't accompanied by the weird fetishistic sex it'd be somewhat less impactful, almost like a cauterized Tenshi no tamago made into a series for mainstream late-night TV audiences. The twist was that MTV's executives, at the time, "didn't understand [the double entendres], they didn't even notice them. So, we were okay", in producer Japhet Asher's own words in the short documentary Investigation: The History of Æon Flux. The network was, in fact, trying to break into the mainstream - they simply couldn't keep their creatives at bay. No wonder they turned to Jersey Shore as they went along.

(image taken from Episode 5, Season 3: The Demiurge)

Even just the main characters' purported edginess, clearly something "of its time", is never played entirely straight. Both leads are way too complex, and very clearly presented as such, to be just summed up by "Æon Flux is an anarchist/Trevor Goodchild is a dictator". Both of which are true, by the way, they're just one part of a full picture. Even within the context of its necessary linearity - this is still an animated short and as such moves only in one direction, even though a number of episodes (specifically Mirror and Chronophasia) deliberately fuck with the viewer's perception of times on varying degrees of diegesis and extradiegesis - the series could be perceived as, indeed, a sandbox: consequently, the viewer could set sail and explore it. This is further encouraged by the series's active weirdness to whoever would want to try and make sense of the world's story. There is no history, there is just the story at hand: an eternal present which you can't understand ("un eterno presente che capire non sai": Ferretti knew his shit, regardless of how it went after CCCP) and which Æon and Trevor are not interested in even trying to contextualize. Not a surprise then that they'd be into each other: their closeness in body and heart doesn't exist at the mind's level, and the whole thing falls apart miserably every time it looks like they could be finally let their weapons down. But as Æon completely understands, and as Trevor seems to actively try to ignore, the fight is already the whole point: star-cross'd as they may be, the entire act of playfully hunting each other for sport both in the bedroom and on the battlefield is what Trevor Goodchild and Æon Flux thrive on. Trevor wants stability but an Æon who doesn't fight back is simply not Æon; Æon does not want the stability, but she definitely likes Trevor to an extent and finds more in common with him that she would probably be willing to admit (I would like to thank Tumblr user @brw on thons very good analysis of the episode A Last Time for Everything, which heavily inspired this section of the post!). In short: if Trevor seems to embody Pier Paolo Pasolini's idea that "there is nothing more anarchistic than power" ("non c'è nulla di più anarchico del potere") then Æon flips the statement on its head: "there is nothing more powerful than anarchism". That is, of course, until we once again confront my signature ad-hoc elephant in the room that this statement just summoned.

(Image taken from Episode 1, Season 1)

No spoilers intended, but if you so much as google the name of the series you will easily find out that Æon Flux dies a whole lot throughout the series*. Season 1 and all the shorts from season 2 end with her dying ungrateful deaths and a couple of the long episodes leave much to be desired in the way of positive closure, with Ether Drift Theory representing a peak in bleakness for season 3. Most of the shorts where Æon dies imply that either absolutely nothing changes in the world around when she's lost or that Trevor Goodchild literally just succeeds in all of his goals (see Season 1's finale), and one could make a case that even if she did carry her missions through there would be absolutely nothing to show for it: somebody goes up the chain of power, everything is restored, there is one more tyrant to murder. Not to be that one guy who quotes Nietzsche about everything, but the eternal recurrence of the same is the first thing that comes to mind when watching Æon Flux, especially exemplified and even literalized by the episode War, possibly the best of the short ones: it's the same fucking story four times over a five-minute run time and nothing ever gets better for anyone. The body count in the episode is unquantifiably large - every one of the fallen a potential new Æon Flux or Trevor Goodchild. But this, in a way, implies that Æon keeps being reborn, and one could argue that the act of capturing a fly with her venus-fly-trap eye could simply be her coming back to life, as it were; stopping the most evident sign of decay, turning her eyes outward yet again, to face the eternal return of the same again and again and again…

(Image taken from Episode 8, Season 3: Ether Drift Theory)

You can find Æon Flux for free on the Internet Archive.

*as I was discussing the final draft of this post with my friend @oldshittydog we had a pretty interesting discussion which I thought should be added here for an even clearer, fuller picture:

[thyla-scene360]

Here’s something I drew back in May/June.

Another OC of mine, Chupacabra!

This guy is a fan character I made for Frankelda’s Book of Spooks, an absolutely fantastic hidden-gem of a show that I highly suggest everyone check out as soon as they can. Seriously, it’s an absolute masterpiece of stop-motion animation and horror.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that this series has some of the best monster and character designs I’ve ever seen. I’m also not exaggerating when I say that this show also has one of the most intriguing and original stories I’ve heard in a very long time. It’s honestly a crime that it’s so underrated, it deserves so much more love and attention than it gets. It also has some absolutely banger songs (Invisible Ink is the best one by far, but all of the songs are great in their own right)

If any of y’all are interested, the pilot is available on YouTube with English subtitles, and the full series is available on Latin American HBO Max (although it doesn’t have English subtitles there yet).

If you do decide to watch it, watch it in its original Spanish dub (the English dub is laughably bad).

And despite the series being relatively short as of now, there’s so much more to come! There’s currently a prequel movie in the works that’s set to release in the next couple months (hopefully).

As for Chupacabra here, I tried to replicate the show’s style as best I could in a 2D style, and I think I did a good job. If you’re wondering why he has a sideways face, it’s so that he can better latch onto the necks of goats and other livestock so he can suck their blood (like a clamp).

[nocturnalfandomartist]

⏳Downfall Links Doodles⏳

Program: Ibis Paint X

Time Elapsed: 4 hours, 25 minutes.

Classic Link got smaller somehow, and I welcome it.

The doodles above are all incarnations of Link from the Downfall Timeline (+ bonus Ravio because it is inexcusable to leave him out). I can go on for hours about why I love each of these storylines individually, but I'll try to keep it short and sweet and save the ramblings for another post.

This page includes ALTTP Link, ALBW Link and Ravio, LoZ Link, and AoL Link- who I HC as a second incarnation of LoZ Link (more on that later, my mind has been swirling... o_o).

First in the Downfall Timeline comes ALTTP Link, and I already have expressed how much I love that game. I mean, just look at rabbit Link. Sure, it's not very intimidating, but there is no way you can't love a little bunny. I hope we get some sort of nod to his again in newer games (like Ravio). I can never really decide on which color to use on his hair, but this time I tried pinkish highlights. It makes his hair look like a sunset, oddly enough, but also kind of like old art of the Sacred Realm.

Next comes ALBW Link and Ravio. Based on some implied dialogue exchanges in the game, I like to imagine they're too much alike while not at all at the same time; like brothers, basically. However, I imagine they're close enough that Link surprisingly takes his cowardly counterpart more seriously than others might, and Ravio looks up to Link a lot and even tried to replicate his behavior. Knowing that Tri-Force Heroes Link is supposed to also be ALBW Link, I imagine Ravio is like the "Vio" to the trio of Red, Green, and Blue in Hytopia. The little smithing attire ALBW wears was given to him by the Blacksmith, who I HC adopts him after the story. That makes Gulley his little brother. :)

Lastly, there's the two classic versions of Link. According to Nintendo, these two Links are one in the same. However, I like to imagine differently due to the difference in gameplay style. I also just think it fits better in context of the rest of the timelines. So, here they are with two different designs. LoZ Link is a small, ten year old boy with a heart twice his size. He simply sticks to a sword and bombs. AoL Link is 16, and learns magic spells to progress through his adventure while living in the dormer's shadow.

I like to imagine, if Ravio somehow met these other incarnations of Link, he would give them all goofy nicknames. ALBW would obviously remain Link or Mr. Hero, but ALTTP Link would likely be cursed with some bunny related name because Ravio thinks it has style. LoZ Link would probably just be "little buddy" (in reference to him calling the Link he knows simply "buddy"), and AoL Link would just be "Mr. Adventurer". He's really creative.

I've been considering making a LoZ-based fancomic and have been making plot outlines at a rapid pace. It is unlikely to start up anytime too soon, but perhaps keep an eye out? I may send updates every so often.

Reblogging is fine, but please don't post this anywhere else without linking the original post. Thanks!