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frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe · 8 months

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it’s only three days late! here’s my entry for @thefreakandthehair's summer fanworks challenge!!

pairing: steddie | word count: 3,677 | rated: M | on AO3: it's a date

“These are the days where I miss when you worked at Scoops.” Eddie complains for the nth time that afternoon.

It’s hot, okay? Immensely so.

It’s so fuckin’ hot that it’s seeping into Family Video despite their normally pretty okay A/C.

He’s laid out across the front counter, one arm hanging loosely over it onto Steve’s side, and the other is holding his hair off his neck best it can.

Of all days to forget a hair tie.

Steve scoffs, “Yeah, you miss it, but that place was hell on my hair and therefore, on my game.”

“I still don’t understand that, who could resist Sailor Steve?”

“Apparently every person that came in could.” Steve pauses for a moment, “Except moms and grandmas. They all loved me.” he grumbles, leaning back on the far counter along the front window, arms crossed.

Eddie opens his mouth to respond with some sort of smart-alecy quip, but is interrupted by the chime of the bell above the door.

On instinct, Eddie peels his sticky skin from the green linoleum counter and slumps off into the aisles.

The government and Hawkins Police may have completely cleared him as a suspect for the spring break murders, but his presence in town is still not exactly welcome.

So, Steve goes into full-on ‘Prince Charming’ mode when the bombshell of a blonde approaches to ask about something, and Eddie meanders over to the horror section, trying his best to ignore the soupy jealousy in his gut for the girl at the counter, getting to be the center of Steve’s attention like that.

Eventually, she leaves, and from the way Steve’s eyes track the girl out the door and the droop of his shoulders once the door closes behind her, he struck out once again.

“I can’t believe I got to see the Harrington charm in action, live and in person!” Eddie says in imitation of a showman as he approaches the register, “And it failed! Where’s Robin’s board, huh?”

Eddie hefts himself half over the counter in front of him to hang over the other side of it, searching in vain for Robin’s famed ‘You Suck / You Rule’ board.

“Ha ha ha, Munson. You’re hilarious.” Steve pushes Eddie back to the floor with a hand to the face. “And I didn’t fail.”

He shows him a slip of paper with 10 whole digits written on it in a loopy hand, then promptly crumples it tight and tosses it into the nearby trash can.

Eddie somehow manages to keep his face from grinning at the action. ‘Just because he’s tossing her number doesn’t mean you have a chance, asshole.’ his brain tells him.

He puts on a confused face instead, to which Steve shrugs and says, “Not my type.”

Eddie lets out a low whistle. “Well that just sucks for her then. Never see how great a date with the esteemed King Steve would be.” Eddie says, clapping a hand to his chest in a half-swoon, straightening up again while Steve laughs, tacking on a: “Lord knows I’d want to.” in a low mumble. A guy can dream right?

“Would you now?” Steve says, still smiling.

Shit.

“‘Would I now?’ what?” Eddie manages to say before his mouth goes dry, tracking Steve’s movements as the other man steps forward to lean on his forearms next to Eddie at the counter.

His warm, toned forearm presses along Eddie’s, and he’s only half embarrassed that he doesn’t mind the added heat.

“You want to know how a date with me goes, huh Munson?”

Eddie gulps “Oh…y–yeah, sure; lay it on me Stevie, I’d love t’know.”

He had managed a facade of a cocky grin by the end of his response, but his throat dries right back up and clenches shut at what Steve says next.

“How about I just take you out tomorrow night and show you,”Steve says, then he’s leaning further into Eddie’s side, and whispering, “Maybe you’ll see how a date with me ends.” into Eddie’s ear.

Eddie slowly rears back to blink at the (beautiful) smiling man beside him.

Oh.

He’s fucking with him.

Of course.

Eddie rolls his eyes and shakes his head with a smirk. “Ha ha you’re really funny. You got all the jokes today huh?”

Steve just chuckles at him.

“I gotta run though,” Eddie says, pushing himself off the counter and heading to the door with a wave over his shoulder “Good luck with the babes, Steve-o!”

“Sure, Eds. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at six?”

He spins to face the counter again, “Oh yeah, sure you will, Big Boy. Sounds like a plan.” he agrees sarcastically, walking backwards out the front door.

Eddie goes through his normal routine the rest of that day and night; scrounge up some food, smoke a little, write out some of his campaign or song ideas, end up falling asleep around 9 am, waking up when Wayne leaves for his shift the next evening and deciding “Meh, might as well shower.’’.

So he does, and has just barely stepped out of the tub when the phone in the hall rings.

“Munson Residence, what’d’ya want?”

“Are you ready?”

“Hmm…ready for what, mysterious caller?” Eddie asks, shifting the phone to his other shoulder so he can continue scrunching the water out of his curls.

“For our date.” the caller (Steve, as he can now tell) says as if it’s obvious. “I’m about to head over so make sure you're ready.”

“Steve? Our date–wha?” he starts, but Steve’s already hung up.

“He can’t be serious..” Eddie looks at the clock. 5:30.

Oh shit.

There’s no time to panic about what to wear, Eddie just goes on instinct. He pulls on his one (1) pair of un-ripped jeans, the one (1) semi-nice button up he owns (both thankfully clean), and has only just managed to finish his eyeliner and put on his rings when he hears a knock from the living room.

Eddie scrabbles down the hall and nearly falls flat on his face when he trips on one of his discarded towels from earlier. He kicks it off his foot while trying to put his still damp hair up in a bun.

He exhales a shaky breath at the door, before finally opening it.

Steve stands there on his doorstep in plain, light wash jeans that look like they were painted on, Eddie’s (now, decidedly) favorite navy blue polo, unbuttoned all the way, and his gray Members Only jacket

“I didn’t think you were serious.” Eddie says, breathless.

“I know.” Steve grins, passing him a bouquet of roses, “You look great, Eddie.”

Eddie balks at the roses in his hand for a smidge too long, because Steve says, “So are you good? We’ve kinda got a timeline here...”, pointing to his watch.

Eddie feels his eyes widen even more (if that’s even possible), but quickly gets the roses shoved into the tallest glass of water he can, and follows Steve to his car, locking the door behind him.

Steve asks him about his day, and there’s nothing much to tell, but they continue to chat idly as Steve drives them through town.

“I thought you said we had reservations.” Eddie jokes as main street flies by outside the window and morphs into the darkening woods outside Hawkins.

“Never said reservations. Someone just assumed.” he says, looking over at Eddie with a smirk.

“Is that not what ‘We kinda have a timeline’ means?”

“Not always.” he smirks, then immediately follows it with: “Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do, Steve.”

“Good, close your eyes.”

Eddie raises a brow at the other man.

“Please?” Steve chuckles, and Eddie obliges, covering his eyes with his hand for good measure.

He feels the car pull off the smooth asphalt of the main highway, and the motions of their new winding path jostle him softly back and forth.

“And here the lovely people of Hawkins thought I was the ritualistic murdering satanist. You taking me out to the woods to sacrifice me Stevie?”

Eddie can hear Steve’s jacket shift against the leather seat when he shrugs. “We gotta make sure the upside down stays shut somehow.”

“Ah, so I’m this year’s unfortunate virgin?”

Steve’s responding snort of laughter is the best thing Eddie’s ever heard. “Yeah, I seriously doubt you’re a virgin.”

“Hmmm…I dunno Steve, you really think I have people clamoring over each other for a shot at all this?” he gestures down himself with his free hand.

“You know what? I hope not; I’ve been in enough fights already, I don’t think I can take an elbow to the face.”

Okay, of all things Eddie thought might happen tonight, Steve admitting he’d legitimately fight for a chance with him (HIm! Eddie Munson!!) wasn’t on the list.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just grins down toward his lap, cheeks burning.

The car pulls to a stop then, and Steve says “Keep your eyes closed!” before he can even think about opening them.

Eddie’s seat sags a bit without Steve’s weight on the other end to balance him out. He hears him shuffle out and shut his door behind him, and doesn’t even get to ten whole seconds before his own door is opened.

“Give me your hands, but keep your eyes closed.” Steve says, grabbing both Eddie’s hands in his.

Steve helps him out of the car and leads them forward about 10 paces before pulling him down to sit beside him on something soft.

“Okay, you can open them.”

Eddie’s immediately blinded by the bright orange glow of the sun, just starting to set on the far side of the quarry before them.

“So no, not a restaurant...just didn’t want to miss this.” Steve says, a smile in his voice that pulls Eddie’s attention away from the blooming pinks and oranges of the sky.

Steve’s already smiling at him when he turns, then he gestures down at the blanket under them.

An honest-to-god picnic basket is set between their outstretched legs, a bottle of something leaned up against it. “So. We’ve got grapes, cheese, sandwiches, chips, pop, and even some wine.”

Holy shit. “What, no chocolate covered strawberries?”

Steve holds up a finger, flips open and digs into the bottom of the basket, retrieving a flat white box. He opens it with a “Ta da!”; a dozen chocolate covered strawberries.

“Damn Harrington, you really know how to make your dates feel special.” Eddie’s throat clenches around the words, as if he’s suddenly remembering this isn’t really for him.

“That’s the idea,” he winks

Eddie flushes red immediately, of course, stammering out a “So this is the King Steve Special, huh?”

Steve glances up at him while he unwraps some of the sandwiches. “Nope, this is the Just Steve Special.” He passes Eddie a bologna and mustard, his favorite (What the fuck??) “King Steve wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble. Would’ve just snuck in a window, made out in some random bathroom at a party.” he shrugs and picks up a ham sandwich for himself (Gross..), taking a bite. “Just Steve is trying all the things he probably should have been doing all along.”

“Well..I enjoy Just Steve’s choice of venue.”

“Even though it’s not a fancy restaurant?” There’s a glob of mayo on his lip (which Eddie thinks is‘Still gross, but also somehow super fuckin’ endearing.’)

“If you were at a fancy restaurant, you couldn’t touch the other person as easily.” Eddie proves his point by knocking a knee against the other man’s. “Also you’d have to wear stuffy fancy clothes.” Eddie shudders for emphasis.

“Says the guy who got dressed up in his nice shirt tonight.”

“Shut up… you’re not supposed to know this is my only nice shirt.”

“If that’s your only one, what are you going to wear on future dates?”

"Only need the one shirt." Eddie shrugs. “I wasn’t kidding earlier, Stevie. Breaking news! Local freak doesn’t go on dates regularly.”

“That just sucks for them then.” Steve places his hand over Eddie’s knee, “Never see how great a date with the Eddie Munson would be.”

Eddie’s face feels hot, but he can’t hold back the grin that climbs up his cheeks.

“Well then aren’t you a lucky guy then, huh Stevie?”

“Yeah Eds, I really am.” Steve is smiling back and holy shit, is he leaning closer?

‘Oh fuck, I am too…ShitShitShitHolySh–’

The klaxon alarms ringing in his head stall out immediately, when a firefly decides to light up the shrinking gap between their noses.

“Ah! Fuck!” Steve flails backwards, throwing himself away from the harmless little bug.

Eddie can’t help but laugh, “Oh come on, you can’t really be scared of a little lightning bug?” He cups his hands in front of the bug’s lazy flight path, catching it in one of his palms.

“Fireflies are weird as shit, man. And yes, I do mean even more so than the demo-whatevers.”

“C’mon Steve, just look at him!” He pushes his hand forward into Steve’s space and giggles a bit at his reaction, somehow unwilling to leave their picnic blanket, but wanting to get away from Eddie’s hand just as much has him practically laying all the way down on his back with his legs still crossed in front of him.

“I’m serious Ed, get that thing away from me!”

There's a hint of a laugh in his voice, so Eddie continues his teasing, sitting up on his knees to get closer. “OOOH what if I put it in your haiiirr..”

Steve’s laugh sounds hysterical, “No! Don’t you fuckin’ dare! Asshole!” he yells, batting at Eddie’s hand.

“Awe come on Stevie! What if he loves yo–and he’s gone.” the little guy flying away when Steve’s hand pulls at Eddie’s extended arm.

Eddie flops forwards onto Steve’s stomach with an “oof!” watching the little thing blink away from them.

“Oh thank god.”

He looks down and holy shit.

Steve’s smiling softly up at him, his hair all mussed from Eddie trying to grab at it and Steve keeping Eddie from grabbing it, but goddamn is he still beautiful.

Also: ‘Holy shit I’m laying right on top of him shitshitshitshit..’

Before he can do something stupid, like lean down and kiss the fuck out of Steve’s beautiful face, Eddie rolls onto his back and looks up at the sky instead, head pillowed on Steve’s arm.

They talk for hours like that. Lain out under the darkening sky. It’s the longest date Eddie’s ever been on.

By the time Steve says “I should probably get you home,” the other fireflies that had danced around them as the sun set have disappeared, the previously clear sky is rolling over with thin clouds, blocking the stars.

The strawberries are gone, the cheese is gone, half the sandwiches, and most of the pop. They hadn’t touched the wine.

Eddie sighs in disappointment. “Yeah, probably.”

They pack up the basket, tossing it and the blanket (wrapped around the unopened bottle of wine) into Steve’s trunk and head back to the trailer.

The ride back is a comfortable quiet.

Windows down to the cooling late summer air, Eddie’s hand dipping and diving on the air currents that fly by, radio playing whatever station Robin had left it on last time plays at a low volume..

Too soon, the wheels of Steve’s trusty beemer crunch over the gravel pad that is Eddie’s driveway.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you to the door.” Steve smiles, slipping out the driver side with a hand clasped on the roof.

Just to be a little shit, Eddie doesn’t move. Letting Steve get all the way around the hood of his car before realizing he’s still sitting there.

He stares at him in confusion, so Eddie clarifies. “Oh, I have to get the door myself this time?” he questions, opening the door to another loud laugh from Steve, “You might wanna remember to get the door for your next date, Stevie.”

“Sure Eds, I’ll remember.”

Eddie nods, walking past him and up the steps to the front door with Steve on his heels.

“So? What did you think? How was it?”

Eddie looks up to the ceiling of the porch while he pretends to think about it. “Hmmm…I’m kinda disappointed, actually.” he looks back at his friend, who’s already sporting a kicked-puppy look. “I thought you said I was going to find out how a date with you would end.”

Steve chuckles as Eddie heaves an over-exaggerated, put-upon sigh.

“I said you might, doofus.”

Eddie sighs again, “I didn’t even get a goodnight kiss..” and turns his back to Steve, pulling his keys out of his pocket..

He’s stopped from doing so, however, as Steve hooks a hand above his elbow and pulls Eddie back to him.

His other hand comes up to Eddie’s cheek and Steve leans forward, planting a soft kiss to Eddie’s lips.

Eddie blinks owlishly at him, sputtering as Steve pulls back, eyes blown wide.

So of course this is when he decides to panic. To run.

“So..” Eddie carefully pulls himself free of Streve’s grasp. “Thanks for taking me out tonight.” he manages to say, focusing on keeping his voice even while he turns away to unlock the door.

“Eddie–”

“Any girl would be lucky to go on a date with you.” Damn doorknob always gets jammed.

“Ed–”

“And I would know! I was just on that date, it was great!” Ugh, finally! The knob unlocks with a thick clunk.

“I don’t want anyone else!”

Everything around them freezes.

Eddie turns slowly to face Steve again. “...What?”

“I don’t want to take anyone else on any more dates! I don’t want the same awkward first date questions, I don’t want the kiss goodnight and that be it, I want something real with someone who knows me.

“I want you, Eddie.”

Warmth blooms in Eddie’s chest. Hope and affection that’s so damn close to that scary four-letter word already…he pulls Steve in for another kiss without even thinking about it.

Steve kisses him back, soft and slow, before Eddie pulls back enough to whisper “Would you care to see how a date with me usually ends, Stevie?”

Steve doesn’t need to know he’s talking straight outta his ass; Eddie hasn’t had a date that ended at his doorstep like this. No dates at all, in fact, but when Steve gives him a wide-eyed nod, he hauls him inside and down the hall.

Eddie all but throws Steve into his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

He sidles forward to the perfect being in front of him and places both hands on his shoulders, spinning them both and pushing Steve backwards onto his bed.

“You wanna know what I’d want someone who took me out for a picnic at sunset to do to me?” he asks, already climbing into Steve’s lap.

“Yeah…yeah,” Steve’s voice is all breath, his hands coming up to rest under the hem of his shirt. “Tell me what you want.”

He leans in close to Steve’s ear, his heart clenching when Steve automatically wraps his arms tighter around him, “I want you to fuck me.”

Sex with Steeeeeve Harrington is something Eddie won’t soon forget.

The feeling of Steve’s hands on him, first his waist, his back, his chest…softly caressing his jaw. The feeling of Steve’s lips on his skin, his length sliding against his own, the feeling of fullness from Steve’s fingers, his cock.

The pace he took, one of a lover and not of just another hook-up. Listening to him, checking in with him.

Eddie silently hoped to whatever being out there that this wasn’t going to be something he’d have to subsist on by memory alone. That this was something he could have for a while to come.

Speaking of…

“Ah! Aw fuck—Steve, please..faster…”

“Fuck—yeah? You want it faster, baby?”

“Yes! Yes, just like that—oohhh fuck me.”

“You got it darling.” Eddie can hear the smirk in Steve’s voice even though he can’t see it; his head thrown back on his own pillow in pleasure. He can feel the muscles in Steve’s thighs move faster, harder, beneath his.

“I’m cu—oh fuck…Steve, I’m—”

“Yeah, yes, fuuuck me too, Eddie—shit—Eddie, Ed——

…die! Eddie!!”

“Wha–What?”

Eddie blinks.

They’re back at Family Video.

They’re back at Family fucking Video.

“You okay man? You were zoned out for a second.”

“Y-yeah,” Eddie clears his throat of the weird mix of sadness, arousal, anger, and embarrassment in his voice, “I’m good.”

“You sure? I showed you that girl’s number and you like, completely zoned out.” Steve waves the very much not crumbled and tossed little slip of paper around in his hand while he talks.

“Yeah, I’m good. She just looked familiar somehow, I couldn’t figure it out though.” Eddie lies.

He can’t quite make himself look his friend in the eye, so he only sees Steve’s shoulders sag slightly in relief out of the corner of his vision while he picks at a hangnail.

“I thought you got Vecna’d, dude. Was about to call a code red over the walkie.”

“Nah, I’m all good Stevie, promise. So where are you gonna take her? Maybe a picnic down at the quarry? Could be cool at sunset..”

“Dude, that's a great idea!” Eddie can hear the excited smile in Steve’s voice.

He risks a glance to the other man’s face and feels his insides screw up in shame. The heat that shoots through him at the sight of those kind eyes he just recently saw hovering over his own is too much to handle. Time to make excuses.

Glancing away immediately, he says “You’re welcome man, have fun.” before pushing himself off the counter and, in the strangest case of deja vu ever, heads to the door while waving over his shoulder. “I gotta run though, good luck with the babes, Steve-o!” he calls, cheerily as he can, not able to look back at the man that will never be his.

i hope you enjoyed lex!!! all i have to say is 😈

#eheheheeh #i cannot express how LITTLE this was proof-read #i'm sure i will find mistakes when i re-read after posting and fix them lmao #LexsSummerFanworksChallenge #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #st #stranger things #st ficlet #st oneshot #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steddie oneshot #noelle writes #putting this tag at the bottom for spoiler-y reasons but: i've had this idea in my drafts called 'steddie psych out' since the end of may

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muaviinu · 10 months

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in which i try to chronologically order the events in this godforsaken au (see bottom of post for further details)

STATUS : last updated 04 | 02 | 2024

AU INTRODUCTION (one)

CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS (one--two--three--four—five)

DESIGN ANALYSIS (one--two)

origins (zero|features a flashback--one--two)

chuuya's part time job interlude (one--two--three|featured in 2nd half--four)

chuuya's entrance examination (one)

reaction to chuuya's ada status (one)

clearing chuuya’s name (one)

the sheep (one)

chuuango alliance (one)

atsushi joins the agency (one—two—three)

kouyou and chuuya | dazai and akutagwa interactions (one)

chuuya mentors atsushi (one--two--three--four)

dazai mentors akutagawa (one)

chuuran shenanagins (one--two--three)

atsushi meets akutagawa (one--two)

atsushi meets dazai (one)

corruption (one)

pm and ada alliance (one)

guild arc (zero—one—two—three—four)

chuuya gets a puppy (one)

dazai Also gets a puppy (one)

the ada chaos ensues (one—two—three)

fathers day special (one)

oda and the flags react (one)

chuuya deals with atsushi’s love life—unwillingly (one)

atsushi deals with chuuya’s love life—unwillingly (one)

the best dressed apprentice (one—two—three)

great bungo sleepover (one)

i tried to include and organize all the au posts as best as i could but there were some that didn't exactly fit but i was able to include the most plot relevant posts above (i’m gonna try to keep this list updated!!)

you can find some other scattered posts below!

500 follower post (one--two) | 1000 follower post (one--two) |

switch au meets canon!(one—two) | ability debate (one--two--three) |

air kiss! (one) | hug-bots-1000 (one—two) |

dazai's birthday (one) | chuuya's no good very bad day (one) | old friends (one)

AND FINALLY!! there have been so many talented people making fanworks for this au and i IMPLORE you all to go check them out and give them all the support, you can find me gushing over their works in the "#soukoku switch au" tag and "#vinurb" tag!!

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whosaidsealscantfly · 1 year

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My two cents on the whole situation

I think a lot of people in the Welcome Home fandom are misunderstanding the bigger picture here. It's resulting in a lot of people expressing disappointment and pointing fingers at people who aren't even the problem, and while the intentions mean well, it's causing the toxic environment Clown doesn't want.

In his post, which has now been privated, he talks about how overwhelming everything is. He even directly states that it's not just about boundaries, and while he has trouble putting it into words (and I will not put words in his mouth in the process either), Clown indicates that the sudden spotlight and attention is overwhelming him. And that's completely understandable - he's just one guy! Plus, he's been making stuff for Welcome Home for years, so it only makes sense to fluster over the sudden rush of attention in only a week. A week!!!

The reasons why boundaries come into play with all of this isn't just because his THREE rules were violated by garbage people. It's the fact that he had no time to establish boundaries beforehand, and it's stressful to suddenly have to think of EVERY facet of fandom culture and establish the dos and don'ts. But as Clown said, what's happened has happened, and all we can do is move on. Which leads me to my next point:

Clown explicitly said to not reprimand people on his behalf. He doesn't want the fandom to waste time and energy on people who have already crossed the line. What has happened, has happened. With that said, it's important to educate and point out when someone has crossed a boundary, but you shouldn't go through so much effort and anger over someone who clearly doesn't give a shit.

I've seen a lot of people who are making posts with a lot of "shame on you!"s and "You are all trash." I've also seen comments on harmless fanfics or art saying things like "You're the reason this fandom sucks." What awful things to say!

This fandom is probably one of the best fandoms I've been a part of. Why? Because a large majority, and I mean a LARGE majority, are respectful of Clown and want to do right by him. I've never seen a community band together so quickly to change their ways, apologize, spread the word, and evaluate the decisions they've made: not just in this fandom, but every fandom they've ever been a part of. That's HUGE. I've been on the internet for a very long time, and I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.

Yes, there are BAD eggs in this fandom, but there always is. What's important is that I haven't been seeing those bad eggs. Like, at all. I haven't seen a single explicit NSFW post, and I haven't seen a single piece of mass-produced merch. I've only heard about them through word-of-mouth, but I've never actually seen anything with my own eyes. Not that I doubt anyone, but I'm saying this to illustrate just how little bad eggs there are in the community. And this is a HUGE community.

In fact, I think we're so good, that we're starting to punish ourselves for making fandom content, and that is also awful. I want to reiterate what Clown's three major rules are:

Refrain from publicly posting NSFW content or content that wouldn't be safe for children to see/read.

Do not mass produce merch. Commissions and personal projects are fine, but they cannot be mass produced to be sold.

Do not impersonate and claim his art as yours. Give credit!! Don't trick people, and don't profit off of someone else's work!

And that's it! I've seen a lot of people taking down their fanfictions and art and AUs just because they're worried about Clown. That's super sweet and it warms my heart to hear that the community is so considerate, but remember, the three rules above are the only don'ts. Lots of people are scared of continuing to overwhelm him, and they're also scared that he might stop the project all together.

I assure you, he's not. Firstly, his fan works guideline is still pinned on his Tumblr blog!! If he wasn't sure of fanworks all together, he would have simply privated the post and write a new one with new rules. The rules have not changed. He loves to see fan interpretations, your AUs, your OCs, and your art! This is all explicitly stated! You can read it here incase you forgot -> https://www.tumblr.com/partycoffin/712519493403934720/apologies-if-this-has-already-been-asked-but-how?source=share

Secondly, he actually posted an update on his ko-fi that indicates that he's doing much better and that he's "elbow deep" into working on Welcome Home! I'm a member that gets to see all of his posts on ko-fi, and while I'm not going to show you the whole post (obviously), I will quote an important part you guys should see: "You have all been so delightful to me (Setbacks happen with an abrupt shift in attention, I realize, so roll I will with this newfound experience!) and I was like 'Oh, let's post a tasty preview!'"

Clown acknowledges all of the goodwill and kindness the community has shown. He even states that he's learned from the experience and he's working hard on Welcome Home to see it through!

This was a very long two cents, so I'll end it here.

tl;dr, You guys are being too harsh on each other/yourselves, and that's the last thing Clown wants. He's doing better, Welcome Home is still being worked on, and you shouldn't have to shame yourself or others for posting perfectly kosher fandom content. There's only three major rules, three, so you shouldn't have to feel bad about what makes you happy.

#welcome home #wally darling #welcomeh #frank frankly #julie joyful #eddie dear #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #barnaby b beagle #sally starlet #i think those are all the tags lmao #erica speaks #anyway stop being mean!! y'all are fine just be your silly little selves #I should also note that this isn't to change your mind if you want to delete your stuff #This is just a reminder that your stuff is okay! As long as it doesn't break the three rules ofc

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godbirdart · 8 months

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You don’t have to answer this question as it’s probably dumb to ask…but do you know what platform(s) would be a good starting point? Particularly for original content rather then fanart? I heard deviantart is a good place where alot of ppl got there start on but there’s lots of art thrives and such.

don't even worry, it's not dumb at all! it's hard to gauge where to Begin in the vast hellscape that is the online world. i do get this question [and some adjacent questions] often so please allow me to use your ask as an excuse to post a few of my site rankings for various art things!!

for reference, these are the sites I'll be addressing because i have used them at some point within the last year. please note: my information on Cohost and Itaku specifically may be out of date as I haven't used them in a long while. naturally, this is all solely my perspective. i run both a furry/original content account and an anime/fanart account on most of these sites and run them reasonably independently from one another. these rankings are based on how well each account fares on each site.

I will be talking about Patreon and Ko-Fi as if people will only be posting paywalled content there. you Can publicly post on both sites, but for the sake of this post i'm only going to treat them as paywalled sites since well, that's kind of their purpose.

POSTING ART IN GENERAL

the A-tier list sites here are the ones that are most practical, with a decent member presence and little to no algorithms impairing your reach. the only sites here with any sort of algorithm are tumblr and deviantart, but i feel they don't ruin your reach that much.

B-tier list is mostly centered around popularity. there are massive audiences on both masto and twitter. twitter can be really good if you're posting certain content. mastodon has countless instances [read: servers / subdomains, however you want to call them] that can help narrow down an audience and like-minded people. for example, i use mastodon.art whereas many furries may use meow.social. you Can be discovered by people on other servers than yours.

C-tier has been sorted in accordance to audience. this is solely in my experience, but not a lot of new people are flocking to cohost and itaku. we also just hate facebook in this house and i will never give a facebook products a high rating.

F-tier: if you are a new or growing artist, putting your art behind a paywall or making it a chat platform exclusive thing can really hinder your growth. you can still do this of course, but you won't get as many eyes on your work as you would on a public gallery. threads is there solely due to privacy issues that Cannot be overlooked. i will not recommend it.

POSTING ORIGINAL CONTENT / CHARACTERS / NON-FANWORKS

here's how i'd grade these sites for posting Original content, characters, stories, etc. your best sites will likely be furaffinity, deviantart, and tumblr. i've put these three here for their tag use, discoverability, and audience presence. tumblr can be a little glitchy with its tags, but they DO function.

A-tier is entirely centered around audience presence. these sites are great for showing off your work, but they don't have the same population as the S-tier. mastodon can be good as the quieter instances give you more discoverability. bluesky has been THRIVING when it comes to the furry community as of late [i'm personally on there daily] - the only reason i don't put it as S-tier is because it's invite-only AND you need to rely on your work being found through the Feeds feature if you aren't an already established artist.

B-tier: useful, but population may hinder your growth. toyhouse is GREAT for posting your original characters and stories, but it is invite-only and not necessarily gallery-focused [it can be USED for a gallery, but it's not the main purpose]. you can also post stories and lore to toyhouse. discord and telegram are Good, but again it can be hard to gain an audience through sites that require invites.

C-tier: it is DIFFICULT to grow on paywalled sites with original content. cohost [to my knowledge] has been stagnating with the release of bluesky.

F-tier: threads sucks, the end.

POSTING FANWORK, FANFIC, FANDOM CONTENT IN GENERAL

S-tier here is sorted because of audience presence. while twitter does suck, i'm finding a LOT of success there with fanart. tumblr is The fandom site of course. furaffinity is great for a surprising range of fanart that isn't exclusive to furry, and deviantart's Groups feature is still going strong which can give you that extra exposure.

A-tier is: fans Go here, but the population or algorithm can make things tricky. instagram is good for fanwork but the algorithm and the speed that things are posted there can make discoverability an uphill battle. patreon; if you make comics or art with fan characters [especially 18+ content lmao] you can grow pretty rapidly there. patreon, like any other paywalled site, should be a secondary site and not your Primary posting location. artfol and pillowfort are still growing. pillowfort has a Communities feature - sort of like deviantart groups - that you can submit your art to which gives you that extra exposure. artfol is just a nice gallery site and the tagging system is,, decent enough. a little confusing because the tag system looks up keywords in posts and titles First, you have to tab over to hashtag searching specifically.

B-tier: invite only and audience reach. again, bluesky relies on your art to be picked up in Feeds, as there's currently no tag search. inkblot is growing but has a decent audience. ko-fi isn't as known as patreon for exclusive content but it's still a good site. mastodon has tagging that makes discoverability easier, but mastodon and its many servers can make things confusing for some people. itaku's not as commonly used so it may be harder to gain new eyes there once you establish yourself.

C-tier: posting fanart to these sites Can Work. toyhouse focuses on posting and sorting original characters, so treating it as a gallery site won't get your far fast. it isn't impossible to grow as an artist there, but the site isn't intended for fanart posting. i cannot say much on cohost here. telegram and discord, again, it's harder for people to discover you out of the blue unless you mention your server / channel on another site.

F-tier: fuck threads.

lastly, to address thieves,

thieves are gonna be everywhere. i'm sorry to say, but there will always be shitty people. i recommend the following:

watermark your art. not in the corner, don't just sign in one spot, place a Huge translucent watermark over the WHOLE art. i recommend making it a colour gradient too instead of one solid colour or greyscale.

also: sign your goddamned art! put your username on there!

post a low resolution when sharing online. less than 1200px wide or tall. 72dpi. JPEG format. keep the high res privately for yourself.

add a subtle noise filter over your art. it doesn't have to be high opacity, and it'll make your art a little grainy, but it's good for fucking with AI bots and ruining any print quality potential.

i hope this offers some insight! if you have a different experience on these sites, please feel free to add your testimonial in the replies or reblogs! not every artist is going to have the same experience and growth rate.

#long post #art website posting #art sites

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insertdisc5 · 6 months

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Devlog #19: THE LAST DEVLOG BEFORE RELEASE.

Hello everyone! Welcome to this month’s devlog!

If you just stumbled upon this, I am Adrienne, also known as insertdisc5! I’m the developer, writer, artist, main programmer, etc of the game. The game being In Stars and Time, a timeloop RPG, which is also the next and final game in the START AGAIN series, following START AGAIN: a prologue (available here!). You can find out more about In Stars and Time here!!!

LET’S GET TO IT. This month is THE LAST DEVLOG BEFORE RELEASE?!??!??!?! URGHH?!??!!

My goodness. Can you believe In Stars and Time will finally be out THIS MONTH? NOVEMBER? TWENTIETH? TWO THOUSAND TWENTY THREE?!??!?!?!? Yeah turns out ME NEITHER so WE CAN FREAK OUT ABOUT IT TOGETHER.

So, as previously mentioned, In Stars and Time will be out on November 20th on Steam, itch.io, GOG, Nintendo Switch, and Playstation 4 and 5!!! We mentioned this previously, but we cannot guarantee they will come out at a specific time, nor guarantee they will all come out at the exact same time and hour and minute, but we will do our best! Hopefully “sometime in the morning for Canada” is the time. Don’t hold me to that though!

And for our announcement, we prepared a wonderful announcement trailer, animated by the lovely Mimi Chiu! Did you see it?!? Well, have it again.

youtube

In preparation for the release, we’ve been bringing our marketing A-game! I (insertdisc5) have appeared on The Completionist’s IndieLand Stream, and it was an absolute blast. I also reiterated my Big Hope for this game, which is that I hope ISAT makes you feel so many feelings.

We’re also doing a Fanworks Contest on Twitter, with the prize being a key of the game on release!!! If you have something in mind, why not participate? We accept EVERY kind of art, from fanart to fanfics to cosplay to animatics to memes to even pictures of food! As long as it’s ISAT related, GO FOR IT!!!

And finally, every Monday until release we’ll be sharing some ISAT character playlists made by yours truly (along with some VERY MUCH NEEDED HELP from friends and family. Finding songs is hard!) You can check them out here on Spotify!

And, finally for real, mayhaps consider joining the Discord channel before all hell breaks loose. Make some friends. Show some memes. Post your last minute theories. Or maybe just lurk! Up to you and your delightful little brain.

How weird to know this is the last devlog before the release! I WILL be posting a couple more monthly devlogs after this month- I want to talk about how the release went! And even after the game comes out, there will be some fun little things in store! So please stay tuned even after the game comes out :) And as always, don’t forget to wishlist the game on Steam!!! Ok!!! Wishlist numbers this close to release are SO IMPORTANT!!!! SO PLEASE!!! I BEG!!! ON MY KNEES!!! PLEASE WISHLIST!!!! (someone does a neck cutting motion off screen) I’m told to tone it down. So PLEASE WISHLIST but like, um, only if you want, teehee <3

Thank you for following this devlog all this time. I hope you enjoy the game when it comes out later this month.

See you next time.

#devlog #in stars and time #indie dev #indie game #game dev #Youtube

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victimsofyaoipoll · 10 months

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Round 1

Propaganda Under Cut

Alana Bloom

she kissed will graham in s1 and dated hannibal in s2 so you can imagine how bad the fandom is to her. fun fact she's in a canon lesbian relationship now tho <3

The show literally does the yaoi treatment of victimisation for the benefit of the male leads to her. And then the fandom mistreats her

I'm not sure if this even counts but...Literally a victim of Yaoi along with several other characters in-series, but she got it almost the worst. The entire show is just people dying because the two male leads are OBSESSED with each other and can't be normal about anything. Alana Bloom, actual PhD of psychology and consultant to the FBI, got kissed by one guy, fucked and fed people-meant by the other, and pushed out a window by the murder husbands' forced-surrogate daughter. Like. Actual victim of several crimes caused by yaoi. She's probably one of the few examples of a Yaoi Victim overcoming and evolving past her yaoi-related trauma into a stronger person/character, though: She gets an entire character overhaul and a hot, millionairess for a wife. She kills a man with an eel. She becomes head of the BSHCI, effectively putting her in complete power over her jackass cannibal ex-bf. She does quite well. Unfortunately, the rest of her screen time is spent trying not to get killed in the ongoing fallout of Hannibal and Will's fucked up courtship, but hey. Can't have everything. I don't even know if I'm saying anything valid here: the fandom loves her, but I supposed her position outside of the Hannigram relationship relegates her to a non-subject in a lot of Hannigram-focused fanwork. She's an 'obstacle' to their relationship only in the sense that Will had a crush on her once that went nowhere and Hannibal started an actual relationship with her SPECIFICALLY to piss off Will. I guess she's also a more literal obstacle as Hannibal's jailer and Will's friend who's constantly pointing out to him that Morals exist and he should try having some of those, maybe.

Gwen

She stands in the way of Merthur, by far the most popular ship in the fandom. I haven’t seen it as much in recent years, but back in the days of fanfiction.net she got slut shamed so badly for having been romantically interested in three of the male characters over the course of the show, which is just... normal straight woman behavior, meanwhile Merlin crushed on pretty much every woman who even looked at him in the early seasons of the show and got no hate for that whatsoever. I barely even read Merthur fics (not because it’s m/m, just because certain aspects of their relationship don’t appeal to me) but the “Gwen is a slut” attitude was so pervasive across the fandom, even fics that weren’t explicitly anti-Gwen would “jokingly” call her a slut. I even saw a few fics demonizing her for having an affair with Lancelot despite the fact that SHE WAS ENCHANTED when that happened, and surprise surprise, Lancelot (who was also under the influence of magic) got none of that hate, and neither did Arthur, who got enchanted to fall in love with multiple women over the course of the show.

Canonically Arthur Pendragon's love interest and an important and interesting character in the show who's completely shoved aside and ignored in favour of the medieval bbc yaoi ship. At best they put her and Morgana in Lesbian Timeout (ie make them get together and then reduce them to wingwomen at best because god forbid we focus on the medieval bbc yuri). Justice for Gwen right now!

She is prince Arthur's love interest (eventually wife). Arthur is MADLY in love with her. He tells his tyrannical father he would give up his crown to be with her (she's a servant in the series). He forgives her cheating on him with Lancelot (!), which in the show is caused by an evil enchantment, but the characters never find out about it. He chooses her time and time again. His love for Gwen is literally never put into question. Many fans insist to this day that there was no chemistry between Gwen and Arthur compared to Arthur and Merlin. Arthur isn’t even particularly nice to Merlin most of the time! The funny thing is that Merlin himself ships these two so hard and does everything he can to help them get together!! Gwen & Arthur are adorable and too many fans were drunk on the yaoi fumes to see it. ARTHUR WAS A SIMP FOR GWEN.

#poll #round 1 #alana bloom #hannibal #bbc gwen #bbc merlin #merlin

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swiftli-week-2024 · 3 months

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We've decided all of our prompts for Swiftli Week 2024! A big, heartfelt thank-you to everyone who sent in submissions or boosted our post - we had an absolute blast reading through them! If you have any questions about a prompt or about the week in general, our ask box is open, so feel free to send questions our way, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

The prompts are as follows:

Mar 3: Birthday / Sleepover / Movie Night

Mar 4: Angel+Demon / Hot+Cold / Fantasy AU

Mar 5: Pocky Game / First Kiss / Arts + Crafts

Mar 6: Free day!

Mar 7: Queerplatonic / Ride or Die / Carrying

Mar 8: Proposal / Overprotective / Secrets

Mar 9: Out of Time / Dancing / Future AU

Any kind of fanwork is accepted, including fan art, fanfiction, cosplay, and more! You do not have to fulfill all three prompts each day (mix and match two, go for all three, or just pick your favorite!), nor do you have to participate in each day.

Once we hit March 3rd, tag your works with #dndads swiftli week 2024, and we'll make sure to share every post we can! If you're planning on posting fics on AO3, you can post them in our collection!

Until then, tag any works-in-progress you want to share with #dndads swiftli week 2024 wips, and we'll share those on our blog, too.

That said, best of luck to everyone with their writing, drawing, and other fan creations! Although this event doesn't kick off until March, we may have some fun posts coming your way in the interim, so make sure to stay tuned!

Thank you so much for the excitement and support and we can't wait to see what you come up with! Once again, ask away if you have any questions.

#dungeons and daddies #dndads #fan week #dndads fan weeks #prompts #dndads swiftli week 2024 #swiftli

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inairbinad · 8 months

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what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

Steddie | Explicit | 11k words | Read on AO3

Written for @thefreakandthehair's Summer Fanworks Challenge for the prompt: "That look in your eye terrifies me." Thanks so much for organizing this, Lex! It's been so fun!! 💜 tags/cw: fwb, jealousy, love confessions, consensual somno, deepthroating, semi-public sex, light d/s dynamics, cockwarming, good boy Eddie Munson, soft dom Steve Harrington, off-screen negotiated kink, meddling buckingham, one teensie reference to past stomarol, and more tags on ao3

Eddie is good for Steve, he thinks. Good in more than just the way he knows exactly how to turn Steve to putty in his hands, beyond how he can make Steve laugh, or make him feel safe, or even how he’s one of the best friends Steve’s ever had. Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.

[read on ao3, or under the cut!]

Steve wakes up to Eddie’s mouth around his cock, and even though he’s barely conscious he’s already not sure how much more he can take.

Steve whines, a deep gravelly whimper that makes Eddie stop what he’s doing with a wet pop. The filthy sound of it, the way a trail of spit and precum dangles from Eddie’s lip as he smiles up at Steve, hair a wild mess and with nothing but hunger in his eyes—Steve has to bite down on his lip to keep from telling Eddie he loves him. If Eddie thinks he’s just stifling a moan, so be it.

“Mornin’ Stevie,” Eddie says, licks his lips and then slowly draws his tongue along the slit of Steve’s cock. Steve hisses at the sight as much as the sensation, so hard already he wonders how long it took for him to wake up.

“Morning,” Steve manages to say, brushing his fingertips across Eddie’s cheekbone and sending him a sloppy smile. “Started breakfast without me?”

“You just looked so fucking good, babe, I couldn’t wait.” Eddie lowers his mouth to lick Steve’s balls next, and it takes everything Steve has not to jerk his hips wildly in response. Eddie smiles like he can tell. “You can punish me if you want.”

And god, if Steve doesn’t love it when Eddie’s in a mood like this. He loved most of Eddie’s moods, actually. They were so in sync with their tastes, their desires, their kinks—maybe everything but their feelings for each other.

“Should I make you watch me jerk myself off?” Steve snakes his hand down his chest and grabs his own shaft with a squeeze that makes his breath catch. He watches Eddie’s eyes flare and doesn’t bother to hold back a shaky laugh. “Force you to keep that pretty mouth to yourself?”

As he watches Steve stroke his own cock—still soaked with Eddie’s spit—Eddie bites down on his lip so hard Steve wonders if he might break the skin. Steve uses his free hand to tug Eddie’s lip free, and Eddie doesn’t hesitate to suck Steve’s thumb into his mouth instead. Steve can feel the way Eddie’s spit is thicker with his own precum when Eddie swirls his tongue, sucking Steve’s thumb deeper.

Steve pulls it back and pushes three fingers into Eddie’s mouth instead, reveling in the way Eddie moans and looks up at him like he’s grateful. Steve shoves his fingers in deeper, and Eddie sucks them down as Steve moves them in time with each stroke of his cock.

“Gonna let me fuck your throat?” Steve asks eventually. Eddie’s eyes are pleading as he keens around Steve’s fingers, making a gurgling sound as he nods ferociously. Steve palms the head of his cock before stroking down again, then presses the tip right up against Eddie’s chin. “Fuck, baby. Lemme see what that mouth can do.”

Eddie sucks the tip of Steve’s cock back into his mouth like he’s starved for it. Steve moves his hand to cup the back of Eddie’s head, guiding it as he lets Eddie bob up and down a few times before he starts thrusting up into it. But Eddie seems impatient, makes a needy sort of grumbling sound as he swallows Steve down as far as he can go. His nose presses into the thick nest of Steve’s hair and he looks up at Steve with pride as he sucks in a deep breath through his nose—a plea for more.

Steve’s happy to oblige. He pushes up until Eddie gags and pulls back with a wet, sloppy smile. He comes back for more almost instantly, and Steve trusts Eddie will tell him if it’s too much. He thrusts up again and Eddie moans around his cock, relaxing his throat just at the perfect moment for the vibrations to send frissons of heat straight from Steve’s tip and licking up his spine. He holds Eddie’s head in a firm grip and lets himself get lost in how good it feels, makes sure to tell Eddie just how much.

“God, you were meant to be a pretty mouth to fuck, weren’t you Eds? Like your throat was made for my cock,” Steve says, and Eddie’s eyes roll back as he hums again, sending another wave of electricity through Steve like a serpent eating its own tail of absolute divine pleasure between them. The wet heat of Eddie’s mouth is perfect, he knows just how to press his tongue against the underside of Steve’s cock to make him see stars.

Steve wonders how Eddie can be so good at making Steve come undone without loving him back.

The problem is as much as Steve loves fucking into Eddie’s mouth until he can feel the tip of his dick pressing against Eddie’s perfect, pliant throat, sometimes he thinks he’d like waking up to a deviant round of cuddles just as much.

“Fuck, you’re so goddamn good for me,” Steve whines anyway, fisting Eddie’s hair into a tighter grip and thrusting up into his mouth again. Eddie looks up at Steve like he’s floating on the praise, tears now sparkling on his pretty lashes. The sight alone is nearly enough to make Steve fall apart.

Steve really has to start grappling with the fact that he’s in love with Eddie—the little detail might have the power to ruin them forever. Ruin Steve forever. Because he’s the one that went and fell in love when they were supposed to just be fooling around, friends with benefits or whatever the fuck Eddie had called it when they first started this.

When Steve’s being entirely honest with himself, he knows he was in love with Eddie long before their arrangement ever started, but he dove in head first anyway, desperate for an excuse to have Eddie in whatever way he could get him.

It’s never in these moments that he regrets it, not when Eddie fits him so perfectly, knows just what Steve always needs and vice versa. They’ve negotiated every kink in the book, talked through what they like and don’t, fucked each other senseless so many times by now Steve wonders how he’s ever supposed to get hard for anyone else—or love anyone else.

But that part isn’t allowed. Those words are for thoughts only, allowed to stir a yearning ache that takes over Steve’s whole body in waves but never be released aloud into the space between them.

So Steve keeps letting his body say what his mouth can’t and fucks up into Eddie’s throat, desperately chasing a high he can never quite reach. Then Eddie flattens his tongue and relaxes his jaw just right, and Steve barely has time to register the way he feels that familiar tightening in his balls before he’s coming, babbling Eddie’s name like a prayer.

He paints Eddie’s throat in his cum, possessing him in the only way he knows how. Eddie swallows it all down hungrily, then takes the time to lick Steve clean until he’s on the verge of overstimulated and writhing.

“Eds,” Steve pants, using whatever weak grip he still has on Eddie’s hair to pull him away.

“Yeah, Stevie?” Eddie asks, all faux innocence, fluttering eyelashes, and swollen lips—like all he wants is to keep his mouth on Steve’s cock for the rest of their lives.

And there’s another one of those thoughts about forever that Steve has to shove away in earnest, bury deep in as many dirty thoughts as he can heap on top of it before he loses his senses.

He grins wickedly down at Eddie before pulling him the length of his body up for a filthy, salty kiss. Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, moans into it before hooking his leg over Eddie’s hip and flipping him onto his back. He pulls away slow, sucking Eddie’s bottom lip as he goes, not releasing it until he gives it a little nip.

He sees what’s left of the tear tracks staining Eddie’s cheeks and kisses them away—more salt on his tongue to temper the sweetness that is Eddie.

“You were so perfect, always make me feel so good,” Steve tells him between kisses, inching further down Eddie’s jaw, his neck, his chest as he goes.

“Can’t help that you taste so good, sweetheart,” Eddie purrs, arches his back as Steve starts to twist his nipple piercing between his fingers, before sucking it into his mouth. Steve feels Eddie’s dick twitch against his hip as he laps at his nipple—all cold metal and taut, pebbled skin beneath his hot tongue. He pulls away and looks up at Eddie, who’s watching every move Steve makes with rapt attention.

“My turn,” Steve promises, then sinks down for some breakfast of his own.

Steve almost regrets having to brush his teeth. He feels dirty to think it, shameful even, but he wishes he could keep the taste of Eddie and himself blended together with him all day, the mixture of their cum and spit that coats his mouth and reminds him of exactly how good things with Eddie can be.

“Can anyone make you come like I do, sweetheart?” Eddie had asked after they were both sated and finished, knowing full well what the answer was, is, has always been. Steve just smiled and stretched and avoided the question, but now that he’d retreated to the bathroom to get ready to leave, he can’t think about anything else.

Because he’s afraid it will always be Eddie for him. Not just because the sex is good—it’s phenomenal, but he loved Eddie well before he ever knew how well they could meld together in bed—but because Steve’s heart is so tied to Eddie he’s not sure how he’ll ever untangle those feelings without catastrophic damage.

It’s always this part of their time together that Steve dreads the most, where he inevitably starts to contemplate leaving Eddie behind and never coming back. Just Eddie’s fingers on his skin can make Steve feel more alive than he has in years, yet somehow it makes him feel so empty by the time he cleans up and leaves, that Steve’s not sure how much longer he can do this.

He’s not sure what stupid impulse ever made him think he was cut out for a no-strings-attached situation, but he curses it every time he feels like this.

Steve thinks it’s almost worse that Eddie’s never an asshole about it. He’s always more than happy for Steve to spend the night, to lay cuddled together in a tangled mess of limbs, talking and joking all night long—or at least until they’re ready to go again. Eddie’s always willing to let Steve make him breakfast the next morning, or to make Steve’s coffee perfectly and do the whole domestic thing that drives Steve even more wild than the orgasms do.

Steve never feels like Eddie’s just using him for sex and somehow, beyond all of Steve’s deductive reasoning abilities, that’s become a huge problem. Steve loves every minute of it, every ounce of affection Eddie showers him with, but once he’s left to sneak back into his own house (or Eddie’s off to do the same), reality sinks in that Steve might have Eddie, but he doesn’t really have him in the way he wants to. Needs to.

He and Eddie were clear when they started this. Friends with benefits. Nothing more, nothing less. They would be each other’s ports in a storm against the lashing tides of loneliness. Because they liked each other, trusted each other, and it seems so silly to let all that attraction, all that sexual compatibility, go to waste.

Steve caught feelings anyway.

Well, if Steve was being honest like Robin wanted him to be, he’d caught feelings before he ever even agreed to the whole arrangement. That’s why Robin was so adamantly against it. Not because she didn’t like Eddie—he was her girlfriend’s best friend. In the same way Chrissy loved Steve, Robin loved Eddie.

Both of them seemed to hate the idea of Steve and Eddie, though.

So mostly they snuck around. It wasn’t terribly difficult, even though Steve lived with Robin and Eddie lived with Chrissy, considering Robin and Chrissy stayed together most nights. All Steve and Eddie had to do was suss out whose place would be empty most of the time, and then manage to sneak back home before either one of their friends noticed they’d been gone.

Steve had memorized the exact way to flip open the mechanism on his and Robin’s garden gate without making it creak in the night, just below Robin’s bedroom window, as he came home from what was starting to feel like a clandestine affair.

Eddie, for his part, had every stair that creaked on the way up to his bedroom in his and Chrissy’s place memorized, so as not to alert her when he was coming home at all hours of the night.

It’s working out fine, except for that empty feeling that’s a growing cavern in Steve’s chest. And it’s getting harder and harder for him to ignore.

Steve knows he has to find a way to extricate himself from this mess he’s made, to somehow clean up his own sloppy feelings and shove them back inside a lock box in his chest without letting Eddie know anything is actually wrong, without insulting him and damaging their friendship in the process.

Because even if Steve knows he has to stop sleeping with Eddie, he can’t fathom the idea of losing him altogether.

The first step is probably getting the hell out of Eddie’s apartment, however.

Steve finally spits his toothpaste into the sink, watching all remnants of the morning washing down the drain with an ache in his ribcage.

Like clockwork, Eddie slips into the bathroom behind him and wraps his arms around Steve’s middle. He hums into the crook of Steve’s neck and says, “Coffee’s ready, sweetheart.”

And just like that Steve’s staying for coffee, too.

There’s absolutely no way that Steve’s gonna make it home before Robin gets up now. He knows he’s in for it, that he’ll have to make up an excuse about some one-night stand he somehow managed to pick up after he’d left Eddie’s the night before.

The entire walk home, he curses himself for admitting to Robin that he was planning on seeing Eddie at all.

Robin’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him when he gets home. Steve takes a quick look around, finds no extra shoes by the door, no spare jacket still hanging on the hook. So Chrissy isn’t still here to also witness his lovestruck humiliation, or however Robin’s planning to dress him down over it, at least.

Steve doesn’t bother trying to dodge his fate when he takes in Robin’s face. She looks stern, sure, but also sad in a way that Steve can’t possibly ignore. He goes to sit beside her, probably looking like the picture of guilt the whole way.

“Where’ve you been?” she asks by way of greeting. Steve bites his lip, but Robin stops even the semblance of a lie from percolating on the tip of his tongue with a tired sigh. “Just tell me.”

“Eddie’s,” Steve mumbles, then pillows his head in his folded arms across the tabletop. “Go ahead and yell.”

“I’m not gonna yell, Steve,” Robin says softly, and that only makes him feel worse.

“No, I think I really need it,” he says, looking up at her again without lifting his head.

“And that’s how I know you don’t,” Robin counters, patting the top of his head sympathetically. “Three times a week for four months seems to have finally knocked some sense into you.”

Steve can’t help it, he feels himself gawking at her. “How did you…?”

“Chrissy and I aren’t idiots, Steve,” Robin rolls her eyes at him with more affection than he feels like he deserves. “Just because you figured out how not to make the gate creak doesn’t mean you don’t come home smelling like him. Like right now.”

Steve actually thought he did a pretty good job at covering up Eddie’s scent, but he always hates doing it. Maybe he’d been subconsciously sabotaging his own efforts.

“Plus, Chrissy and I went back to hers one night and totally heard you two going at it,” Robin adds with a shrug. “Apparently you were so loud you didn’t notice us stumbling-drunk into the apartment and crashing for the night.”

“When was this?” Steve asks.

“I think the same week you swore to us both that you weren’t going to mess around anymore, that you were ‘just friends and that was it. Pinkie swear.’” Robin gives him a skeptical look, like she thought maybe he was cursed just for breaking the sanctity of a pinkie swear to his best friend.

She was probably right.

Steve tries to think back to that week, that day even, when he and Eddie decided they’d had enough of Chrissy and Robin’s judgmental looks over their relationship, if you could even call it that. Steve was pretty sure that was the same night Eddie had surprised him with a cock ring. So yeah, that might’ve distracted him even from armageddon commencing, let alone the fact that there were people in the next room.

“Sorry,” Steve mutters. He genuinely is if Robin and Chrissy had to listen to that night.

“Remember how you caught us in the kitchen a week later?” Robin asks, and Steve does. A little too vividly for his taste, actually.

“Payback?” Steve guesses, and Robin just grins. “I guess I deserved that. What about Eddie, though? Did he get payback too?”

“Oh, we did the same to him,” Robin assures him.

“Thorough.”

“We really are,” Robin waggles her eyebrows at him before turning back to the topic at hand. “Seriously though. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Steve feels his shoulders deflate with a sigh. “It was the same as it always is—fucking amazing. And it’s not just the sex, Rob. He’s amazing. He makes me laugh and he’s so goddamn cute and I don’t even know why because he’s a dork but…”

“You love him,” Robin fills in, and Steve feels like he might cry if he admits it out loud. So instead he just nods once, stiffly, then swallows thick so he can try and move the conversation along.

“I can’t keep leaving there pretending I don’t want him for real, you know?” Steve asks, and Robin hums along like she does. Of course she does, because she seems to know everything that goes on in Steve’s head. “It’s eating me up inside. So I’m going to end it. I have to end it. Can you…fuck. Can you help me, Robbie?”

Robin takes his hand and clasps it between her own so quickly, it feels like she’s shoved a giant weight off Steve’s chest. “Of course I will, dingus.”

“Okay,” Steve lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding onto. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Robin says matter of factly.

Like clockwork, Steve’s phone dings.

Eddie: holy shit, Stevie!!!!! Jeff says Ghost is coming here in sept!!!! we HAVE to go, please say we’re gonna go 🥺🥺🥺👻👻👻🥺🥺🥺

Steve knows he’s grinning like a fool at his phone, despite the distinctly depressing conversation he’s in the middle of with Robin. He feels her eyes on him as he types out a response. If he’s teasing Eddie on purpose, Robin doesn’t need to know that. Plus, it’s not like he said he’d stop being friends with Eddie. Just that he’d stop fucking him. They could surely go to a concert together without fucking. Right?

Steve: I don’t even like Ghost

Three little dots pop up faster than Steve can blink. He prepares himself for a lot of punctuation.

Eddie: what!!!!!!!!!

Eddie: sacrilege!!!

Eddie: how can you say such a thing?!?!?!

Eddie: okay you might be teasing me so….really??

Eddie: cause you like fuckin’ e v e r y t h i n g

Steve: That’s a mean way to call someone bisexual

“Ahem,” Robin clears her throat, making Steve jerk his head back up to look at her. “What’s so funny in your phone?”

“Just a meme Dustin sent me,” Steve lies. He’ll find a random meme if he has to, but he doesn’t think it will matter either way based on the way Robin is narrowing her eyes at him. He’s saved by another ding.

Eddie: i just snorted coffee through my nose and everyone at work is staring

Steve: 😈

Steve laughs out loud as he types his reply, hits send just a millisecond before Robin snatches his phone from his hands. She gives him a disappointed look before she reads the conversation aloud just to rub Steve’s nose in it.

“Oh, apparently Gareth is reenacting the coffee snort, now,” Robin informs him as he makes a diving grab for his phone back. She dodges him easily, because apparently she’s got a measured athletic grace that kicks in when Steve needs her clumsiness the most. “He says you must all hate him.”

“Robin,” Steve grits through his teeth. “I’m sorry, okay? But he’ll know something’s up if I start ignoring him.”

“If you don’t at least avoid him for now you’re never gonna make it, Steve,” Robin says, matter of fact, and Steve knows she’s right. He doesn’t know how to maneuver this without ruining their friendship, too.

Sometimes he worries it’s already well beyond ruined, and he’s just in denial about it.

“So what do you suggest?” Steve asks, folding his arms across his chest. “I can’t…I can’t tell him the truth, Rob. He’ll be nice about it while he rejects me and it’ll kill me. And I can’t just ghost him.”

Steve winces at his lack of a better term.

“You won’t be,” Robin shrugs easily. “I’ll keep your phone for now. Pretend to be you and respond to him. You know. How friends do.”

“That was friendly!” Steve insists.

“That was flirting,” Robin counters.

“How am I supposed to get around without my phone!” Steve deflects.

“I’ll give you mine,” Robin says easily, almost like she thinks it’ll be fun. “We’ll be fine, we do it all the time by accident anyway.”

And, well, she’s not exactly wrong about that. They’re signed into all of each other’s social media and other accounts anyway, just by virtue of how they share phones like they do clothes. And thoughts.

“Fine. But don’t be mean to him,” Steve warns.

“I told you, Steve. Nothing but friendly,” Robin grins and types out a response to whatever Eddie’s saying now. Steve gets the feeling she won’t fill him in, and is proved right when she locks the phone and a wicked grin takes over her face.

Steve is a little scared of whatever plan she has cooking up.

“You know the best way to get over someone?” she asks.

“How…” Steve’s voice is so flat it can hardly be considered a question.

“Get under somebody else.”

“Rob,” Steve protests immediately. He can’t even think about someone else yet. Maybe ever.

“Come on, Nancy’s coming to town tomorrow, Chris and I were gonna take her out for a girls night. Nothing crazy. Just a bar or two. You should come with us. See if you can meet someone…distracting. And uncomplicated,” Robin puts her best pouty, puppy eyes on. The ones she knows Steve can never resist.

He already knows he’ll say yes, but he deflects anyway. “Your solution to me getting over Eddie is taking me out with Nancy?”

“I did not say you should sleep with Nancy, you creep,” Robin groans and flicks his forehead. “If anyone is taking Nance home at the end of the night, it’s me and Chrissy.”

Well that certainly achieved the distract-Steve-from-his-misery goal in a two seconds flat. He feels his eyebrows shoot up into his hair as he half-shouts, “And that’s not complicated?!”

Steve knew Robin probably wouldn’t want to hear it, but he was willing to draw on certain throupled experiences of his own with Tommy and Carol from their college days in warning of how that path was anything but simple. Robin seems to know that’s exactly what he’s thinking anyway, because she scrunches up her nose and barrels right past any opportunity for him to bring it up.

“Not with healthy communication about expectations, dingus,” she says simply.

“I thought I did that with Eddie,” Steve points out with a huff. “Look how that turned out.”

“Yeah, except you lied about how you really felt,” Robin says, voice dripping with exasperation.

“Oh. Right,” Steve mutters. She had a point. “Guess I’m coming to girl’s night, then.”

Somehow “Girl’s Night” turned into “Let’s Pick Out a Date for Steve Night” instead, and he’s already regretting agreeing to come. Robin and Nancy are really into it, scouring the bar for potential partners and rating them on a scale of one to ten based on what they think Steve will like.

It’s a little bit more illuminating about what they think of his taste than he’s willing to examine.

Chrissy at least seems to be taking pity on Steve, and is keeping up with him beer for beer as they watch a baseball game on the bar’s TV. Steve can still feel her concerned eyes on him every once in a while, though, like Robin’s told her exactly the state he came home in the morning before.

Or maybe Eddie’s talked to her about the sudden shift in tone in Steve’s texts, how it’s obvious something has changed between them and it’s freaking Eddie out as much as it is Steve. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Steve’s not proud of it, the way he’s agreed to let Robin pretend to be him so he can take the space to breathe. But he just needs to not to get caught up in the whirlwind of Eddie and his charm, or the way he draws Steve in faster than any moth has been to a flame. So he gave Robin his phone, asked her to screen for anything important, and has been sticking to it for a solid thirty-six hours now.

Robin’s definition of important might differ slightly from his own, considering she hasn’t informed him of anything since yesterday, but that’s well enough for Steve. Maybe she has a point about not needing to respond to every text from Dustin within thirty seconds of receiving it, too.

She’s certainly right to keep him in the dark, mushroom style, every time he asks if Eddie’s called.

He’s stuck ruminating about it pretty hard when Robin elbows him in the ribs to get his attention.

“Him,” she says with all of the conviction Steve’s ever heard in her voice. He turns to follow her gaze until his eyes finally land on the guy in question, only a couple of barstools away from the table they’re huddled over together.

He’s not exactly an Eddie clone, but it’s close enough that if Eddie were to walk in while Steve was hypothetically talking to him, it would send a message for sure. He’s got dirty blonde, shaggy hair that’s not nearly as curly or long as Eddie’s, but also can’t be described as anything but a mane. He’s wearing a t-shirt for a band Steve’s never heard of and jeans that hug his ass so nicely that Steve’s almost tempted.

“I don’t think so,” Steve sighs and sinks further into the booth.

“Why not?” Nancy asks, and catches Chrissy and Robin exchanging a look. “What?”

“Eddie,” they say in unison, and Nancy gets a look on her face like sense has dawned on her once again.

“You’re still not fucking together, but you are still hung up on him?” Nancy rounds on Steve. “Seriously?”

“I—” Steve tries to respond, but Robin cuts him off.

“Well they’re fucking plenty,” she says, going the extra mile to rat him out fully.

“Rob,” Steve protests, giving her ankle kick under the table. Robin just shrugs while Chrissy snorts at their antics, used to them by now.

“You’re both so stupid,” Nancy grumbles before taking another swig of her drink.

Steve’s more tempted to go talk to the random hot guy now just to get away from the disapproving vibe at the table. The temptation only increases when he takes in the man’s hands—they’re strong hands, big and rugged like one of this guy’s hobbies requires some muscle out of them.

It only takes the man’s green eyes sliding over to watch Steve back, then an appreciative smirk lobbed in his direction, for Steve to make up his mind.

“He’s been checking you out for at least ten minutes,” Robin says, laying it on a little thicker. She’s lucky Steve is even willing to listen to her advice right now—and that this guy is attractive as fuck.

“At least he won’t give me shit over Eddie,” Steve grumbles at them as he goes to say hello. The stool beside the man is empty, so Steve slips into it easily and gives him one of the best Harrington Charm smiles he’s got on deck. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Woah, not even a pick up line first?” the guy asks, and his flirtatious smile is cute as hell, Steve will admit.

“Do I really need one?” Steve asks, tilting his head as he does.

“Oh, so he’s cocky and handsome,” the other man nods seriously. “Deadly combination.”

Steve laughs, and it’s easier than he expected it to be. There’s still a hole in his heart that he doesn’t know quite how to sew up tight, but having a drink with this man—whose name is Derek, he learns—and his easy smile makes it just a little bit easier to ignore for now.

He’s not really planning on going much further than a little bit of flirting, maybe exchanging numbers if he’s feeling reckless. He’s really not in a place to do anything but take whatever ego boost Derek’s willing to provide. Maybe that’s not fair of him, exactly, but Robin’s right about one thing, at least: he’s distracted enough not to feel completely miserable for a while. Steve lets himself get lost in the simplicity of it, finds the flow of flirting without the weight of confusion and a million what if’s weighing him down.

It’s all going so well until he hears Eddie’s voice clambering through the crowd, from somewhere around where the girls are sitting.

“What the fuck, Chrissy,” Eddie’s question carries, and Steve’s whole body locks up in tension in an instant.

“What?” Chrissy asks, sounding the picture of innocence. Nothing follows, so Steve assumes Eddie’s just making a face at her, since silent communication is one of their strong suits as well. Then Chrissy laughs and says, “Well, he has a type I guess.”

And oh, Steve’s not ready for whatever’s coming next.

“Did I just stumble into a scenario where you’re trying to make your boyfriend jealous?” Derek asks, and Steve really wishes he’d just stayed home.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” Steve says truthfully, yet artfully leaving out some context. He doesn’t really think Eddie has the right to act jealous in the first place, so Steve thinks a little bit of bewilderment on his part is also warranted.

“Ex, then?” Derek guesses, still eyeing Eddie over Steve’s shoulder. Steve doesn’t have the courage to turn around and look.

“He’s just a friend,” Steve sighs at the truth of it, can hear the disappointment in his voice.

Derek can too.

“He looks like he’s thinking about kicking my ass,” he says, sounding less impressed by the second.

“He is not going to do anything—” Steve’s decisive reply is cut off by a hand on his elbow. He’d know that touch anywhere. It’s gentle but demanding, soft yet strong enough to fall to pieces for.

All of a sudden Eddie’s crowding between them, somehow turning one of his more charming smiles into a sneer sent in Derek’s direction. But then his focus lands on Steve, and for a moment it seems like the rest of the room goes silent.

“Can I talk to you?” Eddie asks, eyes almost begging.

Steve can’t believe Eddie’s acting like this just because he’s talking to someone else, can’t believe that for a minute he considers going along with it. He turns to apologize to Derek. “I’m sor—”

But Eddie’s already dragging him off by the elbow. Steve just barely hears Derek say something like, “Why am I always the one that makes them get their shit together?” to his friend before they’re both out of earshot.

Eddie leads Steve out the back door and into an alley beside the bar. He slips his hands into Steve’s back pockets, manhandling him until his back is against the brick and giving his ass a firm squeeze.

“Are you trying to drive me crazy, Stevie?” he asks, an unknowable and wild look in his eye.

It feels twisted even to think, but Steve isn’t sure if he’s more irritated or elated from this reaction out of Eddie. He wonders if he should have started flirting with other people in bars sooner, but he runs with the irritation outwardly.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks, ignoring Eddie’s question entirely. “Since when did you turn into a jealous maniac?”

“That was hardly maniacal,” Eddie scoffs, but there’s this desperate sheen overtaking his whole face that Steve’s never seen before. It quickly disappears behind one of Eddie’s many masks, but Steve still caught it. It’s enough to give his pathetic heart a little jolt of hope—hope that morphs into white hot flames that envelope his whole body when Eddie slips one hand around Steve’s front to grab his dick through his pants. He grins when he feels how Steve’s already getting hard. “I’ll show you maniacal.”

Then Eddie’s kissing him, as possessive and needy as Steve’s ever felt his lips before. There’s nothing soft about it. Every ounce of desperation he saw on Eddie’s face just a moment before is now cascading into the kiss, a hot clash of tongues and teeth like Eddie’s trying to devour him whole.

Because they don’t talk about their feelings, they only do.

Steve just wishes it didn’t feel so goddamn good.

He threads his fingers through Eddie’s hair and pours himself back into what little space is left between them. Eddie bites down on Steve’s bottom lip and growls, all grasping greed and bravado before he soothes it over with his tongue. Steve opens his mouth and lets Eddie in, just like he’s been doing all these months, can’t help it when he feels like all Eddie wants is for Steve to be his.

I am, I am, I swear I’m yours, Steve’s traitor heart chants in his chest, and he’s afraid Eddie can hear it in every beat.

Steve pushes further into Eddie until their chests are pressed together and hips flush. Eddie groans into the contact, rolls his tongue against Steve’s and slots his thigh between Steve’s legs. Steve grinds down onto him just as Eddie pushes up, not a care in the world for how they’re dry-humping in an alleyway like animals.

Steve’s panting he’s missed this so much, and it’s barely been a couple of days. He knows he shouldn’t (promised himself he wouldn’t), but he’s leaning into it. Then Eddie’s hand is on his dick, and he’s losing himself in a sea of want and need and touch and Eddie. Steve can’t believe how he’s gone from vaguely flirting with a stranger to fully hard in a back alley and breaking his promise to himself—to Robin, too—in about two minutes flat.

The thought of Robin snaps him back to reality and he pulls away with a gasp.

“We can’t,” Steve says, but not before Eddie’s already moved to kissing his neck, biting along the underside of his jaw next.

“Why not,” Eddie murmurs against Steve’s skin without stopping. Steve’s hips move of their own accord, grinding into Eddie again as he curses himself.

“Because,” Steve says weakly, trying to remember why he said that in the first place. Robin, some rational voice supplies in the back of his head. And your goddamn dignity.

Steve’s eyes fly open and his hands fist in Eddie’s shirt, which Eddie mistakes as a sign of excitement. He chuckles darkly against Steve’s neck, and Steve has to muster every bit of self control he’s ever had in his life.

“Eddie, stop,” he says, somehow managing to keep his voice flat. Eddie does instantly, before he looks back at Steve with that same quiet desperation in his eyes again.

Steve realizes he’s scared.

Eddie tries to cover it with a joke. “Not as into sex in public as last month?”

“Not into sex with you right now,” Steve clarifies, and somehow he finds the annoyance in his chest again, buried somewhere down deep beneath all the layers of lust. And love. Which is why he’s doing this, Steve reminds himself.

He loves Eddie too much to lose him over it—or to lose himself in it.

“What did I do?” Eddie asks, voice straining.

“Nothing,” Steve says, because it’s true. Eddie hasn’t done anything wrong, it’s Steve and his feelings that are all fucked up here. The only thing Eddie’s done is dare not to love Steve back, just like he promised he wouldn’t. But Eddie’s face is crumpling, and Steve can’t stand to watch it. It makes him a little mad that Eddie even gets to look heartbroken, when it’s Steve’s that’s shattering right there in between them. “I just—need some time to myself, Eddie. Okay?”

Eddie’s shaking his head already, though, and Steve’s scared he’s being too vague, that nebulous reasons won’t cut it.

“You keep calling me that,” Eddie says. He finally pulls away entirely, putting space between them that Steve feels like a knife in the gut.

“What?” he asks.

“Eddie.”

“That’s your name,” Steve deflects. He knows exactly what Eddie means, that Eddie feels as foreign coming out of Steve’s mouth as Steve does Eddie’s.

“Not from you,” Eddie clarifies.

Steve doesn’t know how to do this. He has to get out of there. “Just…not now. Okay?”

He doesn’t give Eddie the chance to reply before he turns on his heel and runs back inside.

At first Steve thinks Eddie’s not going to follow him. He goes back to the booth where the girls are sitting to find them all looking at him expectantly. He can’t try to parse what they’re thinking, how they might be judging the undoubtedly miserable look on his face, or if they’ve noticed the slight bulge in his pants. He grabs his jacket and tosses some money on the table before telling Robin he’ll see her at home.

It’s that time of night when cabs are already lined up and waiting outside for the drunks to come stumbling out, and Steve finds one with ease. He’s relieved that Eddie seems to have taken the hint and isn’t following him this time.

Steve thinks he’s managed to escape this mess in particular, at least. Avoiding Eddie’s texts and calls won’t fly, not now that they’ve fought over it. But Steve just needs the space to figure out what to do next. He knows he’s an asshole for running away, but he can’t help it in that moment.

He’s wondering why Eddie even showed up tonight, but he shoves the questions away for later. Right now he just needs to flee.

The driver just starts to pull away from the curb when the door opposite Steve flings open, and Eddie hops in the backseat. The cabbie looks startled, but satisfied enough to keep driving when Eddie slams the door shut behind him and turns his wild eyes on Steve.

“What the fuck!” Steve exclaims, because really. What the fuck.

“I need you to talk to me, Steve,” Eddie says. He’s right, the lack of a Stevie feels almost like a death sentence. “Stop avoiding the subject and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Because dragging me off in a fit of jealousy before storming my cab and nearly killing yourself seems like a healthier way to communicate,” Steve scoffs.

“You stopped answering my texts and literally just ran away from me, Steve!” Eddie throws his hands up in exasperation. “You’re not winning any medals there, either.”

“I haven’t stopped responding—” Steve tries, weakly.

“Oh, please.” Eddie’s laugh is a bitter one. “I know it’s been Robin texting me. I can tell the difference.”

Steve doesn’t point out that no one else has seemed to notice their little phone swap. Instead of trying to read into how well Eddie knows him, he tries to get back on track.

“Eddie,” Steve all but grits his name through his teeth. “When I said I can’t do this right now, I meant that.”

“But why can’t you?” Eddie asks, and as annoyed as they both sound, there’s a current of misery beneath Eddie’s tone that threatens to crack Steve’s heart into a billion shards of glass. “Yesterday morning everything was fine, Stevie. Then something completely beyond my control and knowledge seems to have happened to make you hate me, and you won’t talk to me? Or even look at me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Steve mutters under his breath. He crosses his arms and looks forward, trying to seal his lips shut before he says anything else that might bury him.

“What?” Eddie asks, and every precaution Steve has taken (and not) to avoid this moment has utterly failed him.

“I said I don’t hate you, alright?” Steve all but explodes. He turns to Eddie, who’s staring at his hands in his lap instead of looking Steve in the face. He just jumped into a damn moving vehicle, complained about Steve not looking at him, but now he’s only got eyes for the rings on his pretty fingers. Steve’s so wrung out, pulled taught with exhaustion from holding it in, he throws caution to the wind. Partly because he doesn’t know how else to deal with this, and partly because he’s lost his last bit of sense that’s been keeping it back. “Because I fucking love you. And you don’t love me like that! So I’m trying to unlove you as quickly as possible so everything doesn’t get even more fucked up than it already is, okay? There. That’s my terrible secret, Eds. Are you happy now?”

Eddie doesn’t look up, not right away, and Steve’s heart seizes in his chest. He can’t believe he finally said it out loud, can’t believe how it’s both a relief and absolutely agonizing now that it’s hanging in the air between them.

Behind the curtain of Eddie’s hair it’s hard to see for sure, but Steve still doesn’t think he imagines the way Eddie’s lips twitch.

Eddie finally looks up and Steve’s proven right—his smile is wicked but warm, and there’s a mischief dancing in his eyes where they were filled with fear just a moment ago.

It doesn’t seem like Eddie’s reacting poorly, but Steve’s not entirely sure what to make of it.

“That look in your eye terrifies me,” he admits, and Eddie just laughs. A delighted sound that pools in Steve’s belly and heats him through.

“There’s a fine line between terrified and turned on, Stevie,” Eddie practically crows. The teasing lilt of his voice has Steve’s stomach doing backflips.

“What does that even mean?” Steve’s pretty sure it’s not bad, but he really can’t be sure when his anxiety is blazing through his senses like wildfire.

“It means I fucking love you, too.”

The force of it hits Steve head on, sending him careening into a cloud of relief and shock and unadulterated joy. He stares at Eddie, gobsmacked, can’t possibly believe this is the outcome from finally admitting how he feels.

But he did. He said the words aloud, and then Eddie said them back. Tentatively, he reaches out for Eddie’s hand, brushes his fingertips across the back of it. Eddie smiles again, almost shy, and wraps Steve’s hand up in his own.

Then he pulls Steve in to kiss him.

It’s sweet, this time, careful like they’re afraid to tread on thin ice. But Eddie’s lips are the same as they ever were; and now they’ve gone and told Steve that Eddie loves him, too, so Steve cherishes them even more than with all of the other kisses that came before. Eddie squeezes his hand, smiles against Steve’s mouth.

“Can I take you home now?” Eddie asks. “I promise you can keep yelling if you need to.”

Steve laughs, and it’s the lightest he’s felt in ages. “Yes, please.”

He catches the driver grinning at them in the rearview a few times on the rest of their way home.

Steve’s hard-on only grows more urgent on their way from the car up to his bedroom, even though Eddie’s barely laid a finger on him. It’s the anticipation that’s getting to him more than anything, the promise of this night and many more to come.

Because Eddie loves him.

They’ve both already peeled their shirts and shoes and jackets off and discarded them along the way to Steve’s bed, and Eddie’s shoving Steve up against the bedroom door before Steve even has it closed behind them. Then he’s kissing Steve everywhere, his jaw, his chest, his mouth, like he’s checking that every fiber of Steve is real—that his loving Eddie in return isn’t some kind of mirage.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Steve asks as Eddie works on sucking a mark into his neck.

Eddie pulls back, searching Steve’s eyes for any sign that he’s joking—like he thinks the answer should be obvious. “I didn’t want to lose this. Lose you.”

Steve doesn’t point out the irony that they almost lost each other for the same stupid goddamn reason. Instead, he says, “I’m not going anywhere, Eds.”

Then Eddie’s kissing him again, feral, like hearing Steve say the words has awoken a new hunger inside of him. Eddie’s slender fingers move to take Steve’s pants off in a hurry, shoves them down just far enough to free Steve’s erection before moving to take off his own—he’s in a rush, and Steve can’t exactly blame him.

Eddie manages to get his pants down around his ankles before Steve can get hands on him. Steve spits in his own hand to add to the slick of precum already leaking out of the tip of Eddie’s cock.

“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses as Steve gives him a few firm pumps. But he replaces Steve’s grip as he crowds in closer, nudges his cock against Steve's in a slow but urgent slide. “Ah, shit—that’s better.”

Steve laughs through a moan, finds it cute that Eddie thinks he’s gonna stay in charge for long. For the moment he leans into it, though, grinds back against Eddie at his pace, accepting the sloppy glide of their cocks against one another just for a little bit of relief through the friction.

Then Steve’s cock catches Eddie’s frenulum at just the right angle, and Eddie lets out a strangled whimper that tells Steve they have to slow down. This is the first time they’re having sex after saying I love you, and maybe it makes Steve a hopeless romantic, but he wants to savor it.

So he grabs two fistfuls of Eddie’s hair and drags him in for a kiss, laps his tongue against Eddie’s and swallows down his shallow breaths with greed. Then he gives Eddie’s hair a tug until he’s looking back at Steve through heavy lidded eyes—they know each other’s signals so well by now that Eddie gets the message to slow his hips without anything more.

“What do you want?” Steve rasps before tugging Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth.

“Just you,” Eddie replies with ease, and Steve’s stomach swoops. Still, it’s an answer that won’t do.

“Use your words, baby,” Steve tuts.

“I am,” Eddie retorts with a playful whine. Steve looks at him skeptically. “I mean it! Are you really gonna boss me around when I just told you I love you?”

“Well, I did say it first. So, yeah,” Steve shrugs, nonchalant. It’s too easy to get Eddie worked up, he can’t help himself. “Plus, I’m pretty sure you love me because I boss you around.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Eddie’s whole face softens, and Steve knows they’re not teasing anymore. He cups Steve’s cheek and somehow inches a little bit closer, until Steve can feel the cold metal of Eddie’s nipple ring pressing into the overheated skin of his bare chest. “I love you for so much more than just that.”

Steve melts into Eddie’s hands, wants to ask him to list all the reasons without sounding needy. Instead he decides they’ve got time, that right now he just needs Eddie, however he can get him.

Steve pulls him back in for a sloppy kiss as he moves them towards the bed. As soon as Eddie hits the edge of the mattress he sits, and Steve takes the break between them as an opportunity to get his pants the rest of the way off as Eddie does the same.

Eddie looks up at him, waiting, like Steve could literally demand anything in the world from him in that moment and Eddie would do it. He does wrap his hands around Steve’s hips and make a request, though.

“I want you to do something really devious, Stevie. I’m talking filthy stuff,” he admits. There’s mischief playing in his gaze, and Steve can’t wait to find out why.

“Oh?” he buys in. “What’s that?”

“I want you look me in the eye while you let me fuck you,” Eddie leans forward to kiss along Steve’s stomach, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes the whole time. “I want you to see just how much I love you, while you tell me exactly how good it feels to have my cock so deep inside you that it feels like we’ll never be apart. Because I never want you to doubt it again.”

Steve holds Eddie’s gaze for a breath that catches deep in his lungs before he feels a slow smile take over his face. As if he could deny such a pretty face, asking so nicely.

As if he could deny Eddie anything.

“Lay back,” Steve instructs, and Eddie hastens to do just that. Once he’s propped up on the pillows, Steve grabs his bottle of lube from the bedside table and tosses it on the bed. Then he climbs in, straddling Eddie’s waist and sliding their cocks together once more just to get another breathy moan out of the beautiful man beneath him. He slicks his hand with lube before jerking Eddie off a few times with it. “You wanna watch me ride your perfect cock? Watch how good you make me feel while I come apart on it?”

“Fuck, Stevie,” Eddie hisses. “Yes, please.”

“What’re you gonna do for me?” Steve asks, likes drawing it out until Eddie gets whiny about it.

“Gonna fill you up, be so so good for you,” Eddie promises. “I’ll leave you full of my cum just so everyone will know you’re mine, and I’m yours.”

“You’re so fuckin’ perfect, Eds.” Steve smirks down at him, and Eddie preens. Steve uses more lube on his fingers and reaches behind himself, slicks his hole before slipping two fingers inside. He fingers himself just to make Eddie watch, delighting in the way Eddie’s cock leaks a little bit more when Steve groans at that first stretch his knuckles provide. Once he’s desperate for more, Steve leans down and grabs Eddie’s chin before licking into his mouth.

“Gonna ride you until we both come, but only if you’re good for me,” Steve murmurs, and Eddie shivers beneath him.

“Anything you want, Stevie,” Eddie agrees in a single breath. “Use me, claim me, I don’t fuckin’ care I just need—fuck—”

Eddie’s blathering begging is replaced with a high whine as Steve lines up his cock and sinks down onto it slowly, inch by inch until Eddie’s bottomed out and fisting Steve’s sheets like it might kill him.

“Shhh,” Steve soothes, even though he’s the one that feels so full he might split in two. He rubs careful circles around Eddie’s nipples while they both adjust, enjoying the way it makes Eddie twitch beneath him. Slowly, Steve leans down to lay more of his weight on Eddie until they’re chest to chest. The extra stretch of his hole around Eddie’s cock as he moves is so delicious, nearly consuming when coupled with the way his own cock gets a little bit of friction as it rubs against Eddie’s stomach.

Eddie closes the rest of the space between them, kisses Steve messily as his hands find their place on Steve’s hips. Neither of them move yet, happy just to feel each other for a blinding moment of anticipation.

Once Steve catches a little bit of his breath he leans back a fraction, brushes some of the hair away from Eddie’s face and just breathes him in.

“You feel so—” Eddie whimpers as Steve clenches around him, “—fucking good, Stevie.”

“You too, Eds,” Steve purrs, and Eddie grips his hips harder. “You ready?”

“For you?” Eddie’s eyes light up and his voice slips back into something velvety. “Always.”

Steve can’t help it, his cock twitches between them, leaves a fresh trail of precum leaking on the skin of both of their stomachs. He groans, fully aware he can’t take it anymore as he starts to ride Eddie’s cock. The wet slide of it is intoxicating, the way Eddie fills him up so perfectly it feels like they were always meant to do this. He stays pressed close to Eddie to start, setting a slow enough pace to drive them both wild with every roll of his hips. Eddie stays patient though, doesn’t try to speed Steve’s pace or even thrust up into him as he moves.

“You’re doing so good for me,” Steve praises as he sits up again, plants his hands on Eddie’s chest for better leverage. Steve’s cock bobs between them as he grinds his hips into a rhythm, and Eddie watches it and bites his lip like he’s straining not to touch it. Steve smiles down at him. “Look so fucking gorgeous beneath me, Eds.”

“Fuck,” Eddie gasps, squeezes Steve’s hips tighter as his hips finally stutter up at the praise. It’s barely a thrust, but it’s timed just right for Eddie’s cock to graze Steve’s prostate. Steve groans as he rides the shockwave of it, a hot gush of arousal straight up his spine. “Wanna touch you,” Eddie says, eyes pleading again.

Steve considers it for a minute, but slaps Eddie’s hand away when he takes Steve’s pause as permission.

“Not yet,” Steve chides, deciding to slip his fingers through Eddie’s instead to hold his hand in check.

“What about my other hand?” Eddie asks in a challenge, somehow managing to be a smartass in such a compromising position. He waggles the fingers on his left hand for effect, and Steve has to bite back a laugh. He does slow his pace down to a near stop, earning a pathetic little whimper out of Eddie in return.

Steve grins down at him sweetly.

“I could always tie you up instead,” Steve threatens with a raised brow.

“Tempting.” Eddie swallows thickly, gives Steve’s hand a squeeze. “But no thanks. Hold my hand, please.”

“Sap,” Steve smiles. He takes Eddie’s other hand in his own, too, before pushing both of them into the mattress beside Eddie’s head as he leans forward again, grinding his cock into the solid yet soft flesh of Eddie’s belly again.

“You started it,” Eddie grins up at him—a dopey, lovesick sort of grin that Steve really should have realized meant Eddie loved him back ages ago.

He can’t get caught up in that now.

“So you wanna jerk me off, huh?” Steve asks as he starts to grind down on Eddie’s cock again. Eddie just nods, biting his lip like he’s afraid he’ll say something bratty and make Steve stop again. Smart boy. “Gonna make you earn it, Eds. Use your pretty cock as a ride for as long as I want before you get to touch me. Before I say you can come, too.”

Eddie whines aloud, but doesn’t complain further. “Anything you want, Stevie.”

Steve hums as he presses down on Eddie’s cock again and can’t help but let out a low groan at this angle—knows he needs more.

“Go ahead and fuck me, Eds,” Steve locks his eyes on Eddie’s again, just like he asked for. “I know how bad you want to.”

Eddie doesn’t hesitate, fucks his cock up into Steve’s hole with a perfect, fluid motion that leaves Steve seeing stars. He can’t believe how well-timed Eddie’s thrusts are with hardly any leverage in his position. The drag of his cock inside of Steve is unbearably good, hitting his prostate over and over and leaving that tight ring of muscle burning and clenching for more.

Steve knows he won’t last long like this. And based on the mess of satisfied sounds falling out of Eddie’s mouth with every filthy, slick slap of his hips against Steve’s ass, he won’t either.

“Say it again.” Steve grits out the command through clenched teeth, holding on for dear life as he feels another dribble of Eddie’s hot precum inside of him.

“Wha—” Eddie sucks in a deep breath through his nose, like he’s fraying at the seams trying not to come apart before Steve tells him to. “Say what, Stevie?”

“You know what.” Steve licks Eddie’s top lip, keeps riding him without mercy. Eddie’s already a whimpering, needy mess. His cries are just about the most beautiful thing Steve’s ever heard—at least until the next words out of his mouth, anyway.

“Fuck—sweetheart, I—god I fucking love you so much,” Eddie groans.

Steve clenches to hear it, rolls his hips a little more on Eddie’s next push up inside of him. Eddie whines in that way he only does when he’s near tears, and Steve feels like he’s on fire. “What else?”

“What?” Eddie asks, desperately squeezing Steve’s hands, now. “Stevie, please, I’m so close.”

“Tell me what you need, gorgeous,” Steve coos, genuinely wondering which answer he’ll get out of Eddie.

“You, you, you, y—goddamnit—you,” Eddie babbles. “I only ever need you, sweetheart.”

“F—uck,” Steve hisses, his voice carrying the word out of control like a song with the next drag of his cock against Eddie’s stomach. “You’re such a good boy, Eds—” Eddie groans at that, a guttural sound that Steve feels down to his toes. “Love you so much, need you to come inside me.”

Eddie’s responding moan is so desperate, it’s almost violent what it does to his voice. His hips stutter, and Steve knows hearing the words affect him just as much as they do Steve.

Eddie doesn’t let go right away, though. Instead he nods at Steve’s aching, swollen cock between them. “C—can I? Please? Want you to come with me.”

Steve groans and just releases Eddie’s hands as his permission, wonders if the red marks he left between Eddie’s knuckles will bruise. Eddie’s almost giddy in the way he wraps his ringed finger around Steve’s cock, hitches his other hand to the curve of Steve’s ass in a tight grip to guide his movements.

“Go ahead, pretty boy,” Steve encourages. “Let me see you come.”

With Eddie’s cock buried deep in his ass, Eddie’s hand wrapped around his own cock and jerking him off in perfect strokes, Steve has to hold on not to come right away. But he wants to watch Eddie first, doesn’t want to miss a minute of him losing control. He watches as Eddie’s face contorts and his mouth falls open, drinks in every blissed out sound Eddie makes, rides Eddie faster and somehow keeps himself together until Eddie falls apart.

Eddie’s orgasm is shattering, leaves the very air around them buzzing with the force of it, and his whole body is shaking as he comes with a throaty scream. Steve feels the hot gush of cum inside him, feeling it pushed further in with every broken thrust of Eddie’s hips as Steve rides him through it.

It’s enough to make Steve lose his hold on the edge. He finally goes tumbling over into an all-consuming pit of ecstasy once Eddie’s grip on his cock tightens through the last gasps of his own high.

“Eds—fuck!” Steve cries. He manages to keep his eyes open to watch the spray of cum he leaves all over Eddie’s chest, the way Eddie opens his mouth to try and catch some of it like snowflakes on his tongue. It’s so filthy, so beautiful, that another searing shockwave crests through Steve, his whole body crackling with electricity as the next spurt of cum hits the corner of Eddie’s mouth and chin.

He laps it up greedily, and Steve whines as he watches, mesmerized. Eddie pumps every bit of pleasure out of Steve that he can, until the last fragments of his orgasm are an echo through his limbs and he’s nearly ready to collapse from it. Somehow, Steve manages to stay upright on shaking legs long enough to drag his fingers through some of the cum on Eddie’s stomach. Eddie’s eyes widen as he watches, anticipating what Steve’s next move is with ease.

Steve brings his fingers up to Eddie’s lips, and Eddie’s mouth is already open and waiting for them. Eddie moans around Steve’s middle and forefingers, swirls his tongue around them and lets his eyes fall shut like Steve’s cum is a full-course meal.

“Fuck, you’re so perfect,” Steve praises again, and Eddie hums before releasing Steve’s fingers with a slurping noise that makes Steve’s spent cock twitch pathetically between them.

“All mine,” Eddie says, wipes the last bit of cum from his chin and licks his fingers clean of that, too. “Will never get enough of you, Stevie.”

It’s unbearably sexy, but more than anything it makes Steve’s love-wrecked heart soar.

“Love you,” Steve murmurs, stroking Eddie’s face as he does. Eddie leans into his touch, and even though Steve can feel Eddie’s cock softening inside him, he wants to stay right there forever. “Can we stay like this for a while?”

“God, yes,” Eddie agrees with a low rumble, wrapping his arms around Steve’s middle and bringing him to lay against his chest. Steve goes happily, mess between them be damned. For now he just wants to keep Eddie inside of him for as long as he can, feel the stretch and the fullness and the cum leaking out of him in sated bliss.

“You were so good for me,” Steve tells Eddie, running his fingers through his tangled, sweaty curls. He presses soft kisses to Eddie’s face, revels in the fact that he’s not losing this—that he doesn’t have to go anywhere. “Gonna take such good care of you.”

It feels like a bigger promise than for just that moment, and Eddie hears it too.

“Love you, Stevie,” he whispers before catching Steve’s lips in a kiss. It’s languid, almost lazy with satisfaction. Once more Steve can taste himself on Eddie’s tongue, and instead of it leaving him feeling empty this time, he feels full to burst.

Steve’s not sure how long they stay like that, holding each other tight and unwilling to let go. But eventually Steve moves to get something to clean them both up with before they freeze or end up uncomfortably stuck together. There’s only a slight wobble to his gait as the best kind of soreness starts to set it, even if his legs are still a little shaky. When he makes it to the hallway—stark naked and still with Eddie’s cum leaking out of him—he notices the light beneath Robin’s door is on. Realizing exactly how there’s no talking their way out of this one, he keeps his dash to the bathroom short. He wipes himself down in a hurry before wetting a fresh washcloth and taking it back to Eddie.

He winces as he carefully closes the bedroom door behind him, because he knows there’s a good chance Robin will come barging in if she knows they’re done.

“What’s that face for?” Eddie asks, voice still sleepy.

“Robin’s home,” Steve says guiltily. “And probably Chrissy, too. Which means they’re gonna kill us, because we were loud as fuck.”

For some inexplicable reason, Eddie smiles. With all the conviction in the world he says, “They’re not gonna kill us.”

Steve gives him a confused look, but his curiosity unlocks his body enough to move towards the bed and start taking care of Eddie like he meant to.

For a moment, Steve tries to focus on wiping Eddie’s skin clean. Eddie watches Steve’s soft, deliberate movements as he clears the last of the sweat and cum from Eddie’s chest, careful to get the rest of the lube off the sensitive skin around his now softened cock. Steve’s slept with people who thought this part was gross, who hated the intimacy of sharing it with him. Eddie’s so comfortable, though, soaking in everything Steve does with such affection—no, Steve can say that it’s love now—that it makes Steve’s heart stutter a little happy tune against his ribs.

He loves that Eddie lets him take care of him, that Eddie takes care of Steve right back.

“You’re so good to me, Stevie,” Eddie hums as Steve finally settles back into bed with him. He thinks it’s some kind of minor miracle they didn’t wreck the sheets, too. Or maybe it’s a sign they didn’t try hard enough this go around.

“Yeah, well,” Steve smiles as he snuggles into Eddie’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close as pillows his head on Eddie’s shoulder. “That’s ‘cause I love you.”

Eddie’s returning smile is so bright, Steve would happily go blind just to keep looking at it. “Mm, as luck would have it? Love you too.”

Steve kisses him with abandon, relishing the way he can leave his heart open and soul bared now. There’s still fear there—that things might go wrong somehow, that Eddie will change his mind and run—but knowing that Eddie feels the same soothes some of that ache, keeps it pinned to an undercurrent that Steve can choose not to focus on. Instead he can let the love float to the top, the way Eddie’s hands in his hair and lips pressed up against his own makes him giddy with the possibility of a future.

“What’d you mean, before?” Steve eventually asks. “Why won’t Rob and Chris kill us when they’ve been trying so hard to keep us apart?”

“Aha, but I suspect they haven’t been, not really,” Eddie says with an almost appreciative smile.

“Explain.”

“Chrissy definitely waited until you were talking to that guy to text me and ask me to come down to the bar,” Eddie says, and Steve feels his jaw drop open more than he allows it.

“She told you to come?” Steve asks, probably more surprised than he should be. “But the whole point of tonight was getting me away from you!”

“Pretty sure the actual whole point of tonight was triggering enough jealousy to make me break,” Eddie shrugs.

“Oh my god,” Steve says, realizing Eddie has it right. “Those schemers.”

“Absolutely conniving,” Eddie agrees. “But it worked.”

“Mmm,” Steve says skeptically, unwilling to give them all that much credit yet. Especially since Steve’s really the one who broke. He doesn’t get to make the distinction before a sharp, loud moan erupts from Robin’s bedroom, however.

Apparently Robin and Chrissy’s payback will be swifter this time around, and Steve wishes they’d taken the cab back to Eddie’s place instead.

Eddie’s eyes go wide as two more distinct voices follow the first. “Is that…?”

“Nancy,” Steve nods with equally wide-eyed realization. He isn’t grossed out by Robin’s sex life, and he knows she’ll tell him everything in the morning whether he hears it happening in real-time or not. He’s more concerned with the fact that he’s going to wake up with three expectant and smug faces waiting for an explanation in the morning, and he’s really not sure there’s any way to prepare for that. “Robin did warn me they might bring her home.”

“How thoughtful of her. Chrissy didn’t bother,” Eddie laughs, but seems willing to let it go as he presses soft kisses into Steve’s neck.

Another round of noises from the other room interrupts their flow, though.

“We’re going to have to come up with a system for choosing which apartment everyone goes to at the end of the night,” Steve points out with a pout. “Between us, and now them? The neighbors are gonna think we’re porn stars.”

Eddie laughs again, clearly delighted that Steve’s apartment has turned into the Horny Place. Steve can’t remember a time he’s seen him this happy. Eddie rolls on top of Steve and brushes two fingertips against his lips, a devious smile playing on his own. “Well, we might as well live up to it the rumors and give them a show, don’t you think?”

He kisses the pout off of Steve’s face and spends the rest of the night giving the performance of a lifetime.

please consider reblogging if you enjoyed! it means the world <3

#steddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #fanfiction #dani's drafts #LexsSummerFanworksChallenge

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buniyaad · 8 months

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January 8th - 14th, 2024

Monday, January 8th - Sins of the Family // Isolation

Tuesday, January 9th - Prophecies // Deadly Devotion

Wednesday, January 10th - Superman Cults // Possession

Thursday, January 11th - The Forgotten One // A Hole in the World

Friday, January 12th - A Parent Knows Best // Eldritch Horror

Saturday, January 13th - It Takes a Village // Inheritance

Sunday, January 14th - Mistakes Were Made // Horror Movie AU

Purpose?

Not enough horror-themed fanworks in the world about the Superfam. Got jealous of the Batfandom having all these horror-themed events and projects, so I decided to host one for the Superfam.

Why should we participate in this?

Because you like seeing the soupeyfam in ever-increasingly fucked up situations that elicit a deeply-rooted, ancient dread :3

So how does it work?

The release date for fanworks is from Monday, the 8th of January through Sunday, the 14th of January, 2024.

This aint a Halloween-themed event! You have well over three months to write, draw, and create fanworks. However, use the spooky season to help generate some ideas and propel you forward! :3

This an opportunity for people who’d like to explore the Superfamily characters, dynamics, and relationships through a variety of prompts. Although romantic ships are nice, please make sure the Superfam are the focus of your fanwork.

Superfamily characters include, but are not limited to:

Clark Kent

Lois Lane

Kara Zor El

Jonathan and Martha Kent

Jon Kent

Osul Ra and Otho Ra

John Henry Irons

Natasha Irons

Kon El/Conner Kent

Chris Kent/Lor Zod

Karen Starr

Kong Kenan

Superfamily characters of ANY comic book universe are acceptable. If you want to spend the entire fanweek exploring Ultraman and Injustice!Superman because you love drama, then be my guest! If you want Ultraman to kidnap Lois this time instead of Jon, go for it!! Let that imagination run WILD!!!

Darkfic, horrorfic, genre-specific work, and other both safe and not-safe-for-tunglr dot hell tropes are welcome. Just make sure that you post any Mature content on a landing page that doesn't restrict Mature content (like AO3). I don’t want anyone getting their blog banned. We cannot defeat our capitalist overlords, but we can definitely work around them.

This fanweek will not have a dedicated blog. These prompts are free for anyone to use. Because it is a non-traditional, non-monetized, and free-to-opt-in casual event, there will be no mods but moi, no advertising of paid services, and no ratings or participant restrictions. I will open a collection on AO3 in January for anyone who wants their work collated for this event.

In order to ensure that both creators and the audience are making informed decisions about what they engage with, all creators are encouraged to include triggers, ships, and any other squick warnings.

Please utilize the read-more function for fanworks that are longer than 250 words. We're tryna read yer stories, not get spammed with a wall of text. Please Be Courteous.

And last but not least - if you are engaging with any of the fanworks, reblog, reblog, reblog! Share the work with your followers. Send all the love to the creators for crafting their masterpieces!!

What can I contribute?

Fanart (standalones, comic strips, etc.), fanfiction (one-shots, multichapter, etc.), fanmixes, gifsets, graphics, meme collections, fanvids, whatever your heart desires! Go wild!!!

Can I create/write not-safe-for-tunglr dot hell content?

Yes!!! All creators are encouraged to include triggers warnings, sub-genre specifications, ships, and other warnings in their posts. I will not discourage you from writing your 16k Kara-goes-evil fic, but please... Be Courteous and tag your fanworks appropriately so people can make an informed decision on what they're comfortable with viewing.

What does (X) prompt mean?

Each day has two prompts!! You can either pick a prompt OR you can combine prompts in different ways. Let your imagination take you where you want to go with each prompt!! If you want to explore both in the same fanwork, then be my guest!!

Mainstream Canon, Elsewords, and AU content is acceptable! Just make sure to stay within the comicsverse. Creativity is key! Have fun!!!

Can I crackship/multiship/harem/OT3/polyam the characters?

Absolutely!!! Just please remember that this is the Soupeyfam horror week, not the Lois-Has-A-Harem-of-Elseworlds-Supermen week. We love ships and things, but this week is about the Superfamily. The characters can have their lovers, but their personal romantic dalliances shouldn't overtake the Soupeyfam dynamics (unless you're pulling a Cersei and Jaime, lmao, if that's the case, go wild).

Does this have a tag?

During release week, use the general “superfam” tag to share your work with the wider Superfam fandom on tunglr. You can use whatever other tags you fancy. The best way to share, however, is to directly @ me so that I may reblog it.

I didn’t read a damn thing before this, Ava.

TL;DR: Over three months until the fanweek!!! For all fanwork creators out there, now’s the time to start thinking about what prompts you want to utilize for your creations. There are no creative restrictions, but I do ask that you follow these posting tips:

All fanfiction should be under a read-more.

Not-safe-for-tunglr fanwork should be LINKED to whatever landing site the content is being hosted on (Twitter, AO3, etc). This includes both fanfiction and fanart. I don’t want your blog getting flagged bc tunglr hates gay people.

Provide content warnings for all triggers, squicks, and sub-genres. Unfortunately, in my ten odd years away from DC Comics, the fandom's seen a resurgence in puritanical behavior and tons of censorship and self-censorship. Please list content warnings on your work but do not be discouraged in sharing your work. If a fancop gets on your ass, block them. Please block as MANY as you can. They're like pests, they're always gonna be there, but their influence can be diminished by staunch blocking and reporting.

You can participate as much as you want!! Maybe you only wanna create for one day? Cool! Maybe you’re an overachieving corporate clown insomniac like myself, and wanna create for every day of the week? Go for it!!!

The most important thing is to have fun :)

Truth be told, this event is entirely selfish. I personally love to the horror genre, and would love to see the characters in the Superfamily get more canon content as seen through beloved horror tropes. Unfortunately, Status Quo often gets in the way, and the current fanworks are largely ambivalent to the Dreadful and Despairing. If you'd like to join me in creating deliciously dark fiction featuring our favorite DC clan, please do! I would love to read your 10k character study of Otho and Osul assimilating into human society after spending their formative years as slaves in Warworld.

We’re over three months away from release week, so take your time, look through the prompts, and get your creative juices flowing! I will be sending out reminders until the go-live date.

For the people who showed interest during the initial interest check, I hope you're able to participate. To the four people who hate me, your mom's a hoe. Thank you.

#superfam #superfam horror week #clark kent #superman #lois lane #jon kent #kon el #kong kenan #karen starr #natasha irons #dc comics #real talk #ava's ficcing adventures

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vgfm · 4 months

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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.

#undertale yellow #undertale #starlo #ceroba #martlet

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