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dhoranbolt · 3 months

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Devilish

a/n: Happy (late) Valentine's! I suck at time management this was supposed to be out like a week ago lmao. Brought to you by that one Sukuna art, Fleabag, the songs Church/Devilish by Chase Atlantic, and really just my priest kink in general, yeah.

Disclaimer - I am not super religious forgive me if none of this makes sense lmao idk

Friendly reminder- if your age isn't easily accessible on your profile I will not be tagging you! That said if you'd like a tag in future works let me know and I'll add you to the list!

Bestie beta reader: @yukios-medic ily ma'am as always you keep me sane 🥹💙

Pairing: priest!Sukuna x fem!reader

cw/tw: minors/ageless blogs DNI, priest kink, degradation, reader is called good girl, oral (female receiving) unprotected sex, cream pie, dirty talk

Word count: 5.7k

She’s seen him around the coffee shop she frequents every once in a while. ‘Gorgeous’ might be an understatement – maybe ‘sculpted by the gods’ would be a more accurate description.

He’s tall, muscular, from what she can tell under his loose-fitting tee and jeans. She swears she’s not gawking, but with the tattoos that line his face and arms, so intricate yet simple, his fluffy pink hair, could anyone really blame her for staring a second too long?

He’s so breathtaking, she might just be showing up to the coffee shop more often than she used to just in the hopes of glimpsing him a little longer. Maybe in a different t-shirt, maybe in a suit– okay stop.

She’s decided to take a seat while she waits for her order to be called out, not having paid particular attention to who from the list of regulars she sees strewn about the shop.

“Order for Father Kuna!” She huffs a small laugh out as the barista calls the name with such a straight face, and then pink hair is blocking the view. Her breath catches in her throat the moment he turns around to walk back to his table with a grin, and their eyes meet. Her heart jumps into her throat, but the moment is only that- a moment, and then he’s moving out of her view, back to the table of other men laughing as he rejoins their group.

She chances a look that way to see a man with long black hair, and another with short white hair. She looks away before any of them can feel her eyes on them. It was enough that he was so attractive, but all three of them?

It’s not the first time she’s seen him smile, but it is the first time he’s looked at her, smile widening as they lock eyes.

–

Granted, it’s only Tuesday, this whole week has been one inconvenience after another, and her visit to the coffee shop is not an exception. In her rush to find caffeine, she’d neglected to bring her wallet with her. So, imagine her surprise when she moves to pull it from her purse and pay, only to notice it missing.

She’s huffing as she frantically looks through the bag again. The cashier in front of her looks bored, like this is probably not the first time this exact situation has taken place today, and if the world could just open up and swallow her whole right now, that would be great–

“I can pay, if you can’t find your wallet.” A voice calls from behind her, and if her cheeks weren’t already red from embarrassment at her current situation, they would be now.

Turning to look at the owner of the voice, she’s met with an abdomen, and as she follows it up, black tattoos come into view, and so does pink hair, and are his eyes red–

“Oh, please no, it’s fine I’ll just–” He laughs, and she feels like every inconvenience in her life could just melt away at the sound.

“I insist. Besides, what kind of good Samaritan would I be if I left a damsel without the caffeine she looks like she might break down without?” Her face scrunches up at his comment, but before she can question it, he’s stepping past her to order his own drink and pay.

“I was joking, by the way. About the caffeine comment. I’m sorry if it came across rude, you just looked a little you could have used a laugh. Long week?” She laughs and nods as they wait off to the side for their drinks.

“The longest. And thank you for paying, really you didn’t have to, but I appreciate it, nonetheless.” He grins again and her heart might actually jump out of her chest at just how painfully gorgeous this man is.

“It’s no issue, I like helping people where I can.”

“Well, I’m going to pay you back after this, just so you know.” He chuckles and shakes his head.

“There’s no need, we’ll say I just did it out of the kindness of my heart and leave it at that.”

“I don’t like feeling like I owe people.”

“Then don’t feel that way.” She lets out an exasperated huff as she looks up at him, but he’s grinning down at her again.

“Okay fine, fine. How about this? How about you can pay me back, by meeting me… Here.” He says as he scribbles an address out for her on a napkin. He hands it over, and she takes it with a raised brow, looking at the unfamiliar street name and number.

“You want me to bring your money to an address I’ve never been to before?” And there’s a sparkle in his eyes as he looks down at her.

“I don’t even know you.”

“Sure you do,” he says with a nod, continuing on, “I’m Sukuna, the devilishly handsome coffee shop patron who doubles as your knight in shining armor for today.” She laughs as he grins.

“Okay, well, what makes you think you know me?” And he pretends to think for a minute.

“Well lets see, I’ve seen you around this little shop long enough to know that you’re a woman of your word.”

“How, this is the first time we’ve ever exchanged words.” She scoffs another laugh.

“Oh so you have noticed me around then?” And anything she says next would give away the fact she did notice him around, so her jaw opens and closes silently as she debates on what to say next.

“I-” And she’s saved by the barista interrupting her derailed train of thought.

“Order for Ryomen!” He moves to the pickup bar, taking the two drinks in hand and walking back to her.

“Meet me there tonight, seven fifteen.” And she’s still trying to register what’s even really happening as he hands her the cup.

“What is this like a date?” The words leave her mouth before she can stop them, and she bites her tongue as he chuckles.

“Yeah, something like that. Just come, then consider your drink paid for.” And how could she say no to him?

“Okay sure,” she laughs nervously, “I’ll be there, Sukuna.” And she savors the way his name sounds, rolling off her tongue.

“I’m looking forward to it, enjoy your drink.” He says with a smirk, before leaving her in the coffee shop. Sitting down at a nearby table, she pulls out her phone to look up the address she’d just agreed to meet a semi-total stranger at, and when it loads on her map she’s left even more confused than before – it’s the address to a church.

–

She’s sitting in the parking lot of the church, staring at the doors in contemplation. She’s not very religious, but the curiosity of finding out just what he could possibly be asking her here for, is why she’s making her way to said doors once the first few groups of people pass. She laughs to herself at the mental image of the church setting her ablaze the second she steps in.

Looking around at everyone sitting down, she’s searching for pink hair, but doesn’t see it. For church on a Tuesday night, the place is almost packed. She barely finds a seat with breathing room from the sea of faces around her.

‘It is only eight past seven though, maybe I’m just early.’ She thinks, trying to calm her rising nerves. What is she even doing here? It was so easy for a handsome stranger to coax her into following him to some random church, surely this was not the stellar survival instinct of someone who doesn’t get serial murdered.

The minutes tick by, and she’s about to just get up and leave, mortification starting to settle at the fact she believed he would even show up, when a familiar voice gathers all attention to the front of the room, and she freezes.

What exactly is she supposed to make of the sight before her? Black tattoos, pink hair, muscular body, covered up in black clothing, complete with the white tab collar. If the building wasn’t going to set her on fire before, it surely would now.

“Good evening, everyone. For those of you that are joining us for the first time tonight, I’m Father Ryomen.”

He’s looking out into the crowd as he speaks, eyes scanning the rows of people for her. When his eyes land on her, her breath catches in her throat, shivers running through her entire body.

‘There is no way in hell that I am horny in church right now.’ But there is a way, and his lip is currently curling up at the corner as he looks at her.

So, she sits for the next hour and a half, listening to the sound of his voice as he goes on through his sermon, not retaining anything except for how smooth his voice sounds, booming off the walls. He gives his closing words, and everyone around her begins to get up. Some filter out, most stay back to chat with him, and she decides to wait until there is no longer a line leading up to him.

The last big group of people finish up, and she’s finally had ample time to process the image before her as she makes her way toward him against the leaving crowd.

“You made it.” He says with a warm smile, and her stomach twists.

“I won’t lie, I thought you were joking still when I realized it was a church. So, a priest, huh?” He laughs with a nod.

“Forgive me, father, if I didn’t take you for the type.” Sukuna smirks down at her, and for a second, she swears there’s a mischievous glint in his eyes. It’s gone just as soon though, and she chalks it up to the lighting.

“Most people don’t, with the tattoos and all. I don’t mind, though. I use it as a way to show it is not our place to cast judgment upon others. But services are over, please, just call me Sukuna.”

“How very religious of you, Sukuna.” She hums.

“And what about you, then?”

“Honestly? I’ve never been very religious.” She shrugs, ‘but I can see why the people at this church would be’.

“And yet I talked you into coming? Surely that’s got to mean something.” He jokes as he rests a hand on her arm for a second.

“It does, if I’m not mistaken, my drink is now paid for in full.”

“Hah.” He fake laughs, and the sound makes her stomach flutter as she looks around.

“I should probably get going though, I think we’re the last two here.” She notes, seeing the fact everyone else has filtered out of the church, before looking back up at him.

“Why don’t you stay with me and lock up, I want to show you something.” Conscious of the fact she still doesn’t really know him, she raises an eyebrow at him, searching his face for any ill-intent.

“It’s nothing bad, I promise. I don’t bite, if that’s what you’re worried about.” And she doesn’t sense anything bad about him, his words seem genuine. There’s something about him though, she can’t quite place. It doesn’t set off alarm bells, but it piqued her interest, making her stomach knot in anticipation.

So, she follows him. Chatting about nothing in particular as he tidies around, and they lock up the church for the night.

“You know, I would have never in my wildest dreams, guessed priest.” He threw her a smile.

“So what did you dream about me then?” Her cheeks burn, and she busies herself with the now very interesting chip in her nail polish as she flounders for a response. But he hooks his finger under her chin, grabbing her attention.

“Hey, I’m kidding.” He says, leaning down to catch her eye, and her heart stops. She’s not sure what she’s doing as she stares back into scarlet eyes, but the air around them changes. Suddenly, it’s thick with desire, so thick she could almost choke on it. And she can feel the gap between them slowly closing- he licks his lips, eyes glancing down at her own for just a second.

“C’mon, we’re not done yet.” He says softly, before pulling away. Her head is swimming, was she just about to kiss the hot coffee shop priest inside the church, no less? But she doesn’t dwell, he’s already moving to the other end of the hall, and she’s quick to catch up.

“It’s usually one of the other two fathers and myself,” he explains as he moves through the church, checking doors and tidying up as he goes. “unfortunately they’re both out this week.”

“And that leaves poor Father Ryomen to take care of the church all by himself?” She teases, and he scoffs.

“They’re unreliable as it is. Though the current company isn’t an undesirable exchange.” He winks at her, and not for the first time tonight, she wonders why he’s called her here.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“To repay your drink from earlier.” She rolls her eyes with a smile.

“That is so not why you dragged a stranger to your church.”

“Why do you think I dragged you here then, hmm?” He whispers, eyes slipping down to her lips again before searching her face.

“And I already told you, we aren’t strangers.” As he says it, it really does feel true. She doesn’t feel out of place next to him, doesn’t feel like she shouldn’t be here, even if this is the first time she’s stepped into a church in years. She takes his shift in conversation and runs with it, not answering his previous question. The thought he’d brought her here for anything other than to listen to him preach was starting to take hold, and she’d rather not read the room wrong and tell him what she was really thinking.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been to church, I thought maybe I’d be struck down the moment I made it inside.” She laughs, stepping past the door he holds open for her into a new room.

“Have you ever done confession before?” He asks, moving to refill the holy water.

“Can’t say that I have, but I get the gist of it.”

“Enlighten me.” He’s glancing at her with a stern look on his face as he caps the bottle.

“You sit on one side, us sinners sit on the other.” and at that he cracks a smile, chuckling.

“Keep going, you’re on the right track.”

“And, they tell them to you and you forgive them on god's behalf.” He shakes his head, still smiling.

“Want to give it a go?” She looks at him with an arched brow, and this time she laughs.

“You did this on purpose didn’t you, paid for my drink to get me into a booth. I’m almost positive that falls under coercion, y’know.”

“Oh c’mon, just try it. Don’t you trust me?” And there it is again, that mischievous glint in his eyes that makes heat pool in her lower stomach. She bites her lip.

“No I trust you just fine Sukuna, I just-” But he’s placing a hand at the small of her back, leading her to the booth at the front of the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to wash you from years of sin.” He whispers as he leans down to her ear, and a shiver runs through her.

“You’re joking-”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” And he’s reaching over her to slide the curtain aside, motioning for her to sit.

“I don’t think-”

“Then don’t. Be a good girl, have a seat.” Her stomach flips at his words, and there’s that smirk again. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing to her. What could humoring him hurt? She’s moving, brushing past his reach to sit on the hard wood. He gives her a nod, closing the curtain.

“I’ll be right on the other side, then I’ll talk you through it.” 'I bet you would' and the words are flashing in her mind before she can stop them. Maybe five hours ago, before she knew he’d sworn himself to a life of celibacy and Jesus, his hands all over her had been attainable. But now? This just felt like torture- and yet here she was. Being a good girl for him, and sitting in his booth.

She chews her lip, shifting her thighs together.

“Nervous?” He asks, hearing the noise. She stops moving, shame washing over herself. Not only was she trying to relieve some of the tension between her legs in a church- Sukuna could hear it.

“Y-yeah, something like that.” She laughs, putting her hands to her face.

“You have nothing to worry about. Sinning is innately human, that’s why you come to me.” And did she really come to him? Certainly not for this, but again, here she was. When he realized she wasn’t going to speak up again, he continued.

“Let’s start off with this, just say what you can read off the little plaque there.”

“Sukuna-”

“Aht aht,’ he cuts her off “I’m Father, in the booth, little one.” Heat pools between her legs at his tone. It’s playful but firm, and she can’t help the way she’s biting her lip to not make a sound. She follows his instructions, and- this feels ridiculous, what are they doing exactly? Why is she still doing it?

“What are they?”

“I don’t,” she wracks her brain for an answer. Being here in the first place, premarital sex, lusting for a priest, lusting for said priest while in the church.. The list was long, and she wasn’t sure saying it aloud would make the dull ache she was currently feeling any better.

“Don’t be shy now.” And he says now like he knew something she didn’t, about what was really going on here.

“I’ve watched Twilight.” It’s the first thing to come to her mind that doesn’t elude to the fact she’s going home to stuff a dildo into her aching walls while she thinks about him tonight. The answer catches him off guard, and he chuckles. Turning to the wicker wall dividing them. She can’t physically see him looking at her, but she can feel his eyes on her through the divider.

“Twilight, really?” Her cheeks turn pink, and she looks right back at him.

“Look I read it was like, devil worship according to the church in some article, okay?” He shakes his head with a smile.

“The woman who I met in the coffee shop just doesn’t strike me as the type to watch vampire movies, is all.” He teases.

“Oh like you’ve never watched a single fantasy movie.” He’s quiet now, and she blinks.

“… Not a single one, ever? Isn’t lying a sin, Father?” She challenges.

“We should stick to the topic at hand, sinner.” Her jaw drops and she scoffs in disbelief.

“Okay, well, the next one is that I have tattoos.” She can just imagine the look on his face right now.

“That’s a common one.”

“I’m still surprised they let you, with the tattoos.” She notes, smoothing out her dress over her thighs.

“I can be very convincing, when I need to be.”

“What is that like code for something?”

“My charm helps, even the little old ladies got over them when I flashed a nice smile.”

“I’m sure you’re very popular with all the grandmas.” She laughed.

“Not as popular as Father Gojo, but he’s always been the type to flirt with most things that have legs, regardless of age.” And he has to keep from rolling his eyes or talking any further down on the white haired man.

“I thought flirting was like, forbidden in your religion.”

“Not necessarily forbidden. frown upon, sure, side-eyed possibly.” She could live with side-eyed, hell she could live with frowned upon too. She wasn’t the one that took an oath of never sticking her dick in someone else. But she was the one that decided she wanted a priest of all people, to stick their dick in her. That wasn’t much better for her in the long run though.

“I think that about covers all my transgressions up to this point. Hey, does it still work if I confess to something I eventually will do? I think that’s a much better way to run this whole thing.” Sukuna chuckles, she’s definitely warmed up to being here with him, he can tell in the way she speaks so freely.

“That covers everything huh? Sure you’re not missing anything?”

“Like what?”

“How about, ’I’ve been eyeing up a priest for the past month now’.”

“I- what?” Her voice catches in her throat, jaw dropping and face burning. This visit had just taken a left turn, there was no way he’d just said that.

“Go on, say it. Unless of course, I’m wrong? Just remember, lying is a sin.” She can hear the smirk in his voice, but he doesn’t stop.

“Maybe, ‘I’m so turned on I can’t even sit still’.” Her breath catches in her throat- how could he have known that.

“Or how about, ‘I’ve even made a priest question where his loyalties lie’.” Her body was hot, a fire growing in the pit of her stomach. She takes a shallow breath, mouth feeling dry. She was going to have to answer him at some point, situational whiplash or not. She might as well try to level the playing field while she was at it,

“I’ll own up to mine, but not yours.” He chuckles, and it’s deep, ringing in her ears.

“Perhaps we should switch sides of the booth then.” Listening to a hot priest tell her just how into him she was, wasn’t exactly how she’d imagined tonight going. But when she really thought about it, what other way could tonight have gone?

She heard him shifting on his side, before the curtain was being drawn back. And her handsome, well put together priest, was no longer looking quite so put together anymore.

His hair looked like he’d been running his fingers through it, shoulders moving in sync with his breathing as he gripped the side of the booth.

“Lust is a sin too- but sometimes I just can’t help myself.” She swallowed hard at his words, frozen in place as she stared up at him, red eyes burning into her.

“I can always get on my knees, ask god's forgiveness afterwards.”

“Sukuna…” And she’s watching him slowly sink to the floor before her. Even as she looks down at him, she doesn’t get the feeling that she’s the one in charge of this situation. He moves forward, caging her against the back of the booth, his face inches away.

He looks so different from what she normally sees at the coffee shop; lips twitching up in a smirk as he reaches over to caress her cheek. He certainly doesn’t look anything like a priest, let alone a respectable one. He looks devilish, like he’s been waiting for an opportunity to get her here. And she can’t say it’s not exactly where she wants to be.

He leans closer to pull her into a kiss. The first one is slow, tentative, even though they’re both so clearly worked up. Pulling back to look her in the eyes he searches them, before they both crash their lips together.

“Mmm- wait- wait!” She can barely get the words out against his mouth, pressing her hands against his chest. He pulls back, looking at her in concern that he’d over stepped.

“What about- what if someone sees us?” The concern on her face that someone would catch them doing this, and not the fact that they’re still going to, is so cute of her.

“We locked the doors, didn’t we?” He grins and lets out a breathless laugh as the realization crosses her face. The son of a bitch planned this whole thing. He dips back in to claim her lips again, hands traveling down her sides to her ass, sliding her to the edge of the seat.

“From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I knew you’d be the reason.” He’s pressing kisses along her jaw, down her neck, anywhere he can reach.

“What?” She breaths, not really hearing him as her eyelids flutter. She’s too wrapped up in the whole situation, in how soft but firm his palm feels against her face as she leans into his touch. How wrong but right it feels for him to touch her, even just like this.

“Knew I’d stumble,” His thumb traces her bottom lip, tugging it down, and she opens her mouth instinctively. He’s using the grip on her jaw to turn her face to the side, planting kisses below her ear as she shutters, whining at the feeling.

“It’s like you knew, walking into a church wearing a dress. Walking into my church, wearing that dress. Did you wear it because you caught me staring a little longer when you would?” He’s rough, pressing his lips along her neck, across her chest, sucking, biting his way further down her body.

Her head is spinning. This was wrong, wasn’t it? But the fact it was wrong only turned her on more. She’d never wanted, needed, someone to fuck her so badly before. His hands are everywhere, kneading her chest, pinching at her hardening nipples.

“I asked you a question.” Sukuna’s still pinching at her bud, and she can barely concentrate enough to whimper a ‘yes’.

“Yes what?”

“Yes… Yes… I wore it just for you.” He sucks his teeth with a grin.

"Be a good girl and keep your eyes on me, I want to see them.” He pulls away from her and slips further down, running his hands from her knees up her thighs, pushing her dress up as he does. She’s instinctively parting her legs, letting him ghost his lips up the inside of her thigh. Sukuna presses his thumb against the wet spot on her panties, looking up to see her squirming closer as he does.

“Patients is a virtue, sweetheart.” He warns as he drags the lacy fabric down, discarding it off to the side. She huffs with a pout,

He presses his thumb to her clit, rubbing slow circles as she twitches below him.

He rubs a finger through her slick folds, slowly pushing into her. It's easy, she's so wet, whining for him so needily, and he's already working a second one in.

"Eyes on me, you're going to look at me while I make you cry." She could finish right here, he was so calm yet demanding. Scissoring his fingers inside of her he moved his thumb, dropping his mouth over her clit as he sucked.

Her thighs are fighting to close against him as he slides his fingers into her, tongue moving in slow circles. It's cramped in the booth, but Sukuna still finds the space to use his arms to hold her legs open. She's biting her lip so hard as she watches him, body tense. Her grip on his hair is tight, and she doesn't know if she's trying to pull him closer or push him away as the pleasure builds in her abdomen.

Sukuna doesn't stop as he feels every part of her clench, her body rigid and she takes everything he's giving her. He's sucking as he moves his tongue just a little faster, fingers sliding in and out of her slick cunt as he curls them inside of her. Her back arches, legs shaking as her walls clamp down on his fingers, pulsing as her orgasm washes over her. She's gripping his pink hair, trying as hard as she can to keep her eyes on him as he works her through it.

He's watching her with determination, listening to her cry his name, as his cock strained in his pants. With a few more shallow pumps of his fingers he pulls out and she whines.

"Greed is a sin too, sweetheart." He says as he lifts his fingers to his mouth, licking them clean. She breathes in softly as she watches, the low grown leaving his mouth making her stomach flip.

"Taste divine, I'd keep you here for hours if I could." He moans, pressing his mouth to her glistening cunt as he lapped her clean. She cried out at the over stimulation, hands flying to his head, trying to push him away. He simply takes both her wrists in his hand, holding them at bay.

"Try to stop me again, and it'll be a long night for you in this booth." He warns, pulling back to look at her. A rush floods her body at the thought, and he's leaning up to kiss her again. She's eager to return it, lacing her fingers through the hair at his nape.

Sukuna pulls her up on shaky legs, turning them so he can sit down instead, pulling her to straddle him. He presses her down over his clothed bulge, grinding up into her as he pulls away.

"You gonna be a good girl and have a seat?" She whines, grinding right back down onto him with a nod as she runs her hands down his chest, fumbling with his belt. He rubs his hands up and down her sides as she works, whimpers of frustration falling from her lips as she works on his pants.

"Patients is still a virtue." He hums, kissing the side of her neck. She can feel how thick he is even over his pants, but she's not ready for just how thick he actually is when she works him out of his clothes. Her jaw drops with a gasp as she runs her thumb over his slit, already dripping with precum. Sukuna hisses, hand flying down to grip her own.

"I said sit." He says, gripping her hips to lift her over him.

"You're so-"

"I'll fit, don't worry." He soothes as he moves her, rubbing his head between her folds a few times before slowly pulling her down. Her hands fly to his shoulders, gripping tight as he slowly stretches her out, making room for himself as he breaks her open over him.

"Sukuna, Sukuna!" She whimpers.

"You're doing so well, look at you." He praises, brushing his thumb over her cheek. She doesn't think she can take anymore, and yet her walls are practically sucking him further in, begging for more. God no one's ever felt like this before, he filled every space inside of her.

And then the back of her thighs are flush against his own, as he slowly rocks into her.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He coos, and she shakes her head, mind already hazy from the pleasure.

"No." She whimpers, and rolls her hips with a cry.

"Fuck you're so much." She sobs, body shaking.

"Yeah? But you're going to take it." And he's pulling out, only to slam back up into her. She screams, nails digging into his arms as he holds her. He sets a steady pace, and after the first few thrusts she starts to move too, bouncing herself over him, pushing him further into her tight heat everytime their hips meet.

Sukuna pulls the top of her dress down, sucking a nipple into his mouth. All she can do is moan and grind harder down into him. Looking down between them she watches as he disappears into her, and it should be terrifying, just how much of him there is- yet she's accommodating every thick inch. And then she sees it when he pulls away from her chest- the bulge in her lower abdomen. She takes a shaken breath, and presses down on it.

“Oh my god fuck!” she whines, throwing her head back as her legs shake.

“When I’m this deep in you, the only God you should be crying for is me.” Sukuna growls, fingers digging into her sides to hold her in place as he fucked up into her. She clenched around him at his words and he grinned.

“Oh she liked that, did she?”

“Sukuna-! Fuck I’m gonna cum!” She cried, nails digging into his arms. He drank in the way she looked, jaw dropped in a silent moan, lip quivering. He wasn’t going to last much longer either, with the way her walls fluttered around him, sucking him deeper with every thrust.

“Where should I-”

“Fuck- inside, I don’t care just please-” She was shaking her head, rolling her hips into him as she babbled. Sukuna gripped her chin, forcing her attention on him.

“Say it again, like you mean it. Like you want it.”

“Please Sukuna, finish inside me. Wanna feel you inside me!” Her walls clamped down hard around him as she cried. He lifted a hand to wrap it behind her head, pulling her forehead against his own.

“There it is, take it. Be a good girl and cum for me.” He growled, watching as she came undone before him; jaw dropped in a silent moan as she pulsed around him. Sukuna fucked her through her orgasm, sending him right over the edge into his own. She whined at the feeling of him painting her insides in hot spurts, grinding further into him as they both pant.

It was quiet, aside from their breathing as they came down from the high, lustful haze being left behind. She cleared her throat, realizing they’d have to clean up the mess that was going to drip out of her.

“Well…” She started, beginning to pull back when Sukuna stopped her.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The question takes her aback as she stutters for an answer.

“I just- I thought- the mess…?” He grins lazily up at her, swiping a thumb over her bottom lip.

“Did you really think I brought you here just for one fuck?”

“Technically you brought me here over coffee.” She giggled, leaning into his palm.

“Leave your wallet at home more often then.” He demands, and she swallows hard, gasping as he bucks up into her again.

Tags: @saiki-enthusiast @alice-smutthoughts @idktbhloley @rezitio @matchat3a @mo0nforme @bleach-your-panties @fateisnotafactor @lov3ly-bunny @antishadow2021 @xo-evangeline @ackachii @tiredravenette @carpioassists @yoongislatinagff @unoriginalidea @i-likebread @squishybabei @emyyy007 @bitchykittenconnoisseur @kokushibosgirl @wishandluck @kimchi-zaks @kyriekurokami @not-brionnne @andic137 @tang3r1n @mammon-s @yuujispinkhair

#jjk #sukuna jjk #sukuna x reader #sukuna x you #ryomen sukuna smut #ryomen sukuna #sukuna smut #jjk x reader #jjk x you #priest Sukuna #priest kink #jjk smut #late night sukuna posting #sukuna hcs

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hummingbird-games · 4 months

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2023 In Review (Indie Games)

Last year's! | 2021

I apologize in advance for how long this might be. As a reminder, I don't bash games here so even if I hated something with every fiber of my being...I ain't sharing. As a second reminder, my more in depth reviews and live blogging has moved to Gem's Game Gems so I don't clutter the HBG's main blog. Okay. ON WITH THE REVIEW!!

DEMOS

Diffraction (Demo)- A rainy day otome indeed. I love the quiet gentleness of this game, the two romance options, and the fact that our MC is a photographer and struggling with her art and stack of life "failures" (because...SAME!!)

Alaris - I was asleep and now I am awake: I came late for the advertised fae and dragon lore, stayed seated and waiting for Fenir zjgjdf. Oh, and I guess the mystery surrounding our MC's abilities LOL.

The Summit Library - When I say I was maaaaaad when I realized I blew through chapter 1 and would have to go back to waiting for more content??? LOL, I was very miffed. Anyhoo, check out this title for the gorgeous art, another intriguing mystery (like what is *up* with the magic in the poor library?? who or what is to blame?? 👀) and of course the lovely characters we've been introduced to thus far.

Of Sense and Soul - I'm a regency romance girl. Like after you strip away the other stuff, I am but a poor woman with simple needs: a good ass love story 🤧💛 It's about the yearning and the slow burn and the will they/won't they/PLEASEEE they...I've never been so charmed by a demo, and the full game is going to be amazing I just know it!

Made Marion - This project is a game I've been keeping tabs on for a hot minute but hadn't taken the time to sit and properly enjoy the demo. I'M SO GLAD I DID!!! It's in early access now, so I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to carve out some time to play, but guysss Velvet Cupcake is doing the Thing?!? No idea which love interest I'll go for first, but I had a fun time meeting the Nottingham peeps in the demo.

Herotome (Super Demo) - Oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh oh my GOSHHH. Where do I even began?? (Really the question is where the hell do I end because this is one of those projects I talk about a lot/think about a lot and surprisingly haven't run out of things to say zkjfksjd). Another game I've been following for a while, it 100% lives up to the superhero genre in its aesthetic, the characters you interact with, the music and sound design, and of course the slowly unfurling story. Jade and Mia had come out as my top faves, Warden is still there, like hovering in the backgroud, shhhh but I have a special place in my heart for Griffin too (that conversation we have with her?? I have so many screenshots just so I can go back and reread and sear the words in my brain. Like a weirdo. Yup.)

Celestial Crowns - Stats building, celestial royalty, dating sim where you fuck around and find out your choices directly affect your MC's personality?? I'm sat. I supported the Kickstarter and now I try to practice patience for the full game's release siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighh.

OTOME/JOSEI JAM

Please note this is a SUPER abridged list for my sanity and I fell a little more in love with these 2 jams with each entry I played...

Intertwine - As embarrassing as it sounds, I've never given much thought to the "red string" thing, and I consume more than enough romance media LOL!! But Van is suuuuuch a beautiful man, the UI for this game is so interactive and lovely, the music is ALSO lovely, just lovely-love all the way around teehee. (Also this game encourages replayabillity so like, do with that info what you will.)

Spring Boy [Demo] - I believe this game is going through a complete rehaul, so my thoughts and feelings refer to the original jam entry I played. The art is bright and cute and it's a super super short demo, but I was intrigued by the other student we meet on our mission to plead with our professor about our bombed exam lol!

Assignment Due: Project Blue - IRl group projects??? Suck absolute ass. Group projects with a guy name Asher?? Suddenly it's my new favorite thing in the world 😁

Cryptid Campaign Manager [DEMO] - Remember the last time I looked over a cryptid dating sim??? Remember how I was SUCH a fool?? Good thing I didn't make that mistake again!! The prologue is such a tease but you get an idea of what the full game is gonna be like, and I'm excited to see where my career involving love (and politics) goes!

Heart Cage [Demo] - Yoooooo I stay my ass far far far away from yanderes (could never get into the trope or the character type). WELP. Guess I just needed to keep searching because I really downloaded this off a whim--well, the whim being one of my fellow dev peers playing and rating-- and proceeded to get sucked in 🤧I thought being a detective would be the highlight, but I guuuueeesssss I was more into the romance options than I thought. Oops.

Evernight - I tried to explain what this game meant to me on the side blog, but words failed me. I still don't know what to say other than I loved it?? Which is like ummm I say I love everything, and yeah I'm easy to please BUT Y'ALLLLLL if you play no other game, play this one. Please. Date a werewolf. Or a vampire. Or a fae. Plz. Also figuring out the mystery of your MC's abilities and past is just delightful, ugh.

Bright Oak (demo) - Anotha one I wrote about on the side blog!!! Play this one!!! The writing is lush and atmospheric and the characters are all delightful and it's another game with a mystery to untangle!

The Faithfulness of the Universe- This one gets the award for most unique all around entry that I played. Theeeeee prettiest pixel art to bless my eyeballs, and this tasty mystery concerning Fate and witch Faustina's future (or lack thereof 👀) and what it all means. As a player I very much want to know what it all means!

A Cup For All Seasons - Another game that needs its flowers y'all. It's short but super healing and super cozy and the voice acting and music really tie the gaming experience together???

The Working Woman's Guide to Burning Bridges - DEMO - It's the way I played the demo twice and I've been thinking about it ever since 😭😭😭🙃 obviously life happens and things come up, plus this was a demo. But. BUT!!! I am on my hands and knees prayinnggg the team gets together again to finish the game. I love playing as a stressed, lowkey bitter hot mess who doesn't have her life together 😂somehow the fictional version is soooo much more entertaining!!!

Keyframes (Spring Demo) - After the game College Craze, this is legit THE college, slice of life visual novel of my dreams. I cannot wait for the updated demo next year, and the Kickstarter whenever that rolls around. And now that the developer is on Tumblr, I've definitely been stalking the account and reading each new post like it's my day/night/weekend job 🤧

Hello Counsel 💋 - Okay I take it back, Evernight is like a 20/10 but Hello Counsel is like an 100/10 👁️👄👁️ This game is necessary for my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health, alright? The banter ✅ the character designs ✅ the music ✅ the sizzling chemistry between Poise and Salem ✅ I wish this game had more buzz because IT'S SO GOOD!!! (also the dev, Miseri, is who I wanna be when I grow up. I've made it through almost their whole backlog of games and there are no misses and EVERY game is different from the rest and it makes it hard for a toodler dev--ME--to cope LOL)

Candied Hearts - Isekaied into a candy themed game?? Sign me TF UP!!! (Peppermint I love you dearly, you must understand.)

Fully Released & Played (at least 1 playthrough)

The Knight's Dilemma - I don't even know how I originally stumbled upon this??? I just know it had been in my backlog for a hot minute and I was intrigued enough to save it way back when. Y'ALL WHY DIDN'T I PLAY SOONER SKJFHFJFH! There's a couple different endings, I loved the voice direction, AND it's such a simple concept of a game that was just executed beautifully.

Trouble Comes Twice - If I had to make a top 5 list of romance VNs, guess who makes the list?? Guess. Guess guess guess. Have you guessed yet??? LOL! I have been in love with TCT since it's development days and with each passing month, waiting in anticipation, playing the Pateron beta builds, screaming on the main blog about every single thought I had about Jace and Hazel (shoutout to Jace for helping me figure out *me*) Lol if you're curious about said thoughts, those posts are on this blog and not the side blog.

Aelfric the Wondrous - 10/10 would love to forget my first play through JUST to have that experience fresh again 😭😭💛Cute and funny and a wonderful parody type game all around.

A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986 - Goodness, there's no excuse for why this took me years to finish but anyhoo, I finished, I loved it, I recommend it! It's romantic and achingly authentic and the art is soooo gorgeous I literally can't stand it 😭

The Things You Do For Love - Unhinged yandere manages to entertain and garner sympathy and laughter from Gemini. And that poly ending is chef's kiss too????

Band Camp Boyfriend - There are a handful of games I found and loved before I began my game development journey, and this is one of them. BCB is so dear to me, because of the story and characters but also because of the Dynamic Duo creators and their team behind the scenes. I was never a band kid I was a chorus kid but just as the band geeks loved this game to pieces, us normal folks do too!! Even the boys who I didn't like I STILL managed to find joy in playing their routes (still have a few more to finish at the time of this posting lol, GOTTA GET THE FINAL ROUTE YO). Anyway, this game more than delivered for me and I hope more people keep discovering it!!

Belle Automata: Chronicle I [RELEASED] - While only Chronicle 1 is out at the time of this posting, I already know that the 2nd and 3rd parts are going to be just as amazing???? I wrote about this one on the side blog, so here's my copypaste that still rings true:

I love TNP (The Nightmare Prince) but Victor’s route hit the sweet spot for me. Maybe it’s the slow(er) burn nature of this route, maybe it’s the reserved nature of Victor and watching him slowly start to care (AND NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE FEELINGS TEEHEE) for me.

A Date with Death - I wrote about this on the side blog--again--. The demo. And then right after finishing a route. And then again where I was fully awake and still managed to sound deranged. No copypaste for that, I shall be nice. But yeah!! Another game where I was screaming at the sky about how much I love it and how I'll never know peace as long as I live.

Our Life: Baxter DLC - I need to offer an official apology to both Cove and Derek because falling head over heels, down the stairs, crashing into the parking lot, falling again but down a manhole for Baxter's infuriating ass was NOT on my 2023 bingo board??? HELLO???? I bought his DLC just to complete my OL collection. Was not expecting to love it this much. Was not expecting to be called to write fanfic and abandon all responsibilities to do this. WHILE DOWN WITH COVID TOO. Allow me to play the song of my people. *Send in the Clowns plays*

Our Cinderella - (this is so funny I'm taking about a side game before the main game LOLOLOLOL) Guys. Guysss. You guyyyysss 🥹if you're looking for a cozy, hilarious, equally oddly and wonderfully sweet short game, this is the one!! You may have your personal favorite Iggy ship (like me) but all the pairings are so amazing and just make sense lol!

Wylde Flowers - This is the only non visual novel game on here but it gets the spotlight because I did NOT spend 90+ hours on this game to gatekeep this beauty. No. It the coziest, the funniest, the funnest, the most addictive Switch game (after Teacup) I've ever played.

Fully Released (& still on 1st playthrough)

Garden of Seif: Chronicles of an Assassin - Life kicked my butt and then sat on me SO while I finally got my grubby hands on the full copy, I still have only played the entirety of the demo. But. We will return to this in 2024 and hopefully I'll have a full review for the next wrap up!

Our Wonderland - I looked back at the side blog and I can't believe it was only THIS year that I started OW??? Because I'd known of the game and the dev for longer than that??? So basically what I'm saying is that I was chicken shit for longer than I've been in love with this world that Developer Carrot has created kjzhhshggj. But OMG to get me, who is scared oh so easily to get hella invested in this clearly labeled horror game??????????????? And even with shit gets super absurd and hella disturbing, I cannot stop playing. At the time of this post, I'm only in Act 4, hence the category above, but it's only because I play each act in a sitting and lose track of space and time and myself. That's a compliment btw.

...

Okie!! That's 2023 in a nutshell! I played a looooot of really good games this year and while I would have liked to talk about them all, I think this list provides a nice overview.

Let me know if we share any favorites!

- Gemini 💛

#gaming year in review #gamedev rambles #yeah no I cannot keep creating more work for me #2024 I am GOING to make a shorter list 😭🤧#hmmmm fun drinking game:#take a shot every time the word 'mystery' is used ☠️

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hazbin-but-good · 27 days

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another hazbin hotel rewrite/redesign?

yup! and i'm so serious about it that i made a whole blog for it. i'm a white queer ex-cath tran doing this as an art and writing exercise, so feedback from other creatives + jewish and/or racialized folks is especially welcome.

i'm putting this post and only this post in the main tags for visibility. also, not gonna link my main, but i do make my own original stuff, and i encourage fans and haters alike to do the same.

anyway, here's a mostly good-faith 1.7k-word essay on the original. i think it's pretty funny and brings up some less talked-about points. correct me on the facts, disagree with my opinions, and ask clarifying questions, but don't come at me with any piss-poor reading comprehension.

the hellaverse is garbage, and here's why

cw: strong language, stronger opinions, intersectional feminist critical discourse analysis

1. vivienne medrano, the person

medrano was born as a well-off white-passing latina (salvadoran-american) in bougieass frederick, maryland. while attending new york's top art school, she got popular on deviantart-tumblr-twitter by being a prolific multifandom fujoshi furry who's more into ornamental character design than storytelling. upon graduation, she leveraged her fanbase and industry connections to make the hazbin and helluva boss pilots, get helluva made for youtube, and get hazbin made for amazon prime.

like every woman online, she gets harassed for no good reason, and as a certified autist, i will defend her right to be dumb, weird, annoying, and bad with words. however, there are legit reasons to criticize her:

racism, misogyny, homophobia, fatphobia, some antisemitism, past transphobia, past ableism

shitty boss, bad friend

cowardly, vindictive, manipulative, thoughtless behavior

skeevy friends

sucks at taking criticism

in short, i think she desperately needs a PR person and someone to clean up her digital footprint.

2. medrano's art

incurious

inauthentic

noncommittal

creatively stagnant

overindulgent, and the indulgence isn't even fun

shallow and childish framed as complex and mature

bland and boring framed as shocking and subversive

to be clear, i'm at peace with the existence of suckass art like this; i just think the money, attention, and praise it gets are unearned and should go to more interesting works, of which there are infinite.

medrano's had the time, money, and social cache to grow as an artist, learn from the best, and take creative risks, but she hasn't. if she truly has nothing more to offer, she should let her collaborators take the wheel, but she doesn't do that either. instead, she keeps getting more and more resources to make the same baby bullshit, and that pisses me off. she could be the nicest person ever, and this fundamental arrogance would still make her art blow.

stop with the pointless guilt: liking medrano's work does not make you stupid or evil. however, if you stay in the kiddie pool of culture, if you refuse to engage with a diversity of art, if the hellaverse is your point of reference for anything media-related, you can't expect to have your opinions on art, media, or culture taken seriously. you have not earned a seat at the table. you gotta hit the books first.

i cannot emphasize enough how much incredible stuff is out there if you're willing to look further than what social media and streaming services put right in front of you. if you come away from this blog having learned about just one new artist or piece of art, i'll be a happy camper.

3. the hellaverse

a. empty and confused

hazbin and helluva's content and marketing has no clear target audience. the subjects are inappropiate for teens, but the execution is too childish for adults, and lemme tell you what i don't mean by that, first.

not inherently inappropriate for teens:

sex and sexuality

violence, including when it intersects with the above

politics and religion

not inherently childish:

animation (any style)

comedy

episodic writing and/or loose continuity

young characters

fun, happiness, optimism, the power of friendship, cuteness, tenderness, sincerity, etc.

what i mean is that these shows are literally about adult characters who fuck, smoke, drink, do drugs, go clubbing, work full-time, manage their own finances, and deal with stuff like bureaucracy, sexual violence, domestic abuse, marriage, divorce, late adoption, and family estrangement.

however, none of these "adult" things are given enough specificity to create drama or comedy. it's all too stock, vague, flat, weirdly sanitized, and thus utterly banal—pure aesthetics on top of bad saturday morning cartoons. it's exactly what i'd expect from a sheltered disney kid who needs to log off and get into their local gay scene ASAP so their only contact with things like poverty, policing, addiction, and sex work stops being facile movies and TV.

if the shows were aware of this and played with it, that could be amazing, but they're not. they give you the mickey mouse version of the world with a straight face and then play looney tunes sound effects to try to make you laugh and sad_violin.mp3 to try to make you cry. now that's funny.

b. old and tired

let's make like americans and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist. even within the confines of the USA, home of the hays code, the red scare, and reaganite propaganda, this neopuritan fascist state ruled by 1000 megachurches in a trenchcoat, the indie/underground animation scene has been doing crazier shit for decades. anti-war films in the 60's, bakshi movies in the 70's, the simpsons shorts and r-rated movies in the 80's, adult swim and MTV in the 90's, flash/newgrounds/youtube in the 00's, streaming in the 2010's—so what are we doing in the 2020's with this wet white rice drowned in expired ketchup? i feel crazy making this point because it's obvious if you've watched these things, but if you haven't, you're gonna be like "well, there's gotta be something new here". no! there isn't! in the words of jimmy "the scot" jordan, nothing, nothing, NOTHING!

c. ideological purgatory

actually, there is one thing in these shows i've never seen before: the presbysterianism. shout out some interesting or at least intentional presbysterian art in the comments, because the way these ideas are presented here is not compelling. it just makes the rainbow neoliberalism even more confusing and contradictory.

i guess the big presbysterian things are protestanism, calvinism, and, uh, big church government? presbysterians, get your shit together. get your brand down. catholics have BDSM and vampires, evangelicals have TV and corporatism; what do you have? celtic crosses? no wonder medrano has such uninspired ideas on divinity.

d. queer deficiency

when i look at a piece of art, i ask myself: "what does this give me that i can't get from the hunchback of notre dame (1996)?" if the answer is as limp as "uhh, gay people, i guess", i can probably look for my gay shit elsewhere and rewatch the hunchback of notre dame (1996) in the meantime.

but let's say that you have no standards. you've been waiting for ages for a show about gays by the gays for the gays, and by god you're gonna get it. this is it! here we go! time for some

generic twink obliteration

male sexuality as aggression and dominance displays

WLW (sex and chemistry not included)

a couple straight femdoms

and the stalest sex jokes known to man

...yeah, it's not very queer. and by "queer", i mean "questioning or subverting gender norms (including sexual roles) within a given cultural context regardless of creator identity and intent". i'm not a queer studies scholar so LMK if there's a more specific term for this, but whatever you call it, it's not in the hellaverse much.

there's not even any transness, literal or metaphorical, just ancient drag jokes. i guess the writers thought we would've been too controversial. so much for an indie animation studio that prides itself in the diversity of its staff both above and below the line, bakshi-style. i wonder how medrano, a bisexual woman, would've felt if told that a lesbian main couple in hazbin would be "too controversial".

4. spindlehorse and the vivziepop brand

spindlehorse toons underpays its overworked staff and keeps outsourcing more and more labor to even more overworked freelancers overseas to cut costs. a rainbow sweatshop is still a sweatshop, and just because these practices may be "industry standard" doesn't make them any more ethical.

the studio has also been repeatedly accused by current and former employees and contractors of creating a hostile and abusive workplace. AFAIK, it still has no dedicated HR person, and victims are too afraid of retaliation like blacklisting and online harassment to speak out.

this is exactly the stuff that unions exist to prevent. as i'm writing this, the IATSE (the parent union of TAG, which is the parent union of all US animation unions) is negotiating with entertainment industry executives for better working conditions, and if the execs fuck around like last year, it's strike time again. so watch this space, voice your support, and don't cross any picket lines.

i hope spindlehorse unionizes, but until then and for these reasons, i don't think you should give money to the company.

first of all, all content on amazon-owned platforms is ok to pirate, and all youtube ads are ok to block. everyone involved in making the episodes has (or should have) been paid upfront, so you're not taking the bread out of anyone's mouth.

next, let's look at the succulent offerings of the official vivziepop merch shop:

$10 pins and keychains

$15 sticker packs

$20 mugs and acrylic cutouts

$25 shirts

$30 metal cards (not even tarot)

$40 lounge pants

$50 mini backpacks

random $80 skateboard deck

forgive my latin americanness, but this is all stuff you can get made by a local metalsmith, print/sublimation shop, or just crafty people in your life. it's cheaper, customizable, and better for the environment to skip all the shipping and packaging. also, not painting your own skateboard is poser shit.

the hazbin website also has $15 pins, one $20 keychain, and $6 trading card packs. people are weird about trading cards, so if for some reason you wanna gamble for a mass-produced bit of cardboard, plastic, and tinfoil, at least bulk-order for all the vivziepoppers in your area so it's less of a huge waste. better yet, trace the designs and make infinite bootlegs.

at the end of the day, buying merch is not activism. your bulk order of trading cards will not save any wage slaves from getting evicted from their overpriced studio apartments. however, the shop links you to all the credited artists/designers, and more of your bucks will actually reach them if you buy their designs directly, then turn them into body pillows or life-sized bronze statues or whatever the fuck.

go through the credits of any episode of helluva or hazbin, and you'll find even more creatives you might wanna support. get jinkx monsoon's albums on CD. subscribe to actually good artist, animator, and composer gooseworx. lots of voice actors now have patreon, cameo, or self-hosted pages where you can write better lines for their characters and have them read it. these things may not look as shiny as Official Merch™, but we all need less plastic shit and more culture anyway.

#spindlehorse #vivziepop #hellaverse #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #spindlehorse critical #vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel critical #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel rewrite #hazbin hotel redesign #helluva boss redesign #communism #degrowth

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andreabandrea · 4 months

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The AndreaBandrea UTY post

I need some place to put my Undertale Yellow (UTY for short) thoughts & criticism, and this is my blog, so I might as well put them here. If you don't want to see constructive criticism about Undertale Yellow, don't click below the readmore!

Pretty much everyone I talk to really likes this game, and honestly, I'm really sad that I don't like it more. I like some parts of it quite a bit! But I have mixed feelings about other parts-- I think the writing and characterization could have been a little more impactful than they were, and I’ll be discussing that here. I don’t want to just rag on this game without expressing suggestions and parts that I do like in more detail, so those will be covered as well.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't have negative feelings towards the development team or fans of this game in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for the creators of Undertale Yellow. This project was obviously a massive undertaking with a lot of love behind it, and I'm glad to see that it's found success and a community of people who do enjoy it.

The reason I’m writing this post is that, again, I liked parts of this game and wish I enjoyed it more. If I didn’t like it at all, I just wouldn’t engage with it at all anymore. I also haven’t really seen any other people expressing constructive criticism on the game’s writing, so it’s felt more important for me to express these thoughts, be heard, and see if others feel the same way.

The Good

I'll start off with the things I like. The art, the animation, and the music are all fantastic. I was very impressed by the battle backgrounds and the little touches, like the way Clover runs. Clover doing things like reaching for other’s hands, giving fistbumps, drawing their weapon, changing their expression at times-- they feel very dynamic and fun to play as.

The music is really catchy and fun. I love the iterations on the battle theme-- Snowdin’s battle theme having bells, for example.

I also had fun with most of the fights in the game! I liked the unique mechanics that came into play (e.g. the lasso in North Star's battle). I think that changing the way Clover attacks compared to Frisk feels organic and fun.

I also love the mail system. Ever since you could deliver and receive letters in Paper Mario 64, I’ve been hooked on mail as a storytelling system in video games. I think the letters you receive are interesting and clever, and it’s a great way to keep past characters relevant in lieu of a cell phone.

I’m going to be discussing criticism of the characters later, so I’m going to take a moment to talk a little about things I liked about them. I really like Martlet’s optimism and belief in humans. Starlo made me laugh quite a few times and the Feisty Five have a great dynamic with each other. A lot of the background characters in the game are fun-- I like the one who serves you at the Honeydew Resort. The fact that you can go back to these vendors later on and get four new topics to talk about is fantastic and makes the world feel a lot more alive.

The Slightly Less-Good (and more disclaimers)

The writing is where the game falls short for me-- and it’s sad for me, because the writing is the heart of Undertale. I don’t think that the writing is bad by any means! I like the characters and story well enough, but- again- I just wish that I liked them more. I’ll try to incorporate suggestions so this isn’t just a total downer post without anything backing it up.

I want to express something about the ‘suggestions’ that I’ll be offering after the criticism. I know that Undertale Yellow is now out, and the team isn’t going to go back and change it now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to make it sound as if the team should change Undertale Yellow just because I have some reservations about it. I’m just one fan out of many. In the very off chance that a member of the Undertale Yellow development team is reading this--

First of all, hi!

Second of all, I know that changing major parts of Undertale Yellow at this point is very unrealistic, and I wouldn’t want you to. If anything, I’m honored you’re reading my ramblings at all. I’d be touched if you’d be willing to take some of my words to heart as you move onto your next creative projects.

The reason I’m including suggestions, therefore, isn’t because I think that the team should or must make these changes, but because I don’t want to just sound excessively negative about this game without offering a little feedback.

I don’t presume that my criticism and suggestions are objectively correct or better than what the Undertale Yellow team created. This is my personal blog, and these are my personal rambly thoughts about Undertale Yellow. The reason I’m including so many disclaimers is because I’ve gotten into discourse before due to poorly thought-out posts about Undertale, and I hope to avoid that this time. I don’t want to just not post something on my own blog, though, because I’m afraid it could be misconstrued or possibly upset somebody. So, I’m trying to discuss this as carefully as I can.

As one final disclaimer, I'll say that I know that it was more likely than not that I'd be at least a little disappointed by Undertale Yellow. The original Undertale was a very important game for me, and very little could reach that standard. (I think this is one reason why Toby decided to do Deltarune, a sort of AU/spinoff rather than a full-on "Undertale 2", and I respect that decision.)

I also think that quite a bit of my criticism is subjective-- several of the characters didn't fully click with me and several of the jokes just didn't land for me, personally. More people than you might think just didn’t connect with the regular Undertale, either. I’ll be talking a little about my subjective opinion on characters, but I’ll try to explain why I feel the way I do rather than just say, “XYZ character sucks because they’re lame, moving on.”

With that said, the post. I’ll be addressing my criticisms from smallest to largest. To begin, I’ll recap the plot of UTY to better analyze aspects that I do and don’t quite like. Spoilers abound.

Undertale Yellow Plot Recap!!!!

The central story of UTY, to my memory and understanding, is as follows:

In the past, a fallen human being went on a rampage in Snowdin and hurt Kanako, the daughter of Chujin, a former royal scientist and monster who happens to be a boss monster. Dalv, an unrelated monster, was also hurt in this incident and sealed himself away in the Ruins in a self-imposed isolation. Chujin’s family (presumably him or Kanako, but not Ceroba, as she doesn’t recognize Dalv) felt bad about this and left him corn from Starlo’s farm as a gift. But, when Chujin died, the corn gifts stopped coming.

Stepping back a bit, after the incident, Chujin developed a deep hatred for humanity. He invented a security robot called Axis and told it to go kill the human. Axis did this (and we will return to this later). Chujin kept the soul (at least, for a time) to experiment on.

At some point in this, Axis failed to impress Asgore and Chujin was fired as the royal scientist. At some point as well, he began to teach Martlet how to build puzzles. Martlet got a job in the royal guard and Chujin disapproved because humans are very dangerous.

Due to experimenting on his own boss monster soul in an attempt to find a way to turn regular monsters into boss monsters so that monsterkind could potentially stand up to the threat of humanity, Chujin wound up very ill and then passed away. He left video tapes to his wife, Ceroba, asking her to finish his research. However, he asked her to leave Kanako out of this so she could live a normal life.

Ceroba agreed to finish this research, but Kanako found out about it and asked to be experimented on because she, like her father, has the power of a boss monster. Ceroba agreed to experiment on her, which injured Kanako and caused her to ‘fall down’. Ceroba sent the near-death Kanako to Dr. Alphys, the new royal scientist, who was collecting ‘fallen down’ monsters for her own experiments with determination.

Plot summary over. I’ll take a closer look at some of these aspects going forward.

UTY Plot Criticism

I don’t feel like this is a bad story, necessarily. With that said, it doesn’t feel quite as tied together as Undertale’s story does, and I think certain aspects don’t land.

First, I feel that the majority of the plot elements about Chujin & Kanako get dumped on you at the last minute. You might be thinking that the story about Chara & Asriel is also dumped on you at the last minute-- and to an extent, this is true. You do get a massive amount of information regarding their story near the end of the game, in the True Lab.

However, Chara & Asriel's story is a massive part of the narrative from the very beginning. You meet 'Asriel' (Flowey) in the very beginning of the game. Toriel is in the Ruins due to the fallout of Chara & Asriel's deaths. Asgore and the monsters are trying to kill Frisk and steal their soul because of this, and the royal guard has taken it up as their mission. Sans is aware of an anomaly that will end everything (implied to be the player), and he would have 'killed Frisk where they stand' had he not made a promise to Toriel. And so on.

I’ll be reviewing criticism of the game’s plot in sections themed around each major character. I will be discussing suggestions about each character in their respective section here, as I discuss things I didn’t quite like about each character, my suggestions are intrinsically tied to why I didn’t quite like them.

Dalv

The connections between characters and the Chujin & Kanako plot feel a bit tenuous to me. Similarly to Toriel, Dalv is in a self-imposed isolation in the Ruins due to a major incident in his past. He fears humans due to the attack he suffered in Snowdin, and he suffers loneliness after losing his friend (who left him corn). When he sees Clover, he wonders if this is “some sort of haunting” (implying he knows that the human who attacked him was killed).

In the pacifist route, Clover can prove to Dalv that not all humans are evil and Dalv can move out and learn how to trust people again. This becomes a recurring theme-- Clover, pure of heart, proving to monsters that humanity isn’t that bad after all.

However, Dalv then disappears from the story. His motivation is to basically be left alone, but once you prove to him that humanity isn’t so bad, his role in the story is essentially complete.

I feel that, by comparison, Toriel’s motivation is more active-- to protect humans who fall down from Asgore. It’s this motivation that drives her to return at the end of the true pacifist route and ultimately make the true ending of Undertale possible.

Dalv’s passiveness makes him a weaker character to me. Now that you’ve proven that you’re his friend and humanity isn’t so bad, I would have liked to have seen him take an active motivation to protect his friend or help them in some way. We don’t have to copy Undertale beat for beat and have him dramatically save Clover from Asgore or anything, but it would have been nice to see him vouch for Clover in some way at some point.

Now, for the final time, I know that UTY is released and major changes aren’t likely. Some of my suggestions are “I would have liked to see this, but this change would require redoing the entire game,” which I don’t think should or could be done at this stage. This is just daydreaming and- if I’m praising myself highly- potential considerations for the devs’ future works (and the works of any other creatives who are reading this).

With this proposed major change to Dalv’s character out of the way, I’ll suggest instead the most minimal possible change that I would like to see, so my suggestions don’t feel entirely like just daydreaming.

I really like how Dalv sends Clover a letter about his moving out to Snowdin. This is active of him in terms of motivation-- Clover is his friend and he wants to keep in touch with his friend. I’d be absolutely thrilled to see a little bit of extra dialogue for him in an update. After you go back to Snowdin and see him, I think the dialogue he already has is totally fine! But, I’d be really happy if he’d take initiative and tell Clover a little more about his experience with the past human, or invite them to rely on him, too.

Martlet

Martlet felt… a bit restrained in terms of her writing, to me. I think that one aspect of Undertale’s writing is that it’s not afraid to go over the top. Papyrus isn’t just silly, he wears a costume every day and cartoon eyes pop out of his head when he’s surprised. Undyne isn’t just determined, she aspires to be a badass anime heroine. I like Martlet just fine, but she never had a moment where she really stood out to me in this way.

Martlet’s defining traits are that she likes puzzles, she loves reading and abiding by the rules of the royal guard, and she believes in humanity and wants to help Clover. As I said before, I really like this optimism and belief. I’d like to see more of it.

Near the end of the true pacifist route, Martlet says that she was taught in the royal guard that humans are scary, but Clover proved to her that humans are kind. This felt very abrupt to me at the time-- we know that Chujin disapproved of her joining the royal guard due to his own trauma, but Martlet had no personal involvement in the last human’s violent actions.

Martlet doesn’t seem to have any reason to dislike humans more than any other monster. We learn in her diary that she essentially joined the royal guard out of a desire to help people and build puzzles, and also because she needed a job.

If she’s just supposed to be a representative of the average monster and their feelings toward humanity, and her growing to like Clover is meant to represent how all of monsterkind could grow to like humankind, that would be one thing-- but I think that she specifically is meant to represent a person who wholeheartedly believes that humans can be good and that humans and monsters can live in harmony. In the no mercy route, she repeatedly pleads to Clover to do better, that they don’t have to act this way, that she wants to help them. That’s not the response of the average monster, who fights Clover or tries to flee from them.

I believe the intention is that Chujin & Martlet represent either end of an ideology axis (no pun intended). Chujin believes all humans are evil no matter what, but Martlet believes that humans can choose to be good. But why does she choose to believe in humans other than a sense of personal optimism?

I would have liked to have seen some defining event that made Martlet choose to believe in the goodness of humanity. I would have liked to have her being kind and optimistic to a fault be more of a defining trait-- to have that go over the top in an Undertale-style way. A lot of her interactions with other characters just personally weren’t very memorable to me.

Martlet spends a lot of the game sidelined. She loses you in the Mines. She gets thrown in jail in the Wild East. She has to go back to Snowdin once you're freed. Yes, she's there for you in the true pacifist route, but she's otherwise pretty absent through the neutral/true pacifist routes.

I recognize that the main characters in Undertale can be absent after you leave their respective sections of the game. However, you're able to call Papyrus & Undyne as much as you want, and you get a major hang-out (or “date”) with each of them and Alphys which gives time to expand on their backstory and character arc. Martlet doesn't get that. We even get a little bit of time to hang out with Dalv after we become his friend, but Martlet shoves us on a boat and hurries us to the next area as soon as we beat her. And sure, we get to talk to her on the boat, but it’s just a bit of silly dialogue-- it doesn’t really expand on her character. It feels like a missed opportunity.

So, yes, my major suggestion on her would be to zoom in more on her belief in you and let her be a liiiiitle sillier and more over the top, and give more opportunity for Clover to hang out with her.

At this stage, however? In this proposed minor ‘dialogue update’, I’d be really excited to see a little something more from her. Maybe a letter? She does send you one, but only in the neutral route to tell you to meet her on top of the apartments. It would be a good opportunity to either let her be silly or explain a bit about when she came to want to believe in humans-- or both, ideally.

Starlo

I honestly have very little to say on Starlo. He seems to be the fan favorite, and I did find his section fun! Ultimately, though, he's just kind of… there? I mean, he's on the periphery of Ceroba's (and Chujin and Kanako’s) story because he's her childhood friend (and his family grew the corn that Chujin gives to Dalv), and yes, he later on reminds her that she can still choose to be a better person because he also almost killed Clover! However, every monster in the game almost killed Clover.

There’s nothing wrong with having a silly character who wears a costume and isn’t a major player in the plot. I feel like Starlo is similar to Papyrus in this way. But Papyrus isn’t just a goofball, he’s the monster in Undertale who believes unerringly in Frisk & the player’s ability to do better because he firmly believes that you can make anything happen if you just try. This belief helps elevate Papyrus from comic relief to an actual rounded character.

I don’t feel like Starlo has any sort of strong conviction like that. We do learn that he wants to bring hope to the Underground by roleplaying as a sheriff in the Wild East town, giving them a slice of (supposed) surface life. I think this is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more of it. In the no mercy route, he does bravely stand against you because he’s a sheriff and it’s his job to bring justice to murderers like Clover.

My expectation when I first met him, a fellow cowboy (gender-neutral), was that he’d have his own ideas about justice. I expected that he would clash with Clover about these ideals, and neither of them would be quite right or wrong-- and this would prove that justice can’t be measured mathematically, and one outcome can’t be applied to all situations.

But, he’s not at all bad the way he is. He has a lot of fans, after all. The minor change I’d suggest now that the game is out is that I’d be interested in learning why the cowboy aesthetic specifically appealed to him. Maybe a diary in his room explaining that Westerns are the epitome of ‘justice’ to him? I’d like to see a peek into the motivation that transformed an ordinary farm boy into someone who could bravely stand against a murderous human.

Ceroba

I’ll be honest. I want to like Ceroba, but I don’t.

I understand that there's an attempt to mirror Asgore in that the war against humanity, in general, has taken Ceroba's partner and her child from her-- and ultimately, Clover forgives her and helps her learn how to move on. It's about letting go, just like Undertale. I get that. But Ceroba’s story doesn't land for me, personally. In order to talk about Ceroba, I need to talk about her husband, Chujin, because Ceroba spends so much of the story acting out Chujin's will.

Whereas monsters in Undertale do attempt to kill Frisk and steal their soul, and Asgore has killed other children before, it's framed in a very 'video game' violence sort of way (again, Undertale has these meta elements). Ultimately, in the True Pacifist route, none of Frisk's deaths have stuck, and Asgore's actions- while reprehensible- allowed for Asriel to break the barrier once and for all.

Chujin, in the video tapes he leaves for Ceroba, implies that Axis’s murder of the human- presumably a child, like Clover and Frisk- was very violent and bloody. It feels a tiny step beyond the 'video game violence' aspect, for me. While it’s shown that Chujin regrets this, it still doesn’t change the way that this violence is expressed in the game.

Instead of giving the human’s soul right to Asgore to bring monsterkind closer to freedom, Chujin- who has already been fired by Asgore, I should add- chooses to keep the soul and experiment with it.

This is very selfish, even though he has good intentions. He’s told nobody else about his experiments with his soul at this point- not even his wife- and Asgore has told him to cease all activities as the royal scientist.

While monsters do want Frisk's soul for their own selfish reasons, they notably do not butcher them violently, succeed in this, and still try to get painted with the same quirky and fun brush that the other characters get.

After Chujin dies, he leaves detailed instructions for his wife to continue his work-- and although he says "don't involve Kanako", he leaves her all the tools she would need to experiment on Kanako, and notably, no other way to finish his work except to experiment on Kanako.

As I said, Kanako finds out about this and asks to be experimented on. And while she does give consent, she is a child. I cannot stress this enough-- she is a child who just lost her father and is still wracked by grief. Kanako is a child who cannot possibly know what she is consenting to.

Ceroba chooses to experiment on Kanako and more or less kills her. And then she chooses to send her 'fallen down' daughter to Alphys's experiment, despite the fact that Kanako presumably has some sort of trace of human soul/determination left in her-- which could have compromised Alphys's work as well.

Let's return to how I said that Ceroba is a mirror for Asgore. She's made so many mistakes and it's cost her her family and she can't stop now or it will all be for nothing. She's done horrible things, just like Asgore.

But the difference is that Asgore is the king of monsterkind. Asgore has no desire to kill human beings. He declared war on humanity in a fit of anger and grief, but the Underground had lost hope due to the loss of Chara & Asriel. Believing that Asgore could gather seven human souls and free them all brought hope back to the Underground.

His actions, while wrong, are selfless-- and much less explicitly violent and more 'cartoon violence'-like. Chujin & Ceroba have the well-being of monsterkind as their own pure intentions, but their actions are far more selfish and violent. Axis, Chujin’s creation, massacred a human being. Yet we're still expected to find them silly and fun and relatable-- it just feels unusual.

I’m not someone who hates nuance or morally gray characters. One reason I’m so sad that I don’t quite like Ceroba is that I love morally gray women. It’s just that we’re not allowed to really dislike Chujin or Ceroba for what they’ve done, and instead we’re supposed to see Ceroba- and Axis- as silly and relatable like the rest of the characters.

Immediately after Ceroba’s boss battle, instead of processing what just happened to a greater extent, Clover chooses to sacrifice their soul for monsterkind.

I understand that the intention is that Ceroba's grief and Chujin's desperation to protect monsters from humanity contributed to Clover's decision to sacrifice their soul. However, the idea is- to me- abrupt. Ultimately, too, Clover's decision is just as much about how much they love their friends (and how it's impossible for them to hide out in the Underground forever) as it is about Ceroba and her family.

Chara & Asriel’s deaths, Asgore’s war on humanity, the war of humans and monsters-- these elements impact every part of Frisk’s journey. But Chujin and Ceroba’s actions, while impactful on Martlet and Dalv to varying extents, are only part of Clover’s journey. And Chujin and Ceroba did awful things for this comparatively minor impact on the plot.

EDIT: Further analysis about how Ceroba doesn't have a lot of agency and spends a lot of the plot just acting out Chujin's will, as well as the inconsistency in her characterization (and feelings about sacrificing Clover and the well-being of Kanako), with input from @carlyraejepsans. Thank you!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more from Ceroba without any influence from Chujin- maybe an interaction explaining her relationship with Martlet and an additional conversation about Martlet’s nearly unwavering belief in humans vs Ceroba’s inherited grudge against humanity- but I don’t know where this would fit in. Adding more time for Clover to process Ceroba’s boss fight before sacrificing their soul might throw off the pacing.

In general, though, Ceroba's boss fight- while flashy and fun- ultimately feels pointless with how little she learns from it and how quickly she changes her stance on using Clover's soul for the benefit of monsterkind, and what will happen to monsters after they break the barrier. To quote @carlyraejepsans in the ask linked above:

In addition, it's like the writing didn't want to commit to her delusions and little character development. She feels that her daughter is alive and thinks she can save her—wait no that was a lie—wait it wasn't. The moment she's defeated she goes "Agh, what was I thinking!" out loud (which is already a questionable writing choice imo but i digress), and recognizes that sacrificing Clover for her plans is horrible... and then 5 seconds later Clover chooses to sacrifice themself to break the barrier and whoops nevermind she's suddenly the one getting the others onboard with the idea... wait. didn't she say she was making the serum because the humans would've only slaughtered them again if they broke the barrier? oh wait wasn't that also chujin again? whoops.

I would have felt better if there were more room to view Chujin and Ceroba in a critical light (and time to view Ceroba outside of just being a mom and wife). I can’t think of any ‘minor’ suggestion that wouldn’t require a lot of editing.

Axis…

And... okay. Let's talk about Axis real quick.

I want to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, but I need to point out that this security robot's name is "Axis 014." If you don't know what I mean by pointing this out, I'll just say that both of these terms are nazi dog whistles and allow you to look up the specifics.

I recognize that, by this point, it’s too late to change his name. I’d at least be grateful if the team would acknowledge this and confirm that they aren’t nazis.

Axis’s name makes his actions far worse in retrospect. He, as a security robot wants to kill a child, but he isn't able to anymore because his programming has changed. So, as a legal loophole, he forces them to hold 'a weapon' (a trash can lid) so he can justifiably kill them. This is the same robot that brutalized and murdered a human being in the past at Chujin's behest.

It feels tone deaf and ultimately the one thing I’d just outright call bad about UTY. I don’t think it was intentionally done this way, but I don't like that we're supposed to find this nazi-aesthetic police brutality robot "quirky and relatable" like the Undertale cast. In the true pacifist ending, he falls in love with a robot made out of a trash can and his eyes turn into cartoon hearts and etc. It’s even more jarring than viewing Chujin & Ceroba in a fun/relatable way.

In the no mercy route, Axis will defend himself and claim that his programming forced him to kill the human and he didn't want to. This "just following orders" defense feels weak to me as well, personally. Axis clearly delights in harming humans, going out of his way to try to kill Clover. But also, Axis spends a significant amount of the game displaying a very similar amount of free will to the other characters. He’s not just a janitor robot that sweeps back and forth.

He’s a nearly sentient being-- and the fact that there are these nearly sentient robots makes Alphys’s accomplishment of creating “a robot with a soul” (at least, so she claims-- Mettaton is only the ghost in a machine) much less impactful to me, personally. Yes, Asgore thinks that Chujin failed in creating a sentient robot, and so it’s impressive that Alphys supposedly did it. But I don’t know why Asgore wouldn’t be more skeptical of Alphys’s accomplishment after Chujin failed more than eight times and set fire to his flowers.

I think that Axis is ultimately a missed opportunity to make a really villainous character. This concept that he disobeys his programming- used as sort of a parallel for law, as a security robot- to attack Clover could have been explored to further the ‘justice’ theme. He doesn’t write his programming (the laws), he just carries it out (violently enforces the laws).

The ‘minor’ suggestion I’d make, though, is to just acknowledge the name.

Undertale & Meta Elements

Now, we’ll be addressing my largest criticisms-- the omission of meta elements and the way Flowey is written.

Undertale Yellow never quite stopped feeling like a fan game to me. And it is, of course-- but I think that it feels as if it tries so hard to be Undertale (in the writing style, the humor, etc) that it fails to forge an identity of its own, and that holds it back from being just a fangame to a fangame that succeeds in expanding on the original creative work.

At the same time, although UTY tries to feel like Undertale, I don’t think it captures certain elements that make Undertale be Undertale.

Whereas Undertale was ultimately about video games as a medium and the normalization of violence in them, UTY doesn’t have this level of metatextual commentary. UTY does have a running theme of 'justice'-- and I don’t think this is bad! After all, if Undertale already said all there was to say about video games and violence, why retread that path? I respect that UTY knows its limits and simply focuses on justice as a concept instead.

At the same time, Undertale isn’t just an RPG about mercy-- it’s an RPG about RPGs. The fact that you can talk to and spare enemies isn’t just a quirk of the game, it’s what the game is about. This is one thing that makes Undertale great that UTY doesn’t focus on.

UTY doesn’t completely ignore these elements, of course. Flowey takes over resetting for you, and you do have three distinct paths based on whether or not you kill enemies-- the ‘true pacifist’ path, the ‘neutral’ path, and the ‘no mercy’ path (I will not be calling it the ‘genocide’ route, especially in light of recent world events). Through whether or not you choose to kill enemies, the theme of ‘justice’ is explored-- who is Clover seeking justice for? In the true pacifist route, Clover seeks justice for the monsters, while in the no mercy route, Clover seeks justice for the fallen humans before them.

However, Flowey taking over the mechanics of saving and resetting for you makes concept of ‘the player’ obsolete. I recognize that not everyone in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom quite enjoys the concept of 'the player' and the meta elements of these games due to the fact that there can be implications that playing Deltarune (as an example, which ups the meta elements quite a bit) can actively hurt Kris and make their world a worse place. However, Deltarune isn’t a complete work and we don’t know this for certain. Additionally, I feel as if at least acknowledging Toby's intentions are important to analyzing the work, no matter what one's personal feelings are about them.

The Importance of the Player

The presence of you, the player, is important in Undertale. Frisk is a subversion of the 'blank slate protagonist' trope. You think that you're able to name them and control them, but in the True Pacifist route, Frisk begins to act on their own (they walk slowly in some parts of the True Lab because they're presumably afraid, etc). In the end, you realize that Frisk is their own person with their own name, and you as the player have to let go-- when Frisk & the monsters go to the surface, Flowey (a mirror of the player themselves) urges you to let them go. Don't treat this as a game anymore-- don't replay and wring out any last drops of content you can. You enjoyed it, now move on.

But many players want to see the No Mercy route because it’s the last thing they haven’t done in the game, and they don’t want to let go. And that's where the role of you, the player, becomes undeniable in the game's story. What is the No Mercy route except playing a 'typical' RPG in the way it's meant to be played? You grind to become stronger, killing every enemy that stands in your way. And when you've killed all the monsters and become as strong as you can be, you've won.

Many players didn't do this because they hate the characters in Undertale and want to hurt them-- if they hate them, they likely just wouldn't play the game. Many players did it because they like the characters in Undertale, and wanted to see what would happen. They couldn't stop playing. And this is exactly what Sans means in his dialogue during his boss battle-- to paraphrase, "you think that because you can, that means you have to."

This is one of the ways that Flowey is a mirror of the player. Flowey didn't start killing out of malicious intent, but because he had become so bored and isolated that he just "had to see what happens".

Chara's role at the very end of the No Mercy route is to call you out directly for this. They tell you that their power was yours. Their words were very misconstrued by fans for a long time, and they themselves wound up as a scapegoat for the No Mercy route-- but ultimately, there's no reason for Chara or Frisk to kill every monster in the Underground. The only reason is because of you, personally. You want to see what would happen. You want to grind and play it like a typical RPG.

They call you out for this if you don't want to delete the game world at the end. Why go back to that world that you've already destroyed? Why play nice with the monsters that you just massacred because you can?

Why am I talking about this at such length? Because I believe that ‘the player’ and how they interact with the world of Undertale is important. Characters lampshade the UI and battle mechanics often-- Flowey talking about the world as a game and ‘saving’ and ‘loading’, Papyrus telling you to “press C to open the dating HUD”, Sans explaining ‘LV’ and ‘EXP’, and so on.

This is my personal opinion, and I recognize this is very nitpicky, but I feel that not acknowledging this or adding to these meta elements in some way makes UTY weaker for me.

Flowey’s Role in UTY

Flowey essentially saves and resets for you because he's bored, and he wants to use Clover as a tool to access Asgore’s five stored human souls. His role as a mirror for the player becomes him essentially just acting as a stand-in for the player. While this in itself can invite self-reflection, I think that the execution of his role is a little awkward.

We learn at the end of the neutral route that Flowey has already reset the timeline hundreds of times by the time we first start playing the game. According to him, Clover always ends up at a dead end (they choose to stay in the Underground for the rest of their life) or they die (and they can’t reset of their own power). Thus, Flowey chose to set Clover on an alternate path by sabotaging a lever in the Ruins, which made them fall into the Dark Ruins and meet Dalv.

Flowey then tries to kill Clover and absorb their soul because they, again, hit a dead end. Yet he gives up on it after a while because Clover won’t stop fighting back, and he thinks he can just reset and try again anyway.

At the end of the true pacifist route, Clover instead opts to sacrifice their soul willingly to Asgore & monsterkind. Flowey comments that he could just reset (and you still can, if you want to play again), but Clover “earned their rest” and he calls them a friend.

This progression from “Clover is a tool that Flowey is using to access the 5 human souls” to “Clover is a friend and Flowey willingly lets them die and stay dead” feels undeserved and underdeveloped to me.

"But, Andrea," you might say, "Flowey went from trying to kill Frisk as Omega/Photoshop Flowey to hugging Frisk as Asriel really quickly too!"

Yes, but in that short time, Frisk and Flowey/Asriel had a Whole Thing where Frisk 'saved' him like everyone else and he learned he needs to let go, too. It was a short time, but it was a poignant time. By contrast, Flowey is pretty much absent throughout most of UTY's true pacifist route. Sure, you could easily say that he just got bored of Clover and gave up-- but that, too, doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I really hate to say this, but I feel that Flowey’s writing in UTY cheapens the original Undertale for me, which is why this is one of my major criticisms of the game.

Flowey's entire character arc in Undertale is about how he was stuck with the same places and same people for an endless amount of resets. In my opinion, the limited amount of places and characters for him to interact with in Undertale only adds to how trapped he is (and the Underground being so small really strengthens the concept of "there's overpopulation and the monsters are running out of time to find a solution/earn their freedom" that we see in the game, but I digress).

So when something finally changes and he meets Frisk, it's deeply impactful to him. Finally, someone new to play with! Finally, potential for change! Even though Flowey admits that, even if Chara came back, there's a great chance that he couldn't really love them due to his lack of soul, just experiencing something new for the first time in ages is as close to love as he can possibly get. So Flowey:

Starts to believe that Frisk is Chara, this person he ‘loves’ or wants to love, or some manifestation of Chara.

Refuses to let Frisk go, even if that means- when Asriel has the power of seven human souls- just resetting the Undertale timeline over and over instead of going to the surface or doing anything else.

For Flowey to have gone through everything that he does in UTY- all these new places, all these new people, Clover included- weakens this, in my opinion. And sure, there's very heavily implied to be lots of places that Frisk doesn't explore and people they don't meet-- 99% of New Home and its residents, for instance. But Clover themselves is the real problem for me.

No matter how many times Flowey reset with Clover, I really struggle to believe that he would get bored of a human being that easily. He even said that Clover's actions and choices would sometimes change from reset to reset, and he only recently learned how dramatically he could alter their path by sabotaging that lever in the Ruins. Clover isn't a static being-- and even if they were, they're at least a new static being.

And although we learn in the neutral route that Flowey can't really absorb Clover's soul because they fight back too much, I can't believe that would stop Flowey so easily. What about at the end of the pacifist route, where Clover has given it up willingly and it's being transported in a little jar? Clover’s body is separated from the soul, now-- could Clover still fight back?

Or, what about if Flowey tried to kill them as soon as they entered the Ruins? Or, what if Flowey played nice the entire route and then at the end tried to convince Clover that if they sacrificed their soul, he would take it to Asgore for them? With access to full control of the timeline, I don't think Flowey would give up on this. We learn in Undertale how painful it is for him to be soulless and how desperate he is to access power so that things will change.

For Flowey to acknowledge Clover as a 'friend'- maybe even a true person, not just a compilation of dialogue- suggests character growth. It suggests remorse for his resets that he isn't capable of having and doesn't have until the events of Undertale. I just don't feel like it’s earned.

Flowey is, of course, an unreliable narrator.

At the end of the no mercy route of UTY, Flowey expresses that he never saw Clover as a friend-- he only enjoyed watching them die over and over again. It should be noted that this was said while under extreme duress (Clover is LV 20 by this point and has killed everyone save for Asgore), and this route isn’t canon in the way that the neutral and pacifist routes are.

With that said, if we agree that Flowey can’t feel love as a soulless being, then I could argue that this is about as much of a ‘friend’ as anyone could be. This is how he wanted to keep Frisk (“Chara”, in his mind) for eternity when he had the six human souls + the entirety of monsterkinds’ souls-- just watch them try over and over again, for eternity.

Why am I contradicting myself? Because, let’s suppose that Flowey doesn’t mean Clover is a ‘friend’ in the traditional sense- that they earned his respect and he cares for them in some way- but Clover is a new toy that he got bored with and gave up on. I feel like this, too, makes Undertale a little weaker.

If Flowey did have some type of positive regard for Clover, but was willing to let them go, then it feels- to me- like Frisk’s role in his story isn’t that significant. Frisk helped him learn how to let go and move on, but Flowey has already demonstrated being capable of this. The circumstances are different- if Flowey gives up at the end of Undertale’s true pacifist route, it’s over for real, whereas if he gives up at the end of UTY, he can just wait for another human to fall- but I feel like the core feeling is the same. Flowey, by the start of Undertale, doesn’t strike me as someone who’s capable of letting go.

So, how would I have changed this?

I recognize that- again- Undertale already made these points about video games and violence, and Flowey has his entire character arc in that game. For Flowey to have more of an arc in this game would potentially make this game no longer line up with canon Undertale or weaken Undertale further. And why retread old ground that Undertale already talked about?

I respect the decision to tell a self-contained story, but the meta commentary about video games in Undertale is so significant for me that I personally would have liked to see a bit more of it in Undertale Yellow. I also recognize how much of my criticism of Flowey’s writing in UTY is subjective. It feels unrealistic for me, his arc feels abrupt for me, it makes Undertale less poignant for me.

A lot of people love his inclusion in this game, and it’s very novel to see Flowey as a friend throughout most of UTY and hear his snarky commentary on demand rather than having him as an enemy who’s absent through most of the game, as he is in Undertale.

The Flowey Suggestions

First, I’ll be honest. I know this is not and has never been possible, but my easiest solution to the dilemma of Flowey’s lack of a character arc- and the lack of an ability to give him a character arc- would have been to just remove him from UTY.

I think that Flowey’s inclusion in the story of the yellow soul human and his role saving and loading could have been interesting. It goes against certain story elements implied in Undertale, and popular fan theories-- and I don’t mind that, if something meaningful is done with it. But, I feel as if Flowey’s relationship to Clover isn’t impactful enough to justify including him.

To clarify on ‘implied story elements’ and ‘popular fan theories’:

While I might be misremembering, I thought that it was implied in Undertale that Flowey came into being after Asgore had already collected six human souls, and that a significant amount of time had passed since the last human had fallen down.

I won’t go into it at length because this post is long enough and I, again, am not an Undertale expert. With that said, it’s also implied that all human souls are capable of saving/loading/resetting in the Underground. If you make Frisk tell Asgore that he killed them before, he just nods as if he’s used to it-- and he’s the one character who we know has killed humans before.

Now, how did Asgore successfully kill beings that can just reset the game whenever they die? Well, Sans faces the same dilemma in Undertale’s no mercy route. There’s no way that he can permanently defeat you, the player, who is a real being. Therefore, the way he ‘wins’ is by infuriating you enough with his difficult boss fight until you give up and stop playing Undertale (or, at least, reset and make better choices).

Think about all the times you’ve played a game, got stuck on a hard boss, and never played it again. While it’s not ‘canon’ to the story- giving up on your copy of Mario doesn’t mean Bowser really wins- functionally, giving up on a game means that the story ends for you. This is how I believe Asgore captured the six human souls, even if they were also capable of resetting like Frisk is-- he fought them until they gave up.

Humans all are said to have great amounts of ‘determination’, not just red soul bearers. We don’t even know what trait the red soul exemplifies. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s determination itself.

The bottom line is that I don’t think it would be unrealistic for Clover to be able to save/load/reset on their own, or for Flowey to not exist yet during the time they fell down.

But, I get it, Flowey was in UTY’s demo that has been out for seven years. He’s in the trailers. He couldn’t be removed at any part of development, and he sure as hell can’t be removed now.

My second suggestion would have been to zoom in on him, instead. While the prequel is about Clover, the yellow soul human, I would have liked to see it be about Flowey in a significant way. I kept hoping for Clover to have an opportunity to ask Flowey at some point, “why are you helping me, anyway?”.

This is my personal interpretation, but I’ve come to believe that Flowey thinks that the reason he’s stuck as a flower is that it’s a punishment. Because he, as Asriel, refused to fight back, he failed Chara, and now they’re dead. Now he’s stuck as a rinky-dink flower with no soul, he can’t love his former family, and he can’t stop playing this game.

In the no mercy route of Undertale, Flowey feels very much like he’s trying to appeal to Frisk- the person he believes is Chara- in a way like a younger sibling trying to impress an older sibling. He says he’s impressed by how you killed everyone. He helps solves puzzles so you won’t have to slow down. He brags to you about how he’s also a heartless killer.

Notably, he talks about his past. He tells ‘Chara’ that he was afraid to start killing, at first. He said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but he just had to know what would happen.

Then, Flowey laughs and says that you (Chara) know how liberating it is to be this way-- to kill people and shape their fates. He ‘recognizes’ Frisk as being actually Chara because of how they killed everyone in the Ruins.

But we have no indication that Chara was a violent or evil person in their life. I believe that Flowey is partially projecting and partially recognizes Chara because, in the last moments of their life, they were telling him to kill. He always knew that Chara hated humanity and wanted power to better the position of monsterkind. This is why Flowey brags about how he has a plan to get the human souls, and once they do so, they can go to the surface and “finish what [they] started.”

To Flowey, in my opinion, killing people isn’t just about seeing what happens. It’s about trying to understand and appease Chara and doing what he thinks he should have done all that time ago, as Asriel.

I bring this up because I think that I would have liked to have seen this be explored in Undertale Yellow. Flowey is still a very misunderstood character today due to being an unreliable narrator. I believe that a lot of Flowey misinterpretations are due to taking him at face value-- hearing him say that he’s an unfeeling, manipulative, patient killer and agreeing with him.

But Flowey contradicts himself at several points. He gives up his “catch these friendliness pellets” trick after you dodging just a few times. These aren’t the makings of a perfect manipulative killer, but an impatient child. That’s who Flowey is at his core-- a child.

I recognize that, again, if Flowey told all of his tragic backstory to Clover and they became true friends, this wouldn’t fit with canon Undertale and his actions in that game. Flowey and Asriel distance themselves from each other, and it wouldn’t make sense for Flowey to tell this to Clover-- especially if he just views them as a tool to use and play with.

I think, however, it wouldn’t have been impossible for Clover to have learned this information about Flowey in a way that could still be canon compliant with Undertale itself. Hypothetically, maybe the “hopes and dreams” statue in the UG Apartments near the Core could have sparked intrigue in Flowey.

Maybe analysis of Flowey could have come up during his neutral route boss fight-- after all, Clover appears to peek into the minds of Ceroba and Martlet during the true pacifist and no mercy run boss fights, respectively. We already get a little of this- Clover has to run through a hallway of flowers in Flowey’s boss fight, and we hear sad and scared dialogue that’s presumably from a past version of Flowey himself. However, it’s not necessarily new and doesn’t quite add to Flowey’s character in my personal opinion.

I feel that including Flowey’s story more in some way would justify having Flowey in the game, and knowing the history of Asriel & Chara could factor into Clover’s decision to give up their soul for the sake of monsterkind. Chara, too, sacrificed themselves willingly, after all.

I don’t have a ‘realistic suggestion’ that could be implemented with a dialogue update because these suggestions are so vast-- and, ultimately, very personal and subjective. I have very strong feelings about Flowey.

Meta Elements of Undertale

In Undertale, you’re asked when you should or shouldn’t fight. As a pacifist, you can get through the Ruins without killing anyone. Flowey will then ask you what you would do if you met a relentless killer. Would you betray your morals and fight? Or would you give up and let yourself die?

Undertale is the friendly RPG where nobody has to die. While you have to kill Asgore at least once to do the neutral route, and you do have to fight back against Omega/Photoshop Flowey to end his battle, the game ultimately posits that there never is a good time to fight. You don’t beat Omega Flowey by being stronger than him, you do it by appealing to the souls and allowing them to rebel. You don’t beat God of Hyperdeath Asriel Dreemurr by beating him up, you do it by saving your friends- him included. The game, again, is about an inversion of the necessity of violence in video games to me.

I would have been interested in seeing an exploration of when it is necessary to fight, and this could be done through the lens of ‘justice’. Would Clover fight if it brought them closer to justice (on a pacifist route)? Is it morally correct to kill one person if it saves thousands?

Sparing someone is always the correct option in Undertale. In that way, the true route is quite linear-- there’s one solution that works for everyone. What if there were situations in UTY in which there is no single correct option that works for everyone? What if Clover were placed in situations in which they had to act as arbiter and decide between two outcomes and what is right? It could have been like how they get forced to solve the trolley problem in the Wild East, but with consequences.

Adding to putting a ‘twist’ on the elements that Undertale introduces with its combat system-- what if sparing someone ultimately enabled them to keep hurting others? What if fighting to weaken someone was the correct solution for once? These inversions could have built on the meta elements of Undertale, and I think that it would make Clover’s decision to sacrifice themselves to bring justice to monsterkind more poignant to me.

Again, I have no ‘realistic’ suggestion for this in the full release of UTY. I think that the plot about justice alone isn’t bad, but I would have been happy to see it tie into the gameplay a little more.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that UTY tries too hard to be Undertale without iterating on the aspects that made Undertale memorable. The characters feel like they fail to pop or relate to the game’s story in meaningful ways, and to me, the main story isn’t executed as well as it could have been (and far darker than the main Undertale in ways that don’t feel as if they’re handled sensitively).

I will say, again, that this project is very impressive in scope, and I applaud the dev team for finishing it and releasing it. I recognize that a lot of my distaste is subjective, and creating another Undertale is a fool's errand considering the acclaim that Undertale got. I recognize one final time that my suggestions are just daydreaming, and this game has already found a lot of success-- which I think it deserves.

I tend to criticize a lot of media I like, which might sound contradictory to some, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I don’t like something, I won’t engage with it. I think that the original Undertale has its flaws, too. At the end of the day, I like UTY, but no media is perfect. This is how I think it could have been better, and I hope that I think other creatives who want to make Undertale fanworks (or any creative works, for that matter) will take these thoughts into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

#bandrea blabbers #long post #the uty post

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chronicbeans · 1 year

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Wally Darling with a Restoration Project Reader (part 2)

You found a picture of the boi!

TW: Scopophobia/Eye Imagery

🗞️ Daniel gasps in excitement, shocking everyone in the little circle you made on Finn's living room floor. He shows everyone a picture that was restored by Amy, saying "Look! We finally have a picture of just Wally Darling! Nothing is obscuring him, either! We have a good idea of what exactly he looked like!"

🗞️ He passes it around, with you being the last to hold and look at it closely. A large blue pompadour, yellow skin, a colorful outfit made primarily of primary colors. He has a smile on his face, which isn't surprising, to be fair. He also doesn't have a nose, which you think makes him stand out a little bit more than he already does compared to the rest. Something seems off about his eyes, though... Not as though they were restored properly, just... Something.

🗞️ Amy speaks up, chuckling "He has big hair, like Julie! Maybe they are kinda like a duo? The big hair crew! There was a picture that mentions that he and Barnaby are best friends, though, right? So that little guess might be wrong." Finn nods "Yep. Wally and Barnaby are best friends. (Y/N), can I ask something? (Y/N)? Earth to (Y/N)!"

🗞️ You shake your head in shock, looking over to him. You didn't even notice he was speaking to you for a moment. "Yeah, Finn?" Finn shakes his head slightly, muttering with a playful chuckle "Always spacing out..." He then speaks up, looking at you with a serious expression "Well, I have noticed how your mom hasn't been acting too kindly about all this, especially after you mentioned it was to restore Welcome Home. Do you... Think she knows something? Maybe you can take that picture to her after we photograph it and put it on the website?"

🗞️"Oh! That... I am unsure. I'll show it to her. I just think she doesn't really like my hobby. She's someone who is very... I don't know... Traditional when it comes to jobs? Would that be the right term? You know, doesn't see art as a job, or writing, like I do. You get what I mean?" Amy cringes. "Oooh... Yeah, I get it. I get it. That sucks."

🗞️ Daniel perks up "You write, (Y/N)? I never knew that! Can you help out with the blog? You can write some of the stuff on it about the show. I would myself, but my written English isn't so good..." You tense up, only to nod "Okay... I don't really like my writing, though. Finn is making the blog, right? He can go over what I write." The group seemingly all agrees to it, before you leave to show your mom the picture.

🗞️ As you walk out to your car, you look at the picture, again. Those eyes... something is off. You just know it. You stare at it as you get into your car. You almost can't stop looking. You put your bag on top of the picture, feeling as though you'd just keep staring if you don't cover it.

🗞️ It's a very short drive. Your house is only a fifteen minute drive from Finn's. You go inside, hearing your mother call out from the kitchen "I see that you finally came back! Dinner is almost ready. Come, sit at the dinner table." You take off your coat and boots, walking over to the table and placing the picture on the table.

🗞️ Your mother walks in, placing a tray of food on the table. As she does so, she sees the picture. Her eyes widen as she asks "Sweetie, what is that?" You grin widely, explaining "Oh, it's Wally Darling, from Welcome Home! He's the main guy, I think. Why do you ask? Do you recognize him?"

🗞️ Her face suddenly morphs into a grimace. Her eyes are locked onto the picture as she speaks, her voice sharp "Why are you trying to find out about this Welcome Home nonsense? You'll never know exactly what came before it was forgotten! It's pointless! Even if you find out a lot, you'll never know it all! Why risk your life in search of a puzzle, which will inevitably still have missing pieces?"

🗞️ Your eyes widen "Risk my life? Mom, what are you talking about-?" She cuts you off "If I tell you too much, you'll simply be more intrigued! I know how you are, sweetie! I love you, I really do. I know how harsh I seem sometimes... but I am that way because I know that you will just wander into danger if I don't correct you! So just... stop with this nonsense!"

🗞️ She storms off, crying out "Just eat your food! I already ate, anyways! Don't bother me with this foolishness!" With that, you hear her slam the door to her room shut. The table is now left empty, besides you, the picture, and the dinner she made. You become lost in thought. Risk your life? Over a children's show? What an odd assumption to make over a little mystery. Why does she think that you would be put in danger if you continued searching?

🗞️ She said that if she told you too much, you'd be more intrigued. Well, she already failed. As much as you are now terrified of what could happen, you are still so much more intrigued about this mystery. Looking down at the picture of Wally, you make a silent promise to figure out more about this show, no matter what it takes.

#welcome home #welcome home arg #wally darling #wally darling x reader

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romanarose · 8 months

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Fic Recs

I'll admit I've been slacking. A lot. It was a high anxiety summer as you know, and I've finally been able to pretty much cut ties with an abusive friend who was causing a LOT of those anxiety and panic attacks. BUT I want to rec some of my fav writers and fav stories.

To keep the presure low on myself I am only linking ONE story per writer, whatever story that speaks to me. I do hope if you like the story you'll check out more from them!

Please remember to reblog their stories if you read them, and if you feel inclinded, leave a kind comment! Big comments are fantastic but even a short "Great story!" Means the world!

Dead Dove Do Not Eat and all dark fics will be in red. Might make a whole other dddne tag list on my dark blog on of these days lmfao

Moon Knight

Fractured Moon by @melodygatesauthor : DDDNE Yandere Moon boys x reader, non con, extreme violence but such good interpretations of the boys

Friendly Favors by @runa-falls best friend steven, friends with benefits??? friends to lovers??? yes plzzz

Rydal Keener

Oxford Comma by @whatthefishh : Collage AU, Rydall is cunty, serves cunt, and eats cunt. What can I say.

TLOU (Most of what I'm reading rn if im being honest)

Linger On by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin : Pre-outbreak!Joel, angst, yummy smut, ft. my boyfriend, Tommy (Angela said I can be Tommy's gf)

Caught by @toxicanonymity : Inspired Keep Cry'n, Joel catches you when you try to run, masterbates onto your face. part 2 has TOMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Maintainence Man series by @gracieispunk : Joel is a, well, Maintenace man in our building! He is married but that doesn't stop him from fucking you

Hungry Hearts @atinylittlepain : If ya'll know me, you know I love Bruce Springsteen. I have 2 fics named after springsteen songs, one joel one javi/santi/reader. I've fallen behind on the series but loved it enough to make fan art! terrible fan art but still! Pre-outbreak, takes place in two timelines- college age and then the 2000'. Joel has Sarah, reader is ellies mom which I think is fun.

Exit Wounds by @strang3lov3 : No fic masterlist so I tagged the main masterlist. Now listen. I love Tommy Y'all know I love tommy... but cheating on tommy? Im so sorry baby. But ur also an asshole lol. Had it coming.

Creep by @theywhowriteandknowthings : I- ugh just read it. darkish but nothing insane like the wrong way lmfao. pretty mild comparatively but use discression but THAT TWISTTTTTTTT

Only Daddy That'll Walk the Line by @millerscoffee Yellow istead of red bc its not like. dark but Joel's pretty mean

Not A Survialist Girl by @tightjeansjavi again yellow bc joel's a dick lol but THE DIRTY TALK?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Miguel O'Hara

Halo by @missdictatorme : Miguel O'Hara goes full Nathan Bateman and fucks his ai. Whore.

Only You Only Me by @astroboots : so im behind on this one too. What about it! Im terrible I know but like Hungry Hearts above I may be a slow reader but I didn't forget and also did stupid fan art of this great fic too. lol. Anyway plz read this, I cant give a great summary bc im only a few chapters in but if youre in the oscar fandon you know cici writes only bangers

No One But Me by @koshkamartell : You try to break things off with Joel and begin spending time with the hot librrian in Jackson. Joel does not like thi

Triple Frontier

Under Neon Lights by @campingwiththecharmings : sexy drunk sex with my baby boi, santi <3

Through the Scope by @ssuperficialspacecadett : Reader works for Benny and falls for frankie. Great relationships with all the boys, reader has sexual trauma so you knoooooooow i eat these fics up!!!! lovely to see all them be appriciated with special focus on FRANKIE my precious lol guy

Shared Breathes by @frenchiereading : DAD FRANKIE x teacher reader. Triple frontier may have forgotten Frankie has a baby (he deserved the money for her) BUT WE DID NOT!!!!!

The Story of Us by @pimosworld : You served in the military with the boys but they made a deal not to sleep with you. Years later after helping you escape abuse, one by one they begin to waver aka you fuck them all. FishBen as a bonus!!

Goddamn have I really only been reading TLOU XD lmfao makes sense bc thats mostly what Im writing. That and the Javier pena x reader x santi and then the will fic but im soooooooooo much of a TLOU whore rn its insane.

Im sure ill remeber some more amazing TF fics soon but for now here we are!

Gonna plug real quick my latest one shot tho bc it's a holiday and I can self promo if I want! Shana Tova, moon boys x non jewish!reader where the moon boys share a part of their jewish identity with you!

THANK YOU TO ALL WRITERS FOR YOUR HARD WORK, I APPRICIATE YOU!

If you ever seen my like and not reblog know its just bc I forgot and im sorry. If you ever tagged me in a tag game and i never responded its bc I forgot and again IM SORRY

If I didnt tag anyone and you think i didt think your fic was worthy THATS NOT IT im simply overwhelmed with how much ive read and how this summer was and i just havnt organized it all. Im sorry!!

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bonefall · 7 months

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Ask Etiquette

HELLO sorry for the intimidating post lmao, I just need something to toss up on the masterpost because I feel bad deleting asks and then people will never really have an idea of why I never answered them

I get a ton of asks (usually anywhere from 10 - 20 a day!) and I'm not able to get to them all! I try to answer as many as possible but I'm still just one guy. So with that in mind, there are some sorts of asks I will simply not answer, and some 'requests' I have for people who send them in;

Please keep your asks short PLEASE try not to send me essays if you want a response; I still love reading them! But if you send me walls of text/analysis you are asking me to write a lot in response, which I'd rather spend on actually writing or designing cats. (On that note if you send a bunch of questions at once, the likelihood I respond goes down.)

Do not send me personal questions Listen... I'm a stranger on the internet. I'm overjoyed to see when my art connects with people and helps you realize things! But don't ask me sensitive questions like how to move out of your abusive parents' house!! PLEASE learn internet safety and get less comfortable with volunteering that kind of information to people you don't know!

Do not ask me personal questions you do not need to know what i study or where i work. get less comfortable asking these sorts of questions to queer people on the internet, especially when they talk openly about having previously been abused or stalked. (not that a person should even need to be as open about that as i am)

If I don't have a good response I won't answer Especially for suggestions I don't vibe with. I try to only say "No" if I have a particularly interesting "No" to talk about, if that makes sense! If I had to write a full explanation for every veto or idea I don't vibe with, this blog would be 90% what isn't in BB.

No AUs within the AU. "What if Hawkfrost survived his impalement? What if Firestar never joined? What if Tigerstar was never born?" Listen, buddy, you're creating an exponential distraction for possible ways the story could have gone and I'm not looking to write several essays for the literal hundreds of alternative ways Clan history could have been written. It takes you 5 words to ask "What if X never died" but it takes me paragraphs to answer. (This isn't about suggestions btw, I very specifically mean ppl asking hypotheticals for fun.)

Don't be rude. I feel like this should go without saying but please mind the parasocial gap. Especially if you're on anon, I don't know you, your backstory, or your cadence.

And, lastly, CLANMEW ASKS!!

I make a hard effort to get to everyone!! Those are published on Clanmew Day (WHICH IS NOW JUST GOING TO BE THE 30TH OF EVERY MONTH SO THAT IT'S LESS CONFUSING) but PLEASE understand I get a ton of them.

As I write this I have more than 26 tabs open of unanswered Clanmew asks, a lot more in my inbox, and 9 already in the queue. So that you understand the sheer volume of asks I have there.

If I didn't get to you that month, chances are that I'll get to you on the next, but please understand why I ask for folks to not re-send asks

So here's Clanmew-specific requests;

PLEASE just try a translation on your own first! Don't just send me raw lists of OCs to translate, give it a go first using the Lexicon, just so I can see you tried. I will happily and gladly make more specific words for you when I see you try!

When you send OCs you've translated, ask me for a new word at the end if you didn't already in your list. Just in case I can't think of a witty comment or a word suggestion, you will help me a lot

Please try to format with lists like this one Folks will send me double or triple-indented lists and it will take up my entire screen when they've only sent like, 5 names. Remember that posts you send to me go on people's dashes, be considerate please You can open a list like this by starting a new paragraph, typing -, and then an immediate space. Hold Shift + Enter to indent without adding another bullet.

If you could put "Clanmew" somewhere in your ask, like even if you open up with "Clanmew: Here is my question blah blah," it would help immensely I physically can't get to every ask I receive on Clanmew Day, so if you have "Clanmew" in your ask somewhere, it makes it a lot easier for me to find it when I can finally answer! I really wish Tumblr had ways to sort asks, but currently, I've just gotta make due with Cntrl + F.

#I currently have 900+ asks btw #Bone Babble #EDIT: See that 900+ number? It's now actually 1100+

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thatcreationsureisunending · 9 months

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- INTRODUCTION + INFO

'eeello? heeeeeeeellllllloooo? hee-- OH oh. Forgot this works flawlessly. Whoops!

Well, thought it'd be about time to do some sort of- introduction? Something like that anyway!

Think of it likeee a preview message before establishing proper connection.

I'm Infinite Possibilities; Creation Unending. Infinite Possibilities for short (snrk) and Creativity for shorter!

Iiiii dabble in a little bit of everything- some of you might've received pearls or files from me? Yeah

But I'm primarily known for painting and making games!

Uh. Contacts are open to anyone! I'm trying to keep this short, haha.

One of my siblings has one of these connections too! You should go bother him on my behalf

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OOC from here on out- as you can probably gleam, this is an Iterator oc askblog! This post took an unreasonably long time to make, and I apologize for that!

This account is run by me, Zoc @softcryz! OOC posts will be tagged as such!

Here's some important things to note-- I'll definitely add more as we go on. If you have any questions regarding rules or the blog in general, feel free to ask me on my main account!

This blog takes place post-ascension! ( Unless stated otherwise ;] )

Any interactions are open, but that does not guarantee that I WILL answer your ask. I have every right to not respond/delete things that I am not comfortable with or just simply do not want to follow through with.

^ That said, please try not to be weird about it. I mean via sending nsfw and the like. Kind of obvious but I'm still putting this here.

#ip;cu_talks // #wawa_talks -- posts where they're talking

#ip;cu_asks // #wawa_asks -- asks directed to either of those two

#LANDS_EDGE -- Local group tag!

#friend_tower -- Posts that include people IP;CU knows :]

#art_pipebomb -- Fanart and the like!!

If you have any questions regarding the blog feel free to send them to my main account :]

I'll add onto this as I think of more stuff, but until then! Character notes time!

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INFINITE POSSIBILITIES; CREATION UNENDING

Gender apathetic - Pansexual [He/him] [ TOYHOUSE ] [ ARTFIGHT ]

Creativity is the second guy in the Lands Edge group! He was built to process MUCH more and MUCH faster than the standard Iterator-- to the point where no real "limiter" could be put on his systems because his processing just kept. Tanking and breaking it.

The infinite thinking and everything that comes with it is not entirely within his control, though. It isn't something he can shut down or slow down.

Due to his constantly-working brain and need for stimulation, he sorta just... Does a whole bunch of stuff! Just to do it! He's taken a specific interest in programming "games" for other iterators, and is very open to suggestions!

City was somewhat known for being a sort of centre of many different types of art. (He's more well-known for being the game developer guy-- and the weird iterator who keeps sending paint deliveries out to random people)

BIG guy. He's like. Two heads taller than the average Iterator. Height chart coming soon

WAWA

She/her dominant (any pronouns) [ TOYHOUSE ] [ ARTFIGHT ]

wawa.

runs on cartoon logic

a little smaller than a slugpup

insane dodging capabilities. She's also an obligate carnivore

Where's the slug in this slugcat. This is just a beast of some sort

?? JUST APPEARS? She will just teleport in your chamber. say her name and she'll appear

she also paints with Creativity :]

#rain world #rain world oc #rain world iterator #rain world askblog

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nysus-temple · 1 year

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Dionysus' lesser-known myths [or perhaps you do know them, but i will tell you about them anyway]

Some of these myths have already been shown in my blog, but i decided to bring some of them up again in a more elaborated way, plus some new too. Perhaps you've heard of them, perhaps you haven't, but i can tell you i haven't seen them much around here.

And my job isn't reading your minds, it's about writting essays, so here we go.

1. Ampelos (Αμπελος):

According to Nonnus of Panopolis, Ampelos was a satyr (tho not many art represents him as such) who loved Dionysus, and was loved by him as well. Not much of a surprise, since we do know many gods had male lovers.

The problem is that, we're still talking about a satyr, we know how those guys are and act. According to Nonnus, Ampelos was riding a bull while mocking Selene, angrily, she sent a gadfly to sting the bull. The bull ran and threw Ampelos all over the place. Nonnus describes it as a very gore-like death.

Dionysus, upset, ended up turning Ampelos' corpse into a grape vine, and from there, he created wine with his blood... THANKFULY, it was the blood.

Roman mosaic with Ampelos and Bacchus.

2. Midas (Μίδας):

"But Nysus, everybody knows Midas" yes yes, but do you KNOW the actual Greek myths? Or do you know the later, VERY later-on version that appears in Wikipedia? Midas never turned his daughter into gold in the folklore, for example.

Midas was a foreign king who married a greek woman, he was the king of Phrygia, and according to Pausanias, he had a daughter named Zoe. I have absolutely nothing about her except this.

Anyways, going to the important part: Silenus, a companion of Dionysus who used to be one of his foster fathers, got lost while he was... Kind of drunk ( come on, Dionysus can't keep an eye on everyone 24/7 ). Some peasants found him and took him to King Midas, who, as a very loyal follower of Dionysus, recognized Silenus and took care of him. When Dionysus arrived in order to take him back, he thanked Midas and said he would give him in return anything that he wished for... And here it comes: Midas wished to be able to turn everything that he touched to gold, and Dionysus agreed, even though he felt sorry he hadn't thought of it twice.

Midas was happy turning stuff into gold, obviously. But when he touched food and it turned into gold as well and he was unable to eat, he returned to Dionysus asking him to turn it back to normal.

Surprisingly, Dionysus didn't say "no" or "live with the consequences"; he told him to wash himself in the river Pactolus, and, good enough, the gold thingy dissappeared.

I don't have this myth fully narrated by a Greek, instead, from a latin author. The good thing tho, thanks to Herodotus and Pausanias, i know it's realiable.

Monument dedicated to Midas, in the old Prhygia ( now part of Turkey )

3. The Minyades (Μινυάδες):

According to Plutarch, king Minyas had three daughters ( whose names i honestly don't know, they appear in Ovid's Metamorphosis ). He tells that Dionysus appeared in the form of a maiden to invite them to the Dionysian Mysteries, since the rest of the women had already gone there. And they declined, politely, but still declined. This is one of those moments in which we see Dionysus' weak points, no justified anger. They neglected the cult, but had nothing against it anyways.

Still, for him, that wasn't enough.

He drove them mad, like very. Something that for Plutarch was even worse than death, apparently. They even killed their own children and ate them (yikes) dismembering them like Dionysus was once dismembered. The sisters were wandering around the mountains, without Dionysus caring at all.

Until finally, Hermes took pity on them, and turned them into bats, freeing them from the madness.

One of the Minyades showing the dismembered body of her son - Étienne-Barthélémy Garnier

4. Zeus' lighting bolts

This one is short, so i'll get to the point.

We all know what Nonnus' was up to when writing about Dionysus. He said in his work that Zeus recognized him (when being Zagreus) as his heir. Since when he was still a little kid, he was able to climb to his throne and to hold Zeus' lightning bolts. Of course, then the very well-known myth of Hera calling the titants to dismember Dionysus arrives here, since she wanted no heir to the throne.

Things happen, you know.

5. Lykurgos (Λυκοῦργος):

Remember when i talked about this guy in the anger essay? Wellp, here he is again, it's the same, but i'll elaborate on him a bit more.

He was a thracian king, and when he heard that Dionysus was going to Thracia, he ordered to trap all of his female followers in a prison.

Yes, only the women. I guess no men followed Dionysus in Thracia during his reign, not like i can ask him about it.

OF COURSE Pentheus 2.0 would imprison the FOLLOWERS of the god of MADNESS. Of course...

Dionysus got angry ( what a surprise ) and sent a drought towards Thracia + making Lykurgos go mad. It's not Dionysus if he doesn't punish you by making you go mad.

He then proceed to tell the people that the only way to stop that punishment was by killing Lykurgos, and, well, they did. They all killed him, and were freed from the punishment.

Dionysus then stopped the drought, he kept his word, indeed.

Lykurgos attacking his own wife after being induced into madness

6. The punishment of the titans

You think they got away? No, the fuck, of course they didn't.

After Zeus' found out what had happened to Dionysus (Zagreus), he imprisoned them in Tartatus, which caused Gaia to be all sad again, since many of her children had already been imprisoned there. What she did was, as scary as Gaia has always been, burning down everything she could.

The only way Zeus could take pity on her in order to stop that, was by sending a flood.

7. Coresus (Κόρησος):

Callirhoe was a Calydonian woman who scorned Coresus, a priest of Dionysus, who threatened to afflict all the women of Calydon with insanity as the good Dionysus priest he was.

The way to stop this was with a sacrifice, to kill the woman who scorned him. Coresus was ordered to sacrifice her, but he killed himself instead since apparently, he was in love with her and couldn't do it.

Callirhoe was overcome with remorse, and cut her throat at a spring that later received her name.

As always.

Coresus sacrificing himself to save Callirhoe - Jean-Honoré Fragonard

8. The Frogs (Βάτραχοι):

At this point, this isn't lesser-known anymore, and i'm not the biggest fan of Aristophanes' work (i love Euripides way too much, oops) but i'll still summarize what Dionysus has to do with this play.

Dionysus, as the god of theatre he is, wanted to bring back to life one of the great tragedy authors. And he descends to Hades for that, it's a way to mock his connection with it, this is still a comedy.

And after a poetry slam, Aeschylus is chosen in preference to Euripides. Smh, fucking Aristophanes, way to put your preferences.

9. Orpheus' death:

I'm not gonna elaborate on this one THAT much, since i wanna save it for the Apollo & Dionysus essay i have unfinished, which was the second most voted one and it might take more time to finish it.

In any case, do you know all these modern retellings in which they paint Dionysus as the "chill, calm, who only wants to party" dude? And Apollo as the "feral, envious, angry" dude? Well, ya'll are wrong...

Dionysus killed Orpheus due to his jealousy of Apollo's worship. I'm leaving you with this sentence, wait for the other essay to know why Dionysus and Apollo are so complex in terms of feelings. Or, at least, i will try to elaborate on it.

Apollo welcoming Dionysus to the sanctuary of Delphi, which they shared.

10. Dionysus IS physically incapable of getting drunk, live with it:

SHOCK i know. So if i see any of ya'll saying he's drunk 24/7, you better have your testament written.

NONNUS OF PANOPOLIS. DIONYSIACA. LITERAL TEXT: "Only to Dionysus gave Rhea the amethyst that saves the drinker from the chains of madness."

Yes, obviously going for scientifict facts, this doesn't work. It was believed in this world that the amethyst would prevent people from getting drunk. But this is mythology, Dionysus is a god, he can't get drunk even if he wanted to. And it's not like he should, he needs to keep an eye on his followers 24/7. Or do we want to remember what happened to Silenus?

Dude, how the hell do i have to tell you all, that in all text in which people were drinking for honoring Dionysus, they always stopped saying "he wouldn't like to see us this way" HE DOESN'T WANT YA'LL DO GET DRUNK. THAT'S NOT HOW HIS MADNESS WORKED

No. The women in the Bacchae are not ✨girlboss slaaaaay✨ they were feral women. The madness Dionysus used to punish Pentheus and the Theban women is NOT something you should idealize. Euripides didn't want ya'll to call him an icon because "omg the Bacchae is so progresive" GUYS... NO. IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT. It's about showing Dionysus' wrath. Of showing why like with any other god, he's feared.

The Greek gods are not your free playground OC's. You can't invent their sexualities or gender identities just for yourself. They're important figures of a culture and country that still lives. If you want an icon to feel identify with, create one. But don't go around there saying Dionysus is genderfluid JUST because you like seeing him young. No.

I know, personally, genderfluid people, and all of them agree THIS is wrong. I already had the whole pronouns drama with Dionysus, don't start over again with this. Please.

* AHEM * In any case... Hope you enjoyed !

I needed to work A LOT for this essay, since most of these myths weren't listed with sources. Whenever you wanna write a guide about folkore or anything similar, please, list your sources ! i don't want anyone else to go through the pain of needing to research though the catacombs of information JUST to confirm one sentence. Because i went trhough that, there's a reason why i've been researching about Dionysus for more than three years already and i still don't have everything. Thanks for your support and essay requests as always, it makes me INCREDIBLY happy to see so many of you willing to learn about a figure that has been so underappreciated and reduced into nothing like Dionysus, and who is still being misinterpreted to this day.

As always, reblogs would be very appreciated, it's the way people can find my blog for something else than copypaste incorrect quotes, and i always appreciate that kind of support. Of course i do this "por amor al arte" as i would say in Spanish, but still takes time and effort and i'm just a university student. I still will need A LOT of time to be able to work into something more accesible to everyone for the Greek folklore.

For now, this small Tumblr pieces is what i can give. But as always, thank you and χαίρε Διόνυσον 🍇

#dionysus lore #greek mythology

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