#uty analysis

[rustedleopard]

I love how, despite how much Ceroba and Chujin loved each other, their relationship was pretty damn unhealthy. Chujin's performance at work is subpar so he never talks about his job. He gets fired from the Steamworks because he screwed up his robot designs multiple times so he tells Ceroba that he quit to protect his own pride. Their family is in a pretty precarious financial situation and he blows all of their savings on building a lavish mansion. Ceroba has to take on a soul-sucking minimum wage job to support the family while he gets to travel around the Underground doing volunteer work. Chujin does dangerous experiments on himself, risking his health and killing himself prematurely, so he can develop a super serum to protect Kanako when it would've been better for his daughter to have an alive dad in her life. He literally tasks Ceroba with the burden of murdering an innocent person and continuing his very risky life's work before he passes!

And it goes both ways!!! Ceroba always thinks the best of him no matter what. No flaws. No criticisms. Chujin wins what is essentially a consultation prize, but to her, it's like he won a proper award. Chujin sets Asgore's child's grave on fire and when Asgore fires him (after giving him multiple chances!!!), it's the Royals who are in the wrong. She doesn't criticize him for not providing for the family, for blowing all of their savings, for leaving Kanako without a father and her a widow. She thinks all of his actions were noble. And when a "pure-hearted" human shows up in the Underground and Chujin's plan can be enacted, no matter how reluctant she is to do it, she still follows through.

Yeah, sure, Chujin and Ceroba may have loved each other. But love isn't enough.

[starlos-soulmate]

One of these days I'll expand on this, but HOLY CRAP I cannot imagine the betrayal Starlo must've felt if you kill Ceroba in Flawed Pacifist. This guy, this monster who idolized humans and was so ecstatic to see one that he had them join his posse, killed his best friend. And, just, that's gotta hurt MORE than when she git married to Chujin, because despite his broken heart, she was at least THERE. She was ALIVE.

Here she's not.

Despite her willingness to die, Starlo hates you once you kill her. And part of it is how close they were before she was killed. The other part is the fact you basically betrayed him. You had no inclination to kill anyone beforehand. Heck you probably didn't even SHOOT anyone (unless you were me and was pissed at Axis).

All that training, all that bonding, the fact he stopped you and gave you that Deputy badge, said that he was PROUD of you. Suddenly all down the drain because now his best friend is gone. I cannot even fathom how that must've felt. Like no wonder he sees you less than dirt, you killed his friend and broke his trust. No longer are you his Deputy, even if you wanted to go back to the Wild East. Actually that would likely be a bad idea, he just would not like you around.

Also it's such an interesting contrast of, "yes you're safe in the law, but personally I do not want to see you again." Just, hoough love that!

Have no idea how to end this, so, yeah holy crap Starlo absolutely hates you in Flawed Pacifist

[ultimateempath]

Okay so it might've been done for some other arbitrary reason and I'm just really overthinking it, but I think the fact the skeleton brothers are the only main Undertale characters that are never mentioned in some way in Undertale Yellow is actually super neat attention to detail! (Continued under the cut)

In Undertale Yellow, pretty much every single other Undertale main character is mentioned or eluded to in some way. Toriel and Asgore both get actual roles, Flowey is our guide and save point, Alphys is mentioned more than once and also shows up in a cutscene, a guy at the saloon goes on a whole rant about Mettaton, Undyne is mentioned a couple times and her spear attack is briefly seen during the neutral route, and even Muffets spider bake sale returns!

Sans and Papyrus are the only two who never get brought up, and the reason why is actually stated in Undertale. According to the bunny shopkeeper in Snowdin town, the skelebros 'just showed up one day and...asserted themselves'. They're never eluded to in Undertale Yellow because they hadn't shown up yet. No one had anything to say about them because they weren't known during that time; for all intents and purposes, they didn't exist yet. I think it's a super neat little detail!

The last thing I wanna mention is that one of the fun value events in Undertale Yellow actively acknowledges the existence of said fun value events, vaguely mentioning changes in geography and mysterious doors appearing in what sounds to me like a nod to the Undertale fun value event of the extra hallway & mysteryman/gaster(?) door in waterfall (though it's equally likely to be just a reference to room changing fun events in general, like the goner kid for example). Not necessarily anything to do with the enigmas that are Sans and Papyrus, but still an interesting little thing to keep in mind for all you theory makers and fanwork creators out there.

[torchdreemurr]

just finished replaying Undertale Yellow to record some footage for a video i'm working on (look out for that), but it has given me one thought independent of said video

I feel like "Someone calls for help... you awnser to the call" has far greater closure for clover's character if it is looked at in the context of referring to clover's mission, and the way that they managed to "succeed" their mission by enacting true justice for Monsterkind despite it being antithetical to their original goal, even though the context of the Omega Flowey fight is clearly what the text is intending to refer to.

[rustedleopard]

The Ketsukane mansion drives me a bit nuts. You've already heard me talk about how Chujin used up his savings from his time in the Steamworks to build it but also just.

Ceroba admits that she initially found the estate to be too big for her tastes; she assumes that the size was Chujin's way of insinuating that they have a larger family together. This was Chujin's grand gesture of love, a passion project and his way of providing the best of the best for his family rolled into one. But, even though it wasn't his intention, the task of providing financially for the family fell onto Ceroba's lap. Every inch of it is the hallmark of craftsmanship, it's practically a palace. There's a kotatsu and fireplace in the heart of it even though the climate is far too warm to warrant those things. Chujin crafted every inch of Kanako's room with loving intention, right down to the video games, and he gets two office spaces for himself, and meanwhile Ceroba has... a closet full of clothing. Ceroba calls the garden he grew outside "almost like a reflection of [Chujin's] own SOUL." When Chujin started dying from the serum he created using a human child's SOUL, his garden started wilting and dying as well. There's an office that Chujin used for all the secrets he didn't want to share with his family baked right into the foundation of the home and right on top of it was the table that the family sat together and ate dinner at.

[rustedleopard]

Still thinking about how Clover on the No Mercy Route likely would've given up their quest for vengeance and lived with Martlet had Axis not told them that he killed Integrity. The only real difference between Aborted No Mercy Run Clover and No Mercy Run Clover are a few more destroyed robots and the knowledge of what Axis did, which sent their LOVE skyrocketing to LV 19.

Look at them. They can't even look Ceroba in the eye after they inflict the final blow.

[rustedleopard]

"Why did Ceroba inject her child with an experimental serum despite Chujin's warnings? Is she a total idiot? That makes no sense, she's a bad parent! This is bad writing!!!"

SHE THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE!!! Chujin blamed the serum failing solely on the fact that the SOUL he used was "impure." Nothing about his technique or anything he did; to him the problem was that the SOUL was "impure." So when Kanako pointed out that Ceroba had improvised a method to extract impurities from the SOUL sample, then it made sense that, since the only issue with the serum was taken care of, it should've been safe to use. That was likely the only deviation that Ceroba did when crafting Chujin's serum, and she probably figured that she'd screwed up removing the impurities instead of questioning anything about her husband's serum; hence why she tries leading a "pure-hearted" Clover to the Royal Laboratory to try making the serum with Kanako all over again. Ceroba's admiration and inability to find fault with Chujin led to her injecting Kanako with the serum, not bad writing or whatever.

[rustedleopard]

Chujin's opinion of Starlo is that he is an immature loudmouth who only grew physically beyond middle/high school. He's a reckless moron that has no regard for the fact that he is poisoning the minds of monsterkind with his admiration for human culture. He thinks that Starlo's desire to bring a slice of the Underground is a waste of time and that if Starlo REALLY wanted to help monsterkind's situation, he'd try to figure out methods to escape the Underground instead of finding escapism in a pale imitation of the Surface. He is unable to conceive why Starlo even likes humans except out of some twisted, Stockholm Syndrome-esque fawning over monsterkinds' captors.

(Deep deep deep deep deep down, Chujin knows that Starlo is a kind person who doesn't have bad intentions. And, he can begrudgingly admit that if the Wild East prevents some monsters from falling into despair, (which is a death sentence for a monster,) then it does some good. But you'd basically have to dislocate his shoulder from twisting his arm so hard if you want Chujin to admit this.)

Starlo's opinion of Chujin is that he is some above-it-all asshole. He insists that he remained civil and respectful of Chujin ever since Chujin and Ceroba started dating and he started to get tangentially involved in Starlo's life, yet all Chujin's done is scoff at him for following his dreams. Chujin must think he's soooooooo great being some smarty-pants scientist instead of a nobody farmer/sheriff like he is and that's why he looks down on Starlo, what a snob! And as for Chujin's belief that all humans are evil? Greatly exaggerated! If humans were such wicked things, why would the westerns they make show such relatable concepts like justice and freedom and how cool revolvers are? Starlo's just trying to inject some fun into the Underground and distract everyone from how dire things are getting and Chujin has a massive stick up his ass about it.

(Deep deep deep deep deep down, Starlo knows that Chujin is a kind person who only wants the best for everyone. Chujin is beloved by Ceroba and the Sunnyside family and other residents of the Underground for a reason. The fact that he's such an admirable person drives him a bit nuts, because Starlo knows that he would never be able to measure up to him. It's no wonder that Ceroba fell for him so quickly. How could he ever compare? And as for Chujin's opinion on humans? While he strongly disagrees with Chujin's outright hatred, he does recognize that some humans can be dangerous.)

I would say that Chujin and Starlo would bitch at each other like two Southern belles backhand complimenting each other, except I feel like Starlo lacks the subtlety to be able to dish out those sorts of insults, let alone pick up on them. Instead, they'd try to be silent in each other's presence out of respect for Ceroba. It's a........... very tense silence, to say the least....