Undertale Yellow

Anyone else feel they UTY devs should waited just a bit longer to release the game, so they could do something Kanako, instead of just leaving her as an incomplete mess of a character?

Also making another thread after the last one, because it just got spammed with nonsense instead of actual discussion.

Yes they absolutely should have delayed the game a bit so they could finish that specific storyline, cause it's clear they rushed it, and essentially skipped the whole thing to release the game early.

The devs not fleshing Kanako out was one of the major reasons Kanako ended up being such a nothing burger in the pacifist route.

If this thread doesn't get jannied I'll probably write some greens.

I don't think it would've mattered how much they waited. They never intended to do anything with Kanako at all.

the devs had no plans for kanako, so it would change nothing
she was just doomed to die for drama just like clover

like the other anon said, they never had any intentions to expand Kanako's plot line or Chujin's

its not fair, the devs were landed at least 2 great plot opportunities kanako in true lab and zenith using chujin's serum but they didnt do it for whatever reason, and I can't believe no one in the dev team ever raised up those 2 points in the 7 years it took (and more with the pacifist ending)

Will the other fangames (if they ever release) fumble the bag as hard as UTY did? Or will they learn from UTY's mistakes?

I hope I won't have any Clover suicide tier writing mistakes. I think I'm a better writer than that, but the UTY devs probably thought that too. All I can do is try my best and get my stuff proof read.

While I think giving the story another once-over might've given the writers the chance to notice and deal with some of the more major issues the story had, I don't think Kanako was necessarily one of those issues. Sure, it could've been cool to see a bit more of her somehow, but as it stand, she serves her purpose in the story. The only story based issue relating to Kanako that really needed to be fixed to any extent is just the context surrounding her death. They should've made it so that Ceroba refused to inject Kanako with the serum when she first asked, only for Kanako to sneak into Chujin's lab later on and inject herself with the serum out of a misguided desire to prove that she can help Ceroba fulfill Chujin's plan, that would've made way more sense for both Ceroba and Kanako's characters, and it would've made Ceroba less explicitly in the wrong.
Outside of that, there really isn't a way to have Kanako be a more important element in the story without completely changing what the story actually is, and as rough as UTY's story can be at certain points, I honestly don't think that's needed.

In the anniversary stream they revealed that they never had any plans for Kanako beyond her being a reference to the "spoon" amalgam from Undertale

Goes to show how shorted sighted they were, and lack of foresight to not realise the problems that would cause.

NTA, but genuinely wondering here, what problems does that cause?
Other than the writing for the scene where she dies, are there any real writing problems with Kanako? Past that point she basically just serves as a motivation for Ceroba doing what she does in the back half of the pacifist route, Kanako isn't really much of a factor in the story outside of that.

If Wildfire is anything to go by, they definitely learned what not to do from UTY.
From what I've seen the team have been very meticulous with their planning, and have been listening to feedback from those that have played their short demo's, as well potential things that they could do.

because the way they wrote it was so half assed literally everyone thought a true lab segment to save kanako was cut at the last minute, but it was just not included at all
they didn't even explain why the mask powers ceroba to boss monster tier level

I dunno, I didn't expect there to be a true lab segment in the game when I first played through it. I think that might just be an instance of people expecting something that was never implied to exist, like those people who got upset at ps5 spider-man 2 not being a 100% accurate new york simulator.
The only reason you would even be in the true lab in UTY is if the story got even more off the rails and Ceroba-focused than it already is, there's no legitimate reason for something like that to happen in-game.
Also, I kinda just figured the mask Ceroba wears was just an emotional boost of some kind, like how Undyne turns into Undyne the undying in a UT genocide route because of her emotional state, but she just melts if you kill only her in a neutral route. I just thought that Ceroba's emotional connection to the mask was giving her a power boost like that, not because the mask itself had any kind of actual power to it.

Undyne turns into Undying because of her determination wich is explained in the game
Ceroba's mask never got an explanation

Outside of that, there really isn't a way to have Kanako be a more important element in the story without completely changing what the story actually is,

Yes there is. Just add an additional 30 minutes of games after where the normal pacifist ending would be where you save Kanako and Clover lives happily ever after with Martlet. It can be another non canon ending like jaundice.

It's not just determination (as in, the tangible substance in-universe), it also has to do with her mental and emotional state as well. She clearly still has a lot of determination when you kill her in a neutral route, but she only has enough to reform into Undyne the undying during a genocide route, where she feels much more strongly about the whole situation.
Anyway, UTY is a fangame, I don't think it's a stretch for the writers to have assumed that the player would have a certain amount of familiarity with the source material, and therefore that some things don't necessarily need to be explained. That definitely doesn't excuse every issue with the game's story, but I think "Ceroba becomes more powerful in her boss fight because of her emotions/determination" is a fairly reasonable conclusion to reach based on what we see in both the original UT and in UTY.

The only reason you would even be in the true lab in UTY is if the story got even more off the rails and Ceroba-focused than it already is, there's no legitimate reason for something like that to happen in-game.

roba's entire thing was to get to the lab in hotland with clover, then suddenly for no reason she flees to new home, even martlet's line of "she went there to juke her pursuers?" feels very phoned in
there is no way that's good writing
sure I agree with the mask boosting ceroba's powers, but it feels that's more a leftover from when she was the boss monster, there is no way even an emotional monster could get to boss monster level just by getting angry, undyne is an exception because she was already the strongest monster after asgore, but roba was just a housewife that was out of shape, that once again is just bad writing

save Kanako

Okay, how? Brushing aside the fact that such a situation would almost certainly be mutually exclusive to a canon-compliant ending, how would you even go about "saving" Kanako? I've heard people say that Kanako was meant by the devs to end up as that one amalgamate you see in that bed scene from the original UT, and if that's the case, I'm pretty sure Kanako is fucked. The other amalgamates have at least a passing resemblance to the monsters they (used to be/are composed of), the amalgamate Kanako supposedly ends up as is a completely non-descript tube. If she isn't even capable of pulling herself into a form that even vaguely resembles what she used to look like, I'm not convinced there's anything left of her mentally either.

I just beat the game, did Pacifist, downloaded a save to see Flawed Pacifist, then did Genocide. Pretty good overall but I felt like Martlet's fight was really bad. It's just a clusterfuck of bullshit between the claws and the shotgun feathers. Bullet hells should not be designed around an iframe dodge. Sans' fight is far more elegant and satisfying to learn.

Are there any other fangames I should play? Only other one I tried was Undertale 2 which is a (good) shitpost. I don't expect any other full length games like Yellow but even short ones would be fun.

UTY is already non canon so just go the entire way
have clover give kanako 1/1000th of his soul (which is already proven to be possible in UTY since chujin did literally that to integrity's soul, and a human soul is equal to thousands of monsters as seen in asriel's fight) to save her and have an integrity fight in kanako's mindscape where you can drop more lore bait
then have clover still go confront asgore since that was his mission instead of killing himself, so he can instead die there and "tie back" into canon, and the ending is way more bittersweet then whatever the fuck the actual ending was
this can all happen after the roba fight so you can keep all that in

First off, don't make her the spoon. That creative decision reeks of a spur of the moment idea that has no thought put into it whatsoever. Second, how about they use Clover to develop a soul stabilizing serum, or have him use his soul on her (which is a thing that's been shown to be possible in Deltarune) to heal her. Or hell, have Clover still die, but actually save Kanako in the process, and have him not die of suicide. Like lets say they break into the lab, but in the process they trip an alarm, a bunch of royal guards show up, Clover is mortally wounded, and as his dying act he uses his soul to save Kanako, restoring her to her natural state. Then the guards take the soul and put it in the jar. All plot threads are resolved and canon is still followed.

OST appreciation post
youtu.be/Uc6cIFXzvDA?si=6Yx51BUNS2MIWqnK

Deltarune Yellow is good, but unfinished. Undertale Naranja and Wiildfire both have combat demos released. There's the Red and Yellow mod for Undertale.

There is TS!Underswap, which is pretty competently made for an AU fangame, it has 2 sections so far
There is also DRY made by an anon, has a chapter and half but it's still very unfinished
Undertale Wildfire has a short combat demo but a bigger demo is coming up in a few months
For single fights, there are a few like Scampton, The Upper Hand and Underfell One Hell of a Show
There is also Outertale but it is mainly just UT with a space skin, but it has some unique fights and gimmicks, and the geno route is different too

youtube.com/watch?v=bEOscZCE3IQ

there is no way even an emotional monster could get to boss monster level just by getting angry

I'm not saying it makes sense for her to be at boss monster level, but at the same time, we still haven't really seen what a boss monster is actually capable of. The only canon boss monster fights we have from the original UT aren't helpful because none of them *really* want to fight you in any of their contexts. Toriel specifically goes out of her way not to kill you (though there is a way to die during her fight, if you're clever), Asgore is half-assing it since he also doesn't want to kill you, though he doesn't go as far as to explicitly avoid doing so, and Asriel/Flowey is usually just fucking with you and doesn't want to kill you for real. And Asriel's fight hardly counts anyway, since he was being boosted by the human and monster souls, so we can't really powerscale him by himself.
With all that in mind, it's not necessarily fair to say that Ceroba got boosted to boss monster levels, since we really haven't seen what it looks like when a boss monster *actually* wants to kill you instead of fucking around, so I'd say it's likely that even though Ceroba got a pretty decent boost in her fight, she's probably not actually up to the level of a real boss monster.

undyne is an exception because she was already the strongest monster after asgore

I don't have much of an actual argument to make on this point, but I feel like Papyrus is at least on Undyne's level when it comes to sheer power, he's just held back by the same thing that held back the Dreemurr's, the fact that they don't actually want to fight/kill you.

demo demo demo unfinished demo dropped demo

Uh, let me be clear, I only wanted complete games.

then your only choice is outertale, tough luck

Played Undertale 2

You've played every good fangame in that case.

There's a bunch of completed single fight fangames.

the issue wasnt kanako. The issue was the main trio and clover being accomplices to genocide even though they were probably aware what asgore would do to humanity.
Kanako can be forgiven as missed potential. The genocide plothole meanwhile completely breaks the games narrative arc and messaging.

Sure, I guess. The idea sounds kinda neat, though to be honest I'm not sure why so many people insist on Clover personally saving Kanako or having any kind of relationship between them given that they literally never interact with each other, but that's besides the point. My main point however many posts back was that the absence of such an ending, in and of itself, is not a problem. Like yeah, I like wish fulfillment endings/stories every now and then, but I really don't think the game would be made any better by having some kind of "save Kanako" route/ending/whatever. The pacifist route still has a complete story even without it, it's absence isn't an issue, it's just something you wish was in the game. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, it just means it's not an actual problem.

All plot threads are resolved

Kanako's plot thread *was* resolved, just not by saving her. The whole point with Ceroba's story at the end of the pacifist route (assuming you didn't blow her head off) was about her letting go, not trying to fulfill Chujin's legacy with that serum, and not trying to somehow undo her mistake with Kanako. Sure, it's something of an anticlimax with the latter of those two, but it's still a resolution. It's her going, "yeah, I fucked up with that, I can't fix this, I need to accept that and move on". Sometimes a plot thread is resolved, even if it doesn't look like it at first.

The whole point with Ceroba's story at the end of the pacifist route (assuming you didn't blow her head off) was about her letting go, not trying to fulfill Chujin's legacy with that serum, and not trying to somehow undo her mistake with Kanako.

That's not a resolution. Kanako is still there, in the lab, existing as an immortal pile of sad goop. And Ceroba hasn't even learned anything since she just did the same shit that got her into this mess a second time. That is just leaving two big plot threads unresolved.

Let me elaborate. If Kanako died and was confirmed dead, that would be a resolution. If Ceroba let Clover go and accepted Kanako suffering forever, that would be at least half a resolution. Ceroba getting what she wanted the whole time, Clover's soul, via letting a child kill himself, then not using it to save her child, which she had spent the rest of the game trying to save because she let her commit suicide, then deciding to just throw it away, is the opposite of a resolution, its an abrupt dead end.

existing as an immortal pile of sad goop

Yeah, like all the other amalgamates.
If you tried to actually factor UTY into the timeline of the original UT, then the resolution to this story becomes "Frisk encounters whatever amalgamate Kanako turned into in the true lab, resolves the true lab sequence as normal, and eventually Kanako is released along with all the other amalgamates before the true pacifist ending.".
There really isn't a sound way to resolve this story arc within the confines of where UTY can go, and that's kinda the point of UTY. None of the story can really be resolved for anyone until Frisk comes along. Every other human soul Asgore has probably has a similar story to Clover, they fall into the underground, go on a long journey where they encounter lots of people and make new friends and get a big happy found family, and are then abruptly killed by/for Asgore since there aren't enough souls to break the barrier yet and there's no way they could stay hidden from the royal guard for very long before being found or just being generally miserable.
That's part of why Clover offers up their soul, because what the hell are they gonna do once they get to Asgore? They certainly aren't strong enough to beat him, and again, they'd basically have to live in hiding forever if they didn't want to be found out by the royal guard, so they didn't have any great options at that point.

So if Shu (that being the Mr Satan parody version, not the reddit power wank version) were to be paired with a human, which one should it be? Frisk, Clover, one of the other soul fangame characters, or an original human character?

A story needs to be able to stand on its own, even if it is a prequel

I agree with you, yeah, but there are a lot of prequels out there with endings that basically boil down to "and then the thing this is a prequel to happens". Revenge of the Sith, MGSV (and 3), Halo Reach, etc.
And again, I'd say the real resolution when it comes to everything going on with Ceroba is just her letting go of all that, part of which involves realizing that it's outside of her power to do anything about Kanako, and that doesn't need to be explicitly stated for it to work. Sometimes the resolution is just accepting that there is no real way to fix things, no matter how hard you try or might want them to. That's what happened with Asriel/Flowey in UT, and people were so upset by that one that some guy actually tried to put together a petition for Toby Fox to make dlc just to make Asriel saveable, and obviously that never panned out.
Sometimes the only resolution you can have is to accept that some things are outside of your control and that you should just focus on what you have instead of chasing ghosts.
Really, that idea is fairly prevalent in UT, both in-universe and out. The main theme with Flowey's story in the pacifist route is about him letting go of the idea of Chara, realizing you aren't them and moving on, and living a life without them.
Part of Toriel's story is moving on from what she used to have with Asriel and Chara as their mother, learning to let go of her feelings and let you leave the ruins and continue on your journey through the underground.
Even Sans' story has major themes of letting go of something important and moving on, even if we don't know the specifics of what exactly he's letting go *of*, but it still fits.
Sure, UTY definitely could've pulled it off better with a bit of reworking, but having Ceroba accept that she just can't fix what she did and learn to move on from it isn't a bad idea, just not one they executed as well as they could've.

The orange soul would fit best since a lot of takes on it make it a fight maniac with special moves and such. It would be the best soul to juxtapose with a fraud martial artist

I didn't for shipping. I meant like if he were to be inserted into a human's story as a boss fight and recurring character, which one human should that be?

he is just needs someone to push him to try training again

Its not that he doesn't train, its that his training consists of him watching kung fu movies and knocking over water jugs with a stick in his back yard.

I also did Dina
files.catbox.moe/1o2cgw.png

Riley cucks Luna with Shu/Shu goes to jail for dating a minor (Val)

In that case, I still think a soul of perseverance could work, pushing him to train harder (like doing something other than watching kung fu movies), that or a bravery soul since those are the more combat oriented, either exposing him as a fraud or teaching him to fight properly mid fight

Not into pregnancy myself, but did you ever do a Ceroba one?

Im reposting this subject again (dont worry there will be no mention of dbz cuck shit)
So looking at this map, it looks like an excellent situation for starlo vs chujin drama.
In regular uty chujin and starlo were able to ignore each other . Chujin lives in a mansion outside of the cowboy town. starlo lives in that cowboy town that is somewhat far away from the mansion.
In dry this is not that situation. In dry chujin and starlo live in the same town. Right near each other (look at the map)
Starlo cant ignore chujins house and has to cross pass it or see it (since chujins house is in a important intersection)
Chujin meanwhile lives right near the middle of town. Governed by starlo, someone who he probably despises. So chujin cant ignore the cowboy town and starlo.
They are both stuck in a position where they are forced to interact with each other. Especially since I can imagine them crossing pass each other in the roads, buildings and etc.
I can imagine lots of tension and drama. Especially due to a certain fox moma, and how both starlo and chujin is attracted to her.
(I wonder if this is one of the things chujin complains to ceroba in private. Just like how he talks negatively about clover, perhaps he does the same with starlo. Starlo doesnt seem to be distant looking at the whole kanako calling starlo uncle.)

ignore the (you). I accidently replied to your comment

What problems does it cause?
Well to go down the list:

They introduced a plot thread, that very clearly had a lot to do with plot, only for them to do nothing with it, and abruptly pretend it doesn't exist.

Kanako as a character is non-existent. She's treated like she's important, but then she's not. because she's pretty much just...kind of there. She has no developed characterisation, because she just their to say a couple lines and get screwed over by her mothers, incredibly stupid and nonsensical actions.

Kanako is essentially Asriel, except all the interesting stuff has been removed. No explored backstory. No clear motivations that are explored. And above all, no resolution for her status.

For a character that's supposed to be a huge driving force for Ceroba, she's conveniently just swept to the side. Barely anyone reacts to what happened to Kanako, as they barely try to let what happened sink in, and after that we don't even get to see if Kanako will get fixed in some way or not.

The whole Kanako being the spoon amalgamate was dumb, and they were better just making her unique standalone amalgamate, that Clover could've potentially interacted with, or tried to help in some way.

The list goes on...

Revenge of the Sith

The difference with the Star Wars prequels are that all of their plot threads are either resolved in that movie, or become the main plot threads of the original trilogy, and are resolved on screen by the main characters in Return of The Jedi. If you ever pay attention to the prequels you'll notice the fact that every who's introduced in them either dies in them or becomes a main character in the original trilogy. No one ever asks "What happened to Dooku?" or "Where did Grevious go?" because we know what happened. They died. And the stuff people would ask about at the end of ROTS is the main focus of the following three movies.

What UTY did would be like if Vader was a minor background character who showed up occasionally to catch bullets, Leia never even appeared and we just have to assume she died when Alderaan was destroyed, and Han Solo was the protagonist of the originals, with Luke only showing up at the end to help defeat Palpatine.

If you really really need there to be no way to fix things, then kill Kanako. Don't just leave her undead and unresolved forever (no, being off screened in Undertale is not a resolution). Or cut Alphys and the true lab all together. Instead leaving Kanako amalgamated by Chujin's serum, still sitting in Ceroba's basement.

and that doesn't need to be explicitly stated for it to work.

Yes it does. Even if you don't say it with words, you have to show it clearly, so that the players will get it. Failing to do so is a failure of the writers at a fundamental level.

Sometimes the resolution is just accepting that there is no real way to fix things, no matter how hard you try or might want them to

But there was. She had it in her hands. She was right there and could have at least saved Kanako. But then at the last minute decided to just let both of them die for nothing.

Wasn't their supposed to be an egg showing with Clover's soul inside of it?

TS!Underswap is extremely high quality but unfinished and appears to be going through your average mentally ill teen developer drama.
If you're fine with standalone fights, A Different Snowgrave and Underfell One Hell of a Show are fantastic.

You draw really good Martlet's and Zenith Martlet's.
Looking forward to seeing more of them from you.

I don't know much about Riley and from what I know about Val I don't think they could be friends. Either Shu ends up getting (at least from his perspective) his life ruined for being exposed as a fraud because would never let a faker like that win, or Val kills him because he thinks Shu is way tougher than he actually is. I think it would need to be someone who can understand that he's bluffing and put up with his bullshit to actually be friends with him.

Another thing that upset me about UTY was the white flowers in the steamworks, I thought they were part of Kanako's almagamated self spreading through the underground like a tumor, but then it turns out the flowers are nothing at all
Really what the fuck were the devs thinking, I just can't believe they didn't think of anything with the weird plot threads, there is just too much setup for it to be just them going "haha we didn't think about it"
I feel like they are just lying now to save face

rule of cool, thats it, thats what UTY was built on, they didn't account for how autistic the Undertale fanbase can be about details

Kanako as a character is non-existent because she literally doesn't have anything to add to the story outside of being the motivation for what Ceroba does in the pacifist route. There are times in a story where a character is more useful to the story dead than alive, and that's the case with Kanako. Kanako herself isn't treated as being important, it's what happened with her and Ceroba that's important, and Kanako needs to be dead or otherwise out of the picture in order for that to work.
Her absence isn't a problem because again, it's not *her* that's important, it's the context of the situation.

Kanako is essentially Asriel, except all the interesting stuff has been removed

Kanako isn't really anything like Asriel, except for the fact that they're both kids who died trying to do what they thought was the right thing and got way in over their heads.
Asriel is an active presence in UT, as Flowey. He's a driving reason for why several plot elements happen, he's always watching what you do, taunting you, and nudging you in the direction he wants you to go. The entire true pacifist ending is the result of him manipulating events to make sure everything goes his, he's an active participant in the story. Strictly speaking, Asriel and Chara's deaths are the reason for why Asgore is collecting the human souls, but that's Asgore's deal, and Asriel is really only a small reason for why he's doing that.
In UTY, Kanako is entirely passive. She's not a presence in the story outside of Ceroba's motivations, and that's completely fine. It's like how Ben Parker isn't a factor in most Spider-Man stories outside of being part of why Peter does what he does. Kanako doesn't need to be an active participant in the story, she isn't a plot hole, she served her purpose fine.

Do you guys think any of the fangames will have the balls to make an ugly female monster part of the main cast?

What Shu needs as a character is to admit he's not that good so he can either A) quit trying to be this ultimate badass that can solo the entire underground and do something achievable with his life or B) swallow his pride and go learn from someone who can actually teach him how to win fights (Undyne). His problem is that he's too scared to admit that because he's afraid that if he is weak, and that people know he's weak, he'll go back to being bullied like he was as a kid.

So he needs a human that can help him to work through his issues. Bravery might be able to work for that by beating him, but then actually being nice to him after he's exposed as fraud. Showing him that he doesn't have to be the strongest for people to be good to him. I just don't know how that would happen without him getting exposed as a fraud to other people in the process.

You're thinking of a different pic.

I just don't know how that would happen without him getting exposed as a fraud to other people in the process.

If this bravery is like Val, then the human could be the one that looks for Shu and challenges him when he is all alone, forcing Shu to fight

I heard you're pretty strong

She's treated like she's important, but then she's not

an understatement, kanako is arguably the second most important (if not most important, depending on how you gauge chujin's importance) to the game's events and yet at the same time if you actually cut her you'd only need to rewrite a few lines before and after the steamworks.
take asriel on the other hand, if you were to cut him you'd need to rewrite almost everything thanks to how tightly woven he is into the game.

ugly

female monster

pick one

Val

The problem with Val is that he wouldn't do that. He'd either fully believe Shu's bullshit, hit him full force, and kill him, or see that he's a fraud a refuse to let Shu walk away with his dignity. It would be like putting Vegeta in a fight with Mr Satan. There's no way he'd ever let him win.

The main cast of UTY are all nobodies, effectively, and again, that's part of the point.
The only characters in UTY that actually matter in the grand scheme of things in the underground are Toriel (who appears for all of a minute), Flowey, Clover, and Asgore (who you may or may not even get to see depending on the ending you get). Ceroba, Martlet, Starlo, Dalv, and all the rest aren't meant to actually *matter* when it comes to the grander events of the story of the world of Undertale, not just talking about the story of the original game, but the world as a whole.
The question of "what happened to so and so?" is the same as what happens to all the background characters in the original game, they just live their lives after the story is over, and that's all it needs to be.

The main cast of UT are all fairly important people in the context of their world. The king and (former) queen of the underground, the head of the royal guard, the royal scientist, the biggest entertainer in the underground, etc. The only exceptions to that would Sans and Papyrus, but they have other things going on, and that's besides the point.
UTY's cast is composed almost entirely of literally whos.

If you really really need there to be no way to fix things, then kill Kanako

It's not that Kanako *needs* to stay dead/amalgamated in order for the story to be resolved, it's that the point of the end of Ceroba's story is that resolving Kanako's story is out of her hands.
Ignoring the fact that killing amalgamates was clearly shown to be impossible in UT, and that putting more soul material into Kanako probably isn't a great idea either given than the 1/1000th of integrity's soul is what made her like this in the first place, it's all besides the point. Ceroba giving up at the end of the pacifist route isn't just hand waving her story away, it's acknowledgement of the fact that she literally cannot fix this.

If you really really need there to be no way to fix things, then kill Kanako. Don't just leave her undead and unresolved forever (no, being off screened in Undertale is not a resolution)

That *is* the resolution, that was clearly the resolution.
If you're going to say that being resolved as one of the amalgamates that get released in UT doesn't count, then you may as well write off the existence of the amalgamates in general when talking about UTY's story, in which case Kanako's implied state is still just what we last saw her as, in that "fallen down" state that all the other monsters given to Alphys were in.
Kanako's story, when it comes to her direct involvement as a character, ends when she takes the serum, and that's literally the entire point of her in the story. *She* doesn't need resolving, because we have no reason to believe anything regarding her status has/is/will be changed, outside of becoming an amalgamate in the true lab, and again, this is literally the whole entire point of her character. She wasn't some super major player in the story that they just didn't know how to handle, she wasn't scaled back during development, she literally just wasn't meant to be anything more than part of another character's
backstory, and that's how it is. Even in the "beta" version of the game's story, Kanako herself still wasn't an active element in the plot, the only difference was that Ceroba was intentionally trying to kill her so that she would stop leeching off her soul energy since that version of Ceroba was a boss monster.
Kanako was never actually an important character directly, it was always about the context of the situation around her.
Anticlimactic? Maybe. Unresolved? No.

I think a lot of the issues people had with uty could be solved is if clover confronted asgore and died through that. (in both pacifist endings)
That way you dont have three adults letting a suicide happen and be accomplices to a genocide.

He'd either fully believe Shu's bullshit, hit him full force, and kill him

That depends on how strong Val is compared to Shu, assuming he has decent stats and Val isn't high LV then he should survive an attack

or see that he's a fraud a refuse to let Shu walk away with his dignity.

This is indeed true, Val would probably remind Shu of his bullying. There are two possibilities after Val realizes that he is fighting a fraud, either Shu tries to flee, destroying any chance of Val and Shu ever being friends, or he still tries to fight, Val would despise Shu's bullshit claims but he would respect the fact that he didn't give up despite never having a chance at wining (and was most likely terrified during the entire fight), which opens other possibilities like Val noticing Shu's potential (if Shu does have high stats) or letting him go with the condition of dropping the act

Hey, does anyone have the rest of this set?
I tried looking through desuarchive to find where I found this one, but no such luck.

They stop being nobodies the instant you make them important named characters in UTY. They have become important to the player, and that matters infinitely more than their relevance to some other games plot. In fact, their lack of plot relevance in Undertale is exactly why their plot must be satisfactorily resolved in UTY. Becauseit can't be resolved anywhere else.

it's that the point of the end of Ceroba's story is that resolving Kanako's story is out of her hands.

Its pretty hard for that to be the point when she has the way to fix Kanako literally in her hands. Its stated that a pure human soul is what is needed to save Kanako. Now she has what is indisputably a pure human's soul. And now its "muh nothing I can do".

Ignoring the fact that killing amalgamates was clearly shown to be impossible in UT

Its fiction anon, you can write a way to kill amalgamates, or simply make her not be an amalgamate in the first place. Have her fall down and die like Chujin did.

and that putting more soul material into Kanako probably isn't a great idea either given than the 1/1000th of integrity's soul is what made her like this in the first place,

That's because Integrity was a psychopath. A pure human's soul is what's stated to be the only cure for her affliction.

Ceroba giving up at the end of the pacifist route isn't just hand waving her story away, it's acknowledgement of the fact that she literally cannot fix this.

She can, and even if she couldn't that's a horrible way to end it because it still pushes a massive narrative element (Which is massive, we wouldn't be having this debate if Kanako's fate weren't important/ ) into a game where its never even acknowledged. That's a setup with no payoff acting like its going to have loads of payoff.

That's part of why Clover offers up their soul, because what the hell are they gonna do once they get to Asgore? They certainly aren't strong enough to beat him, and again, they'd basically have to live in hiding forever if they didn't want to be found out by the royal guard, so they didn't have any great options at that point.

I mean its better than just suiciding when you add in the context of asgores genocide plan. The way uty is structured means either clover knew asgore would do the genocide plan and thus clover ends up supporting the destruction of his own species. Or clover didnt know and thus becomes an unintentional accomplice to the genocide of their own species. Both end up making clover look bad and butchering utys overall story.
I think it would have been better if clover confronted asgore and learned asgore wouldnt do it. Then I can see the suicide scene making sense. (tho this will end up repeating ut funnily enough)

his training consists of him watching kung fu movies and knocking over water jugs with a stick in his back yard.

Rufus from Street Fighter has that backstory, even to the point of being obsessed about beating some strong fighter who doesn't care about his existence, and he managed to be top tier. I believe in Shu!

Anon, if you say a character is being sent to what everybody knows is the immortal zombie lab, then they're going to make the connection that if they aren't immediately removed from that place, they will become an immortal zombie. And as I've said before, getting implied to be off screened is not a resolution. Not for a named character, with a sprite, and multiple spoken lines of dialogue, whom the entire plot hinges on.

The entire second section of your post

It doesn't matter what they intended, it matters what they did. They made an incredibly important character, one whom the entire plot hinges on, one whom every character is connected to in some way, one whom every player was expecting more from. And then swept her under the rug the instant she fulfilled the bare minimum requirement to prop up another character. Then expected the player to just be cool assuming they would be taken care of to based on a single line that never mentions her by name in another game.

This is BAD WRITING. There's no defending it. I don't know why you're defending it.

do you have a document where you criticize utys writing. I would be interested in reading it.

whom the entire plot hinges on

Again, it doesn't hinge on *Kanako*, it hinges on Ceroba's actions in response to what happened *to* Kanako. The entire issue you're having here stems from you thinking that Kanako was way more important than she actually is or was ever meant to be. Like, I really don't mean to offend here, but you are focusing way too hard on a single passive element of the story and getting upset that it wasn't an active element.

one whom every character is connected to in some way, one whom every player was expecting more from

Speak for yourself, I absolutely didn't expect Kanako to be a major player in the story by herself, and it looks like I was right, since she totally wasn't.

assuming he has decent stats and Val isn't high LV then he should survive an attack

Maybe if he gives up and starts begging for his life, which he might not. He only has 221 HP, so if Val has killed some monsters prior to this, or if Shu just isn't willing to take the L, he could very likely die.

letting him go with the condition of dropping the act

I don't think he ever fully would. Even facing down certain death, he'd still act tough to the bitter end. You could get him to chill out, accept that he's not all that, and learn to not be an ass about it. But he still would keep acting like he's a super tough guy. And even then I think that'd have to be a more long term arc, rather than something done in a single battle.

which opens other possibilities like Val noticing Shu's potential

If you're talking about him possibly becoming a student of Val's, I don't see it. Shu wouldn't be willing to be seen as the apprentice of a kid half his age. Even if the kid is really strong and he could actually learn a lot from him, the optics of it would be too much for him to accept.

If a friendship were to develop between the two, it would be like the friendship between Rei and Ken in Fist of The North Star. With them viewing each other as equals who work together to kick ass, rather than as a leader and a follower (even if Shu is actually way weaker than Val.) I have no idea how they would get to that point though.

the author posted a zart version in the last thread

Anon, if you say a character is being sent to what everybody knows is the immortal zombie lab, then they're going to make the connection that if they aren't immediately removed from that place, they will become an immortal zombie. And as I've said before, getting implied to be off screened is not a resolution

Again, buddy, the resolution is that Kanako is an immortal zombie. That's it. That's how it is. The ramifications of this are just whatever happened with the rest of the amalgamates in UT.
UTY is meant to be a prequel, so of course there are going to be things that only make sense from the perspective of it being a prequel. Going back to my Revenge of the Sith comparison earlier, there are tons of things in that movie that don't make sense (or are otherwise not followed up on) if you haven't seen the original trilogy. "What's that big space station Vader and Palpatine are looking at at the end?", "Why did Obi-Wan just dump Luke on Tatooine?", "How has Qui-Gon become immortal and why are we only hearing about this now?", etc.
Kanako's existence is meant to server another character's story, and that's fine, it happens literally all the time. It happens with Bruce Wayne's parents, it happens with Uncle Ben, with George Joestar, Allison Church, who-fucking-ever, it's not bad writing for a character to not have a major direct role in a story just because you wish you saw them more, that's your own problem.
Like, I really hate to break it to you, but no, Kanako isn't "incredibly important", the plot doesn't hinge on her, she isn't even connected to that many characters other than by virtue of being connected to a character who actually *is* connected to other characters. You act as if the game was hyping up Kanako to have some kind of major presence in the story, and that just absolutely isn't the case.

I know, I saw that one, I'm just wondering where I can find the rest of the Ceroba set, since they made an entire array of faces/moods for Zenith Martlet.

Im also curious too. I need that roba set

It is bad writing when you set up the character to be a big plot point only to ignore it.
Dalv's trauma is closely related to Kanako. Martlet is the most adjacent but Chujin being at Snowdin is why Dalv's trauma happened. Starlo shows he cares about her a lot. Ceroba tricks you with the promise of saving her. Axis is her brother, from a certain point of view. And then you get nothing.

I do too, its just that what's holding him back isn't lack of training. Its bad training and lack of self confidence. He's hamstrung by his bad "kung fu" which he's too afraid to admit is bad, and his fear of exposure, which makes him weak, since monsters' physical strength is heavily linked to their emotions. When he's actually fighting for real, and not trying to show off or hide his inadequacy, he's actually not bad.

If he got some decent training he could be a very competent martial artist. Or if he stopped trying to be an IRL badass he could probably do very well in movies. Maybe even becoming the Underground's only kung fu movie star.

It is bad writing when you set up the character to be a big plot point only to ignore it.

is there any real evidence that kanako was set up to be a major plot point.
or is this a mass effect 3 indoctrination theory or aot anime only ending situation, where the writers didnt intend it to be set up this way. Instead they unintentionally set up plot points that could have lead to greatness but they didnt see it. Its only the fans that saw it not the devs.

It is bad writing when you set up the character to be a big plot point only to ignore it.

That's my point! They didn't do that! *Kanako* is not a big plot point, her having fallen down because of the serum is the plot point! She is a passive character, she has no direct influence on the story by herself, it's all about what *other characters* do *around* her in the story!
Kanako has Ceroba inject her with the serum, she falls down, and the rest of Kanako's effect on the story is 100% indirect from there on out. It's all about what Ceroba is doing because of what happened to Kanako, Kanako herself is effectively dead in terms of her role in the story, that's the whole point of her.
Having Kanako have an active, direct presence in the story after taking the serum would've been the fan-game equivalent of that alternate ending to TASM2 where Peter's dad turns out to be alive the whole time for no reason, it would've completely derailed the story and been fucking stupid, but apparently that's what you were expecting, so who am I to judge.

this just sounds like mass effect 3 indoctrination theory and aot anime only ending discussions. Bad ending causes cope, cope causes conspiracy thinking, conspiracy thinking causes interesting theories, interesting theories causes debate.
The same phenemona, the same cycle.

Again, it doesn't hinge on *Kanako*, it hinges on Ceroba's actions in response to what happened *to* Kanako.

Chujin's research was started because of Kanako, Axis was created because of Kanako, Integrity died because of Kanako, the serum was created because of Kanako, Chujin died because of Kanako, Dalv is hiding in the ruins because of Kanako, Kanako was injected with the serum because she begged to be injected, Ceroba is trying to kill Clover because of what she did to Kanako. Kanako is one of the two narrative threads that ties everything in UTY together, the other thread being Chujin.

but you are focusing way too hard on a single passive element of the story and getting upset that it wasn't an active element.

Because it was in the position where it by alll rights should have been active. She is one of the two most important characters to the story. Remove her and 70% of the game never happens.

Mass Effect 3's original ending was bad, but for completely different reasons. And they fixed that later anyway so who cares.
I'm absolutely not arguing that UTY doesn't have problems with it's writing, because it totally does, I'm just arguing that Kanako's relative absence from the story isn't one of them.

I'm absolutely not arguing that UTY doesn't have problems with it's writing, because it totally does, I'm just arguing that Kanako's relative absence from the story isn't one of them.

oh I know that, im just saying that this entire discussion reminds me of the conspiracy thinking debates ive seen in aot or mass effect 3 communities. The ones where people point to oh look at this evidence of x y z, theres clearly something missing here. A hidden ending or cut potential ending. And then it turns out it was just fans coping by creating an actual good ending when there was nothing there.
The kanako guy here reminds me of that people (no offense kanako guy) And you and the other guy debating him reminds me of the people who responded negatively to the conspiracy theories.

Chujin's research was started because of Kanako, Axis was created because of Kanako, Integrity died because of Kanako, the serum was created because of Kanako, Chujin died because of Kanako, Dalv is hiding in the ruins because of Kanako, Kanako was injected with the serum because she begged to be injected, Ceroba is trying to kill Clover because of what she did to Kanako. Kanako is one of the two narrative threads that ties everything in UTY together, the other thread being Chujin.

Again, these are all things that happen in response to things happening *to* Kanako, not because of Kanako directly. For instance, in the original UT, Asriel and Chara are important characters because they actually *do* things, they hatch the plan to have Asriel take Chara's soul and pass through the barrier, Chara plans to use their collective power to kill a bunch of humans, Asriel resists causing them both to die, which sets the events of the game in motion. From there, Asriel continues to be an active element of the story as Flowey, where he actively participates in the events of the story as a real character.
Kanako has none of that. She never does anything, other character do thing *because* of her, but she herself isn't important to the story, she may as well just be some random kid for the Ketsukanes, she literally doesn't matter outside of being the motivation for *other* characters to do things.

I don't think he ever fully would. Even facing down certain death, he'd still act tough to the bitter end. You could get him to chill out, accept that he's not all that, and learn to not be an ass about it. But he still would keep acting like he's a super tough guy. And even then I think that'd have to be a more long term arc, rather than something done in a single battle.

That sounds right, but then again monsters seem to be quick to change their mind

If you're talking about him possibly becoming a student of Val's, I don't see it. Shu wouldn't be willing to be seen as the apprentice of a kid half his age. Even if the kid is really strong and he could actually learn a lot from him, the optics of it would be too much for him to accept.

Less of a mentor student thing and more like Val going

"You got guts and you are strong, but not as strong as you think"

"You'd be better challenging someone on your level"

That would hurt Shu's ego but he could take Val's advice and fight other monsters to become stronger and then challenge Val again, forming a rivalry which could be one sided for comedic effect or could all be part of Val's plan to fight Shu again after he gets actual fighting experience
The fact that Naranja's story involves a torunament would be the perfect setup for a rematch between the two

If a friendship were to develop between the two, it would be like the friendship between Rei and Ken in Fist of The North Star. With them viewing each other as equals who work together to kick ass, rather than as a leader and a follower (even if Shu is actually way weaker than Val.) I have no idea how they would get to that point though.

They could reach the point of becoming friends after a rematch and Shu shows Val a considerable amount of growth since their last fight
This is all starting to sound too much like a battle shonen

Again, buddy, the resolution is that Kanako is an immortal zombie. That's it. That's how it is. The ramifications of this are just whatever happened with the rest of the amalgamates in UT.

That's not a resolution for an important named character. It can be a resolution for a minor character. But the minute its applied to an important character it stops being a resolution and becomes a cop out.

"What's that big space station Vader and Palpatine are looking at at the end?"

first of all, that was explained in Attack of The Clones. Second, its the main crux of the following movie's plot, and is adequately resolved in said movie.

Why did Obi-Wan just dump Luke on Tatooine?

That was explained IN ROTS. He's sent to live with his surviving family members and to be hidden from the emperor.

"How has Qui-Gon become immortal and why are we only hearing about this now?",

That's explained as far as it can be without delving into midichlorian talk in said movie and then used heavily in the following three movies.

By contrast Kanako is sent to the lab and is never seen or heard from again.

It happens with Bruce Wayne's parents, it happens with Uncle Ben, with George Joestar,

You know what the difference with all those characters is? They're dead, and they died at the start of the story. Batman isn't spending the entirety of Batman Begins trying to cure his parents' fatal poisoning.

she isn't even connected to that many characters other than by virtue of being connected to a character who actually *is* connected to other characters

She's connected to more characters than Ceroba is.

Yeah, but even then, the people who made those theories about ME3 were at least doing so in response to an actual issue with the game's writing, this whole thing with Kanako is just nonsense because this guy is assuming she was supposed to be some major element she was never meant to be.

this whole thing with Kanako is just nonsense because this guy is assuming she was supposed to be some major element she was never meant to be.

fair that is true

where the writers didnt intend it to be set up this way. Instead they unintentionally set up plot points that could have lead to greatness but they didnt see it. Its only the fans that saw it not the devs.

That's what we've been saying from the start. The devs, by complete accident, made Kanako the second most important character in the game. Failed to see what anyone who isn't actually retarded would see. Then treated her like an unimportant side character.

She has such a heavy indirect effect on the story that you have to give her some kind of on screen resolution in the game.

You know what the difference with all those characters is? They're dead, and they died at the start of the story. Batman isn't spending the entirety of Batman Begins trying to cure his parents' fatal poisoning

Alright, Mr.Freeze's wife then. She's the biggest reason behind why Mr.Freeze does what he does, and depending on what continuity we're talking about, he's actively trying to find a way to cure her disease, but she herself isn't an important character.
Also, you still haven't addressed that whole passivity thing I've been talking about, almost as if you don't have any real argument past "oh but they talked about her a lot so clearly she was supposed to show up at the end of the game and have her own special ending where everyone lives happily ever after and and and".

The devs, by complete accident, made Kanako the second most important character in the game

No, they didn't set her up to be an important character, they set her up to be a character that other characters cared about, and that's a massive difference. Again, Kanako, by herself, does nothing. She may as well be a stuffed animal a bunch of people happen to be really attached to, she's like a central point for other characters to exist and do things around, but has no real value by herself.

this guy is assuming

anon its not just "some guy"
the whole fucking fandom assumed that before the Q/A stream because of how fucking obvious the plot thread was, and everyone assumed it was just a hasty rewrite to push the game out sooner with how sharply the game turns when you leave the steamworks, along with the unused hotland kill count.

That's the fucking problem. She is this incredibly important character, the entire plot hinges on her involvement (direct or indirect does not matter, those things still happened because of her and would not happen without her) and then they did absolutely nothing with her. I'd call it fridging, but that implies they even thought she was important when they casually disposed of her.

indirect

Yeah, indirect. Other characters doing things because of/for her, but never doing anything herself.

t b h I can understand and sympathize with this mindset. I was there during the mass effect 3 situation. I was there when the original mass effect 3 ending came out. I was there when people made the indoctrination theory.
The same cycle, the same cope, the same rage, the same dissapointment. (also funny im mentioning cycles since a big thing about mass effect 3 was reaper cycles)
I dont know if i fully agree with your perspective since I need to think about it. But I can understand it.

Brother I'm gonna be real with you here, I have intentionally sought out as much UTY fan content as I could possibly consume, on twitter, reddit, bluesky, tumblr, etc, and this fucking board/thread is the only place I've ever seen people say that Kanako's absence from the story was a *problem*, as opposed to people who just wanted to see more of her.

She is this incredibly important character

No, no she isn't, that's literally the whole point I'm making here. She is a character other characters act around, not an actually important character by herself. There is nothing in the game that even remotely implied she was ever going to make a direct appearance during the current events of the story (i.e, outside of a flashback). She is a macguffin, an object of desire, she is the motivation for a few characters backstories, and that's all. It's like how Chara is barely a factor in the pacifist route of Undertale, only serving as part of the reason why Asriel wants to defeat you in his boss fight. The kind of thinking you're displaying here, next you'll tell me you expected Chara to suddenly pop up out of nowehere during Asriel's boss fight or some shit.
Just because a character is talked about, and just because they have a heavy influence on other characters, doesn't mean the character themselves is that directly important.

when will we get our anime only undertale yellow ending. I believe

Mr Freeze's wife

She has a consistent and major presence on screen even if most of it is spent as a pretty ice cube. And her character when it is resolved is always properly resolved. Either she's killed either accidentally during a confrontation with batman, or by another villain who blames batman for it, and then Mr Freeze is pushed over the edge and goes out for revenge. She isn't just removed from the story and never spoken about again. She dies on screen and even after she dies, Mr Freeze won't let any of the other characters forget about her.

Also, you still haven't addressed that whole passivity thing

Passive or not, she's still incredibly important to the story. Even if its only things happening to her, they still hinge on her presence to happen, and the effects of said things are monumentally important in the story. No Kanako, no UTY. So she must have an proper resolution.

so clearly she was supposed to show up at the end of the game and have her own special ending where everyone lives happily ever after

No one said this. Everyone knows the devs just intended for her to be a prop for their favorite OC so she can have a tragic back story. We know they never meant to do anything with her. We know there was no true lab segment or ending for Kanako. That's what's so frustrating. There by all rights should be. The story naturally flows to that point. Anyone, if they were handed an unfinished draft of UTY's script and asked to complete it would end it like that. And yet it isn't there and it never was.

No, they didn't set her up to be an important character, they set her up to be a character that other characters cared about, and that's a massive difference.

Not when every major plot element requires her presence for it to occur.

There is nothing in the game that even remotely implied she was ever going to make a direct appearance during the current events of the story

ceroba wanting to go to the true lab to rescue kanako and bringing you through the steam works, combined with the unused hotland killcounter.
i'd even argue that this line goes up to chujin's tapes and only gets derailed at "clearly ceroba went to new home to throw us off her trail!".
keep in mind: this is the only place where real discussion actually happens. everywhere else is circle jerking and people that dont elaborate or explain their thoughts.
and you have to consider the why on why people want more kanako: its because the plot SET HER UP to have more relevance, everything from the playground with sadie to the confrontation between ceroba and starlo was building up kanako as an important character that would be a proper asriel equivalent.
and they completely dropped the plot thread. there is a void in the game's story and its because the devs never saw the true lab/kanako plotline that they themselves made.

And yet the story can not happen without her involvement.
Even a macguffin still has to be given a satisfactory resolution.

Whenever (you) make it.

you are fucking right but I need a team
youtube.com/watch?v=qW8aD1m9X48&t=659s
we will make undertale yellow requiem

I really don't want to keep arguing this shit, but I will try to explain my point in good faith here.
Kanako, in UTY's pacifist route, is the equivalent of Chara in UT's pacifist route. They're both partially responsible for the events of their respective stories being set into motion, they're both part of various character's personal motivations, they're both talked about decently heavily by important characters in their respective stories, and they both individually do not matter at all on a personal character level.
Chara is not an active force in the pacifist route. They're part of the reason why Asgore is collecting the souls, why Toriel exiled herself to the ruins, and the main reason why Flowey is trying to defeat you and retake control of the timeline, but as a character, Chara doesn't matter in the pacifist route. They barely even show up in the genocide route. Chara is an entirely passive character, with indirect influence over the story. People do things because of them, or because of how they feel about them, but Chara themself may as well not exist past their death in the story.
Kanako is the exact same thing. People do things because of her, her falling down is what sets the back half of the story into motion, but Kanako herself has no role outside of that. She's not an underused character, she's not wasted potential, she's a non-character. *She* is not important, and her story needs no resolution because her story was already over by the time we hear it, just like Chara's.
After that, the rest of the character's stories revolving around her is just about letting go, and moving on.
I think that's about as good as it gets, really.

anon I think you gotta remember people wanted a ending for chara too. Remember all that post undertale aus which involved chara

First, Chara is 50% an allegory for the player's will.
Second, UTY's Chara is Integrity, Kanako was the Asriel except she didn't have any pay off.

Yeah, and that's fine. Those are AUs, alternate continuities. It's fine to want there to be something more to a character than there is officially, just look at what people have done with Gaster over the years.
My point is that there *not* being that much more to a character isn't a problem here. It wasn't an issue with Chara back in Undertale, it's not an issue with Kanako in Undertale Yellow.
I understand wanting to see more of a character, really, I get it, but not having that isn't a fundamental problem like so many people here are acting like it is.
Really, I guess I'm just sorry that you guys all happened to hyperfixate on Kanako of all characters.

Second, UTY's Chara is Integrity, Kanako was the Asriel except she didn't have any pay off

Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?
I can't keep doing this, you have a good night.

congratulations yellow Anon Babble, the non believer left because he couldnt handle the "insanity"

That sounds right, but then again monsters seem to be quick to change their mind

They change their minds quickly, not their ways. Papyrus still wants to become captain of the royal guard and become popular after you fight him, he just doesn't want to do it by capturing you. Undyne still wants to kill humans to free the monsters, she just doesn't want to kill you. Mettaton still wants to be super famous, he's just decided he'd rather keep doing it in the Underground. Most monsters don't outright change their ways until the true pacifist ending, and even then they don't do it by much.

This is all starting to sound too much like a battle shonen

That's the problem. Undertale is closer to a gag manga or something more Ghibli-ish than it is to anything shonen related. It wouldn't fit the tone for Shu to become this really strong rival that faces Val in a rematch at a tournament.

The best way I can think of for Val to befriend Shu would be for Shu to find a way to end a fight without actually winning or losing Mr Satan style so he can sidestep the issue entirely. Then convince himself later that it was an act of mercy or honor. Val would think he's an ass, but not seriously pursue a rematch to teach him a lesson since getting a fight out of him isn't worth the effort. Then at some later point Shu steps up against an actually threatening enemy, and gets his ass kicked in a comical way, but still manages to prove that he's got heart if nothing else.

the rest of the character's stories revolving around her is just about letting go, and moving on.

the problem with this is that any possible character growth is assassinated by the "ok clover we'll let you kill yourself, ceroba letting kanako kill herself is exactly what started all of this in the first place but we'll let you kill yourself"

Oh no, I'm still here, I just don't care to argue anymore.
I love this kind of bullshit literary analysis, even if I've gotta do it here. Think of it like the neutral ending to UTY, that's about how I feel about all this.

look man im just not sure what to tell you, even the larger fandom was able to see the blatantly obvious plot threads that the devs accidentally made and never saw.

If that's what it's supposed to be then they really REALLY should've explained it better. Because that's not the impression it gives off.

I love this kind of bullshit literary analysis, even if I've gotta do it here. Think of it like the neutral ending to UTY, that's about how I feel about all this.

fair fair, I also love witnessing very "interesting" analysis.I was observing the aot fandom for multiple years after the ending came out.
And while I think the kanako anons here have some good points at the same time im getting aot vibes

Yeah, there are plot threads that don't make as much sense as they could, this game does have issues, you're right. Ceroba going against Chujin's wishes, that syringe Martlet had just being generic determination and not some iteration of the serum Chujin was making, probably more I haven't even thought about.

Just not Kanako. Not this time.

probably more I haven't even thought about.

martlet, starlo, and ceroba knew about the asgore genocide plan but still let clover suicide?
clover themselves could have known and probably suspected asgore would do something bad to humanity but still suicided?

at the same time im getting aot vibes

I have no idea what this means, but I do feel anons go overboard with complaining about how much UTY's story was a failure. It sure has holes but it overall works, which can't be said for most fanfiction.

I'm gonna be honest anon. Earlier I was yelling at my monitor and calling you a retarded nigger. Now I'm over it. I think we're just looking at the same picture and seeing two different things. I don't know why this is, maybe some unconscious bias, maybe a difference in brain chemistry, but I do know we'll never fundamentally understand each other's positions.

I'm just gonna say that this argument wouldn't have happened at all if the UTY devs were good writers. A good writer knows how to properly convey ideas and intentions so they don't cause misunderstandings. So even if you think I am a mouth breathing moron for reading it this way, you've at least got to agree that a well written story would be much harder to read the wrong way.

but it overall works, which can't be said for most fanfiction.

overall works

yeah I disagree. Im the genocide plothole anon and well If we acknowledge asgores plan:
The way uty is structured means either clover knew asgore would do the genocide plan and thus clover ends up supporting the destruction of his own species. Or clover didnt know and thus becomes an unintentional accomplice to the genocide of their own species. Both end up making clover look bad and butchering utys overall story.
The entire plotline gets broken if you acknowledge a certain plan of asgores.

I would agree with your argument if Kanako actually died. The reason the other anon argues otherwise, and which I agree with, is that Kanako first ISN'T dead, and second Ceroba is actively trying to do something to save her. The entire last quarter of the pacifist route up through the final boss fight is driven from this. Kanako isn't a box of rare Ben 10 memorabilia that Chujin kept in a lockbox and that Ceroba needs Clover to help get it open, her specific fate is very relevant to the story. Having the game unceremoniously ignore what they've set up is bad writing, and they could have diverted the issue by just killing Kanako, but they didn't so Ceroba giving up and not even finding her makes her seem like an even worse mother than she is.

For fuck's sake, Ceroba EXPLICITLY says she knows Kanako isn't dead. They absolutely needed to show a resolution to that; even if it was just "Ceroba decides to let Alphys continue looking for a cure" they have to SHOW that. A single slide in the epilogue montage of Ceroba talking with Alphys outside her lab would have sufficed, albeit anticlimactically, and avoided all these questions.

They change their minds quickly, not their ways.

Going by your logic and your examples, Shu would still want to be known as the "legendary warrior in blue" after the fight, he would just change his aproach, like he starts to take his training more seriously but he keeps his bullshit claims

It wouldn't fit the tone for Shu to become this really strong rival that faces Val in a rematch at a tournament.

Then at some later point Shu steps up against an actually threatening enemy, and gets his ass kicked in a comical way, but still manages to prove that he's got heart if nothing else.

You could use but of these ideas, like Shu has to fight one of the finalists of the torunament, he gets his ass kicked but still tries his best, which combined with his attitude makes him a fan favorite for the tournament, he now has actual fans that will root for him in his fights, Shu is still delusional and he can copes by saying that he had an stomach ache or something during the fight, among those watching the fight was Val who now has a bit more of respect for Shu

Undertale is closer to a gag manga or something more Ghibli-ish than it is to anything shonen related

A gag manga becoming a battle shonen as the series goes on? Thats absurd

The entire plotline gets broken

The *ending* gets broken, the overall plot is still fine.

Eh, I'm not actually sure how much stock I put in that one.
Lemme explain:
The general population of the underground seems to view Asgore as being a pretty soft guy, a pushover even. Don't get me wrong, people still think he's strong, and he is, but based on how Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, basically everyone except Toriel (gee, wonder why) talks about him, I'm not sure how much they actually believe Asgore really intends to slaughter humanity. Even when you're getting that whole spiel from those monsters in New Home, they're really just talking about how excited they are to be free, not a whole lot about waging war on humanity again. The only monsters to my memory that actually do express any real excitement towards the idea of human genocide are Bratty and Catty, and Undyne, before you make friends with her anyway.
Now, we know how Asgore feels about all this, but going off what the other monsters seem to think? I'm not 100% convinced any kind of human genocide plan is really on the table, or even that the monsters really want something like that anymore.
Now of course, Clover had no real way of knowing any of this, since the topic doesn't seem to come up too much in UTY, but it's possible they just had a hunch about it. Maybe they also intuited that Asgore could've easily enacted such a plan once he had one soul, and just gone and grabbed a few more past the barrier, like Toriel mentions in UT? If that's the case, maybe they figured Asgore wouldn't really go through with any kind of mass genocide or anything, and decided to give up their soul on that hunch. Bit of a long shot, and I'm not saying that's what happened, but who knows.
Or hell, maybe Clover had a different idea in mind, and figured that millions or billions of human deaths was a fair trade for what happened to monsterkind, like some kind of mirror to their apparent ideology in the vengeance route, with humans on the receiving end.

im going to post the evidence now:
theres multiple things that suggest clover should have been aware or at least suspected it. Suspected that asgore could do very bad things to humanity. For example:

Ceroba tells clover:
"Life down here... it's miserable. That's why they look for assurance. They believe once he gets seven SOULs and breaks the barrier... he'll easily be able to overthrow whatever awaits on the Surface. A rather foolish outlook, if you ask me. Who knows how the humans have prepared for retaliation since then?"

blackjack tells clover:
"Humans"
"* Humans, huh?#"
"* Well, I'm afraid there's no# sugar-coating it. Humans such# as yourself are widely# disdained in the Underground.#"
"* It's popular to root for their# annihilation, even.#"
"* So much loss... So much grief...# #"
"* The wicked actions of# humankind are forever etched in# our history, only to subside# once King ASGORE obtains seven# of their SOULs and judgment is# brought upon the Surface.#"

dina tells clover:
"* Heard fears of Royal's bargin' into town? Your presence did cause a stir. Only natural."
"* The government takes human business seriously. Very seriously..."
"* I'm sure you've been hunted and attacked a hundred times by now. Happens every once in a while when a human falls down here.
"* Man, if I didn't have a business to upkeep I'd let whoever's wronged you have it!"

Also remember that:
remember that clover never learned that the monster attacks were greetings (if they were greetings). So from clovers perspective they were constantly being attacked and even nearly killed by monsters.

Also remember that starlo directly connects his attempt on clovers life with the kings work. And martlet mentions apprehending humans or etc, revealing it to be gov policy.

Kanako, in UTY's pacifist route, is the equivalent of Chara in UT's pacifist route

*She* is not important, and her story needs no resolution

but see there's a problem here.
in UT, we know that chara is dead.
chara needed no resolution because [murderboy.png] was fucking dead. thats it. you cant really "conclude" a storyline any harder than dead.
in UTY, however. kanako is not dead.
we know that kanako is actively suffering in the true lab. the devs confirmed that kanako is actively suffering in the true lab as the spoon.
the game set everything up to go to the true lab, ceroba wanted to go to the lab.
ceroba had a whole plan to take clover to the true lab and give kanako his soul.
clover going to the true lab and deciding

shit, if monsters are resorting to THIS to try and free themselves then i think im fine with self sacrifice

would've been a lot more satisfying than whatever the fuck we got with pacifist's ending.
a significant portion of pacifist was completely taken over by the kanako plot.
the ONLY reason we didnt go to the true lab is because ceroba randomly decided to go to new home at the last second for no reason instead.

you cant look at this in its entirety and think that kanako isn't a loose plot thread that needed resolution.

Also remember that:

remember that clover never learned that the monster attacks were greetings (if they were greetings). So from clovers perspective they were constantly being attacked and even nearly killed by monsters.

this part being one of the most important. From clovers perspective the monsters looked like they were genuine in their anti human beliefs. After all from their perspective it looked like they were being attacked by monsters just for being human.

Do you think the UTY devs knew how many paragraphs of analysis they would unleash into the world with their little game?

Earlier I was yelling at my monitor and calling you a retarded nigger. Now I'm over it.

Alright, that gave me a chuckle, thank you.

you've at least got to agree that a well written story would be much harder to read the wrong way.

Eh, yeah, maybe.
I mean, most of the people who worked on the project during it's development were teenagers, right? There's bound to be some fuck ups here and there, that's par for the course really.
I'd still say they did a decent job at the end of the day though.
I think we've both got to agree, neither of us would care this much if it was actually bad, huh?

as i've always explained it, the game actually builds up a decent sprint throughout its run time but then it trips and falls right at the finish line.

Going by your logic and your examples, Shu would still want to be known as the "legendary warrior in blue" after the fight, he would just change his aproach, like he starts to take his training more seriously but he keeps his bullshit claims

I'd say it would be that instead of defeating the human to prove he's badass, he will fight alongside the human. Maybe he decides you're honorable or something, and really this is just him trying to repay you for not utterly embarrassing him when you easily could have.

A gag manga becoming a battle shonen as the series goes on? Thats absurd

Yeah, but Undertale didn't do that though. It completed with the same tone as it had in the demo. And now Deltarune has maintained that tone through twice Undertale's length. I think it would feel out of place to give Undertale the dragonball treatment. Which is why all the skeleton wank and betty noir stuff is so cringe.

Yeah, I'd say it tripped a bit alright, but I think it just makes it past the edge of the line.
I don't got a whole lot more to say here, this was fun, hope we get a new thread relatively soon after this one so I can argue something different for a change.

Maybe Clover was okay with Undertale humanity getting their just deserts after finding out about the suffering they inflicted on monsterkind.

you are telling me clover is chara?

I'd call the story a mixed bag. It has good parts that are good enough to make people care about it, and parts bad enough to make people have fights like the ones in this thread over it. A good story people would like and not want to stab each other over. A bad story people would ignore or laugh at. The story is good until its not, and then its really not.

Chara wanted to do it because he's a misanthropic sociopath.
Clover could have accepted the outcome as Justice being dealt.

You gotta be pretty misanthropic and sociopathic to think all of humanity deserves to die or get punished for what their ancestors did a long time ago

Well, probably not all of them, putting the monsters on something of an even playing field.

youtube.com/watch?v=zlB9F7PoX0E

i see so a 80 percent rumbling den? Clover = eren yaeger?

Here's a better question. Do you really thing Asgore would kill all of humanity? Sure he killed 7 children, but that was only because he felt he had to, and he still hated every minute of it. I bet he'd try his hardest to get out of exterminating humanity. Instead trying to enforce some occupation of the surface, or simply trapping the humans in the Underground he had been trapped in for so long.

I dont think asgore would do it. I was talking about the perspective of clover and how they would have enough evidence or etc to think he could do it.
But in reality asgore wouldnt do it. Hes too kind and compassionate to do it.

Well look at the monsters. Based on what he's seen of them, do you think they'd have it in them to genocide humanity?

I think the most likely outcome would probably just be him using the power of the souls to demand some amount of land to be returned to monsterkind on the surface, and some kind of reparations for the human-monster war as well as it's aftermath. If I'm being honest, I don't think having the 7 human souls would make him a capital g god on the surface, since that's a pretty low barrier to entry for godhood all things considered. I think it would make him powerful enough to bring whatever human civilization exists in the UT world to the negotiation table, but not powerful enough to actually rewrite reality or anything, I feel like that latter thing only happens in the underground, and to a limited extent.

I still think UTY is good because we got a hot fox milf out of it, and that's good enough for me.

Undertale seems to imply it would give him that kind of power, and that's why the humans sealed the monsters underground to begin with.

But you've always got to worry about her killing any potential kids you have with her.

Yeah, but if that's the case, I feel like some random monster could've attained godhood by running around a hospice center with a butterfly net at that point, so something about that idea has always seemed a bit off to me.

(assuming you are speaking of clover)
well looking at clovers perspective that they were being constantly attacked by monsters.
Looking at how clover never learned that this was a monster greeting. Also theres a chance this wasnt a greeting.
Looking at how monsters kept attacking them even when their hp is low and their next attack would kill them.
Looking at how clover has to negotiate first or do other things in order for the monsters to accept mercy or etc.
And looking at how none of the monsters explained this was a greeting or etc.
Yeah I think from clovers perspective they would think the monsters would genocide humanity. Because a bunch of them didnt hesitate to immediately attack clover and try to kill them. Or at least looks like they were trying to kill them

Eh, just keep any experimental magic super soldier potions on a high enough shelf, that'll do the trick.

It happened in ancient history, so presumably hospice centers didn't exist at the time. Plus humans probably aren't just going to let monsters take their dead loved ones' souls.

Yeah, but look at how easy they were to talk out of it. Their hearts clearly aren't in it. Do you think they'd be able to do the kind of killing required for genocide? Would Clover think they could?

Yeah, maybe, but how easy is it to just go an kill like 7 people?
Humans are more resistant to magic attacks, but what if a monster just started running around with a knife or something and just jumped a few people? Like, it can't be that hard.

But Roba is very tall.

Put it behind a vaguely scientific looking lock, no way she's getting past that.

Considering how easily humans can kill monsters, I think its very hard. Remember that the entirety of monsterkind couldn't kill a single human during the war.

She'll just get your kid to undo the child safety lock for her like she did the last time.

Do you think they'd be able to do the kind of killing required for genocide?

Personally I dont. Monsters like undyne are an exception instead of the norm. The more likely scenario is this Monsters are just too peaceful and loving. Though Im aware of a lot of underground info since im the player

Yeah, but look at how easy they were to talk out of it

Would Clover think they could?

Not fully that is true, but they should have suspected. Since if you combine these encounters with say the quotes mentioned here then clover has enough information to be suspicious.
Which puts clover in a interesting spot. They dont have all the information to know asgore wouldnt do it. But they have enough information to suspect asgore could do something bad to humanity.

the entirety of monsterkind couldn't kill a single human during the war

That can't be right, I'm gonna need to see a source on that one.
Also, I'm not quite convinced monsters are as underpowered as people like to depict them as. I mean, we know for a fact that monsters don't have to actually make their attacks fair, since Sans and Flowey both have attacks that are undodgeable and kill you fairly quickly. Plus, Asgore has the ability to destroy your UI buttons, which we know means something in-universe since that is representative of a real thing. What if Asgore broke your "fight" button instead? I'm not sure what you can do against an opponent that can literally take away your ability to do things like that, that seems like an issue.

Keep any experimental magic super soldier potions on your person then, don't let 'em outta your sight.

That can't be right, I'm gonna need to see a source on that one.

The ancient inscriptions in Waterfall.

I'm not sure what you can do against an opponent that can literally take away your ability to do things like that, that seems like an issue.

We've also seen humans simply refuse to die when their hp is depleted. Determination is has. What's to say a human couldn't just say nuh uh to their fight button getting destroyed?

The ancient inscriptions in Waterfall.

me being a history major is sending red flags to my brain about trusting ancient INSCRIPTIONS

Roba accidentally drinks one thinking she's sucking your dick

Now you've killed the roba, anon.

I suppose they could be lies, but the game is obviously trying to present them as the truth.

DONT TRUST THE UNDERGROUND LIES. Ancient inscriptions arent credible.
Send me another source, NOW

I'll have to go read those inscriptions again then, but for now I'll take your word for it.

We've also seen humans simply refuse to die when their hp is depleted

We've seen Frisk do that, but we also know they're something of a special case. If we consider what we know from Deltarune (yes, they do share a general universe) and from that fucking ball game in snowdin, the red soul isn't like any other souls in the UT/DR universe. The other souls all represent a soul embodied by a certain characteristic, whereas the red soul seems to represent control from an outside force. Remember, the only reason we know what traits the 6 human souls stand for is because of the colors from that game, but the color red is used for the game itself, which implies the red soul represents someone being controlled, being used to interact with the world as though it were a game, which is very much what we do in UT and DR.
If this is all true, I don't Frisk or Kris can really be used as a good benchmark for how powerful humans are, since it's not really *their* power, is it?

Well there's the fact that there's multiple monsters who were alive during the war that are still living at the time of the game. And they corroborate how the war was an absolute seal clubbing by the humans. We have a siingle child soloing the entire underground on two separate occasions.

Well maybe just don't make any super soldier serums then, it's a small price to pay for sweaty fox milf pawjobs.

I only remember gerson and hes senile. Is this your source? A senile military veteran. Veterans who in real life have a tendency to be biased and misinterpret events.
Asgore? Hes part of gov. He could be part of the conspiracy?
Toriel? shes a former head of the gov. She cant be trusted due to association
Gumball? uh I mean blackjack. From what I recall he was just a kid back then. Not exactly the greatest of sources.
All these witnesses are unrealiable, biased, senile or compromised.
GIVE ME A BETTER SOURCE NOW

anon if you really looked through fanworks at large you'd see how many of them do the kanako in true lab thing, a ton of fancomics and fanfics do it, almost all of them that handle kanako's fate, if you somehow missed those then you just didn't look well enough

We have a siingle child soloing the entire underground on two separate occasions.

a child who is possesed and controlled by a higher being the player. With access to word manipulation powers that people on the surface dont have.
give me a better source, give me better proof. NOW

If we want to get into red soul stuff and the connection to you then you have to acknowledge that the humans in the game are a metaphor for players in an rpg while the monsters are monsters in an rpg. The whole conflict is meant to represent how unfair a fight between a game monster and a player really is. In which case that could mean that every human really is like that.

Also, the color red is listed twice in the ball game. The first time lists all the other soul attributes and their colors as why you won, then lists ball game as red. The second one says "try as you might, you continue to be yourself." I don't know what that line means, but it the second red flag might imply the existence of two red souls. With Chara likely being the other one.

"try as you might, you continue to be yourself."

I think that might be referring to the distinction between Frisk as an in-universe character and "You". Like those lines when you look at the mirror in Deltarune, "That's what they call "You".", and so on. Likely just a reference to the fact that You, the player, and the character you're "playing as" are separate entities in-universe.

Do you know if humans even can exist without being player skin suits? All the humans we've encountered so far are player characters (the only exception being Chara, who instead is the player's desire to complete the game). Maybe all humans are player characters and the ones we haven't played as simply haven't gotten their game yet.

depends of how far tobias will take the meta stuff, but we see other humans in the intro slide

are you implying that undertale is an mmo? The monster human war was just one big mmo battle against npcs? The underground is just a dungeon? The human city was just a mmo city hub

but we see other humans in the intro slide

think bigger, expand your mind. Those humans were other players. The monster human war was just a mmo event.

If you have more than one guy working on your thing, make sure to have someone else proofread your stuff

The underground is just a dungeon?

I know you're shitposting, but I think that was Toby's intention now that I've seen it spelled out.

are you implying that undertale is an mmo?

Maybe, or maybe it was one big party based rpg battle, or maybe it was a series of games with each one being from each individual human's point of view.

Right now it's just me, but once I finish the script I will get multiple proofreaders to look over it.

Toby's intention now that I've seen it spelled out.

Now that I think about it yeah you are right. The ruins does look like something from a dungeon.
And toriel is the dungeon boss....

or maybe it was one big party based rpg battle, or maybe it was a series of games with each one being from each individual human's point of view.

are you implying undertale is final fantasy? or maybe just maybe im thinking bigger now. You are implying the human monster war is just fire emblem undertale edition? The humans being our armies, the monsters being the enemy army, and the seven mages being the maincharacters?

I've never played Fire Emblem so I have no idea if that's correct.

damn, welp

Make friend with monster

Kill myself

Get notified of my post mortem kill after the monster dusts from emotional distress

I think monsters dying from extreme despair is a thing a fangame should cover.