"My trust, my feelings, my love, and my heart. I've lost everything! Now look who I am, because of her!"
"You do realize she is just using you, right?"
— Tabi
V.S. TABI Ex Boyfriend
, sometimes simply referred to as VS Ex, is a Friday Night Funkin' Game Mod created by Homskiy. This mod has become very popular among the fanbase for its design, difficulty and several unique features, such as being one of the first voice-acted mods.
The Girlfriend's uncle has supposedly invited her to a restaurant, and she brings The Boyfriend along, but as they arrive, they see that no one else is there and realize something is amiss. But it's too late — the trap has been sprung, and a mysterious figure from Girlfriend's past with an axe to grind against her family emerges from the shadows. This mysterious man is Tabi, Girlfriend's ex-boyfriend whom she had broke up with a year ago. When they both started dating, he was an aspiring musical producer who had a passion and love for his work. That was, until he met her father. Before he knew it, one fateful day, he lost everything — his career, his love, and even his human shape — through the machinations of Daddy Dearest. Now, Tabi is out for revenge... no matter how far he must go and who stands in his way.
A prequel week for this mod was in the works, titled "The Love Week". It takes place when Tabi and Girlfriend were dating and is meant to show what Tabi was like before he got betrayed by the Dearest family and lost his career, girlfriend, and human shape. However, this week has unfortunately been canceled due to controversies surrounding Tabi's voice actor and current owner. Homskiy confirmed that he will not continue the mod unless he is able to get ownership for Tabi back.
Song list:
This mod contains the following tropes:
- Adaptational Villainy: Girlfriend is hit with a dose this time around, having apparently manipulated Tabi to further her own career. However, it is possible that she may have simply been following Daddy Dearest's wishes, and may have gotten better since.
- Badass Normal: In stark contrast to Whitty and many other opponents both fanon and canon, Word of God confirms that Tabi has no magical or other powers (other than permanent invisibility of most of his body) despite his otherworldly appearance. Despite this, he remains one of Boyfriend's most dangerous opponents simply by virtue of his musical talent and his willingness to do absolutely anything for the sake of his vengeance, and is treated as The Dreaded by Girlfriend.
- Balance Buff: The final song was slightly recoded due to some difficulty issues. To be specific: Tabi was made even harder in order to provide more of a challenge. The original version had it where the health loss was a gradual overtime effect, ticking down 1-2% every second when it was Tabi's turn. But it was found that even with this handicap, players were managing without major difficulty beyond the note chart itself, so an extra effect was added where you also lose health every time Tabi hits a note, and with so many notes in each turn, plus when Tabi "sings" during Boyfriend's turn, it made missing much more punishing for players.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: After Tabi detonates an explosive at the start of the cutscene for "Genocide", the track has Boyfriend and Tabi rap battle in the now-burning restaurant.
- Clothing Damage: As of an update, Tabi's model in Genocide has many rips and tears in his clothes from the explosion. This also showcases that beneath his clothes, his body is indeed invisible.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Tabi shares several similarities to Whitty. Both were victims to a member of the Dearest family and have held a grudge against them since, they both have a Limp and Livid pose in their final song, Tabi uses explosives while Whitty is an explosive, and their final songs, "Ballistic" and "Genocide", are very similar. The main differences are that Whitty chose to go into hiding and opposes Daddy Dearest while Tabi actively tried to take Revenge against Girlfriend.
- Diner Brawl: The songs take place in a restaurant.
- Everyone Has Standards: In the remaster, while he still blows the restaurant up, Tabi states he specifically took measures to avoid killing innocent people.
- Forced Transformation: Tabi is technically human, but when he realized the family was simply using him for his talent, Daddy Dearest placed a curse on him that rendered his body invisible (except his hands) and turned his head into a goat skull◊. Needless to say, he's... not too happy about that.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Tabi's eyes glow yellow. As for the doom part, look no further than "Genocide".
- Gruesome Goat: A curse has put his head in a monstrous goat skull that he can never remove.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He has some anger issues since the incident.
- Informed Equipment: Although Tabi's never seen with a knife in gameplay proper, the cover art depicts him with one, the mod's menu screen shows the same knife piercing a beating heart, and if the player fails "Genocide", the death screen shows a knife stabbed through Boyfriend's skull.
- Interface Screw: During "Genocide", the game goes to absolute insanity where the screen pulsates, the arrows are now black with colored outlines, making it a bit more difficult to read them, and Tabi can actually drain Boyfriend's health without him missing any notes.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: During "Genocide", getting a Game Over shows a knife dug into Boyfriend's skull on top of being blueballed.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: While he's not so kindhearted anymore, Word of God says that Tabi loves cats and used to own a cat. When the Dearest family's goons kidnapped him, they also killed the cat for "fun".
- Last Note Nightmare: "Genocide" ends with a long, wrathful scream of impotent rage from Tabi.
- Mad Bomber: "Genocide" starts with Tabi triggering an explosion he rigged in the restaurant that the week takes place in, intending to kill himself, Boyfriend, and Girlfriend, to no success.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: If you play the mod in windowed mode, Tabi causes the entire window to shake during any verse of his in Genocide, similarly to Ruv.
- Mirror Boss: During "Genocide", Tabi can make Boyfriend lose ground when he hits his notes, just like Boyfriend himself. Thankfully, it's much weaker than The Boyfriend's own push, but when you consider the fact that Boyfriend can still lose ground by missing notes while Tabi (like all opponents) is a Perfect Play A.I., you got yourself one hell of a battle on your hands. The developers also were aware of this disadvantage, so they mercifully increased Boyfriend's overall health to 50% higher than the default, giving players a slightly better chance at survival.
- Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Tabi is canonically Russian and the first modded character capable of pushing back Boyfriend's health.
- Noble Demon: Although Tabi will stop at nothing to kill Girlfriend, he does try to convince Boyfriend to get out of his way, seeing him as just another one of the family's victims until it becomes clear he will not relent. According to Word of God, he also placed his explosives in such a way that no one but himself and Girlfriend would die, though "everything went wrong". (Whether that simply refers to the fact that he failed to kill his target or whether he accidentally killed innocents is not entirely clear.)
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While Girlfriend still dances along to the songs, her expression is visibly more worried than usual. Likewise, Boyfriend shows a sweat-drenched face, but as of the rework, keeps his usual smile, Downplaying this. After Tabi sets off an explosive that nearly tears the trio down, The Girlfriend is absolutely terrified.
- Psycho Ex-Boyfriend: Natch. However, he is not angry at Girlfriend for rejecting him, but rather for manipulating him and ruining his life.
- Rage Breaking Point: Tabi is pretty damn pissed to begin with, but once his attempt at a suicide bombing fails to kill any of the targets and Boyfriend still refuses to relent, he's basically just screaming in pure wrath.Tabi: I WILL KILL YOU AND WON'T LET HER HURT ANYBODY ELSE YOU LITTLE BRAT! DIE! DIEE!
- Retired Badass: Tabi used to be a talented and passionate music producer back when he was still dating The Girlfriend. He may have lost his career, but he never lost his touch.
- Russian Guy Suffers Most: Tabi is Russian and lost his career, his relationship, and even his human form.
- Skull for a Head: Tabi, thanks to the curse placed on him.
- Speaking Simlish: Even though everyone else is fully voiced in cutscenes, BF still speaks in beeps and bops. During the songs, Tabi sings in a harsh electronic voice not too dissimilar to Whitty's.
- The Stinger: After the lines mentioned in To Be Continued below:Agoti? Is that… you?
- Taking You with Me: When he realizes that Boyfriend will not back down, Tabi grabs a detonator and activates it, attempting to kill himself, Girlfriend, and Boyfriend in one fell swoop. The fact that this fails to kill any of them immediately, and Boyfriend still wants to help Girlfriend, triggers his Rage Breaking Point.
- To Be Continued: As of the latest update, a screen displays the following text after the player beats Genocide:STORY WILL CONTINUEWILL LOVE OVERCOME HATRED?STAY TUNED...
- Turns Red: After detonating his explosive, Tabi adopts a hunched-over posture, his hat covering his eyes, his hands balled into fists, shaking from pure wrath (and inexplicably growing a lower jaw). In this state, he not only unleashes his most brutal song, but also gains the ability to push Boyfriend back when he hits his notes... and he doesn't miss notes.
- Villainous Breakdown: "Genocide" has Tabi lose his mind and try to kill both Boyfriend and Girlfriend.
