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  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Given Sekhmet is Eliza's skeleton, is she still her own person with Sekhmet sparing her brain, just a personality taken up by the Parasite to enjoy herself, or have the years together resulted in a Split-Personality Merge?
    • The nature of Marie's abrupt return in The Stinger of Eliza's Story Mode. Given that she's nowhere to be seen directly after Eliza defeated her the first time, did she somehow muster up the strength to recover while Eliza was pre-occupied with Double or did the Skull Heart revive her in the hopes she'd be able to defeat Eliza?
  • Americans Hate Tingle: While it does have its fans there and is not exactly hated per se, the game is not exactly popular in Latin America, compared with other established fighting game franchises like The King of Fighters or Street Fighter. This is partly because unlike the aforementioned games, this game is notorious for having a steep learning curve regarding combos, meaning that any useful tactic in those games will definitely not work here, and partly because it's a console-exclusive game, while most Latin American players are more experienced with arcades.note 
  • Awesome Art: The art direction is amazing, paying homage to old school cartoons with each character having multiple drawn frames with smooth animation. They could've gone with cheaper 3D models, but where's the fun in that?
  • Base-Breaking Character: Cerebella is liked thanks to her cute design, fun gameplay that's noted for being much easier than other grapplers in fighting games before her, and for being one of the nicer members of the Medici family. However, she is also hated because of her strong devotion towards Vitale, who is not only the cruel head of the Medici family, but is also Cerebella's father figure, which makes her devotion come off as an Electra complex, as well as her story mode's ending where she horrifically crushes Ms. Fortune in order to get the Life Gem back.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: The game has a rather cool art style, a good story for a fighter, some interesting characters with personalities that shows they actually have more depth to them than just their looks, and is an overall fun and solid tournament fighter. Unfortunately, many people who haven't played the game for more than 10 minutes, if at all, often get stuck on what they perceive as blatant fanservice. Though this diminishes really fast.
  • Broken Base: With the tumultuous development of Skullgirls, the game inevitably attracted its own share of arguments amongst its fanbase as changes rocked the scene.
    • Mike Z's conservative approach to balance patches. Mike believes that you cannot make changes based off a limited amount of play and prefers to let a game grow before he and his team make any balance changes. This obviously appealed to older fans and fighting game veterans who are used to seeing most early Game Breakers eventually find counters. However, newer players, especially those new to the genre in general, were not so happy with this. Some of those same newer players were also somewhat put off by the influences from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, specifically on the utility of the assists.
    • Double's Hornet Bomber Assist. Due to a mistake in the game's coding, it had a lot more invincibility frames than it should have, making countering it difficult. There were people already crying out for a nerf on the game's debut, and people who didn't think the assist needed nerfing, and they told those people to learn to deal with it. Either way, though, the move did end up being nerfed.
    • In the end, the game seems to have eventually captured a significant fandom — but it turned out that not many of the fans actually played fighting games at a high level. So even though it was designed by an experienced FG player for high-level competitive play, it eventually lost most of its tournament exposure. The Xbox 360 version's not being updated to the latest version (for about a year; thankfully, the patch was finally released) further fractured the base, as the online matchmaking for the game is almost completely empty on that platform as a result.
    • Not even the voting for the two DLC characters was immune. When Round 2's survivors were announced, many fans cried foul due to hopefuls like Marie, Umbrella, and Scythana being out-voted by Minette. Beowulf winning the second contest was met with outright revulsion from detractors, who claimed he had the least interesting design of all the male characters and Beowulf didn't make even make it to the top 4 in the first contest's voting. Many fans were not happy at Big Band taking Umbrella's second DLC character spot, especially as she lost in the fan voting soon after. What probably caused the most resentment was Alex Ahad's explanation that it would be impossible to add True Story Mode until Marie, Umbrella, and Black Dahlia were playable characters. You can imagine the rage that erupted when none of them won, meaning that the mode would never come to pass. This was alleviated when Umbrella, Black Dahlia, and Marie finally made their playable debuts as DLC characters.
    • After it was discovered that a couple of animations involving panty shots were edited, many fans were concerned this was the start of potential censorship in the future. Lab Zero later clarified that these were only edited due to artistic reasons (they felt the original animations were too forced) and no other adjustments of this type would be made. (In addition, some panty shots are still in the game.) After further edits were made in a June 2023 patch, the base was broken even further, especially considering the promise the development team had previously made to not make any further changes of that nature.
    • Legendary FGC player SonicFox received the honor of having their avatar/fursona added into the game where there is a 50/50 chance that they will replace Mrs. Victoria on the Class Notes stage. This has been divisive among both the FGC and the furry community. A mod was promptly made to remove the character.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
    • For the most part, this was fortunately averted early on in the game's life, as you would see many different types of teams and assists being used online, which is likely helped by the fact that the roster was so small at launch. However... get into higher-level play and you would see a whole lot of teams with Double on the end as an anchor. Double had an extremely good assist in her Hornet Bomber move, particularly her Light Kick variation, since it simultaneously acts as a lockdown assist and an invincible assist. Along with that, while she was mostly manageable as a normal point character, she became much scarier when she had a meter to abuse her Bandwagon Rushdown, Nightmare Legion, and Catellite Live supers with. Not to mention, the latter acts as a really good way to bring in Double through a DHC if you keep the opponent blocking. She's been nerfed pretty effectively over the course of the game's lifespan, so it's not like she's unbeatable at this point, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from tacking her on their team even after the game's support initially ended and when it got revived in 2020.
    • Fukua has been the subject of this as well, due to her ability to easily confirm into combos (while simple to do), causing a ton of damage.
    • Big Band is put on many, many teams simply due to his Brass Knuckles and Beat Extend moves being fantastic assists. It doesn't hurt that he's a pretty good character as well, in spite of his massive size. And if it isn't him, it's Cerebella instead. Aside from solo characters, seeing a high-level team without one of the two online is very rare.
  • Complete Monster: Lorenzo Medici is a vain, narcissistic, and power-hungry crime lord who has presided over the Medici Organization for decades, using the mystical Life Gem to become nigh-immortal while harboring ambitions of using the Skull Heart to conquer the Canopy Kingdom—if not the entire world. Lorenzo poses as a philanthropic businessman, but is responsible for the Medici Mafia's countless felonies—including torture, murder, Human Trafficking, and child slavery—while having those who cross him ruthlessly disposed of, even long-time allies and family members. After the Life Gem is stolen, Lorenzo—reduced to a decrepit old man—furiously orders his son/consigliere Vitale, the mass-murdering cyborg Black Dahlia, and the bloodthirsty warlord-turned-diva Eliza to retrieve it and kill anyone who defies him, no matter the collateral damage.
  • Crazy is Cool: Peacock's powers rely on a mix of her love of cartoons and her total insanity. Things like her beartrap teeth, her calling in Anvil on Head attacks, and her creative and absurd Hyperspace Arsenal make her both an incredibly deadly Long-Range Fighter, and a stand-out even in a zany Cast of Snowflakes.
  • Creepy Awesome: Double, her being a completely amorphous and voracious Blob Monster doesn't detract fans from her fun playstyle of turning into other characters using moves they never did in-game.
  • Crossover Ship: Peacock/Spinel, either as genuine best friends or Vitriolic Best Buds, due to their shared Inkblot Cartoon Style and Break the Cutie characterization.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Back when the game was being developed, Peacock drew the most attention for fans by virtue of being the weirdest character — which is quite an achievement, given what the other characters are like. This is most likely due to her spouting a bunch of familiar lines and her appearance and fighting style being based on old cartoons.
    • Squigly was very popular among the fanbase, despite not being in the default roster. When she was added, her popularity was cemented thanks to her fun fighting style, her cute appearance, and her tragic story.
    • Minette, a character who was only seen in one picture in the Story Mode Trailer, and whose name was only known at the time by Word of God, gained popularity shortly after the trailer went up. And while she didn't become a DLC character, she did manage to make it into the final four of the first voting poll.
    • Panzerfaust, a huge, muscular character with a tank for a fist, and whose name was also only revealed by Word of God, who grew in popularity as the possible first playable male character until Big Band was chosen. He was previously part of another game concept by Alex Ahad, but shows up in the background of Parasoul's Story Mode in the same uniform as the rest of her soldiers. A popular YouTube voice actor, General Ivan, recorded some lines for him and sent them to Mike Z. The webcomic boosted his popularity due to his comical nature.
    • Bloody Marie was by far the most requested character for Downloadable Content, according to Mike Z.
    • Stanley Whitefin, also known by the Fan Nickname "Science Shark." He was apparently designed as a throwaway background character and was actually intended to die over the course of the story... but fans took a liking to him, and he was even a possible DLC candidate.
    • Big Band, aka Sax Deka, was initially another background character with a large following. In fact, he replaced Umbrella as the second DLC character.
    • Adam Kapowski, elite Black Egrets soldier, is well-liked amongst the fandom for his status as a generic Dogged Nice Guy in the crazy setting.
    • Feng, Cerebella's roommate, is well-liked for her cute appearance and humorous backstory. She has a surprisingly large amount of fanart.
  • Fandom Rivalry: With Super Smash Bros. Melee during the charity donation event to decide which game would get into EVO 2013. Although Melee won, both of the sides seem to have nothing but mutual respect now for being the two highest-raising communities.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • "Bionic Car," "Toontown Swag Wagon," or "Drunk Drivin'~" for, "Bandwagon", Double's super move mimicking Peacock. If Republican Double is using it, it's 'REPUBLICAN CAR!'
    • "Republican Double" - Double in her red color palette. Comes from this video, which later expanded into a sort-of in-joke within the community: "REPUBLICAN DOUBLE FOR DLC!" Thanks to the Indiegogo fundraiser reaching $250,000, it actually became DLC.
    • "Swag Bag" for Peacock's grab super.
    • "Science Shark" for Dr. Stanley Whitefin, the Dagonian scientist in the background of the Anti-Skullgirl Laboratory stage.
    • "Lunch" for Minnette, the Dagonian waitress from Ms. Fortune's story mode.
    • "Doublecock" or "Cock and Ass" for a team including Peacock and Double. Quite a popular team, as Double's Hornet Bomber assist provides a great way to get into Peacock's keep away game.
    • "Boob Nurse" for Valentine. No points for guessing why.
    • Big Band:
      • "Sax-Q" for Big Band, referencing both his look and the way that Mike Z wanted him to fight.
      • Big Band was nicknamed "Detective Sax" by Japanese fans before they found out anything else about him; in a nod to the way names can change in different localisations of a game, the developers actually made that his official name in Japan.
      • "Big Bad" is another nickname for Big Band, due to people primarily picking him up for his fantastic assists. However, as a result of that, Big Band players are also usually terrible to okay as him, making him dead weight on their teams as a result.
    • "Ass-ist" for Double's Hornet Bomber attack, due to its primary use being an assist.
    • Annie's Star Power mechanic got dubbed "Star Install" after Sol Badguy's Dragon Install due to both serving the same purpose and Annie generally having a very similar moveset and overall playstyle to Sol already, with Star Power specific combos often being referred to as "Install" combos. The mobile game makes this an Ascended Meme, with the Star Power mechanic for her Sol shout-out costume being renamed explicitly Dragon Install.
  • Fanon:
    • There was a common fan theory that before she swallowed the Life Gem, Ms. Fortune had brown hair. This was a sort of Development Gag, as her original design sported brown hair instead of her current white.
      • However, as of Skullgirls Mobile (which takes place before Ms. Fortune ate the Life Gem), this has been debunked, as Ms. Fortune is seen in the story mode with an appearance very similar to her current design (including the existence of her white hair), yet simultaneously with no signs of being cut up whatsoever on her body.
    • Adam is often thought to be the Skullgirls universe equivalent of Slavic, due to his grey eyes and Polish last name. In a related vein, he's almost always depicted as a generic, comically serious Dogged Nice Guy who gets no respect, and has a crush on the clueless Parasoul.
  • Fetish Retardant:
    • The stylized anatomy and overly jiggly breasts can have this effect for some people.
    • Double might even be an intentional use of this; her intro animation starts with her appearing as a shapely nun, shortly before she splits in half and turns into a giant flesh monster, not unlike The Thing (1982).
  • Friendly Fandoms: With the Super Smash Bros. Melee fandom, crossed with Fandom Rivalry. When a charity event was made to decide which game should go to EVO 2013, Melee won, but the two fandoms still have respect for each other.
  • Game-Breaker: Double used to be one, due to how overpowered she used to be. In short, she hadnote  the best assist in Hornet Bomber, a broken level one (now level two and shortened) super in Catelite Lives, and an infinite. No matter what you needed, your team was automatically better simply by placing Double on it.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • One of Filia's supers is called "Gregor Samson" — after Gregor Samsa, the main character of the Franz Kafka story The Metamorphosis, who wakes up one morning to discover that he's turned into a giant cockroach-like insect.
    • The resident race of Fish People are called Dagonians and inhabit the district Little Innsmouth.
    • The Argus system gets its name from the myth of Argus Panoptes, the multi-eyed giant whose eyes, after his death, were taken by Hera to adorn the tail of the peacock.
    • Samson is a parasite that replaced Filia's hair (A hairasite?), and acts as the source of her strength. Now, who knows what was the source of Samson's strength in The Bible? Anyone?
      • Samson's former host was also called Delilah. In the Bible, Delilah was the one who tricked Samson into removing his hair.
    • Everybody knows Peacock's mascot partner is named after Tex Avery. Fewer people notice the Avery Unit is named after his team of animators. Appropriately, it's her weapon system that warps reality into cartoon logic.
      • "Avery" also happens to sound like "Aviary," continuing Peacock's bird theming.
    • The Medici Mafia run the city of New Meridian and are the patrons of Cerebella's circus, Beowulf's wrestling arena, and other entertainment. During the Italian Renaissance, the House of Medici ran the city of Florence and were patrons of the arts, though with less horrifying crime.
    • Black egrets are actual birds that hunt by cupping their wings into makeshift umbrellas.
    • Cirque du Soleil has an act named Vis (Vice) Versa in which one person balances on top of another using remarkable physical strength.
    • Buer is a Goetic demon depicted as a lion's head with five bent goat legs arranged like a spinning wheel. The Buer Drive is a spinning wheel made of bent blades. Painwheel's other synthetic parasite, the Gae Bolga, is named after the Celtic hero CuChulainn's spear, that expanded into thirty barbs when it entered a body. Since it's already in her body, it bursts out of her skin as multiple spikes.
    • Parasoul's living weapon is Krieg (German for "war"), which she uses in conjunction with a Luger Parabellum pistol. "Parabellum" is derived from the Latin adage Si vis pacem, para bellum - "If you wish for peace, prepare for war."
      • Parabellum is also the name for a type of bullet in real life, the 9x19mm Parabellum round commonly used in most semi-automatic pistols today. To add to this, it was first introduced for the Luger semi-automatic pistol.
      • For further theming, her snack-obsessed sister's weapon is named Hungern (Swedish for "starvation," but can also mean "famine"). While understandably not named after the German for "famine" (because "Hungersnot" sounds terrible in English), they appear to be named after the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
    • Eliza's parasite is named Sekhmet after the Egyptian goddess of war. In the mythology she was known for drinking the blood of her slain foes. Sekhmet was also known as "Lady of Slaughter" and "She Who Mauls" - both of these titles are referenced in one of Eliza's supers.
    • The triangular marks on Hive's forehead appear to be dorsal ocelli - light sensitive organs of insects for maintaining flight stability especially during high speed maneuvers.
    • Squigly's Shoryuken move is called Draugen Punch. Not only is this a pun, but "draugen" is a type of undead from the Norse Mythology.
    • Squigly can punch opponents across the room with Liver Mortis. The body blow's name is already appropriate ("liver death"), but "livor mortis" is also the discoloration brought on from dying. On top of that, it is a nod to "rigor mortis," the post mortem stiffening of muscles, and is fashioned after Bruce Lee's famously rigid one-inch punch.
    • Eliza referred to Double as Lamia in her tag-in line. Lamia was the queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon and her name was derived from the word "laimos" (Greek for gullet). One of Double's lines before fighting is "Blessed are those that revere Lamia." Also, she refers to the other fighters as "ignorant children" and consumes the initial cast in her ending.
    • Common depictions of Pazuzu makes him a Mix-and-Match Critter Humanoid Abomination with a serpentine penis. D.Violet's Pazuzu Whip looks like a snake... Hmm...
  • Genius Programming: According to Mike Z, being able to have six characters at all on consoles, even with pixelated sprites on occasion, is a miracle in and of itself.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
    • While the game rose in popularity in its native US as more info came out, the game is also very popular in Japan, with a lot of the initial featured fanart being made by Japanese artists, and Uno Makoto (designer for Witch Blade) had even drawn fanart for Skullgirls. Reverge Labs also noticed this: they planned to release a Japan-exclusive disc (due to Japan's dislike of DLC) after the first batch of DLC.
    • It drew the attention of Japanese fighting-game producers as well; Yoshinori Ono and Daisuke Ishiwatari are both on record as saying they were looking forward to the release of Skullgirls. (Ono even tweeted several photos of himself at the Skullgirls booth at New York Comic Con 2011.)
    • Mike Zaimont (director of the game) also said he was hoping to get an arcade release for the game, with a Japan-focused breakthrough in mind. Things were looking up for that; apparently the game could run on a Taito arcade board. And then it happened, as Skullgirls got an arcade release in Japan through the NESICA system.
    • Following the game's US release, Microsoft Japan contacted Konami and Reverge Labs because they were overwhelmed by people calling in asking why it wasn't out in Japan yet. Wow. Those fans' prayers were eventually answered - an issue of Famitsu announced that Skullgirls would be available on the Japanese Playstation Store on Feb. 14, 2013.
    • On a smaller level, Japan apparently really likes Bloody Marie for some reason. Must be the Elegant Gothic Lolita/Meido design motifs or something.
    • For the record, the game's popularity in Japan is pretty unusual for a Western-developed fighting game, since other Western fighting games since Mortal Kombat are considered jokes there due to their extreme violence and being too photo-realistic. The fact that most of the cast are cute anime-style girls might have helped in this respect.
  • Goddamned Boss: The Skullgirl herself. While Marie can take a lot of punishment and dish it out in spades, most of her attacks are easily avoided provided you play smart. When she's down to the last 10% or so of her health, however, she breaks apart into nothing more than a skull and some bones hovering around the Skull Heart. In this form, she is very hard to hit due to her tiny hitbox that floats out of the reach of most ground-based attacks, and zips back and forth across the arena to avoid you. All the while she's using all of the same attacks she was using in the previous two forms, with the skulls firing in greater numbers. While she's (arguably) not difficult enough to put her in SNK Boss level, she's still very, very irritating to fight.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Lab 0 being the incredibly shady, covert branch of the Anti-Skullgirl Labs and having a Bad Boss in the form of Brain Drain is a lot more awkward after 2020, when Lab Zero Games closed down after almost all of the staff left the company, citing a toxic workplace environment perpetuated by MikeZ.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • In this stream around 44 minutes in, someone shoved fanart of Beowulf into the camera (before the official announcement). Shortly afterward, Render declared, "That was not our official announcement; that was just some fan art!" Guess who won the second DLC character vote?
    • An April Fools' Day joke in 2012 has Skullgals announced for the Neo-Geo, a little more than two years later, Skullgirls Encore was announced for the PlayStation Vita.
    • Beowulf's section of the bios for all the potential DLC characters reads "[His using weapons in battle is] only illegal if there’s a referee." Fast-forward to today, and not only does Beowulf have a personal referee, he is part of his moveset, meaning there ALWAYS is a referee in fights that Beowulf is a part of.
    • Baring Parasoul's more abrasive characterization, this one comic has Umbrella sneaking away and befriending Carol (simply on the basis that she looks cool) with Carol openly accepting her hospitality. Come Umbrella's story mode, and not only does the same thing happen, but Carol also gets the added bonus of finally getting her happy ending thanks to her.
    • Parasoul at one point says "Winners don't use drugs!". Her English voice actress Erin Fitzgerald would later use the exact same voice for Seiko Kimura, the Ultimate Pharmacist, in Side:Future of Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School.
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Filia is the "Fat" member of the cast weighing in at 142 pounds (24.4 BMI, 0.6 away from over weight).
  • I Am Not Shazam: To those who don't recognize the title as referring to the main antagonist and not the characters. It doesn't help that the demo version featured Filia and Cerebella as its two playable characters, both of whom attack using their head. This reached new highs (or lows) when Big Band, the first male character, debuted.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Due to the game's increasing popularity, many gamers are actually too afraid to try this game since they assume that only fighting game veterans will enjoy it and player killers might overpopulate the multiplayer for any newbies trying to enter the ring. Not helped by brutal boss Marie and certain attack strategies that could crush players really easily.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • LGBT Fanbase: As one would expect out of a game that has a fully female cast (not counting DLC), it's rather popular among lesbians and bisexual women.
    • To a lesser but still notable extent Beowulf has caught some gay male eyes. Being just as fanservicey as the females, of legal age, and quite possibly being the least creepy and traumatic character on the roster has caused some to appreciate him as a rare case of all-in male fanservice.
  • Les Yay: All-female fighting game. This was inevitable.
    • This little exchange in Ms. Fortune's story mode:
    Valentine: Well, well...what have we here? That's quite the body you have there, kitty.
    Ms. Fortune: ...Er, sorry, creepy lady. I'm not interested.
    • According to Word of God, Valentine is more or less asexual. Despite this, she is said to use her looks to seduce people, which might explain some elements of the Proud Beauty she expresses in-game - in fights predominantly against other women.
    • Seen in Double's ending, Aeon has a Ms. Fortune body pillow.
    • Peacock has a few, likely innocent examples of this, probably due to her role as a pastiche of classic cartoons being rather masculine while she herself is a girl. For example, her grab block has her spurt out "Watch the merchandise," she refers to Parasoul as a "dame" in one of her win lines (in a very mocking tone), and one of her opening lines against Valentine is a very loud and drawn-out "Hello, nurse!" She also smokes a big, fat cigar and likes to sit and watch TV all day.
    • This image, giving heavy implications of the Crack Pairing of Squigly and Eliza, is an official shirt design by Japanese fanartist Moyoosu.
    • The moment Roxie appeared in the webcomic, she gets an interaction with Molly which really came off as the two of them flirting. This of course got many people to start shipping the two of them together instantly.
    • Black Dahlia leads a whole unit of henchwomen in scantily-clad bunny suits, and if the voice lines during her Girl's Night super are anything to go by, she is very affectionate towards them. She even openly contemplates how Valentine would look in a bunny suit in one of her pre-round intro lines! And that's without even reading into her Villainous Friendship with Eliza.
  • Memetic Badass: Yu-Wan, the owner of the restaurant in Little Innsmouth, thanks to this video.
  • Memetic Loser: The Skullgirl herself, Marie. For a number of factors such as her remarkable weakness by Skullgirl standards, dying in every single character's Story Mode (with her death going unacknowledged in nearly all of them), frequently getting overshadowed by Double in later story modes, and had to wait nearly a decade after release to be playable as the last character for the Season 1 Pass despite being the final boss and titular character. Black Dahlia's story takes this to its logical extreme by having Marie be the first character she fights, beats, and kills, with no one giving her death the time of day, not even by the Skull Heart itself.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Republican Double
    • Robo-Fortune's became one as well, spawning much fanart after Kimlinh Tran (Fortune's actress) ad-libbed some lines during a stream. (As seen here on the 1:13:00 mark) And then Robo-Fortune appeared on the game's Indiegogo page....
      • Both are now Ascended Memes (though granted, they were started by the voice actors). Republican Double was announced to be a downloadable voice pack as a reward for hitting $250,000 in the Indiegogo fundraising campaign. Robo-Fortune became a voice pack at $350,000 in the campaign, but this was superseded when a last-minute stretch goal was funded, making Robo-Fortune into a playable character a la Robo-Ky.
    • The weekly Salty Cupcakes Skullgirls livestream has the meme of Mike Z's Sandwich. Really, just sandwiches in general.
    • Umbrella's Demotion To Extra has led to her "Salty Umbrella" portrayal where she looks annoyed, angry, or psychotic with Dull Eyes of Unhappiness in fan-art after she fell out of the DLC character race. This meme has now officially died thanks to Umbrella's promotion as the second character of the season pass.
    • Two Weeks (TM) Explanation 
      • Became an Ascended Meme: Squigly tells Marie and the audience in the beta story mode that they're going to have to wait two weeks for her real story mode to happen. Marie reacts very poorly to being told that.
      • Eventually was ascended even further: it's now one of the things that must be typed to maximize Blockbuster damage in The Typing of the Skullgirls: Encore.
    • Adam, one of the few Black Egrets we see with a face, gained popularity due to his status as The Generic Guy and is frequently depicted amongst the fandom as a comically serious Dogged Nice Guy.
    • Lab Zero's complete inability to catch a break. Fans dubbed it the "Skullgirls curse."
    • "Skullgirls is a dead game." Eventually died off, due to the fanbase being very dedicated in making it appear at many tournaments long after it was first claimed to be dead, with Combo Breaker being the most popular.
    • Conversely, "the Skullgirls launch party never ends", referring to how Skullgirls continuously received attention from its developers and to how its community managed to stay alive and active for so long, despite being a niche indie title. The meme saw a further increase in usage after a DLC season with four new characters was announced nearly a decade after release.
    • "ROLLING!" Explanation  It became an Ascended Meme after an April Fools' patch that replaced all of Annie's voice lines with that specific yell.
    • "Why are you eating ice cream?" Explanation 
    • "#SaveSkullgirls" Explanation 
  • Moe:
  • Moral Event Horizon: While Black Dahlia has done some pretty horrible stuff, shooting Squigly - a 14-year-old girl at the time - clean through the head and mocking her mother about it really pushes her over the line.
  • Narm: Painwheel's ending is depressing, but the presentation is sort of goofy. The fact that her parents were able to shout her away with one sentence, and that she didn't even attempt to remove her mask to show them it was her (which she can apparently do according to Valentine's ending) makes it seem like she put no real effort into trying to re-unite with her parents, and goes off to be alone instead.
  • Never Live It Down: Cerebella will always have trouble living down her story mode's ending, where she gruesomely kills Ms. Fortune out of love for Vitale. Even though her ending is technically non-canon, and the event in question isn't referenced outside of her own story mode, some people still hate her because of it.
  • Obvious Beta: The pre-patch version of the game by Reverge Labs. The Xbox 360 version suffered from this longest due to Microsoft's very strict file size patching limits, but it was eventually patched months after the PlayStation 3 version, plus unless you didn't download the required patch, you're stuck with it until you do.
  • Older Than They Think: The game had been in production for years before Mike Z came on board, with several of its cast members created years before even that. Most of the characters thought to be expies precede their counterparts. Not that it's easy to tell in a game made of references.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Try to finish Fukua's story mode without wondering if "Filia" isn't really Fukua after the story's ending and her successfully taking over Filia's body. She likes being Filia, after all.
  • Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Cerebella and Vitale Medici are supposed to have an "aloof father and daddy's girl adopted daughter" feel to their interactions, but in the game, it comes off more as a creepy May–December Romance thing — especially in Cerebella's ending, where she's shown sitting on Vitale's knee sharing a glass of champagne in a very tight, slinky dress that the busty girl is almost falling out of. It feels more like Cerebella wants Vitale's romantic love than his paternal love. Common fanon is that it is romantic, but only on Cerebella's part, with Vitale seeing her only as a daughter. This would of course make Cerebella the resident Electra-complex representative.
  • Polished Port: The PC version of the game is very well done, having lobbies, supporting just about any USB controller available, using the extra memory to have all the sprites loaded at once, and updated much more frequently than either console version.
  • Porting Disaster: The Switch version, which was handled by Skybound instead of Lab Zero, launched with a myriad of issues including (but not limited to) voice lines playing at incorrect times (if at all), framerate drops, input lag, large space requirements compared to other versions, using English audio even when the options are set to Japanese, and voice acting not being present during Story Mode. Luckily, a new port of the game was released in 2023, completely replacing the old version, though it still has the issue of the game crashing during Beowulf's story mode (altough still an issue, the devs are aware of it and working on a solution).
  • Refrain from Assuming: The credits theme is called "In A Moment's Time", not "In Just A Moment's Time'', as most sources on the Internet have it listed.
  • Sacred Cow: Among the online-focused part of the Fighting Game Community, at least two games get constantly praised because of having a rollback networking code (such as GGPO). They are this game and Killer Instinct. You can barely find any major criticism of these games online.
  • Shipping: Fans of Les Yay are very happy with this game:
    • The most prominent is Filia/Painwheel. Happens because of Filia wishing for Painwheel having a normal life, sacrificing her chance of getting her memories back. Also, Carol is really cute.
    • Fans also seem to like Patricia/Marie Toy Ship. Their backstory is the reason for Marie's wish, and Peacock is willing to forgive and save her until the very end.
    • Some Fanon interpretations pair up Cerebella with Ms. Fortune, and Parasoul with Valentine, conveniently ignoring the Canon that Cerebella is willing to crush Fortune into another Life Gem in her ending (although her regrets afterward shed some sympathy), and Valentine is part of the Terrible Trio that wishes to make Parasoul's little sister Umbrella a Skullgirl.
      "Suddenly there's going to be a million new pictu - yuri pictures of these two popping up on the internet after this."
    • Valentine and Painwheel also see a lot of pairing up. This could possibly because in Valentine's ending, it turned out that in a way, she was looking out for Painwheel, wishing herself to be a Skullgirl so Painwheel could be the one to destroy her and the Skull Heart.
    • Feng x Cerebella has been rising in popularity as well, though Word of God is that Feng doesn't have romantic feelings for Cerebella at all.
    • Ms. Fortune x Minnette also pretty fairly popular, given thanks for their Odd Friendship.
    • Squigly x Filia, based on their Friendly Rivalry (even though their Puppeteer Parasites don't approve), their tag-team battle against Double and especially in the Bittersweet Ending where Filia gives Squigly a proper burial, and carved a very heartwarming epitaph on the headstone.
    • Filia x Cerebella is also prominent, mostly for being the first two girls shown, but also Cerebella's cryptic win quote implying that she knew Filia before her memory loss.
    • A rare het ship; since the addition of Big Band to the playable roster, and him calling in Leduc to extract Painwheel after Band beats her, Leduc x Carol is fast becoming a popular ship. Strangely, no one ships Big Band x Ileum, despite them being the shared Parental Substitute for Lab 8's Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
      • Before the release of Big Band, many supported the ship of Big Band x Illeum, for being Team Dad and Team Mom for obvious reasons.
    • Some people are shipping Filia x Fukua as well, although Fukua's interest in Filia is very creepy, she wants to be Filia and she wants to have her face...
    • Cerebella x Beowulf is somewhat popular due to a pre-release Beowulf picture of Beowulf signing Vice Versa and the caption being: To My Biggest Fan. Needless, it's very common for Cerebella to have a Crush Blush in fanart.
  • Spiritual Licensee:
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Shocking Moments:
    • Squigly's Story Mode. When Marie throws half of a building at the beginning of the story you know that shit just got real.
    • Eliza's story mode still manages to top it. The moment she straight up kills Cerebella is the moment things take an incredibly dark turn...
  • That One Attack: Double's Catellite Lives super. What it does is essentially keep you in permanent lockdown for the entire duration of the move, allowing your opponent to mix you up in any way they see fit. If you end up getting hit, which you likely will, you end up in a combo... which leads to the person gaining meter, performing Catellite Lives AGAIN, and repeating the process until you're dead. The only way to defend against it is to either block the entire thing or perform a really difficult technique known as pushblock guard cancelling in the middle of blocking the super and hope that it manages to hit Double so you can break free.
    • Fortunately the move was nerfed in the Squigly patch — it now costs two meters to use, meaning it can't be used continuously as it used to be, and you can't cheat the system and just mash the macro buttons so you don't accidentally throw out an attack anymore.
  • That One Boss:
    • Marie. She's immune to hitstun, spits out attacks like crazy, and has a hitbox the size of a peanut in her final form. She is also totally immune to anything involving a grapple, making her even harder for the characters that rely on powerful grabs.
    • Filia when fought as Fukua's final boss. She is automatically set to Nightmare difficulty, has 3 times normal health, and starts with 5 charges in her super meter. Good luck.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The June 2023 update was met with considerable backlash (up to and including review bombing on Steam) for perceived censorship — specifically to certain fanservice elementsnote  and to certain politically-sensitive design aspectsnote , which also resulted in several guest fanarts being removed for incorporating the former two mentioned. This isn't the first time the game's developers have caught flak for a wave of design edits seen to be 'toning down' a game Best Known for the Fanservice.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Despite having a pre-existing emotional connection with Annie in his own story mode, Beowulf only appears once in Annie's own story mode route as an opponent, where he could've given a similar "You Are Better Than You Think You Are" she gave him when he was at his lowest.
    • Valentine and Double makes no physical appearances in either Umbrella's or Black Dalia's stories. Umbrella's case is especially confusing, considering the former has the most personal stake in Painwheel's existence, so she should've known that she was able to break free from Brain Drain's commands with Umbrella's help, and the latter showed explicit interest in her Skullgirl abilities way back in Parasoul's story, meaning there was simply no reason why any of them wouldn't show up. Meanwhile, Black Dalia starts her story by outright killing Marie in her first fight, which again begs the question of why didn't Valentine or Double know about this despite being her Co-Dragons.
  • Ugly Cute: Mike Z described Double as this in this video.
  • The Woobie:
    • Painwheel. Originally a normal school girl, she was kidnapped by the Medicis and later experimented on by Brain Drain and Valentine into becoming the monster she is now. Even her story ending doesn't bode well for her since when she was able to see her parents again, they did not see their daughter. All they saw was a monster, presumably trying to kill them, and forced her out. Driven by that despair, Painwheel regretfully returns to Brain Drain.
    • Peacock. Before her augmentations, she was a slave that was abused by the Medicis to the point of being mutilated completely, especially her eyes getting gouged out. Once Dr. Avian found her, he was able to restore her into becoming who she is today. However, when the Skullgirl attacked Lab 8, Peacock found Avian dying from his injuries, losing the person she looked up to. Even worse is when she found out that the Skullgirl in question was actually Marie, her one friend that she had while enslaved.
    • Valentine. She used to be a part of The Last Hope, a team of ninja nurses, until Marie and Double attacked and killed the entire team, save for her. After that, she was forced to join the Skullgirl despite her wishes.

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