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Rumor Honeybottoms is an anti-heroine and a boss of the game Cuphead.
Appearance[]
Rumor is a very large queen bee with red lipstick, a round yellow nose and a yellow and peach colored muzzle.
Her primary outfit consists of a black and yellow striped bell-shaped dress with a white trim at the end of it, a black ribbon belt around the waist, and long, black sleeves with yellow cuffs. She also wears a pair of generic white gloves, and despite her full body not being shown in-game (even in the good ending) she has yellow legs and wears a pair of black high heeled shoes.
Being the queen, she wears a bronze crown and wields a large bronze honey dipper that acts as both a scepter and a magic wand. Despite her size, her wings are quite small but still able to hold herself at the top of the screen for the entirety of the second phase.
During the third phase, Rumor uses a magic spell that turns her into a yellow and black stripped airplane with a peach colored cockpit alongside a crown design on the back. She has yellow wings with black rings and white tips, as well as jet engines that act like rocket launchers with small white wheels and the same stripes as the rest of the plane. The honey dipper is now on the top of the airplane and acts like a propeller.
Personality[]
Rumor is one of the more clever bosses, using Security Bee as cannon fodder to test the abilities of her enemies. She seemingly fights Cuphead and Mugman mainly to keep her own honey protected, rather than preserve her own soul as hinted in the death scene in Phases 1 and 2. She may also be an amateur in transformations, as she uses a guidebook to help her transform. It may also be that she was confident that she would be able to beat any intruder and ran out of attacks to use. She also seems to be partially mindful of what's above her, as evident by the pained groans from when she tosses the spellbook aside.
Battle[]
Rumor is seen with a knife, fork, and a napkin bib, hungrily looking at Cuphead and Mugman while licking her lips, and then snapping her fingers to call Security Bee, who is promptly heard blowing a whistle in the distance off screen before flying in, as if on cue, before warning the duo to step away from the honey. Then, she retreats off the top.
Security Bee[]
| “ | Doggone! We've got ourselves a good old fashioned honey heist! | „ |
| ~ Security Bee |
In this phase, Rumor sends Security Bee after the players. Security Bee will pull bee bombs from his pocket and then drop them. These bombs explode after a 5-second delay and their detonation releases 6 spikes, 3 of which can be parried. In Simple and Expert mode, the bomb releases 8 spikes, 4 of which can be parried.
Meanwhile, worker bees with suitcases fly across the screen, looking very tired form work. These bees won’t attack the players, though if you run into them, you get hurt. You can easily shoot and destroy these bees. Hitpoints = 8/8/8
Throughout the whole fight, the bubbling honey at the bottom of the screen is continuously rising upwards, and players have to jump up hurriedly to avoid the honey by using the platforms. The honey appears in the first phase and the second phase only, as in the final phase, Rumor replaces the honey in her airplane form. In Simple mode, the scrolling section is slower. In Expert mode, it is faster.
After taking enough damage, Security Bee will suffer an injury to his shoulder and a plaster will appear in that region. He then departs, rubbing his shoulder and moaning "Owww..." in pain, flying off the screen to the left as Rumor intervenes to continue the battle. This commences phase 2.
It is recommended to use the Chaser for this phase, because Security Bee is always moving from left to right and it also helps clearing the worker bees.
Phase 2[]
| “ | Hey sugar, this honey is off limits. Now scram. | „ |
| ~ Rumor Honeybottoms phase 2 death screen |
Hitpoints = 750/432/490 In this phase, the worker bees will stop coming out and Rumor will appear on either of the screen and use her honey wand to cast two projectiles of the following spells:
- A spiky purple tetrahedron that shoots off three little pink parryable equilateral triangles from the tips three times. There is an audio cue of maracas shaking for this spell until she goes off-screen again. In Simple mode, it only shoots out small triangles twice. In Expert mode, the tetrahedron moves faster and it's fire rate is increased to shoot out all the triangles faster. This spell will spawn in a random location and drift toward to player(s) in a straight line, until it is off-screen.
- A stripy pink sphere that follows the players slowly, which the players can parry continuously. It will drift straight off the screen in after some time. In Simple mode, the sphere travels slower. In Expert mode, it travels faster.
In Simple and Expert mode, she only casts one projectile of each spell.
Occasionally, she shows up in the middle dropping her head down to the bottom screen, which is connected by a chain to her body. She chews and spits out six bee missiles on both sides that cover the entire arena in an 'S' like pattern. When the missile is turning around occasionally it can make a drifting car sound. In Simple mode, she spit them out in a much slower rate and the attack last for a long time. In Expert mode, she always shoot out four missiles.
In Simple mode, she always starts with two random spell casts and then stay in bee missile attack forever. The worker bees will keep spawning during her spell casting attacks but stop when she start using bee missiles.
In Regular mode, she can start randomly with all three of her attacks, but the cycle is always bee missile, sphere spell, tetrahedron spell and repeats.
In Expert mode, the pattern is always bee missile, cast a random spell, bee missile, cast the other spell and repeats. With her only casting one spell each time, she is trying to stay off-screen often and cycle her attacks while letting player deal with the the platforming as well.
After taking enough damage, Rumor will flip her magic book to supposedly find a new spell after which she chants the spell with her eyes glowing and transforms into an airplane. She then flies downwards off-screen and reappears at the bottom screen, which commences the final phase of the battle. In Simple mode, Rumor's attacks are set in a pattern: initially, she only uses the "Spell" attack, and the worker bees are still appearing during this sub-phase. After taking enough damage, the worker bees will stop appearing and she uses the "Bee missile" attack endlessly until she is knocked out, ending the battle without her transforming into an airplane.
It is recommended to use Spread or Lobber in this phase, as Rumor's hitbox is very huge. Chaser is discouraged as the spells will also be a focus for the shot and drag away damage from Rumor.
Phase 3[]
| “ | Dominate and bombinate -- that's how I bee! | „ |
| ~ Rumor Honeybottoms phase 3 death screen |
Hitpoints = 504/574 In the final phase, players now fight Rumor in her airplane morph spell on the bottom screen. She will move back and forth and attack by firing off fist missiles that has a weird set path, it move in a swirling motion to throw off the player(s). In Expert mode, she can fire two fist missiles at the same time.
Occasionally she will lean to either side and turn that side's wing into a buzzsaw to slice up the players if they are above her, which is telegraphed by her leaning to the sides of the stages and the sound of the buzz saw revving up. In Expert mode, she can chain two of these attack together. She would take a brief moment of staying on the same side not moving then start revving up the buzz saw again to swing bad to the other side.
After taking enough hits, Rumor is defeated as her airplane form malfunctions, swinging her wings and spinning her bright red head with crossed eyes and sticking out her tongue.
It is recommended to use Lobber, Roundabout or Chaser in this fight, as they have a easy time to hit her body, Lobber by aiming up or let bullets arc down from the side; Roundabout by aiming up and up-left/right while moving to the sides; Chaser can just need to hold down shoot button. Charge, Peashooter and Spread are harder to use as they need to be aimed down.
Trivia[]
- There are two unused laughs for Rumor Honeybottoms in the game files. It is unknown what they were going to be used for.
- Rumor's level is the only level to have vertical scrolling while some of the others are horizontal scrolling.
- Sometimes, the spheres from Rumor's second phase can be seen on the sides of the level during the third phase.
- A glitch is found where the final phase can be skipped. If dealt enough damage before last phase, Rumor can be defeated during the transition. It can be seen here. This glitch is due to how Rumor does not have a damage gate for transitioning to her third phase. If she is currently performing a second phase attack, she won't stop until the attack is scripted to finish even if her health already passed the threshold to change phases. Since the transition also has a long animation, this allows the player(s) to inflict massive amount damage, potentially killing her before she completes her transformation.
- This type of glitch can also happen with the fight against Beppi The Clown.
- In early versions of the game, the shape spells can be destroyed by weapons and they have no hitbox so player(s) can pass through them.
- Seemingly, all the shape spells would have been able to take damage and be destroyed; The value that controls the ability to be damaged from the unused cube attack is left on for debugging purposes, and the tetrahedron and sphere damage controller is turned off. This also explains why Chaser would home in on them. This could also mean they can be made to be able to block attacks as they are nearly indestructible while the other way around of making them easily destroyed like the demo would feel wrong as this boss does not have much attacks already. Hitpoints = 99999
Inspirations and Similarities[]
Rumor Honeybottoms was inspired by strong guiding toons from cartoons including Fleischer Studios' Ants in the Pants and well as their 1941 animated feature Mr. Bug Goes to Town. Her design was a reference to Honey Woman, an unused boss character from Capcom's Mega Man 9. Her intro is a nod to another Capcom favorite of the team, Darkstalkers 3. Some of her characterization was influenced from the Fleischer cartoon, Cobweb Hotel.
- Rumor's crown is similar to a crown worn by two queen ants, one in the 1940 cartoon Ants in the Plants, the other in the 1934 cartoon The Grasshopper and the Ants.
- Rumor is a bee character that turns into a plane and shoots out bullets. This is actually a pun in reference to the V-1 "buzz bomb". Another attack of hers is also using the same pun when she uses a buzz saw to attack. It could also be seen as a play on the B-52 ("Bee" versus "B").
- The bee missiles in the second phase bear a striking resemblance to the Banzai Bills from the Super Mario franchise. Rumor herself when her head drops with a chain attached bears a slight resemblance to the Chain Chomp also from the aforementioned franchise. This may also be a pun on how she is at the top of the Chain of Command.