#alternate reality series

[pkmngreentree-longplay]

So, this is going to need a bit of explaining. I have no clue if this is the right website to post this sort of stuff, but I feel like this is the best way to archive it.

This blog is going to be an archive of a bootleg Pokémon game I played as a kid. I haven't had the original cartridge from all that time ago (I'll explain later on), but I lucked out and managed to track down a replacement and dumped the ROM data onto my computer so I can emulate it. This specific bootleg has fascinated me ever since I first laid eyes on it as a kid, so I'm very excited to potentially be archiving what might be a piece of lost media. Here's the title screen.

Yeah.

This is going to need a bit of backstory, so let's set the scene. My first interaction with this game was when I received the cartridge on my 13th birthday. My parents were always struggling financially, so they'd often go through bargain bins or leaf through yard sales to find stuff for cheap. I was a big Pokémon fan, so my guess is they thought it was a new game and wanted to surprise me. I don't have a picture of that cartridge, but it was nothing spectacular - a bare Game Boy cartridge with "Pokemon Green Tree" written on it with a sharpie.

I was excited - you'd be excited, too, if you just got your hands on a Pokémon game you didn't even know existed - and started. My memory is pretty vivid, but I don't remember many finer details - I mostly remember what made me stop playing.

I started the game, and it just cold cut to the interior of the player's house. No cutscene, no writing your name, just an abrupt cut to your house. I wandered around the town, found the game's equivalent to Professor Oak's lab, and got my starter. It was the fire one, some kind of large fish with a plume of fire coming out of its forehead. The rest of my playthrough was just me aimlessly wandering around - I remember the maps being really narrow and directionless. I defeated the first gym leader and found myself in some kind of desert. I distinctly remember the music cutting out, which started to freak me out. Finding a cave, I went in, and found this... indescribable thing. Not in a pretentious Lovecraftian way - I literally don't really know how to describe it. It looked like some kind of shapeless form, or blob, covered in long pipes that winded around. If I had to say what it reminded me of, my first guess would be a giant, anatomically incorrect human heart. I remember approaching it, and the screen faded out, before fading in to a panning shot of what looked like a field of crystals, each one with a distorted reflection in it. My description is overselling this experience - there wasn't really anything that would actually seriously upset anyone in there, but the visual of those stretched faces in the reflections was enough to get me to have a full-blown panic attack as a child, and I ended up hiding the cartridge somewhere in my mom's closet. I haven't seen the cartridge since, and chances are she sold the cartridge.

That was my first ever exposure to this bootleg. Nowadays, of course, with the power of the internet and a lack of better things to do, I decided to snoop around. The game, Pokémon Green Tree, is of course, a bootleg, coming from a Japanese company of ambiguous name, as all information about the game's copyright is simply changed to "Pokemon", as you can see on the title screen. This bootleg is, interestingly enough, a surprisingly sophisticated rom-hack of an existing Game Boy game that was never released outside of Japan.

The picture you're looking at is a fan translation of the original game. The name roughly translates to "Circle Beast", and it is commonly referred to by the game's surprisingly large cult following as "Ringbeasts", which is the name I'll be using because it sounds kind of cool. From what I can gather, Pokémon Green Tree is, for the first quarter of the game, unchanged from Ringbeasts outside of the name, the title screen, and a few text boxes changing "beasts" to "Pokemon". Apparently, ontop of that, another release of Green Tree has another change - inexplicably, in a few maps, there's just... crucifixes. No shit.

As far as I could find, this is the only difference between the 'updated' version and the one people are more familiar with, which is the one I'm currently emulating. No changed dialogue, no different designs... just random crosses scattered across the map. According to the people I could contact who've played this updated version, most of the changes were in the manual and box art, which contained many assorted religious anecdotes and references. Who would've figured? Apparently, these games were mostly sold in low-income Christian bookstores to stay under Nintendo and Game Freak's radar, and the updated version was made so the game would appear more fitting where they were sold - something similar to the fate of Menace Beach on the NES. The prospect of this is honestly kind of funny to me, given the amount of hatred the Christian community had towards this franchise around that time period. That, and the idea of there being an updated patch of a bootleg of a bootleg of Pokémon that just has giant crucifix-shaped mountains everywhere. Delightful!

That's all of the information I could gleam from my extensive investigation (IE a few Google searches). Hearing all this talk about the manual and the box art, I wish I actually owned either - the cartridge I got my hands on came loose. Just a blank cartridge. It isn't even green!

Getting back on-topic, Green Tree is unchanged from Ringbeasts outside of a few word and sprite changes, but from what I could gather, the game drastically changes near the middle. Nobody said anything specific - just rambling about how unexpectedly detailed and weird everything got after how cutesy the early game was. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any screenies of the later parts of the game, so I'm going in blind.

I'm really excited to see this game through. Ever since I found out the cartridge went missing, I've been itching to get my hands on it again, just to see what this weird bootleg has to offer. Here's hoping this stupid blog does its part in archiving it, because God damn, information about this thing is scarce.

I'll update the blog after I play for a while. Expect lots of screenshots!

[chonkymoth]

I'd like to present an idea to the masses...........

[d1gitald0llhouse]

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE !

A NEW PROGRAM THAT OFFERS YOU ANYTHING YOU'D EVER WANT - ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS WIN ! COME TAKE PART IN MY COMPETITION TO PROVE YOURSELF THE WORTHY OF A GRAND PRIZE AND YOUR GREATEST WISH - GUARANTEED!

YOU CAN FINALLY HAVE IT ALL!

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS MAKE A CHOICE: LIVE YOUR CURRENT LIFE OR BECOME SOMETHING NEW. SEND ME AN ASK! THROW ME SOME LOVE! SHOW ME HOW MUCH YOU WANT IT!

WELCOME TO THE LIMELIGHT, BABY! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS SAY YES. SO, C'MON - HIT THAT LITTLE 'Y' BUTTON DOWN THERE, OKAY? THEN I'LL HAVE THE PERMISSIONS TO HELP YOU. YOU'LL BE A PART OF THE NETWORK! YOU'LL BE IN IT TO WIN IT!

LET'S BEGIN!

Y / N

_

this is a fictional arg that will eventually lead to the release of a discord server. it does not result in a real prize. to play, please send an ask to this blog and talk to the character above.

this arg does contain warnings that include but are not limited to descriptions of blood, violence, death, mind control and emotional manipulation. please bear this in mind and message the blog with any issues or concerns you may have.

i hope you enjoy your journey to the dollhouse. - user 10.

[spuffybot]

😱😱😱😱

[flameobitch]

AU is inspired by Renata Litvinova, a director and actress, and Zemfira, a rock singer. I am a fan of their creativity and my brain could not help but generate such an alter reality!

• Pippa is the Supreme Witch (I don't like the version with the Great Sorceress, it's the lot of men to call themselves something great as such without being).

• Hecate is an ethno-rock singer whose creativity is directed at the culture of ancient traditional witches and their rituals. Despite her 20-year career, no one knows anything more than her name.

• There was no Azura and imprisonment in this universe, Gwen was Hecate's mentor, and Pippa pushed her to write songs.

• Pippa goes to all of Hecate's concerts and the witch community shouts about their strong friendship at all. However, the media are confident in their affair, creating the only black spot in the reputation of the politician with rumors.

• Officially, Pippa is married to Joy Hardbroom, the head of the Hardbroom clan, the most influential family on the list of ten. Joy appears only in a couple with his wife and leads a closed lifestyle.

• Pippa has been the Supreme Witch for the last 5 years and conducts programs to support witches from human families and raise the level of magic.

• Gwen and Hecate's team are the only people who know about their marriage.

• Almost every song of Hecate is dedicated to Pippa, which gives rise to these rumors about the novel. Joy is not going to comment on anything.

• Hecate's repertoire and her voice are something in between Zemfira and Sounduk. Listen for the sake of interest to "Прогулка", "Крым", "Жить в твоей голове" (Zemfira) and "Лето", "Герой", "Считалка", "ВММ" (Sounduk)

• Pippa is tired of dealing with the press.

• Therefore, Hecate avoids society.

• Pippa likes to be photographed.

• Hecate can't stand it. But for Pippa's sake he will suffer.

• Hecate has a lot of tattoos, but there is a bright pink pentagram and a bottle with Latin hieroglyphs.

• Pippa collects Hecate's outfits for concerts. On the exits with Pippa, Joy chooses her own clothes. Most often it looks like a widow murdered in the Middle Ages.

• Pippa puts up Hecate's home photos and marks different accounts (separately Hecate and separately Joy) under different photos so that people just know that she is still alive.

• Pippa's accounts are kept by publicists, but the texts of the posts are written by Pippa herself.

• Hecate doesn't know how to run social networks. But she actively monitors the accounts of a few friends and is rude to his haters.

[mincenttheclown]

update 9/10/24

they yearn for death i hear them scream my name in the mjddle of the night but no one else does. they cry for their mother but i am only a child myself. I cannot comfort them. i cannot ease their suffering. i am only a man, they are but husks of one.

benny has a foam body, nose, and souless eyes now!

[unrealcosima]

I think the difference between Gap and Dream is that, despite both monsam and Kimwan being dumb and no braincells between the two of them, monsam had a group of friends that saw what was going on, that Sam didn't like Kirk at all and that Sam and Mon had feelings for each other. While on Dream the friends are JUST as stupid, like how can they not see that Kim does not like Marwin at all. She looks uncomfortable, she doesn't want to spend time with him alone, she spent all her time looking for Wan instead of being in the honeymoon phase with him, she never speaks or gushes about him.

And this is why it's going to take 14 years and 9-10 episodes for Kimwan to get together and it took monsam one month and 7 episodes

[korkietism]

So I finished half life Alyx but the gnome is too aware. My thoughts?

..

It was FUCKINH beautiful. Genuinely a work of art. I cannot believe it took me this long to watch it. It has the classic hlvrai humour mixed with that gorgeous existential dread. It’s really well written with a cool build up to the end. I loved the gnomes, I loved gordyx (that’s Gordon alyx to me) and it was so fucking funny. If any rtvs or even hlvrai fans haven’t seen it yet- PLEASE do so. It’s genuinely so good.

@wayneradiotv fantastic work. Truly. I know I’m going to end up watching it all over again soon. (And that ending- Ough-)

[repurposedmeatlocker]

I've recently gotten really into this genre of ARG that is based around classic nostalgic late 2000 and early 2010 video games. These don't seem to get half as much attention outside of their dedicated communities and I find it a real shame, because if anything I connect more to the timeframe these supposedly take place in comparison to other nostalgic types of video game horror ARGs based on early 2000 and 90s platform video games.

Thought I would list a few of these out. Most of them seem to be incomplete/abandoned unfortunately, but who knows. I really like the stuff that is built up here and hopefully more people start to consider exploring it in a more fleshed-out manner!

Old Minecraft Reuploads - This series hasn't been updated in 2 years, which is super unfortunate because it probably has to be my favorite of the approaches to this format! It is so effectively frightening without depending on any obtuse jumpscares. A majority of its eeriness comes from the ambiance already displayed in early Minecraft games. If you are familiar enough with playing them, you can kind of get the gist that something isn't right here. The immersion is super effective too. I'm not a fan of ARG's that hammer in their fictional and "otherworldly" elements too heavily. It takes me out a bit. All the glitches and discrepancies here feel like things that could actually happen, which makes it more scary! The last episode is especially frightening from the acting of the player alone. I never thought I could actually read fear in a faceless and voiceless screen recording, but it is SO impressive what evoked here. It is sad to me that I haven't heard much about this until now, and that it appears to be inactive. For what it's worth I would love for it to get more attention, even if just to see what is already there!

Gunslingerpro2009 and BadwaterVideos2009 - These two are not connected in any way, but they explore similar subject matter, so I feel it is appropriate to put them together. The format these base themselves on are classic TF2 gmod videos/animations. With the twist though that the ragdolls used in the game are sentient and being tortured/mistreated by the player/uploader. It is a cool concept I am surprised hasn't been played around with more with this genre. Absolutely recommended if you are a fan of that era of gmod content and psychological horror.

gmod9fan reuploads - This one kind of ends in a whimper and I don't think it is being continued (last update was 4 years ago), but the ideas being explored here are interesting. I think of the gmod ARGs it is the one that felt the most "scary" to me. Mostly just creepy stuff happening on someone's old gmod videos.

Classic GM Videos - I'm not the most invested in this one, but it feels worth mentioning nonetheless, and actually appears to be actively continuing compared to a majority of these. I would say my biggest complaint is the narrative that appear to be built here kind of fluctuates and doesn't have a strong amount of focus between the uploads. There is a sense that the creator is still figuring out what they want to say, but the Bob and Bill stuff is really captivating to me enough to keep an eye on it.

Minecraft Alpha 1.0.16 Versions - Still watching this, but it kind of appears to be an account under the pretense of uploading videos of a non-existent variant of Alpha 1.0.16. It feels a bit like a Herobrine-centered ARG, so if you are into that subject it could be fun.

Anyway, just thought I would find a way to bring some of these more into the spotlight since I find the approach really unique and fun. Not that I have a huge audience or anything, but anything to get the word out. I think the effort put into them deserve way more attention. Also, if you know of any other ARG's that fit this bill PLEASE feel free to let me know. I love this stuff.

[en-abime-updates]

Hello, fellow abimers!

This blog is a fan blog for en abime* that is a collaborative effort of 6 fans! We have the collective goal to update our fellow fans daily to make keeping up with en abime more accessible and enjoyable!

Meet the moderators!

*If you’re not sure what en abime is, the documents on this post may help answer some of your questions!

NOTE‼️We generalize the exact times our notes are taken to day/night/etc, but those generalizations are based off of times in EST/PST (unless stated otherwise).

[vero-niche]

anyway. give shoushimin series a try

[meep-meep-richie]

❛ 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘷𝘰𝘪𝘤𝘦, 𝘐'𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘳 ❜

Run || Loki & Mobius [AU + S2]

[m4ngey]

Do you like ARGs and internet horror? Like stories with queer/trans main characters? Do you like DID, autistic, and trans representation made and played by a trans and autistic system (aka us)? I encourage you to go check out @forauldlangsynewastaken bc we are incredibly excited to have this project and we are incredibly passionate about it and what its gonna be about and what we have planned for it. You can find us on YouTube, TikTok, IG, and now here (account mentioned) under ForAuldLangSyneWasTaken

It's gonna be heavy bc its gonna touch on things like PTSD and trauma manifest and I wanna talk more about it but all I can say rn is if you wanna check it out, any video we feel needs it WILL have a list of content warnings in the description of the video or in a link found in the description hope to see u guys there

[jaehyunsprincesspeach]

Anti-Romantic

.ೃ࿐

.ೃ࿐

Pairing: Kang Taehyun x fem!reader

Synopsis: After a terrible break-up, y/n decided to reject anything involving romance (aside from the dramas she watches with her best friend). Being new in Seoul, there are so many different places to see, and so many new things to experience, which leads to a weekly Friday Girls night. Focusing on work throughout the week is tiring, whats better than a night out on the town at the end of a hard week? Focusing on work, relationships are the last thing on y/n’s mind. But what happens when one Friday, at a quiet bar, someone spots her? What happens when she spots him? Is there a romance waiting to blossom? Or will the anti-romantic run from the hurt of the past?

So now that I have a K-Pop centered blog, I have moved my series here instead of my High and Low blog. This is my first ever series, and I’m really excited for it!! I hope everyone enjoys :))

All the love ~ lunar

Tag list: @lvelicky , @forever-in-the-sky2

.ೃ࿐

Masterlist

Chapter 1: Girls Night Out

Chapter 2: Spiraling Thoughts

Chapter 3: Maybe…

Chapter 4: Caught Off Guard

Chapter 5: A Date?

Chapter 6: ???

[toko-in-the-90s]

[flameobitch]

TelevisionAU

• Lesso is a star of action movies and superhero movies;

• Clarissa is a TV presenter of an evening talk show;

• Lesso started her career quite early and gained a foothold with the role of a fighting girl;

• Clarissa started with fashion journalism, later she started blogging, working in parallel with fashion publications, and a few years ago got her evening talk show with celebrities;

• Lesso is engaged in charity and supports the community of Nevers, while her scholarships allow many of them to study in places where only Evers could get;

• Since working at Vogue Canterlot, Clarissa has been called the Fairy Godmother;

• Officially, Clarisse is raising her daughter alone;

• Unofficially, these two are married and pretend that they never crossed paths before the broadcast;

• Sophie, Lesso's assistant at the internship, personally edited thirteen videos from their interviews and posted them online;

• Clarissa downloaded all these videos;

• Rowena exists in this reality, and she genuinely doesn't understand why she can't watch movies where her mom plays;