#back then when deviantart was still alive | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mister-eve · 6 months

Text

things i wish the sonic franchise brought back or implement.

Dark Sonic

seriously, i love imagining a fight between Dark Sonic and Eggman inspired by Korra vs. Zaheer ( when she was poisoned ). where he loses the cool attitude, the smile, everything, and goes in with full power, charging himself left and right at Eggman. it'd be even more fascinating to still have Dark Sonic lose. not because of his lack of power, not because of lack of skill, even when blinded by rage, but because of Eggman's ingenuity.

a lot of people, to this day, misinterpret Dark Sonic as a murderous, rampaging monster, but that completely misses the purpose of why he exists to begin with. i believe this is a case of people not exactly knowing where he comes from, or just a lot of fans drawing a murderous Sonic and it took the internet by storm one day, but just in case you don't know:

Dark Sonic is from Sonic X, a TV show that is sort of an expansion on Sonic Adventure 2, adding more lore, character arcs, and overall meaning to the game's original plot. Dark Sonic was revealed in the episode "Teasing Time" in s3, and the reason he appeared is because he discovered his friends ( Cosmo and Chris ) were injured and that one of them ( Chris ) was unconscious.

the whole reason this form exists is Sonic's love for his friends essentially fueling his rage. it's like Darkspine Sonic from SATSR, or has similar formula. Dark Sonic isn't inspired by any bloodlust or desire to kill, but rather by burning anger at seeing his friends be put in harm's way.

Dark Sonic is made from the strong desire to protect his friends.

2. An Actual Arc For Shadow

you guys might be confused, especially if you consider some of my previous posts, but lemme explain.

for a long time, it's never felt like Shadow has actually recovered from his trauma, atone for his actions ( yes, i understand he saved Earth ), or live life really at all. it doesn't help that, to this day, SEGA continues to make Shadow relive the past.

i don't consider the movies to be a part of the problem, as Shadow being introduced to the plot was basically a given, and you can't introduce him in your own take without his general backstory ( unless you're Boom or Prime, i guess ). i believe the movie will be doing taking some creative liberties to his story, as they did so with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and i see no reason that they should stop.

the reason why i have an issue with this is because it's an ongoing issue within the games, specifically. Shadow the Hedgehog ( 2005 ) was a disservice to his setup and the 'first arc' ( considering he's still alive after the fans demanded his return ) to his story.

aside from it just giving 'early 2010s deviantart edge', it's just so...

childishly handled.

for one, you're immediately given a Hero or Dark route, like in SA2, which i feel completely misses the point of SA2's true ending. Shadow has redeemed himself ( or began to ), so to give him complete reign to just become an antagonist all over again defeats the whole purpose of a redemption.

it's like what Prime did with Dread, giving him an already established redemption arc ( sort of ), but then corrupting him again for no real reason other than just because.

another issue i have is Shadow's amnesia and attitude in general within the game. technically speaking, yes, it does make sense for him to suffer memory and // or physical issues from his fall from space, but to completely wipe out every single thing he did just to give him the opportunity to relearn his past, do some fucked up shit, do some less fucked up shit, then throw away everything in the past, Maria and her wish included, is...

amazingly obtuse, for lack of a better word.

again, while it's technically not out of bounds, i feel like giving Shadow complete and total amnesia just disrespects SA2's vision and execution of the story. it's redundant, it's lazy, and overall just really damn frustrating to watch.

Shadow deserves to have a story that allows him to heal from his trauma, discover who he is, and respecting Maria's wish along the way. a lot of people seem to think it's either he forgets about his past ( or buries it ) or full-on dedicates his entire life and doesn't bother picking up a life lesson or two, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Shadow can heal, grow, and change. SEGA just won't let him.

3. The Echidna Tribe & Knuckles' Story

Knuckles is one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise as a whole, but his character and story is sorely dismissed. while Shadow has the issue of repetition, Knuckles suffers from being dropped on the head multiple times and played for a joke ( i think Frontiers is one of the more recent games that didn't do this, but i might be wrong ).

one of the reasons why i love Knuckles is how straightforward, yet reluctant he was about finding out his past. at the end of Sonic Adventure 1, he says something to the extent of:

"maybe i'm better off not knowing the meaning behind all of this. because i feel something terrible will happen if i do."

he is content being ignorant for the sake of his own peace of mind.

but in SA2, he's more or less forced to start facing his fear and learn more about the past. unfortunately, though, we don't actually get to see much after this game, because the tribe is almost entirely forgotten. instead, it's brought up in comics that are more or less canon ( i think ), but not fully aligning with the games. i think it's safe to say the comics are their own canon?

like with Shadow, i would've loved to see an actual conclusion on this arc of Knuckles' story. to see more of the tribe in the past, of their wrongdoings, character moments, more of Tikal or Chaos or the little Chao, and how it all ties together.

but instead, we have lots of media repeatedly insulting Knuckles' intelligence, ignoring his tribe and // or his job entirely ( i guess they forget the Master Emerald is portable? ), and just generally dumbing him down to be a hotheaded moron that apparently doesn't care about being the Guardian!

Knuckles is one of the most relatable characters in this series for me, as there's a lot of things i would rather not know and stay ignorant to, but have to face head on in order to fully move past it and grow to be better.

he was completely isolated on Angel Island for so long, yet people still make fun of him to this day for being manipulated by Eggman in SA1 ( even though he didn't even fully believe Eggman, it was just a precaution, but who cares about the details- ). he's not just a hothead, he's strong, he's kind, he's pretty blunt and, honestly, really fucking adorable, i love this echidna.

look at him, just standing there. i love him.

anyway, Knuckles deserves a proper story surrounding his tribe, his identity as the Guardian of Angel Island, his relationships, and to have a satisfying conclusion. or, at the very least, more games or media in general not dumbing him down to an angry hothead with nothing better to do but to yell and ignore his responsibilities.

3. Sonic

"what're you talking about, ashe? sonic's meant to be a flat character! what could be wrong with him?"

yeah, but after frontiers, i want more mentally ill sonic that needs to be concerned for by his friends, okay, that's all i want-

4. Storybook Era

now, now, i know a lot of people don't like the storybook games because of their shoddy gameplay and all that, but i genuinely love these games, their flaws included.

i do believe satbk has a better story than satsr, but i still have an attachment to the latter game, so suck it.

it'd be really nice to see a storybook game with switch, xbox, ps, or similar controls. as the era has Sonic diving into different worlds, maybe a world like Alice and Wonderland could be an interesting game. several elements to work with, locations turning into creative levels or even hub worlds. this is sort of a long shot dream that will probably never exist, but i wanna see an adventure-style storybook game one day.

i'll probably die before that idea is even considered, but it's a fun thought and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

there's no real big reason as to why these matter or anything, as i don't believe you need a storybook in order to send off the messages these games try to give, but they're just really charming to me and i love to see how this type of game could be implemented into video games today, with all the new engines and whatnot.

5. Teams

oof, okay, um-

there's a few games that have teams in them, and i guess you can count sonic forces as one of those games, so i should be more specific here.

i like SA1's flexibility with the roulette-like system, where you could play as any character you wished, but i also like SA2's team system, where they all had a close-knit role within the story from a similar perspective ( hero vs. dark ).

SA1 served multiple perspectives, all giving you pieces of the same puzzle that you have to figure out as you go. by the final story, all of the characters ( except Big, but idc, i love him ) have their character arcs and it's with their changes that the story is fully complete.

SA2 served the entirety of two perspectives and merged them together for the final story, heroes and villains having to work together to fight off the greater evil at hand.

overall, i want more games having the characters work together, having different details // information or even moral differences ( it depends on which system they go with, though ) on the situation at large, but maybe still having to come together.

whether or not they use official teams, i want the sonic franchise to bring back using other characters as necessary plot points with their own individual arcs.

it may not be needed, per say, as there's still a few games that work and don't have either of these systems, but i really miss the adventure games and wish for more of their elements to be implemented in future games.

6. CHAO!!!

BRING THESE LITTLE CREATURES BACK, GODDAMN, WHY ONLY TWO GAMES?!

anyway, that's all i can currently think of. i think these would serve either character or charm to the franchise, but maybe you have some other ideas of what the games could give! maybe proper returns of characters, other forgotten stories, or even new ideas!

lemme know what you think.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic adventure #sonic adventure 2 #sa1 #sa2 #dark sonic #sonic #shadow the hedgehog #shadow #knuckles the echidna #knuckles #team sonic #team dark #team rose #team chaotix #chao #chao garden

96 notes · View notes

theskeletongames · 1 year

Note

Random question.

Ok i finally did a deep lore dive into why Horror is the way he is, and given he has the red eye due to His Undyne taking his old magic eye, and forcing him to steal the eye of a guard...

What do you think would happen, if someone tried to give Horror back a magic eye? would it just over lap the red one that has more or less settled into his body, would he be slightly more crazy due to power that he had lost habit of controlling. Would he just come off as a Crazy Classic Sans?

What is your take?

I have a deep theory that is brought out more by the authors note on page 84 on their deviantart post of the comic. There's a mention that the only way to get to the core's core is to dismantle it. In other words, there's a machine called the core, and then a core to that machine. The core's core. I think Sans eye fused with the core's core and I don't think Sans was truly able to destroy the machine once that happened, at least the core's core pare. I also don't think he tried to destroy the machine out of revenge only, just as eating fallen humans is more than revenge towards Undyne/Humans. He was going to tell Undyne something about the core before the incident, but she wasn't listening. (Probably something about combining all monster magic to power the core just like combining all monster souls will create the equivalent power of 1 human soul) I think his eye fusing with the core's core was not a good thing.

Why is it keeping him alive? That's what the guard said afterwards. Why does the guard start screaming about destroying the eye once it's put into the machine? What is the eye doing? If the eye was keeping him alive, why didn't he die when the machine was destroyed? So is the eye still active? Why was the eye so creepy at the end?

I do think that he'd exchange his eye if he could, but it's his' original eye's connection to the core that's the issue. He'd just pull the red eye out if he got ahold of his old eye (Or maybe someone else's...) I think the second eye he puts in his skull is just a replacement for him, and his change from Sans to Horror Sans was more than just his head getting cracked open and his eye stolen. And uh, I'm hoping more of this is elaborated on before I get far enough in my comic that he shows up, because right now I'm using that theory in my future plan...

167 notes · View notes

djarinsbeskar · 1 year

Text

HERE, THERE BE MONSTERS: THE MINOTAUR PART 4

A/N: We're getting closer. Brace yourselves... Artwork by machiavellicro on deviantart!

Pairing: Minotaur!Din Djarin x Nymph!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ NO Minors)

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: gross misuse of mythology, gore, horror, suggestive themes. Reminder that this is a MONSTER FUCKING fic, so be warned for future chapters.

NOTICE: If you want to keep updated on when I post fic turn on notifications for @djarinsbeskar-writes ! c:

Day 10

You thought you had escaped him.

You considered yourself lucky.

But you soon learned there was no such thing in the labyrinth, and the Minotaur lingered with you long after you fled the carnage he caused in the forest.

Twigs and filaments of hedging scratched at your face and neck where you made a break into a barely visible gap onto another path in the maze. Your heart pounding, you couldn’t quell the terrified shriek when the air was disturbed behind you, a massive shadow racing past where you had just escaped from.

Another close call.

It wouldn’t take him long to circle back when he lost the trail. You needed to hurry.

Swimming through the hedgerow, you clawed your way to the other side desperately. It was too dark suddenly, the thicket too dense for you to see farther than your nose where you were coffined within the black foliage. When you hand finally breached the other side, however, it wasn’t open air that met it.

It felt like a living volcano under your fingers.

If the magma and rock and fury could be made man as a growl began deep in his throat, vibrating under your hand and filling you with the most intoxicating dread. It surrounded you in a sea of lava, cutting off your every exit. Made you hot when you realized the rock under your hand was instead solid muscle.

But instead of pulling away – burned – your hand moved on its own, tracing downward… getting hotter the closer you came to the source. The cloth at his groin gave you pause when something swayed beneath it.

Something mean.

Something designed to break you into submission. Or death. Whichever came first.

You finally reacted to the burn, yanking your hand away as common sense rammed into you ruthlessly.

He found you already.

How-

You didn’t have time to finish the question, a massive hand erupting through the hedging to collar your throat, his blood-thirsty bellow drowning out the sound of your neck snapping as you were dragged from a fitful sleep with a gasp.

The underside of a large root met your gaze, your hand flying to your neck to ensure you were still alive. If your pulse racing under your fingers didn’t convince you, your ragged breaths did as you tried to swallow around the fear lodged in your throat, your mouth fuzzy with thirst.

A… a dream?

You groaned, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes as you willed your heart to slow. Not again…

Not even in your dreams were you free from being hunted. Not even sleep rid you of the all-encompassing punishment the labyrinth insisted on subjecting you to. It truly was hell on earth, with no way out in sight.

You’d be stuck here for an eternity if you weren’t run down and killed first.

What would you even do if you escaped? The question sobered you as you pulled yourself out from the small dimple of space you’d taken shelter in under a root, the entrance to which was hidden by a sheet of draped moss.

It was impossible to tell how long you’d been asleep, stretching your aching arms above your head. The concealed sky hid the suns movements, but since it still shone behind the clouds, you knew it couldn’t have been for very long. The glare pounded behind your eyes, your dream finally catching up with you at the same time you became aware of something equally disturbing.

A decided slickness between your legs and a familiar throb you never normally had trouble finding someone to take care of.

But this wasn’t due to the drunken high of a midnight dance, or the wandering hands of a handsome god while you slept in his bed after a night of passion. It was… because of him.

Curse your nature as a nymph.

It was a well understood fact that nymphs – by their existence – were personifications of the natural world and therefore, were often drawn to the primal. To areas of potent carnal energy and overindulgence that often manifested in the parties Dionysus threw night after night, the whisper of an arrow from Artemis’ bow to fell a boar whose head would decorate the tables of plenty. The sex and orgies and decadence that you now found yourself on the flip side of.

You were connected to nature, to the very essence of the primordial and so… you were attracted to it. In all its’ forms.

But a beast? That was a far cry from an over-indulgence of wine and pleasure.

Something was wrong with you. It had to be.

The labyrinth was making you mad… it had to be.

Realization propelled you to your feet as if you could escape those unwelcome thoughts and intrusive truths by simply running from them.

But they, like him, clung to your subconscious like nightshade you’d foolishly mistaken for burdock. Now, removing the burs was an obsolete task. The poison had already taken hold. A poison that made your hand tingle and pussy clench with the memory of a monstrous girth your imagination cooked up.

You blamed it on everything you could as you tried to find your bearings. You blamed it on the maze itself. You blamed it on Hera and her proclivity for curses. You blamed it on Zeus and his wandering gaze. You blamed it on the water, believing it to be bewitched even as you dropped to your knees to guzzle great handfuls of the life-giving essence at the first stream you found.

You even blamed it on the Minotaur himself.

In taking so long to catch you and put you out of your misery, you were forced to become accustomed to the fear… leaving room for other, more dangerous emotions to fill the space it once took up entirely.

There wasn’t time to ponder what those emotions might be when a shriek echoed across the labyrinth, raw and terrified before it was cut short with unnatural abruptness. That wasn’t unusual. You had grown accustomed to the way the wind carried screams far more willingly than any other sound to torment the labyrinths inhabitants.

It did, however, remind you of how exposed you were by the water. Especially if he had started hunting so early.

That was unusual.

He was usually far more active at night. As though cloaked in shadows, he could pursue his victims with a deadly invincibility. The shadows themselves an extension of his terror, confusing the instincts of every prisoner as they fled his tireless pace.

But he wasn’t the only villain within the confines of the labyrinth.

It had been a harrowing realization that just because he was the apex predator, didn’t mean there weren’t others willing to do anything, hurt anyone to ensure their own survival. You might have been wrongly convicted and sentenced here, but that wasn’t the same for everyone.

The back of your neck prickled suddenly with awareness, making you whirl where you came face to face with a man and a woman standing a short distance away, their hands raised in the universal sign of surrender. Their dress more worn and features more weathered, it was clear they’d been here much longer than you had.

Eyes widened and mind fresh with the knowledge that humans were capable of as much brutality as the gods, you backed away slowly. How could you not have heard them?

“Easy,” the woman began, her voice smoky and attractive, calling to the sisterly attachment you had been devoid of since coming here, “you are alone in this hellscape, traveller?”

That question was too loaded, and your guard fortified further.

You gulped, eyes flicking mistrustfully to the male standing silently by her side, his hand palming the butt of a crude knife of carved stone while sharp, black eyes scanned their surroundings. The woman noticed, placing herself half in front of him to drag your attention back to her.

“My name is Penelope, and this is one of my companions, Nikos.”

“One of—” you heard yourself speak warily, eyes darting to bushes, shrubs, the maze itself… all capable of hiding others.

“They’re not here.” You gulped when Penelope continued, your eyes finally pulled back to her. “We got separated during the night and have been trying to find them ever since. You are welcome to join us if you’d like.”

You didn’t miss the stifled noise Nikos made as his eyes snapped to Penelope, but she remained focused on you.

Tangled black hair was pulled away from her face in a long mane, various braids throughout the locks reminding you of those worn by Artemis’ hunters whom you often guided throughout the night. She wasn’t one. You were merely trying to find familiarity in her dirt-stained skin and keen, green eyes.

“There are about twelve of us, we look out for one another, work as a team—pool resources, take turns keeping watch, finding food. It works, and I’ve been part of it since it was formed. It’s the best the likes of us are ever going to get in here, traveller.”

Your jaw tensed at her ready acceptance of the way things were and you didn’t miss the way Nikos’ grip tightened on his weapon.

“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?” She continued when you remained silent. You averted your eyes, the woman misinterpreting it for agreement and not the blush you were attempting to hide.

“This place robs us of everything but hope.” A chill entered Penelope’s voice. “That is his to destroy. It’s why so few last beyond escaping him. They realize there is no hope, and simply give up. You can see it in their eyes.”

You didn’t like her insinuation, nor the dullness in her gaze. Is… that what she meant? Did you look like that? Catching your frown, Penelope shook her head.

“But not yours.” Penelope smiled, the first tug of kindness stinging your eyes suddenly. “You still have some hope inside you, we could use that.”

“Pen—” Nikos began on a rumble, turning towards her with a familiar hold to her elbow while he cast a suspicious glance towards you.

“The fact you’re still alive is admirable, traveller. But it won’t stay that way if you remain alone.” Penelope ignored him to keep talking to you. Were you so transparent that she could tell you were being swayed? That the thought of company in this abyss was as tempting as the thought of being swallowed by it?

Your brows fell over your eyes suspiciously, suddenly unsure of their intent. You saw what you got out of this offer, but what did they?

“We don’t have much, but there is strength in numbers. “

You cursed your lack of experience with mortals. Maybe if you lived among them instead of observing them from afar in the safety of the night sky, their actions might make more sense to you. But in reality, outside the occasional dalliance with a warrior or three, you had no notion of why humans did… anything they ended up doing.

They were much too juvenile, their lives too short to be sure of anything before they died.

“We cannot linger, Pen.” Nikos insisted once more, drawing you out of your mind. “It’s clear she doesn’t want—"

Penelope silenced him with a pat to the bicep. Ah. Lovers. You understood that. The man grizzled, but subdued as she took a testing step towards you, smiling when you didn’t retreat.

“When was the last time you ate something other than a few raw nuts? Slept longer than an hour at any one time? Felt protected?”

You didn’t know.

Honestly, it felt like an eternity since you’d experienced any of that. Your stomach growled treacherously, telling her your answer. Still, you wouldn’t be swayed. That only ever got you in trouble, being swayed by others.

“I know enough about life to know nothing is free…” You flinched internally when Nikos shifted, the wind mercifully carrying your voice, as soft as it was. “How do you benefit from having another mouth to feed?”

In your periphery, a sprinkle of stardust shimmered atop the stream you stood within. If they didn’t already know you were a divinity, they very soon would. And the greed of humans could rival that of Zeus himself…

“That—”

A branch snapping made you jump, the sound of your neck breaking in your dream flashing across your memory along with a clamour of instinct.

Danger.

It wailed in your mind, forcing you back several steps, snapping out of the fantasy you’d found yourself in with the sudden dread that you’d been hoodwinked.

But it wasn’t the mortals.

They looked just as taken by surprise as you were, all pleasantness from the exchange falling as survival instincts kicked in and Nikos pulled out his dagger, Penelope palming her own weapon at her hip cautiously.

Another snap and then it was silent. Dreadfully so.

“Into the maze, quickly!” Nikos hissed. “Now!”

You didn’t need to be told twice. Without looking back, you sloshed across the river, the tell-tale silence of the water breaking around you heralding his arrival like the crack of a whip spurring you faster. You only realized the others were following by the sound of their laboured breathing.

So… the labyrinth silenced everything but the people within it. What a terrible mechanism for hunting.

But you couldn’t concern yourself with their welfare, yours was at stake and they had each other.

Breaking left on instinct, déjà vu struck you when you caught sight of a gap in the greenery. You would’ve missed it entirely had a similar shortcut not been present in your dream earlier that day. And echoing your dream further, the mortals sprinted past it, losing you while you shimmied through the small space onto another path entirely.

A bellow sounded across the silent maze, an explosion of noise sending birds into the air and those stuck on the ground to flee or hide.

“Shit, shit, shit—” you whispered under your breath when you noticed the flurry of stardust coating the leaves of the hedge where you passed through it. It practically signposted your route to anyone who passed by.

Futilely, you tried to knock it off but only succeeded in spreading it further. Your panic over covering your tracks overshadowed all else until you heard it. A sound that made your stomach drop as you lifted your eyes to the hedging.

A snort.

It froze you in place as the other side of the gap you had passed through was blocked by something dark and massive.

But unlike your dream, it wouldn’t take much to reach through to the other side.

You really were going mad…

Why else were you still here? Why were you not running?

A dangerous game presented itself to you suddenly, one you had no idea you’d been playing all this time when the monster on the other side of the hedgerow stayed where he was instead of charging you like you’d heard him do to countless others.

Would he be as molten hot as he was in your dream, you wondered in awe. Would he be as hard?

Maybe the entire thing hadn’t been a dream at all, but a premonition of your fate. One last gift of Atropos before she cut the string of your long life. But that hardly made a dent in your psyche the way it ought to, the way it once would have.

Indeed, it hardly made a ripple as the thought of huge horns and wide shoulders you’d only seen in shadows mated with the burning recollection of a touch only present in your dreams to create a single, enticing creature before you.

You took a wary step closer, the eldritch shadow on the other side shifting at the sound.

Another snort followed the first. Sharper, your scent caught, and you halted before you could get any closer. A throaty growl rumbled around you, giving you a split second to step back before the hedging shook and a forearm burst from the same gap you passed through with ease.

It was all that could fit, you realized, his forearm alone as thick as your thigh. Dark skin was littered in constellations of scars and hair, and the hand attached to it… was that of a man. Knuckles bruised and bloody, fingers thick and palm broad while a ring of fresh bruises surrounded his wrist and gave you pause when he pulled it back.

A warriors hand.

Apart from its size, you’d seen countless hands like this in your time and been touched by as many. That violent possessiveness and brutal affection was unique to hands who caressed their weapons the way they did a woman’s body. That sought to protect or destroy in the spilling of blood and ecstasy.

Either was possible until the moment it happened. There was a thrill in not knowing until it was too late.

You resented the trickle of wetness you could feel slip down your inner thighs, his growl deepening.

You should have run.

You should have run ages ago. If you had, you wouldn’t have been burdened with what you considered the last nail in the coffin on your sanity. The last vestige of hope Penelope was talking about. For when you heard his voice… attraction bloomed in a way it never had before inside you.

In a way you feared you’d never be able to return from.

“Lost… little… star—” His voice was so low it shook the earth, a primal gravel that removed all notions of humanity were it not for your ability to understand him.

“Run.”

You finally broke from your frozen stupor, dashing blindly any which way. It didn’t matter if you disoriented yourself. If you lost yourself completely. You needed to ensure you couldn’t find your way back there… to him and the filthy promise in unspoken words if he caught you.

Tears streaked down your cheeks as you did, unable to care if they – or your stardust – were leaving a scent trail for him to follow when it dawned on you that he wasn’t just hunting randomly anymore.

He was hunting you.

But the worst thing was, as you ran, breath stolen and heart hammering, your tears were joined by a delirious smile of adrenaline filled ecstasy. While separated from the stars, you found your lost connection to the core of nature through fear, brazen danger. Him.

It terrified you enough that when another endless night of evading his singular pursuit came to a close and you staggered on jelly legs to the closest body of water only to run into Nikos once again, you didn’t hesitate to beg for his help.

To take him up on Penelope’s offer though she was nowhere to be seen. You were blind to anything else but the panic-induced need you had to flee what had happened in the labyrinth that night.

You needed to stop these feelings from growing. Stop them, even if it meant cutting yourself off from the very nature you once thought lost to you that now pounded on your psyche with a wild, bestial need.

242 notes · View notes

sovlstr · 1 month

Text

For context, I’m 17 now, and back when this was happening I had catatonic episodes where I would black out. These episodes would make most of my life at that time a blur of deviantart and questionable parenting methods. It was rlly stressful for me so a lot of my coping was through drawing and storytelling. When I consider the factors I was living in, it makes a LOT of sense that I barely remember any of the stuff I did. I completely forget I even had a deadly six phase, or that 10 year old me would trace random google images on slips of paper. So this collection means a lot to me, that I can still relive and acknowledge parts of my childhood I thought I lost.

We were digging through storage when I came across this bundle of memories. Most of this was undertale, fnaf, and sonic hedgehog related. It makes me sad because most of this was probably the only thing that kept me alive during that time.

27 notes · View notes

qingxin-dream · 2 years

Text

As the World Falls Down

a/n | this is partially inspired by one of my fav scenes in the 1986 movie labyrinth, i just really love the imagery and bowie’s song (literally the title haha). always got me daydreaming🥰 hope you enjoy!! (art credits: @/myu-chan on deviantart)

warnings | poisoning, suffocation, profanity, hallucinations, reader wears a dress, implied death, crying, vague references to scara lore, not really proofread it’s 1am

genre | angst, romance

word count | 2.6k

pairing | scaramouche x reader

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

“I found some mushrooms and berries,” you announced upon returning to camp, a hand-woven basket tucked into the nook of your elbow.

“Good. We can have fowl with it too,” stated your nonchalant traveling partner, the rogue Balladeer, who nods. His eyes were lost in the growing flames of the fire he was tending to, not caring to spare you a glance as you take seat next to him to sort through your basket.

An amusing thought crossed the puppet’s mind and past his lips with haste, “It’s not poisonous, is it?”

The crackling of the fire grew louder amid the absence of your answer, reaching up to the darkening sky in a flurry of hot ash. After flipping a log over in the campfire, Scaramouche begrudgingly looked over at you, annoyed and prepared to chew you out for ignoring him. “Hey, what are you—”

“Sc-Scara… c-can’t—” you struggled to put words together as suddenly a dense fog settled over your mind. Eyelids unbearably heavy and jaw becoming slack, your consciousness was fading rapidly.

“(Y/N)?” his voice nearly cracks out of surprise, lunging toward you to catch you as your limp body collided with the ground. A single purple mushroom tumbled away from your grasp when you collapsed, the mark of your teeth engraved on the cap of the little fungus.

Scaramouche tried to shake you out of your delirium to no avail. He cradles you closer in his arms, curses pouring over his lips in a panicked state, trying to find your pulse. “Fuck, fuck… idiot, how could you be so careless!”

His fingers against your dainty wrist did not feel a thing. You weakly rolled your head toward the frantic puppet, it seemed you were blissfully unaware of how the puppet was scrambling to save you. A glittery haze swirled ominously behind your eyes—you certainly weren’t lucid—almost as if you were admiring the man holding you tightly on your deathbed.

Grazing the back of his index finger along your neck, you were still warm to the touch. It wasn’t until Scaramouche placed an ear against your chest did he hear the faint thump of your heartbeat and feel the rise of your rib cage as you breathed slowly.

You were still alive, but who knows for how long? He cursed once more, scanning over your features frantically. You no longer fought against the wave of drowsiness crashing over you, eyelids beginning to close and the small smile disappearing from your lips.

“H-Hey! Are you listening? What the hell did you eat?” the puppet growled, lightly slapping your face awake. Your eyelashes fluttered momentarily, but it was evident you weren’t comprehending anything that was happening. “Where is it? Don’t you dare close your eyes, (Y/N), I swear.”

Scaramouche recklessly searched through your basket of foraged items, tossing aside every last godforsaken wild flower, mushroom, and berry you worked so hard to collect. Looking you over, a small sparkle caught his eye.

A violet little shroom, glimmering under the setting sun, sat half-eaten on a patch of dirt next to you. It sported a mesmerizing pattern, twisting and contorting into the strangest unrecognizable shapes. His eyes trailed them through and through, a deceptively beautiful tango that drew him closer and closer with promises of pleasure, but what lurks beneath the surface of such an alluring potion?

A comforting warmth spreads across the puppet’s cheek, snapping him from his thoughts. You were cupping his cheek, half-lidded irises glistening with the reflection of a faraway realm. Scaramouche blinked.

“Where did you go?”

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

The echo of a grand piano was just within earshot, weaving a gentle melody so lovely your ears would happily weep if they could. A few string instruments join in, a sweet violin contrasted with a deeper cello sound, if only you could find them. Light laughter swirled about, amid the clink of wine glasses and romantic whispers.

Pulling the lavishly purple curtain back, you are faced with the extravagant ballroom packed with guests. Each of them exuded pristine elegance in their magnificent, jet-black suits adorned with freshly bloomed flowers. It was a sight to behold, truly, with their faces masked behind brilliantly intricate Fatui-esque designs, boasting tall feathers or shiny rhinestones.

As they led their beautiful partners draped in pastel ballroom dresses and the finest jewelry, something was familiar about them yet no one appeared to recognize you. Was it the soft white Cecilia clipped to the raven-haired musician plucking away at the harp? Or the exquisite Glaze Lily on the tall gentleman nearby whose ponytail faded to a golden caramel hue?

The ebb and flow of the dance pushed you to and fro, distracting you from your thoughts. It was difficult to weave through the crowd, you find it quite suffocating with no exit is in sight. Then, without warning, a small clearing was made as the guests silently danced around you and the lone man who stepped into your path.

His mask was unlike the others: an angelic shade of white that shimmered like gold under the chandelier, dotted with tiny diamonds beneath the eyes in the shape of a tear. Deep indigo locks of hair perfectly framed his face, and as your doe-like eyes took in his ethereal form you noticed his boutonnière was unique—a vibrant, wine-red dendrobium rested upon his breast pocket.

He lowered the mask, yet no one seemed to pay any mind as they swayed to the surrounding symphony. Your jaw dropped in shock, the act of revealing his identity like breaking a sacred oath. Twinkling lavender irises rested on you, drinking in your immaculate visage dolled up in an exquisite, lacy ball gown that rivaled the purest snow on Dragonspine.

You were utterly and completely awestruck, lips parted but words would never take form.

It was him—Scaramouche in the flesh.

He approached you, leaning in until he lingered but a few inches away. You swear by the Archons if someone had said he was ambrosia incarnate you would have believed them without question. It was intoxicating, the way he made your cheeks burn with warmth and searched your eyes endlessly as if it were truly the window to your soul.

His hands delicately brushed against your waist, moving to guide you into the rhythm of the crowd. Your arms wrap around his neck, just as lost in him as he was within you. The mesmerizing serenade of the orchestra drowned out any banter around you, and you felt safe in his hold.

Your voice softly broke through to him, “Who are you?”

An amused hum escapes his lips. Scaramouche gazed at you with adoration, pulling you closer against his torso like he never wanted to let you go. His husky voice answered into your ear, “Who do you think I am?”

You bit your lip. Part of you had secretly dreamed of Scaramouche returning your feelings one day. All of this felt too good to be true. Was this reality? Would he embrace you like this? Would he—

“(Y/N),” he quietly chastised, seeing you lost in thought. Strands of violet hair tickled your face when his nose brushed yours, you couldn’t help but steal a glance at his lips that were so close to meeting your own. You could hear his breath hitch, a tint of pink dusting his cheeks. “Tell me what you think of me.”

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” you nervously replied, averting your eyes as the butterflies in your stomach began to become unbearable under the weight of his affectionate and alluring gaze. “And why does it matter? You never cared about what other’s think anyway.”

“You are correct, but… you aren’t like the others, now are you?” Scaramouche smirked, a glint of mischief flickering across his features before pulling away to twirl you around.

As you returned to him, dress flourishing in tandem, you flash him a sly smile. “Well, if you must know, I do think of you fondly when you are away.”

“And what of when you are here with me?” he teased, joining the two of you at the hip again. He could practically hear his heart pounding, desperate to leap out of his chest. Scaramouche tucks a loose tuft of hair behind your ear, whispering into it once more, “You are in the presence of a god, after all. It only takes three words and I am yours.”

An insatiable rush of heat flusters your face at such a proposition. Your hand cupped his cheek and you caressed it with your thumb, committing his every perfect curve and edge to memory, as if confirming he was real and not made of paper mâché. He leans into your touch lovingly, a prince hopelessly enamored by this chance encounter.

This was really Scaramouche, and he wanted you. He chose you. In what world would you possibly deny him?

The sweet sound of the string quartet marked the end of the musical piece, drawing your attention as the crowd fell to a low hush awaiting the beginning of the next song.

When you turned to answer him, he disappeared. You flicked your head around, searching the ballroom for his face, his mask, his unusual violet hair, anything that resembled his unmistakable aura—but ultimately found naught. The guests spared disapproving looks at you through their masks, though you couldn’t discern if it was pitiful or mocking.

Your adrenaline began to kick in, not caring to push through the crowd just for the opportunity to catch a fleeting glimpse of Scaramouche’s beautiful mask. The orchestra began to play faster, heightening your sense of anxiety as guests moved in tune and nearly fought against you.

Was it something you said? Was he no longer satisfied with you? Were you just a plaything to him and nothing more?

Finally, you broke through the edge of the crowd and found yourself face-to-face with a distorted mirror of the room. Your reflection curved and blurred as if the ballroom itself was contained in an iridescent bubble. You were wrong. So horribly wrong.

Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted the electrifying stare of Scaramouche watching you from the outskirts of the crowd. Your skin crawled with goosebumps once you noticed he was sauntering toward you, mask covering his expression.

You had to find a way out of this nightmare. Grabbing a chair from a nearby table, you held it above you, prepared to burst out of this false dream.

Suddenly a firm hand gripped your wrist painfully tight and yanked you away from the mirror, causing you to fall backwards into the perpetrator. Scaramouche growled in anger through his teeth, “I won’t let you do this. You can’t abandon me!”

“You lied to me!” Wriggling under him, you attempted to pull away with the chair but he was too strong. He ripped the chair out of your hands, toppling you over on the floor helplessly. You scrambled to stand up, carelessly tearing through the frills of your dress with your heels.

Scaramouche threw the chair aside and reached for your arm again, this time pleading with you, tears pricking his pretty red-lined eyes. “(Y/N), please. I’ve turned this world upside down and I’ve done it all for you. Stay here with me. Devote yourself to me. It’s all I ask.”

You hesitate at the sound of desperation evident in his voice, looking back at him one more time. He had lost his ephemeral sheen, hair tousled and scattered messily across his pale face. He was hanging on to your every word, hoping you would reconsider an eternity in paradise with him. It hurt to see how sad of a state he was reduced to, begging you to be with him.

He was right. This was everything you wanted—an endless night in his arms as lovers, but this was not how it was meant to be.

“I’m sorry,” you hoarsely choked back tears, smashing the mirror into a million pieces.

Infinitely small shards reflected the horrified look of betrayal on Scaramouche’s face as the dream was lost to space.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

You woke to the sound of crickets and a crackling fire. A cool, wet rag sat on your forehead, contrasting the warmth of the campfire and causing you to scrunch your nose as you stirred. Your heart raced when you were squeezed by the shoulders into someone’s chest, wet drops falling on you.

“Hm?” you mumbled against the fabric of their clothes, resting your hand against the left side of their chest. After a moment, you realized this person lacked a heartbeat. Your eyes shot open. “Scara… mouche?”

Your eyes took a moment to adjust, eventually focusing on the man who was cradling you close and gently rocking you back and forth. His divine features were contorted into despair, eyelashes speckled with the glistening residue of his tears. You spoke up again, “Scaramouche, what happened?”

“I thought you fucking died, that’s what happened.”

Oh. Your memory proved to be fuzzy—you remembered foraging for dinner, picking all kinds of edible berries and mushrooms. You remember returning to camp, but trying to think of anything beyond that worsened your headache. Were you attacked?

“How long have I been out?” you asked apprehensively.

Scaramouche swallowed thickly, hollow eyes wandering up your form to meet yours. It was gut-wrenching, he was never this vulnerable—this exposed—with you. “Six hours.”

He told himself he would never allow foolish mortal feelings to defile his heart again long ago, but you had gotten under his skin more than he realized. You sunk your claws into his heart so easily, so readily, and he was complacent in it. Maybe part of him wanted to believe it would be different despite his deep-rooted cynicism.

When you passed out cold and lifeless, you might as well have gored his heart right out of his fragile puppet body.

Scaramouche wanted you to, for all of the self-hatred, regret, love, and mourning he felt over you eating a stupid purple mushroom.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered shamefully, gripping his robe in your fist. You really fucked up this time. Had he held you the whole time, wishing you would come to or saying his goodbyes? The thought welled hot tears in your eyes.

He gave you a bewildered look, appalled by your pathetic apology. “I should kill you.”

“I would understand.”

The puppet had enough. After suffering in the depths of darkness and despondency for hours thinking you had succumbed to your mortality, Scaramouche could bear it no longer. You were alive, your heart was beating, and you were breathing—you were in his grasp once more and he wouldn’t dare waste this newfound chance with you.

“To hell with it,” he swore with a hasty whisper ghosting your pink lips, cupping your cheek softly, taking in how beautiful you looked in the moonlight even as you laid ill. “I love you, (Y/N), and don’t you dare do this to me again.”

Scaramouche brushed his chapped lips, salty with the remnants of his tears, against yours, relishing in the sensation of how plush and warm you felt. He rubbed his thumb over your cheekbone and down your jaw delicately like you could break underneath him at any moment. His hand trembled slightly on your skin, prompting you to hold his palm to your face to quell his fears.

When you moved your lips and pressed further into him, reaching up to lace your fingers in his hair, he swiped his tongue to ask permission before deepening the kiss. You tenderly smiled, greeting his tongue with your own. Scaramouche treated you with the utmost reverence, dedicating himself to tasting every saccharine drop you would offer.

He poured his heart into you until you were desperate for air and had to break away, much to his dismay. You were more than addicting. Indulging in you was beyond euphoric, to feel complete and whole at last was indescribable.

Recovering your breath, you huffed out a contented laugh and sealed your fate with one more peck on his lips. “I love you too.”

For the first time in hundreds of years, the puppet genuinely smiled, interlacing his fingers with yours.

“So… what did you dream of after you ate that mushroom?”

thanks for reading! reblogs are appreciated! my masterlist

#[opulent dreams].✿#genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact imagines #genshin imagines #genshin x reader #genshin angst #genshin impact fatui #genshin scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #genshin kunikuzushi #kunikuzushi x reader #genshin wanderer #wanderer x reader

448 notes · View notes

1863-project · 1 year

Text

Okay, was thinking about it and I remembered a lot of you were very young or not even alive for this, so:

When 9/11 happened I was 12 and had just started 7th grade. I grew up in a suburb of New York City. 12 people from my town died, including a firefighter whose son was in my younger brother's CCD group.

Things changed SO fast. Practically overnight. Suddenly, we were all hypervigilant, and after the immediate response of assistance from around the world, the prejudice was oozing from nearly everywhere. In northern New Jersey, we had and still have a large west (Middle East) and south Asian population. They were hit the hardest.

People freaked out just because a mosque was going to be built in lower Manhattan within several blocks of Ground Zero at one point. It was ridiculous and the Islamophobia was so fucking awful and infuriating. It still is. It didn't go away. For the most part, New Yorkers are usually good to each other because there's literally someone from everywhere here, but this was legitimately terrifying. People would even attack Sikhs - who weren't Muslim, Sikhism is its own thing - because they saw the turbans and made a decision based on racism (i.e. bin Laden had a turban so these people must be like him).

The "patriotism" was miserable. "Freedom fries" happened because people were mad that France didn't want to go into Iraq with Bush in 2003. We all thought it was stupid then too.

The Chicks (formerly known as the Dixie Chicks) got blackballed because they came out against said war. They were one of the biggest country acts in the world at the time. In general, country music went through a massive tonal shift post-9/11 and became far more "patriotic" and conservative. Johnny Cash wouldn't have recognized it.

The Flash movies that inevitably popped up satirizing politics were...something. You can find most of them archived on YouTube these days. But that was how the internet tended to cope back then.

The shift from happiness to paranoia was so fucking fast. I went from a world where my biggest concern was pre-ordering the GameCube to being worried about politics and death all the time. All the news showed was footage of people dying for weeks. Politicians started using the footage in commercials. You just had to keep reliving the trauma of it over and over again. I stopped watching the news.

It was, looking back on it, a huge galvanizing point for the American right. Politicians started using 9/11 to justify so many things. This was where I began to see as a young teenager that you could use people's prejudices to get a grip on power and get what you wanted. I didn't like it.

People started drawing memorial art almost immediately. The phenomenon of memorial art being done decades later with cartoon characters still persists on deviantART to this day, but when it started, it was mostly people doing vent art because it's really upsetting to be a kid and see death on that scale on the news.

It took me 15 years to go back to the site after 9/11. I'd been as a kid in 1997 and I went up in the South Tower with my family. I didn't set foot there again until 2016, 15 years after the attacks. I found the name of the firefighter whose son was in my brother's CCD class. It was surreal.

This chapter of American history arguably closed for many people in 2011, when bin Laden was killed in a raid. I remember watching the Mets play the Phillies that night. Daniel Murphy, who I'd named a cat after two years earlier, was at bat, and suddenly the crowd started chanting "USA." I used my Blackberry to check the news and that was how I found out. I was a senior in college, about to graduate. I don't even remember how I felt, just that the way I found out was so fucking weird.

It was a really stressful, bizarre climate to grow up in. In the time between my 12th and my 22nd birthday, I saw my entire world get turned upside down overnight, massive waves of prejudice, unnecessary wars that killed even more innocent people, literal war crimes (tw: rape, murder, prisoner torture, every other bad thing you can think of under the sun), and the rise of false patriotism and nationalism, which you can still see the right wing harnessing today.

If you're going to mock something here, mock the false patriotism. Mock "Freedom Fries." Mock George W. Bush. Just...don't mock the actual moments where people died. Too many innocent people died from the attacks themselves, the Islamophobia afterwards, and the wars that followed. That shit isn't funny.

#history

61 notes · View notes

radioluminescentoblivion · 7 months

Text

Hazbin Hotel: The Corruption of Creativity. Part 1

1. Introduction

Hello everyone, I normally don’t make huge posts like these, but I thought it would be important to make this review and discussion about the latest animated show on Amazon Prime, Hazbin Hotel, and the people behind the scenes who worked on the show, mostly the show creator Vivziepop. Back in 2019 when I first watched the animated pilot of Hazbin Hotel, I was interested to see how this show, if picked up, would go about with its story. Like many people who were still fans of Vivziepop’s work, I wanted to see this show become a good adult animated series. In fact, as the production was going on behind closed doors, I supported viv and her work via Patreon for a time and bought some merch from Sharkrobot.com to help fund her endeavors—I even still have my Angel Dust t-shirt and Hazbin Hotel poster in a black picture frame.

2. Personal Fan Origins

Though I wasn’t an og follower of viv back in her older days on DeviantArt, I was introduced to her work around 2014-2015, that’s when I originally saw her fan-animated Kesha Die Young music video and since then I became a fan of her work and was obsessed with her means of creating very expressive and stylistic characters. Vivziepop was the artist who not only introduced me to the furry community, she was also a big inspiration for my artwork and still is to some extent now, had it not been for her, I don’t think I would’ve been in the position I’m in now to make art or it would’ve taken me much longer than where I started.

But as much as I was a casual fan of her work, I was also a skeptic of her as a person over time. Primarily due to how she would be overly defensive towards criticism, radiate a toxic personality on others and friends of hers, and how she would intentionally and unintentionally weaponize her audience against those that landed on her blacklist. These traits would only become more apparent over time, but I like many others had the mindset of “separating the art from the artist” And while there is some validity to be made on that notion, it makes it all the harder when the person intentionally makes the art inseparable from who they are or they’re still active or alive and will constantly change their position or view on things. I know there’s a much deeper discussion to be had about this notion and how relevant it actually is, but for the sake of this post, I won’t dive into it that much.

Watching Helluva Boss in 2019 onward would prove to be a conflicting experience since the first time watching the first season wasn’t as bad, some episodes had some strong character development, decent action scenes, and enjoyable songs. 2, 5, and 6 were some of my favorites in the series, but around season 2 episode 4, I was losing interest and I began to see the cracks in the show and noticed that the charm had dwindled going into the second season. Episode 6 was where I stopped which is funny because the last episode (at least currently) was episode 7 which I didn’t even bother to give any attention to because I didn’t like the show much anymore: The characters were losing whatever charm they had originally, making the characters I did like lose that vibe I enjoyed and those I didn’t like before I just didn’t care or it made it all the worse, the pacing didn’t get any better as the show was always going so quickly but rarely having time to sit down and digest even when there were scenes that had those moments, and for a show that would have differing times from 10-30 minutes, it made it all the more rushed, the stories were all over the place in a way I had no fun engaging with or could get behind, sometimes plot points like D.H.O.R.K.S’s evidence of demons would be revealed but never brought up again or have the same impact on the show, and some of the songs were forgettable (though I did enjoy Cotton Candy).

After I stopped giving HB a watch I decided to be patient and wait for when Hazbin Hotel would drop, and on January 18th, 2024, the first episode would drop to present the new show to the world.

3. Hazbin Hotel Review (Spoilers, Obviously)

Summary -

Hazbin Hotel is an adult animated series about the daughter of Lucifer named Charlie Morning Star, a demon princess seeking to rehabilitate sinners in a less violent way to combat overpopulation in hell. Along the way, she manages to get support from the enigmatic radio demon named Alastor who helps Charlie and Vaggie bring in sinners in an attempt to redeem their souls for a price while trying to be as cooperative as she can with the odds stacked against her.

When I first watched the premiere of the show, I wasn’t really blown away or impressed by it, which isn’t a bad thing since not a lot of shows have a strong start with their early episodes in the season. Where it did get interesting however was around 4-6 when it started to focus more on character development and give some time for the main cast to shine and maintain some consistency with the story, though this has its limits. There were also some decent songs, some funny dialogue, and even some sprinkling of action around the end. Unfortunately, in the later episodes, it started to fall back to where the show lost its touch. So let me get around to the pros and cons of Hazbin Hotel:

The Good -

As someone who felt burnt out from Helluva Boss, this is an improvement as far as comparing viv’s older work goes, which is a slight benefit.

Performances are great as far as voices go, especially when you have people like Keith Davids in your line up, though I would be a little more positive on the casting choices if it didn’t also come at the cost of the old cast, I genuinely believe they should’ve been given additional voice roles if not main ones for the show, so that sucks.

Songs can be hit or miss in this show, with More Than Anything (both the first and reprise) and Loser Baby being the better examples and the rest not sticking out to me as much, either because I don’t think they had as much impact or they felt out of left field. I think it would’ve been better to not have every episode with a song number unless it was a grand introduction to something (i.e. Poison, Loser Baby, More Than Anything). Though I don’t expect this to be a popular opinion so whatever

The visuals are fairly competent with few to no issues that caught my eye, my only critique would be that due to how fast everything feels it can be hard to follow what's all happening, not to mention having the background and background characters look as eye-catching as the main cast can throw people off of where they should put their focus on. It's not as terrible enough where I loathe it, but it could make some contrast of who/what you should pay more attention to.

The Bad -

The story loses track of the main premise of Charlie trying to redeem sinners and her relationship with Vaggie. The side plots don’t interest me as much aside from Angel Dust and Husk having some empathy for each other slowly through the series, and the other main cast aren’t nearly explored as much. Idk the best way to describe it, but it seems that most of the focus of the side characters isn’t where it should be (the hotel’s residents) and more so on those outside the hotel, which I think would’ve worked better in the second season rather than just the first. If season one was just focusing on the residents, Charlie and Vaggie more than the other characters, I wouldn’t mind that. I think the only exceptions to this would be the hell overlords discovery of how to fight back and Lucifer helping Charlie with the hotel. But back to the main cast, Charlie and Vaggie’s moments of romance and bonding seem few and far between, which sucks since this is supposed to be about them right? RIGHT?! The potential is just wasted.

Not every song is needed or has a place in every episode, though that could be because I wasn’t feeling them as strongly compared to the ones mentioned. Not much else to say there that hasn’t already been said.

Characters don’t appeal to me as much aside from Niffty and Sir Pentious (they’re the best) and unfortunately, the characters I should care about don’t get enough time to shine due to how this show is hastily paced—which leads me to my next negative.

Pacing is absolutely atrocious, for episodes that last 30 minutes, it feels like everything has happened yet also little has happened in such a short period of time (which is insane to me) Viv has had pacing issues in the past with her work which is concerning to me, mostly because she wasn’t always this speedy with her series, there were times she had more breathing room for her older works for instances like the Son of 666 and Timber, even the short Bad Luck Jack (which I liked) suffered from this in ways. Idk what exactly happened, but it seems like viv’s workflow has just gotten worse over time, and her artistic magic, patience, etc has just vanished.

Jokes? For what attempt of humor was there, it was very little. Once in a while, there was a joke that stuck the landing or made me chuckle, such as Charlie and Alastor swearing unexpectedly, only because it’s so out of left-field you wouldn’t expect it, so the joke works. Or when Niffty and Sir Pentious act their usual awkward selves in front of others. But everything else is just not funny to me because the majority of the humor is either sex or profanity jokes that don’t have that great of build-up or go for something more than just “haha adult words” which ironically makes it more juvenile than adult. I don’t mind stupid humor, but make it funny and not because you want to say “fuck” for the sake of it. Even if it’s just for casual talk, it's overly excessive. It doesn’t hurt to find humor in other ways even if those don’t land either, it's better than just resorting to profanity and sex.

Additional Comments -

When it comes to Vivziepop’s older works, it’s better than Helluva Boss but weaker than her shorts or animated music videos (fan-made or original), the strongest elements within the series lie within the hump of the season and fall short from the beginning and end. Though as annoying as that is, it pales in comparison to the other elements in the show.

Heaven’s methods of carrying out exterminations every year to dissuade the populace of hell from rebelling is just a very dumb thing to do when there are so many other ways to shatter the morale of a persecuted people or nation without lifting a single sword that would’ve been better implemented and create a larger divide between heaven and hell and less costly as well. Perhaps this is just to further showcase how arrogant and incompetent Heaven is, but I have my doubts on that.

Alastor as a manipulative radio host works well between Charlie and Vaggie, though I wish they wouldn’t have explained his ties to the disappearances of hell’s overlords so soon, it just takes away from his mysterious nature as this eldritch being. That part to me would’ve worked later on. (Yeah, I’m also aware they did something similar in the pilot too, which brings up another issue I have)

Continuity between the pilot and the first episode is pretty murky, it doesn’t help matters when the plot of the pilot and the series episodes get collaged in so haphazardly. If I never heard of Hazbin Hotel or Vivziepop’s work before, I’d kinda be thrown off a bit and try my best to catch up on what’s going on. I don’t expect an expose of how everything works, but an organic flow of how things come together would’ve been nice. For instance: the pilot itself feels more like an episode one than the actual episode 1 of the first season. I know the point of the pilot isn’t as strict in its rules, since it's supposed to sell an idea to a network or distributor. Hell, The Amazing Digital Circus does something similar to how Hazbin Hotel does with presenting a first-episode introduction into the world and characters, only it does it far better and it hasn’t even gotten its first episode out yet, but I don’t want to compare apples to oranges on two different shows. The point is, the first episode should’ve had a better flow to it or at least maintained something more consistent like the pilot did.

But by far the most glaring problem in the show isn’t part of the show itself believe it or not. But to keep this short, I’ll leave that for part 2.

4. End of Part 1

Originally when I watched the series I gave this a 7/10 on IMDB because I came at this from a perspective of how I would judge the work based on viv’s prior craft, this gave it a point above Helluva Boss, primarily with pacing, and direction of what it should be about and where to focus the story and characters. That being said, I was being very generous and didn’t also factor in on how it stood on its own two feet, and to be honest? It's not that good. For the first season of a new adult animated show, it’s too rushed, and not fleshed out enough in areas where it needs to be, The majority of the characters I have little interest or investment in, and despite having its moments, it's not enough to keep me hooked to know what happens within the next season.

This would bring it down to 1 point for that to a 6/10, I know some fans would put the blame on Amazon, A24, or Bento, but here’s the thing, other shows have had episodes with similar limited space and time to tell their stories yet do a far more superior job in doing so than this, from what I understand, Amazon seems pretty open for a studio big or small to do as they please with what resources they have to get out what they can regardless of the restraint of episodes to be made, thereby making studios try their best to work harder on making a show work with such little episodes, so I see this mostly as a personal thing with viv and her team than just amazon.

Now I would just leave it at that and move on, but I’m afraid this is where things get more muddy and grim.

#longahpost #review #critique #vivziepop #hazbin hotel #helluva boss #vivziepop criticism #vivziepop critical #vivziepop critique #hazbin hotel critique #hazbin spoilers

35 notes · View notes

teenagemutantninjatrauma · 1 month

Note

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings (Stockshop. I know you have good headcanons there!)

🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

Lots of asks for a wonderful writer and better friend!

❄️ ⇢ What's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

Man, I do NOT know. I think whatever theme/plot I get really into, I'm gonna write it best, right? Because it's in my brain a certain way. Which is not to say "I'm the best at writing anything," more like, sometimes the most satisfying a fic can be is when you write it for yourself.

🍓 ⇢ How did you get into writing fanfiction?

Uhh I don't remember exactly, cuz there was a lot of stuff it could've been, but I think I discovered "xReader" style fanfics on DeviantArt and wanted to write them better. Nobody was writing xReaders I could like, relate to? And also there was this bad habit of describing what the "you" character looks like, which is obviously gonna make it less fun to read. And tbh I was like, twelve, so mine were also terrible, but at least they made me laugh and I had fun writing them, so y'know!

And tbh to this day I looove writing fics in second person POV, I have to do it more often....

🥤 ⇢ Recommend an author or fanfic you love.

Oh we could be here all day. For you specifically Cel, I don't really have any recommendations, we've both read all the Stockshop stuff, we're reading each other's stuff in general. But like for anyone coming across this ask... let me check my bookmarks..

OH ACTUALLY I KNOW. DO ANY OF YOU GUYS REMEMBER THE GAME DINO RUN. DID ANYONE ELSE PLAY THAT. THERE IS A SERIES OF FICS CALLED "AND TOGETHER WE WILL RUN" ABOUT TIME TRAVELING DINOSAURS TRYING TO SAVE THEIR PRIMITIVE ANCESTORS FROM THE METEORITE AND IT'S SO POETIC AND SAD AND IT WRECKED ME. AND IT'S SO FUN.

Ahem. Yeah and i think anybody can read it regardless of if you know anything about the game, just know you're playing a little dino running away from the crashing meteorite. The fic kinda provides a wider concept and it's great. And by coincidence it's also written in second person POV! :D

🍄 ⇢ Share a headcanon for one of your favourite ships or pairings (Stockshop. I know you have good headcanons there!)

Sigh. Well, you do have me pinned on that front, hehe. What's one I haven't had a chance to share yet, hm...

I think that both of them would detest the idea of being soulmates, or of being meant for each other. For one, it takes away their autonomy and choice, but also... If Bishop hadn't been abducted and if Baxter hadn't been kept alive against his will, they wouldn't have ended up together. So calling them soulmates implies all that pain, all that torture, had to happen. It was always meant to happen and they couldn't stop it. Which is a horrible concept to them, I think, that there is supposed to be like deep meaning in their traumas.

🦋 ⇢ Share something that has been on your heart and mind lately.

I recently FINALLY blocked a shitty ex-partner, and I keep thinking about blocking my other two exes from the same polycule too. Can't decide if I want to cut ties with them this way or at least say my goodbyes, though. And there's probably not a right answer, so I keep going back and forth on it :/ the three of them are still dating and whenever I think about it for too long it pisses me off, which sucks ass /lh

🦴 ⇢ Is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

Ohhh not a singular one but most often it's music, yes. Every so often I will hear a song and so clearly see a story in it, and then I have to go and write it, or draw it if writing takes too long. There will be multiple future chapters of Taking Pawns that are inspired by different songs, and I have a small Zixx fic idea based on Kaisarion by Ghost.

🐝 ⇢ Tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them!

Ahh well of course there's you, my Stockshop brainrot buddy, but I'd like to compliment you on like, being willing to ask questions about stuff you feel you don't know about. Never stop doing that, I think everyone should be allowed to ask about stuff they're new to, and it's important to be able to do it.

There is also, of course, @violetvulpini, The Bishop Guy™, who I deeply appreciate for bouncing a ton of ideas off of. One of, if not my biggest enabler.

The real biggest hype people though are @awzominator and Axo (who I don't think has a Tumblr..?) who are almost ALWAYS there when I post any of my bullshit, whether it's art or fics, and I loooove them. Absolutely delightful. I hope to be as much of a hypeman to my artist friends as they are <3

#truth or dare ask game #ask game #thank you for sending me these Cel I looooove talking about myself lmao

9 notes · View notes

asterjennifer · 2 years

Note

I read your Suit SaeranxMC ask where MC was almost kidnapped and Suit lost his shit and was wondering: we know Seven has enemies, hell his own father wants him dead

What would happen if MC was in a similar situation but Seven saved her at the last second?

🎀 Interesting take on, my dear! 🎀

Hands down

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: 707 x Reader

Category: Angst (Fluff)

Warnings: Attempt Kidnapping

Word count: 1579

Summary: Cold shoulder doesn't imply no rescue when it comes down to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His sweat was running; his hands burned the metal he'd taken from the back of his car after arriving in more than a hurry. He'd told you to stay in the apartment for your own safety, considering there's not only the face of his brother being part of the opponent group who guided you to the RFA. Ever since leaving behind Vanderwood at his bunker, Saeyoung had been standing on hot coals with their wellbeing. So why couldn't you simply listen when telling you're in great danger? Even more so than before?

Was it curiosity, perhaps it's anticipation to cope with the fact of him snapping at you. And there you disobeyed either way; leaving the walls once he's out in order to gather needed equipment for his research. It's no surprise as he should've known you're owning a talent for causing problems by now. However, he'd not figured you're that tired of life by discharging his warnings. The moment he realized that the car in front of the apartment was not just familiar in brand, but also one he's well acquainted with ever since joining the agency unwillingly, the panic set in. With speed of light he chased down the stairs, knowing exactly what would happen if he's incapable of rescuing you.

These hackers knew even less fun than most of his place. It's his luck for having not only his gun, the taser was hanging at his left side of the belt. Like this he was confident of beating at least five people if managing the defense well. He pushed the doors open, only to be greeted by covered faces that all stared back at the nosie. The shot rang through his ears like a tinnitus; catching too much attention. One of the three guys still holding your unconscious body, ready to be thrown into the trunk. Saeyoung couldn't think; all he's able to see was red and feel the fire that's usually kept in place burn down his body. He lifted the gun, pointing it at the unknown man holding you up.

“You better buckle up and give her back if you wanna walk away alive from this godforsaken place!”

~~~~~~~~~~~

You've woken up with a pounding headache. Growling low in the back of your throat as the light from above burned through your eyelids, forcing you to turn around to the side. Your body ached and it let you hiss out in pain. Not sure what's going on; you blinked reluctantly until you're making out the color of the walls belonging to the former RFA leader. Seems you're back at the apartment already. You pulled your legs higher while grabbing harder at the soft blankets.

You couldn't remember anything, the last thing flashing into your mind had been how you checked your pockets to ensure you've put your phone away. Ready to leave and get something to eat for Saeoyung and yourself after his hard work. Depsite him treating you coldly, you're not about to let him starve the whole day. Least of all when still feeling painful for his situation, you understood he's pained and needed time to recover and process everything that took place in such a short period of time.

“Ngh… Ugh.”

You sighed annoyed at the scratching pain inside your brain. Frowing your brows together, you turned to the other side and find the surroundings mostly empty. Regardless, Saeyoung stood with the back to you at the kitchen counter, his body crouched a little with his eyes focusing onto he sink. What's with that posture, you thought as suspicions began creeping up your spine. You licked your dry lips; eyes snapping open wide by the taste of blood. You immediately lifted your index finger to the skin, and indeed, your lip must've split.

“Saeyoung…?”

Scared of the thick and gloomy air, you called out for the redhead. His shoulders stiffened up and he grazed your eyes briefly over his shoulder before going back to whatever he's doing over at the other side of the room.

“Don't. Just be quiet.”

The bitter tone left guilt laying heavy in your stomach, twisting your guts until the bed's uncomfortable under your weight. You didn't know what to say since you're unaware what happened, did you fell down and ended up unconscious? Have you perhaps fainted from the lack of exercise? Almost impossible, you're in good shape lately, thus simply blacking out made no sense. You shook your head unaware.

“What happened…?”

He exhaled sharp through his nose; now it's confirmed to you. He was angry. Or maybe even more pissed, for that matter.

“I told you not to leave the damn apartment!”

He hissed back, pulling a white fabric higher and lowering it back down out of your sight. A silent gasp escaped you; it's a bandage.

“I… Did you got hurt?”

You asked worried for his condition. Saeyoung never made the impression of caring for his own health, now you were concerned something injured him instead. The hacker glossed over the question by using the silent treatment at you. Your fingers scratched at the mattress restlessly; what now? Should you keep prying or rather leave him be until he's talking voluntarily? No, you closed your eyes once your world started spinning. It's very likely he's not going to enlighten you by himself. Therefore you cleared your dry throat.

“Have I done something, Saeyoung? It's scary not knowing what happened… Can you please tell me?”

It sounded like pleading in your own ears, not that you would bring the effort to care. The redhead then finally turned back around, his arms covered by the thick jacket again. Letting you continue speculate if he got hurt or not. He carried a glass of water and a plate with selfmade sandwich over, much to your surprise.

“You don't remember?”

He asked while placing food and water down at the nightstand. Seeing you shake your head helplessly.

“Good. Then you don't need to know.”

Not even remotely the answer you've been praying for. You sat up slowly because your body didn't allow you going any faster, unless you would've wanted stringing pain to cruise through your veins.

“Saeyoung… What are you talking about?”

“I told you I have enemies and you're absolutely not safe with me.”

He lectured you for the countless time; amber eyes grounded and hard when looking at you.

“Let this be a lesson, for fuck's sake… You're so damn lucky I noticed early enough.”

Your frown grew deeper as you're not sure what he's referring to. With the back to the wall, you placed both hands next to your mushy body. His expression stayed emotionless; lips pressed into a thin line and only his forehead wrinkled lightly to show his frustration. You titled your head.

“I don't know what happened but… I'm sorry.”

You then turned away your head, facing the floor.

“I didn't mean to cause problems again. But I hope you know that's not your fault.”

For a moment silence filled the air until the hot water rose into the corners of your irritated eyes.

“I like you and I don't want to be a burden. But I also don't wanna leave you.”

The shift of the mattress caught you off guard, jerking up your arm in reflex. He sat at edge while rubbing his face with both hands. The lump blocking the access to the already uneasy air didn't help staying calm.

“You still don't get it. What am I supposed to do.”

The regretful tone of his normally powerful voice caused the tears to run down your cheeks. First hesitant, your hand reached out and came to lay at his shoulder. Thankfully he didn't slap it away or anything, on the contrary. When paying close attention you noticed he unconsciously leaned into your touch.

“Please just… let me be with you. I'm not scared of anything that could happen. I know you protect me, Saeyoung.”

You tried again to convince him about your loyalty. It's the truth anyway, you did want to stay by his side no matter what pain or truth would occur; nothing could change your mind about being close to him. You simply desired for him to finally accept the stubborn albeit determined decision you'd made a while ago. You squeezed his shoulder gently and he stood up shortly afterwards.

“Eat and drink something, please.”

He pointed to the food.

“What about you?”

“I took care already. Start worrying about yourself first…!”

You hummed softly, watching him pull his jacket tighter as he's seeking your eyes again. And this time you saw the entire worry glittering over them.

“If you still think this way after everything is over… Maybe I'm willing to share what happened. For now you need to recover so stop asking questions and rest.”

With that he went back to the space on the floor he'd taken the first day he arrived in order to finish the remanding parts of the job. You pulled the blankets once more; gazing at the many wrinkles it brought. There's not much else to do for now, best would be listening to his words and eat. Although feel stomach's still a little heavy, you did felt hungry.

“Okay. Thank you Saeyoung.”

Your words made him look up when placing the big headphones over his head. His features softened due to your kindhearted gratitude, you both knew.

“Yeah… Whatever. Just don't leave this place without me again.”

“I promise.”

116 notes · View notes

genericpuff · 10 months

Text

Sooo does anyone know this artist?

Back to my reminiscing over RMD, there's one artist specifically from that site who was very popular on the platform and most well known for their 'animated stories' - not literally animated, but utilizing the flash replay tool to draw a scene, cover it over with the background canvas color, and then draw the next scene, making these little comics that you could watch being drawn from start to finish scene by scene.

And that artist was Sadik.

(CW: blood, violence, and old mid 2000's era art ahead!)

Anyone who reads my original works might recognize this name. Well, that's because Sadik is (or potentially was) a real person.

I got to know Sadik during my time on the site, they were an active part of the community and were peak mid 2000's "I made you a cookie but I eated it" emo culture. They eventually migrated to DeviantArt where they became more active there (this was something that happened to a lot of artists who evolved past the flash and Java tools of RMD) but eventually they sort of just fell off the face of the Earth.

Obviously I can't really show the animated works they did because those were constrained entirely to the flash software which no longer works (and thus can't be replayed via Wayback) but here are some of their standalone art pieces that give off exactly the vibe I just described (so if you didn't know what I was talking about before, this should help give you a visual aid):

I adored their work, as did many people at the time. Granted, RMD was a much smaller site, but the Internet as a whole was smaller back then. We spent a lot of time talking through PM's, I told them about Time Gate, and that's how Sadik - the character - was born.

We both sort of drifted away from RMD as time went on, and naturally didn't talk as often as a result. I don't know where Sadik is today. I don't know if they're still creating art or even still alive. Their RMD page is long gone, the few artists who have managed to reconnect through the RMD Discord have no idea who I'm talking about or where they would be today, and even their DA is long since deactivated. I don't even remember how I was able to preserve those older art pieces that were unique to them, but I hope they're still out there creating art. They were good at it and it brought a lot of people joy. I still have the drawings they created for Time Gate back in the day, when it was still just a silly little self-insert Zelda fanfiction. I didn't find these ones by happenstance before the site shut down or via Wayback after - I kept them, and have always made sure to back them up every single time I've switched PC's because I don't ever want to lose them.

So I guess in a way this series of posts about RMD isn't just a eulogy for my past self, old art, and a site that no longer exists - it's also for the artists who nurtured my work back when very few people were, my first fans, who created art that stuck with me through the years, and, in Sadik's case, even became a part of Time Gate's history, still a part of it today. Thank you for being there, Sadik. I hope our paths cross again some day ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

#ratemydrawings #media preservation #art preservation #RMD #self post #original art

42 notes · View notes

raspberry-and-friends · 5 days

Text

“The main thing I’ve learned from Mom’s friendship adventures is that everything is out to kill you.”

Name: Honeycomb Shy

Nickname(s): Honey, Hon, Honeybuns (Taffy)

Species: Pegasus (though their wings are far too tiny to lift themself off the ground

Gender: Genderqueer (they/them)

Sexuality: Homoromantic-Asexual

Age: 17

Parents: Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps Shy

Sibling(s): Duckling Shy (younger sister), Nature Walk Shy (younger sister)

Partner(s): N/A

Headcanons and disclaimers below the cut 👇👇

Personality: Introverted, gentle-hearted, caring, resourceful, and accepting of everypony, no matter their species or background (they know what it’s like to be bullied for something you can’t control and refuse to let anypony they know experience the same).

Flaws: Anxious, easily frightened, cries often, dislikes adventuring (unlike the rest of their friends, who cheerfully drag them along kicking and screaming), and rarely voices their opinions/opens up to anypony due to their irrational fear of burdening those around them with their “unnecessary” problems.

Special Talent: Gardening

Cutie Mark Story: When Honeycomb was around 12 years old, they went on a fieldtrip with their fellow classmates to a nearby nursery, where they, with the help of a chaperone, were allowed to magically plant a seedling of their own.

At the end of the day, each foal went home with their sapling, nestled inside one of the many clay pots they’d painted earlier in the afternoon. Honey, unfortunately, was stuck with puniest sprout in the group, and assumed it’d only last a couple days at most.

Even so, the gentle student followed every instruction provided by their teacher in the hopes that their tiny tree would somehow survive. Miraculously, after a year of nursing the seedling back to life, it somehow managed to be the only plant in the class to survive the harsh winter (their other classmates either didn’t care or weren’t diligant enough to keep theirs alive).

It was at this point Honeycomb realized that caring for nature was their passion—their destiny, and with that came a blinding flash of light, followed by a brand new cutie mark.

Base by SelenaEde

***DISCLAIMER: In this AU, The princesses DIDN’T hand off their powers to Twilight, and still remain the primary rulers of Equestria during the course of this story. The illustrations and writing (the latter of which has since been revised to fix previously missed grammatical errors and to more closely align with my current headcanons) were done back in 2020-2021 and posted to my now-inactive DeviantArt account. The signature ‘Hun’ reflects the name I went by at the time, Hunter.***

#my little pony #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp fim #mlp next generation #mlp next gen #mlp oc #my little pony oc #bulkshy

5 notes · View notes

viridiave · 11 months

Text

A little love post to HORROR JRPGs

Content Warning:

So I'm gonna be talking a lot about some pre-Undertale era RPG Maker Horror games, and this post is gonna contain both spoilers and the discussion of the following:

Blood and Gore

Psychological horror

Child abuse

Sexual assault

Suicide

Violence

Fictional minors being put into very messed up situations, because that's just the kinds of games these are

Other upsetting themes

Hetalia (because I can imagine that all of us have very complex feelings about this fucking franchise. It existing feels like it needs a warning)

This post is a nostalgia trip and exists purely because uh. I have literally no one else to talk to about these games, and please just click away if any of the above makes you uncomfortable in any way. Some of this stuff can't exactly be handwaved as just being products of their time.

I'll draw smthn real quick later just to make up for it I promise

I'm like days late to Halloween but I just wanted to write this after getting a bout of nostalgia lmao

I absolutely fucking love Horror JRPGs - the freeware ones, even though I haven't touched one in a LONG time. I'm talking about the pre-Undertale era freeware games by the way, and in the first place I don't think I can consider Undertale a horror game but that's a topic for another day. OneShot also doesn't count aksjak OneShot gives me existential dread and a nonzero amount of guilt sure, but never terror

But let's dial that back a bit.

To begin with. 'Vir, you're a fucking coward, you run upstairs when you see that someone on TV has a gun. You can't stand watching horror movies. How the FUCK did this happen'

Weirdly, you can thank Hetalia for that. Specifically, the freeware Hetalia fangames that used to circulate on DeviantArt - that shit led me down this rabbit hole. And I guess it made sense, most Hetalia fangames are a coin toss between a horror game and a fantasy JRPG with countries getting isekai'd. I also played the fuck out of those.

For a bit of background, I love video games, but neither me nor my family ever really had that much spending power to buy game consoles, so my selection was pretty limited. Before I turned 18, I remember that we owned a GameBoy, a GameBoy Advance, a PSP, and one of those Fun-Sized Nintendo consoles with built-in games. We never bought cartridges either. I got my first DS from my dad on my birthday when I turned 18, and that's all the consoles that my family has ever owned. Still kinda jealous of my friends who have Switches, but eh - one day.

I just played a lot of Harvest Moon growing up, that's been my object of interest in my elementary days. The most of a horror game that I've been exposed to was watching my friends play Five Nights At Freddy's back in 5th grade.

Then high school happened, and I got new friends and shit - and was introduced to both more conventional horror games and Hetalia. Which is. A really weird combination when I think about it now, but everyone who was alive and kicking around in the early 2010's would know what HetaOni is, and you can see how that slope led to me playing freeware horror games. I'll always be grateful to these games, seeing as I never had easy access to mainstream experiences growing up.

I think I played HetaOni exactly once, on my first laptop. I played most Hetalia fangames exactly once, but they all just stayed on my old hard drive. None of them really had anything interesting going on gameplay-wise, I mean it's RPGMaker and these were people who just really wanted to make Hetalia fangames, but I remember some of them just sticking with me. I'd play them while I was away on trips to my grandmother's house, then watch let's plays on YouTube when I wasn't otherwise occupied with schoolwork. Really when I say Let's Plays I only mean KyoKoon64's - and that's how I was actually introduced to horror JRPGs.

CLOÉ'S REQUIEM

There's been a couple of times where they played some of the more recognizable horror JRPGs on their channel, but the first one I REALLY saw a playthrough on was one called Cloé's Requiem. I don't know what exactly it was about this specific game that stuck with me, and at the time I didn't know that this had like. More warnings than you would usually find on a horror JRPG. Calling it now, please look up said warnings before you try ANYTHING with this game - I can't promise quality and nuance, but I can promise great moments. Those moments stuck with me to this day, SOMEHOW, even after encountering games with better story and gameplay experiences… it's about a cursed 12 year-old boy trying to free a cursed 13 year-old girl, never getting a shot at the normal life he wanted and playing the violin because he can't do much else.

I think this game changed my life. Not in like, any grand manner mind you - but I feel like it's the game that best represented this time of my life as a weird high school outsider who obsesses over games that nobody's ever heard about. I was introduced to a lot of things through this game, it's just this whole volley of firsts that I wouldn't trade for anything else. Baby's first horror game, first jumpscare I ever consented to, first taste of games containing disturbing themes of sexual assault and gore, first trips to Pixiv and NicoNicoDouga - just all the fucking firsts. I wouldn't call it a great game, but it IS important to me.

When I think about it now, it's a game about curses. Michel D'Alembert is a talented violinist at 12, and his alcoholic father milks the shit out of this talent because they're not exactly what you would call well-off. His twin brother Pierre is a pianist, is nowhere near as talented as his brother, and hides his misery over this situation under a big-little brother façade. Cloé Ardennes is a pianist too, she's wealthy, talented, and still plays with her stuffed animals. She is cursed with an insane father who rapes her, and a mother who hates her. Charlotte is a young maid with nothing and tries her best, only to be killed because she happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unsurprisingly things fall apart for everybody very quickly.

Pierre's frustrations with his spoiled, lazy brother boiled over, and he curses Michel out in a heated moment. This drives Michel to murder their Charlotte by accident, and she becomes his curse - he runs out of the house, kills cats, and finds himself in the dilapidated mansion that Cloé inhabits. Cloé by this point is already dead, and so is her dad, her parents, and the maids. Cloé's father may be her curse but she is the curse of this mansion, and it transforms into something hostile until Michel comes along and saves her from the shadow of her father. Michel plays her a requiem, and resolves to go home to confront his crimes - and back to Pierre, who regrets everything he's done. Watching the sun rise with a disappearing Cloé in the True Ending will likely be the last peaceful moment he will ever have in his life.

That's like. Not everything that happens in this game, but this post is already so goddamn long and I still have a lot of other stuff I want to talk about. But the gist of it to me nowadays is that these children are cursed with loveless lives and the whims of the adults that have power over them. In the end, their lives are all ruined. Cloé and Charlotte are dead, and we have no idea what becomes of Michel and Pierre when word gets out that Michel killed a maid and assaulted several others in the house in a fit of emotional instability. In every other ending, Michel is killed and Cloé remains an evil spirit, so really this is the best that anyone ever gets out of this experience.

I remember watching a playthrough of Con Amore on YouTube, but I understood none of it because it was in Japanese, and the game itself was untranslated at the time. It follows the cats Noir and Blanc and basically serves as an addendum to the base game - honestly it made me feel sorry for Charlotte, who was nowhere near as psychotic as Michel thought she was. There's also light novels, but international shipping is expensive and I don't know Japanese so. I'll just never figure out what happens to everyone after the game ends I guess

One of these days, I'll buy the remake on Steam - which exists, and I can't say I recommend it if everything I just listed bothers you in any way. But I can't shake the attachment I feel towards this game no matter how many years it's been, nor how uncomfortable its themes are, so you know - maybe one day. I'll go back to it.

So - following that, I got pretty curious about the other games in this genre of freeware horror. Ib is the one that everyone knows the best, both Markiplier and Pewdiepie played it so you KNOW it gets press, but even in Japan this game was a hell of a hit. To me, it's a simple game that I can finish in an hour, but man what an hour it can be.

If you were to play this game right now after seeing how much press it gets (which I think you should, it's on the Switch now! Go get it!), you MIGHT be a little disappointed. It's nowhere near as gory or disturbing as Cloe's Requiem for one and you know - a bunch of blood and guts and ghosts on the walls does not a good horror game make, but make your choices accordingly. Nah - instead this game's staying power lies in its atmosphere. Like how many games can you say take place inside of an art gallery where most of the pieces try to fucking murder you? I mean there's probably a lot, but something about Ib's almost ambient sense of dread and exploration just kind of sticks in people's brains. Everything's a little scarier when the shapes are so close to being discernable but aren't, and I guess that's the appeal and horror behind Guertena's gallery.

Ib herself is a mute protagonist, pretty typical, but she's also NINE, and the game will let you know that no matter how unfazed she gets or how precocious she can be, she is a child all the same - and children break very easily. I personally love how the game barely has to say anything about how shaken she actually is about her situation, because it will show you how - she has nightmares that you can't escape, she sees herself getting hanged, Garry will need to shake her out of her shock when she sees a picture of her parents in the gallery that should not exist. She loses all of her will to live when she loses Garry to insanity. And speaking of Garry…

There's one standout room in this game and it's the Doll Room. 10/10 would NOT recommend it to anyone who suffers from anxiety because WOW I did not think the RPG Maker 2000 engine could ever have been capable of that. Nobody blames Garry if this room fucks him up. I mean come on the dude has to literally rip open the stomachs of dolls to find a paint ball. Those sound effects make it sound like the dolls are made of skin and flesh and all the while the giant fucking doll is creeping out of the goddamn painting while some of the most anxiety-inducing background noise is playing -

Yeah no I don't know why I ever said you'd be disappointed by this game. Or maybe you still would, this is a low-res game made in 2012. But my god does it TRY to scare you in the best ways it can.

One of the best moments in this game I think is the one where Mary and Ib are alone together, and the conversation gets increasingly unhinged with Mary asking Ib questions non-stop with no background noise other than their steps. At this point, they're separated from Garry, and they're trying to find a way back to each other. Garry meanwhile is slowly piecing together the truth about Mary and how dangerous it is for Ib to remain alone with her, all the while still trying to figure out how to get back to both of them.

The section after that is in the Sketchbook which honestly? The vibes of this place are impeccable. Somehow it's fitting that one of the tensest areas in a game about a fine arts gallery is the place made entirely out of childlike scribbles.

Overall, I'd say the experience is well worth an hour or two - I'd recommend it happily over Cloé's Requiem, if only so you can have a taste of what Horror JRPGs were like before Omori came along. Yes I know that Omori isn't Japanese but it's very much in the same vein as these games.

OTHER GAMES

Those were the safe two that planted my feet firmly into the Horror JRPG fandom, but there's a lot of other titles out there, so let's go - lightning round!

Ao Oni is the ubiquitous one, like chances are you've at least HEARD of it in passing at some point in your life. Like this shit made it to the big screen in Japan, that's how much of a deal it was. I've never played the original myself, but it's partly because its formula of stuck in a mansion with a horror that chases you around is present in pretty much every Horror JRPG after its release in 2007. If you want some classic fun with the big blue demon though then you can't go wrong with the freeware version.

Mad Father and The Witch's House are part of what I like to call the Big 3 of JRPGs starring preteen girls experiencing the Horrors™, mostly because back in the mid-2010's I couldn't go three posts without seeing them all together. Mad Father is the only other one of said Big 3 that I've touched, because I was too coward to touch The Witch's House and Ellen's whole deal remains a mystery to me to this day. I think Mad Father got a remake a couple of years ago, so you can check that out if you want, but keep in mind that these two games in particular might not stoke the same kind of magical staying power that Ib somehow retained years after its release, and I know those two rely on jumpscares a lot more than Ib does.

I'll eat my fedora right here by the way, because one of my cardinal sins of being a Horror JRPG fan is that I've never played Yume Nikki. As far as these freeware games go, this is probably one of the more avant-garde ones - it's artsy, atmospheric, and a game best experienced by getting lost in the strange environments it provides. Out of every game on this post, this is the one I'd describe as the most Earthbound-esque, with its horror lying mostly in the surrealist ambience of just… wandering around in Madotsuki's mind. The end is just as quiet as the beginning, but is no less chilling to watch happen. Then you fuck around a little bit on Youtube and you find out what's actually going on, and uh - yeah that checks out, cosmic horror sounds par for the course at this point.

Yume Nikki and OFF are two of the games I think of when I hear about Horror JRPGs being talked about alongside Undertale - and nope, I haven't played OFF either. That's my other Horror JRPG sin. I was a picky teenager, but I've grown now and wow I need to find a time to play these games in peace. OFF actually isn't even Japanese, it was developed by Mortis Ghost and released in French back in 2008, making both pretty old and already pretty weird in the library. The reason I bring up OFF is because it's one of the older examples I know of that also incorporate Earthbound's precision 4th-wall breaks, and that it's a game about judgment and interrogates the player (more you than the Batter you play as, serving more as a vehicle that the game uses to ask questions through) about the choices they make in the game. OneShot is probably the one game in this genre of indie RPG that I know so far that employs this metaphysical idea of the player existing in the game in any kind of charitable fashion (aside from again, Earthbound and to some extent Mother 3), so between it, OFF, and Undertale they're what I'd refer to as the Interface Screw-RPG Trio.

Some other titles that I like are between the same devs, even some that I haven't really played to completion. Cloé's Requiem for example was made by Buriki Clock, and they've made other titles like Fantasy Maiden's Off Hideout and Trauma Traum - the latter I can't play because it doesn't have an English translation rip. Miwashiba is another dev which I think people who have a taste for light lolita goth-pastel colors would like, because my god the character designs in both Alice Mare and LiEat are peak. Don't even get me started on the fashion of 1BitHeart because everything in that game has such an impeccable aesthetic. I think I saw something at one point about 1BitHeart that like. Might count as a shared joke between Xenoblade fans, but I'd be hard-pressed to give context because again… packed schedule, who dis?

Just to talk about Alice Mare a little more, I've actually played this one - it sports a heavily storybook-inspired cast with some unique tastes on the tales. Most of my actual experiences with Alice Mare were from the English Light Novel, which I do still have! I really recommend it to people who have a couple of hours to spare on some light, relatively bloodless horror. Most of these games have Light Novels, come to think of it - hell Ib even has whole audio dramas, one of which was fanmade in English, and from what I remember of it the voice acting for Mary was PEAK.

One last dev I want to talk about is Segawa. I've saved them for last because their brand of horror is reserved mainly for one game, but their other games Farethere City and Tower of Hanoi are no slouches either. I don't know much about Tower of Hanoi (or if it even has an English translation right now), but Farethere City is a pretty cute experience as far as pseudo-horror games go from what I've heard, which is probably good for us because their other standout game is anything but cute.

END ROLL

Ah, End Roll. The last of the Horror JRPGs I've played before school kicked me even harder in the shins and I had barely any time for it. Out of all the games I mentioned on this list, this is the one with the most staying power in my brain - and also the one that influenced me the most.

So, I don't talk a lot about my original works. Nobody asks, so I don't overshare. But some of the prevalent overarching themes of my personal mythos are those of guilt, self-love, and the burdens of love. All of these themes were lifted directly from End Roll - which is to say, End Roll actually only deals in guilt, my brain just ran buckwild with trying to wrap itself around the logistics behind InfoRuss. One of my main protagonists, Rosso, is a dead-ringer expy of Russell - the same goes for Blanco with the Informant. One of the only ways I can describe Rosso and Blanco's relationship is 'selfcest as a metaphor for the painful coexistence of self-love and self-loathing', and how this relationship reached this point was largely thanks to the Informant and his role in Russell's dream.

I don't really know why I've come to associate the idea of self-love with guilt, because that's like. Not what the game is trying to do. The game's express purpose is to tell you the story of a boy who comes to love his victims and self-destructs under the crushing guilt that he carries from killing them. By some weird hand, I've fixated on the Informant and his determination in seeing that mission of the game through - AND his secret boss fight. Actually, I should. Go ahead and describe the build-up to his secret boss fight

You can only access it if you've purchased the optional villa, and if I recall correctly you can only fight him on the last day of the dream. The locked shed next to the villa is revealed to be a library of some kind called the Graveyard of Books and like - sure enough, there's books of every kind just torn apart and scattered about everywhere. The reason for all of this is because of the Informant's jealousy. He is created specifically so he can provide Russell with the necessary information to complete the Happy Dream Experiment, and in this regard he thinks Russell doesn't need anyone other source of information than him. So he does away with the useless other books, except for the strategy guides because that's the only kind of book Russell likes - and thus, the only kind of book that the Informant likes. Notes are scattered in the hallway leading up into his boss room, with the last one sticking out in my mind to this day:

'He thinks he's the most important thing to you.'

Which. I don't know why that line is so important to me. Whether it be because it awakened something weird in me, or because I myself was dealing with my self-loathing in a VERY complicated manner at the time, that line has gone on to dictate the way that I write about my characters even to this day.

It's such a visceral depiction of self-inflicted brutality. Russell Seager is a 14 year-old serial killer who grew up loveless and abused, and has no shortage of things that make every waking moment of his life fucked up. He killed people - some who just happened to be wherever he was at the time, some willingly by his hand - could not feel guilt about any of it, and when he lost Yumi to his drunken father while his nymphomaniac mother watched he snapped and killed both his tormentors. He then turned himself in to the police, a teen on death row. Happy Dream is him discovering guilt through dream versions of the people he killed. Happy Dream is what allows him to manifest the newfound emotions he felt through interacting with the kinds of people that his victims COULD have been. The world he creates morphs into the self-inflicted hell that is his guilt.

Russell has no happy ending, his guilt won't allow him that. Everything around him becomes a reminder of the lives he's destroyed, and how much of a living hell his own life was. Through feeling happiness and love from these fabricated visages of the people he killed, he learned guilt. It's such a weird exercise in sympathy, knowing that you're playing as this remorseless kid going through rehabilitation through extreme means. It either doesn't work, and he's deemed a failure - or it does, and he commits suicide either by confessing his crimes to one of his victims and stabbing himself to death with a syringe, or he stays in the deteriorating dream, never to wake up again.

At some point it honestly just turns into misery porn, if you look at it from a certain angle - this game is set on having Russell die no matter what. I couldn't tell you what EXACTLY it is about this experience was so impactful that it would go on to influence the way I want to spend my life - that is, I want to make games exploring these kinds of themes. Guilt. Sins. If loveless lives can be redeemed and made better. By the time the last day in the game rolls around, it's just a matter of giving Russell closure over his miserable life and choosing for him what his last freedom is going to be.

I think one of the reasons I like thinking about the Informant with regards to Russell is the scene that happens if you choose to go through with the first True Ending. Russell never really much liked the Informant, and the feeling is mutual. Russell is cold to him, and the Informant takes every opportunity he can to rub all of Russell's sins in his face - and that's his job, he represents the fundamental, uncomfortable truths of Happy Dream. If Russell chooses not to leave the dream, he is resigned to its destruction and waits for the inevitable along with the other denizens of Nameless Town. But if Russell chooses to get out of the dream, the Informant returns to Russell in tears, happy that he can finally be back to being a part of him - to this game, it's the ultimate acceptance. Russell then goes on to confess his crimes and the reality of the dream to one of the citizens, and he wakes up when they kill him in tearful retribution by his request.

He grabs the syringe next to his bed, and stabs himself to death, unable to handle the guilt. That's how the game always ends for me. The Informant succeeded, Happy Dream succeeded - and Russell chose to die as person who could finally feel remorse.

It's a regretful story with themes that really shouldn't be replicated in any fashion in real life, but somehow I found it fascinating in the way it explores the facets of the self. It makes me want to ask more questions and explore that angle of self-reflection to the furthest extremes that I can conceivably reach, and I guess that's one of the many reasons why I respect it so much.

SO… WHAT NOW.

Nah, that's kind of it. Like, OF COURSE this isn't all I have to say about the games that I mentioned, but wow this post is so long and I was just pining for the days of a couple of years ago. These games were present for the most transformative years of my life, and uh - whether or not that was actually a good thing remains to be seen, but I'll always be grateful for their presence in the void that I call my gaming experiences.

Horror JRPGs will always have a special place in my heart for how they tell their stories. Nowadays, I've developed more of a taste for fantastical RPGs that prefer to hide their horror in the margins of the narrative, fridging the terror for when the player wants to step back a bit and think about the implications of certain events in the greater world. Undertale, OneShot, and the Octopath Traveler games all tick that box for me - and all of those games are ones I hold dear. Like I'll probably ramble about OneShot some other day, because that's the other game that really changed my life in a way I felt like I can never come back from - but there's just a lot of special things to be said about these neat little self-contained, 6-hour freeware games. For now I'll close this long-ass post out. Happy late Halloween I guess - the M&Ms in our fridge have never tasted better.

#rpg maker horror #rpg maker #horror rpg #ib rpg #cloe's requiem #end roll rpg #ao oni #mad father #the witch's house #OFF rpg #yume nikki #alice mare #farethere city #cw horror #seriously please read the content warnings

39 notes · View notes