CALLING ALL GENLOSER FAN ARTISTS!
TW // Descriptions of gore
This whole concept centres around a genloss AU, one that’s not too far from canon but is just a little bit more disturbing.
We know that, at least with Ranboo, Sneeg and Charlie, they’re controlled by various headwear; Ranboo his mask, Charlie his headphones in Episode 3 and Sneeg his hat. With Ranboo and Charlie, it’s made clear that taking it off is what regains the consciousness of the person; however, Ranboo is warned by Hetch that if he tries to take his mask off prematurely, his “whole face comes off with it”.
(We know this doesn’t apply with Charlie or Sneeg as their headpieces are removed easily, and Sneeg’s whole hat thing is just a big exception to everything, but sssshhh just pretend. As I said, this is based on an AU).
Now, Hetch was likely saying that just to convince him not to try to take the mask off. But what if he had been serious? Consider an AU where the mask is literally surgically attached to Ranboo’s face, and all the other headpieces being used to control other cast members are exactly the same, making it incredibly difficult, or even deadly, to remove them.
Now consider a group of frantic people, afraid, panicked and angry, who are willing to harm themselves to hellish extents by removing their headset objects to regain control. Consider one person on the carousel breaking free of the control and ripping masks, earpieces or hats off of the rest of the cast in a panicked state in an attempt to save them too, or multiple people working together to remove controlling devices from another cast member who cannot do it themselves.
Thus is born a gory fanart idea of the characters having tried to rip away the thing keeping them under control, or of another character having done it for them. Here’s kind of how I imagine it would look like:
Earpieces: This is one that will work with any character, because if you look in the episodes, you will see all of them wearing obvious earpieces for communication purposes (Ranboo talked about how there was no real way to hide these earpieces, much like the cameramen in episode 2 and 3, so they’re made to seem intentional and to fit in with the storyline. So yes, they’re canon). To get something attached to the ear off wouldn’t be the worst; in fact, it would be mild in comparison to most of the other options here. Maybe ripping it out would just badly injure the ear and damage the skin, maybe the whole ear would have to come off depending on how it’s been attached (which is plausible, ears are surprisingly easy to rip off). So you could really draw any of the characters like this, with a bloody, mangled ear and clutching the remains of the earpiece in their hand (or just the whole ear itself).
Regular face mask: Ranboo, the Ghouls and Jerma (the Puzzler) all wear a mask over the lower half of their face. The Puzzler’s is technically prosthetics, but let’s assume it somehow acts in the same manner. Skin would obviously be ripped away and maybe even flesh, which could give them a half zombie-esque look with holes that expose their teeth and gums. Very grim to picture but also cool. And in Ranboo’s case, maybe he would have to cut the wires out from his neck as they could be attached there too, or down his back.
Rat Face Mask: A good three quarters of their face skinned and ripped away. Their eyes and mouth/general lower face area would be fine, but the rest… ouch. Also a zombie-esq look like the regular face mask, but more on the upper half of the face.
Showfall Media Mask: Yeahhh the employees get the worst deal out of this. Their entire face would be basically torn apart, but instead of blood, consider wires poking out of the rips in the flesh, or maybe even out of the eye sockets. I imagine you would see this after one of the cast would try to pull the mask off of an employee they encounter.
Hats: Okay, this one set up to look pretty stupid, as you would immediately imagine it taking all the hair off the top of their head, which would look ridiculous. But rather imagine wires maybe being threaded into the skull through the hat; maybe in a sewn on kind of way, maybe just with just multiple drilled holes in the head that the wires run down through. Wires would be trailing out of the head once the hat has been removed, or you would see them stitched into the skin under the hair. Blood would be soaking their hair and face, which would be pale because of the blood loss. Niki, Sneeg and Vinny apply here.
Glasses: Ethan and Charlie both have glasses, which are an easy deal, like the earpieces except better. Just ripping off skin/flesh where the glasses are attached, so the bridge of your nose and the side of your face. Painful, but won’t affect any of your necessary reflexes/senses such as hearing, sight or vision, and won’t kill you.
Headphones: As I mentioned earlier, Charlie’s headphones are removed without injury in episode 3, but ssshhh and just imagine. I would think that they would probably have wires connecting into his ears, so after they were taken off there would be loose wires poking from the ears and a lot of blood coming with it. Also probably a complete loss of hearing accompanying it, even though you can’t exactly draw that. That or both of the ears have to go.
Horns: Charlie also has his horns as The Spirit in Episode 1. This all depends on how you’d imagine them being attached to him; if you’re thinking like just fake horns on a simple band (like the actual prop used), then it would be a similar deal to the hat with the wires running into the skull along the band, most likely in a sewn style. If you like the idea more of two separate horns fully attached to his head, then just imagine they were stitched there and had to be pulled off. Yikes, poor Charlie.
You can also do combos. If a character has an earpiece and a hat, draw them as though they needed to rip both of these items off!
This is just a concept I came up with that I think would be really cool to see. No credit needed for the idea if you do take inspo from this, but do tag me in art as I love to see it!!
Also, just a little specific idea I have related to this is either Charlie in episode 3, Sneeg in episode 1 or just the carousel crew from episode 2 trying to remove Ranboo’s mask, maybe even just out of curiosity or ignorance, to horrible results. Very disturbing, but a good prompt for both fanartists and even fic writers I think
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More genloss thoughts
Ranboo is titled as the hero and Charlie the villain (? I think anyway)
But the roles are definitely switched
Sure Ranboo is the protagonist, but they kill Charlie, over and over, and they kill the other people as well,
Charlie dies over and over again so that Ranboo will live, the first day two times it's not so voluntary,
But when Ranboo is literally digging through his insides Charlie makes sure to mention that he has a habit of swallowing game pieces so he never loses, he actively tells Ranboo to throw him onto the laser as Towel!slime, and then on the final day he makes sure Ranboo keeps going towards the exit
Charlie may no longer be The Hero for showfall but sometimes programming sticks just a little too deep, and Charlie cannot shake the need to help, to sacrifice himself to help others
Ranboo meant to be the hero, but the programming never managed to balance the other orders of "these people do not matter, do not grieve them, they are inconsequential"
Showfall accidentally creating a hero who cares enough about fighting against "evil" to overthrow them while failing to implement the failsafe of a desire to protect
And showfall accidentally creating a villain who doesn't care about rules or doing the "right" thing, but has far too large a need to care, a hatred for seeing others hurt
And then putting them against eachother, the perfect foil
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Another GenLoss thought re: "The Hero"
Okay so this has been bugging me and I couldn't stop thinking about it, it's been creepin' & crawlin' around in my head for the last two weeks.
Awhile back Nathan Hanover posted a bit of "The Hero," from the Gen 1 OST, and he talked about how the track was originally called "The Main Character", but it was changed to the more "thematically appropriate" title "The Hero."
I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't initially read too much into the term "Hero" being used for GL!Ranboo, and in my head it was basically synonymous with "protagonist". But the above tidbit of info gave me some pause on that and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Why "The Hero" specifically??
In the stream, Hetch refers to the other characters dying on his behalf as part of what makes GL!Ranboo the hero, but I mean, it's Hetch. We can't rule it out as relevant, sure, but we can't fully trust it as being anything more than a taunt either, so I kind of threw that away.
Then the other day I had a shower thought about the Hero's Journey.
At this point, a lot of my corner of the internet knows of Joseph Campbell's theory of the monomyth, and if you're big into storytelling, writing, story structures, human history, myths, etc. you probably know the Hero's Journey story structure by heart at this point. I've certainly used it as a jumping-off point for stories in the past (and to help me when I got stuck). But for those who aren't aware, it'd be too long to get into it on this post so I highly recommend checking out the wikipedia page on the concept. There are some pieces of it that are more gendered than they need to be, but a lot of the story beats are undoubtedly a bit familiar to you if you've ever seen a movie.
While Gen 1 has a ton of hero's journey story beats (most are in common between a majority of "hero faces a challenge and overcomes it" stories in the western world, tbh), a lot of Gen 1 does NOT seem to follow this journey, so my shower thought was like "Eh, maybe? ...nah" and then I thought about it some more, and remembered one VITAL aspect of the hero's journey: the freaking LOOP.
Graphically/visually, the hero's journey is almost always depicted as a cycle because it has the hero starting at one "normal" and then returning home having carried what they learned forward into a new "normal." The Hero leaves one person, and then comes home as another. I think this fits a lot of the fandom's theories about Gen 1, and fits in with my theory about Gen 1's entire universe being on a VHS tape that gets replayed & re-recorded over and over.
That's why GL!Ranboo is "The Hero," not because he's an actual heroic figure, but because he leaves his origin point and then returns changed over and over again, slightly different each time it happens. Y'know, like how generation loss works, except hat generation loss is a negative effect, a degradation in quality over time, and the hero's journey is typically presented as a positive, being an augmentation of the hero's knowledge, skills, and experience.
Kinda makes you (over)think...
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