I absolutely adored this design when I first laid my eyes on it! My favorite part about it has to be how comically big her twintails are here. Funny and adorable. It's why I also love OkLength's design of her. There should be more appreciation for Cassidy having cartoonishly big twintails methinks.

Y'know it's kinda funny to me whenever people talk about how much they watched Game Theory's FNaF videos when they were younger and how much they impacted them and the franchise itself, because even though I remember watching some of their videos, I never cared for them tbh (something about the way their videos are edited is very unappealing to me).

I always preferred watching the more smaller theorists during the early days with the more simple editing, relaxing atmosphere, and serious tone of their videos. Makes me sad that nobody ever talks about them :(

It's really weird since every other character in the movies are more or less faithful in terms of design and personality. Then you have Silver who became completely unrecognizable.

Been getting some weird ass dreams too...

FYI: I myself am not immune to falling into this line of thinking on a few occasions.

Link

Whenever I see Commander Tartar or Smollusk get brought up in discussions, people always refer to them with masculine pronouns and it's like... I doubt anyone does it with malicious intent so I can't exactly be mad. Hell, I originally referred to Tartar with masculine pronouns for awhile until I later realized that it exclusively goes by it/its.

I do still find it unfortunate that nobody really talks about this and tries to make it as common knowledge as, say, Acht going by they/them pronouns, since I find it/its characters to be cool and under appreciated.

It is odd in retrospect. Literally nothing implies Tartar is male throughout Octo Expansion, yet that's how many saw it anyways. For all we know it could have spent the majority of its screentime talking to Eight in a thick valley girl accent lol.

Before anyone says anything about how this doesn't fit the sub, please carefully read the description of this subreddit and then look at the flair this post has, I beg, pray, and exhort you.

Previously I had covered the respective islands of the birds and pigs in the Angry Birds movie, so I might as well cover the main island from the classic games. In the original universe, the birds and pigs have always lived on 1 singular island, this being Piggy Island.

For starters, the artwork depicting this island are gorgeous (Slides 1 and 4 in particular)! It has this mythical air to it, especially in regards to Hog Head Mountain, which takes the shape of a pig, along with the many locations that can be found here.

Speaking of which, the next slides depict these locations, majority of which came from The World of Angry Birds Official Guide book and were illustrated by Ilias Arahovitis. Everything looks so pretty to look at, with so much vibrant and pleasing colors, and detail to be found in these illustrations. Slingshot Woods, Canyon Land, and the Islands in the Sky are the most beautiful to me especially.

Then there's how these locations are incorporated into the series and the world building they add, a lot of the levels, both in the original Angry Birds and Angry Birds Seasons, take place in these locations, such as Ham 'Em High taking place on Desert Island, Surf and Turf taking place in South Beach, Seasons Greedings taking place in Snowy Peak, Year of the Dragon taking place in Bamboo Forest, etc. You also get to see some of these locations in the animated shorts, such as Wreck The Halls taking place in Winter Wonderland and Ham'O'Ween taking place near Pumpkin Plateau.

Then there's Angry Birds Epic (Slides 3 and 8), the RPG spinoff, which has you going around the whole entire island, and the levels being named after all of the established locations with environmentally fitting enemies too.

With all of this, you get a believable world where things feel consistent and connected with each other. All of the additional trivia about this island and its geography makes it even better, my favorite example being how the island is constantly moving. Because of the fact that mapping it is impossible, there are no human settlements on it (yes, humans do indeed exist in Angry Bird), this also explains why human stuff washes up on South Beach so frequently. The island runs into all sorts of floating junk as it moves around the globe, giving the birds and pigs a bunch of supplies to put to their own use. It's all quite interesting.

Usually in discussions about the first Angry Birds movie, whether it be for or against the movie's favor, you have many express their opinions on how the movie had very little to no material to work with, but the truth of the matter is that the movie had plenty to work with. Ever since Angry Birds massive success, Rovio always had interest in building a wider universe for the brand. When Rovio collaborated with National Geographic in 2012, 4 years before the movie released, to make a book that featured pages describing the personalities of the birds, that was when the franchise moved past just being a simple mobile game about flinging birds at pigs. An Angry Birds movie was inevitable.

When it comes to its lore and world building, Angry Birds is up there with Splatoon and Thomas the Tank Engine in terms of "They really didn't have to do all of this, but it's really fucking cool that they did!" factor. You can tell that work was put in to make Piggy Island feel like this place you could find yourself interested in exploring and wanting to know more about. With all of the effort and talent put into this and some of the media that Rovio would produce down the line, it's easy to see why Angry Birds became as successful as it did. They were really wanting to make this big and established franchise... which makes their later baffling business decisions hurt even more in retrospect.

Overall though, I just find this to be a very neat and pretty setting for this franchise.

One last thing to mention and to give credit, the majority of the stills in this post came from The DExus Show's "The Forgotten Lore of Angry Birds" video. If you find yourself curious after reading this post and have an hour to spare, I highly recommend giving it a watch! The video spent around 2 years in production and you can really tell with its impressive editing and visuals. Plus the enthusiasm that is present throughout the video is pretty infectious and makes for a fun watching experience.

I remember when this sub was a lot smaller and it was solely about hating fictional characters. Pretty much nobody took the sub seriously, mostly hating on very random characters for the most part. Even if their hate was genuine, it was heavily exaggerated through the use of caps lock, overuse of exclamation points, overuse of swear words, being comedic overall in nature, etc. A lot of the posts were satire and it made the subreddit pretty damn funny. I used to enjoy going there for a quick laugh.

Now the sub has become completely unrecognizable at this point and the name of the subreddit doesn't even make sense anymore. Now we can just hate on literally anything, apparently. And now people take the sub more seriously for some reason and a lot of the comedic elements in the posts are gone. So many repetitive posts repeated ad nauseam.

Also maybe I'm just going mentally insane, but I also notice that there seems to be some bigotry going on in the sub now. Like, the amount of posts that seem like thinly veiled prejudice towards the LGBTQ+, those with disorders, and other minorities is really fucking weird. I actually remember one of the posters there claiming to be apart of the LGBTQ+ community, but someone in the comments pointed out that what was seen on their profile told a very different story and they just wanted to be a bigot.

Then there was that one post about AAVE... I've noticed recently that redditors are very weird and suspicious when it comes to topics regarding race, but jesus christ, people didn't even try to hide their racism in that comment section. And of course, the mods don't do anything about any of this.

It's all disappointing.

Link to original artwork.

A prehistory Angry Birds game or short cartoon would go hard ngl.

By the climax of the game you reach the final room and its subsequent door. Room 1,000. You did it. You finally beat Spooky's challenge and went through 1,000 rooms, and at first it seems like the grueling experience is finally over, as you walk through this pretty landscape outside of the mansion. Unfortunately it's all fake, the "sky" above you just being a digital recreation of the real thing. An error message pops up in the "sky" and Spooky reveals herself, being visibly upset at you still being alive. She then makes up an excuse on the spot and tells you that you still have one more challenge to go through.

You walk through another door and find yourself in... this place. Rooms of black, whites, and grays. It's lifeless and empty, though there are a few notable things. Firstly, a radio sitting atop a small table that states the following: "I'm taking all those 'logs' they keep throwing out... And I'm nailing them together". To further add to the surrealism of this environment, you get this confusing message. Does it mean anything? Is it just gibberish? Why is the word "logs" in quotations?

Next, there's the doors in this area. Previously whenever you went through a door, it opened with an animation, sound effect, and a fade to black, before the player is transported into a different room. With these doors however, no animation or sound effect plays, instead you have to physically push them to go through, just like a real life door. It's odd.

Then you go past all these locked and unlabelled doors. All except for one. A door labelled 731. The confusion sets in again. Why is this one specifically the only one to have a number? Does it hold any significance?

There's nothing overtly threatening about this place compared to the locales of the many specimens you faced previously. Yet, you don't feel fully safe or comfortable here either. Top it all off with an unsettling droning ambience and you get this very surreal vibe. An environment that feels out of place. Like you're somewhere where you're not supposed to be.

For the majority of players, that's all there is with this area. Just a surreal, albeit very short, part of the game that won't stick to their minds. But what about the curious players? Those who questioned the radio and the door being labelled 731? Wondering about what they could mean and deciding to do some research for any answers. Well, they'll come across quite the revelation...

Unit 731, along with its associated units such as Unit 1855 and Unit 8604, was a biological and chemical warfare research facility under the control of Imperial Japan, where the most horrific and disgusting "scientific" experimentation was performed on men, woman, and children (viewer discretion for what is described in the following links). Vivisection without anesthesia, being exposed to freezing temperatures for frostbite testing, rape that was done to force woman to become pregnant to test diseases or out of sheer boredom, and countless other terrible things. Even the monsterous staff weren't safe from each other. Later, while on trial, many of the perpetrators were given immunity because the U.S. wanted the data that was collected when the unit was in operation, data from bullshit "research" that wasn't even useful mind you. Pointless torture for the sake of pointless torture. There were no survivors.

What the radio was referring to by "logs" was what the test subjects were called by the staff. Originating from a morbid joke, since the cover up for Unit 731 was that it was a lumber mill, subsequently this was used as a way to further dehumanize the prisoners there, with their facilities even being referred to as "log cabins". The confusing gibberish that you first heard on that radio now suddenly becomes incredibly disturbing.

To serve as full confirmation, there's a secret CAT-DOS entry for Specimen 9/Taker, usually his entry is just "TAKE THE DEAD TO TAKE THE DEAD TO...." repeated over and over, but by clicking on "MODIFY_HOUSE_LAYOUT" 6 times and going back to Taker's entry, you'll read this...

"A survivor from the experiments conducted at Unit 731. Specimen 9 was found hiding in a condemned farmhouse in Russia. Specimen 9 appears to be drawn to the dead or dead bodies and seems to be made up of a clay like substance that changes density. Containment has not yet been successful, but Specimen proves very effective against all subjects."

Now you understand. Now everything starts to click. Now you get what that radio and area was trying to tell you.

The voice on the radio is either Taker explaining what he's doing or one of the criminals working at Unit 731 explaining how he created Taker. "I'm taking all those 'logs' they keep throwing out..." as in the dead bodies that were thrown out of the unit. "And I'm nailing them together". Those corpses being used to add to Taker's body.

Taker's phrase "TAKE THE DEAD TO TAKE THE DEAD TO TAKE DEAD TO TAKE DEAD TO..." is supposed to be taken in the most literal sense. He's taking dead bodies so he can take more dead bodies.

Taker is described as a survivor from the experiments. He was once a normal human being that was held captive at Unit 731 and went through horror, agony, and depression like everyone else there. Later dying from experimentation and becoming this odd clay monster. No longer being human.

He ran away at some point, hiding in a farmhouse in Russia, alone, most likely trying to find what little peace he could after everything he went through. Then GL Labs found him. He became trapped in yet another unethical research facility. Taker's CAT-DOS entry in the original version of Spooky's states that he was deemed too hard to contain and was later dismantled. Explaining why he's a floating head as seen in the base game. This implies that he was making countless escape attempts.

He didn't want to be there. It was a hellish nightmare that was repeating once again. Trapped, with no freedom, under the control of deranged scientists, again.

So why does he become this at the end of the game? Because he had found and collected enough dead bodies by then. He had regained his body and power. They tried to kill him, they failed, and since then he has continued on the path of escaping. He wants to become human again, or at least something close to that. That's his motivation and why he follows you throughout the whole entire game without your notice. He's desperate to collect any dead body he finds so they can be added to his mass. It's why he only shows up when you stand idle in a room and don't touch anything on the keyboard or become stuck in this endless hallway. Not moving = dead body as far as he's concerned.

When it comes to how this game approaches introducing the player to the other specimens, this format is followed...

• You find yourself in a new and offputting environment.
• You explore around and come across notes that clue you in on what the specimen's deal is, usually through the POV of a previous victim of that specimen.
• The environment, notes, and atmosphere all serve as build up to the specimen, then you finally encounter it and the chase begins.

Taker's locale approaches this format in an interesting way. The location you find yourself in has this emphasis on surrealism and being as minimal as possible. It's a very quick and short section that doesn't throw anything at the player. There are no notes here, instead, if you want to learn about this mysterious 9th specimen, you have to be curious about what little clues this locale gives you. It's entirely up to you to piece everything together. And once you do? Everything about this place and Taker becomes horrifying and also... tragic. Incredibly gut wrenching.

Now, I have seen some criticize the decision to incorporate a very horrific real life tragedy in what is a parody horror game, more specifically I'm referring to Izzzyzzz's retrospective video essay on Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, and how she and others in the comment section believe Unit 731's inclusion to be in poor taste. Stating that it was done out of shock value and that it should be removed and replaced with a fictional equivalent.

I heavily but respectfully disagree. Taker being inspired by a real life tragedy is the point and it's what makes him stand out from the other specimens, which are all inspired by fictional media, like Specimen 6/Ben being inspired by Ben Drowned and the Happy Mask Salesman, Specimen 4/Ringu being inspired by the Ring, Specimen 8/Deer Lord being inspired by Over The Garden wall, etc.

That's where the horror with Taker comes from and why he's such an outlier compared to everyone else. Why his locale feels so unsettling and out place and why it becomes more horrific when you have the full context of everything. That realization that suddenly hits you like a brick. It's a unique type of horror. It also explains Taker's motivations and what makes him a tragic and compelling character as we've gone over.

The shock value argument is one I especially have a hard time understanding. If edginess and shock value was the goal, then why wouldn't the references to Unit 731 be much more obvious instead of being so subtle that practically 98% of the people who play through this game will completely miss it? Why wouldn't the secret entry for Taker explain in detail on what exactly he went through while at Unit 731 instead of simply name dropping the unit and not elaborating further? Why would that entry be so hard to come across at all?

That's not to say I don't understand the concerns some have with this, and it's most likely a minority since I've seen praise for Unit 731's subtle inclusion in other videos on Spooky's, but I do believe that Akuma Kira didn't just put this tragedy in their game willy nilly. In comparison to other media that include real life tragedies, I find Spooky's to be one of the more tasteful and respectful ones. The reference is not shoved in your face, the clues given to you are minimal and cryptic, the large majority of players are going to miss it, yet once you do uncover it, it's used in a way that adds to the character and the location associated with that character. And while Spooky's maybe a parody game, that doesn't mean it's an outright comedy, it knows when to take itself seriously, and everything regarding Unit 731 is not poked fun at. It's treated as the tragedy that it is. I don't think removing it would be good idea, not with the game being as old as it is, sweeping it under the rug only now would ironically be insensitive to those who suffered. History shouldn't be treated like that in my opinion.

In Conclusion

I had a wonderful time during my first playthrough of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion, but this area, the surrealism, the ambience, the subtle clues, what it does for Specimen 9 as a character, and this being how I discovered Unit 731's existence, was what cemented this game as being one of my favorite horror games. It's one of the most memorable parts of the game and it still randomly pops into my head every now and then. It's chilling.

We can create as many fictional monsters, demons, cryptids, and the like as we want. But none of them will ever be as horrifying as the horrific things humans have done and what we do to our own members of this species.

As requested by u/Scareka, we'll be going over Monster 4/The Hanged Man today, also commonly referred to by the fan given name "Rex" in the Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion community.

For starters, I love the gross and bony hands he has along with the bandages wrapped around his face, completely covering his eyes and the rest of his facial features. Leaving only this gaping mouth as a discernible feature. It gives this very monsterous look despite him clearly being human. I like it a lot. Besides that, his design becomes more appealing to me when you look into the context of who this is and what happened to him.

As mentioned previously with my post on Ghost Cow, the staff working at the hospital did a lot of horrific things to their patients while they were possessed by the demented cow, this man was an unfortunate victim along with many others, and he in particular went through a lot of suffering.

He was already down on his luck, having been informed that he had a terminal disease, which increased his depression. One of the doctors prescribed an antidepressant to lessen this, but Ghost Cow had possessed him and proceeded to cancel the prescription. Things become much more worse when the man started being given doses of hallucinogenics, worsening his mental state and causing extreme paranoia and fear.

The notes leave things there, but by the time we go down into the secret lab of the hospital, we see the aftermath of what the man did (Slides 5-6). He can't even find peace in death though, as we find out on slides 7-10, images that flash on your screen in his death animation have text on them; mentioning how something is controlling him (most likely Ghost Cow) and causing never ending hunger. Begging for a death that will never come. Along with trying to satisfy a hunger that will never cease as his death quote explains...

"Dark worms scream inside my brain.

Begging me to eat again.

Hearts, and blood, and bile, and soil.

I must consume to end turmoil."

This explains some things about his design. The bandages most likely came from him committing self harm, clawing at his face. His gaping mouth makes him look like he's in a constant state of screaming, as described in one of the notes when he was being dosed with hallucinogens. His oddly skeletal hands could be implying that, along with cannibalizing others, he was also committing self-cannibalism, gnawing at his hands to the bone.

I love the design of this guy and how it has its own story to tell. He's a very tragic character overall, especially since he isn't even attacking you willingly. That's what I love about the majority of the characters in Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion. On a surface level, they're just some scary enemies to avoid, but when you look into certain implications and context, a lot of them are tragic.

In the case of the Hanged Man here, his backstory adds to the design. Really well done.

After three failed makeship campaigns in a row, it makes me so happy to see this one succeed! It seems like Trevor went harder with trying to promote this plushie and his efforts payed off. If you're interested and have the money, go grab one if you haven't already.

Hopefully we'll get more plushies and those campaigns will be successful too!

Was inspired by this SCP bingo card and made a Thomas one. You can use it for whatever.

I find it amusing that two of my hyperfixations have to deal with people outside the fandom having no clue about what they're talking about lol

I came across this splendid artwork and it really made me think about what exactly separates PVZ 1 from the other entries in the franchise (putting aside the obvious gameplay differences of course). I find that it has to do with how the first game manages to balance cartoony and humorous and grotesque and off-putting in a way that the other games don't succeed at.

The premise of the game is pretty out there and not one that most would take seriously (zombies getting decimated by stationary plants?). It has a bunch of puns and cheeky humor. Compared to other zombies in media, the zombies in this game aren't anywhere near as threatening or horrid to look at, and are pretty polite in the notes that they write to you all things considered.

Yet, the game does have this off-putting air still, and for a child, it can come across as pretty unnerving. The artstyle of PVZ 1 has this cartoonish gothic look to it. Giving the game this cute vibe, but nothing overbearingly cute, something that I feel the other games, especially PVZ 3, lean too much into with their artsyles. The zombies manage to look goofy while still looking grotesque. The colors are just right. Not being dull to the point where it looks boring, but not bright to the point where the world feels comforting.

Next, there's the situation that you're stuck in. There's a zombie outbreak, and aside from your crazy neighbor, nothing suggests that there's many people around anymore, if any. For all you know, you're completely isolated and left to defend yourself with only a few packets of seeds.

Screen door zombie's description outright states that they get their screen doors from previous houses that they broke into and successfully killed the homeowner in. Stage 4-10 has the music completely absent while the screen is mostly dark, meanwhile aside from their eating sounds and occasional voicelines, the zombies are silent to an odd degree. It's easy to see how they could break into your home without you even noticing.

Then you have everything going on with the jack-in-the-box zombie, which had me curious and unsettled when I was playing this game as a young fella. Who was he previously? How did he get infected? Did the outbreak start from a mental hospital? How did he break out of his straightjacket? Why the music box?

Finally, of course, you have the game over screen, which scared many child players. Even if we don't see anything, the crunching sounds and the player's screams are enough to make our imagination go wild. These goofy zombies are still very much a threat, and the thought of one of these things sneaking into your home and cracking your skull open with its jaw is not pleasant.

Which brings me to why the artwork above works so well. It doesn't do anything crazy. There's no additional blood or gore on the zombie. It's just a standard browncoat. Yet, it managed to unnerve me when I first saw it, because you're looking from the point of view of one of the many victims that fell to this outbreak. You didn't have any silly and charming plants to protect you. Something broke in and now you're powerless to do anything about it. This is a regular occurrence for most. The player character was an outlier.

This isn't to say I think lesser of PVZ 2 or the garden warfare games or what have you because of the shift in art style or the more cartoony tone (I find the artsyle of PVZ 2 to be pretty pleasant). But I do wish the franchise stayed consistent with what PVZ 1 was going for as I find it to be much more interesting.

You can view the full post on my website right here. As such, the list has also been updated accordingly and the link is available there as well. Going by what I have previously stated, the next cryptid will be chosen at random.

Alright, I decided I'll continue with these. In that case, let's dial the horror back a bit and go over "the father, the son, and the holy ghost."

For starters on slides 1-5, we have Big Charlie. The illustration on slide 2 was the first glimpse we got of him and I love the surrealistic nature of it. Big Charlie doesn't come across as very scary or threatening here, but it is an odd sight, especially with the setting taking place outside during the day instead of the night or in some dark and creepy location as per usual of Trevor's work.

This towering thing of what looks to be nothing but pure flesh, with an odd beak of some kind, strands of hair, and dull eyes that perhaps suggest that it's blind. You can see its veins and spine underneath its flesh and can also see strands of its body coming off its belly. It's weird and out of place.

I like the intrigue the illustration gives us too. The caption of it is "big charlie" escapes from the meat processing plant." Which explains why he's randomly walking out in the daylight like this. A common theory is that Big Charlie was the product of the meat processing plant creating an experiment to produce more meat, perhaps between a chicken and a cow, noting the bulky and quadruped shape and the beak.

Trevor would go on to state that Big Charlie was "bred to be the best possible meat of all meats!" so this theory is most likely correct. Trevor also stated that despite his appearance, behavior wise, he's just a big cow, which we see on slide 3 where he's with a herd of them. With that, Big Charlie is one of the passive creatures in the mythos, being on the "Friendly but Mischievous" tier of Trevor's danger tier list.

Later we would get some info on Big Charlie on slide 5. Being a creature made of meat, chunks fall off of him often, and this is where the rest of his "family" comes in.

From slides 6-12, we have the byproduct of Big Charlie's fallen off meat chunks, Lil' Nugget.... I love it. It looks so fucking stupid ❤. A simple and cute design. I adore how it looks like someone just slapped googly eyes on it and its small size makes it all the more endearing. No thoughts head empty head ass.

Similar to Big Charlie, Lil' Nugget is harmless, essentially functioning as a pest species in the mythos. Seems like it would make for a nice pet right? Well, for awhile, but then it can turn into either two things when you feed it enough.

From slides 13-15 we have the Lamb. Now Lil' Nugget has gone from cute to unnerving. Floating in the air with a big empty pit in its face. A simple but effective change. Gives off this otherwordly vibe that I really like. It's not outwardly aggressive, and perhaps doesn't even mean to cause harm, but being in its presence will fuck you up both physically and mentally.

Finally on slides 16-17 we have the other option a Lil' Nugget can turn into, the ??? Nugget, referred to as void nugget by the community. This is the family member we know the least about. It's a pure black Lil' Nugget without the asymmetrical eyes, so instead of coming across as goofy and endearing, it comes across as... off. All we know is that it has strange powers and is a failed evolutionary offshoot. When asked about it once, Trevor simply responded with "we dont talk about him." It's the black sheep of the family in a both a figurative and literal sense. Spooky.

With all that info, it's probably best to just get the broom when you have some Lil' Nugget's roaming around.

Overall I love all of these guys! The idea of connecting multiple cryptids together like this is fun and they feel natural to the mythos. When it comes to universes centering around disturbing monsters, its neat to have something that's kinda weird but more or less harmless, as one commenter pointed out in another one of my posts, it makes the universe feel more real. With the eldritch horror that is Siren Head and some others, we also have a weird looking cow thing living in the same universe. It's very cool.