#Don't Listen

[termlnally-caprlclous]

holy shit an AU drawing based off of the song don't listen⁉️⁉️

[azucar-skull]

Trying to get over my fear of performing music by showing this video of my car karaoke

[toastedclownery]

Favorite things about Don’t Listen

(based on the discussion @themischievousronster and I had after watching the full music video)

The little bit of gameplay at the start

The animated Hameln logo!!

The FnF parody as a personal joke/reference to Jake’s channel and his content

We’ve seen the puppets some time ago but!! the fact the artstyle looks like Dora’s because that’s what Amanda was inspired by!!

The little details of Wooly’s ears (like the game) and Amanda’s puffs bouncing...

The animators from the game putting only the right amount of effort to make the important moments stand out, and team neutron also picking that up and only putting lipsync in the most intense parts of the song

!!! THE 3D MODELS !!!

The Pibby cameo 💀 again, the personal things!!

References not only to the finished game but also to the previous versions of the game

This is one of my fave things from the game and it’s how you can have a really intense scene abruptly ending and then the tape falls out in silence and it’s so chilling. And they put that right after Amanda is screaming and I’m happy they did that <3

Just. the song being a banger

[webbywatcheshorror]

Webby Watches Horror: Don't Listen/Voces (2020)

Don't Listen, also called Voces in the original Spanish, is a movie about a family, a haunted house, and the importance of communication, especially when it comes to taking your children's concerns seriously.

This one's equal parts creepy and devastating, taking some tropes of the haunted house genre and making them feel familiar but freshly terrifying.

The poster doesn't tell you much, but trust me when I say that's a good thing. If you can go into this movie knowing as little as possible, absolutely do so. Which, naturally, absolutely means you should not continue reading this review.

Because, as always my dear beasties and ghouls, there are SPOILERS under the cut. Let's get to it!

Don't Listen opens up with an overhead shot of a filthy swimming pool, a red ball floating in its murky waters. We're introduced to this little family of three- Dani, his wife Sara, and their young son Eric, who is getting a visit from a therapist.

A lot of horror movies with children have trouble making the audience sympathetic towards them- The Babadook movie comes to mind as an example. Not so with this movie, however- Eric garners sympathy in the first few minutes he's on screen. Him looking up so hopeful at his therapist when she tells him there are other kids like him, only to be visibly disappointed when she clearly doesn't understand what he's going through.

Eric isn't struggling with the recent move to this new house- his parents are renovators and this isn't his first rodeo. What's different this time are the voices he hears, that demand he draw pictures and won't let him sleep at night. Just the worst kind of art commissions honestly.

His parents are your classic 'too busy with work to listen to my kid' but they're not the kind that piss me off. They try to spend time with him and obviously love him, but they're just Too Busy to really hear what he has to say. Which is tragically ironic considering the name of the movie.

The First Kill happens as Eric frantically draws it, his crayons flying across the page interspersed with the death happening in real time. We get some good Ecto-Electro-Communication in this movie, with the spirits talking to Eric through his walkie-talkie, his radio, and even his electronic toys; but they aren't restricted to just whispering static nothings. There's a VERY good sequence of a figure behind a plastic sheet in his room while he hides under the covers.

Side note- this movie may have the side effect of making you suspicious of common house flies for a while. Seeing one crawl into someone's ear and take over their body left quite the impact on me. (And the therapist.)

A lot of good horror is also incredibly tragic. Sometimes you watch a horror movie and you find yourself lamenting 'If Only, If Only'. If Only Eric's parents had listened to him when he told them he was scared and hearing voices. If Only they had taken him seriously when he went from loudly enthusiastic about the new place to lashing out at school and wishing they could move away.

One of the old rules of horror tended to be that you didn't kill the kids. (Yes, there's exceptions, don't @ me) Don't Listen ups the emotional tension by breaking that rule and not just for shock value. The second half of the movie is centered on the aftermath of Eric's death and how it affects his parents and the house.

One of the core themes of this movie is possession. Some of it is, of course, being possessed by spirits (via house flies. In the ear canal. Cannot stress enough how repulsive that is. It rules.) but also being possessed by your grief. Grief makes people desperate, which in turn can make them do things they might never have considered before, or behave in ways they would find appalling otherwise.

Dani's grief causes him to become single-mindedly focused on his son's spirit who contacts him through the walkie-talkie. In his grief, he does not stop to consider that this may not even be his son- despite evidence to the contrary and the advice of the expert he brings in to help. Sara's grief, meanwhile, makes her suspicious and aggressive, assuming the worst of her husband without bothering to listen to him explain.

The second half of the movie is where things get far more tense and atmospheric. The expert and his daughter/assistant give us an excellent 'Oh Shit It's Real' moment when she's monitoring the room via cameras/thermal detection/assorted ghost hunting gear and she tells him the presence they detected is right in front of him- but from his perspective, there's just an empty room.

Interestingly, the ghosts are shown to have a heat signature, unlike most media where they're depicted as having a negative effect on the temperature. The ghost expert's daughter even mistakes a ghost for Dani at one point, since she was viewing Eric's room through the thermo-filter thing. It's never really explained, but I think it has something to do with this particular ghost's overwhelming rage, which I'll touch on later.

The Showcase scene is beautifully sad and horrific. Expert sees his dead wife again for the first time, and it seems as though perhaps there are good spirits here, as well- until she's making him cut into his own arm so he can join her, and it's shown that the vision was all in his head and he's been cutting himself for real.

There's a lot of good background ghosts in this one, I had a lot of fun trying to spot them during the high tension scenes in particular. However much I enjoy playing Spot the Thing, though, one of the most nerve-wracking scenes To Me is when the mom is playing Peekaboo with the world's dirtiest ghost. I don't know about you but if I saw those nasty looking feet while peeking under the bed, there's no way in hell I'd be doing a TRIPLE TAKE.

The first time I was watching this movie, I actually paused it and pointed at the screen because, while looking in the background for more ghosts, I spotted a Whipstaff Manor playset! Now, the 1995 live action Casper movie is my very favorite movie, and when I started thinking about WHY that particular toy would be here, I realized that there's actually a lot of similarities between these two films.

Both movies deal with grief, with the loss of a child driving a parent to extremes. Both feature a father with a headstrong daughter, chasing literal ghosts in the hopes of one day making contact with their deceased wife. Both movies even have a hidden underground room! However, in this movie, the hidden room is also a Spanish Inquisition-era torture dungeon, complete with corpses.

Yeah, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition (nobody ever does, so I hear). Part of me was laughing but the rest of me was horrified- when they tell you what happened, when they describe the way the woman was killed, you really understand why she came back as a ghost, and why she's so angry. Was she a witch? Possibly. She seemed to have a powerful voice.

The run up to the climax of the film is really good, making you question whether or not we're about to lose one of the three remaining characters, if we're going to witness yet another tragic death. The relief is almost tangible when they put an end to the witch's ghost and set her free- the evil is defeated (though, is she evil? Did she commit these acts as a spirit with intent or is she lashing out as a creature so consumed by her fury that it's all that's left of her?)

But Don't Listen has one final horror for us. As Dani visits his son's room one more time, he notices his son's artwork on the walls, possibly placed up there as a subtle cry for help. He sees crayon image after crayon image of the deaths and other events that happened well after the death of his son, and his realization that it was his own hands that took his son's life is one tragedy too many to bear.

We end the movie as we begin it- an overhead shot of the swimming pool, though the red ball is replaced by Dani's blood blossoming out into the water. As the credits roll, we hear the infernal buzzing of flies, which made my skin crawl just a bit, after having watched them crawl into ear canals multiple times in the past hour or so.

I did want to touch on the flies again, just for a moment. Usually flies are used in horror to symbolize the stench of decay, since movie scientists have, thankfully, not yet inflicted smell-o-vision upon us. When we hear the buzzing or see the erratic zig zagging of the insects, we instinctively know that something nearby is rotting, likely already dead. But in Voces, the buzzing of the flies is more of a harbinger, a herald of the death to come.

Spain wants me specifically to be scared shitless, I think. This makes the second movie I've reviewed that contains a concept that is terrifying to me personally and, were I to be unlucky enough to be in that situation, I would be incredibly dead so very, very fast. (If you have any more Spanish horror films to recommend, my inbox is always open!)

I gotta give this one 10/10 ghosts. It's tense, it's horrific, it has atmosphere for days, and a killer ending. (Not to mention the Whipstaff Manor thing. I am but a simple ghoul.) I really highly recommend watching this one, multiple times if you can handle it. There's so much more to notice on a second viewing! And try not to panic if you hear the buzzing of flies afterward. They're probably normal flies. Probably.

[pinkykitty11]

LISTEN FOR FUCK SAKE-

Hey. I finally drew a POC character and soon I'm gonna draw a whole field of them

(if I can, since most characters I know are computer screen white)

[DO NOT POST WITHOUT CREDITS TO ME]

[star-critter]

Hi! I think you might be the one who made a Surge and Kit playlist on Spotify? I just noticed you had recently added "Don't Listen" by Jakeneutron to the list and I wanted to gush about it. Haha! I started clapping when I saw the song, actually. Found it a while back and I also really think it fits Surge and Kit. Namely the interactions between Amanda and Wooly.

But yeah I just wanted to let you know "Good choice, good choice!!!" /pos

Yes, I am the creator behind this Surge & Kit playlist!

I recently had a short-lived hyperfixation on Amanda The Adventurer, which resulted in me adding it to the playlist!

I absolutely agree that Don't Listen definitely suits Surge & Kit, especially throughout the events Imposter Syndrome as they try to break the code behind their existence. I also agree that there can parallels can be drawn between the dynamics of Amanda & Woolly and Surge & Kit.

If my Amanda The Adventurer hyperfixation had lasted longer, I likely would've gone through with a Surge & Kit AU idea I had gotten from Don't Listen that I named Digital Concious AU. Unfortunately, it won't likely see the light of day as I work on Project Big Wave.

Thank you for the compliment ask anon! Feel free to take a Treat and have a lovely day/night!

[ 🍬 Treat has been added to Anon's Inventory! ]

[burning-thistles-bt]

LIGHTNINGFUR (Amanda) V. ROBINSTORM ("up right down") -> STORMFUR ("listen to me, you need to destroy these tapes before-") -> FIRESTAR ("but Amanda, I thought we were-"/"I think we could have a real good time") (Wooly)

cw: glitchy audio, horror aspects

[ohnoitzbuster]

i am so fuckin obsessed with jakeneutron's newest song

i cant stop listening to it help

[masoqueen-official]

ART UPDATE! 9/10 A.O. ◇7/19/23◇

Extra stuffs 1 :)

[isayahacts]

[scapegods]

what if this scene was worse

[toastedclownery]

"Seek Amanda isn't real she can't hurt you"

Seek Amanda:

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[problemnyatic]

when will we talk about the willful helplessness epidemic on here. So many people on this god forsaken website demand to have any and all things that exist outside their personal experiences directly, personally pre-chewed and spoonfed to them. And when you do, they'll then ask for you to swallow for them, too, because, you see, in THEIR experience..,