#TW: existential crisis

[strawberryshortcake1495]

As if I couldn’t make my Lebam AU even darker… 😭

In Dipper and Mabel VS the Future, Mabel finds out that Dipper will become Ford’s apprentice and therefore will be leaving her to a cruel, unforgiving, and unpredictable world all by herself. This is when Mabel truly starts to delve into McGucket levels of insanity. When Dipper goes home, instead of asking him to tell her he’s joking, Mabel simply asks him if it’s true. Confused, Dipper gently touches her shoulder and she pounces on him. Pinning him to the wooden floor with an iron grip, Mabel interrogates him. She’s sacrificed so much for him. Her happiness, her dignity, her identity. It was all for him. Now he wants to run away and leave her to rot in the mud? She’s sad and angry but her mind is churning like a pot of boiling water. It’s confused because the whole point of Lebam is to protect Dipper, now she’s hurting him? It didn’t make sense. Mabel realizes this as she’s strangling her brother to death. Horrified, she drags him out to the forest and buries his body before proceeding to have a loud hysterical breakdown. She prepares to take her own life when she’s stopped by Blendin. He tells her he can fix everything for her, make all the pain go away, as long as she joins him. She takes the offer. Her sole purpose in life was to love and cherish her twin brother, but now he’s dead. She has nothing left to lose. She’s whisked away, not knowing Dipper was still alive.

Now here’s the difference: Mabeland is more of a dream-like realm inside Mabel’s mind and Bill simply shoved all the memories of her past life down to make room in her mindscape for Mabeland. Mabel is very much conscious and aware of Weirdmageddon, but as I said, she has nothing to lose. But as she’s curled up in the corner of the Fearamid, the realization of what she’s truly done starts to seep in. She can’t stop thinking about Dipper. He’s really gone. Mabel tries to distract herself by going to sleep and traveling to Mabeland but it doesn’t fill the void in her heart. That’s when Mabel realizes she can’t live without her brother, so she needs to be her own brother. With Bill’s help, she cuts her hair and styles it to look like Dipper’s and takes her sweater and headband off, replacing her shirt with a Pinetree shirt to really go with the vibe. Now she has 3 separate personalities: Mabel, Lebam, and Pinetree.

Meanwhile, Dipper manages to dig himself out of the ground but he’s extremely weak. Wendy scours the woods for shelter and finds his limp body on the ground. She brings him to a cave and nurses him back to health, well at least until he’s able to stand and speak. Then they go to find Ford and Mabel.

[shrimplymoray]

This is... Very much self-indulgent and for my own comfort right now. So, excuse anything that may be off, or a bit OOC. TW: Apathy crisis, existential crisis.

Cronus Ampora x Reader - Apathy

Cronus was never the smartest fish in the sea when dealing with people, especially when it is other's feelings. He may seem like the emotional type of guy (he has cried multiple times for human love songs), but dealing with others is way out of his league. He - and the rest of the Beforus trolls for that matter - keep wondering how he managed to actually score one. He was used to shooting his shot at others and missing by well over a mile, so his oh-so-not-smooth flirts actually hitting a soft spot for you made him lose his composure, and get fidgety. An adorable view, truly. Though in past times his bluntness and lack of emotional knowledge never affected you, it seemed as though fate had other plans. Apathy. Something all 13 of you have become used, almost acquaintances to. Sadly, being used does not mean it is easy to deal with. Some of you, like Meulin and Rufioh, have mastered the art of surrounding yourself with others to get better. Latula and Porrim tend to dive into hobbies to lessen the effects. You? Oh... Even after what seemed like thousands of years, it is a mystery what actually helps you. That is why, this time, Cronus went too far for you. It was simple, you were faking till you got better, but he ran his mouth too much. "Heyy~ hot stuff, are ya mad at somefin? Did'ya stub yer toes? Ya so dry it shorelly must'vwe been somefin goin' on." A pause, and an answer "I don't know what you're talking about Cro." "Huh? C'mon, bae~ Lemme guess... Meenah talked shit 'bout yer hair?" "Is... there something with my hair?" "wvah- NONONO! No it, uh, it looks as great as ya! Like alwvays, I just, uh, y'knowv howv she can get, haha!" You knew he was not trying to make you mad, yet... He didn't seem charming when being a dork, this time. Your pause, the look in your void white eyes that stared at his, and your look at the distance. That showed him something really was up. And also that he fucked up big time by running his mouth today. "Hey... Hey, look at me." "What?" "Y'knowv ya can trust me, right? Ya been here for me, wvhat good of a matesprit wvould I be if I didn't do the same?" ... "It's the... the thing, again. This stupid thinkpan of mine can't seem to co-work with my bloodpumper. It's like... Y'know how, like, sometimes the reality hits us? that... that we are gonna be here, forever. We will never grow old, travel the world, or... or have a life, again. We are stuck in the bubbles, and we don't have a future ahead of us anymore. Any... certainty we had once, from the moment our session ended, it will never occur, like, ever again." "Wvoah..." It took a while, the two of you staring at the abyss, on the edge of the dreambubble you two have been sitting on, a special place for you, as this is one of your bubbles. No one said anything. You couldn't feel uncomfortable, at that moment. The lack of emotions took a deep toll on you, but you instinctively looked at Cronus. When he looked at you, however, he didn't seem worried. Or afraid. He took his goofy fake 'human' cigarette put it on the corner of his mouth, and gave you his side grin. Not the smug one, the one he puts whenever he is really confident about what he is going to say. "I mean, ya not wvrong, by any means but... heh... Do ya think it is bad? I mean, hey! Wve are gonna be all here forevwer, so that means wve can at least, like, be together for eternity or wvathevwer. I used to be pretty damn bad wvith these apathy shellnanigans but... I'm not really that afraid anemonemore. I havwe the best fuckin' matesprit in the wvhole 'bubbles and, like, I'm pretty damn shore I can live the rest of a boring eternity if I havwe ya to make it interestin'!" As you two stared to the far, far void of nothing, outside the bubble, you instinctively reached a hand on top of his, which, as always, sent his face into a violet blush mess, and managed to drag a smile and chuckle out of you. "Can't complain with that, really."

[tart-miano]

AY frankies got me fallin apart UH draculauras stealin my heart (HEART)

[noname-404s-blog]

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

Readerbot’s Alternate Ending: crushed beneath rubble as the PizzaPlex is burned, they have a sort of dying dream before going offline for the last time

(Dialogue is from BMO’s ‘death’ scene, it’s rlly sad for absolutely no reason and I think abt it a lot)

[my-quirk-is-fred]

[coockie8]

ngl More than anything I'm just shocked tumblr's actually able to handle the sheer size of this bad boy, though to be fair, I did crop out a fair bit of negative space lol

Anyway, here's the Samhain piece of Vlad and Plasmius I've been talking about.

This is a picture of Plasmius' first physical manifestation while Vlad was in the hospital with the Ecto-acne, occurring about a week or so before his release. The panic caused by his doctor attacking him was what ultimately caused Plasmius to take form to protect him.

I hope you like it, 'cause it took literal years off my lifespan lol

[amiracleilluminated]

[destinygoldenstar]

What Separates Digital Circus’s Horror From Others

Disturbing.

Unnerving.

TERRIFYING.

BUT WHY?!

On the surface to the… five people that never watched The Amazing Digital Circus Pilot, this show looks like a Five Nights At Freddy’s knock off.

It’s a cute mascot show that is actually secretly a horror monster infested world.

Even people who haven’t seen FNAF at least seen a few clips of it and what it’s famous for. I know I have.

My sister is super into this, and she hogs the TV, so… RIP me.

That’s what most non-horror stans usually view horror as.

The jumpscares.

The unnerving imagery.

The designs made to freak out the viewers and make them uncomfortable.

It’s usually quite obvious when something is a horror, cause these aspects are often front and center. You can usually tell it’s a trailer of a horror movie by just looking at it.

At least, from my, a non-horror lover’s understanding. For some reason these sorts of things, especially indie animated ones, are the faces of a lot of content farms.

If the product itself isn’t r@%ing your audience, it’s those.

(TAKE MY WARNING AND TAKE IT SERIOUSLY: IF YOU VALUE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH AND YOUR SANITY, DO NOT LOOK UP THIS MOVIE)

BUT BACK ON SUBJECT.

Digital Circus… doesn’t really have this stuff.

There’s no jumpscares.

(I mean there is in a trailer, but it’s used as a joke.)

The character designs are very cute looking without any alternate versions that are scary.

And the imagery of the show remains cute and fun all throughout. The darkest it gets is in a realistic looking office.

But there are no jumpscares in that scene.

It’s just… a normal office.

If this was a horror, then perfect opportunity, right?

So… what’s going on here?

This, my friends, is why Digital Circus is not your typical indie animated horror flick.

And why people even call it ‘scary’ at all.

Here’s the trick this show uses.

It’s not the imagery.

It’s not the designs.

It’s not even intentionally trying to scare you.

Caine is not intentionally trying to scare the audience. He’s just acting like an A.I.

Yeah he has SOME unnerving moments.

But compared to THIS:

I’d say Caine is pretty tame.

Maybe it’s an indicator that he’s secretly a monster like the Other Mother in Coraline.

That horror flick is about the host lying to the protagonist and revealing their horror-like appearance later on.

But not only was it confirmed that Caine is NOT evil. But look at his design right away and his presentation.

There is no sign so far that he lies about anything. At least not what he doesn’t know.

Yes he lied about the exit. But the exit ITSELF was the thing that sent you to the VOID. So really he kinda tried to protect them.

If he didn’t, he’d let jester girl eject herself like Among Us.

So why is it unnerving?

Because it’s the POV we the audience are in for most of the episode: Pomni.

Pomni is an Audience Surrogate.

Audience Surrogates are characters designed specifically to be a placeholder for the audience.

People usually assume this trope as the character made to be the bland and generic one. But that’s actually not true.

An audience surrogate can be as simple as a First Person POV. As all it means is that the character is designed to have the same reactions the audience would in the situation they would find themselves in.

Course, not speaking for everybody, but majority that would consume the content.

Thus, with Pomni as the audience surrogate, we the audience are thrusted into her shoes the whole time. We feel the fear she does. We are experiencing the circus the same time she does.

Notice the editing in some scenes. Specifically the scenes Pomni is NOT in.

When Pomni is in a scene, there’s usually some change in lighting or camera movement that’s unnerving.

But when she isn’t in a scene, these editing moves aren’t there at all.

Which makes it pretty easy to suggest that these unnerving edits are just what’s going on in Pomni’s head.

So with that, when she’s scared. We’re scared. We’re in her POV.

But she’s scared all the time. That’s just her average personality, right?

Then why make these specific edits?

Let’s think about this:

This character is trapped in a world that isn’t her own. Everything is unusual, and she wants out. But instantly realizes there’s no escape.

And then gets told this is her new home and her new body.

A home she doesn’t recognize. And a body she doesn’t even know the name of.

She lost all sense of identity in an instant. Losing everything about herself in an instant. To the point where she can’t even remember what she was before.

And to make matters worse, because this is unusual, everything SEEMS terrifying. Even to those trying to help her adjust.

The only way out of such a confusing and terrifying world is to escape. Which is what she tries to find the entire time.

So THEREFORE:

The horror is this show is NOT the jumpscares or the creepy images.

The horror is THE VIEWER’S MIND.

This show constantly destroys your mind and breaks you through Pomni.

The idea of losing everything about yourself and being trapped in something unfamiliar forever. That IS terrifying.

If you were in this situation, you’d probably freak out even if you were the bravest being ever.

So it’s not about how scary the scene is on the outside.

It’s about what you’re THINKING that’s scary.

Ragatha’s distress monologue is not scary on the outside. But if you actually take into consideration what she says.

THATS terrifying.

That toys with your mind. And it also toys with Pomni’s.

The monster figure in the episode, the abstraction, is nowhere near as scary as something from FNAF

At least in my opinion.

Especially seeing what the monster does.

It can’t kill you. You’re just glitched.

Or maybe it CAN kill. But we never see that.

Even if Pomni ended up like Ragatha, Caine would’ve eventually came back, found them, and fixed them. And they would’ve been fine.

But then, rather out of nowhere, she STOPS.

And we get this shot.

I talked about this shot before. Said it quickly became one of my favorite shots in media.

This is why.

This shot makes me queasy every time.

The idea of looking in a mirror and not even being able to process or recognize yourself. Unable to even process your own reflection, that’s how unrecognizable you’ve become.

That’s horrifying.

And there’s no dialogue here either.

The episode effectively uses SHOW DONT TELL.

They SHOW you how scary the situation is. They SHOW you a single image that tells you everything.

It would’ve been so easy to just have Pomni say “I’m scared. I don’t recognize myself. Who is this person looking back at me?”

But no

They DON’T insult their audience.

They don’t TELL you.

They let you sink it in yourself.

Pomni doesn’t even have ANY lines after she goes through the exit door. And yet the shots after that with her have been plastered everywhere. Why? Cause she doesn’t need to tell you her mental state. You’re SHOWN it.

Can someone PLEASE tell the live action Avatar The Last Airbender that?!

Speaking of the office scene. This is the only moment in the show that looks… real. Not that cartoony.

Which I guess being in a setting that’s off putting from the rest makes it creepy, right?

Well not really.

Sure she’s running through rooms that seem to be repeating, which that of itself is sanity breaking. It reminds me a lot of another existential horror: The Stanley Parable.

But while that game is excellent and the monologue that plays in that ending is one of my favorites, it IS just telling you the sanity of the player.

Not that there’s anything wrong with this in that games style. There’s no other way that could’ve been done in that game.

Here, again, there’s no dialogue. It’s just Pomni running through these desperate for the exit.

The scary part about this is that we KNOW the absolute DESPERATION she has.

Even if we couldn’t see her face, that’s still across because we’ve seen it the entire episode.

And then there’s her break.

She snaps at the sight of a desk, and gets fangs, that of a FNAF character. But only for a second. She doesn’t even go out at the camera with them. She goes on her merry way.

But Pomni, being the POV character, really doesn’t have much to be scared at about her.

So why is this terrifying? Why not go all the way if this is supposed to be a jumpscare?

Well cause it’s not.

A way to scare your audience is to make them feel dread. Lingering longing dread. Sometimes irrational dread.

People with anxiety especially get scared at things even when they’re completely safe. They feel an unease in their stomachs. They feel unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to put it into words at all.

It could be because we saw something unnerving that stays in our subconscious. It could be because we’re nervous about something coming up. It could be because we’re in an uncomfortable situation.

Either way, anything even remotely resembling that triggering thing can break someone to feel this anxiety. Sometimes even something as simple as the dark. Even if we know we’re completely safe.

(Speaking as a person with anxiety myself)

She only snaps and cackles when she sees a random desk with a computer. Which also has the headset she put on there. The thing that got her in this.

But you might not have even seen the headset on your first viewing. I didn’t.

But your subconscious sees it. The environment not being like the others aids in unnerving you and making it hard to process what you’re looking at.

Why is this terrifying? Why does it break you? Why does it mentally break Pomni? We don’t know. It just does.

We’ve been stuck going through doors in repeating rooms for hours.

Fear makes you not able to overthink it.

So all of that is build up to the near perfect shot of Pomni at the brink of snapping at the dinner table. With the others voices blurred in her mind. As all she can do is fake a smile.

Terrifying End.

It’s not scary because it’s scary. It’s scary because it toys with the character, and the viewer’s mind

Now, is Digital Circus the first media to do this technique?

No. Not at all.

One of the most acclaimed animated movies, Spirited Away, also uses these exact same tactics for example.

That’s obviously a master class at this tactic. And it scared me as a child as a result. For all these exact same reasons.

It’s not a horror. Not traditionally. It’s not trying to scare you. But it does anyway cause in your mind it’s a scary concept.

And also, well, Spirited Away is a completed story as of the time this post comes out.

And Digital Circus only has one episode. But we did get confirmation this would be a series. And I personally have high hopes that this brilliant tactic is kept. From the trailer, it does seem like they’re not forgetting the stuff I bring up here. So I hope this works out for the creators despite the drama and the internet BS surrounding this show.

But even if not, we at least get one case in this show where we all want to curl up in a ball and cry

Us too Pomni. Us too.

Thank you for reading my… analysis a ton of people made before me, and probably better. Happy day for you all.

[celestiall0tus]

Day of the Fall Page 2

Beginning || Previous || Next

[team-council]

me: life is meaningless. i am going to blink and be dead. nothing matters, i will lose everything so soon.

five seconds later: OMG LLOYD ASPLUND💞💝💖💗💓🥰🥰😁😁✨🖤🩶🤍💜

he makes the pain go away fr

[strawberryshortcake1495]

Miserable Mason

Mason was a perfect child. He always followed the rules, laid low under the radar, and was very polite to his elders. As he entered elementary school, his parents started signing him up for extracurricular activities to give him something he can be “proud of”. It didn’t make him feel proud, though. Just tired. The attention felt overwhelming to him, and whenever he’d try to divert it to his sister, Mabel, the adults would simply go on and on and on about how awful she is. Most of the time, his mother was the one whining. On the playground, there was this bush littered with the most beautiful flowers anyone’s ever seen. Everyday, Mason picked a flower and tried to give it to his sister. Mabel would always spit in his face and spew insults at him before running away laughing. It’s okay. He deserved that. Who was he to ruin her day? That’s their parents’ job.

Mason tried so hard to make it through these years because he was terrified. Why? He didn’t know. He shouldn’t be scared. Everything he wanted was handed to him on a silver platter. His parents treated him as if he were some prince. But that was only because he makes them so proud. By what? Being good at a lot of things? Is that it? What happens if he’s not good? Will they tie him up? Throw rocks at him? Maybe they’d stop speaking to him. No. No no no. He didn’t want his parents to hate him. Because deep down, he knew he wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. He was…weird. He could get into an argument with someone for a whole 30 minutes over little things. Whenever he was excited, he’d flail his arms as if he were a bird. And of course, he had that stupid Big Dipper birthmark on his forehead. That was the part of him he hated the most. He was just like Mabel. Ugly, gross, disgusting. Yet…he was somehow gifted? It didn’t make sense. Why is Mabel not gifted? Why does she get to be called miserable? He’s as miserable as her. One day when he was 9 years old, he tried to show everyone who he really was. A nasty vile creature who shouldn’t be alive. He sprayed his sister with a hose and replaced all the chocolates in the candy jar with slugs. But his parents blamed Mabel, even when he confessed to the crime. All he did was make her hate him more. As he laid in his bed, his small framed curled up in a fetal position, he realized that he truly is alone in this world. He’ll always be “Merry Mason”.

[vulgrados-best]

The fact that so many universes on here have. Little to no variation of pokemon genuinely kind of unsettles me I'm gonna be honest.

I'm sure that sounds silly to those of you who's worlds essentially only have breed standard but. Imagine being in my shoes. So many sub species that dot the planet, so many evolutionary pathways and flourishing of life.

And it just. Doesn't exist for you guys. Conceptually that's fucking scary! It's deeply upsetting! So many subspecies that just. Don't exist. So many colors that just aren't present.

And yet! We're just one tiny speck in the spanning web of the multiverse! What the fuck!!

[lilacs-stash]

"That made my life feel pointless"

[noname-404s-blog]

[snailsdraw]

[Start ID:

5 pages of HLVRAI narrative doodles, in which Gordon and Dr Coomer have an interaction pertaining to Dr Coomer's in-canon existential crisis. Trigger warning for that and unreality.

It is early morning when Gordon joins Coomer out on the porch with a cup of coffee. After escaping the hellhole that was Black Mesa, they staying together temporarily. Upon seeing him, Gordon says, "Coomer?" to which Coomer replies, "Ah! Good morning, Gordon! Another day, another dollar, hmm?" Gordon responds, "Yeah, heheh…right, uh, what…are you doing up so early? We don't work at the Black Mesa anymore, remember?"

"Something got you up?" Coomer's expression falls at Gordon's words, and his earlier facade falls into something somber before picking it back up and waving it off, "I thank you for your concerns, Gordon! But you needn't hear the…the ramblings of an elderly mind!" Gordon takes a long swig of his coffee, looking at nothing in particular. "Honestly, after the night I had? What's another?" Coomer considers this offer quietly.

"Gordon…I see a darkness," he finally speaks. Gordon raises an eyebrow at that, "A…darkness? Like, pitch black or, like, evil?" "Nothingness, Gordon," he says. Not quite understanding, Gordon asks, "Oh…where'd you see it?" Coomer looks out upon the world before him, the one that sits abundantly around him, and yet seems more like a mere, single screen of moving pictures before his eyes suspended in a wider expanse of void. "Oh…it's everywhere."

"And I can't ignore it." Picking up his cheery facade from earlier, albeit an imitation of what it once was, he quickly adds, "But…this old chap's lived through worse! We all have now, haven't we…?"

"Can I hug you, Dr Coomer?" The question surprises him out of his thoughts in a way that has Gordon scrambling to explain himself, "I-I mean- It's just an offer! Don't feel obligated! I, uh, you just…looked like you needed one…" Coomer's eyes go soft with a genuine smile, "…I think that would be wonderful, Gordon." Accepting his embrace, he says, "Thank you."

End ID.]

Coomer can have a hug, as a treat.

Also, I cannot paragraph IDs in list format and I sad