#my teen years jumpscare me constantly

[officeobject]

Here's a meme about how that works for some people or something, who I know of:

My teen ghost:

Watches me poo and whatever else - like, STARES, even walked into a pad once

I know almost nothing about him, he just simps

Follows me and stays very close

Cuddles me as soon as I'm in bed

Only accepts me ignoring him, SOMETIMES

Ethan:

Is usually a very calm person, but can get very nervous at times

Affectionate and honest and all, but goofy ... but can turn fully serious and talk things out until there's a solution, when needed

Actually normal and whatnot, on the surface

Will tell friends who feel the same way, his biggest secrets

The rational one who keeps one grounded

Me:

Very obvious, very emotional, but tries not to be clingy (will fail)

Will have squish as special interest and make a bunch of things about them

Will stare at almost every oppertunity

Actually platonically submissive or whatever the feck it's called

Will analyze everything

That one person (who is 30)

Will mirror body-language and change their routine so they have more time with their squish, but will still take work seriously and whatnot (and will even actively not focus on their squish, when it's that important - like, even just constantly staring at a different direction, because they KNOW they'd end up glancing at their squish)

Stares at their squish like "😐" (meanwhile with co-workers, they smile or are casual, but actually prefer their squish), even when said squish is visibly nervous

Tries to convince their squish that they're a cool and busy adult who doesn't look at them (won't always convince + if their squish show up unexectedly they will get jumpscared into working harder)

Somehow, sometimes, predicts when their squish will be there

Will furiously defend themself and their squish (and/or maybe get co-workers to notify when you're there or something and possibly what you're doing - either way, the co-workers know)

Basically, the teen ghost just follows his hormones, Ethan is usually calm and/or goofy but can get nervous, I'm just intense when when trying not to be, and that 30 year old is being very 30 year old, about things.

Yo what's that weird thing called when you're repulsed by QPRs, alterous stuff, etc, and you feel like there's nothing "more" or "better" or "in-between", or that can change to/from or encompass, friendship, and you're intense with platonic love to the point where you have the platonic horny + people think you get crushes, and you just can't date anyone when you've seen a possibility of being their friend and vise versa?

[pricklybulbasaur]

Universe: My Hero Academia

Pairing: 1-A class

Rating: gen-mild cursing

It was finally Friday so everyone decided to have a movie night and it was Tokoyami’s turn to choose the movie. Some people including Midoriya shuddered as we knew he was going to choose a horror or paranormal movie. We were right.

“W-w-w-we are watching what?” Midoriya stammered and leaned closer to Cortez. She looked down at him and gave the green-haired teen a gentle hug.

“The Shining,” Tokoyami said. “It is an older movie, but I heard it was good.”

“Who is the original creator?” Cortez asked.

“Steven King.”

“Figures.”

So they watched one of the most horrifying movies of that year and quite a few people were gasping and hiding their eyes. A couple like Todoroki and Tokoyami were not showing emotions but Cortez could see that her boyfriend was a little scared. One person, however brave he might be, was crying and screaming so hard at the jumpscares. It took one of “Here’s Johnny” breaking the bathroom door and the mortified female to scare him so badly that he eventually was crushing Cortez’s ribcage.

“B-bunny, c-can’t breathe...crushing...me…” Cortez said, constantly tapping Midoriya’s back to get his attention.

“Ah, I’m sorry Aura-Chan!!” He said and released his hold, where immediately Cortez inhaled and took several deep breaths to bring back the oxygen to her system. Midoriya was looking very guilty. “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s a normal reaction, Bunny.” Cortez said and smiled showing no harm was done. “It should be over soon, think you can handle it?”

“Mm,” Midoriya nodded and this time sat on Cortez’s lap to reduce the risk of hugging her again, avoiding further damage. Cortez smiled and wrapped her arms and wings around her friend in a comforting embrace.

Bakugou, who was on the couch behind them, clicked his tongue at the duo irritably. It was funny as hell, that was for sure, but even he knew Deku had a limit. The movie scared him too but his pride will not allow him to admit it. So, when the movie ended, he thought of something to help him get distracted and tire Deku out at the same time since most likely the nerd would try to sneak out and train until the crack of dawn or dead. Now, to see if the green-eyed bitch would help.

“Th-that was scary…” Midoriya said shakily, with anime tears flowing under his eyes. “Why do people make movies like these?”

“People get some kind of high when they're scared, Deku.” Tsuyu said as she got up from the ground to stretch. “Like Bakugou destroying things.” (HEY!) “Let me get some tea for all of us. Momo, Uraraka-chan can you help me?”

“Sure.” Both of them said and all three of them walked out to the kitchen.

Midoriya sighed and looked pretty worn out from the mental exhaustion. He was glad he doesn’t watch these horror movies every week but it takes several days to sleep soundly after the nightmares if it affected him enough. He does not want to bother Cortez and Uraraka again even though they said it was ok, but he does not want to be too dependent.

“Itte!” Midoriya then got hit by a large pillow on the side of the head, courtesy of the explosive blonde.

“Just lie down if you are still stressed!” Bakugou yelled with a tick mark. Though he subtly looked at Cortez and she got the hint. Damn Pommy.

Grabbing the pillow that had been thrown at the green-haired teen, Cortez got up in one swift movement and reverse kicked, hooking his neck and continuing the momentum, knocking him down to the ground. He grunted a bit and when he felt the minty-haired girl’s weight on him, he looked up and growled. She returned the same response with an evil smirk.

“You know, time to relieve the tension.” She said and squished her pillow and released it as she was ‘locking and loading’. “Wanna join?”

Bakugou gave an intimidating look but smirked as well. “Why not? I get to try to kill you and others? I’m in.”

The Climate teen then smirked and got off of her classmate and everybody planning to join took their own positions with as many pillows as they could carry. A couple of times Bakugou got hit so much that he kept getting more and more pissed as he was being ganged on where he eventually yelled at the top of his lungs.

“DIE!!!”

“Hey, it is late, you need to go to--”

Just then Aizawa walked into the room and got into the line of fire of three well-aimed pillows.

“Ooops~,” Cortez said and giggled sheepishly. “Sorry, Aizawa Sensei. We were having some fun.”

“It’s his fault for getting in the way.” Bakugou said irritably, he wanted to have some more fun and try to beat Deku.

“K’mon, Sensei. It’s Friday! We are just having a pillow fight!” Tokoyami’s shadow said right next to him.

“Yes, please let us play a little longer?” Uraraka said while she still had some of her pillows floating.

“I will have to agree, Aizawa Sensei. We deserve to have an off day every once in a while, kero.” Tsuyu said with her tongue wrapped with a big fluffy pillow.

Aizawa was glaring at them with tired eyes for a few moments, causing the students to sweat and think they pissed him off. The next moment, however, several pillows that Uraraka was floating were grabbed by his scarf and were floating around him.

He smirked. “Ok, if you Problem Brats want a fight, then I will oblige tonight.” He then threw several pillows at Midoriya, Cortez, and Bakugou as they were the ones that struck first, and the rest of his class causing them to jump, dodge, grab and throw more pillows at their father figure teacher laughing well past midnight from exhaustion.

[flarebossmalva]

the catghost post, pt. 1 [intro saga]

i said i was gonna talk about catghost, and then it turned into attempting to explain catghost by summarizing it, and then it turned into multiple posts because there’s a lot of material to cover and i want to do a thorough job. watch the intro saga first because this is a good series and you should check it out for yourself before listening to me ramble about it!

CWs for part 1: murder, images of dead bodies / skeletal remains, other disturbing imagery (including a couple jumpscares), one image depicting animal death (it’s near the very end of the post)

Alright, I’m posting with decent grammar so you know it’s serious. If you’re just here looking for a brief overview of the series, here’s my crack at it: CatGhost is a multimedia ARG comprised primarily of YouTube videos and accompanying minigames. It’s ongoing, and I plan to update this post as the series itself updates. On the surface, the videos resemble other YouTube cartoons, following the tried-and-true formula of two characters comically tormenting a third; however, something else is clearly going on below the surface, and it quickly becomes clear that these three are tied together by very dark circumstances. Much of what’s really going on is still unclear, but enough has been revealed that I can talk about it without constantly resorting to pure guesswork.

This is part one, covering the Intro Saga (first three videos and their associated games). Like I said, I wanted to be thorough and if I didn’t split it up into separate posts this would get way too long. It’s already too long.

CatGhost 1, “Birthday,” opens with flames filling the screen, then a ripple effect playing over the title card, which I mention because that’s gonna make a whole lot more sense in a minute. We then see our main cast, Elon (cat), Naarah (ghost), and Gideon (hedgehog). Gideon is asleep and the girls are making fun of him. From their dynamic, it seems Naarah’s pretty young and Elon is sort of a big sister figure to her, which means they’re probably close in age. Gideon is 48; today is allegedly his birthday, though he seems unaware until the girls tell him so. Gideon seems generally confused about whatever’s going on and just wants to go back to sleep, but the girls want to take him out to someplace called “Party Country,” and eventually they end up threatening to curse him if he doesn’t comply. The threat seems pretty real as the girls’ voices turn demonic and their eyes glow. Gideon gives in, though it’s unclear if he even realized he was in any danger. 

Next scene, Gideon is presented with his birthday cake, which is... pretty wonky-looking, to put it gently. Pecking order for the trio gets further established when Naarah intimidates Gideon into saying the cake she made looks fine and seconds later Elon comments that the cake isn’t very good. Naarah defends herself and says that it’s hard to bake a cake without hands, to which Elon sympathizes and says that her paws aren’t much good either. Naarah says “I miss having a body.” The girls were human once, and seem to remember it clearly. Gideon, on the other hand, interjects saying he has no idea what they’re talking about. Whatever circumstances have bound these three together, Gideon seems to be the only one with no awareness of what’s going on.

Party Country turns out to be an arcade cabinet. Gideon is encouraged to play, but he seems completely apathetic about the game (Gideon seems completely apathetic about most things) and dialogue implies he may not even know what a video game is. Naarah calls Gideon “Dad” at one point while she and Elon bully him into playing, a detail which could lead one to guess a major twist way in advance but which I actually never noticed until just now. Gideon gives in and starts playing, declaring that the game (which we can’t see yet) is actually pretty fun, but the girls continue to tell him to play as if they can’t see that he’s already complying. We then cut to the game, which I’ll talk about more below, but suffice it to say that unless your definition of “fun” is all about talking to fucked-up skeleton ladies in some haunted woods, this is not a fun game:

Afterwards, Gideon wakes and assumes he dreamed the whole thing until he sees the ugly birthday cake Naarah baked. He waves goodbye to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall; an odd thing for a character who shows so little awareness of his surroundings to do.

The game associated with this episode is the same game shown in the episode itself. It’s pretty simple; you play as Gideon and can move left or right through a gloomy-looking pixelated forest. There are two NPCs and a small number of objects to be interacted with, all of which can appear randomly. For now, we’ll focus on the two NPCs. Both are skeletons, and both wear simple dresses of the type peasant girls might wear; one is tinted red, the other tinted blue, with the blue skeleton being notably smaller. When interacted with, the red skeleton will say “It burns! I can’t feel my skin,” or “Trapped like a fly in a jar,” or “I have taken on my new form.” The blue skeleton will say “It’s cold here, I can’t breathe,” or “I have to save him, he waited for me,” or “She lured me into this place.” Is the fire/water motif from the episode’s opening starting to seem relevant? Oh, and there’s more. One game object is a sort of upright stone with a hole cut into it near the top; I’ll be calling this object “Key” as that’s how it identifies itself. Key can be interacted with by typing questions, to which it will give an appropriate answer based on words/phrases it recognizes (like Tool in Petscop, incidentally). If we ask Key certain questions about our main cast, we can learn a lot about the story.

Ask “Who is Elon,” and Key tells you, “Temptress.” Asking the same question about Naarah returns “Proselyte,” while Gideon is “Judge.” If you ask what happened to any of the main cast, you’re told “Vanished.” However, asking for death dates yields results; Elon and Naarah both died in 1650, while Gideon died in 1672. Ask where each of the main three are, and you learn Elon is “In a jar,” Naarah is “Immersed,” and Gideon is “In a dark place.” Given all that, I think we can put the basic setting together:

Elon, Naarah, and Gideon were all human once. They lived during the seventeenth century in what is now the northeastern United States. Naarah must have been a preteen or young teen at the time of her death; Elon was likely a young adult in her late teens when she died, and the pair met their respective fates at or around the same time. Gideon lived into his late forties before dying, which speaks to a life of relative comfort for the time and place, befitting a judge. The animosity between the girls and Gideon seems pretty clear: Gideon sentenced both of them to death for witchcraft. Elon, represented in-game by the red skeleton, was burned at the stake, and her ashes were subsequently stored in a jar. Naarah was drowned by being tied to a chair and immersed in a large body of water (this was a common execution method for suspected witches, and the presence of a chair hanging from a rope in the game supports this); her remains are still underwater. Gideon was most likely given a traditional burial after he passed away of, most likely, natural causes. The wrinkle is that Gideon seems to have been right — Elon and Naarah are witches. Elon (the Temptress) taught Naarah (the Proselyte) the craft. Now all three appear to be stuck in the world of the show, which I guess is some sort of weird limbo, and only Elon and Naarah know what’s going on or who they used to be, probably because they are witches. 

We can also take some more guesses at what might be going on based off the interactions the main cast have with each other. For instance, Elon’s the leader of the group and generally takes charge, but it’s clear that at least some of that confidence is an act and she doesn’t really seem to be pulling the strings here. The two have plenty of reasons to hate Gideon and could easily use their magic to put him through hell, but instead they don’t go beyond pushing him around and making fun of him — Naarah even bakes him a cake, which she complains about the difficulty of doing. This could imply the three have been trapped in the afterlife with each other ever since dying and the girls have finally gotten tired of exacting less petty revenge. It could also mean that deep down they’re fond of Gideon and don’t really want him to come to harm, which is a strange relationship to have with the man who ordered your torture and execution. Later videos will shed further light on the dynamics between the three, but for now we’ll leave it at that.

One more thing before I move on — asking Key any question containing the word “murder” will trigger a jumpscare. Initially, this was of what appears to be Naarah’s corpse, but it’s since been changed (we’ll talk about that change later). Here’s the original jumpscare showing Naarah:

CatGhost 2, “Knock,” is more straightforward and thus will take me less time to summarize, thank god. Elon and Naarah are telling knock knock jokes. Gideon completely fails to understand the joke, and possibly completely fails to understand the concept of jokes, and the girls get so pissed they put some sort of curse on him and he winds up locked in a dungeon-like room. The door bears a large ornamental mail slot that looks like some sort of gargoyle’s face, with the slot as its mouth. Gideon is instructed to write a knock knock joke that’s actually funny and slide it through the door if he wants to be released. His first attempt is rejected (it doesn’t even have a punchline) and so Gideon tries to think of another. Cut to the words “2 years later” and Gideon’s still trying to write a funny knock knock joke — this series isn’t above the typical cartoon tropes and I love it. He finally comes up with one (Knock knock / Who’s there / Anita / Anita who / Anita get through this door!) and triumphantly slides it into the mail slot, which then grows larger until it takes up nearly the entire door, the “mouth” gaping wide. Gideon stares at it and is seemingly hypnotized. Disturbing images tinted blue and red flash across the screen, before the camera pulls back and Gideon is shown still in a trancelike state as the girls look at him, confused. Naarah says he’s been staring at that door a while, and she and Elon seem mildly concerned, but decide poking him with a stick would be more fun than helping him. Credits roll.

For this episode, much of the worldbuilding is in the form of freeze-frame bonuses and background details, meaning you have to pay close attention to catch everything. When Gideon is teleported to the cell, images flash onscreen showing an inverted cross and the word “EXCRUCIATE,” all tinted red (the color generally associated with Elon), as well as what appear to be human bones and a girl’s face, tinted blue (the color associated with Naarah). In the cell with Gideon is a skeleton, though he seems not to take notice. One wall reads “Wild Partes of the World,” which is a complex reference I won’t attempt to explain in full (the phrase has been quoted and quoted again across multiple books) but in context within the rest of the story refers to early seventeenth-century Virginia, which must be where our main trio lived as humans. Text is shown written in the Theban alphabet, a substitution cipher based on the Latin alphabet and generally associated with witches and occultists. When Gideon is hypnotized by the door, he sees a judge’s podium, a jar (presumably the one containing Elon’s ashes), and a hanging chair (as was used to execute Naarah). Images of graves are shown, inverted and flipped upside down, along with a similarly distorted picture of a row of houses. During the end credits, the background appears to be lava with yellow flashes moving across it; putting all these yellow flashes together results in this image:

Audio during the intro, when reversed, is of a voice saying “I don’t know. I don’t know where it’s at. I think they’ve been looking for it for a long time, but… sometimes it seems like we’re just never going to find it.”

The accompanying minigame features the door from Gideon’s cell, complete with its ornamental mail slot (browsing the wiki, because of course there’s a wiki and of course that’s how I’m getting images for this post as well as checking for stuff I missed, it seems fans call this the “Horrible Beast door”). The door can be interacted with by knocking on it using tap code; if the right words are input, the game will display a corresponding image.

“Megalith” produces an image of Key, the stone you can question in the previous minigame:

“Libation” shows Gideon’s unfortunate-looking birthday cake:

“Trinity” shows the shadows of three people, what appears to be a man and two girls, most likely our main trio:

“Excruciate” shows what is presumably the stake used during Elon’s execution:

“Proselyte” shows what must be Naarah’s skeleton, along with the chair she was bound to, laying at the bottom of a body of water:

CatGhost 3, “Window,” opens by showing that same body of water, although there is no sign of the chair or of Naarah’s remains. We then cut to an outhouse in the show’s typical animated style. Elon is inside, preening, when a noise outside startles her. She checks and discovers a small hand mirror, with Theban writing on it reading “For Elon,” though the text is mirrored and upside down. Elon seems confused and flips the mirror open, whereupon she sees a black-and-white image of a mysterious woman, her face completely in shadow save for her glowing white eyes. When the woman raises her head and makes eye contact with Elon, the cat gets so spooked she drops the mirror and flees. Elon runs back inside, entering via the Horrible Beast door, and is greeted by Naarah, who’s acting suspiciously and asks if Elon saw anything interesting outside. When she’s asked point blank if she’s the one who left the mirror there, Naarah denies it and blames Gideon, and even though it seems obvious that she’s lying, Elon doesn’t question her further. She confronts Gideon, who is chopping wood and seems enthusiastic for once, and tells him — I’m only paraphrasing slightly here — not to use witchcraft to fuck with a witch, or else [colorful threat omitted for brevity’s sake]. At the end of this rant, she briefly shapeshifts into some sort of demonic chimera, with a snakelike body, horns, and quite a lot of teeth. Gideon, who as usual has no idea what she’s on about, is suitably terrified.

Elon, back to her regular form, goes back inside and picks up what appears to be a crayon drawing of a blue girl hugging a taller red girl, accompanied by Theban that reads “From: Naarah, To: bestest best friend.” We can presume Naarah is the blue girl and Elon is the red girl, of course, but of interest is the small form next to the house in the background. It looks like it could be a dog, and, given later events, it almost certainly is a dog.

The drawing had been resting on a large object covered with a cloth, and Elon, curious, pulls the cloth free. Underneath are three mirrors, angled so they all face towards her, and the strange woman from earlier (some fans call her “the Watcher,” which I’ll go with for now) is reflected in each one. Elon is frozen in place as the three Watchers advance towards her, and she begins to cry. The Watcher points a finger (from here on there seems to be only one of her, not three) and Elon begins levitating as the background glitches out. She’s tugged towards the Watcher, and when the outstretched finger touches her forehead, the screen goes white.

Then we’re back to the pixel graphics from the first minigame, in the same dark woods as before, but Elon and Naarah aren’t skeletons — they’re living girls. Elon is pale, with long red hair and blue eyes; Naarah is quite a bit smaller, with brown skin and dark blue-tinged hair in pigtails. Interestingly, Elon wears a blue dress and Naarah’s dress is red, despite their typical color associations. Elon stands over a crying Naarah, her expression sullen. After a few seconds, the credits roll.

This time, the “minigame” just shows a static image of a mirror. Well, almost static — the clock resting on the dresser below the mirror moves in real time, matching the time set on the player’s computer. At exactly three AM system time, the Watcher appears in the mirror, which is then overtaken by static, and the scene changes to Elon and Naarah as we saw them during the end of the last video. Initially, it seems to be the same as before, with Elon standing over Naarah as she cries, but this time there’s dialogue. Here, have a transcript I stole from the wiki because it was easier than typing it up again myself:

After this, the mirror becomes static once more; if you wait three minutes, this image displays for a single frame before the game closes:

So, yeah, I think it’s safe to say that’s a dog in Naarah’s drawing. This also seems to explain why she’s crying in the scene we just saw. Why the dog was killed (sacrificed on an alter, looks like) is a mystery I’ll tackle when we cover the later sagas.

Also, in the interest of equality, this time it’s Elon who jumpscares you if you type “murder.” Typing doesn’t do anything else in this game, though.

That concludes the Intro Saga! This post is already really long and I’m not going to bother giving closing thoughts at this point especially considering the series is still ongoing. Stay tuned for the next installment, coming whenever I get around to it!

[caladblog]

MAN oxenfree was good! apparently i have a new aesthetic(TM) and it is Queer Teens In The Woods + Radios + Satan. (don’t worry, Near-Future Dystopian Bodymod Socialites and Christianity Sandbox are still going way stronger. but after this and we know the devil, i can’t deny...)

MASSIVE spoilers under the cut

my biggest regret is that i will never be able to get 100% completion on this game, because in order to unlock at least one of the achievements i have to be an ass to everybody and i can’t ever bring myself to do that. sigh

actually no my BIGGEST regret is that i somehow got ren and nona to date? like what the fuck? nona is So Gay for clarissa?? how is this an option at all, much less one that i could stumble into??? maybe i just fucked up this playthrough and got the Heterosexual Ending because at first glance i clocked like all these kids as queer and this isn’t even me being every character is queer no arguments like i usually am

my smallest regret is that i like to explore all dialogue but a lot of the time the bubbles would start to fade and i’d have to cut someone off.

my final, medium-sized regret is that ren is really kind of obnoxious but CLARISSA’S the one who’s constantly posed as being unreasonable & bitchy. not cool yo

soundtrack was good, visuals were very nice, gameplay was decent. nothing to write home about but i like never write home about any of these, unless they’re physically groundbreaking or just absolutely god awful. mostly i play video games for the story and not for the actual playing of the game. i am writing this review from Fake Gamer Jail

okay onto the things i fuckin like!

sibling stories man y’all know this already. it’s a weakness that i fully admit to having.

the concept of Truth or Slap i mean why have i not heard of this before

the ghosts, full stop. the whole way they were done was fresh without being incomprehensible or tacky or anything like that. and i’ve got this MASSIVE thing for visual & auditory glitches and this game fucking delivers without becoming eye-blistering or headache-inducing or repetitive or jumpscare-y. the way they modulated possessed!clarissa’s voice added an entire 8 gay years to my life.

and

the cherry on top

the very end of the game. i love that shit. i LOVE that shit!! i am SO about time loops and multiple timelines and the ramifications pertaining to free will and the psychological horror aspect of someone being trapped in a loop and not even realizing it. just temporally fuck me up okay. i’ve said forever that the thing that makes for good horror, in my opinion, is when it suckerpunches you with a subtle implication at the last second, when it leaves you with just enough answers that you feel satisfied but just enough questions that you lie awake wondering. it’s a tough balance to strike and oxenfree does it.

i don’t usually talk about replay value in any of my reviews because, as i already said, i go here for the story and not the button-mashing, and if i like a story of any kind i’ll usually consume it over and over again until i know it by heart (this is an exaggeration) (but only slightly) but here, though, i think it bears mentioning that oxenfree’s replay value is pretty high especially if you’re a storyfucker like me. there’s just SO MANY dialogue choices even though it’s a relatively short game that i think it won’t get stale for quite a while.

i mean, i’m already planning out my next playthrough strategies and i NEVER do that. so far i’ve got:

a route each where i choose only dialogue bubbles of a single color (so, three)

the Silent Treatment route, where i let every bubble fade

the Piss Off The Ghosts And Get Murdered route, including failing all the games

the Fuck Everybody On This Island route, where i guess i’ll deliberately alienate all my friends and sell clarissa out to the nether realms IF I HAVE TO

the shit i do for 100% completion, i swear to god