Dungeons and Dictions

Overanalyser, reader and writer, animation lover, and Dungeon Master

[dungeons-and-dictions]

How to Name Backrooms Movie Sequels

We could do so much more for sequel titles than Backrooms 2. Backrooms #2 fits the found footage, but it’s still pretty bland.

Backrooms has no-clipping and real-life glitching! To match that with more movies, we can do this:

Backr2ms

Ba3krooms

Back4rooms

[dungeons-and-dictions]

The Async Brochure

Backrooms Movie Spoilers Below

When Phil reveals that Async started as an MRI company, suddenly a lot of weird details in the series and movie alike made sense to me. Maybe there were documents I missed in the series hinting or stating this, but this seems to have been part of the plan all along. Kane excels at details.

In high school, an MRI helped diagnosed a scary health issue I had. It was terrifying to young and very woozy me. Loud whirrs, bangs, and clanks I couldn’t understand, and having to do all I could to stay still.

You have to stay still in order to get an accurate image. Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Otherwise, your movement can blur like a poor photo of someone walking across the room. My original image blurred, because a vein in my arm where they injected dye burst during the MRI.

The still lifes are uncanny valley copies of people. There may be a mix of an individual’s psyche and how long they stay inside, or are in close proximity to, the Complex that determines how accurate their copy is. Memories of Barbara and her photo being inside Cap’n Clark’s may have been all that was needed right next to a null zone, rather than her visiting much at all.

And of course, don’t forget the machine that opened the gate, the Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System. It’s some variant of the real life Large Hadron Colliders. Remember the kaleidoscopic motifs? It all looks very similar to an MRI machine.

This also means the reason we don’t have tons of life forms or still lifes running around is because Async uses hazmat suits - no bacteria gets in or out, and I believe it is standard for hazmat suits to neutralize radiation.

I don’t quite know what it all means yet. Is the Backrooms MRI-esque and responded to the Low-Proximity Magnetic Distortion System, a similar machine in our world? If so, finding the Backrooms’ “core” would give answers.

Either way, keeping a strong magnet on hand when you no-clip in probably helps!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

🔥 Backrooms 🔥

An incredible, record-breaking movie from an incredible YouTube series, FINALLY!

For my fellow horror YouTube fans, this is an even sweeter accomplishment.

Kane Pixels’ Backrooms and Marble Hornets’ Operator are parallels to each other. Unfortunately, Marble Hornets got a movie parallel to its story instead of something that adds to it, and I think that’s the key difference.

But also, I love the social media horror evolution that has got us here. Found footage came from video cameras and the Internet becoming accessible. Analog horror videos came from found footage videos and creepypastas/spooky blogs.

Backrooms uses both, and now the Backrooms movie connects with our humanity through flawed, interesting characters doing the found footage and analog-ing.

I have full confidence that Kane can pull off more Backrooms movies, or a tv series, and of course more of what I know and love on YouTube.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

The Backrooms Movie Trailer!!

I’m so excited for it to come out! I’ve followed Kane Parsons since the first episode. His take on the Backrooms is akin to Marble Hornets’ take on Slenderman - truly adding depth and making it his own creation.

According to a synopsis, a woman therapist has to rescue her client from the Backrooms. No hints as to if this leads to Async, if the client is related to Async, or if this is closer to the events of the first video.

Kane has said it is part of his series. This means the nine levels seen in the trailer are explicitly symbolic, as his Backrooms do not have levels like the video games.

What could these levels mean?

Memory

When you take a photo, it has the best quality it will ever have in terms of pixels. Screenshotting that memory, then placing it in a word file, then saving the image out of a word file as a new image erodes that quality. This is akin to our own memory - ask two people in their 50s about an event they had together, and they will have very different accounts of what happened. As we descend the levels, they demonstrate what the main narrator says:

And the more time it remembers something… the less it does.

Nostalgia

Ask me, a millennial, how important nostalgia is sometime. The second level enlarges the chair, removes clutter, and makes the light and windows more vibrant. We remember fond moments and eras with rose-colored glasses. But as we realize wha was happening around us, the fondness disintegrates and the memories distort.

Loss & Grieving

Common themes for horror, pulling ourselves out of the pits we make to cope or recover is not easy. Perhaps our lost protagonist is using his discovery of the Backrooms to fill a gaping hole, but unknowingly he is falling into a hole he couldn’t see. Sanity has been covered in the series, and perhaps mental decay is symbolized here too.

Hell

The most famous fanfiction ever, Dante Aligheri’s The Divine Comedy, gives us 9 circles of Hell. In numerous YouTube horror media, when the protagonist is stuck in a loop, they do not hunger, thirst, or require other needs for life. It’s an easy callback even to just saying this is beyond logic and what we deem the real world.

Of course, we could be seeing the “rescue from the afterlife” plot here, as the therapist goes after him. If no one looks back when they leave, everyone lives!

Whether I am overanalyzing or not, I’m excited for May 26 and for Kane Parsons’ success! I love my darling YouTube horror series, and having 3 of them come to the big screen in 3 years is excellent!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

I can’t be alone on this now that we have 2 causes of death confirmed in Hazbin Hotel…

[stories-i-guess]

This begs a lot of questions about Husk

[dungeons-and-dictions]

I prefer that he was a casino dealer-turned-magician who was very allergic to cats. After the show one night he went on a bender and took a smoke in an alley. An alleycat scratches him and BAM!

… but he could also just have been a casino “fat cat” left destitute.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Vox is not a team player

IF he teams up, it’s for his ultimate benefit, and he’s always saying “me” instead of “us” as well as generally being dismissive of others.

Except for one time.

And that one time this network host tried to share the spotlight, it spun him into a hate-crush he still can’t get over.

I wonder if these two would’ve been even better than the Vees.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Brighter is a perfect dark villain song

Thematic, dramatic, cinematic, choreographic ✅

It artfully montages Vox’s years of murdering, working, and gaining a following. Notice how his outfit, hair, and pin changes?

Bonus points that his last earthly attire matches his glitzy outfit for this song, cape included!

I also wonder how much of a cult he really had. Vox has apparently always been a clout chaser, easily offended, and master exaggerator and manipulator. It could use totally been him gassing people up when all everyone else wanted was their paycheck and put up with their boss’ eccentricity.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

My favorite S1 tie-in

Given that a snake and soon-to-be fallen angel started the whole Hell thing, it’s really cool to have a redeemed snake teaching an angel about redemption.

[stealthetrees]

They way people talk about Mormons is kinda crazy tho. Like there’s this Christian church whose main thing is that everyone goes to heaven and there’s no hell, and like 90% of them are the nicest people you’ll ever meet but then in this one specific part of the US there’s a bunch of them and they’re a little weird, which is to be expected cause anyone would be if you get all of the same kind of people and put them in a desert. Sometimes you’ll talk to someone that left that church and they’ll claim it’s a cult and tell you all about their childhood and you’re like ‘gotta be honest with you buddy I think your parents and neighbors were just abusing you’.

[stealthetrees]

@mythicalmormon wait come back and explain

[mythicalmormon]

I don't know ALL the details because the Utah Guy™️ in question was a missionary in my ward and thus I was unfortunately not there to witness it. The only reason I heard this story was because he was trying to encourage my little brother and another teacher to go to a dance and actually ask a girl to dance there.

I need to preface this story by saying that this elder is one of THE MOST Utah Guy™️ type of people I have ever met. One of the most interesting people I've ever met, too. Not sure if that's in a good way or a bad way, to be honest.

So basically

Utah Guy™️ liked this girl he was friends with and on occasion he'd drive her home from school. Her little brother was in middle school and so he'd pick him up too. He wanted to ask the girl out, but OBVIOUSLY he couldn't do it in a normie way like asking her if she wanted to go to get ice cream. He needs to have flair. So naturally he gets the genius idea: run over her brother and ask her out while she's in shock.

He asks the brother to help him out with it and of course the brother says yes, he was a middle schooler and middle schoolers don't say no to that sort of thing. So they started practicing running over the brother. Utah Guy™️ figured out EXACTLY how long it took him to brake, EXACTLY when he needed to break to hit the brother but not enough to wound him, EXACTLY how fast he needed to go to make it believable. And the brother figured out how to fall, how to scream, the whole shebang. They practiced it until it was perfect and actually looked like the brother had been hit by Utah Guy™️ as he crossed the road. They even added in fake blood!

When the day came, the brother told the sister that he was just going to walk home so Utah Guy™️ just picked up the sister. Utah Guy™️ acted all normal and was having a conversation with the girl as he drove her home when suddenly the brother came out in front of them. And so of course Utah Guy™️ hit him and then the brother let loose the fake blood all over himself and the car and started screaming and the girl started screaming and Utah Guy™️ started screaming. Then the girl, naturally, got out of the car to help her brother only for the brother to jump up and tell her to go on a date with Utah Guy™️ (I find the outsourcing so funny ngl). The girl was pissed beyond measure with both of them, dragged them both home to her parents who were not informed of the shenanigan, and made sure that her parents yelled at both Utah Guy™️ and the brother. And then, because Utah Girls™️ are also weird, she went out on several dates with Utah Guy™️.

Utah Guy™️ also asked out a girl with oranges. Not in the way you'd think! At all! Because he's crazy! But I'll put this one under the cut so you don't have to be subject to that too

Utah Guy™️ wanted to ask a girl out to prom. But once again he couldn't be normal about it, so he brings a bag of Cutie oranges (wherever you're thinking this will go, it absolutely is not going there) to school and starts handing them to random people and telling them to give them to this one girl. He does it for a solid week until people in the school catch on and start doing it themselves. Allegedly, this girl just kept accepting the oranges (and other assorted fruit) (but mainly oranges) for weeks on end both because she was too nice to tell people no and because people were relentless. And all this time he just watched from the sidelines and didn't even give her an orange himself.

Eventually, they all go on a band trip together to like Cali or something. And people are still. giving. her. oranges. But not Utah Guy™️! And nobody realizes that it was him who started it all. He's just acting all nonchalant about it and being friendly as per usual. On the second to last day of the trip, he buys a watermelon. And then. This MADMAN. Carves it out that night. And puts oranges in it. And a note. Asking the girl to prom.

The next night, he goes over to her hotel room and is like "Hey! I know you've been having way too many oranges lately, so I bought you a watermelon! I even cut it open for you and shrink wrapped it so that it would stay fresh." (of course, the shrink wrap was to keep the watermelon and the oranges inside intact). And the girl was all happy and thanked him and told him that yes, there were so many oranges that they were rotting and she didn't know what to do with them, so thank you for the watermelon :)

She then went back into her hotel room for the night. Utah Guy™️ stayed standing outside her door waiting for the moment of truth. She opens the watermelon. Screams "WHAT THE FUCK". A few seconds pass. She opens the door. And then tells him she'll go to prom with him. Because this man apparently is just that good.

So yes. Utah Guy™️ is somehow charismatic enough to pull both of those off exactly as he planned. Or he's just the Mormon Barney Stinson. And thanks to him being in my ward for nine whole months these stories aren't even the weirdest, most Utah™️ ones I have about him.

@hiseyeisonthesparrow @salubriousbean I DIDN'T LEAVE IT IN THE TAGS THIS TIME

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Are you telling me that for the brief time I lived in Utah during high school, I was mostly unsuccessful in dating because… I just asked people out?? 💀

[dungeons-and-dictions]

I can’t be alone on this now that we have 2 causes of death confirmed in Hazbin Hotel…

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Al fulfilled his S1 finale promise in the S2 finale!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

I’m so psyched to see Vox get plonked again during the finale!

But I am also eager to see anything about Rosie.

I can’t find an instance of magic colored like hers outside of people from Heaven…

Alastor’s seven year break is in line with when Lilith disappeared, and when the exterminations began (btw Sera is in the know about Lilith)…

And the only known Overlord we don’t see Vox attempt to convince is Rosie.

I thought since E4 that Rosie was related to Heaven in some way, and E5 confirmed it. Bonus points if Lucifer and Rosie know each other - we may need to make a a Fallen Angel club!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

11.5/25 down!

Half the season to go 🤞 I hope your bingo card is looking happy too!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

And I got a single extra point last week. 🤞 Here’s to the finale?!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

👀 Can’t hurt sinners, huh?

[dungeons-and-dictions]

11.5/25 down!

Half the season to go 🤞 I hope your bingo card is looking happy too!

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Just a friendly reminder that

THIS

IS

PART

OF

HIS

PLAN

It’s simple, right? Alastor can’t have his full power, so he can’t eliminate a major problem the simple way. But this deal will instigate the conditions needed to potentially free himself without being suspected. And we all know Alastor is a subtle sneak.

Alastor and Rosie are probably searching for what made it possible for Rosie to give such enormous power to Alastor.

I am convinced it is Eve the Big Baddie.

[dungeons-and-dictions]

Speedrunning Villainy

(Spoilers for Hazbin Hotel S2 Episodes 1-2)

Based on just the first two episodes, this season is about all the feels, flaws, and danger. But special honors go to the Vees!! There is something to be said for establishing the villainy level in new ways, with just a few minutes of what could have been a horribly boring meeting.

Valentino - “I was using that,” in reference to the sinner Vox fed to his shark. Dehumanization.

Velvette - full-on Cruella de Ville mode between the Overlord Meeting and the song they’re about to break into.

Vox - confirmed cult leader in life laughs about abuse and implies that it’s okay as long as it isn’t in public.

🚩 🚩 🚩

Once I learned the Vees would be Season Villains, I became super excited to see them fail. After all, their building looks like the Tower of Babel. The story of people who tried and almost got to Heaven.

There likely will not be a Heaven vs Hell war. Perhaps Lute in her grieving will start something, but it will be quelled from both sides given pushback and tensions we are already seeing.

With how so many people are crashing out these first two episodes, we’re dealing with a much more personal conflict than fending off invaders. What happens when the bad guys are your neighbors?

Deradicalizing those who fall to the Vees’ propaganda will have to happen, probably alongside felling the Vees themselves.

The Vees sang their downfall best themselves! Let’s relish in the winding path they take down!