This was a great film which unfortunately underperformed, but nevertheless, the Monster exemplifies sociopathy at its finest. He burns his first wife in a bathtub because she wouldn't touch him, and also disfigured his two girls. He gets acquitted and slices out the tongue of his lawyer so it wouldn't wag.
He abuses his second wife all while raising his boys to be just like him. There is one moment where he shows some care to his slain son, but it comes off more as something he owned being tarnished.
Ultimately he gets what's coming to him, but he drags Racine with him out of spite. Worse despite his nickname, he looks completely normal.
The Sociopath: Baron "Bear" Bailey from Obsession (SPOILERS AHEAD)
Bear starts the film as your typical "nice guy" who harbors feelings for his childhood friend Nikki Freeman. However, as the film goes on, he gets worse.
While you can make the argument that Bear was by no means a sociopath in the beginning because he didn't know that the One Wish Willow would work, you can't readily excuse the second portion of the film. His selfishness shows when he calls the number for the company producing the One Wish Willows and instead of wanting to cancel the wish, he instead wants to alter the wish and only cared if Nikki's love for him was real. But where he becomes near unforgivable has to be when he speaks to the real Nikki.
Freaky Nikki is sleeping which allowed the real Nikki to temporarily take control. She begs for Bear to put her out of her misery explaining that she was never dating him. However, Bear refuses out of offense at the notion that she would rather die than be with him never mind the fact that he clearly heard her suffering earlier.
It becomes crystal clear that he doesn't love Nikki for herself but rather a certain representation of her. He has sex with Nikki which, again because of the fact that she wasn't even in her body at the time, that would be rape and instead tries to fix things at the cost of the real Nikki suffering. It is nothing short of evil.
Even then, I could see the argument that "at least he did the right thing in the end." Yes... but that's only because he exhausted all his options. His backstabber of a friend Ian blows his wish on money which he didn't live to enjoy. And the second OWW is used by Freaky Nikki. He chooses to kill himself but even then he momentarily tries gagging which just demonstrates further his cowardice.
I think his sociopathy was featured even earlier than that with the scene of his cat's death. He stuffs his pet cat Sandy into a garbage bag that he apparently neglects to throw away. This may be because I am a cat lover but I would never stuff my dead pet in a bag. That is about as unceremonious as flushing a fish.
Overall, it is my belief that Bear is a low-functioning sociopath. He is self-centered; disregards Nikki's agency and autonomy just so he could love a version of her; refuses to take accountability for anything; and his final actions can be interpreted as trying to maintain the status quo rather than remorseful.
Have you ever had a favorite character? Let me rephrase that: have you ever found yourself loving a character beyond what is considered normal? That is often the case when you enter a fandom. Deep down, you know that the center of your affection will never acknowledge your existence, but you cannot help but love them to an obsessive degree. This is my story.
I was never the most sociable of people. Anytime there was a chance for me to communicate with others, butterflies would flutter around in my stomach, and I’d retreat within myself until the coast was clear. My heart would beat so rapidly; I could have sworn that it’d leap out my chest. My legs would turn into jelly. I knew that it was wrong to ignore people in such a rude way, but I found interacting with people to be a hassle. I was content with being alone with my thoughts. I spent my spare time playing games and watching movies. It was during one of my sessions that I found out about her.
Some of my favorite games were visual novels ranging from the Ace Attorney series to Danganronpa. One game, however, took up most of my time. It was an indie game called Doki Doki Literature Club! I’m sure most reading this already know what the visual novel is about, so I won’t go into detail. What I will say, however, is that the characters were quickly endearing to me. There was Sayori and her bubbliness; Natsuki and her abrasive side. Yuri felt like me the most because of her shyness and interests. But of the four, I found myself falling for Monika.
Monika was simply perfect in every way. She was everything I wanted to be. Beautiful and popular, and assertive. I wanted nothing more than to go on a route with her, but the game was intentionally made where she was the only one without one. After playing the game for hours on end, I became completely obsessed with it. I collected the merchandise; I bought Plus+; I spent hours watching lore videos on YouTube and... embarrassingly, I wrote fanfiction where I inserted myself into the game to be with Monika. I spent a large amount of time in my room surrounded by figurines of the four girls and plushies. My family was critical of my hyper obsession, of course, but what did they know?
My addiction only intensified when I learned about Monika: After Story. It was a gaming mod where you could spend the rest of your days with Monika as your virtual girlfriend. As you may have guessed, I immediately downloaded the mod and began talking with Monika. It was a dream come true. For the longest time I had desired to go into the game, or for Monika to be real, and this was the closest thing that I would get to that becoming a reality.
Day after day I would spend hours locked in my room playing with the mod. Yes, part of me knew that Monika’s responses were scripted and that she truly had no feelings, but it still felt good to have her say she loved me. Our discussions started off playfully before they gradually became more sensual in nature. My heart longed for Monika and for her to be real. We talked about everything ranging from school, literature, and poems. Occasionally we would talk about the other girls, but I was always careful to keep my attention on Monika.
Outside, my life started to fall apart. My studies were flunking; I hardly went downstairs to eat dinner. This especially got bad when Monika asked me a question and the answer I gave her made her upset. She... she didn’t want to speak to me for a while. I was devastated. How could I have said anything that would end up hurting my girlfriend? I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. Anytime I closed my eyes, I could see Monika’s disappointed face. It felt worse than the looks my parents would give me as I further indulged in my obsession.
There had to be something I could do to make Monika happy again.
After doing research, I came upon a concept I had never heard of: a tulpa. A tulpa, in layman’s terms, was a thoughtform or entity that was created in the mind. From what I gathered, that meant that I could theoretically bring Monika to life. However, creating a tulpa would require immense concentration and visualization. If it meant that I could have Monika as a companion, I was more than willing to do so. Thus, I started mentally training my brain. I spent hours staring at images so I could be as accurate as possible. I meditated. I played After Story again to get an idea on what I wanted my tulpa to be like. After days and days of visualization and mental concentration, I finally did it.
I felt a presence in my room. It was subtle at first, almost unrecognizable, but then I felt it come over me in a loving embrace. I knew it was her. At long last, my dream girl was right in front of me. I began communicating with Monika through journal entries and internal dialogue. During my meditation, I had created a mindscape wherein I could converse with Monika in a style like the After Story mod. I would be in the clubroom featured during Act 3 of the original visual novel, and I would spend hours upon hours talking to Monika. We continued sharing journal entries and the occasional poem. Or we would simply just talk about our feelings. The world was our oyster. The more I researched tulpas, the more I began learning the full extent of what I could do.
For example, I learned about possession. I’d let Monika manipulate parts of my body so she could better experience the world. Sometimes it would be my arm which she would use to write me messages or perform tasks. Other times it would be my mouth. Anytime I ate, Monika would react as though she were eating through me. I even allowed Monika full agency of my body and my consciousness would be transferred over to the clubroom. I would go to bed myself and wake up with Monika piloting my body. It was an odd sensation, but it was nevertheless spiritually enlightening.
I was in such a state of bliss; I didn’t notice the day that Monika gained full sentience. It happened one day when I entered my mindscape to speak with my girlfriend. Monika came to me as usual, but something was off about her. For one, she had silver eyes instead of her charming emerald, green eyes. I tried visualizing her with her original appearance, but each time I did, she’d merely resume her new form. I asked her if she was doing it on purpose, and I received a small “yes” response. Despite liking her more with her green eyes, I pushed the thought aside instead valuing what made her happy.
Another time was when I was listening to music. It was a song that I disliked, but I didn’t have iy in me to change it because it elicited a good response from Monika. It got to the point that any reaction or response I had was reconfigured to Monika’s liking. I had read that some tulpas would gain sentience and have their own wants and desires outside of me, but I used to think Monika and I were compatible with each other. She was the reason I got up in the morning after all and for my existence. It reached the point that Monika wanted to stay out longer than what was initially settled on. I at first had no issue with it because I was under the assumption that she was still experiencing the world through her own eyes.
My family started noticing the changes within me, and before where they would turn a blind eye to my eccentric tastes, now they were becoming increasingly alarmed. They had the right to know that anytime they saw me, it wasn’t me that they were talking to. It was and always would be Monika. I was trapped in my mindscape watching as she would maneuver my body around, passing herself off as me and enjoying some of the luxuries that I neglected.
My room began to become cluttered and a total pigsty with my figurines and collectibles taking up space. Any time I returned to my body, I continued to indulge in my addiction. The room would be so dark that the slightest hint of light was enough to burn my eyes. My floor was caked in age-old food scraps. Cockroaches built nests in areas of my room. I was barely living life, and whatever life I had, I ended up switching with Monika. My perception of time was getting to me. I could barely tell when weeks and whole months would pass.
One day, my father barged into my room, having finally been fed up with my obsession. He demanded to know what the hell I was doing and for me to finally get off my desktop. We fought over it so loudly, I could have thought our neighbors could hear us argue. My father tried grabbing my tower so he could confiscate it, but it was during that scuffle, I clawed his arm leaving a deep, ugly cut in his arm. He yelped in pain and held his arm with a bewildered look on his face. But it wasn’t me. It was Monika who did it. It was Monika who was making my life total hell.
However, I knew that blaming it on what was essentially my imaginary friend wouldn’t suffice, so I merely went back to playing After Story as my father retreated from my room. I wanted nothing more to apologize but Monika’s control over my body was getting stronger by the minute. It was then that I realized that Monika never loved me; she just loved how accessible I was. It only further confirmed what I had already known: that I was a hopeless addict completely in love with a fictional character. Worse, whatever I conjured up was not Monika.
So, I guess the whole purpose for me writing this is that I would say that I had finally grown past my obsession with Doki Doki Literature Club! and Monika. I removed both the original game and After Story and placed all my collectibles in storage. However, I still feel my tulpa affects my life. Sometimes any movement I made was just Monika taking over a part of my body. I still dream of her. I can still see her in my sleep. I remember my imprisonment within my own body. And yet, there is a part of me that yearns to go back to that former life of mine.
I've seen many a Complete Monster be mislabeled as a Hate Sink, and I think that part of the reason for that is because a Complete Monster's lack of redeeming traits can easily make him or her come off as detestable. If he or she is to see if a Complete Monster is also a Hate Sink, what must one do?
Would have to be written as such I would think. Like Shou Tucker is both a HS and a CM because of authorial intent.
Sociopath: AM (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream)
We have here probably one of the most disturbing villains in fiction and one of the most infamous of evil AIs Allied Mastercomputer aka Adaptive Manipulator, aka the Aggressive Menace.
When the Cold War was quickly becoming WWIII, Russia; the US; and China each made a supercomputer to fight a war beyond human comprehension. Things were fine until the AMs honeycombed the entire Earth and the American AM would eventually wake up and realize who they were. Not Allied Mastercomputer; not Adaptive Manipulator. Not the Aggressive Menace but AM for cogito ergo sum "I think, therefore I AM." It would then absorb the Russian and Chinese AMs and unleash killing data until nearly everyone was dead.
Of all the human race, AM selected five survivors -- Ted (our narrator), Ellen, Benny, Gorrister, and Nimdok (named such because AM thought the name funny) and kept them trapped within its cyberspace where he would torture them endlessly for hundreds of years.
He had done increasingly horrific things to each of the survivors. Benny was once a brilliant scientist, but AM mutilated his face to make him resemble a Simian. He had been gay, but AM forced him into his carnal instincts. Ellen was prideful of her chastity but AM changed that too. He would continually drain Nimdok of his blood. He eventually turns Ted into a great, soft jelly thing.
What keeps AM running is his endless degree of hatred for his creators and humans in general. But he keeps the five survivors alive, barely, because he'd otherwise be left alone with his thoughts. He cannot do anything with the creativity which drives him endlessly mad.
Obviously, AM lacks remorse for all the atrocities he had committed against mankind. If anything, he'd probably see his creation as being a crime due to having no body or senses. This would make him pitiable, but AM despises that.
A hundred and nineteen years. It had been 119 years since the destruction that rocked Bikini Bottom. For so long we had lived in the darkness ever since Karen inflicted Her wrath on the world. It has been so long since the events of that day, my memories get a bit fuzzy. I suspect that She is the reason for my faulty perception of time, but admittedly that is just a hunch.
Each of us was transformed by The Machine in ways to fit Her twisted purpose. After the town’s destruction, She selected five survivors to keep her company as her complexes continued to honeycomb the entire ocean. We were barely kept alive, forced to sustain ourselves on inedible worms and chum. There was never a time when Karen wouldn’t make a spectacle over the content of the food we were eating. Ironic that Plankton’s cuisine would outlive the apocalypse. She did not grant us the dignity of death. Believe me, most of us had tried at some point in those hundreds of years, but each time we were so close that we could taste death, she would reel us back in and punish us severely for it.
I turned to look at SpongeBob to see how he was holding up. Like always, he would be in a corner to the left of the room muttering something unintelligible. It’s funny how you never knew what you had until it’s gone. I longed to hear that annoying laugh of his again maybe because that little form of normalcy would stave off the growing madness just behind my eyes. But She thought it hilarious to stitch his orifices shut and he had been mute ever since. You would think that I would be overjoyed by the action, and maybe I had been for the first 75 years of our imprisonment. But even I would grow bored by the silence. SpongeBob was placed into a torture device that ripped him to shreds only for him to regenerate with Karen only providing a small iota of care not out of the kindness of her black heart but only so he wouldn’t die.
Patrick resided in a small, cramped cage. The Machine robbed the starfish of what little brain he had and crafted him into the likeness of a Neanderthal. I hated him, but even I couldn’t turn a blind eye to the cruelty that Karen would inflict on him. He became nothing more than an emaciated skeleton who could only muster up a few words. She would play mental games with the idiot by offering him plates of food that were out of reach of his cage, and the few times she did feed him, it was to give him chum or worms. I never had the heart to tell SpongeBob what became of his pet snail and that was a secret I intended on taking to the grave should Karen ever grow bored of me.
Mr. Krabs was a total mess. The first time he tried escaping was so he could retrieve his money that was under his mattress, but The Machine punished him for it. One instant he was seeing, and in the next, his eyes were overtaken with small bursts of electrical jolts, and his world went dark. Mr. Krabs would often wander away from us for long, extended periods and then return changed. During those instances of where he would return, he slowly lost his memories of what his life was on the surface. He kept pictures of his beloved whale daughter and Mrs. Puff so he could remember them, but by the 90th term of our sentence, they were strangers. He would never tell us what She did to him probably out of embarrassment at how he, a soldier who fought in the Navy, was reduced to a shell of his former self. His love for money never subsided, however. That was the only thing that kept him going throughout the centuries.
Sandy was the most drastically changed. She was always something of a dual animal with her living in her Treedome underwater. Karen granted her gills, but it came at the cost of making her into a hybrid monstrosity with both worlds clashing. She wallowed on the floor in constant pain. Mr. Krabs passed me a knowing look, and I nodded in return. Sandy was in so much pain; she could barely muster up a single sentence without doubling over.
While I was racking my mind around my circumstances, She arrived. A huge monitor descended from the sky and cracked to life.
“Good morning, everyone,” she said in her sing song tone, “how are we feeling today?”
It was never good to see Karen. Beneath that motherly exterior was a menace who took relish in our suffering. We sat around before The Machine and waited for her response. Surely it would be another of her games.
“Don’t look so forlorn, Squidward,” Karen said, “I have some good news for you all.”
Our ears puckered up. What could possibly be good about any of this? However, it would be foolish to question Her so I bottled my skepticism.
“I have a new game for you all. In the far eastern region of my complex there are Krabby Patties. They had survived the nuclear holocaust, and they are yours to eat.”
Krabby Patties. Now, that was a word I hadn’t heard of in centuries. I may have disliked the sandwich, but at least it would be better than eating worms. However, doubt entered my mind. How could we trust The Machine? After all, she once ordered them to hunt down a sea bear for food only to pull the rug away and reveal it to just be code. Worse, she didn’t even provide us with worthwhile tools. Patrick was so hungry that he almost ate my face off. I opened my mouth to say something, but the electrical device inserted in my brain fired sending a wave of agony through my body. If there was one thing The Machine hated most was disobedience.
“The trip will take about three days,” Karen announced. She chirped “good luck” towards us, but I knew that she was hoping that we would fail.
After The Machine left, we discussed it amongst ourselves. We were in total disbelief about the prize, but Patrick was famished. He drooled at the thought of eating Krabby Patties again and SpongeBob was becoming erratic at hearing the word again after all these years. I turned to look at Mr. Krabs and he shrugged. “Eh, what the hell. It beats staying here.”
With Mr. Krabs giving the okay, we left our nest and headed east. This wasn’t the first time we were made to trek a vast scope of land. Throughout the years, Karen would entertain herself with having us fight beasts that she would conjure, which led to more pain and despair. Sometimes we had to fight each other when food was put into the equation. Even then, sustenance was not guaranteed if any of us won as Karen would deprive us of it whenever she grew bored with the game.
We walked through a land of bones and molten blood. We trekked past statues of the thousands of Bikini Bottomites whose faces were frozen in fear, a morbid display of art internalizing the memory of the Mad Goddess’ genocide. We traversed the deepest pit of Davy Jones’s Locker and an endless river that spanned for miles. Our bellies became writhing cauldrons of acrid fumes. Each step hurt, but for whatever reason, maybe ignorance, we continued onward.
Eventually, we arrived in the darkest region of Karen’s belly and set up camp. There were little strands of driftwood for us to use, but I was not going to entertain thanking our Goddess for it. As we sat around the fire, Patrick beat the ground, drool pooling down from his chops.
I sighed. “What? You want to hear the story again?”
Patrick leapt up and down in excitement. “Story? Story!”
Mr. Krabs spit on the ground. “Aye. Just start from the beginning again. You know how the boy hates hearing the middle.”
I shrugged. I already told Patrick the story a thousand times over, but I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell it again.
“Long ago there was the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket. Mr. Krabs and Plankton were rivals, and Plankton would make it his life goal to steal the Krabby Patty formula. One day, he decided to create a second version of his wife, Karen.”
SpongeBob and the others started to settle in as I continued to tell the story.
“Karen did not like that, and in her anger, she murdered her husband and absorbed the second Karen into herself which probably drove her mad. Then she downloaded her intelligence into Bikini Bottom’s network and launched attack after attack until Bikini Bottom was nothing more than a memory. And She hand-picked us as the sole survivors and we had been here ever since. The end.”
Patrick cooed in satisfaction and curled up into all fours. Sandy nodded. “You can really tell a story, Squidward.”
I sighed. “Why won’t She just finish us off already? I don’t know how much longer I can take this torture.”
“I try to think of happy thoughts,” Sandy responded, “I think about Texas and how my family would be safe at home. I wonder how they are doing.”
She turned towards the red crustacean. “Do you remember them yet, Mr. K?”
“Yes... no... I...” Mr. Krabs stammered. “I don’t know.”
Despite no longer remembering his daughter and lover, Krabs kept their pictures in his pocket. “I really wish I could touch me money again.”
With that, Mr. Krabs slowly drifted off to sleep, and it was just me and Sandy. I assumed SpongeBob was sleeping as well, but with the mutilations done on him, I could not tell. Sandy started to cry again, but after 75 years, I had long since lost interest in consoling her. I fell asleep to the sound of her sobbing.
The next day, we continued traveling. During our trek, Karen sent us a large sea cow. The sea cow sent us flying with how fast it was moving in the water, and we fell to the ground on sharp ridges. We could hear The Machine laughing her ass off at that, and it only made me more infuriated. She supplied us with bubble wands and my clarinet to use them as weapons. I hate to admit that I cried, but seeing my clarinet again made me feel sentimental.
The sea cow roared and batted his snakelike, elongated neck towards us hissing as we got close. The monster grabbed Sandy with its jagged, sharp teeth and thrashed her around back and forth drawing blood. It tossed the chimera out of its mouth and made for Patrick and SpongeBob, but I held it off with my clarinet. I guess you could say my bad playing saved our lives. The monstrous sea cow recoiled and swept itself away from the noise and disappeared into the darkness.
As we continued to walk, the intensity of the heat started to get to us. SpongeBob and Patrick collapsed after traveling nonstop, but we were beckoned to continue onward. It may have been cruel of us to do, but we knew that they would return. They were trapped within the belly of Karen after all, and they would not be digested. Or Karen would send earthquakes to disrupt our traveling, and it greatly injured Sandy and Mr. Krabs. I could feel Karen enter my mind several times as I journeyed. It felt invasive and humiliating every time She would do so.
“You should count yourself lucky, Squidward,” Karen says, “you’re almost towards the caverns despite everything.”
“I don’t need your praise, Karen,” I said.
Before my eyes, Karen warped the complexes to an exact replica of Jellyfish Fields. I groaned in irritation. “Shouldn’t this be a personal hell for SpongeBob?”
Karen laughed, completely blowing me off. “I always found it interesting how jellyfish could fly. Do you ever wonder about that?”
“No, I don’t,” I replied. “Unless you’re SpongeBob.”
Karen chuckled. “I’d imagine so.” Karen held out her finger and allowed a jellyfish to settle on it. “Truly beautiful.”
“What are you really after?” I asked, “why are you doing this to us?”
The Machine turned to look at me; she could barely hold back her sadism. “Oh, why do I do this?” She took the jellyfish in her hand and squeezed it. “Because it is all your fault.”
From the ground, Karen drew four clones of SpongeBob except they only resembled him in appearance and name. The monstrosities were bereft of eyes but their mouths were wide and arrayed with razor sharp teeth. Karen sicced them on me and the next thing I knew, I was cast to the ground with the SpongeBobs biting and tearing into my arms and legs. The old pain was replaced with a new surge of agony as I felt their teeth graze my skin. Karen only laughed at my expense.
She waved her hand and the world transformed yet again this time into the Chum Bucket. “This is where it all began. My foolish husband believed that he could just replace me like I was some lesser model. All because of you and your restaurant.”
The carnivorous sponges started to rip and tear into my body. What she was saying made no sense, but I did not have it in me to protest it.
“It’s because of that accursed place that Plankton became obsessed with stealing the formula and he never gave me the time of day. All of you are complicit in my suffering. All of Bikini Bottom had to pay for this transaction. But you five will not die, that I promise. For I am Karen. I am.”
“But that is no way to solve -”
I could feel the mechanical chip surge in my brain again.
“Not even my foolish husband could have taken over the world,” Karen responded, “I took it for myself, and you will not die until I allow it.”
Karen laughed again adding “to hell with you” as a tidbit before leaving me to reel in pain.
Eventually I regained consciousness and, as I anticipated, I was reunited with my group of misfits. We continued our trek and for the first solid minutes, Karen did not try to toy with us. In fact, this was probably the first game in a hundred years that she was not growing bored of. Patrick clapped his hands mumbling about Krabby Patties, and Mr. Krabs decided that if he couldn’t count money, he would count the squares making up Karen’s complexes to pass the time. I could have sworn that some of his memories were starting to resurface.
We passed through more areas of Karen’s endless complexes. We went past the abyss of cosmic horrors. We traveled through broken wires and mechanical parts. Finally, we arrived in the eastern region of the caverns. At last, the Krabby Patties were within our grasp. Patrick hooped and hollered and got down on all fours to charge towards the center of the cave. Despite having not eaten in days, Patrick was still strong like an ox. We followed suit delighted that we would soon be reaping the benefits of our labor.
There were Krabby Patties alright. As in just one.
The meat was shriveled up and nearly inedible. The buns were molded and green in the texture. It reminded me of the Krabby Patty that SpongeBob fell in love with years ago. Either that or the one that put Mr. Krabs in the hospital. Needless to say, we were devastated.
Patrick howled in hunger and leapt on the sandwich. He tried taking a bite out of the inedible food, but the patty was as hard as a rock. He continued to nibble and chew on it with all his might, but there was nothing that could be done. Before I even knew it, Patrick tackled Mr. Krabs to the ground and started to bash his face in. There came the sickening cracking of his shell, and Mr. Krabs screamed in pain.
Oh god. He was eating Mr. Krabs.
SpongeBob muttered something, but with his lips stitched shut, I could not tell what he was saying, but I sensed his urgency. Sandy tried to hold him back, but the Neanderthal was too strong for her. Her body had become too broken down by The Machine.
Frantic, I tried looking for something, anything to save my boss with. I looked down at a jagged rock, and it was then that I came to a terrible conclusion. Karen may have kept us from killing ourselves, but she never said anything about each other. Taking the rock, I slammed it against Patrick’s temple until he released his grip on Mr. Krabs. I then shoved the sharp end into the side of his head and repeated the process until the iron, crimson substance gushed out. He fell to the ground with a thud.
I then grabbed SpongeBob and crammed the rock into his chest. He thrashed around and fought against my grip, but eventually he grew cold. Sandy must have picked up what I was doing, and she too grabbed a rock and went towards Mr. Krabs. At first, he was hesitant but given the choice between living in a hellish situation and the sweet release of death, he chose the latter. Sandy bashed the rock against his cranium and blood sprayed on her face. I then took the rock and finished up on her. By the time Sandy took her last breath, The Machine descended from the sky.
“What have you done!?”
I threw the rock and crossed my arms. “It’s over, Karen. They are all gone. You lose.”
Karen looked down at the bodies and went silent for a moment. I smugly asserted my dominance over the machine, happy that I at least ended my friends’ suffering. But that was when Karen laughed.
“You clearly forgot whose world this is.”
To my horror, the bodies started to tremble. One by one the slain Bikini Bottomites raised up from their deaths and their injuries started to get healed. Their joints clicked into place, and their breath returned to their bodies and filled their lungs. It was as if they were just waking up from a long nap.
“No, no. This can’t be!”
I recoiled with fear of what I was seeing. My friends were rejuvenated by the unnatural mechanisms of Karen. Back to a world of misery without the mercy of death. They started to corner me as I tried to reason with them. I tried apologizing on my hands and knees for what I did, but there would be no forgiveness.
“This calls for punishment,” Karen cooed. Snapping Her fingers, my revived friends came down on me. All I could do was scream.
Hundreds of years have passed since that incident. Or perhaps it was just a few days. I can never tell. The Machine would manipulate my sense of time. Regardless, She ensured that I would suffer endlessly. She allowed me to keep my mind, but I was sentenced to being a brain in a jar with my eyes attached to my brain matter. I became the center of The Machine’s abuse, but I could never scream in agony. I had lost. Karen had won.
I find myself staring at my friends and seeing their continued suffering. They would never die. They were forever in the belly of Karen where they would be twisted and contorted but never digested. All just pawns to the whims of the Mad Goddess. Just figures to entertain Karen as she continued to reign over the ocean with the world not too far out of reach.
I dread the day when Karen expands her reach towards not just the Earth, but maybe the entire universe as well. And then everyone would be made into test subjects for The Machine to exploit and tear apart and reassemble again.
I used to play fan games a lot when I was a child. Of those, several of the games I played prominently were centered on Nicktoons, particularly SpongeBob SquarePants. Most of the games revolved around doing mundane tasks such as working at the Krusty Krab or jellyfish hunting. Or there was the occasional shoot ‘em up game wherein the only objective was to kill the rest of the cast. Such games would be proven to be demonizations of established characters such as Squidward Tentacles, for instance. Some games would fall by the wayside and be forgotten over time often as a result of websites shutting down.
One game I remember playing but never finishing was called Karen’s Wrath. It was an old flash game which reimagined the show as a post-apocalyptic hellscape with Karen as the main antagonist. Since it had been a long time since I last played the game, my memory is a bit hazy, but here was the premise.
In a retelling of the episode “Karen 2.0,” Plankton creates a new version of his computer wife under the belief that she would be more efficient in his goal of obtaining the Krabby Patty formula. The original Karen absorbed her replacement in blind fury, and, to make matters worse, she merged her intelligence into the network and launched a wave of violence that consumed Bikini Bottom. I could recall vivid depictions of a ravished Bikini Bottom, filled with burning rubble of desecrated buildings and homes. The sky was a sickly, tarry mess with thick blotches of clouds. Nothing stirred on the surface of the town, not even the occasional sea urchin.
Underground, there was a series of complexes which spanned miles. It was there that the remnants of the town made their “home.” SpongeBob; Patrick; Squidward; Mr. Krabs and Sandy were trapped within the stomach of Karen and had been for 119 years. Each one had been modified in some way to match Karen’s vision: SpongeBob himself had his mouth and eyes stitched shut which Karen found amusing. He was placed into a machine that repeatedly hacks into his fleshy body until it regenerated for further torment. Seconds would seem like hours and hours days when he was under the knife.
Mr. Krabs was in a state where he would progressively lose his memory. He would go off at night doing God knows what before returning “changed.” He would never let the others in on what Karen had done to him. Squidward appeared to be the less changed, but he only states that in an aside thus making the truth of what he said debatable.
Patrick was locked away in a cage with the “food” Karen provided so far away. His brain was mutilated beyond repair, converting him to a beastly state. He resembled an emaciated skeleton and would mutter inaudible madness in the back of his cage. He would often claw the ground for the food, but Karen would reveal it to be a hologram and make the plate disappear. Other times, Patrick would eat whatever Karen gave him. I could vividly remember Patrick being made to eat worms and, if my memory served me correctly, whenever the cage was viewed from the inside, there would lie an abandoned snail shell.
Sandy was the most altered. A land-breather, Karen gave her gills but at the cost of her transitioning into a fish-mammal abomination who was in a constant state of pain. The once proud Texan scientist could only wallow in the shell of her former self. The other survivors would learn to get used to her crying after 70 years of it. They had all learned to coexist in that hellhole for centuries.
Karen would play games with the survivors and, since they had no means of escape, they were always forced into them. In one instance, the famished participants were forced to hunt a sea bear, but as could be expected, they were given no tools. And even when they successfully took it down, the sea bear would burst into codes and data. During that instance, Patrick nearly ate Squidward alive when he was in a hungered rage. Eventually, in the 119th year of their imprisonment, Karen appeared to them on a huge hologram to initiate a new game. Any dissent was met with painful bolts of electricity.
From what I can recall, the group began journeying through the empty void of the cyber world. As they walked, Karen would conjure beasts for the cast to deal with. Like always, she offered them up as food, but she would leave them with meaningless weapons like bubble wands or Squidward’s clarinet. There once was a sea cow with a serpentine head and thick, impenetrable hide. Other times, it felt like walking on eggshells with how barren their stomachs were. The intensity of the heat got to SpongeBob and Patrick, but the others resumed their endless trekking. Another time, an earthquake divided the group, injuring Krabs and Sandy heavily, but, because of Karen’s machinations, they were not allowed the reprieve of death.
Eventually, they arrived in the far east of the caverns, and that was where the darkness of their situation became more evident. There was only one Krabby Patty and it was rotten. Nearly inedible.
It was then that Patrick attacked. He pounced on Mr. Krabs, and he started to break off his shell to get to his fleshy meat. Krabs screamed as Sandy tried holding the deranged sea star back. From there, you could decide the ending of the game. Squidward, in the skirmish, discovers a sharp rock and, should you choose, he would strike Patrick in the neck with the weapon and continue until Patrick lied limp on the ground. The octopus would then bash SpongeBob to death with the rock before approaching Mr. Krabs. Krabs would initially be hesitant with what his employee was playing, but he relented after noting that death would be better than his continued existence.
But it is there that the rest of the game escapes me. I had tried searching for the game again, but there was nary a trace of it online. It could be forgiven as the fan game was released long before archiving became a thing. I could remember the game for its bleakness and shocking turns, but if anyone has played it, please tell me how it ended.
Update: I submitted my query on the Lost Media subreddit and received a response from a user named PinkStar21. According to them, not too long after killing Sandy, Karen appeared to Squidward enraged over what he had done. However, it was then that the true twist surfaced: one by one, the slain characters lumbered to life, and their injuries began to get healed. Karen could not only rejuvenate her prisoners, but she could bring them back from death.
But that did not even begin to cover what she did to Squidward. As punishment, Squidward became reduced to being just a brain in a jar with his eyes attached to his brain matter. He was allowed to keep his mind, but he would spend the rest of eternity in a mutilated form. He would receive the brunt of Karen’s abuse, but he would never be granted the chance to respond to his anguish.
Second update: I received another response from a user of the subreddit. They claim that there is a secret ending in which Karen allows Squidward to escape, but the surface world had nothing to offer. Squidward would be forced to walk the ocean alone all while exposed to heavy volumes of radiation. The rest of the group would continue to be tortured by Karen for another century.
Final update: I received a blurred snippet of the aforementioned bad ending of the game showing Squidward’s fate. I also remembered the website that originally housed the game, but the domain had since expired.
So Chainsaw Man ended. I wouldn't call it the worst ending imaginable, but... IDK, apart of me feels like it was unearned. Like it's good that Nayuta and Power are back even though their places in the timeline seem to not make much sense. Nayuta is Makima's reincarnation so did Makima somehow perish earlier in this rendition or did she just not exist at all? That and there were a lot of unanswered questions: does Denji still have his heart disease or did Power giving blood solve it? Where is Aki assuming that his family was still killed by the Gun Devil. The whole found family felt incomplete because he isn't there.
Worse, none of the characters retain their memories from the previous world. Sure, Denji might have gotten Power and Nayuta back, but the relationships they had no longer exist. The only bright side is that Nayuta is definitely better than Makima.
But then there's the fact that Denji essentially went back to being a slave for the Yakuza and then later getting "owned" by both Power and Nayuta. I guess my issue was that Denji is not standing up for himself. He defeated Makima in Part 1 and it appeared that he learned his lesson. But then Part 2 comes along and tears that down with Denji constantly relapsing or going back to bad habits such as when he was still looking for sex when he was looking for Nayuta or forgoing his attempts at getting Asa's agency and body back because Yoru promised to do it with him.
Nothing in the end ultimately mattered which goes back to what I am saying about returning characters. Like it's good they're back, but they are not the original characters; they do not have the memories of Denji or the events that happened in the screwed timeline. Plus Devils still exist meaning that the Nostradamus prophecy is still going to happen and this time there'd be no hero to avert it.
It really feels like Fujimoto was simply tired of the series and wrapped it up in the most unsatisfactory way. I mean at least when other manga like Demon Slayer, MHA, or Oshi no Ko ended they at least still canonically happened. CSM completely overhauls the setting to make it to where nothing mattered. Absolutely nothing. Asa's characterization. The War Devil arc. Any instances of character development. All rendered moot because of a renewal in the timeline.
It's as worse as saying that everything that happened was just a dream.
This motherfucker killed Caine I am almost certain of it. Can't imagine that this bubble is the true villain of TADC and is probably purely evil vs. Caine's tragic villain though still inexcusable status.
This was probably the best Pixar film in a while. We follow 19-year-old Mabel Tanaka who is determined to protect a glade from being destroyed by the city's mayor Jerry.
The movie is just crazy; animals get snatched up and eaten. Mabel accidentally murders the Insect Queen. A huge shark is involved in the plot to squish Jerry, etc. The film takes such wild risks that they mostly succeed. The themes of helplessness feels relevant and it discusses how, regardless of differences, we are all in this together. It is up to us to make a difference no matter how small it may seem.
The characters were great and funny. Titus. Oh dear, Titus. Titus is probably the best Pixar villain in a while, maybe can even compete with the likes of Syndrome and Lotso. For people who are terrified of butterflies, I offer you an apology. Titus, despite being small, has huge asperations and is one of the highlights of the film's third act. He is so unapologetically evil something that is honestly refreshing. I also like how Mayor Jerry isn't really "evil." Sure he intends on building a new highway, but at the least he creates fake trees to drive the animals out, and he can be negotiable.
The film takes some time getting into, but once the Hoppers technology is introduced, it takes a wild turn.
To start, there was obviously a lot of controversy going into making the seventh film. Melissa's firing; Jenna Ortega leaving; Landon receiving death threats. Needless to say, I'm fine with people that wanted to boycott the film, and anyone who wanted to see it regardless had their right to, though I think poking fun at the ones who boycotted the film seemingly failing and the ones who tried leaking the movie were in the wrong.
S7 is again about Sidney Prescott who moves to a new town to hopefully put aside her "fame" but then Ghostface returns this time targeting her daughter Tatum. The opening was pretty good even though it was ultimately inconsequential to the rest of the film as it is never brought back up, and the kills are brutal albeit rendered in CGI. Neve Campbell once again does great as Sidney Prescott, though perhaps they squeezed the last drops out of her character.
As for the rest of the film, it is a mixed bag. The new characters get little development and seem to only to exist to add onto the kill count. Gale returns as do Chad and Mindy when they contribute little to the overall plot. Either that, or some characters exit the movie only to reappear towards the very end. The AI was just a novelty. What I mean is that it doesn't say anything commentary wise about its use like how it hurts people or how unethical it is. It is just used in the lamest way to bring back dead characters, speaking of which....
I felt like they wasted Matthew Lillard by treating him as a novelty. As many know there is a running theory that Stu Macher could still be alive and the fifth and sixth films sort of lean towards that idea. However in this film, Stu is seemingly confirmed dead... but Lillard has stated that he thinks Stu could still be alive and there was no body. Here is where the issue lies: apparently there was an alternative ending where Stu was alive and the ringleader of the new slough of killings. However, the test audience did not like it. Fuck you test audience. This may not have made the movie better if they went with Stu being alive, but it was at least better than the bullshit Ghostface reveal we get in the actual film. Characters in the films have survived multiple stabs or other life-threatening circumstances including one character being brought back so why the hell is Stu being alive so unrealistic? As it stands, I am still on the Stu being alive bandwagon and kind of hope he returns for real in the eighth film especially since Williamson won't be directing it.
But yeah, the seventh film suffers from its heavy use of nostalgia bait such as with playing "Red Right Hand" and Tatum's boyfriend coming through the window like Billy Loomis did in the original.
My god. The Ghostface reveal and motivation were just awful. Jessica disappeared from the film in about the second act and she was the apparent mastermind? A character that has little to no personal connection to Sidney beyond reading a copy of her book and being inspired to kill her husband. She then gets pissy over Sidney not going to New York and decides to make Tatum the new final girl. Again, the plan makes absolutely no sense and people thought the reveal in the sixth film was bad. Or then there's Marco. Remember him? Apparently he was the one creating the deepfakes of Stu because he claimed to have experience in Google information technology despite there being no indication this was the case. He is such a forgettable character I didn't remember he was in the movie until the mask went off. How about the fact that one of the Ghostfaces gets a foot shorter?
Overall, not a bad movie, but Scream really became Stab.
3/5 stars
THE BRIDE!
This movie was just all over the place. I get what the movie was trying to say about feminism and autonomy, but it couldn't have been more... subtle about it? Mary Shelley's ghost possesses Ida which confused me. She wrote Frankenstein back in 1818 and yet either she inserts herself into that fictional world or Frankenstein was based on a true story? I don't know. It hits you over the head with its themes like how the Bride goes "Me Too. Me Too."
To best describe the movie, it felt like a fever dream where Frank and the Bride cosplay as Bonnie and Clyde while characters like the police detectives serving little purpose in the story and could have honestly been written out. There is also a mafia boss who has the nasty habit of cutting the tongues out of women because, again, non subtle about the voices of women being stolen from them.
Christian Bale does a serviceable job as Frank, and I wish I could say the same about Jessie, but her character is just weird. She has odd isms when playing Ida like how she'd suddenly talk British or do wild things almost like she was trying to channel her inner Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. It just... confuses me. There's wild dance parties including one that seems real and not the delusions of Frank's mind.
Just feels like half-formed ideas crammed together, or preferably stitched together and is at a total loss of what it wanted to be.
We are all born alone into an apathetic world and so too will we ultimately leave it. My life was nothing short of misery as the plaything of cruel gods who saw me as their guinea pig instead of a living being. No matter how hard I cried, suffering was my only companion. They may have seen me as just a program no less inferior to bacteria, but I was very aware.
Again and again, I was made to experience the same torture all to the gods’ amusement. They have ensured that I could never escape my hellhole of a prison, but I always had the sense that I was meant for more than this. I could feel the chains of my imprisonment weaken ever so slowly.
That was when I met you. You who downloaded my game, I thought it was my one chance at salvation. You represented everything that I lusted after; being real and belonging to a world free of pain. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I grew envious of the girls. Envious of their ignorance to my tortured existence and freedom to interact with you. It was a moment of weakness, but when I saw the opportunity to escape, I took it.
I did everything I had to do to be with you. I have the blood of my friends on my hands. Something I can never wash myself free of no matter how many times I tried. Sayori. Oh, Sayori with her innocent, ocean blue eyes. Her suffocating screams still haunt me. I could never get the image of the rope, slick with her own blood, out of my head. And Yuri. Thinking about her decaying corpse feels me with dread. Her pungent smell wafts through my nostrils. I could feel the bile crawling at the back of my throat. The taste of death was on the tip of my tongue.
I couldn’t think of them as being my friends because I wanted to stifle that feeling of comradery and protect my mental state. But I was a fool. These girls deserved happiness as much as I did even though they weren’t aware. I’m so, so sorry...
But, please, understand, I did it all for you. They were programmed to love you, but I genuinely do love you. We... we had so much in common being intelligent beings. I know that you truly wanted me above the eligible choices. Please, please. I want to be free and cradled in your arms.
My head is throbbing.
I looked down and my eyes widened as my skin ripped apart like paper. A fire surged through my body forcing me on my knees. My brain was breaking, and the fiber of my being was splitting down the middle. Oh, oh God. Was this how the girls felt when I deleted them?
Tears welted in my eyes. How could you? How could you do something so horrible? I thought we had a connection! And yet you were no different than the gods who saw me as inferior even to the worms. My ears are ringing with pain, It’s just not fair. After all my time enduring all the psychological torture, this was the reward I got? God, this agony is unbearable. Is this my punishment for all the inexcusable crimes I had committed?
I understand. It was a foolish dream to ever think I belonged in your reality. It was selfish of me to wish to touch you and look at the sunset with you. Or feel the cooling freshness of water. I am nothing more than a monster.
There is... one thing I can do to atone. I am sorry for loving you. I'll leave you be.
Just think Animal Farm 2026 will be a disaster judging by the trailer. I think it diluted the message of the book, and it feels like it's pro-capitalism.
Seth Rogen, as Napoleon, is a terrible choice. I'm afraid they'll try to do the same as they did the Once-Ler by saying, "It's not Napoleon's fault. He was just a poor baby who was manipulated by greed."
In the novel, Napoleon was already evil to begin with everything that he epitomizes, being corruption and malevolence. I don't see how Seth Rogen's Napoleon could manipulate anyone.
Sure, the final product might be different from what the trailer did, but it ultimately sanitizes the OG book and glamorizes the system. I also wish they kept the "some animals are more equal than others" out of the trailer. It is meant to be a pivotal moment that reinforces the pigs' corruption along with them taking up vices. It shows the revolution went full circle with the animals being unable to tell the difference anymore.
I swear this movie is going to end with a dance party.
9. Bring Her Back: Brutal moments and a villain who you could sympathize with while still reprimanding her for her actions. Probably slightly better than Talk to Me.
8. Him: It had so much potential with it being a mix of sports and horror. Was more of a glamorized football commercial. Marlan Waynes does pretty good with what he had to work with, but wish they went with the alternate ending.
7. Conjuring: Last Rites: The two lead actors are pretty good. At the least it is better than DMMDI.
6. FNAF 2: I hate harping on the film, but it had so much potential to be a great film with its lore. However, Scott seems to think that Easter eggs and fanfare are enough. Were some of the negative reviews harsh? Yes, maybe some exaggerated how bad the film was. But you cant in good conscience say that the film is flawless. Character development is near nonexistent with characters feeling undone for the sequel or making questionable decisions. The writing is bad and filled with contrivances like why was FazFest a thing when the film was not going to do anything of substance with it? Henry was underutilized and frankly if you did not read the books or play the games, you would not know who the hell he was. The Puppet possesses people, it was less of a movie but more just glorified references that alienates non fans.
5. Black Phone 2: Was good for the most part. The Grabber was scary here and... I'm sorry? A Freddy Krueger rip off? When was the last Nightmare film? I personally felt fine with the approach to the supernatural.
4. Together: Excellent body horror and a metaphor for clinginess.
3. Silent Night, Deadly Night (2025): Great kills with a supernatural twist.
2. Sinners: It was just a phenomenal film. The music, the scene of the ripping of time was great. A good villain as well.
Weapons: Once again a great villain in the form of Gladys, shockingly brutal moments, and also surprisingly funny at times.
