#infodumping tag

[glitchyred3548245]

"(though honestly I have no idea why the implication that SoMS as a cheat code was seemingly created with the express purpose of traumatizing children isn't explored more in the fandom LMAO)" PLS talk more about this

Sure! The thing that always stood out to me about Snow on Mt Silver is the explicit implication from the title that this isn't like, a hack or cursed cheat code made by some weirdo, it's an "Easter Egg". You know, those secrets programmers put into games with the intent of eventually being found?

Creepy Easter eggs are not unusual even in Nintendo games, look at the ghost people throughout Pokémon or Mario Galaxy's Hell Valley Sky Trees, so that sort of thing was probably the inspiration for the phrasing. The thing is Easter eggs are usually some one-off thing that, if it's a spooky one, is meant to creep you out for a minute and doesn't serve much other purpose. Snow on Mt Silver is. Like. A whole Event.

It's definitely possible that whatever it was was scrapped or never meant to be found, given how its unlocked, but why was it ever made in the first place?? Why is it in the game in this hypothetical universe where it exists. What purpose did it serve. Aside from the contents of the Easter egg, it's clear that this has some form of Severe psychological side effects on the people who play it - the narrator's brother was put into a state of severe shock and the narrator themself was traumatized. Gore shit aside, the intense flashing patterns and extremely loud noises bring to mind hypnosis and brainwashing (on top of the obvious threat of seizures). Which again calls into question why this was meant to be found, at some point, by its players - the target demographic of grade schoolers.

I like to put SoMS in the same timeline as Lavender Town Syndrome and Ax Candle Rope even if they aren't really related because it creates this timeline of like. The Pokémon Company experimenting with brainwashing children. Kind of like Polybius. Throw in some other Nintendo creepypastas like Personalized Mario 64 and you can really have a field day with this hypothetical universe where Nintendo is straight up running psychological experiments on their playerbase LMAO

Anyway I like thinking about SoMS's game story in a vacuum as much as the next guy but i really wish people talked about the external story of it more because it has some uh. Implications

[glitchyred-moved]

I'm gonna take a break from drawing but here's some Semicolon related doodles I didn't feel like posting on their own (mostly to do with EXE because he's on my mind)

explanations in order:

1. Since .EXE and Tails Doll are both demons, ones that both prefer to hang out in Sonic games and ones that don't take their jobs particularly seriously, I like to imagine they're... friends? I'll leave their actual relationship up to interpretation, but basically, demons are very territorial, but these two seem to enjoy sharing their territory with each other. The morse code reads "I said no pickles you fucking bastard" by the way

2. Lost (not Gold. Semicolon!Lost is not called Gold) has a lot of acquaintances, but his list of actual friends is uh. kind of funny actually. the left to right order is the order in which he met them. Did you know Lost Silver's story is older than Ben's, and likely inspired it? Now you do.

3. You might be wondering why I refer to Semicolon!Sonic.EXE as just ".EXE". Thats because he's all of them. He's all of the .EXE creepypastas/games. It makes things easier. Out of all the demons in the Mansion, EXE uses his shape-shifting the most liberally. Since Lost doesn't really like to be viewed as scary, .EXE gladly volunteers to play the role in any situation where Lost would be depicted as such. Not because he owes it to him. .EXE just really likes scaring people

[glitchyred3548245]

I think ARGs are a really fun storytelling format that works really well sometimes but I also think it's rarely utilized well. I think a lot of ARG creators get really caught up in trying to be mysterious and unpredictable and end up creating an incoherent narrative. There's cases where that in-and-of-itself is done well, like if a story is Intentionally supposed to be very vague and up for interpretation, but it's clear some of these projects are supposed to tell a complete and concrete story and just like. Do not succeed. Because in the process of hiding everything in coded messages, vague terms and riddles a bunch gets lost in translation and you wind up with a lot of Nothing. ARGs are a format that discourage transparency between creator and consumer so you risk ruining the Vibe and breaking immersion if you're too blatant about correcting or clarifying something

I think games/movies with ""ARG elements"" for lack of a better term fall victim to this the most. Probably the most popular example is FNAF. Because of how FNAF's story is told I don't think we'll ever get a concrete answer on what the story Is from its creators. We're supposed to figure it out ourselves but so much is hidden in codes and symbolism and Easter eggs and references that it's borderline impossible to tell what the story Is. It's impossible to tell when things are retconned or are just references for the sake of being references etc when it's kind of the point that it's creator Won't Tell Us. It would be fine if FNAF's plot was up for interpretation but we've been told multiple times that it isn't, there is a "correct version" of the plot that will still likely go unrewarded should anyone figure it out

So like I enjoy narrative ARGs or stories with ARG elements for what they are. It's a really unique and fun form of viewer engagement that you can't really encourage any other way. But I think way too many people get into them trying to tell one wholly coherent story which isn't really something the medium lends itself to very well - it can be done, but I think there's only a few stand-out examples of it succeeding. It just works better when the story intentionally doesn't have an answer for everything, because otherwise you risk putting your fanbase through an endless goose chase you can barely aid them on

[glitchyred3548245]

Could I ask for some more info on Glitchy Red: Retold? I don't really have a specific thing to ask, so you can just talk about anything you want.

Hi I think this has been in my inbox since I posted a now-deleted thing saying "there is never a bad time to ask me about glitchy red retold". Unfortunately you hit the 0.01% chance of it being a bad time to ask me about glitchy red retold and then I completely forgot about this ask for like forever OOPS anyway I'm here now.

It's a little bit hard for me 2 infodump about things without Direction so here's some random unorganized trivia off the top of my head, some of which is just stuff that would've applied to the semi-canon (stuff that's only canon if you, the reader, want it to be) like the scrapped ask blog and Glitchy Red Reborn;

RED's favorite Pokémon is Charizard by default. If he was from a Blue or Yellow cartridge, his favorite Pokémon would've been Blastoise or Pikachu respectively. In reality he doesn't have a favorite Pokémon, he tries not to feel anything in particular about the Pokémon his players catch anymore

With the exception of background tiles, visual corruptions in the game are shorthand for blood, bruising, and gore. This kid has seen some shit man (also this means that retold!RED isn't . Well. "Glitchy" like people tend to draw og Glitchy. If he was "glitching" he would just be Bleeding lmfao)

RED would not lash out against younger players, even if they used destructive glitches or cheat codes. His quarrel is solely with adults

RED's general awareness and feelings towards his world, while now warped by his sapience, is dependant on how his player feels towards the game. He only started to become jaded and aware of the fact that he was in a game because of his players' growing disinterest and inability to immerse themselves. Theoretically, if someone played his game and made stuff like MissingNo part of the worldbuilding, they wouldn't feel out of place or as scary to him anymore

RED can feel muted physical sensation through the console he is inhabiting. He can feel the warmth of the sun or of the players' hands, and in Reborn the Narrator buys him stuffed animals and he can actually feel how soft they are to some degree. On a surface level this is very creepy but you get used to it

In-universe (not in-game) RED is not the only one of his kind but he is one of the most uh. Developed cases of Pokémon characters gaining sentience . Don't worry about it

Speaking of RED being really fucking weird, he (or his cartridge) is basically immortal. This one Super doesn't apply to the original story if you don't want it to (except for being hinted at; reread the first description of the cartridge again rq. Yeah.) since it can be kind of silly out of context, but it's also the whole basis for the semi-canon. His cart endlessly restores itself from all damage, though only ever to the extent that it's just barely playable. It would eventually be revealed that if RED was ever truly happy and at peace, he would lose his immortality (which is a good thing. He does Not want to be immortal lmfao)

Uhh last thing he's autistic. This is true for every Red ever but I just thought I would canonize this here this one's not optional DJAJDJAJDJ (this would've been explored more in the ask blog and Is explored a bit more in Reborn but because the formatting of Pokepastas is limiting and he's kind of in a Gameboy Game in a Constant State of Being Retraumatized this can't really come across in the og story rip)

AND one quick fun fact : I wrote the ending of the story First. In my notes app on impulse and then wrote the entire story to lead up to That Moment. I just think it's funny because I like NEVER do stuff like that I barely even heavily plan my stories ahead of time

Hope this lightning-round infodump was to your liking!

[glitchyred3548245]

I'm gonna go to bed I'm very tired and have a headache but semi-canon is like . A Philosophy or some shit btw like I've always been really interested in how the creepypasta fandom (and other fandoms that do similar things like vocaloid) will try and fill in gaps in stories with "interpretations" or whatever because the original point of creepypastas of any type was to be short and easy to rattle off and pass around so when a fandom developed for pokepastas and stuff people had to again Fill In The Gaps left behind, either from trimming the fat or the authors just being Children who didn't really know a lot abt world or character building, when writing these short stories

It got to a point where even stories that had extended lore, like Lost Silver Strangled Red and Pokémon Dead Channel would have their canon content completely ignored outside of the original story for Fandom Purposes. And to a point yes this is disrespectfulJBIDJINSJIBD but it's INTERESTING yknow . And so often people wouldn't even READ these stories everyone would just be playing extended games of fandom telephone I remember seeing old fanfics claiming glitchy red took place in a FIRERED CARTRIDGE which was the OPPOSITE OF THE POINT

But anyway as time goes on and pokepastas became more their own Thing stories got longer and more fleshed out . People rewrite their old stories to have Lore and stuff and there's less space . For interpretation for Excessive Canon Divergence that still feels Acceptable if that makes sense. And I think that's fine I know a lot of people in the community like it this way they Like the lack of ambiguity in their stories and people want readers to respect their Canon

But I don't really care for it I liked the original Vibe. I try to be respectful of other peoples feelings and boundaries of course but when it comes to my own stories,,, I like. Compulsively worldbuild and make lore and flesh out characters beyond what happens in canon all the time and I don't expect even my own readers to agree with me. And that's where semi-canon comes in. If it's not Explicitly Stated as Canon in the Original Story then it's up for interpretation. This applies to both Bittersweet and GR:R. Like, if you liked the idea of Sourpatch just painting herself green and don't like the canon explanation - since I never explicitly said How Sourpatch pretends to be shiny In the story then you're allowed to disagree with me! Say she just painted herself shiny all you want. Or if RED being immortal doesn't vibe with how you see the story and characters just Throw It Out The Window it doesn't matter thats Supplemental Lore babeyyyy that's Semi-Canon. As long as you're not doing anything blatantly offensive you are so smart and right and correct etc

Anyway yeah thats all I wanted to say gn

[glitchyred3548245]

lyca | he/she/they | 23 | on indefinite hiatus

Author of Bittersweet, Glitchy Red: Retold, and A Reason to Live

Interested in my Slender Mansion AU? Read all about Semicolon here!

Inbox is always open for general questions and discussion!

[glitchyred-moved]

how many pokepastas are lost media? i remember you mentioning somewhere that there are a lot but im not suuuuper familiar with more obscure ones so i thought i'd ask :P

To be honest, it's kind of hard to know! As a kid I only really liked popular 'pastas, though I know a few people who have talked about Poképastas that seem non-recoverable

A lot of this is because creepypastas, especially ones that used repetitive tropes like video game 'pastas, used to be in a weird state where they were discouraged from being archived. There were no wikis and the stories were typically uploaded on forums like 4chan and Reddit where they would be scrubbed for spam. Those that survived were uploaded to eventually created creepypasta wikis, most of which eventually banned and scrubbed most Poképastas due to their prevalence and tendency to be written by uh . 10 year olds . Add on people who deleted their old stories out of embarrassment or whatever else and you have a lot of unarchived stories and content

More easy to talk about is Recovered media, of which I can contribute to the conversation by archiving the now-deleted official prequel-sequels to Strangled Red (here and here), also worth checking out is the Purin's Lullaby wiki (TW disturbing imagery and for those in the warriors fandom, animator dr/ikinator) which archives an old Pokémon-based DeviantArt/email ARG, most of which has been lost to time unfortunately

[glitchyred3548245]

I know I've been talking abt GR a lot but this morning I'm thinking a lot about ;Blake. The Semicolon version of Snow on Mt Silver is definitely one of the ones with the most liberties taken (though honestly I have no idea why the implication that SoMS as a cheat code was seemingly created with the express purpose of traumatizing children isn't explored more in the fandom LMAO) so ;Blake is a very unique version of his character. I think he's the most tragic "ai turned self-aware" character in the AU. I can't even get into the full details of how fucked up Slenderman is to him without spoiling important plot details, but like. Even in surface level stuff. Blake cannot interact with other people for very long without harming them just by Existing. He's forced to repeat the harm he's caused over and over for Slenderman's amusement (there's honestly very little reason for them to get a gauge on "how much witnesses know", most Reporters are functionally dead the second they're brought in). He's named after the most iconic of the children he traumatized.

But also like. Even through all of this. Through the knowledge that he was created to be a monster, that the people who created his "Easter Egg" had extremely malicious intentions, after being made to torture people for years against his will, and even after all the trauma he's endured, he's still like. Clinging to humanity. Despite everything. He still cares about those he's close to and wants the best for them, and would be fully okay with dying or eternal torment or anything else if it meant his closest friends were able to get out of the Mansion. He wants to hate all of humanity so badly but he can't bring himself to, he feels bad for every person he hurts, even the ones he has to convince himself "deserve it". He wants to hate characters like Steven and Hypno and anyone else who refuses to take responsibility for their actions so badly but he can't make himself, because he understands. Yes he often makes very bad and even downright unforgivable decisions just because of how horrible of a position he's in, but there's no doubt at any point that if he wasn't in the place he is, he would be a good person. Even though he was never "human" in the first place, nothing Slenderman can do can truly wrench the last bit of humanity out of him

Anyway I'm insane