"Hey, Rayman! Star in my CGI animated circus show! I've heard those are very popular nowadays! I even brought a rabbit!"
I know the actual canon has Ringmaster Rigatoni capture Rayman but it'd be way funnier if little country bumpkin Rayman wasn't taught how to spot a scam by any of his hot nymph moms and was completely suckered into signing up for Circus Hell.
This image was inspired by the Cinemex Caine popcorn bucket, which is the most beautiful piece of plastic I've ever laid eyes on. Look at this thing. Immaculate.
@turqrambles mentioned that Caine gives off serious Mr B Natural energy, and I’m inclined to agree. He would be flouncing around in a powder blue uniform and hiding in lockers trying to force unsuspecting kids to take up the trumpet. You know, the kind of things people do when they have no sense of decency or dignity.
bonus doodle:
And for those who have no idea what the context is.
I kept thinking about how Gooseworx used to make Banjo-Tooie song remixes before making The Amazing Digital Circus so I added a pinch of Caine to Mr. Patch from that game's circus level and now I feel bad for the pitiful creature I just created.
Meet Mr. Patch! Former mascot for a traveling circus, now current ringmaster of Witchyworld. Witchyworld's big problem is a terrible safety record and that's because Mr. Patch designs all the rides with maximum Funocity (his words) in mind but doesn't quite get the concept of people having "bones" or "flesh" since he's a magically animated balloon animal.
Don't worry - only half of Mr. Patch's patches are from people trying to kill him. The other half are colliding with sharp metal light fixtures.
As bad of a father figure Rhoam was, Zelda could always do a lot worse...
The lovely Princess Zelda and her uncle? dad? royal babysitter? legal guardian Chancellor Cole, who is currently running all the government affairs in New Hyrule until she becomes of age and takes a throne left vacant by a tragic illness.
Chancellor Cole is strict, pompous, and mildly unpleasant to be around with his bad temper and off-putting fashion sense but he's also protective. The Princess may not leave the castle except to celebrate wasteful train ceremonies and this is done out of safety. After all, is it not his job as Chancellor to make sure Her Majesty soon becomes the perfect vessel for a new golden age? He's the most selfless human for the role!
You think someone named “Mr. Light” wouldn’t be such a gloomy guy
AAAAAA oh my goodness thank you for this surprise fanart!
It's hard being Polokus's Specialist Boy if you're suffering from years of burnout. Hopefully this doesn't make him easy to corrupt later down the road...
I just stumbled upon your genius Octodad x Help I'm a fish crossover fanart
could we maybe get some more of it (or either of the two) in the forseeable future?
Sorry for the late reply to this, but I'm definitely working on this crossover! It's been one of those things where I have so many ideas that it's a question of what to work on and draw first. There's just so much...
I'll tide you over with some story notes in the meantime.
1. The timeline goes Help! I'm A Fish -> Octodad, with MacKrill and Octodad meeting in the supermarket before his secret got out. They both panic and come with the most logical, truthful sounding lie of "This is my long-lost father, MacKrill", so MacKrill becomes a grandfather overnight. He's delighted and also mildly terrified.
2. Scarlet, Octodad's wife, has already gotten one of Professor MacKrill's previous laboratories shut down with her snooping and investigative journalism and sees him as "a weird crackpot that experiments on fish" so she isn't happy about this revelation that they're in-laws while Octodad starts sweating and worrying that she might connect some dots. Professor MacKrill briefly considers the idea of having one instance of pettiness and being like "Ma'am, are you aware that you're dating an octopus" but kindness wins out.
3. Octodad's family lives down the street to Fly's and was already well-integrated into Bill, Lisa, and Aunt Anna's friend group, with Fly occasionally babysitting for Tommy and Stacy. They just think he's a polite but slightly weird gentleman and a good dad. He watches The Game sometimes with Bill. 8)
4. Stacy and Stella are in the same class. "My dad's an octopus!" "Cool! I was a starfish once!"
5. Stacy is Sasha the seahorse pony's biggest fan.
6. The events of Octodad: Dadliest Catch happen, Scarlet does end up connecting those dots between "my husband is an octopus" and "my father-in-law is a crazy fish scientist", and she immediately hunts that man down demanding answers and it's the second time in MacKrill's life that a mother tried to kill him with his bare hands because what did you do to my husband.
7. "Hey, look on the bright side - you were sorta correct when you thought he was human!" while Octodad hides his face in his hands.
8. Fly and Chuck and the rest of the gang, now that they've also experienced the whole wonders of the fish potion, are also informed of the octopus that lives next door. The surprise is only mild, thankfully. Maybe some jokes of "so HOW many people in our neighborhood are secretly marine life?".
9. Tommy thinks that his dad being a secret escaped government experiment is the coolest thing ever while Octodad is like "somehow this is slightly worse"
10. Oh, and Joe is alive, because these parallels were too good to pass up.
Who would win - a fish who thinks he's a man or man who thinks he's a fish. (Probably the one that befriended the sushi chef)
Mr. Dark, already having doubts about his current career path, learns from an old friend that both him and his most hated adversary share more in common than he would like.
Aka "I wrote this because people kept asking questions about some of the story hints I've dropped here and there with my various Mr. Light drawings and I figured this was the best way to explain what I was going for".
Might be Betilla/Mr. Dark, might be Betilla & Mr. Dark. Friends? Lovers? QPR? Either way the magical polycule is in shambles.
------------
When she first received the letter, Betilla thought that she was invited to the wedding. A small blue bird had fluttered by her window, letter caught in its talons, chirping and singing and doing small flips in the air until she graciously accepted the gift.
Betilla practically squealed with excitement as she mentally made a tally of all the people she knew in her life that would be getting married. How fun! The smell of warm cinnamon sugar and vanilla cake filled her room as she pulled the letter out of its sleeve. The envelope was fancy enough, with its fetching red coloration and the wax seal holding it shut, but then the letter was written on fine card stock with a golden trim and the cursive was meticulously shaped into artistic, tight loops that didn't immediately register as words in her mind.
It's when she focused on the contents on the letter that her heart leapt to her throat.
Dearest Betilla,
Please come to The Tower of Roses at midnight tonight. I desire no quarrel so please come alone.
I have a question I'd like to ask.
Ambrose
That single name – a buried relic of her past - made her cancel all her evening plans, comb her hair, put on a clean set of robes, and then slip out of her house and fly through the forest at fairy speed without telling anyone where she went.
Now, as she stood at some lonely, abandoned ruins in the dead of night, she was beginning to regret her decision.
No one had lived in The Tower of Roses for many years. While Betilla in her stone hat-shaped hut and The Magician in his giant mushroom house both lived in a more populated areas of the Glade, Ambrose’s former place of residence was off the beaten path. Ambrose had liked his solitude; it was hard to practice explosive magic spells if you had a neighbor that objected to their personal belongings exploding in a sudden burst of accidental hellfire. The abandoned wizard tower was now a dark, twisted remnant of its former self, its once elegant structure swallowed by nature’s hungry jaws. Ambrose once kept a beautiful garden of rose bushes that bloomed with vibrant, enchanted flowers. His garden, once his pride and joy, has long since withered, leaving behind tangled, thorny brambles that have sprawled all over the tower walls. The jagged, blackened thorns clawed desperately at stone, threatening to tear the entire structure apart.
She could've refused, she thought as she stood alone outside in the middle of the night. She knew exactly who sent the letter. She could've crumpled it up, set it on fire, screamed every expletive she knew, and tossed it right in the garbage where it belonged. She had no business being here. She shouldn't have even humored him.
But she didn't. Because she was curious, and curiosity was a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Betilla sat down, allowing herself to sink into the soft grass as she rested her back against cold stone. A large tombstone had been placed next to Ambrose's home. Betilla was there at the ceremony when it was first planted in the dirt, the tombstone created right after one of The First Nightmare’s horrid little minions announced the death of their beloved protector to dampen the Glade's spirits and squelch any remaining rebellion. Now, long after the days of The First Nightmare's rule had faded from memory, its inscription was also faded. Ambrose's full name - Mr. Ambrosius Light, The First Hero of the Glade - was barely legible beneath a thick layer of moss and dirt.
She should’ve taken better care of it, she thought, as she looked up at the moons in the night sky. Even if she now knew it was an empty gesture for someone who was very much alive. There was a soft chirp of crickets among the midnight breeze, and, combined with the dark blue of the night sky, made a calming atmosphere that contrasted with the bittersweet nostalgia that this place brought back.
She hated this place. She also missed it. She missed Ambrose. She hated Ambrose. Conflicting feelings went to war in her mind and in her gut.
Betilla took that fateful letter out of her pocket and held it closer to her face. The parchment still smelled of cinnamon and vanilla.
"Betilla..."
She recognized that deep, velvet voice anywhere.
Flustered, she stood up in a rush and immediately shoved the letter in her left pocket. How did he sneak up on her?
"You actually answered my letter. I’m touched.”
A tall, hulking figure draped in a flowing, blue cloak now stood next to Betilla, one gloved hand resting on the tombstone. He towered over her, watching her with piercing, glowing yellow eyes. He was close enough that Betilla could smell a faint hint of - yes - cinnamon and vanilla. Living in a land made out of candy probably saved him a lot in cologne.
"It was the way you ended the letter. You signed it as Ambrose, not Mr. Dark." Betilla answered, keeping her voice as even and as calm as possible. She wasn't going to let her past defeats by his hand rattle her. She was Betilla the Fairy and she was a Guardian of the Glade and Trusted Mentor to Rayman. She was not afraid of any nightmare-poisoned maniacs that were once one of her best friends.
Mr. Dark gave a slight nod, then raised the other gloved hand in the air and snapped his fingers. Immediately, the sound of nighttime insects and birds vanished. The sudden silence was deafening. Dread rose to the back of Betilla’s throat. Memories of her past prison at Candy Chateau leapt to her mind.
'Stupid stupid stupid this was a trap he's going to put me in another cage and set this whole Glade on fire-'
"Sound dampening spell.” Mr. Dark explained before Betilla had any more time to panic. “Nothing we say will be heard by anyone else. I trust you enough to not set up an ambush, but accidents do happen and sound can carry. And I'd rather not ruin your reputation by having the local gossip discover us talking."
"Or ruin yours?"
It was a jab at his new path in life but she could see the smirk reach his eyes.
"Ever thought about fixing this place back up? It seems like such a waste to let it rot."
"Something like that."
Silence fell between them. Mr. Dark's letter was urgent - almost pleading, even - but now that he actually had Betilla's attention, he was suddenly hesitant to take full advantage of that. They were now standing together next to his own grave as equals and, although he tried not to show it, he was a little flustered himself. In all honesty, he had assumed that Betilla wouldn't answer and the question that was plaguing his mind would continue to drive him mad. But now that he was standing here, both him and Betilla, under the watchful eye of his old home, he hesitated. He broke eye contact with Betilla and instead looked back at his overgrown garden.
It was a simple attempt at casual conversation, but the old memories were starting to get to him.
"The arrogant fool who once lived here failed to do his job and had his face stolen by The Nightmare God!" Mr. Dark snapped back, balling his hands into fists.
‘Yes, and after that happened, the arrogant fool became someone even more arrogant and foolish.’ Betilla mentally added.
"Besides..." he continued, drawing idly on top of his own grave with his index finger. "...it wouldn't feel right living next to all of my current adversaries, not after everything that's happened."
"I would if you stopped trying to take over the Glade!" The words came tumbling out of Betilla's mouth before she could stop them. Mr. Dark silently turned to look at her, his expression unreadable.
In that fleeting moment, more than anything, she wanted to grab him by the hands and plead with him, to talk him out of every evil scheme, to appeal to that one remaining spark of light that lay buried in that cold, blackened, hurt soul. We don't have to be adversaries! He could still return to the Glade! All he had to do was say sorry! They could fix The Tower of Roses! They could fix him! Everyone missed him! She missed him!
But she stopped herself in time. She could tell from the look his eyes that any attempt at appealing to any goodness left in his heart would be quickly brushed aside like an annoying mosquito.
"Sorry...you're not here for this."
"I'm not." was Mr. Dark's only answer.
She expected to hear a mocking tone to his voice, a smug reassurance that there was nothing that can stop Mr. Dark from his plans, but he just sounded tired. He turned his head away from her and let the shoulders of his cloak sag. A long, drawn out sigh escaped his throat.
Betilla's face remained neutral but inwardly, she allowed herself a tiny bit of schadenfreude. Why Mr. Dark, after all these years, are you starting to have regrets? Are you starting to feel bad for all the pain you've caused? Have you lost your passion for your work?
Passion...
Betilla's tiny bout of malicious glee soon morphed into pity as she connected Mr. Dark to the person who once lived at The Tower of Roses. Those last few years before he fell to The First Nightmare, Ambrose was doing as little of his work as The Hero as physically possible. Unlike Rayman, Ambrose was shaped as a fully formed but equally limbless adult from the intensity of the sun's rays in the hands of the Bubble Dreamer. He was created for one purpose - to protect the Glade as its sworn hero.
And, for years, he loved this purpose. Ambrose had found joy in his work and awoke each morning at The Tower of Roses with anticipation and meaning. His beautiful golden eyes would light up at the first rays of dawn, his limbless gloved hands moved with confidence as he shaped the threads of magic to his desires, and, most of all, he was driven by a passion that seemed to breathe life into his every day.
She remembered him.
She loved him.
But, in the years before his failed adventure against The First Nightmare, that spark had been snuffed out and replaced by a heavy weariness. His responsibilities became burdens. Like a rose gradually losing its petals and revealing nothing but a stem full of ugly, sharp thorns, Ambrose's enthusiasm - his sense of purpose - wilted away and was replaced with a snarky egotism that made him a chore to be around. Betilla's relationship with him grew strained as The Glade's Hero gave off the impression that he was too good to do all of these meaningless tasks by a bunch of woodland creatures that were beneath him. His pride was beautiful once, but not when it was accompanied by a slow-burning resentment that infected everything he said or did.
Oh, Mr. Dark. When was the last time you felt true happiness?
"So, what do you want to ask? After all, this is what you're here for. You're not here for memories."
Mr. Dark continued staring at the tower in the distance.
"It's about Rayman."
Of course it was, Betilla mused bitterly. Ever since Rayman thwarted his grandiose plans of world domination, he's been obsessed with this notion that if he could destroy this one limbless obstacle, the rest of his plan for total dictatorship would go smoothly. It probably stuck in his craw, knowing that a small child was doing better at his old job than him. Him. Former Hero of the Glade. The Most Powerful Magician That Ever Lived.
"During my last quarrel with that snot-nosed little brat-"
Betilla interrupted, not letting any insult against her ward go down without a fight.
"The time you stole Andrew's chocolate cake recipe?"
Mr. Dark's back stiffened and he shot her a withering glare. Despite herself, Betilla let out a little giggle.
"Yes...that."
"When I last fought Rayman," he shot her a quick look as if to say "look, I can be courteous and use the brat's actual name" before continuing. "I noticed something. I can't pinpoint what it was exactly, but..."
He let out another sigh, as if he couldn't believe the nonsense that was about to leave his lips.
"I saw a little of myself in him."
Betilla suddenly bit her thumb. The panic was returning.
Uh oh.
"And at first I waved it away as Rayman being raised by two people I once knew for decades quite intimately but..." he ran his hands across the sides of his face. "...he resembles me. Or rather, he resembles what I used to be before the nightmares stole my face and poisoned my soul. He looks a little like me and he acts a little like me. It's infuriating."
Then he drew himself to his full height. He glared down at her, his eyes like stars in the darkness of this spring night. He summoned every last shred of his dignity before asking his question.
"So my one question is this, Betilla the Fairy - Did you clone me to make Rayman?"
In any other circumstance this would've been a goofy question - the ramblings of a madman - but instead Betilla froze in place. Her heart began to race. She had been dreading when this question would manifest since the very moment that Ambrose miraculously returned from the dead under a different alias. He was arrogant, yes, but that didn't mean he wasn't observant.
He wasn't far from the actual truth.
"No, he's not your clone...but he is connected to you..."
Mr. Dark narrowed his eyes.
"What do you mean by that."
Betilla took a deep breath.
"When you lost your battle to The First Nightmare, everyone thought you were dead. We were told that you were dead. We…w-we mourned you!"
Despite herself, tears sprung to her eyes. The tombstone that sat next to them was rapidly becoming an overbearing presence.
"Multiple people in the Glade rose up to try to assume your mantle and all of them failed. The First Nightmare's influence had swallowed the Glade whole and The Bubble Dreamer wasn't answering our prayers. All hope seemed to be lost."
She sank to her knees and looked down at the soft grass.
"So we decided to make a new hero...in the same manner The Bubble Dreamer created you."
At the time, it seemed like the perfect gesture of hope. Use the remaining essence of their fallen hero to make a new one. When she stood in the courtyard of The Tower of Roses, pulling every last remaining lum of his magical essence out of the ground, it felt like she was performing his final rites.
But that wasn't enough. She wasn't The Bubble Dreamer. She couldn't just create another copy of him with the gathered Lums. She had to stand at a massive stone altar during The Second Summer Solstice and channel those Lums, spare gathered energy from what hope was remaining in every last tree and pond in the Glade and, yes, her energy into a single crackling ball of magic and opportunity before letting it loose into the sky.
And the spell worked. Sorta. When the orb of light crashed to the ground and exploded in a flare of magic that seared her eyes with its blinding light, what emerged was a hero.
Just a very young one.
A small, limbless child with a big, bulbous nose and soft, golden hair had stared at her from the altar before awkwardly toddling on tiny disconnected feet. Wordlessly, she had scooped up the little creature by its small, potato-shaped body and held them in her hands.
At the time, she was horrified. She thought the spell failed. She wanted a hero to defeat The First Nightmare, not a child. A child meant so many responsibilities and emotional attachments that she didn't exactly sign up for in the war against The Nightmare God. She would need to teach him - to care for him - before sending him to his potential doom at the hands of the same monster that killed his predecessor.
But, in the years between Rayman's creation and his fight against The First Nightmare, he had proven himself to be just the Hero they needed. Light returned to the Glade. The Nightmare finally ended. The Dreamer spoke to them once more.
The Glade just was not expecting the previous Hero to return with a new plan for plunging the land in eternal darkness.
The previous Hero being alive also made Rayman's creation exceedingly awkward when you considered the details. It was meant to be a final act of remembrance for a deceased friend and lover but now...there was an intimacy to Rayman's creation that she didn't intend. The method she used to create Rayman was similar to the way that couples in the Glade created children of their own. Her cheeks burned.
Her greatest act of magic but, in some ways, her greatest mistake.
"Rayman has a connection to you in that, much like he is my child...he is also yours."
By the time Betilla finished her story, Mr. Dark had assumed a sitting position next to her. She still refused to meet his eyes, afraid to see his expression. Was he angry? Sad? Confused? Afraid? She didn't want to know.
Betilla didn't know how long they sat there, but it was long enough that Mr. Dark's sound dampening spell faded away. The gentle song of crickets soon painted the ruins once more. The brambles that gripped the tower gently creaked in the wind.
'Guess we're not so concerned about our public appearance now that we both know that we're parents to the same snot-nosed little brat', Betilla allowed herself to think.
Suddenly, Mr. Dark rose to his feet.
Betilla, fearing the potential retaliation against the messenger, also stood up and braced herself.
No attack came. Mr. Dark didn't fly into a rage or raise his voice, nor did the forest catch on fire. Instead, he merely exhaled the breath caught in his lungs before he removed his hat and looked up at the night sky.
Betilla remembered the first time she saw Mr. Dark's real face. While Rayman was journeying through Candy Chateau in his quest to save both her and The Great Protoon from the clutches of Mr. Dark, her captor had lost patience with her and finally ripped his hat from his head, revealing himself. "What's wrong, Betilla? Don't you recognize your old friend?" he had mocked venomously when she cringed away from him. Then he quickly placed the hat back on his head, quietly signalling to her that he thought himself as repulsive as she did.
When asked about this, about the true form of Mr. Dark, Betilla said that what lay underneath the cloak was a monster. A yellow-eyed monster that resembled a skull with sharp fangs and flesh that resembled spilled ink, of fresh tar, of an oil spill that was also burning with an eternal fire that seemed to flare up from the insides of his head.
The rumors had spread of course. That was the capricious nature of fairy folk. Soon Mr. Dark became known as an amorphous being made of tar and smoke and brimstone and hatred. His reputation as an aberrant husk of malevolence grew. As the years went by, he ceased to be a person in most of the Glade's eyes. He was a nightmare the way Jano was now.
And now, the second time she was looking at Mr. Dark directly in the face, she didn't see a monster.
She saw the tired, marred face of an old friend.
His jet-black hair reflected all the colors in the light spectrum under the moonlight as it billowed behind his head, moving of its own accord. His face still resembled a skull, but not out of nightmarish intentions. She saw that now. It was because the big, bulbous nose that Ambrose once possessed - the nose that was considered a signature trait of his race - was ripped away, exposing his nasal cavity.
The First Hero of the Glade, his face lost to The First Nightmare.
“Well..." the noseless hero said at last, idly feeling the brim of his hat as he looked her in the eyes.
Does your Mr. Dark have a first name or does he just go by Mr. Dark?
He does! His first name is Ambrosius (Am-BROH-zee-us) but he mainly goes by Ambrose (AM-brohz)
Well, at least he used to. He mainly uses "Mr. Dark" nowadays because 1) he has very complicated feelings of whether he still lives up to the "divine" meaning of his name and 2) the title "Mr. Dark" has gained such a reputation that he feels stupid saying "Well it's Mr. Ambrose Dark actually..."
It’s always been my headcanon that Mr. Dark usurped the previous leader of the Candy Château but it’s okay the old one was a jerk according to the citizens (may or may have not been related to Rigatoni).
The clowns actually love him oddly enough. He’s also surprisingly courteous towards them all. Do not let your guard down tho if he needed to sacrifice a number of them for a dark spell he’d consider it thankfully that situation hasn’t escalated to that yet
I was sitting on this ask for a while but I just want to say that I am absolutely delighted by the idea that, in order to get all of the clowns on his side, Mr. Dark first had to go to the circus and defeat the Head Clown in combat and this was a noble act of freedom.
I also love the idea that this previous Head Clown of Candy Chateau might've had a striking resemblance to Rigatoni. Mr. Dark just refuses to tolerate any buffoonery that isn't his.
I got a question about Mr Dark's face: did it change in the moment he became Mr Dark? Or was it later? I remember him looking similar to the likes of Rayman and the Magician before being overshadowed, so what exactly happened?
I need to hammer down the exact sequence of events, but basically this is what happened:
Step 1 - The Hero of the Glade Sir Ambrosius Light - Shining Paladin of The Bubble Dreamer, Bringer of Light, the very embodiment of the Sun Itself - journeys deep into the lair of The First Nightmare after battling his army of terrifying monsters and demands that they do battle to decide the fate of the world.
Step 2 - The Hero of this story battles the wicked cyclops monster...and loses. Horribly and savagely.
Step 3 - Jano decides he's going to be benevolent and spare the life of such an irritating, arrogant little creation of The Bubble Dreamer as it so recklessly bleeds on his beautiful floor of carved bone. But he was also a fledgling God and thus was fascinated with such a protuberant, silly nose. So, like a particularly violent child ripping the legs off of a pretty little beetle, he held him down and tore his face off.
Step 4 - Jano's very nature as the abhorrent new God of Nightmares, a corrupting presence in the very world of dreams that created legions of undead and freaks and creatures in his wake, meant that this vibrant little dream became twisted. Corrupted. On the very spot of his folly. All while the Nightmare God sneered and said "Don't worry, I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself in my brand new world"
Step 5 - ...I'm actually trying to decide whether it's at this point where Mr. Dark flees and hides for a few years or if he was actually imprisoned for a bit while Jano tried to recruit him to his cause, but either way, all of his friends think he died fighting Jano and some years later, that's when Rayman is created and beats The First Nightmare and basically "steals" what Mr. Dark believed to be HIS kill and HIS glory, basically sending him spiraling to the point where he creates a convoluted plan of using The Great Protoon to ascend to Godhood and kill The First Nightmare that way.
To sum it up, yes. He went to fight a God of Nightmare and lost, and losing against a God of Nightmare when you yourself are a very corruptible little dream creation tends to do things to you.
At least he kept his nice hair.
(image on the left by @raygirlramblings because my only drawing has him looking super sarcastic)
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