Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like “posts that a gnome would make” or like “are you a phone”
Kane Pixels is a genius at whatever his art might be called. Because horror is usually, like, gory ways to die that I didn’t need to know could happen, stupid protagonists making stupid decisions so the stupid plot can happen, horrible things that I don’t want to think about, jumpscares whose only purpose is to cheaply make something scary, etc.
Kane Pixels does none of that. Yet I cannot begin to put into words the fear, the dread, the impending feeling of doom that each of his videos brings me. And strangely enough, the wonderful and unstoppable fascination that grips me every time.
Until Kane Pixels, I never had to physically distance myself from a video in which NOTHING happens. No scary music, no jumpscare, no horrible creature, no blood, no immediate threat.
Guys. His latest video could almost be entirely pitched as: a man walks down a very long stairway.
It’s stupid.
It’s not scary.
I’m barely four minutes in and I had to stop at least three times because it was too much for me.
What was too much? I’m not sure. The atmosphere? The infinite possibilities of what could happen? The strange feeling that something might go wrong, while nothing really hints at anything that could go wrong? How real and casual it looks? The “hell no” I felt at first glance when that stairway appeared? Maybe all of the above. Maybe none.
The craziest is, despite all that, I WANT to know what happens next, and I keep coming back to it until I watch the whole thing. Every time.
And you know what, in any other circumstances, you’d need a pretty fucked up amount of money to convince me to watch horror for a long period of time — movie, series, video game, whatever. I don’t like it, I don’t see the point of it, I have a brain that more often than not gets stuck on “Can you imagine what it would actually feel like? ‘Cause apparently I can and I will share this thought with you!” So yeah, horror is not my jam.
But I keep coming back to his videos because I’m so curious. I’m not even sure this qualify as “horror.” It feels like so much more than that. His storytelling skills are ridiculous. He doesn’t give us much. There’s no need for complex elements. The thing is, it somehow awakens an old instinct from somewhere deep into my brain that tells me “run run run, something’s off, this isn’t right, save your life”, while another part of my brain gets so excited, because “that’s fascinating, I NEED to figure out whatever this is, whatever it means and how it happened.”
His series about the Backrooms is insane, but his other random stuff is also beyond words.
The devil clops up to the register, red eyes sliding from the cartoonish picture of Grimace, to the Coca Cola drying in the grout, to the ketchup stain on your pale blue button down.
“What can I get started for you today,” you prod when he continues to stare.
“Uh,” he says. “I came for your soul?”
Your smile slips for a moment before you can pin it back in place. Thank goodness your manager is on their lunch. “We don’t sell that, I’m sorry. Have you tried a Big Mac?”
“I know McDonald’s doesn’t sell souls,” the devil says. “Your parents sold your soul. Before you were born.”
“Oh,” you say. That would explain…a lot, actually. “Well. I’m at work, so…can you collect later?”
“I’m owed your soul on your 18th birthday,” he says.
“It’s my birthday today?” You glance at the register. “Wow. I forgot.”
“That is so fucking sad,” the devil says. He punched the bridge if his nose. “When is your shift over?”
“3am.”
“Jesus,” the devil says. He turns on his hoof. “I’m going to go buy you a cake or something.”
“Wow,” you say. You press a hand over your heart. “That—that actually would make my week.”
“And that’s sad,” the devil calls over his shoulder. “See you at 3!”
Now you have a reason to look forward to getting off work.
2:30 am rolled in at such a snails pace, but you kept that plastered mask on the whole night.
You had to deal with a rainbow of people all day. From rich kids looking down on you to that poor homeless guy that comes by asking for your stale fries.
Your boss had watched over you and your coworkers and have scolded you a few dozen times for not upselling, or even appeasing the Karen at max volume.
But now you were doing the one thing no one in a McDonald’s would dare do. You cleaned the mc flurry machine. A rare sight to see and probably the only working one in town.
You hear the chime, the chime of dread, your stomach drops, and you fix that mask turning to face the next customer.
Only to internally sigh in relief. Oh good, its just the Devil.
He walks in with what appears to be a medium sized box. He still looked as disgruntled as before. Maybe even more so as he looks around the dingy Mc Donald’s.
“Welcome back! You’re early!”
“Is… that.. a working mc flurry mechine?” He answers instead looking over you. You nod with perhaps a hint of pride.
“Yes Sir! Just cleaned it. Would you like one?” You can see him staring into your soul. Which, you suppose is his soul now.
“No. Just.. be done already.”
You nod to him watching him clop over to a table setting the box down. Huh… your soul is now his? You didn’t have time to think about that.
Your manager pops their head out from the back. “Hey. Josh said he’s gonna be late. Need you to….” you glance over to see your manager staring at the gargantuan devil sitting there. He looks back causing your manager to freeze in horror. You never seen them so pale.
“Your employee quits as of this moment. Figure out your own issues. Leave.” He said with menacing eyes that flash. Your manager turns around and books it to the back, possibly to pray for forgiveness.
You take that as your cue to clock out. You offer a goodbye to your boss but they won’t have any of it.
The devil watches you slip from out behind the counter now with even more distain. Your pants look… questionable.
“How often do you even do laundry?”
“If I can have a day off that doesn’t involve driving my younger siblings to and from their music classes and tutors.”
The devil stares in disgust now understanding what your parents did.
They sold their first born and invested in the younger siblings.
And they say the devil is the worst..
“Just… damnit just sit down.”
You do as he sets out two golden plates opening up the box to reveal a professionally made cake with a black marble icing and gold flakes. Set on top are black candles that’s wax looks to shimmer like a dark rainbow. The flames flicker and crackle shifting from one color to another. Its beautiful.
You don’t know what you were expecting. You almost expected a cheap sheet cake from the store down the street.
“… happy birthday… make a wish I guess… blow out your candle…”
You smile, you make the same wish you made every year. “I wish for a pet.” You don’t say it out loud. It was out of habit even though you know it won’t come true. Least you now understand why.
You blow out the candle and it gives off a sigh like a ghost had escaped your lips.
You watch this soft glowing whisp floats around you while the devil cuts you a piece of cake. You only look back when you hear your fork be set next to your plate.
“Thank you.. its a lovely cake.”
He brushes it off. “Just.. eat.”
You enjoy your cake as he watches. After a moment he speaks.
“Your parents sold your soul to me.”
“Mmhmm..”
“Meaning you belong to me.”
“Mmm”
“In hell.”
When you clear your mouth you reply. “So, what will I be? Burning punished for all eternity? Slave labor? Dealing with karens?”
He stares at you not sure if he should feel impressed or bothered by the fact you just don’t seem that fazed.
“Souls sold to me become whatever I feel like them being. You…” he stares at you as you enjoy more of your cake.
“Your not even fazed by the fact your going to hell.”
You shake your head. Simply enjoying the sinfully delicious cake.
“You could be tasked with cleaning up hell hound shit.”
“Oh! This mean I can see hells good bois??”
“…… you could be handing out toys for orgys…?”
“Sounds like they be having fun.”
“Cleaning up torture chambers?”
“Have you seen the bathrooms?”
The devil takes a breath to compose himself. Mortals these days… whats the point of hell when theres a worse one on earth?
When your full he closes the box, the plate and fork vanish.
“Come with me”
You oblige following him out of the McDonald’s.
He doesn’t even bother asking about if you have a car. He already knew that answer.
“Your going to be one of my messengers to the other realms.”
You blink looking up at him.
“Really? Nothing nasty like the ones you mentioned?”
“Look kid, if you can keep a straight face serving me, practically live like your in hell, and still be the only few willing to keep a mc flurry working.. I’d rather you go deliver things to and from hell to like… I dont know anubis or Hades.”
You follow along your little whisp still dancing around you.
what if the teenage mutant ninja turtles exist in the mcu but they’re just really good at staying under the radar and criminals are too embarrassed to admit they got beat up by some guys in “turtle costumes” so they blame daredevil. peter parker worked as a pizza delivery boy for a while and brought like eight pizzas to a man hole cover but thought nothing of it bc nyc
peter parker: i once was one minute late delivering pizza and the dude was like “forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza”
clint barton: oh cool u met one of the tmnt
literally everyone: who
clint: am i the only one in this goddamn city who knows about the crimefighting turtles that live in the sewers
(they all think clint is playing an elaborate prank on them, especially when he shows them a photo of four guys wearing what are ‘very obviously halloween costumes’)
fun fact: it’s TMNT canon that the chemical container that hit Matt Murdock across the face and gave him his Daredevil abilities is the same canister that landed on the baby turtles and mutated them, so…..y’all aren’t far off
i’m sorry it’s WHAT
TMNT started as a Daredevil parody.
Matt’s teacher is Stick. The turtle’s is Splinter.
Matt’s enemy is the Hand. The turtle’s is the Foot Clan.
It was originally a dark, edgy, turtle themed parody of Daredevil.
I… I don’t know how to feel about this information.
New Ea-nāṣir lore just dropped and I don’t know how to feel about that. I hate the meme but the guy having thugs coming after him for bad copper sales is perfect.
Wait wait WAIT
As someone who hard agrees with all your tags re: tired of the meem
BUT who is also invested in antiquities
Is it possible for you to drop the new lore
So the building in Ur where the infamous tablet was found (1 “Old Street” Ur Excavations VII) was actually full of similar tablets, all detailing how badly this guy’s deals went. All of these tablets were collected and put into storage at the British Museum. Typically this kind of thing gets forgotten about, many of these tablets have been sitting there for a century, untranslated or partially translated.
This was recently partially translated and it’s incredibly fragmentary, but it’s a letter from the man himself reassuring a customer in Larsa about a bad shipment (a lot of goods were missing). He is upset that the customer sent thugs to collect (which is located in a different tablet). In turn, he sends his own to the customer’s home. They are to make offerings at the temple of Šamaš together to symbolically “smooth things over”. They are taking an oath.
He later goes on to blame the customer for the missing ingots. He (Ea-nāṣir) decided to employ a third party to deliver said ingots to the customer (all the way in the next city-state in the Sumerian cultural sphere). It seems like the third party either stole or got into a fight with the customer over the goods.
Ea-nāṣir now has to haul his ass to Larsa to deal with this personally. There’s a lot of “Why don’t you believe me?” “They don’t listen to me!” “Please don’t send-” going on in the tablet. But from what I can gather it looks like this peace offering (making an oath at the temple of Šamaš) broke down too. Everyone is blaming each other for the missing copper ingots and now the man himself has to take the three-day journey to sort out this issue.
We have a name for one of the thugs: Mr. Shorty (kurûm). He seems to be a bit scary.
The man from Dilmun got kicked out of the Merchant’s Guild for a reason, he’s had this problem before with copper shipments from Elam. Either he’s the world’s worst judge of character or he’s embezzling, and badly. This is his side hustle stage where he’s selling everything from used clothing to speculating (badly) on real estate. He may have dabbled in money lending too. He’s your classic failed finance bro.
so as some of u know estonian show ringvaade has this tradition that the winning song of esc will be performed in estonian. this year it was performed by eesti laul 2023 superfinalist ollie. watch till the end for some cha cha cha. (x)
bonus: a reporter from that show liking this tweet
[translation: i like how u can tell that they asked ollie bc he fits to sing cha cha cha but then finland didnt win]
“but shrouded black figures are scary!” not when ur muslim. its the funniest fucking thing. this is labeled on pinterest under shit like “classic horror” “scary phone wallpaper”
but that LITERALLY just looks like a niqabi or someone in a jilbab. Like Look at this pic of me (from a self photoshoot, now w/o the dramatic lighting and dark background)
or this pic of me
or this pic of me
like its so funny i can’t be scared of shrouded figures it just looks like me.
if i saw this i would just be like “Assalam alaikum sister, dope sword you got there”
I mean I think a part of the ‘scary background’ bit is the thing where the individual in question is staring directly at the viewer from a foggy pond in a dense forest. And also the literal burning halo
sounds like a normal Friday night. if a sister wants to go on a walk in the evening who am i to stop her. if she has a burning halo that’s the will of god.