Comments on post #3776358

@NWSiaCB on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-04-05T13:53:37-04:00

By the way, as a response to COVID quarantines, Book Walker is having a "I Couldn’t Go Outside, So I Just Stayed In and Read Light Novels All Day!" campaign where you can read books including Otherside Picnic for free for the month of April, only.

@Elmithian on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-03-06T07:04:49-05:00

Blindga said:

Yes! That's it exactly! It is a very lively genre. It conveys something not quite realistic, but grittier and rougher than other stories.

Zeno Clash is an example of it, although the alien landscapes and truly hideous creatures are a bit more on the side of just absurd in my opinion, and it doesn't quite vibe as well as it could. The themes and overlap with weird fiction are definitely there though! Both Zeno Clash 1 and 2 played together actually makes some surprisingly serious and competent story moments despite being rather goofy looking.

I'll have to see if Dorohedoro is any good though. I've never heard of it.

I won't argue that. Dorohedoro just had an anime, it is the anime that is 3d animated with the lizard man and has this acid trip of an intro. Now that you mention it, it might be in the line between absurdism and New Weird truth be told.

@Blindga on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-03-05T18:46:15-05:00

Elmithian said:

Lived in

Yes! That's it exactly! It is a very lively genre. It conveys something not quite realistic, but grittier and rougher than other stories.

Zeno Clash is an example of it, although the alien landscapes and truly hideous creatures are a bit more on the side of just absurd in my opinion, and it doesn't quite vibe as well as it could. The themes and overlap with weird fiction are definitely there though! Both Zeno Clash 1 and 2 played together actually makes some surprisingly serious and competent story moments despite being rather goofy looking.

I'll have to see if Dorohedoro is any good though. I've never heard of it.

@Elmithian on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-03-05T08:51:38-05:00

Blindga said:
- III -

I do agree with your points (and there is no but...). I sometimes feel like that normal horror fails the realism check for the sake of looking/feeling spooky. New Weird is, as you said, interesting mixture of weird, lighthearted (sometimes), life and death struggles, humour and so on. In short, it is complex and doesn't rely on a singular "genre".

New Weird, when done right, very often feels Lived in. A world you can believe exists, even if it is inexplicably odd, bizarre and so on.

I think a certain game, Zeno Clash I believe was its name? Is a game example of New Weird, though very light on the horror, everything just is... weird, in every fashion and form (I actually often got headaches if I played that game for too long). The world makes sense, while at the same time, it doesn't fully make sense from our perspective. And I believe that new anime (and older manga)Dorohedoro would also fit into the confine of New Weird? Neither are horrors, well, not in the classical sense. They have mixture of lightheartedness and comedy, but still give off that Weird and often dark vibe.

@Blindga on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-03-04T18:51:41-05:00

Elmithian said:

New Weird is more in the faction of making you highly uncomfortable and maybe fearful in a way, but it doesn't try to play on *common* fears. It tries to innovate on the old weird that Cthulhu stories began... well atl that is my interpretation of it.

That's not a bad way to say.

One thing I've learned with fiction, especially speculative fiction, is that there are a lot of different interpretations of one genre. If I say "tell me about sword and sorcery" or "tell me about punk" then you get only one or two common agreements and a lot of disagreements. Weird fiction is a very much a mixed genre, so you can get a lot of varying opinion on what qualifies, and that's one of the things I find so fascinating about it.

In my opinion, one of new weird fiction's strengths/definitions is it doesn't agree to play by anyone's rules. It mixes genres and defies tropes at the risk of being absurd in exchange for being surprising and strange. Horror in particular lies in subtlety and presentation, and understanding the essence of tension. New weird sets up the tension and then takes off the mask halfway through to tell an entirely different story. It uses suspense as backdrop to help tell of impressive foes and brutal alien encounters, or to raise the stakes on an already dramatic and emotional moment. It might still have horror elements, but it is not the focus.

Take something like seeing Alma from Fear versus an anomaly from Stalker and how they are different. Both are modern action shooters where you are a soldier with a gun going into a dark building looking for trouble.

In Fear, Alma appears, the lights flicker, your HUD goes out, and she walks towards you slowly while blood drips from the ceiling, and then she disappears. That is tried and true horror. It sticks to the script and relishes in the tension before backing off and setting the next trap.

In Stalker, you find an anomaly you've never seen, you follow your radar towards an artifact, then suddenly you're being irradiated, lightning is shooting out of the ground, an invisible creature is hurling corpses at you, and you have to get out of there fast before you die fifty different ways at the same time. That is new weird. It starts as horror, but doesn't compromise its narrative to keep being horror, and instead breaks the script to switch to sci-fi action so it can keep on telling you about how desperate and deadly its world is.

Classic weird is even more different. It mixes mythic, noir, and horror with a focus on classical settings and planar travel as opposed to contemporary and punk. The works of Lovecraft come to mind easily enough, and the kind of tension invoked by works such as Fallen London or Alan Wake are very, very different from this story.

@Elmithian on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-03-04T11:43:40-05:00

Blindga said:

I wouldn't say it is itself the haunted house trope. New weird exists and is effective because it goes against our typical understanding and common sense of what horror and speculative fiction are. It doesn't invalidate those tropes though. Things like the popular PT Demo are very much haunted house rides, but those aren't new weird.

There's a little difference between classic weird, new weird, and horror in how they play.

I will need to check out that manga though.

New Weird is more in the faction of making you highly uncomfortable and maybe fearful in a way, but it doesn't try to play on *common* fears. It tries to innovate on the old weird that Cthulhu stories began... well atl that is my interpretation of it.

@Blindga on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-25T08:18:29-05:00

NWSiaCB said:

Basically, the setting of this alternate dimension with hostile alien geometry in a familiar location like an apartment complex is the standard boilerplate trope of what is effectively a modernized version of the haunted house concept, and the twist is that Racoon is too oblivious to recognize what a ghost is, so she's not afraid of the haunted house.

I wouldn't say it is itself the haunted house trope. New weird exists and is effective because it goes against our typical understanding and common sense of what horror and speculative fiction are. It doesn't invalidate those tropes though. Things like the popular PT Demo are very much haunted house rides, but those aren't new weird.

There's a little difference between classic weird, new weird, and horror in how they play.

I will need to check out that manga though.

@NWSiaCB on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-25T01:21:37-05:00

As others have said, this kind of thing is basically a Japanese version of creepypasta similar to SCP.

For those asking for stuff that's like this, Otherside Picnic is a good example. In fact, the opening sequence involves going to the Otherside via a specific combination of button presses on an elevator, where one has to avoid looking at the not-face of the not-people one sees when the elevator door opens or they'll attack.

Basically, the setting of this alternate dimension with hostile alien geometry in a familiar location like an apartment complex is the standard boilerplate trope of what is effectively a modernized version of the haunted house concept, and the twist is that Racoon is too oblivious to recognize what a ghost is, so she's not afraid of the haunted house.

@jongyon7192p on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-17T18:16:53-05:00

https://twitter.com/SteveTheJinx/status/1229430630343036928?s=19
Speedrunning the Mansion (or probably just moments before she dies somehow)

@Estavali on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-15T20:42:02-05:00

DeadW@nderer said:

Got strong SCP vibes from this pool, especially creepier chunk of multidimmensional/sanity-affecting ones. Like 093 ("Red Sea Object"), 450 ("Death Row Block") and 026 ("Afterschool Retention").

This reminds me more of those horror stories about haunted buildings, especially those where the lift would stop/go to certain floor(s) and God help you if you step out of the lift.

@Meddy-san on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-15T19:02:33-05:00

jongyon7192p said:
And specifically, I've yet to find what this is referring to.

This work, also by abubu. It seems unrelated and not that similar. Lacks the "new weird" feel, for one.

@blindVigil on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-15T16:09:24-05:00

jongyon7192p said:

And specifically, I've yet to find what this is referring to.

I assumed that was meant to mean the pool this image is in, with the rest of this series the artist is doing, I couldn't find anything like this elsewhere

@jongyon7192p on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-15T15:35:19-05:00

Thank you I'll check those out! It's something about these visuals that fascinate me. Red lights and static and everything.

And specifically, I've yet to find what this is referring to.

Meddy-san said:

the other eldritch Kemono Friends work

@Blindga on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-12T08:18:58-05:00

jongyon7192p said:

Wait there are MORE works like this?! Can I ask for recommendations? This is so new and fresh to me!

Works like this and the SCP Foundation stories are considered "new weird" fiction. It's the mixture of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror with a focus on contemporary, punk, or modern locations. The Stalker games harken to a lot of new weird tropes. I don't know a lot of manga I'd consider new weird, but if you hadn't read the SCP stories there are a couple of good ones.

@jongyon7192p on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-12T05:04:50-05:00

Meddy-san said:

I found this a bit funnier than I probably should have.
Is this at all related to the other eldritch Kemono Friends work?

Wait there are MORE works like this?! Can I ask for recommendations? This is so new and fresh to me!

@Dudemanguy on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-10T14:59:01-05:00

Meddy-san said:

I found this a bit funnier than I probably should have.
Is this at all related to the other eldritch Kemono Friends work?

We see the crossed-out text again over the entrance to the room on this page, though its meaning is still unknown at the time I'm commenting.

@Meddy-san on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-10T00:41:48-05:00

SPEAK ENGLISH!!

WHO THE FUCK WROTE THIS??

I found this a bit funnier than I probably should have.
Is this at all related to the other eldritch Kemono Friends work?

@DeadW@nderer on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-09T20:34:43-05:00

Got strong SCP vibes from this pool, especially creepier chunk of multidimmensional/sanity-affecting ones. Like 093 ("Red Sea Object"), 450 ("Death Row Block") and 026 ("Afterschool Retention").

@Darkagma on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-09T18:09:10-05:00

I hope the artist continues making more of these.

@sotonya on post #3776358 (common raccoon (kemono friends and 1 more) drawn by abubu)

2020-02-09T08:57:56-05:00

Added some more pages, hope someone will translate