#aster experiences

youtube recommended me a video i really, really enjoy by this youtuber named Mara. it's well over an hour long and she talks a lot about her experiences with outsider art and mixed media, among other things. its worth a watch if you do like long-winded video essays about...STUFF. i guess

thats only partially relevant, though. i bring the video up because within it, she talks about the game in question today, briefly. the visuals struck a chord with me, and the seemingly abstract narrative being more or less promoted my way was very intriguing and had me interested in getting my hands on it.

you already picked up the title from the title of the post but i like using big font!

"Paper Angel," by Slitherbop.

(love that title screen, wow.)

Slitherbop, or, Slither, is a 25-year old surrealist illustrator based in Sasketchewan, Canada, from what his Neocities homepage states. he has an absolute ton of really colorful and trippy art spread out across several pages, but i feel the most of them you'd find on his tumblr page. i'd recommend looking into if you're...well i mean if you're even READING THIS you're prob into the same type shit i be on, yeah. lol. anyway,

Slither has OCs. (commonplace amongst contemporary illustrators online, if you've noticed) One of them, is the focus of the game i'm going to write a lot about.

Spinwhim! (they/them)

(god, look at them.)

taken from Slither's toyhou.se (toyhou.se is more or less an original character database tool that illustrators like to use, a lot, to log their OCs and stuff)

"Spinwhim is a powerful healer and grand storyteller. They’re very kind, outgoing, and wacky. They like to travel all around to help others. Their intense curiosity and passion makes them meddlesome. They can focus and see the world on a cellular level, which is utilized in healing and creating. Good :-)"

they, are more or less the focal point of the entire visual novel. it's a treat that they are, their design is great (much as it does change over the course of the game,) and i generally do like their demeanor and how they interact with me, the player.

speaking of the player, i don't really know who i play as! it's a blank-slate type deal. i speak very vaguely and generally i think im depicted as rather confused seeming/"out-of-it."

competent enough to prepare soup for an ill spinwhim though. OH right. plot stuff. i should get into that-

...well, actually the plot's not really super complex. you're there with spinwhim in this house within this elaborately colorful world and you're essentially nursing them back to health. its said in game you spend about a week with them.

...

i didn't even get to experience the whole week but i just. i have this incredible draw towards them.

it's not really a surprise to me that any motherly (well, or even fatherly) figure with this type of benevolent, reassuring and friendly aura just resonates with me: as i kind of allude to in the preface, i've had familial...struggles in the past and i more or less continue to, especially as it relates to how i feel about my biological parents. its complex and i don't think i could really get into it fully no matter the medium, idk.

spinwhim is just nice to experience speaking to me even if it is confined to the limitations of a RPG Maker VX Ace-created visual novel. (shoutout RPG Maker also, wow, interactive outsider art people love this program a lot i have learned LOL.) as i'm taking care of them, they note how good of a job i'm doing, and even how helpful i've been to the recovery process they're going through relating to the unknown illness they have. i'm even just complimented in general regarding my demeanor and whatnot... i really do wish they were someone i could come to for comfort like i do a fair amnt of my friends, or romantic partners. it would be nice.

what, really sealed the deal, was the twist.

after seemingly, fully recovering from their illness, they're up and at it and in a different fit than normal, to boot. they say they cleared a path to head into town (the whole duration of the game, some apparently severe snowy weather was hitting your gen. location) and that they're excited to go.

they ask me if i want to come with.

so, OF FUCKING COURSE i hit go with. lol

after expressing excitement that i actually did want to go with, they ask me to come closer.

they recount how horrible it was living the way they were, prior. that their head was "caving in" and that they were "boiling" and "lethargic." sounds pretty tough. but after that, they hit me with this revelation:

i was... CREATED???

(the actual verbiage and whatnot they use to talk about everything from this point forward is genuinely just breathtaking also as a side note)

it especially explains the demeanor they've had toward me throughout the game, like i kinda said earlier, very motherly overall. i felt loved. it was sincerely nice. but then it gets even more emotional frm there for me...they say this:

"When I say I want you to come with me, I mean I want to absorb you back into me. You will be returning from where you came. Your thoughts will be my thoughts again, and it will be like a dream to me. It will be wonderful…"

was given a choice.

ONCE AGAIN. OF FUCKING COURSE I HIT YES.

this part just made me tear up a little-the response i got:

"Oh, my beautiful apple. You will no longer live in this confusion of yours. You will be safe."

i basically immediately realized what was happening to me and why it was hitting me so damn hard.

...

it's basically no secret at this point (i make sure its not) that i'm, dissociative. to the extent i fucking formed 10+ people in my head about it. lol. that being said, i'm all-too familiar with what it's like to just be, broken, split apart, fractured.

Its Not Great !

i lucked out, with my system. (there's a lot to it but this dissociative disorder shit can REALLY BE TOUGH depending on a lot of circumstances. well its tough Already, but yeah) i only (at the time of writing) deal with one alter who more or less has it out for me, and the rest of us. that makes it so that i have pretty much 12 additional friends just kind of in my noggin at every given moment. it's pretty cool-things are even such a way regarding how we work that they can just talk to me and my friends rather fluidly. it can result in a lot of shenanigans.

but the road to which led them all to forming was fucking crazy and shitty. i won't go into details i guess here but dissociative disorders are most of the time traumagenic, to give you an idea. its not great, as i said earlier. theres just a lot to OSDD that i don't like, the memory issues i regularly have come to mind, along with me feeling detached from the world, other things. blegh.

that considered along with , complex (negative) feelings abt family shit considered it's probably just, obvious as hell why this scene resonates with me so much.

(had this revelation while getting screenshots for this post but the character they're hugging which i can only assume is the player looks alarmingly like one of my oldest sonas. made everything hit a lil harder for me)

i feel like a broken soul. and i yearn to be whole, again.

i don't think i would have taken up this oppurtunity irl if i was granted it given how much i do enjoy about being my own person who does things and whatnot but the thought lingers. getting to live it out to some degree thru this lil mini interactive artpiece just proved very therapeutic to me. i discovered it very early in the morning, and didnt really talk to anyone about it until after i experienced it. going through all of that solitarily, in my blue-lit room (thank you phillips for the hue bulb. Lol) just did a lot for me. i'm very, very thankful.

(should also note the same day i played the game i also took a phone call frm my mom and we talked about life stuff. it kinda hurt. to quote frm a more primitive form of this writeup "she used to bring me great comfort in my youth, during times i really needed it. complex feelings have led to a rift between us, that she can't even see. that i don't even, know if i want her to see." kinda says everything ig)

it was a nice escape from everything i'm generally going through at the moment, broadly. the process of recovery has proven to be fucking insane and full of all sorts of surprises on top of a very unpleasant yet expected amount of moments ive been faced with my absolutely, less pleasant qualities to my personality and bad habits and such. it sucks, but im at least...well i like to THINK im at least angled toward being better about shit but i don't know. i'm still learning. it's tough and i know i'm not alone when it comes to CPTSD recovery or dissociative disorder coping or bipolar disorder coping or whatever the hell else, but it really just, feels cold and solitary a lot of the time regardless. it's tough. it really is tough.

im just glad i found this little game. any sort of respite that appeals to me to that degree is just very appreciated.

i almost thought it was some strange divine shit going down in my life that led me to even stumbling upon it, the way it hit me. didn't lead to any i guess new revelations about my life or whatever, which is fine!

but. i liked it. it's nice.

i'm grateful. :)

slitherbop, if you're reading this, thank you. sincerely. from the bottom of my heart.

also plz more acid glitch parenting moment's plz (lol)

have you ever heard of the former video-game streamer, azuritereaction?

he was a kinda lower-key figure in YouTube's let's play scene around 10+ years ago, but he made hella rounds being one of the first people to play this, really mysterious japan-only interactive experience for the PlayStation,

"LSD Dream Emulator."

*i really miss when let's plays were like this, for the record.

even within the first part is a lot to take in, for the viewer and also for the player! poor azzy was terrified of this game the entire time he played it on and off-stream. not sure where he is now... i kinda wish he didn't describe the game like he did in around the beginning. there's a lot of details he got wrong, but it's whatever.

anyway, my first seeing this game was pretty non-chalant. i was around 9 years old, was looking for games similar to Yume Nikki (eldest sibling put me onto that), discovered this. hearing azuritereaction talk about the background of the game while the opening FMV played imprinted on me so hard.

the vids in this game are generally so damn fun to watch, i've never seen a game ever try and pull off aesthetics like LSD:DE does.

flashing images warning for the video below.

there's a lot i could focus on regarding breaking down how the game functions and works (dictating mostly just from the wiki page dedicated to LSD:DE, a lot has been uncovered and put on there) and other aspects to the game itself, but the focus of this post for the most part is for me to go on about how this game changed my mind about how art works on a fundamental level.

anyway,

i learned, art doesn't have to have meaning.

i was 9-10 when i figured that out, too! i didn't have "astroblur" as a proper project (in a preliminary, differently named form) but the drive, the motivation to create art for the sake of it was born, sprouted from what was once just me looking at yet another lets play on an earlier version of YouTube.

well, it was LSD:DE and hella of those pictures that'd come up if you googled "Abstract Wallpaper" like 10+ years ago. LSD:DE is moreso a subtle influence on my work regarding my mindset (i'd say i'm more outright inspired by Phosfiend's game "FRACT OSC") but i consider it extremely important to me figuring out that i could quite literally just do whatever, make it look cool and BAM! new art to show to people!!!

i just loved surrealism, and this game was full of it, especially considering in-game events that could occur. one of my favorites is what plays when you interact with the ferris wheel in the "HAPPYTOWN" level.

(song's called Fried Banana, by Osamu Sato. fun fact)

my relationship with visual art and penchant for interactive art was born. i to this day cite LSD:DE as a strong influence regarding my general ethos regarding just throwing cool looking shit at the screen... i really do wanna try to pull off PS1-type graphics with the 3D software i use but i think it won't be easy.

i initially kinda wanted to go on a hunt for weird art from wherever (i guess mostly Japan cause i sure was weeby even as a kid) and i to this Day dream of making an interactive artpiece like how LSD:DE is intended to be. one day ... i'm glad i'd be contributing to an already-existing pool of LSD-likes scattered throughout the interwebs. this game absolutely deserves its cult following.

speaking of, it was news to me (but still somehow not that surprising) that Mr. Sato's intent with this game was for it to be interactive art versus a video game. i heard that he got the idea for LSD:DE while playing a racing game in which he crashed. he liked the idea of the game, progressing and changing, putting you somewhere else, instead of Ending right then and there. this ties into how the game works regarding interacting with objects or the world to be teleported somewhere else (it's called "linking" in game.) LSD:DE doesn't even "end" like how video games generally do, it plays a special ending new years eve FMV and starts you right back at Day 1. there's something profound to me about having an experience like this technically never end.

so incredibly ambitious to have this idea and for it to be executed on PS1 instead of like PC... there IS a PC remake of LSD:DE by Figglewatts called LSD Revamped but that's a whole other tangent.

i'm kinda rambling on and on (i titled the post that after realizing i would just be going on about this game) but i love LSD:DE a lot. one of my favorite aspects of it is how random the game truly is-if you got a bunch of friends to play LSD:DE for like one night and then you guys regrouped a day later, all of your experiences would be pretty different regarding what you saw and how your dream generally played out. between the fact that the game doesn't really end and the RNG regarding so many aspects to how your dreams play out, i... i'm just, shocked. even beyond it being inspiring to me, LSD:DE just blows me away every time i even think about it.

i owe a lot to it.

...