#average hyperfixation post

SO.

Hollow Knight and Deltarune.

I remember when Hollow Knight was first geting popular, a certain Doku of core!frisk fame introduced it to me back in 2017 and I was instantly hooked, yeah? But, and here's the thing too...

I noticed there was DEFINITELY a fandom crossover that was going on, especially when Deltarune hat first released.

It was slow, subtle, pairing up Kris with the baby they/them it/its that is The Vessel, or Little Ghost, or THE KNIGHT and maybe also some other things here and there, a weird and niche fangame or some written AO3 stuff here and there

It slowly built up though and I feel like the fandom crossover is more prominent than ever with the release of silksong, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing everyone's ideas being put out there for all to see.

ANYWAYS, To get to the point, I've had my own fair share of ideas for a crossover here and there, one of which taking the idea of the Void and the Dark World and kind of blending it together if you will.

It started out as more of a UT/DR crossover with Hollow Knight elements, sort of taking the idea that the Core had begun to malfunction as an inky darkness had begun to seep from its deepest depths, slowly affecting the underground with it.

Overtime, though, and unfortunately as is a trend with my dumbass, the idea slowly fell to the wayside in favor of more analytic comparisons if you will.

Dark Worlds in Deltarune always had this theme of escapism, that despite the good they can give to people like Susie and Kris, they have the potential to bring about destruction, cause The Roaring, snuff out the light above if you will I'd argue that the Void kind of shares that similarity...on its own? It was relatively harmless...albeit still dangerous if messed with. Its a part of the world, an ancient thing that no one but the most knowledgeable of ancient bugs are wary of.

Vessels, too, play an important role in both games - something that special little anon pointed out

Vessels in Deltarune - or really the ones we made - were made to house a SOUL if you will, perhaps to control it much like we control Kris...but perhaps also contain the SOUL, cage it if you will... And Vessels in Hollow Knight were made with the same purpose...except instead of containing a SOUL, they were made to contain a RAGING GODDESS, an angry thing that lashes out from a place no mortal bug could even reach...whose ancient enemy is that darkness that sits at the bottom of the world

Even the thematics between undertale and hollow knight really stick out - I can certainly tell you that people had compared Asgore to The Pale King and recognized that sweet mother of god, the Pale King did so, so much more heinous shit in the name of saving his kingdom. Asgore did NOT do all that much Killing 6 random kids? Try taking 6k of your own kids and throwing them into a battle royale to see who will chicken dinner that shit to victory - AND THEN FUCK UP BECAUSE THE ONE THING THAT'S SUPPOSED TO HAVE NO MIND TO THINK, NO VOICE TO CRY SUFFERING, HAD AN IDEA INSTILLED

THE IDEA OF LOVE, OF PRIDE IN THE GENDERLESS CHILD, MADE TO BE A WEAPON AGAINST A VENGEFUL GODDESS OF LIGHT.

NO COST WAS TOO GREAT - EXCEPT FOR THAT.

I think a LOT of people could work with this material and make some god-tier fiction out of it - art, writing, fan games, you name it. I think its ESPECIALLY the case with Deltarune and Hollow Knight, even MORE SO now that Silksong is out

Between all the tragedy of these mortal bugs, thralled by higher beings that rule over them, of tribes and cultures wiped away by those pale beings that seek to exert their dominance, their worship and their will unto others and compete with other higher beings like creatures in their own ecosystem, far above those poor mortals...

Its simply fascinating, and I'd love to see more come out between these fandoms. Hell we have @lilybug-02 exploring such an idea with Dewi's Adventures (even if that's not a deltarune crossover but FUCK IT its a good hollow knight example and I urge you all if you haven't gotten a look at it to look at it)

Hell, I still have my own idea for simply another Hollow Knight kingdom, a gleaming tower of metal that moves through the sandy wastes, simply known as The Silver Spire - something that's lived rent free in my head for ages and ages to come, and I'll definitely expound on that at a later date.

Take what you will between Deltarune and Hollow Knight, especially with later chapters and Silksong being out. Explore to your heart's content, dig deep into those themes and see what you can bring to the rest of the world, cause I can guarantee you they will be badass as all hell. Give Kris an existential nightmare knowing that the Void eats away at a bug's soul like its a butane fire - empowering the being at the cost of eating away at them until only a soulless husk remains. Give Susie a reason to still stand up for what she believes in even as these Higher Beings - Pale or Otherwise - are intent on their own greater desires. Give the fun gang a reason to reconsider as they learn of these Higher Beings' very human flaws - between the love of their own children overtaking all other instinctual desires, or the guilt they feel in enacting their failed plans...or whatever else

Whatever comes to mind, go for it, and then share it with me and others god dammit so we can all fangirl over this shit like its no tomorrow.

GOD I love discussing the narrative themes that have become ever more prevalent in hollow knight's world with Silksong's release

I'm glad to know that more and more people have picked up on the idea that these pale beings, like Grand Mother Silk, the Pale King, the Radiance, and whoever else may exist are fundamentally representative of the schism between the mortal and immortal of hollow knight's world, and yet Hornet seeks to eschew that heritage of hers - being part Wyrm and part Weaver both in blood and in ideology - in order to seek something better for the world as a whole. 

Like, yes even the Pale King was still in the wrong despite having the ideals of a Philosopher King, seeking to uplift his subjects to have their own sentience in stark contrast to other higher beings like Grand Mother Silk, who only uplifted the Weavers in order to serve and worship her, He still fucks up in the execution of it. He still commits these atrocities, such as murdering hundreds of thousands of his own children in order to save his kingdom, or challenging the tribes of hallownest to settle under his rule unless they prove far too resistant in his domain, even with the erasure of the Radiance's influence within the kingdom being the spark that fuels her wrath against all of those bugs in Hallownest.

To an extent however even the Radiance is flawed, being a Pale Being herself - whereas the Pale King sacrificed his own children, focusing on his ethos of 'No Cost Too Great' (even failing at that because he instills the idea of a familial bond between himself and his chosen vessel), the Radiance essentially goes full scorched earth against the entirety of Hallownest. It does not matter who it was, whether it was the tribes of Hallownest of the uplifted bugs that lived in the Pale King's society or even the animals that dwell within, her influence is a painful, physical manifestation that's almost akin to a holy punishment against the common, mortal bug made physical, mutating them rather painfully into mindless, animalistic bugs - their wills and personalities erased entirely, forced into a hivemind with or without their own consent and made to worship a force that twists their bodies into tools that serve her rage against the now-dead kingdom of Hallownest.

With some reveals in Silksong like Grand Mother Silk uplifting animalistic bugs into what we know today as the Weavers, one could even assume that the Moth tribe that existed served a similar role as the Weavers to GMS - being made only to worship and carry out the will of the Radiance, damn be their own free will or desires.

And then there's Grand Mother Silk 

If the narrative theme of Pale Beings' imperialism and colonialism wasn't blatant enough, the whole of Pharloom suffering what is essentially a tribal erasure by GMS' influence and her followers sure as shit is one big fucking neon sign in its own right. Even the Weavers weren't innocent in this, as once they lulled GMS into her slumber, they still continued to feed the unwitting inhabitants of Pharloom into the religion of the Citadel, where instead of worshipping GMS, its instead worshipping the Citadel and the unknowing assistance in keeping her in her slumber and yet despite the Weavers leaving, those they left in power still continued this religion and these practices, damn be the common bug that is set in blind faith to serve a system that does not benefit them, only those that seek to contain the influence of a Pale Being. Even then, that containment fails and GMS' influence spreads throughout Pharloom specifically because of the actions of the Weavers and those who now run the Citadel, their experiments with silk being their downfall as this slumbering Goddess uses that silk imbued into generations upon generations of bugs into servitude and worship.

Even before that, the tribes that existed were still their own granted, one of those FIVE tribal kingdoms/groups may have been ruled by a tyrant, all of them did not deserve the fate Grand Mother Silk wrought on them not just bringing them under servitude, but wiping out entire environments should they resist. the one that was ruled by a tyrant, Crust King Kahn's Coral Kingdom, was turned into a near dead fucking desert with little remnants of the former environment The mantids of Verdania were ALL but wiped out, and their kingdom wasnt just dismantled, it was fundamentally wiped away from Pharloom entirely, left as barren caves that barely even hold a remnant of their history the Stilkin of Bilewater suffered under the heavy pollution of the Citadel, their lands and waters poisoned to such a degree that whats there now is a terrible shadow of what used to be, and those tribesbugs rage against not just the inhabitants of the citadel, but ALL those who they deem as 'the problem' Even Shellwood, what was once a thriving environment kept under control by Nyleth and her balance of the ecosystem, is now thrown off balance because of the Citadel's encroaching influence The Ant Tribes of Hunter's March may have gotten it easy but if being kept subservient to something like the Citadel and their leader reduced to a shadow of what she once was, is it REALLY getting off easy or is it just another form of control from those high in their ever-expanding kingdom of brass and steam?

And yet through ALL OF THAT We get to see Hornet, born of a Pale Wyrm and Weaver heritage, begin to connect more and more with these common and mortal bugs, especially as she begins to understand more and more the nature of these Pale Beings and their instinctual desire to dominate and claim territory even against each other As she begins to aid in forming communities within Pharloom and eventually seeks to save the kingdom not out of a selfish desire to aid herself on her journey or replace the monarchy of GMS with her own no, its out of a selfless desire to ensure this kingdom and its people survive, that they can rebuild and regrow after all is said and done, ESPECIALLY after GMS is slain and the darkness beneath the world of Hollow Knight itself is beaten back into the depths.

GOD I fucking love Hollow Knight and I fucking love Silksong.

I fucking love these narrative themes that have surfaced to the forefront of this god damn world.

I love the callbacks to blind faith and the follies that it brings, especially between those that were unknowingly fed into this uncaring system of toil and trouble, and those that come to understand it and seek to make something better.

Make no mistake, there IS a real world equivalent between the faith of Pharloom and what we've seen in the real world with that of Catholicism. The religion of Pharloom almost mirrors that of Catholicism in a sense with its reverence to paradise in the form of the Citadel and the sacrifice of work in order to achieve that entrance to paradise, the concept of sin and especially in absolving one's self of sinful behavior.

Granted those themes were in Hollow Knight too, but they weren't as much of a focus as Silksong. The Pale King is still something of a god king in his own right, both he and The Radiance jockeyed for the control of Hallownest through faith even if the Pale King eschewed the idea of blind worship He still suffered his flaws as any other Pale Being like him, but these themes were not as prevalent as that of the Citadel and Grand Mother Silk.

God I really hope we can see more of an analysis of Hollow Knight's world bloom in this fandom with their own takes on these themes and the worldbuilding that's provided to us. It sure as SHIT helps in keeping my own HK worldbuilding project on track and gives me ideas for ways to explore those themes with different perspectives.

Like, especially given the idea of machines and robots actually being canon in the world of Hollow Knight, imagine the kind of shit you could show off in exploring how a sentient machine may find its place in the world. Mechanized bugs constructed with pale steel, given sentience through the soul of god knows how many other bugs - sentient, or sapient, or otherwise. Would they perceive themselves as living beings with their own dreams and desires, given they have a soul that gives them life? Would the higher being in question consider them their children or mere tools of war and industry? Would these machines seek to make better lives for themselves or would they be trapped under holy ordinance from their unseen ruler, never able to spread their metal wings as they're kept in their set roles?

There is so much you could do with ALL that Hollow Knight and Silksong offer and I swear to you all, it is the fuel that will give this fandom the kind of worldbuilding potential that could rival the likes of even Undertale or Deltarune's fandom if you ask me.

I dunno how to really end this rambling yap session here, but all I can say is that please, for the love of all things holy, KEEP GOING WITH YOUR IDEAS HERE! SHARE THEM WITH THIS FANDOM, LET THEM BLOSSOM INTO SOMETHING TRULY GRAND!

So who the fuck is Dark Samus? Or really, WHAT IS Dark Samus??

(Source is from the Metroid Wiki channel on Youtube. I use the original version instead of the remastered because the lighting in the remastered version of this cutscene is a bit fucked despite the better-detailed models. You can see the eye on the palm much more clearly as its pupil dilates to adjust to the lighting of the room. look I'm an autist for these details, I want you all to see them in all their glory as much as I have growing up)

DARK SAMUS My beloved

Dark Samus is more or less part of the "dark doppelganger" troupe in nintendo games, with the important caveat that unlike other such doppelgangers like Dark Link or Dark Kirby from the Magical Mirror games, Dark Samus' originated from the destroyed remains of the METROID PRIME, the final boss of the first game in the Prime Trilogy.

After Samus murders the shit out of the Metroid Prime, it manages to steal the Phazon Suit she used to get into the Impact Crater, which by extension also contained the DNA of Samus. With this, this ressurection of the Metroid Prime, reconstructed using this Phazon Suit and the DNA it acquired became what we know today: Dark Samus, a Metroid Hybrid - the first of its kind, long before Samus would eventually have Metroid DNA spliced into her during the opening events of Fusion.

(Dark Samus' final concept art, found in the Metroid Prime 2 concept gallary)

Dark Samus' design in prime 2 is something I adore to the utmost extreme. Its this wholly-organic Varia-adjacent suit with exposed, dark blue musculature. She has a clawed hand, feett, and an arm cannon too and its visor isn't just a visor but is entirely integrated into her body. In essence, She isn't just a living suit, She has used the Varia Suit as a basis to reconstruct her ENTIRE god damn body, right down to the arm cannon and the pauldrons and the visor too. THIS IS HER ZERO SUIT! So if anyone comes up to you and shows you a picture of Emo Zero Suit Samus and calling it Zero Suit Dark Samus, know that that is FAKE and WRONG and ENTIRELY INACCURATE to the ELDRITCH HORROR MADE REALITY.

Its a shame that the Gamecube wasn't really that powerful enough to truly show off just how organic this Dark Samus design was, especially given the pauldrons have these scrolling phazon textures poking out of the holes in her pauldrons that could really do well with an up-ressing of her model. Hopefully the remaster does this justice. Her morphball form, too, deserves an equal amount of justice given the concept art that exists of it

(Source is again from the concept art of MP2. VERY SPOOKY.)

Anyways, Dark Samus comes equipped with her own arsenal too, uniquely her own with a few exceptions, such as a Phazon Scatterbeam, a thin phazon laser thats almost akin to a more focused hyper beam that Raven Beak uses, an energy shield much akin to the phazon suit she used to reconstruct herself, alongside a ramming attack that's kinda akin to her own shinespark or screw attack (prime style of course), and the obvious Super Missiles and Boost Ball that she has in her first and second encounter. Eventually she'll even gain a Cloaking Field that can only be detected via the Dark Visor or the Echo Visor, and eventually super charging herself to even throw out pure phazon at Samus in her third and final fight.

There was a cut bad ending to Dark Samus' fight where she would have stolen the Light Suit from Samus (to reflect the time she had stolen the Phazon Suit in MP1) and gone off to let Aether get destroyed and

Jesus Christ, I love it.

You can see how it takes direct inspiration from the Metroid Prime as well, given her head and pauldrons have those spikes alongside the red and orange highlights on her armor, but it ALSO has a sort of luminoth inspiration to it too. It has a metallic, shelled sheen to it with two-pronged feet, a sort of completed hand and her arm cannon looking less round and more reminiscent of her Prime 3 design. It would EVENTUALLY see the light of day as inspiration for her overall Metroid Prime 3 design, but I still wish I could model it and bring it to life for other Metroid Fans to use.

In Prime 3, her design is switched again to something more akin to a shelled crab. ...now the Wii's graphics aren't... ENTIRELY REPRESENTATIVE of her design...

It's...not BAD, but you can't really tell if its organic or metallic in nature.

Smash Ultimate does this design justice at the very least. You can tell its more chitinous in nature compared to Prime 3's low-res renders

This has her having a more traditional suit design compared to Prime 2, and while the latter's design will always be my all-time favorite, this one is great too.

In Prime 3 her arsenal is expanded too, as she can control the Phazon on Phaaze to create pillars of the stuff for cover, split herself into multiple copies that act semi-independently of her (dubbed Echoes, funnily enough), She is by all means and purposes - a fucking POWERHOUSE of a creature in her own right.

Eventually she is "permanently" killed off in Prime 3, as confirmed by the director Kensuke Tanabe, but I still have hope that maybe one day she could return later on in the metroid timeline, because god dammit. She was THE ONLY other metroid hybrid in the franchise, right there with Samus as of now. Samus is honestly more closely related to Dark Samus now than she ever has been in the franchise, save for the Phazon mutagen Dark Samus had consisted of.

Hell, there's even a bit of a character arc with her where she started off as the Metroid Prime - this solely monstrous, instinctual creature mindlessly consuming Phazon and assimilating weaponry onto itself, before reconstructing itself as Dark Samus proper - still instinctual in a sense, but with a growing intelligence that really shines in the climax of the trilogy with Prime 3 - leading entire raids against the Federation with Space Pirates and showing a sense of companionship with the other metroids/phastroids she interacted with whiles showing how cruel she could be towards the surviving feddies of the Valhalla.

It's so much so that ever since Dread dropped its been a dream of mine to realize a climatic battle between Metroids.

THE LAST METROID VS THE PRIME METROID

If you will.

GOD, I fucking love Dark Samus. She honestly stacks so high up even against the X as my other favorite metroid antagonist that I wish more was done with her before the eventual climatic ending with Prime 3. I hope this was enough to also gain your interest in this fascinating mutant metroid made humanoid.