Line #14 WebAnimation/Cyriak


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/drdfdrd_5316.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:The face behind the madness.]]
3
4	Cyriak Harris, or simply "cyriak," is an animator from the U.K. who makes videos which are both incredibly beautiful and bizarre. Harris first gained exposure for his imaginative gif animations on the b3ta message boards, which soon drew a cult following.
5
6	He and his works have been featured in various other media, such as Creator/AdultSwim and the [[Creator/TheBBC BBC Southeast Today]].
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8	His Website/YouTube channel--which he primarily produces his stuff from--can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/user/cyriak here]]. His regular music profile can be found [[http://cyriak.co.uk/music.html here]]. He has also designed several maps for VideoGame/{{Doom}}, including a well-received megawad named ''VideoGame/GoingDown''.
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10	He now has a novel out, called ''Literature/HorseDestroysTheUniverse.''
11	----
12
13	!!Tropes to apply to Cyriak's works:
14
15	* AcidTripDimension: Most of the worlds depicted in his videos.
16	* AlienGeometries: In "cyriak's animation mix" a cow is walking on two parallel planes at once, front legs on lower one and hind on upper one, while said planes are moving in the opposite to each other directions.
17	* AllJustADream: The end of "Breakfast" has the video FadeOut to Richard Massingham sleeping on a bed in the middle of the road, the black car from the dream then drives into Richard and his bed, which is cut off by the "Cyriak 2019" screen.
18	* AliensStealCattle: In ''MOO!'' [[GoneHorriblyWrong It goes horribly wrong]].
19	* AnimalisticAbomination: In a world where everything is an eldritch entity terminally high on acid, most animals are just almagations of their smaller equivalents shaped into what they should be, or sometimes into another animal.
20	* AnthropomorphicFood: "Festive Greetings from Cyriak" features a parsnip that looks like an obese woman's hips and legs. Worse, it's pumping out parsnip larvae!!!
21	* ApocalypseHow: Slam-dunking the moon into a spaceship drilling into Earth isn't exactly the best way to stop an alien invasion.
22	* AwfulWeddedLife: The music video of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKTrEWxsg5k "Betray"]] by the ProgressiveRock band Light. It is about an unhappily married woman who eventually snaps and plots to kill her husband.
23	* BodyOfBodies:
24	** The rabbits in 7 Billion build larger and larger rabbits out of their own bodies. By the end of the video, they're four layers deep - that is, they've built a rabbit of rabbits ''of rabbits of rabbits''.
25	** The cat-creatures in ''Cat City'' start out as caterpillar-like things, but grow legs made out of cat heads.
26	* BodyHorror: '''DEAR LORD.''' Almost every video will have some form of this.
27	** ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQD-N6gkCzQ Indigestion]]'' has this as the entire point, as the camera travels through fleshy tunnel full of teeth and fingers, crablike creatures with a single eye and human fingers for legs, writhing tumors with faces, worms that are made of branched fingers that just keep growing, sphincters made of tongues, and for some reason have teeth with their tongues and eventually teeth becoming duplicates of themselves, and at the end is another mouth that is surrounded by fingers with eyes at the end of them.
28	* BookEnds: "cyriak's animation mix" begins and ends with the same, short, looped-animation sequence.
29	* CheshireCatGrin: Cyriak often has this expression in the videos where he appears.
30	* CuteIsEvil:
31	** "Meow Mix" features cats meowing menacingly in Hell.
32	** "MEOW" is a gory, ultra-violent video about zombie cats taking over a city.
33	* TheDeadCanDance: "RIP" features skeletons rising from their graves to throw a dance party. Even when the party's over, they still keep dancing during their daily un-life.
34	* DemBones: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP-A1s4ikBo RIP]], his 2018 Halloween video, has skeletons. Lots and lots of skeletons.
35	* '''DerangedAnimation''': Cyriak's animation style is instantly recognizable for this very reason.
36	* DrivenToSuicide: All of the surviving cats in "MEOW" kill themselves after realizing that the zombie cats can't be stopped.
37	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His earliest videos, like "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBzuLqp33sM One Million Years BC]]" and "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXli15Q1k-Y star wars out-take]]" are far more ''normal'', [[InvertedTrope making them "weird" compared to the rest]].
38	* EldritchAbomination: '''Everything.'''
39	* EldritchLocation: '''Everywhere.'''
40	* ExplosiveBreeder: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKPhjkw3Y84 7 billion]] has this in spades; it starts out with a single rabbit that splits into two, then they begin spawning more and more rabbits through splitting, budding, ''"birthing" from their backs'' and other surreal methods, which leads to thousands of rabbits swamping the fields. With many rabbits still spawning on the ground, a fluffle assembles in the shape of a giant bipedal rabbit which also spawns more of itself, which in turn repeat the process over and over again throughout the night. Come the next day there is a ''titanic'' bipedal rabbit composed of giant bipedal rabbits. ''And it spawns more of itself''. In the end, these titan rabbits form a colossal regular rabbit composed of countless rabbits that hops offscreen.[[labelnote:Trivia]]The video description says Cyriak intended to reach 7 billion rabbits to reflect the world's population, but he lost count at around 400 million.[[/labelnote]]
41	* EyesDoNotBelongThere: '''Almost omnipresent in his works''', especially the creatures in "Something," which look like 1950s people with excess eyes and mouths.
42	* FrivolousLawsuit: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAvS1ndtEKg Because]]" ran into legal issues on [=YouTube=] for a time to see if Cyriak had the rights to use a photo in the video. The photo in question? A picture of '''his own face.'''
43	* {{Gorn}}: "The Spirit of Christmas" features it courtesy of an [[BadSanta utterly monstrous Santa]], and "MEOW" features it with [[CuteIsEvil utterly adorable]] [[SugarApocalypse zombie cats]].
44	* HumongousMecha: In the form of a bipedal cow made from the shards of buildings and built by another building that was converted into a giant speaker by the cable-like udders of a giant, mutant cow. This robot cow then fights a giant alien mining robot and destroys it by [[ColonyDrop slamming the Moon down on top of it]].
45	* KillerRobot: "Chimpnology" features a [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie giant chimpanzee made of typewriters]], which eventually goes berserk and starts eating the normal chimpanzees working on it.
46	** The cows in "MOO" build one out of skyscraper debris to fight off their alien would-be captors.
47	* LighterAndSofter: Cyriak has a [[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLChO4VMLd0BDlMB1TqgC4c78rFLzxXZ24 playlist]] of all his videos that are, as he put it, "safe(ish) for small children". For instance:
48	** While he always retains his highly detailed image-manipulation animation style, many of his music videos for various other artists tend to be much less surreal and creepy. His video of "Yellow Bridges" for El Ten Eleven, for instance, focuses solely on leaves and trees, [[TheWorldIsJustAwesome and it becomes]] ''[[SceneryPorn gorgeous]]''.
49	** While [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKPhjkw3Y84&feature=em-uploademail 7 billion]] still contains adorable bunnies morphing. It's probably the tamest out of all of Cyriak's videos compared to "Moo!" and "Beastenders."
50	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP-A1s4ikBo RIP]] is one of Cyriak's gentler videos, despite its description and graveyard setting. The skeletons in the video throw a dance party and all seem to be having a great time, and the music sounds very joyous and energetic, giving the animation a positive vibe. There's still a good amount of BodyHorror, but the fact that the characters are already skeletons makes it less disturbing. Overall, it can remind one of ''WesternAnimation/TheSkeletonDance''.
51	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u08E7c-FRbU HONK]] consists of a goose whose body morphs, but it is not as disturbing as some other examples.
52	* MickeyMousing: Features a lot in his later works, but especially his music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLxPIOxgkM0 "The Existential Threat"]] by Music/{{Sparks}}, in which everything bounces to the music, including paving stones and buildings.
53	* MonkeysOnATypewriter: His video "Chimpnology" appears to be based on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem "Infinite Monkey Theorem,"]] with a room full of chimps chugging away on typewriters who create a HumongousMecha that devours half the room.
54	* MoodWhiplash: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKJCIeozQ8 Here]], in honor of UsefulNotes/ElizabethII, Cyriak ages her picture from her young self to her old self [[spoiler:to her dead self]].
55	** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EZZhmNPGv8 a Christmas message from Cyriak]]."
56	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtkd_mlhfRU After Effects crashes in the middle of one of Cyriak's livestreams]]. The video glitches out, creepy things happen, and all the layers eventually get deleted. [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Cyriak, alongside deformed versions of himself, walks out into the field while wearing a deranged grin on his face]].
57	* {{Narcissist}}: According to Cyriak himself, "My Territory"'s surreal imagery is meant to symbolize narcissism and self-worship, hence making the titular "territory" out of the human body.
58	* NoEnding: PlayedForLaughs in "Because". It simply {{Smash Cut}}s during the middle of a continuously-escalating animation and soundtrack to the sole credit screen.
59	* TheParanoiac: The protagonist of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLxPIOxgkM0 The Existential Threat]] lives in constant fear of an ill-defined "existential threat" that is pursuing them and is certainly about to catch them. Of course, in the video, these fears are [[EldritchAbomination justified.]]
60	* RealityIsOutToLunch: Happens often, the most infamous example being in "Malfunction."
61	* RealityWarper: The little boy in "Boogie Maths" warps reality with his dancing, causing his body to distort and demonic clones of himself to emerge out of his mouth. Eventually, everyone melts and his head explodes.
62	* RecurringElement:
63	** Cats and kittens.
64	** Cows. And cows and cows.
65	** Robots and machinery, particularly in the form of animals.
66	** The Queen, as an EldritchAbomination. Patrick Stewart, as well, [[MesACrowd often many of him]].
67	** Spiders, and different creatures looking like spiders.
68	** 50s-60s surburbia, starting at 2011 or so.
69	* RecursiveReality: Often combined with SerialEscalation in visually amazing ways. "7 billion" involves rabbits getting together to form larger rabbits getting together to form larger rabbits...
70	* SignatureStyle: Heavy morphing, weird loops, generous amounts of BodyHorror, and just plain all-around weirdness.
71	* SpidersAreScary: "Cobwebs" features a bunch of nightmarish spider-like creatures, some of which are made from ''human body parts''.
72	* SurrealHorror: This is his bread and butter. Some of the surrealism is PlayedForHorror.
73	* SurrealHumor: Also his bread and butter. Other times, the surrealism is weird enough to be funny.
74	* SweetSheep: Cyriak manages to make a twisted take on this trope. "Baaa" starts out focusing on an adorable little lamb running in a pasture. However, said lamb quickly morphs into bizarre creatures and clones of itself. At least the lamb's cute "baa" at the end of the video is sweet to watch.
75	* ThoseTwoGuys: In "My territory," there are two "blokes" that appear several times that are the artists behind the music: Grand Popo Football Club.
76	* TooManyMouths: The creatures in "Something" have excess eyes and mouths.
77	* UncannyValley: Most of the animations' absurdities come from using real-life photos and how "off" the animation flows. Everything ''looks'' real, at least until something moves.
78	* UncommonTime: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavUpD_IjVY cows & cows & cows]] is mostly in 6/4 time, but there's a segment in the middle which uses 7/4.
79	%%* [[WhenTreesAttack When Nettles Attack]]
80	* TheWorldIsJustAwesome: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W_ETBVdoKc Yellow Bridges]] shows a beautiful tree sprouting and taking form.
81	* TheWormThatWalks: The trope is ''cubed'' in "7 billion." The rabbits assemble into giant bipedal bunnies. Later on, those giants get together to create ''far'' bigger bipedals, and those are put together in the shape of a single colossal "regular" rabbit.
82	* WaterfallPuke: One of the zombies in "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeM5YcMUtFQ [=DeadEnders=]]]" does this with green slime, [[ItMakesSenseInContext in which another zombies is seen surfing on.]]
83	** At one point, the goose in "Honk" turns into a short necked version of itself and vomits a thick stream of white goo, before dissolving into the pile of sludge and reforming.
84	* ZombieApocalypse: In "[=DeadEnders=]" and "MEOW."

Context WebAnimation / Cyriak