Town of Veins
was a surreal multigenre web series created by Bevusst as a spiritual successor to House of Aberdeen. The story takes place in the eponymous Town of Veins, located in Sprawl, an alternate reality of some kind, and occupied by dollbodies; living, humanoid porcelain dolls.
Town of Veins follows several intersecting storylines. The most prominent so far concern Penelope, an employee at Rapheal's grocery store who discovers something strange in the store's storage area; Soft Rains, who is the daughter of Dances Alone, the owner and caretaker of Ozen Jenny; and Kaz, who's attempting to make contact with the Sprawl from the real world.
As of August 10, 2022, Town of Veins has been deleted and discontinued due to creator harassment.
Characters
Penelope Masters
A dollbody clerk who found a mysterious doorway in the storage rooms. This leads her to encountering The Void Colossus and developing supernatural abilities.
- Badass Boast: Delivers an unexpected one in "Confrontation" (i.e., "I could, literally, wipe out you and your gang just by thinking about it.").
- Berserk Button: Seeing Natalie makes her break out of her calm, passive demeanor and turn completely ruthless.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Penelope is calm, reserved, and kind. Until you mess with her best friend, in which case she will threaten to kill you and everyone you know.
- Creepy Doll: Subverted. Penelope is a living, human-sized porcelain doll, but she acts and thinks like a normal person. Played straight as of "Confrontation", where she lets loose.
- Meaningful Name: Her last name is Masters, and she has powerful supernatural abilities.
- Noodle Incident: Penelope hates Natalie due to an unknown incident involving her and Marissa.
- Not Quite Human: Penelope is your average, down-to-earth Girl Next Door — who happens to be a sentient robot doll.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: She thinks and acts like a normal human girl, but as a dollbody, she is implied to have been created and "programmed". The exact specifics of her creation are unknown, and she is completely aware of what she is.
Marissa Rodriguez
Marissa is a bubbly, aspirational employee at Rapheal's who is able to possess the bodies of others.
- Body Surf: Is able to possess people through means unknown.
- Double Agent: Works for Hyena and is being stationed at Rapheal's as a cover.
- Genki Girl: She's almost always smiling, and has a bright and bubbly personality.
- Noodle Incident: An unknown incident involving her, Penelope and Natalie was so bad that Penelope threatens Natalie just for being in the same town as Marissa.
- Not Quite Human: Her ability to possess people and her ties to Hyena call into question what she actually is.
Pantophobia / Sang-Hee
Pan is a cunning young girl who comes from a broken home, and works as a clerk at Rapheal's. In the future, she takes over as Regional Manager.
- Meaningful Name: Her full name means "fear of everything". The shortened version is the Latin root for "everything" or "all". This is later revealed to be an alias.
Zenith
Zenith is the manager of Rapheal's in Town of Veins. Described by Penelope as not being fully sentient.
- Bad Boss: Possibly subverted. She's very threatening, but so far has yet to harm her employees, and even seems to have some form of affection for Penelope and Marissa.
- Creepy Doll: Played straight. Although human in appearance, Zenith is a dollbody and is consistently menacing.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: Subverted. Unlike Penelope, Zenith is not sentient, and acts more like you would imagine an android would.
- Series Mascot: Is the channel's icon, and is used frequently in promotional images.
Tangent
Tangent was a manager of an unknown Rapheal's location, who was terminated for an unknown reason.
- Serial Killer: Implied to be behind numerous deaths and disappearances in Town of Veins.
Rainbow
Rainbow is a manager of the Rapheal's in Paradiso Mal. She is chastised by Boss for not using threats and aggression to increase productivity.
- Only Sane Woman: She seems to be the only Manager who isn't completely insane, evil, or both.
Unnamed Manager
Manager of an unknown Rapheal's young Pan worked at.
- Robot: She's the least sentient of all Managers we've seen, going so far as to glitch out like a broken animatronic. This works out in Pan's favor.
- Stepford Smiler: Like all Managers, sans Rainbow.
Pantophobia
Regional Manager for Rapheal's and the person all Managers report to. She is the present day version of Pan.
- Bad Boss: Directly orders managers to threaten and harm employees in order to increase productivity.
- Sadist: Implied by her desire to torment employees. When it's brought up by Rainbow that it decreases productivity, Pan tries to coerce her to believe otherwise.
- Slasher Smile: Although most Managers have a permanent smile, Pan takes it up to 11, and has the most sadistic and malicious smile out of all of them.
Dances Alone AKA Jenny
Dances Alone is the widowed owner and boss of Ozen Jenny, in addition to the mother of Soft Rains and Lightless Window.
- No Full Name Given: Like the rest of her family, her first name is a phrase, and it is unknown if she has a family name.
- Only Sane Woman: She's the most rational, level-headed and well-adjusted of the family, even moreso than Lightless Window.
Soft Rains
Soft Rains is the daughter of Dances Alone, and Lightless Window's younger sister. She also malfunctions and otherwise acts strange on a regular basis.
- Ambiguous Situation: Might be the target of a dark conspiracy consuming the town — or just batshit insane and in need of help.
- Sticky Fingers: Compulsively steals from her mother's customers.
Lightless Window
Lightless Window is the son of Dances Alone, and Soft Rains' older brother. He is the more responsible and rational one of the two siblings.
Hyena
Hyena is a mysterious figure somewhere in the Town of Veins who runs a strange group involved in many of the town's mysterious happenings.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Hyena's spoken dialogue is in red for reasons yet unknown.
Natalie
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She's as sweet as it gets, but Penelope's meltdown implies that she's capable of terrible things.
- Genki Girl: She's always smiling with a bright, bubbly and caring personality.
- Noodle Incident: Something unknown that happened between her, Penelope and Marissa was so bad it makes Penelope threaten to kill her just for being in the same area as Marissa.
Alejandra
Alejandra is a member of Hyena's gang.
Threadholder AKA Aberdeen
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Threadholder's text appears in purple for reasons unknown.
Cho
Cho is an associate of Marissa's who is supernaturally bound to a parking lot. Cho is aggressive, caustic, and encourages Marissa to be violent.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Cho is bound to a parking lot, and it's heavily implied she'll cause mass destruction if she is freed.
Kaz
The Void Colossus
An Eldritch Abomination manifested as a massive, smiling woman existing in a void of color and sound, and can be found by entering a door that should not exist.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Her being discovered kickstarts the plot, although she stays in the background while the actual story takes place.
G
G is one of four characters followed in Abovetowne. He is the brother of M.
M
M is one of four characters followed in Abovetowne. She is G's sister.
A
A is one of four characters followed in Abovetowne. She is described as the brains.
L
L is one of four characters followed in Abovetown. She is described as the group's leader.
This series also provides examples of:
- Alien Geometries: The area through the door in the back of Rapheal's: it's described as a void of flashing lights and colors and screams and noises, there's a colossal smiling face present, and the door to enter the place shouldn't exist in the first place.
- Anachronic Order: Some scenes and even full episodes don't take place in a linear fashion.
- Analog Horror: Subverted. The story is told in an digital manner made visible through various access points.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Several characters have colored text, for reasons currently unknown.
- Hyena's text is red.
- Pantophobia's text is light blue.
- An unknown associate of Hyena's has been shown speaking in purple text.
- A note found by Soft Rains is written in yellow.
- An unknown woman harassed by Rapheal's speaks in pink-outlined black text.
- Dark World: The Sprawl as a whole, but special mention goes to Town of Wounds and the Valley.
- Death World: The appropriately-named Town of Wounds is implied to be inhabitable by anyone who doesn't already live there.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Void Colossus: A smiling woman existing in a void of color and sound, described as being so large, her size and scale cannot be described in language. Her void is behind a door that shouldn't exist, and she can give people supernatural abilities.
- Eldritch Location: The Dark Valley to the East and its dead gods is probably this. Rapheal's itself could also qualify.
- Even Better Sequel: While House of Aberdeen is a fantastic series, Town of Veins expands on the world so much further in really fun ways.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: The episode "Collapsing Mall | Abovetowne #1" has a separate set of a characters and a storyline that, despite connecting to the main story, is largely standalone. This is intentional.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In a couple of the videos, when the scene transitions or glitches, if you pause at the right second you can find hidden details.
- Harassing Phone Call: We see the response to one in "Hyena."
- Humanoid Abomination: Tangent seems to have become one after being terminated from Rapheal's.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Part of the fun of the series was guessing at how seemingly unrelated events and arcs will come together.
- Mind Screw: Many scenes involving Soft Rains can come across this way.
- Nightmare Face:
- The presence of a colossal one in the storage areas of Rapheal's becomes a plot point.
- Subverted. When the face is actually shown on-screen, it's that of a beautiful, disturbingly non-threatening young woman.
- No Full Name Given: Most characters go by their first names or a title.
- Nothing Is Scarier: There's a lot of instances where after the buildup of tension, it's unclear what specifically happens, just that it's not good. This adds to the sense of unease.
- Off-the-Shelf FX: The faces of the characters were made using the portrait feature of Artbreeder.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: Has occurred a few times now, most notably when the "signal clarity lower than usual" message is onscreen at the Ozen Jenny in "Conspiracy."
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Pan. Don't call her Panto; it's just Pan.
- Scenery Porn: While it is brief, a lot of the footage of the different areas shown in the second video is absolutely gorgeous.
