Lets Play / The Creatures

The Creatures were a group of video game commentators and Machinima Respawn directors on YouTube that had often worked together for Let's Plays and assorted commentaries. Besides collaborative videos, they all also have solo videos.

The Creatures began as a loose group of video game commentators on YouTube, playing together in games and making videos together. While the term "Creature," used to describe members of the group, was originally used very freely, ten members became recognized as the core Creatures. They were:

• Kootra
• UberHaxorNova (who has his own page)
• Sp00nerism (who has his own page)
• ZeRoyalViking
• Gassy Mexican
• SSOHPKC (usually just called Seamus, he also has his own page)
• DanzNewz (who has his own page)
• SlyFoxHound (who has his own page)
• Chilled Chaos (who has his own page)
• Junkyard129

After making the decision to become a more focused group, Chilled and Junkyard were removed from the group (Chilled left because he disagreed with the group's plans of becoming a business and Junkyard was ousted because the others felt that, as a family man, he should rely on his real job for income rather than YouTube, which may not provide enough on its own). In February of 2012, most of the group moved to Colorado near Kootra, launching their group channel, the Creature Hub. In November 2012, Gassy was removed from the group, as he had grown apart from the others and was seen as not contributing enough to the group's work. Since then, two new members have been added to the group: At RTX 2013, ImmortalHD was made an official Creature, and at the same event the next year, Dexter Manning was added to the group. After the addition of Dex, Sly left the group amicably in order to move back home with his family and put more work into his own channel. At PAX the same year, GoldenBlackHawk was brought into the group after much fan demand (he would later leave due to wanting to work solo). Seamus would also leave the group in mid-2015 due to personal issues and wanting to work solo again. Together, the group had worked on such projects as Creature Talk (their weekly podcast), Supercast (a live action series), Tr4pville (a Machinima series based on Borderlands, and many others, including various gameplay series.

In late March 2016, The Creatures joined Rooster Teeth. It had the somewhat unintended result of making over half of the members quit, due to their increased interest in solo projects (Sp00n, Dexter & Kevin), had stopped collaborating with the team and used the event to make it official (Sp00n and Ze, who both collaborated more with other groups than other Creatures) or they were working on projects that were not suited for the Creature Hub (James and Aleks with CowChop). On July 13th, 2017, Kootra formally announced the end of the Creatures after the aftermath of YouTube's Ad-pocalypse and declining viewerships since joining Rooster Teeth.

Some important Creature-related links: Creatures Twitch and The Creature Blog.

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Works pages credited to the Creatures:

• Bunny Bust
• SUPERCAST
• Minecraft: The Ex-Communicated Series
• Sanity Not Included
• TreeTopia

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This group provides examples of:

• A Dog Named "Dog": "Little boy!"
• All Men Are Perverts: Nova and Sp00n take this persona most of all.
• Ascended Meme: When playing PAYDAY: The Heist, Nova was quick to notice a larger than average toothbrush in one of the bathrooms, calling it giant. The developers, who have said they watched Nova's videos, soon added a ridiculously humongous toothbrush sitting in a bathtub into that level. The others were quick to blame it on Nova.
  Eat My Diction: There's a giant toothbrush in the bathtub!
  Seamus: Yeah, that's because of Nova.
  • Said toothbrush also eventually made it into the sequel.
  • Nova's playthrough of Happy Wheels has become so popular that the creator Jim Bonacci has watched them, and he had Nova record lines to become his own playable character. Nova's lines were used to make the Pogostick Man
• Bat Family Crossover: All of the Creatures (and Immortal before he was even a Creature) appear all together in the "Minecraft War" videos.
• Battle Cry: Most of the Creatures have these, usually when doing specific things during a fight.
  • Seamus yells "Shotgun Rain!" when using a shotgun in battle, and when throwing a grenade he will always say "Frag out!" Sp00n also says the grenade one occasionally.
  • Sly will yell "Kobe!" when tossing a grenade.
  • When delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle, usually with actual curb-stomping, Nova will say "Beatin' dat ass!"
  • Kootra tends to utter "FUS!" when dishing out a swift blow, and shouts the whole "Fus Ro DAH! when delivering heavy (usually charged up or just charging) strikes, sometimes with his own variation, "Fus Ro MEOW!"
• Berserk Button: Nova has a collection of rage videos, where he pretends to have a psychological breakdown, usually because of a silly comment or Sp00n breaking the rules.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: When Nova, Seamus, and Danz play the Xbox 360 version of You Don't Know Jack, Seamus and Danz don't create custom names before the game starts so the game created random themed names for them, Nova created his own name. The names were "Paper" (Danz), "Plastic" (Seamus), and "Fuck Doodle" (Nova).
• Butt-Monkey: Various Creatures take this role at different times, but Aleks is noticeably the target for the most abuse.
  • The Road to E3 series is essentially Jordan and Dan relentlessly tormenting Aleks and James.
• Catchphrase: Everyone has their own, but the word "Brown" is used commonly by all of the Creatures, meaning bad, stinky, or used in place of a curse word. It was first said by Sp00n, but Kootra has since taken it, as he uses it the most. Also, the Creatures have said multiple times that it is in no way racist.
  • Most members of the group also use "MLG" when describing how good they are at a game (even if they aren't). This pokes fun at Major League Gaming circuits and serious gamers.
  • 'I don't follow [X] news' is the most recent one, the original being 'I don't follow Skyrim news'.
  • Another new one is "Cheese it!" when the Creatures are running away or escaping from something in the game.
  • A minor one is "High horse" used mostly by Nova, Seamus, and Sly. It's used to describe something that is very large, lavish, and/or over the top.
  • Kootra has started saying "Dern Sure!" by itself and at the end of sentences as a type of confirmation of something.
• Celebrity Resemblance: People have said that Kootra looks like Tom Cruise.
• Deadly Gas: Apparently coming from Sullivan's ass to power up the zombies.
• The Faceless: Sp00n. The closest we've come is a vlog with him wearing a horse mask.
  • He was faceless, until RTX 2013 where he revealed what he really looks like. And he did this by pretending to be an audience member asking if Sp00n will ever show his face.
• Fat and Skinny: It was originally Dan as the fat one and the rest of the Creatures as the skinny ones, but Dan has lost weight while the audience keeps pointing out how the rest have put on weight.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Almost every time Lyle is included in Creature Talk, he asks a "hard-hitting question," where his victim will have to answer a question where any answers he provides are bad outcomes. The most famous example is "the gorilla question," where you must choose between cutting off your penis without any hope of reattaching it, or being anally raped by a silverback gorilla for three hours while a news helicopter films it.
• First-Name Basis: Most of the Creatures are at this point by now. Here are where each one stands specifically:
  • Kootra is called Jordan by most of the Creatures, but he is still occasionally called Kootra.
  • Nova is called James by most of the Creatures, but is still called Nova by the others, except for Kootra who always calls him James.
  • Sp00n is never called by his name Nick, except on a couple of occasions by Sly.
  • Ze is always Ze, and not ever really called by his real name Steven.
  • Dan is just Dan, since his YouTube name is only one letter away from his real name (Danz).
  • SSoHPKC is always called Seamus, and has always been called by his real name rather than his username.
  • Sly is usually called Sly and not his real name Eddie.
  • Immortal is generally called by his name Aleks, but there are times when he'll be called "Immortal."
  • Dex doesn't even really have an internet alias, so he's just called Dex (he used to be called Dexterboy 124, but he's scrapped that name)
  • Kevin is pretty much always referred to by his first name rather than "Golden Black Hawk." However, his Minecraft name "Tom Anex" used to cause others to call him "Tom."
• Game-Breaking Bug: While not always game-breaking, Nova and Sp00n have lampshaded that whenever they play a game together, it ends up being very glitchy.
  • When first playing Minecraft, Sp00n experienced strange glitches and bugs that included seeing enemies that weren't really there, falling endlessly through the world when respawning, not being able to pick up some items, and seeing events that Nova created long after they happened.
  • With Saints Row: The Third, the glitches started out relatively harmless, with things such as people driving invisible cars being seen. But then it was literally game-breaking, with Nova's game crashing permanently, forcing them to move onto the PC version. Since then, they've experienced NPC allies not doing what they're supposed to do, getting trapped in the ground or in walls, and a couple more game crashings, although without causing permanent damage.
  • With The Darkness II, enemies will randomly teleport from place to place, even through walls. This is the game that they were playing when they noticed every game they play ends up being extremely glitchy.
  • Nova and Sp00n's random Just Cause 2 multiplayer videos, experience a lot of these due to the mod being in beta stages still and it probably doesn't help that there are tons of people on the server, glitching around and falling through everything.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Aleks says in the gondola ride on Road to E3 that "Cucumber Gulch Preserve" is a good name for one.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners:
  • Nova and Sp00n. Nova usually falls into Vitriolic Best Buds territory with others, but with Sp00n, they work together pretty well (even though they usually get off-task), even if they make fun of each other occasionally. Nova even goes out of his way to be nice to Sp00n, like with the infamous Minecraft cake incident. Ze and Chilled can also apply.
  • Nova and Dan have developed a relationship like this. Before moving into the Creature House, they rarely interacted, but since then they've bonded, most likely due to a shared love of The Walking Dead. Nova is noticeably less confrontational with Dan than with other Creatures.
  • Nova with Seamus, especially on Minecraft.
  • Sly and Immortal, long before Immortal even began working with any of the other Creatures. They even live together.
  • Nova and Immortal eventually became this, with the two of them eventually taking several interns and leaving to start Cow Chop. Nova revealed on stream that his main motivation for making Cow Chop videos isn't for his own gain (he makes more than enough money on his personal channel), but rather so that Aleks and the other employees can make a living.
  • Immortal is this with Dex.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Nova chose to play as Logan in Dead Island, Logan resembling him a fair amount, and this didn't go unnoticed by him nor the other players.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Kootra is often criticized by his peers for this in games, to the point they described Dead Island "a Kootra-proof game" when everyone was actually getting items.
  • This leads to the nickname "Hoardan," given to him by James, since he hoards everything.
• Let's Play
• Like an Old Married Couple: Nova and Kootra are often compared to this. In one episode of Creature Talk, Gassy joked that they had too much Unresolved Sexual Tension.
• Mood Whiplash: Kootra was doing a livestream in August 2014, playing games such as Counter-Strike. Then some Jerkass troll chose to prank call the police, in the process "swatting" their office and getting him, plus another creature, arrested. Needless to say, fans were horrified.
• Multinational Team: Three of the Creatures (Sly, Immortal, and Dex) come from foreign countries (Puerto Rico, Russia, and Britain, respectively).
  • Ze and Kootra are both originally American, but Ze has Canadian citizenship and visits there often, and Kootra spent part of his childhood living in Scotland.
• One Degree of Separation: To their surprise, Dan and Ze found out that their dads had been friends for years, playing on the same hockey team in the 70s.
• Our Founder: Statues of the Creatures made by fans often crowd up the spawn whenever the Creatures restart their Minecraft server.
• Power Trio: Nova, Sly, and Seamus in the Ex-Communicated Series.
  • Sly, Seamus, and Immortal in the Last Update series.
  • Kevin, Nova, and Immortal in most of their multiplayer gameplay.
  • Dan, Seamus, and Nova are referred to as the "Original Creatures Game Night Crew" due to their appearances in most of the early Creature Game Nights.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Despite wearing the opposite (red Cardinals cap and Cookie Monster motif, respectively) Kootra is far more calm than Nova whenever they play together. Both are equally excitable, pushy and also scream like little girls when scared and running, but Kootra not only maintains his no-swear policy no matter what, he still remains somewhat level-headed, while Nova gets mad the quickest, yells really loudly, and swears a lot.
  • To compare the two:
  Kootra: ~siiiiiiiiigh~ I lost everything.
  Nova: WHAT THE FUUUUUUUCK?!
• Running Gag: A whole lot. Some usually stay within one series, but others will be used more often.
  • The Creatures used to often say "I can break these cuffs!" or "can't break those cuffs!" as a reference to this video. This led to the Creatures sometimes saying "Can't break that pig!" whenever they had trouble killing a pig in Minecraft. This isn't said much anymore, however.
  • Kootra's terrible stench is often mentioned, after one occasion when the title of one of Nova's videos called him "smelly guy Kootra." Since then, Kootra has embraced this (to the extent of when trying to recreate 'Smell' in Draw Something, he wrote his own name).
  • In Nova and Sp00n's Dead Rising 2 playthrough, Sullivan's ass creating the gas zombies was a notable running gag. This has not yet continued into their Dead Rising 2: Off the Record playthrough, but Sp00n mentioning how fat Frank has become has created a new one.
  • When Nova and Sp00n played Resistance 3, they almost always called each other by their characters' names, which were Joe and John, the most plain white people names, according to them. Then, there was "John doesn't exist," because Nova's character John was not part of the story and was only included to be the second player's character, and also "Over here!" which is what the characters would constantly yell when downed.
  • Seamus' answer to Lyle's gorilla question is so popular that his fans have become known as "Team Silverback," and his affair with the gorilla is frequently mentioned in his videos.
  • Sly's "When you see a chicken, you gotta hit it with a shovel" song.
  • Whenever one of the Creatures starts to sing a real song, one of the others, usually Nova, will yell "Copyright!" Then, the song will usually be sung again, with the word "Brown" used instead of some of the lyrics.
  • Nova's "Wiggle dem nibblets!" in Happy Wheels.
  • A physical variant has arisen in the form of the face◊ that Seamus made in Gassy Gets A Haircut. Whenever The Creatures do a fan meetup, there will inevitably be a moment where they all pull this face. This is referred to as "The nasty face."
  • Eating during commentaries and mentioning people complaining about how "unprofessional" it is.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Nova and Kootra can act like this. Also, they've been described to be Like an Old Married Couple (see above).
  • Nova has this of the celebrity variety, usually blaming any bad thing that happens in Minecraft on its creator Notch, and always yelling for him to fix the ladders.
  • Kootra sometimes acts like Immortal is his sitcom arch-nemesis.
• Special Guest: While the other commentators outside of the group can be considered special guests whenever they play with then, Nova and Dan played with Chandler Riggs (Carl on The Walking Dead) during their "Hershel's Land" Minecraft playthrough as a celebrity guest.
• Spoonerism: Literally, one of the members is named Sp00nerism, although his YouTube account's name is thecampingtree.
• Stuff Blowing Up: In the GTA 4 shenanigans videos, Seamus + rocket launcher = dead Kootra & Dan.
• Unusual Euphemism: Amongst many others, a specific one is "Fireknight." The Creatures say this instead of "faggot" in reference to a Minecraft player they met while griefing named Fireofknight who annoyed them so much that Kootra called him a faggot. This wasn't revealed to mean faggot until a recent Creature talk, where Seamus accidentally said it, which is further reinforced by Nova screaming that he "gave it away."
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: This will be abused. A lot.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Nova with everyone, especially Kootra, Seamus, Sly, and Immortal.
• What are VCR's?: In one Creature Game Night: Nova, Seamus, and Danz are playing Family Feud. One of the questions is "Name something someone would plug in." Nova enters "VCR" and was very annoyed when his answer received zero points. He angrily shouts at the game that people still own VCR's.

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