- The Voice: L l o o o y y d...
A web-based flash series notable for intense and stylised cinematic technique and excellent quality of animation. Oh, and it's all done with stickmen.
Made by Oscar Johansson, the Castle series is set 20 Minutes into the Future, Earth is on the brink of becoming uninhabitable due to quickly dwindling natural resources and global scale wars over the scarce remains. With the survival of the human race looking increasingly unlikely, a privately owned company develops technology to reach alternate dimensions with the intention of finding a new source of energy in order to conveniently save the world.
Because of the extremely long production time for each film and how young the creator was initially the series shows vast improvement both in terms of art and writing. What started out initially as an excuse for essentially extended Matrix lobby scenes gradually evolved into a dark, dramatic and effective work of cosmic horror complete with incomprehensible Eldrich Abominations, Unreliable Narrators, Demonic Possession (maybe) and Alien Geometries.
Part 4 was set to be released in the fourth quarter of 2016. The trailer can be viewed here
. However, in 2018, the series was put on indefinite hiatus due to Oscar Johansson prioritising his growing family, and with his personal homepage deleted with no further updates, it appears to be cancelled.
The series was hosted on deletionquality.net before its shutdown, but can still be viewed here and here.
This series contains examples of:
- Alien Geometries: The Castles, especially the third one are implied in an ambiguous way with stylized cinematography to be this, but it is only finally confirmed as diegetic in Repercussions D2 when shown in an unambiguous way and commented on by Boomer.
- Apocalyptic Log: The Wise One's inscription over the walls of the central chamber in the third castle is a good example.
- Art Evolution: Immediately noticeable between Castle 1 and Castle 2.
- Badass Normal: All of them, really. Props go to Etrius for killing a dragon with a machine gun and riding down it's back while cutting it open with a sword.
- BFS: Lloyd, obviously.
- Body Horror: Hinted at in Repercussions part A. "Do you know what it's like being torn apart alive?"
- What happens to Some Other Guy. He's gutted before being pulverized.
- Camera Abuse: The blood spatter when Ray shoots The fake Lloyd.
- Chase Scene: All the second half of castle three and all of Repercussions. All of it.
- Ceiling Cling: The "Zombies", to great effect.
- Cliffhanger: Both Castle 3 and Repercussions have one at their respective ends.
- Cold Sniper: Beecher. Quiet, breeding, and efficient. He puts his grudge on hold with the General to get the man out alive despite him being justifiably angry with the man for shooting Etrius.
- Colonel Badass: The General, and somewhat Boomer, since he became in charge of a small squad.
- Combat Breakdown: The stranded pilot Plisskin is forced to hold out in the cockpit of his helicopter after he was forced down. As he isn't used to ground combat, he struggles to hit the four targets with his holdout pistol, scoring one lucky headshot and having to resort to kicking one to death. Then he runs out of ammo and out of desperation throws his pistol at the two remaining creatures. Luckily the voice recalls the creatures at that exact moment, sparing his life.
- Conservation of Ninjutsu: It seems that the soldiers fall under this trope, as Repercussions made evident.
- Cosmic Horror Story: Involving strange monsters created or summoned through psychic powers. Also, people can make others explode with their mind. The Voice is also some kind of psychic abomination.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ray Williams is a mere private and an unusually old one at that. It is clear that he's way out of his depths when he's alone in the castle and yet he pushes his way through.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lloyd has shades of this. Also, Some Other Guy gets one before being gutted.Lloyd: Come on, let's move before Boomer challenges the others to a wrestling match. Don't want anyone to die early.
- Despair Event Horizon: Plisskin hits it after his buddy Jason is killed and he is left stranded at the castle. He holds it together enough to start fixing the damaged system and he recovers as soon as Mullins and Ray turn up.
- Determinator: Mullins.Mullins: The only thing I know is I ain't giving up. Never.
- The Dog Bites Back: The whole operation turns into a fiasco as men are slaughtered left and right. Ray seems to have the worst luck. By the end of reprecussions, however, he manages to be one of the few survivors of the Castle.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Castles and also The Voice.
- Father to His Men: The General really does treat his men right and goes out of his way to save as many as possible. That being said, he will still sacrifice the minority to save the majority.
- However a crucial moment in the series shows that the General will not tolerate any harm coming towards his men; shown when he shoots Etrius in response to Etrius killing some random Mook.
- Gaia's Lament: It is implied that the Earth isn't QUITE there yet, but wars have been fought over fuel resources, oil hasn't been found in decades, and cities are flooded by glacial melt. The point of going into the Castles is to find the ancients' power source or, at least, that's what they're telling the men.
- Genius Loci: The Castles The ending of Reprecussions really highlights this as the Castle collapses around the fleeing survivors as a giant dragon wakes up. As soon as the helicopter clears the Castle's airspace, everything shifts and returns to its original condition.
- The Gunslinger: The General uses a revolver that he has to fan the hammer.
- Guns Akimbo: Etrius does this in a flashback scene in the second castle in 3A.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Some other guy's name is literally "Some Other Guy"
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: At one point The Voice tries to control Mullins and he runs away in a panic... right into Ray's gun. Ray is... distraught to say the least.
- Ambiguously done with the General shooting Etrius. It's unclear what power Etrius stumbled across, but when a soldier interrupts him trying to absorb all the information about the Castles and the Power, he blows the guy up with a gesture (again, possibly unintentionally). The General's gun then goes off and it's left unclear if he just acted on reflexes, out of whatever cold calculation to hide whatever secret plan he is in on, or if he simply just tensed up out of shock of what he just witnessed.
- Large Ham: A few, but Dr. Romanov in particular. The Voice has it's moments.Dr. Romanov: "COME WITH ME if you WAHNT to LIIVE! Those FOOLS have no IDEA what's going ON! COME WITH ME! HURRY!!"
- Left for Dead: Lloyd, Ray, Plisskin, Jason, Mullins, Boomer, Roberts, and Some Other Guy. Most of them got out, but SOG and Jason were killed, and Lloyd's whereabouts are a mystery. Though, there sure was meant to be a dead body in the center of that room a few episodes ago...
- MacGuffin: The Orb which may hold the power to save the Earth from an energy crisis. It seems to actually be a conduit for psychic powers.
- Mauve Shirt: Roberts, who ends up surviving the events of Repercussions.
- Meaningful Name: What equipment does Boomer carry around? Explosives and a boomstick to boot.
- Mobile Maze: The third Castle: although you never see the movement until the dragon wakes up...
- More Dakka: When Mullins gets surrounded, he doesn't worry about petty things like conservation of ammo.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg:Ray: Was there anyone else with you?Mullins: Boomer. Roberts. Some Other Guy.
- In the community forums, SOG is a meme.
- No Scope: Beecher pulled it off once while he jumped like six feet into the air.
- Not With the Safety On, You Won't: It isn't said but Plisskin has problems with this. Then he realizes it works better with the safety off.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The main faceless mooks of the ambiguous "Evil." There's little to no implication that they're reanimated corpses, and they're only referred to as "Creatures" in canon and official media. Also they're fast, agile and have a tendancy to transform into huge musclebound demon creatures and, possibly, the skinny tentacle creatures. The "Droners" on the other hand may well indeed be zombies in the stricter sense. They move slowly, look pained and confused, and seem to be fairly decomposed.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Boomer.The General: Boomer! How many more explosives do you have!?Boomer: Enough to blast our way out of here.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Etrius in Castle 3 Part C.Soldier: Romanov just left. He took two of our men. He said-Etrius: SHUT! UP! *cue exploding soldier*
- Red Shirt: Some Other Guy and Jason in Repercussions.
- Redshirt Army: The regular zombies. Played with in terms of the soldiers that accompany the team. Initially everyone is indistinguishable and essentially there to be killed off to demonstrate the danger and the competence of the team. While there are a few frantic, adrenaline fueled moments of awesome, it's easy to loose track of even how many there are eventually. However, come Castle Repercussions, the various faceless mooks left behind get their own characterisation (arguably much deeper than the characterisation of the original main cast).
- Room Full of Crazy: The amphitheatre where the orb is kept.
- Rule of Cool: The main driving force of the entire series. Explains why Lloyd only brought a sword, and The General used a .44 instead of a more practical assault rifle or shotgun. One of the fans did the research. There were way more casualties than the number of surviving soldiers suggest. Only Repercussions had an accurate head count of survivors left behind.
- Stick Figure Animation: The practical artistic conclusion of the technique. Well, if Oscar doesn't improve it more.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Courtesy of Ray in Repercussions part A.
- Wall Crawl: The Zombies' primary mode of transportation.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Jason and Some Other Guy. We only ever hear their voices before they're offed (although Jason is seen in Part 3D, fighting off one of the creatures).
Voice: (To Mullins) Don't make me destroy you.
