Weird Fic Picks #2 - Jimmie Yamaguchi (Lucas King, Sean Andrew Murray, Darkest Dungeon and more)

[Transcript]

Hi! I’m Jimmie Yamaguchi, and I’m the voice of Hayward on The Silt Verses.

And this is Weird Fic Picks, our Patreon-exclusive series where the cast and crew give our recommendations and thoughts on the horror, weird fiction, science fiction, and dark fantasy that we all really love.

Spoilers will always follow for the work or works in question, so please be aware.

So. Here’s the truth about me.

I didn’t get into the horror aspect of fiction in general until much later. Simply due to the fact that, as a child, I was way too terrified to even approach the subject. I remember, when I was very little – I can’t remember the exact date, I’m going to say I was seven, eight, maybe nine or ten, somewhere in that range – my parents wanted to show me a movie.

It was, and I didn’t know this at the time, a martial arts movie. It was called Bloodsport, with Jean-Claude Van Damme. But simply because it had an R rating, I didn’t want to watch it because I was afraid I’d be too scared of what was going to happen. Because in my experience, ‘R’ meant horror, and I didn’t want to be scared.

But finally they did show it to me and I absolutely adored it. And as time went on, that feeling, that fear, slowly went away, and it wasn’t until later that I started dabbling into the horror aspect of things. And that was when an entirely new universe opened up to me, and now…I love it.

So. Let’s go into the recommendations themselves. I’m actually going to give you multiple recommendations, which doesn’t actually focus on one thing specifically.

Lucas King

So for example, musically, there is someone known as Lucas King, and Lucas King does dark orchestral versions of songs that he either creates on his own, his own original work, or he does popular songs and turns them into this dark, sinister style. My favourite is the dark orchestral version of Seven Nation Army, and it is fantastic. So I highly recommend that you go listen to his work. 

Some of it is horror-themed, some of it turns something that might be bright into a melancholy – for instance, I think Lucas King did some Star Wars covers and did them in the style of a sad music box, and it’s just heartbreaking to hear the way that some of them are done.

Sean Andrew Murray

Another recommendation that I really like is…when I saw the very first picture by this artist, his name is Sean Andrew Murray, and it was almost a Lovecraftian style, but he took these beings that are odd or strangely-shaped or just monstrous in their appearance, and he put them in a very natural city setting, like this is just everyday life, where this being with a hundred and fifty heads is just walking around, being guided on a leash like a pet, by this one individual. 

Or this being that exists on all fours, with tentacles extending from its neck, and those tentacles end in a face that looks like a mask, very similar to No-Face from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.

I highly recommend him - Sean Andrew Murray. Go take a look at some of the art pieces and you’ll begin to understand what I’m saying, where everything is so outlandish but portrayed in a much more everyday style.

Darkest Dungeon and Dark Souls

I love playing video games. It’s one of my big hobbies and I also do voices for video games, so that tends to work out really well for me!

I found a love for Lovecraftian-style games, where it’s this horrible existential dread that lingers over you throughout the entire game.

My favourites, if I had to choose, in this particular vein, are…Darkest Dungeon, and probably Dark Souls. Both are fantasy-esque, because I do love the whole medieval fantasy thing, which I fell in love with as a child.

All right. So if you haven’t played these games, I’m going to give you a huge warning. They are very difficult. More than likely, you will die within the first half hour of play at least once. But I love that sort of challenge, it’s hard to find that sort of challenge in gaming nowadays.

Some people hate it – they keep dying, and then they throw their controller, and they’re like, ‘I’m done.’ I have a lot of friends who are like that.

But I kept going, and if you keep going, you’re going to get this amazing experience, because not only are the stories interesting and intriguing, but the gameplay and the visuals and the art style are all both horrific and fantastical all at the same time.

Holes! Holes, everywhere

So for example, there are monsters in Darkest Dungeon that have a very parasitic quality to them. I do not like parasites. Super gross! 

But to elaborate upon this – for example, there is a fear called trypophobia, which is a fear of holes, or unnatural holes, or things like that. And a lot of times in a lot of different artworks, you will see how random people have random holes in their bodies and there’s a bug inside or something like that, or just these unnatural holes in their arms or their face or their back or something like that.

And one thing that stands out to me, beside Darkest Dungeon, is one of the witches in The Witcher 3, which had that on its face. And every time I see something like that, I can feel my stomach clench up, because it is absolutely horrifying to me. Mostly because I’ve seen videos of victims of mangleworms. Do not look it up if you have a weak stomach…but those parasites are horrific. And that, I think, is mostly what the fear itself was based around.

So anyways. In Darkest Dungeon, there are copious amounts of monsters. Not just boss monsters, that have these unnatural holes, and you might even see something writhing inside of them. And to me, that is absolutely horrific. And yet, of course, I keep playing.

And I keep playing games like that, because I like that whole mythos style. Foolish of me, of course, it’s one of those ‘don’t look into the void’ sort of things.

‘Oh, well, maybe a glance. Oh - that was a mistake! I can’t stop looking now. And I’m getting drawn in. I had the chance to leave and just go eat at a Bennigan’s or something, but nooo, I just had to sit here and look. Way to go, Jim. You’re doing great. You can say goodbye to sleep now, too. Yup. Wave goodbye. There it goes. Sleep for the next four and a half weeks.’

Oh, man, just thinking about it, I’m getting all squeamish, just from quoting this. I’m getting chills, the hairs on my arm are standing up…

I need to go shower or something. I feel gross!