Theory Posting - Tumblr Posts

Okay here me out right

The main question no one asks is why is lips the only one that cameos with the mayhem and not just say that all songs don't need a trumpet player, all songs don't need a saxophonist so what gives?

Out of alot of Media lips appears the least and if I would scale it animal out of everyone appears the most ( solo wise ) anyone else agree?

I just wish ( other than the Muppets mayhem series (2023) ) there was some more lips love , I love the Fluffy haired man

Also, can we just appreciate the cosmetic procedure that lips had over the years from earlier muppets to now 🦷🥁🎸🎺🎷🎹🎸

So uh, first actual post I guess. This is all random dumps (taken from my instagram stories, so they’re formatted weird lol) of symbols and things associated with Simon. I’ve never seen anyone do this for him before so mwahaha I guess I’m the first >:3c. Sorry if this is kinda just a random stream of words, I’m just getting a bunch of thoughts down and anyone can use this information for theories, art, story analysis, and etc later d(^^ ).

The first one is a bunch of possibility important references, primarily things from HoD, but also a couple from OoE and the Hanged Man Skeletons, which are explained a bit more in the second and third image. There’s a couple details I didn’t have the space for oof (T_T ). If I remember correctly, the Smiling Statue is found in the area where the Hellmont enemies are. I’m not exactly sure if there’s any significance to any of the statue placements, but they’re definitely supposed to be a Carmilla and Simon reference, not sure on who the Sage statue is supposed to be tho. My best guess is maybe Death since he’s the other Simon’s Quest boss lol, but the statue really doesn’t look like him. It’s interesting. The Hero statue is very obvious, Juste gets the little flavor text that “that’ll be me someday” kinda referencing how Simon looked up to Christoper in a similar way (yes, Christopher, he is mentioned in the first manual in Japan I believe, I should talk about him eventually). The whole Hellmont/Shimon thing is nuts and idk why it’s just never mentioned again. Like the name Simon has the ability to be a pun in Japanese on “Death Gate/Gates of Death” which is 1. Badass and 2. Ominous as heck! I also didn’t get to fit in the random family heirloom clock that’s in ghost Dracula’s castle for some reason in HoD, the one that has the nice description of having been “bought on the day your grandfather was born” (not an exact quote word for word but yeah). It feels significant to me idk, why would family heirlooms end up in there? Also didn’t mention the Bullet Tip (called “Christopher’s Soul” in Japan), but that one’s interesting too.

Also I wasn’t able to fit the OoE and Simon’s Quest maps on there so I might make a post about comparing them later :3. That Anna girl could be talking about someone else, but considering the similarities and references to Simon and his games in the rest of OoE (which I also should explain if I can manage to get it all together) it’s safe to assume she’s having nightmares of one of Simon’s fights against Dracula. Which is also interesting in the context that her whole side quests revolve around helping her cat protect her from dark spirits.

I know this wiki isn’t the most reliable source, but I’ve seen other sources that claim the skeletons on the outer wall of SotN and DoS (I believe) are supposed to be a reference to the whip swinging in CV4. It’s really interesting that they’d make a reference to Simon by having the skeletons be hung by one foot like the hanged man is commonly depicted considering the meanings behind that card, but since the position of the skeleton is pretty much the same in both, it’s probably intentional.

The last Chronicles one is kinda based on the assumption that these are rose thorns, but when looking up thorn symbolism a looooot of the specific red rose symbolism kinda started to line up really well. Roses also have a lot of religious significance too so I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to say they were rose thorns. Chronicles is not the first time flowers have been mentioned with Simon in mind however, I couldn’t fit it anywhere, but the Japanese text for the fastest Simon’s Quest ending mentions he “brought full blown flowers in next spring”, just a fun fact tho, idk how to add it into anything here tbh (-w-; ).

What was the most interesting about this dive into random symbols and other details was how often things ended up symbolizing “self sacrifice” and/or “martyrdom”! Usually twice or thrice wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but considering the vague nature of all the Simon’s Quest endings in all versions of the game and the general lack of focus on Simon’s story aspect, it’s pretty cool to see some things that line up like that :O! Also I am thoroughly aware that I might just be looking to deep into things and connecting things and aren’t there, but I don’t really care cause I had fun!!! :3 Anyway, do with this knowledge what you will, hope you guys like it.

So I was playing Simon’s Quest (again) earlier and you guys might know by now that I’m incredibly normal (extremely deranged) about that game, but it’s got me thinking about something: what exactly are the hearts and why are they the money in this game?

Hearts in the first game and almost every game after Simon’s Quest are the thing that you need to collect to be able to use subweapons and they primarily come from candles, but enemies can drop them too. But in Simon’s Quest, while they do still power a couple subweapons, it’s only the ones we’ve never seen before like the Sacred Flame and Golden Knife while not being used for the Holy Water, something that does in every other game. And they only come from enemies because there’s no candles. And there’s different sizes of them. And collecting enough of them levels Simon up. And their primary function is completely shifted to currency!!! Odd, isn’t it?

And the whole way that you buy anything in this game is really framed like some black market sketchy deal. These sellers (or crooked traders with bum deals lol) are primarily holed away in their houses under one or two layers of walls and floors only breakable by magical infinite Holy Water, something only the local badass vampire hunter guy would have after having bought some with said hearts in the first town, or they’re way tucked away in the thick of these Dracula’s army overtaken mansions, some of them even standing directly where skeletons walk past them or in between relatively large pits of spikes. Whatever the reason, these guys obviously want this fairly secret. (Aside from the first town white crystal guy, he’s fine being out in the open lol.)

So what gives??? What is Simon grinding monsters for and trading with the locals for weapons and herbs???

Now this is where things get really ✨speculative✨. I’m gonna put the cut here for suspense and intrigue I guess lol XD. This is gonna be a lot of me thinking out loud and throwing down ideas, not really like a confirmed answer to anything, just havin fun thinkin about a part of a game d(•w• )

I think there’s a few possibilities. They could be the same thing that they are other games or they could be something different just used similarly as a power source.

But first we gotta break down what hearts could be in Cv1. In a lot of the games they seem to be some kind of a general mana, a magic energy possibly not unlike how metaphysical/magical things are depicted in other media. Perhaps the subweapons themselves are magic objects and not really a physical thing that require “hearts” to be conjured. Maybe they could be physical objects that need to be enchanted with “hearts” to be anywhere comparable to Vampire Killer level usefulness. Just a few possibilities.

If the hearts in Simon’s Quest are the same thing, then this kinda makes some sense. Simon trading monster soul energy or whatever with presumably magic users for things he needs on his Quest, especially since things like Laurels (also can be called bay laurels or bay leaves) are commonly used in spells and who better to be selling a spell component than someone who does spells! Also, it makes sense that these people would be fairly out of sight as magic use was still a touchy subject at the time.

Now I don’t know how accurate this is, and if I do find a source somewhere in my way too many bookmarks I will reblog this and link it to it, but I remember reading somewhere in an interview about either SotN or one of the games made close before it that the candles are like the souls of Dracula and his army’s victims that you free when you hit them and they leave you a little parting gift for it. Yes, these games were made way after, so it’s not certain if that was the original intent of these, but I figured it adds something to this.

But what if the hearts in Simon’s Quest are not the same thing? After all, the Holy Water doesn’t use them and we can’t say if they would or not work for other subweapons that appear in CV1 since they aren’t in this one. Well there’s something else that could be dropping from killing monsters that could also fit into the above probability that these traders are magic users and it’s a little darker!

Hearts! Bones! General viscera! And this also kinda makes sense! I mean the whole plot of the game revolves around Simon already carrying pieces of Dracula’s corpse around to burn all together on an altar to cure his and the surrounding area’s curse, it’s not that far of a stretch to say that he’d be fine with carrying around pieces of other monsters and that magic users might be willing to trade things for them so they can use them in their own spells, potions, and so on. And that might also explain why Holy Water isn’t powered by hearts and is incredibly weak in comparison in this game. And why these weird, new subweapons seem to be Simon exclusive! They could be powered by things like monster blood instead of the usual magic energy-ish stuff we’re used to hearts symbolizing.

Regardless of if I’m right or not with either of these, Simon is probably taking advantage of some underground monster essence/organs trade the whole game and this is just such an interesting batshit detail for him as a character.

Anyway, I love this game so much, I’m gonna be spreading propaganda for it like this a lot hopefully lol. Okie that’s it hope that was fun, do with this information what you will :)

Ok weird opinion of mine I guess idk how to start posts aaaa

I think Simon’s “barbarian” design really works story and character wise.

Yeah, it’s silly and absolutely not historically accurate whatsoever, but it kinda makes sense in a certain weird way.

We know from Lament of Innocence and Dracula’s Curse that the Belmont family is generally on rough terms with the public. Leon gets his title taken away and, even though he gets his sword back at the end of the whole Walter situation as confirmed by how Belmonts onward have that sword, he’s still generally kinda shunned for going against the church’s wishes and the tail end of the crusades happening at the time. And Trevor is straight up banished from the country for fear of his strength. He’s much isolated from other people off in the house in the woods until he’s called to help fight against Dracula and gets some friends on the way.

And this kinda sets up the situation that the family was living in during Christopher’s time. The Belmonts are social outcasts; their existence is acknowledged, but they’re not really associated with or thought of very highly at this point. So, it wouldn’t be unlikely that they just wouldn’t really care for or be caught up with social expectations like fashion. When people are going to be wary of you regardless of what you do, why not dress however you want? Especially if you know no one’s going to do anything about it! Especially if it’s practical; the longer, looser sleeves and pant legs of the time would be restrictive in a combat/acrobatic context. So Christopher probably just wore whatever he wanted, and to be fair he doesn’t really seem to interact with anyone besides family very much.

First I wanna mention that I am completely aware that Simon was designed way before any of these other characters. But these characters are chronologically before him and can explain where he gets these design choices from in universe.

So, what about Simon then? Well, Simon has a lot of themes of wanting to be like his ancestors. Christopher is directly mentioned as someone he wonders he’ll ever compare to. Judgment shows him looking up to Trevor as well, and even though that game is of interesting canon status lol, it’s an example of that character element being used again. And this is reflected in his barbarian designs! The cape he wears in the manual drawings resembles the cape Trevor throws off in the opening of CV3. The general light armor and skimpy clothing is reflective of both some of Christopher and Trevor’s designs. The metal armor in Simon’s Quest being reminiscent in shape to Trevor’s on the CV3 box art. It just makes sense that Simon would be trying his damnedest to emulate the guys he’s been looking up and comparing himself to his whole life.

And the sudden transition from the barbarian look the family had for years to the more with the times fashion that Juste has makes a lot of sense considering Juste grew up in a time when the family was highly respected and in the middle of town, somewhere where keeping social expectations and appearances would be expected of him.

Idk if any of this makes sense, but aaaaaa random stream of an idea I guess. I like Simon getting to being weird and out of place for his time period and country lol. Also I’m not saying that other designs are bad!!! I like all of Simon’s game designs tbh, Ayami’s is really cool too and works for some of these points cause it’s also kinda barbarian esque but just in black and red, I’ve cosplayed it before lol. Yeah idk that’s it and I am sleepy goodnight—

Ok so I ran into a post on Reddit a while ago about the Undead Parasite boss from Lament of Innocence and what it looks like and it’s been bothering me for a looooong time because I think it looks like something else.

I’m putting a cut here because there will be pictures of medical diagrams and brief mentions of sexual implications so those who are discomforted by that can scroll past d(^^ ).

So the post was basically saying that the whole boss is very uh a certain private opening shaped and has worms going into the holes meaning it could be some kind of a sexual implication.

But looking closer at it, I really think that’s supposed to be something else. Shapes and patterns are often repeated in nature, especially in anatomy, so I can see how someone might think of that first, but that green hard structure in the inside looks wayyy more like something else to me that is also a tube in the body: the trachea.

Flip this image upside down and suddenly the layers around the hole start to line up, and that characteristic cartilaginous looking green structure makes more sense. But why would this area have references to neck and throat anatomy? For that answer we have to look at the context clues in the rest of the stage.

Oh wow, ok that is almost certainly brain tissue. The folds especially give it away, but the little node looking clumps that pop up are also evidence towards it. Those little things shoot out electricity!!! Like what the neurological system does! Not exactly sure what these might be specifically in anatomy because they don’t really look like anything, but they could just be a cluster of neurons of some sort. And well the neck is kinda situated right below the brain and houses the spinal cord, so it makes sense that references to its structures would be here.

Idk, this area just immediately screamed brain parasite horror to me. Which is interesting since it takes place in the church area, the house of sacred remains. I’m sure there’s probably some kind of symbolic reason for it, but I don’t know what it is tbh. General cynical poisoning the mind stuff? A metaphor for manipulation or brainwashing? Something about corruption? Who knows, just throwing out some ideas that might fit with other themes in the game. There’s also the chance that this might be referencing both anatomical things!!!

Anyway, just random thoughts, hope this makes sense :3

ok so. sara trantoul as a character has SOOOOO little lines and im attempting to extract and reconstruct her personality around it, and in attempting to study her to better understand her as a character, this is what ive so far found.

sara has exactly 3 scenes. one where she awakens to leon, and says maybe one thing to him, one where she’s electrocuted by rinaldo’s barrier, and of course, the one where she martyrs herself to create the vampire killer. we also have some very minor clues about her, such as her art, the music that plays during her last scene, the dramaticized scene with the succubus (iirc in sotn the succubus mentions being able to see into alucards mind enough to immitate lisa), and the emotions leon displays towards her, and towards her kidnapping / the situation in the first place. i don’t have the information booklet that comes w the game disk (anymore 😭) nor have i read the manga adaptation. i feel like i remember there also being a manga that follows, the one where leon meets trefor llewelen and liza marquis, but i dont know anything about it.

as a sidebar, if anyone has access to any of those things please for the love of g-d PLEASE let me see them

ill get into the more minor tidbits first. we have the succubus scene, which IS dramaticized, but its meant to at least somewhat believeably be sara. the only thing of note i really noticed here was that she says “i cant believe youre safe”, which speaks to her thinking of leons safety before her own, and thus putting him before herself. theres the music thats played when shes killed, which is meant to be very tragic and sad, and is very delicate, with harp and flute. which leads into a classical piano solo. these are often used to symbolize beauty and innocence in music. however, to me, since this scene and the game is from leons pov, it feels more like its how leon views sara, and how he views her death. (rear garden is a beautiful piece btw. go listen to it.) she also has her bio, which mentions she is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and that despite being rich she will be the first to help anyone who needs it.

her first two scenes tell us effectively nothing about sara, as she does very little actual speaking in them.

in the last of sara’s exactly 3 scenes however, the one where shes basically sacrificed/martyred, it opens with leon & rinaldo finding out she has been eavesdropping on their conversation regarding her becoming a vampire. immediately this tells us two things—one, she is curious by nature, and two, more importantly, she is absolutely fed up with being kept in the dark regarding her situation & her fate, as no one will tell her whats going on really. shes having to piece it together from what little information she can glean, and having things just happen to her outside of her own control, and others basically making decisions for her, which walter did by kidnapping and eventually turning her, and, at the time of this conversation, leon is actively doing right now. (and, which, she never finds out, but which mathias effectively also does by orchestrating all of this) she is being used as a pawn in everyone elses games, and shes tired of this. she feels helpless, and she does not like it!!!

the next scene, the actual scene itself that i referenced, she tells leon to “stay away”, which speaks to her desperately trying to take control of the situation and of her own fate, trying to protect leon, that she views vampires as inherently dangerous and by extension, views herself as dangerous, and, correlated to her trying to protect leon, it speaks to her first instinct be to protect and/or help others before taking her own needs into account. however, she is able to stand up for her own desires if they directly conflict with someone else’s, even leons, as she begs him to kill her, and he refuses initially, still in denial and shock and convinced he can save her, and that theyll make it out of this, and everything will return to normal. sara knows this wont happen, explaining that it is already too late for her, which tells us she is not in denial about her own impending death. it doesnt necessarily mean shes fully accepted it—thats unlikely, due to the amount of trauma shes undergoing in such a short time. to me it, along with her first action of threatening to stab herself if leon approached, reads more to imply that when sara is faced with an upsetting and traumatic situation, her brain shifts into problem-solving mode, and surpresses her emotions until the situation is dealth with. she wouldnt be able to relax, grieve, really let herself feel any emotions until afterward, because the stress of the situation being ongoing forces her to prioritize making it through this situation before anything else.

she seems to describe the situation to leon, in presumably an attempt to make him understand the situation as it actually is and convince him to agree with her. again, trying to Fix the situation. part of the reason she has accepted death as the best option, too, is that she mentions that “if [her] soul can save others, then [she] wont die in vain”. this, too, speaks to her tendency towards putting others first even before her own life.

more than anything though, the way she describes it also reads to me as fear, which is natural. it partially implies that part of why shes not in denial about her death is that shes MORE scared of what she could become if she ISNT killed now, ESPECIALLY with how vampirism is treated/referred to in game, with the tale of rinaldo’s daughter justine completely changing, personality wise, and slaughtering the rest of her family, describing her basically as becoming a soulless monster.

sara tends to want to help people as much as she can, to the detriment of yourself. no matter how you interpret vampirism, your very survival FORCES you to place your own needs above others in a way that often endangers others. and the way vampirism is described IN GAME, its likely she believes that if the turn is completed, the vampire she will become will not only WANT to do that, but actively ENJOY it.

it is antithetical to her view of herself and her values, and THATS why she fears it so much. its also what i refer to by her putting her needs first. shed rather die as she is than live as an inverted version of herself.

when leon continues to refuse, she basically tries to manipulate/guilt trip him into agreeing, but this seems to be a last resort. but it IS a resort, which is also worth noting to her character. it implies that if she absolutely, DESPERATELY wants something, she will manipulate to get it, but ONLY as a last resort.

which draws a very interesting parallel to mathias, to me.

she also invokes this as an act of agency on her part, basically asking leon to honor her wishes instead of, like everyone else, making those decisions for her.

the last thing she says in that vein is her offering leon reassurance , which ALSO speaks to her tendency to put others before herself.

then of course we get the scene with the creation of the whip. the way rinaldo describes it in the ritual implies its SARAS rage and hatred which gives the whip its power, not leons (a mistake i made at first), and that vampires inherently carry a sort of hatred within their soul, but we dont directly see this with sara. she doesnt seem to be filled with hatred. in addition, she never completes the transformation into a vampire in canon, so she wouldnt be filled with hatred JUST by virtue of being in the process of turning into a vampire. however, i think this brings an opportunity for an interesting interpretation. she IS angry. she IS full of rage. but its nothing inherent to vampirism; shes angry she was put into a situation outside of her control, shes angry she was turned, shes angry her life had to be taken from her, shes angry at walter for all of this. and i think we dont really see this for some reason or another (my personal headcanon is that she doesnt really Allow herself to feel rage, so she surpresses it, which is why it doesnt INHERENTLY read that way when shes talking) but the thing that gives the whip its power is 1) the vampirism itself, the power of the demonic nature of her soul (vampires ARE a type of demon in the cv universe), and 2) the rage she feels towards walter, and towards vampires in general, for taking her life from her, which, now that shes in the whip, with rage being what powers it, she is basically stripped away to ONLY rage

which, i think is a very interesting metaphor to mathias and leon themselves, and how the story leaves them.

sara’s last words are “thank you, leon.” she finally feels like she can rest, like she was able to help and more than that, that her wishes were respected. it is her only true act of agency within the series.

theres of course a conversation to be had about how the writers’ misogyny played into both her characterization and lack thereof, her death and how it impacts the narrative, but thats for another time. this is what i have based on what we get in the games

BONUS: since i am an enjoyer of the victorian flower language as well as modern flower meanings, the choice of flowers in the wreath in her full body picture likely means little, but i’m still going to analyze it.

i can see 3 different flowers here: red anemone, white daisies, and bluestars

red anemone, the most prominent flowers here, and they represent death or forsaken/lost love. in christianity, they are used to represent the blood jesus shed during the crucifixion. which lines up with sara’s role as the “necessary” sacrifice, the martyr, and kind of feeds into leon’s superiority complexes in an interesting way imo.

the white daisies represent innocence and loyalty, purity and joy.

these first two line up very well with the narrative. the death of joy, of purity. a lament of innocence of sorts.

the bluestar is interesting. it can represent hope, and strength and determination, and reaching for the seemingly impossible. this is VERY interesting in the context of the narrative, as the task of defeating walter seems an impossible task, as no one has survived him before, and leon could not even land a hit on him before completeing the whip, but theres also hope now that the whip has been completed, the one thing that can defeat him, which was only possible because of sara, and with it, the determination and strength to see it to the end.

there appears to also be olive branches amongst the leaves, at least as near as i (not a botanist) can identify, which is interesting; olive branches are often associated with doves—which sara embodies very well. the bringing of an olive branch is meant to symbolize peace and hope—which is… FASCINATING to me, as she had hoped her death would prevent others from having the same fate befall them, but was consumed by rage after becoming one with the whip, the very rage which seems to perpetuate a lot of the conflict within the series. its also interesting to me bc walter returned sara to leon in a way that could be viewed as a corruption of the concept of extending an olive branch.

I cannot explain how often I think about this part of the Simon’s Quest story. Ough I wanna try to explain every tiny line of this in detail, but I can’t think of words rn aaa, so I’m gonna dump random disjointed thoughts in the tags for now.

https://href.li/?http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/cv1/documents/CV1J.txt

https://href.li/?http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/cv2/documents/CV2J.txt

I’m putting the links to the English translations of the first two games’ Japanese manuals because their stories are so much cooler than what the western releases got. The second I get everything I can or have thought about this guy together I’m doing in depth story and character analysis for some silly whip man NES games tho—

Alright I’ve thought about it a bit, let’s rant about just how horrifying the curse Simon was afflicted with would be! Consider this like a part one of sorts for Simon’s Quest analysis stuff cause I could talk about this one game for hours on end—

I’m gonna put a cut here because warning ⚠️ descriptions of decay, gorey stuff, disease, and some pretty bad mental effects. Stay safe guys, don’t read further if you can’t handle those topics!

I’ve seen multiple different descriptions of it from different media and manuals, but, just from this little line alone, this is already a pretty awful fate for the guy. High emphasis on the word decay. That in itself can imply a lot of different things, sometimes all at once. And keep in mind too, he’s had this over the course of 7 years. Simon is probably already an absolute wreck from this wayyyyy before the game even starts.

First of all, getting hit on the back is a bad spot for any kind of infection or spreading disease (closest irl counterpart). That’s awfully close to a lot of vital things you don’t want something spreading to including the spine, lungs, heart, etc etc. Especially for deeper cuts because we’re talking Dracula level injury here, not like a paper cut or something. Hell, too deep of a hit on the back might cause some nerve damage, not to the extent of paralysis in his case, but general chronic pain from a wound that won’t heal properly is uhhh… not great. :( I’ve also seen some media say that the curse causes wounds to not heal, bleeding, the American manual even mentions it effecting the soul, awful stuff. I generally like to think “Bloody Tears” is referring to Simon tbh.

Another thing, with afflictions that cause decay generally the smaller appendages start getting hit hard with it first. It’s the same way for a lot of other conditions; fingers, toes, earlobes, anything protruding like that because the body considers them lowest priority in a survival situation like that and it wouldn’t kill you to lose them. Necrosis especially has things start turning ruddy colors, blacken, and start forming holes in the layers of skin (@ @ ;). Obviously this alone is excruciating. Poor dude has to walk for days on end like that…

And slowly deteriorating could also imply some form of wasting. Fats usually go first, then muscle, which is also very not good when you’ve gotta beat the clock to survive. Scary thing is that the brain is like 60% fats and not immune to any of this whoops—

Something I don’t really see anyone consider very often when talking about the curse (not that I’ve seen many people talk about this 💀) is how absolutely mentally fucked up Simon would be from it. Just the terror of knowing you’re slowly rotting to death would be enough to drive most people into some kind of despair or panic, but seeing and feeling all the gruesome details of it is even worse. Being in constant pain and stress isn’t good for anyone, especially someone who is already weakened from illness. But the sheer mental deterioration this guy would be having from the decay itself oh my god (0_o ). Looking up widespread brain shrinkage like that and uh some of the early signs are already stuff like seizures and extreme headaches. Add the fact that he doesn’t really sleep much for upwards of 7 days and it’d be an absolute miracle if this guy wasn’t hallucinating and/or completely hysterical by this point among other things. I mean, no wonder so much of this game is running around lost and confused, not only are people lying to his face, Simon is probably just barely keeping his shit together the whole time.

So just imagine for a second all of these things combined. No wonder people were terrified of him, he probably genuinely looked like a corpse. Eeeee yikes yikes ouch, poor guy :’’’’’(.

Anyway, Konami where is my horror focused Simon’s Quest remake you cowards—

i absolutely love your tags on my post about the mysterious woman, it's nice seeing someone who's as passionate about her as me ❤️

Hehehe, thank u, I’m pacing around all happy about it rn (>.< ). I love Simon’s Quest and how genuinely odd everything that happens in it is.

And the Mysterious Woman doesn’t get talked about very much and y’all are missing out!!! She’s so so so fun to speculate about!

I ran into I think it might have been an old conversation on like Gamefaqs or some other comment section somewhere and there were a surprisingly large amount of people in the conversation who said that when the game came out they assumed that she was meant to be Selena, and that’s just aaaaaa so so interesting to me. And it wasn’t just American fans either, there was someone from Japan who assumed the same. It’s so awesome getting to see the perspectives of people who were there when the game was new and this theory has me going nuts sometimes lol. On one hand it makes sense for the ghost woman in the Belmont family graveyard to be someone from the family, but on the other hand is she really “mysterious” anymore if it’s someone Simon would know?

And why did the Mysterious Woman not mention the Tooth of Vlad and only the other five pieces that she knew would partially summon Dracula instead of the intended burning, burying, and breaking of the curse? Especially if she’s meant to be Selena/Simon’s wife or if you interpret her as Sara? Simon’s Quest really went for the twist of having the call to action character and the one to get Simon out of whatever rut he was in for 6 years in the first place be the first person to lie to him. Which is just so!!!! Aaaa!!!!!!!!!!! This also raises the question: is the Mysterious Woman actually a force of good? Or did she just know that Simon was desperate enough to believe what she was saying to him? I’ve seen some people theorize that she was some kind of Dracula cultist or even a possible form of Death because of this.

Or was she completely right that summoning and killing Dracula is the only way to break the curse? After all a lot of other games in the series that revolve around curses end in Dracula being brought back and defeated. But this is also a strange option as usually when Dracula is resurrected it’s by cultists or Death or whoever else and it’s not a good thing and is just for the purpose of having the evil dark lord do evil things. So that would make this game one of the few scenarios in which Dracula’s resurrection is justified which is so weird I just— thinking about Simon’s Quest to hard is gonna kill me one day lol X,,,,,D.

She also says that one line of “within your own heart, you might be able to defeat the evil if you wager your own life” and thinking about that along with the ominous vagueness of the endings all having different eulogies so similar that you could genuinely make an argument for any of them being the canon ending and the fact that almost all of Simon’s symbolism is related to self sacrifice and martyrdom is uh… interesting. Also a lot of people forget that the area around Castlevania is also cursed, not just Simon. The swamps are messed up, the towns get less saturated in color more empty the closer you get to the castle, and there’s monsters everywhere, this wasn’t entirely a selfish endeavor to save himself.

Anyway, the Japanese manual also talks about the Mysterious Woman in specific ways, appearing and disappearing with the mist. And maybe this is a way to keep her as mysterious as possible, but it’s an interesting choice of words. They could’ve said she walked away into the mist, but they specifically said “disappear”, which is an awfully ghostly thing to do. And it’s also weird cause we kinda do see another character suddenly appear out of thin air in a graveyard in who I like to call the Garlic Guy. The Garlic Guy is also massively under appreciated like what the heck is up with that whole interaction 💀💀💀. Go to the graveyard, only at night, and some hooded figure will suddenly begin to exist in front of you if you lay garlic on the ground and then give you a bag. And then like most things it’s completely unexplained and you just have to keep moving on. I’m thoroughly convinced Simon is just as confused as we are lol. And in a way she is also treated the same way as any other NPC: she does something unexplainable and is never mentioned or important again. The way the game is written I swear it’s designed to make you feel anxious and rushed, ya know like a guy who is actively dying would feel.

And the fact that none of this is ever explained is just so ominous. It adds to the tension of the game and themes of not being able to trust anyone. Nobody trusts Simon, Simon can’t determine who’s trustworthy, there’s NPCs that you don’t even get to know who or what they are, sometimes even the hint books aren’t particularly helpful, things happen and you just have to keep going as to not waste any time.

Hopefully any of this makes sense lol I ain’t reading all that again to check cause I gotta go have lunch cause I forgor about it whoops. Anyway I am very normal about Simon’s Quest and every character in it, please everyone play this game it’s good I promise— (;w; )

Edit: oh my god I did not realize how long this ended up oopsie—

Ok, I’m sick of seeing only Netflix posts lately so I’m ranting about Simon lol

Unfortunately I had some nice paragraphs written for this but tumblr crashed while I was writing so this is my second time making this post (TwT)

TL;DR with the rant under a cut for easy scrolling, I am deranged and have studied all of Simon’s outfits, here’s some fun tidbits and I guess kinda a guide about his fashion sense :3

Oh boy, where to start XD. Castlevania has a lot of intricately detailed usually gothic and/or visual kei inspired fashion designs, usually with some amount of historical accuracy, thanks to Ayami Kojima, that the series is known for. But before this, the character design style was very different. From the very 90s shonen anime inspired Richter, to Christopher being deadass shirtless in a skirt at one point, to John Morris being in basically casual clothes, there’s a lot of variety in it.

Well, being the silly Simon super fan I am, I’ve studied all his outfits a ton over the years I’ve been a fan of the series and oh boy they are INTERESTING :3. I’ve noticed a lot of elements are consistently reoccurring, specific to him, and some are very much not specific to him lol. Anyway, just trust me on this one, overanalyzing the closet of an NES barbarian to be able to make new outfits for him is FUN >:3c.

So, I’ve seen him not wearing pants thrown around as a joke before, but it’s actually the truth! Besides the Haunted Castle wedding suit (an outlier that should not be counted lol), I actually have never run into a design where Simon is wearing full length, proper pants. The closest he ever gets is black tights in Simon’s Quest and occasionally shorts, but on that topic, shorts aren’t even his most common choice! Let’s look at some of his oldest designs:

This one is really hard to tell, but based on the angle of the lines, the shadows, and context clues from other art for CV1, I don’t know if that’s actually supposed to be shorts 💀💀💀!

In both his cute little manual doodles and his almost more adorable teeny 8-bit sprite, his outfit is a belted tunic of some sort! So like, the equivalent of a really tiny dress or a long shirt XD. And really, his cover art design is kinda just a more detailed version of these. They both have a distinction between a top and bottom part of the upper half, they both have big belts, they both have the tall boots and arm guards, they both have teeny skirt part, and Fun Fact! They both have red in the hair! I color picked a nice high res scan of the CV1 cover art, and yes, there’s red in his hair!!! It’s like a nice mix of dark reddish blond, it’s a very fun hair color :3.

However, that’s not where CV1 ends in tunic vs shorts debate:

THAT’S A SKORT— DO YOU SEE THAT DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HALVES, ONE IS DEFINITELY A PANTLEG LMAO. So yeah, skort Simon is also a thing thanks to this particular magazine scan lol, thus leaving us with the possibility that it is both a skirt and shorts on the CV1 cover that he’s wearing X,,,,D. Never change, Simon, never change.

Besides the tunic, there’s some other interesting details to his CV1 era designs! :D In a lot of depictions he has this neat cape, something that returns in some Simon’s Quest art and Smash Bros lol, but he’s never shown wearing it in game. What’s interesting is that Trevor actually gets a cape in his game’s opening as well as Christopher in Belmont’s Revenge if I’m remembering correctly. It’s very neat seeing Simon character design details rubbing off into other characters :3. I like to think lore wise that it’s the same cape that’s been passed down to Simon from those two.

He also has the headband! Iconic! But have you noticed the little ball shapes at the ends of the tails? They’re either knots or, infinitely cooler option, beads :D!!!!!!! And I wouldn’t be surprised if they were because that leads me to another design: X68000–

Now this one is one of my favorites :3. It’s kinda like a forward facing version of his original design but with some new details! And his headband gets this cool lookin, intricate distinctly metallic design on it, something I’ve seen a lot of artists simplify to a general crescent moon shape. But it is kinda similar to the shape on his belt buckle, something that I still have no idea what it’s even supposed to be. Also, his arm guards and the thing at the end of his necklace (which may or may not have vampire teeth on it, they could just be metal spikes though) are similar; it makes me wonder if it was an attempt at a tortoiseshell pattern? Filigree? Whatever it is, they’re all matchy matchy about it.

This design also gives him the staple left shoulder pauldron, of which has these huge stitches holding it on and an added belt that connects to his other belt armor. Get used to belts, he has a lot of those X,,,D. What’s really neat about this one’s belt is that he has both a hilt for the family sword but also one for the whip on the other side, and they’re on the wrong sides for drawing the weapon properly 💀💀💀💀. Which is also funny considering his CV1 cover art has the sword on the other side, which is kinda wrong too? Who knows, maybe he’s ambidextrous and just doesn’t care what sides they’re on lol.

The biggest thing I can say about this design though is that a lot of these accessories and armor pieces look homemade, like as if he just took teeth as a trophy himself and strung them on a cord or made a shoulder piece and put it on an already existing belt he had. Adding onto this, there’s also the possible beads on his headband and the cords around his boots (which could be an attempt at a certain actual historical type of shoe that I cannot remember the name of for the life of me rn, in which case would make these not boots and actually corded shoes with very nice big fluffy socks hehe, I am forcing you to imagine him with big fluffy socks—) and yeah! I can see him making his stuff on his own :3. Which is so cool! I love this idea so much, it makes for a lot of things to imagine him doing hehe. Also gives him a hobby??? Yeah :)

No indication of if he’s got shorts or not in this one, maybe I’ll count how many have skirts or shorts and put that at the end of this lol.

But shorts get another point again cause we’re looking at Chronicles:

Oh Chronicles. Well, the first thing I wanna mention is that, this is Ayami Kojima’s design for him, so here we are seeing a very interesting mix of the visual kei style and 80s barbariancore in a way that honestly slays (figuratively and literally). And, surprisingly, there is something historically accurate about this design, and it’s not what you’d probably expect. Based on the width, material, cross rivets, and the buckle on the front, Simon is wearing an actual dog collar. Like, for dogs. Like it’s dog armor used primarily for hunting dogs I just— Again, never change Simon, never change 💀💀💀.

We also see Simon preferring to put his armor on his left side again with the torn in half coat. It’s also somewhat similar to 1600s coats, not really of any specific country in fashion that I can tell, however the sleeve being that short is not accurate, leading me to believe that he probably tore that off too lol. Very Chrom Fire Emblem of you, Simon, and another example of him D.I.Y.—ing things. The basic elements still stay similar to past designs. Shorts, distinct upper and lower half of shirt, belts, armor on said belt, sword and whip hilts, arm armor and tall boots (shout out to the heels on this one), and armor on the left, unfortunately no headband though. But that distinct bottom half to the shirt part of his outfit in this one is defined with… a corset? Yeah!!! That’s a corset!!! Though the proper name for the time period might be a stay or a girdle, but Simon is straight up wearing a belt over a corset. And said corset over a coat. Half of one. Don’t question him—

But the main entries to his 80s bara-barian half of the wardrobe, let’s get to some knightly aesthetic outfits, of which he does have a good amount, starting with SCV4:

Simon’s knightly outfits are usually a similar silhouette as his original tunic look, just in metal this time and in various colors. SCV4 has his armor as gold on the cover, blue on the Japanese cover and manual art, and green in game! And they’re all pretty much the same with mild variations. On the cover art, his shoes are corded sandals with nothing under them, but in game and in most other artwork they are these metallic boots with the classic X shape of the cords baked into them. Some art gives his middle belt armor section this cross with snakes on it, which is an odd thing to be referencing here. It’s either a staff of Mercury, usually associated now with medicine but was an alchemical symbol before that, or something else I can’t find any info on. There’s also a big ab window because these are all proper half shirts lol. Straight up a metal breastplate with nothing under it, a pretty bad idea tbh 💀.

All in all, these are generally really simple, but there’s one more thing before I stop talking about SCV4:

I LOVE this design. It’s this really nice blend of the older CV1 era style and the metal armor of the later ones, very cool. Shout out to the eye creases and the dead stare shadow over his eyes too, they really conveyed the effects of witnessing the horrors well lmaoooo.

Again, tunic, belt, arm guards, headband, the usual, but, speaking of symbols, there’s something about this one that’s been driving me nuts forever: I cannot find out what that symbol on his paldrons and belt buckle is!!! It’s this upside down triangle with a bent rectangle missing the bottom line over it and it LOOKS distinctly intentional, but I can’t find it or what it means anywhere!!! I tried searching through lists of alchemical symbols, religious symbols, nothing so far has been close (TwT ). Regardless, great design, definitely in my top 5.

And what else is in my top five? Oh yeah babey, it’s Simon’s Quest time:

Ah, Simon’s Quest with his fuck ass bob and the stolen Ravenloft image— but unironically, that armor fucks fr. Again, similar silhouette! If there’s any take aways from this post, it’s definitely that Simon is a little shirt, little pants kind of guy. A severe lack of long sleeves and long pants legs until now, and even then, these are skin tight. Heck even his boots(????) are vacuum sealed, just look at those fabric creases by his ankle!

Now, it’s honestly really hard to tell if his “gloves” and “boots” are supposed to be in some parts metal due to the shading on them and the base armor being very similar. I personally like to depict the forearm and calf parts as metal and the hand and ankle parts as not, but eh. Like most things regarding Simon, I suppose this too is up to interpretation XD. There’s some variation in color in some scans having the underclothes be white, dark blue, or black, and the armor be any range of red to purple to brown too. But towards red and black is probably the most accurate due to his sprite being those colors.

But this is a shockingly rare case of Simon being fully covered in one of his outfits, and I’m inclined to think that there’s probably a reason for that. Not only does he have a rotting curse right now and drawing straight up gore on the cover of an NES game was just not an option lol, but he’s not letting his guard down anymore after being hit. Which would also explain the sudden change to all metal armor as that can’t be cut through as easily as leather.

Speaking of all metal armor, oh I looooove the detailing on his. The gold accents to his byzantine (a nice in between color of red and purple, a color that is also reused in Smash Bros again in the middle corset section of his outfit) are what I would call stylized floral patterns, kinda in the way that fleur de les don’t really look exactly like flowers but still are supposed to represent one. Not sure what kind exactly, but possibly some sort type of angel’s trumpet? Very neat regardless. The gems inlaid in it are all green on top and around the belt, but the center belt buckle is bright red. It’s a very jewel tones color scheme!!!

Well anyway, if tumblr will let me have more images, I’d like to show off a few other random examples of outfit elements he’s had before I close this off with something :3

This was a pretty recently found scan of Simon wearing get this: a pleated miniskirt. Probably Roman armor inspired, as some of his other magazine scans have depicted him as such. One ad for SCV4 and another (live action even) for Simon’s Quest has him even wearing like a Roman helmet and everything, it’s odd. Add helmets to the list of things Simon might wear. Hmm maybe I should make a tier list of things based on how often he’s worn them…

Moving on!

This one goes for the bold choice of giving Simon not only an expected tiny belted tunic, but side slits on the legs! And uh um a little too much detail but uh— It’s also this kinda white, kinda bluish, kinda silverish color? Add this to Simon’s color palette I guess lol.

Which reminds me that I didn’t mention colors very much until now whoops. Throughout all of hie designs he primarily seems to wear neutrals like various browns, greys, and metal tones. But he also has a lot of color. Like as in there’s enough different colored designs to make a whole rainbow of Simon outfits. Common combinations like dark green, gold, and wine reds; blue and silver; brown, gold, orange, and kinda purplish greys; etc etc. And his HAIR. Oh boy, would this guy love modern hair dye X,,,,,D. He’s had it various blonds, reds, browns, even black at one point, blue, green, unnatural red, pink, and in one concept design white! Personally, I like depicting it as a nice in between of red, blond, and brown, it encompasses the most I think.

The final thing I wanna mention is the Smash Bros design, which I unfortunately can’t show because I’m on mobile and have met the 10 images limit whoopsie— (_ _ ;). This design is really a good culmination of a lot of elements. Not really definitive or anything, but very good :3. And it has something I didn’t mention earlier that I’ve noticed in some Simon designs: random belts or metal around his upper arms and thighs lol. The Smash Bros design in particular has the arm band things on both sides, Chronicles has it on the not half coat one, but this is another thing I’ve seen other characters (Christopher in particular, but his are just gold rings) have. The leg thing is less common, but yeah, that exists lol. Thank you Simon for uh bending two pieces of metal around your leg…? It’s cool XD. The corset also makes a return, as well as, once more, the same basic silhouette with the armor only on the left side, the belt armor pieces, etc etc. He’s very particular about that—

Well, anyway, Simon definitely has a vibe going on, but here’s a brief summary of things he seems to like:

Skirts, tunics, long shirts, and shorts (and skorts I guess), but nothing past about half his thigh, generally over the knees.

No long sleeves or pant legs (unless it’s tights when absolutely necessary).

Armor primarily to the left, unless it’s metal, in that case usually a full plate or paldron set.

Belts, hilts, belts on his arms, and neck, and hanging off of things, and legs, yeah belts—

Boots/tall socks, corded or not, and something on his forearms or wrists.

Headband! Seriously out of every Belmont he is the most dedicated to these lol.

Necklaces and beads and other little accessories and adornments are also cool.

Alrighty then, have fun Simon-ing and I encourage you to look through his or other characters’ designs and pick them apart a bit sometimes, even if it’s just through what’s on the wiki :3. If anything, I think it’s a good exercise in character design and consistency! But yeah, I wrote all this late at night and can’t think of anything else rn. If I do I’ll do a sequel I guess hehe. Either that or I might rant about another character hmmmmmmm—

Theory: Bill Cipher probably ate his Parallel Dimension Twin

Or should I have done an Earl of Lemongrab meme? Okay, jokes and japes aside I feel this has some real merit behind it, that I'll leave under the cut.

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There's a lot of good ideas going around with how exactly Bill destroyed his dimension, but my personal pet theory is that he made contact with his parallel universe twin. Specifically, he consumed him. The evidence of what can happen when parallel universe copies make contact with each other is described in journal 3 by Alternate McGucket:

"As soon as they touched hands, the entire dimension began to warp and fizz with static ... In fact, that whole dimension has ceased to exist."

Time and time again, Bill is associated with static. In his "blood", attempts by the government to vivisect him, his memories of the event, his therapy notes, and depictions of his parents.

We know his goal with what ended up becoming the Euclydian Massacre was to "show everyone what they were missing," and it was enough to destabilize and destroy everything.

How'd he pull it off? I'm thinking he built a dimensional portal of his own, but honestly in this show anthyding can hadplen. It would definitely explain where the portal idea came from in the first place.

But why do I think he consumed his twin? It's all these very suspicious comments he keeps making to Ford specifically...

"How about that; you've got an inferior clone! Why didn't you just eat him in the womb? Think of how powerful you'd be!" "You can't just eat your twin, Bill." "You'd be surprised what you can eat."

And in the microscopically rare moment of honesty where he admits to himself that he's a monster, even if Ford isn't aware Bill's talking about himself yet, he follows up Ford's offer for revenge with, "It would eat you alive." You'd be surprised what you can eat.

And it's not like he hasn't consumed others after, as the page in the Book of Bill on the topic of Human skin, there's a desperate note at the bottom from a Grembley Hemberdrek of Zimtrex 9, who Bill devoured trillions of years ago and who's soul has been trapped inside forever after, tortured with "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch on an endless loop. Who's to say his parallel twin isn't in there too?

It's very possible that his ultimate goal, aside from getting revenge, opening his world's eyes to the third dimension, and the sweet sweet high of proving everyone wrong was ultimately to find a better world, consume his "inferior twin" and take over his identity in his dimension. Thematically, it would also cement his status as Stanley's dark foil, who also took over and stole his twin's identity leading to a better life, albeit for much nobler reasons.

Additionally, on top of the practical reasons for taking over Earth, choosing Ford had that bonus that he wouldn't be alone by molding Ford in his image. It's why he kept giving him so many chances to join him. By setting him up to destroy his world, betray his twin, and become monsters together, he'd finally have a companion who's exactly like him. Only fitting for the Multiverse's ultimate narcissist, isn't it?

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks! This is only a theory and tbh I'm probably going to be proven wrong in time but hey!