Castle Series

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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.

Twenty 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.

The series is hosted here and here.

Tropes used in Castle Series include:

• 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
• Art Evolution: Immediately noticeable between Castle 1 and Castle 2.
• Badass: Hell, the whole Elite Team qualifies, as well as some of the ordinary soldiers. Special mention goes to a soldier in Part 3C who defends himself against two evils with a knife'. In subtropes:
  • Badass Mustache: Mullins.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ray Williams
  • Colonel Badass: The General, and somewhat Boomer, since he became in charge of a small squad.
• BFS: Lloyd, obviously.
• Body Horror: Hinted at in Repercussions part A. "Do you know what it's like being torn apart alive?"
• Chase Scene: And how!
• Ceiling Cling: The Zombies, to great effect.
• Cliff Hanger: Both Castle 3 and Repercussions have one at their respective ends.
• Cold Sniper: Beecher.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: It seems that the soldiers fall under this trope, as Repercussions made evident.
• Cosmic Horror Story
• Deadpan Snarker: Lloyd has shades of this.

Lloyd: "Come on, let's move before Boomer challenges the others to a wrestling match. Don't want anyone to die early."

• Determinator: Mullins.

Mullins: The only thing I know is I ain't giving up. Never.

• Eldritch Abomination: The Castles
• Genius Loci: The Castles
• Large Ham: A few, but Dr. Romanov in particular.

Dr. Romanov: "COME WITH ME if you WANT to LIVE! 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. Also, I'm sure there was a dead body in the center of that room a few episodes ago....
• MacGuffin: The Orb
• Mobile Maze: The third castle - although you never see the movement
• My Friends and Zoidberg:

Ray: Was there anyone else with you? Mullins: Boomer. Roberts. Some other guy.

• Pre-Mortem 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*

• 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 fuelled 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) and Awesome Moments.
• 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.
• Stick Figure Animation: The practical artistic conclusion of the technique.
• 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 Jason's voice before he's offed.
• Our Zombies Are Different: The main faceless mooks of the ambiguous "Evil." "Zombie" is actually more of an inappropriate Fan Nickname - 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. 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.