IT REALLY WAS REAL! The "I saw this so long ago I thought I hallucinated it" thread

Let's see if ya'll can help my friend find a videogame they remember from childhood.

ok, so: it was a sort of pixel metroidvania-esque game from either the 80s, 90s, or early 00s. the colors were somewhat muted compared to a lot of old games, but i remember the player character looking more vibrant than the rest. i think the PC used a whip, and i recall that it was some sort of temple-diving experience? i have distinct memory of trying to jump across holes being guarded by ceiling spiders, or entering a room and immediately getting set upon by a snake trap across the other side.

 

I’m not at all sure, but I think Cave Story was something like this? It’s on the latter end of the timeframe given, I think, but the aesthetic is ringing a bell there. Definitely don’t quote me on this though!

 

La Mulana?

 

I read a book once about two girls finding an old tiara that was a piece of tech, it had a large three-sided stone on it that could be removed and replaced with one of a different color. Each stone had a different power: healing, teleportation, time travel etc. It was called The Atlantis (something). One of the powers was "seeing" where you'd go, you would scope out a location and quickly switch the stone with another one to teleport. That way you could visit somewhere without being there in body. They used this to visit an underwater ruin with a large hole in the floor, in the hole was a creature of some kind but they left before seeing what it was because shit was scary. There was also an angel? Or being who called himself an angel and he's upset that the tech is in the hands of two teenagers who dont know how to use it. I think the book is also the first in a series, I only owned the first one. I'd LOVE to find the title of it, it had some incredibly interesting ideas.

Also the Atlantians were probably aliens.

 

La Mulana apparently isn't it, but it's definitely closer/in the right vein.

 

Oh my god, I finally found a setting to post this.
Does anyone remember a Homestuck fanfic called something like, 'cloverstuck'? I don't think that was the exact title since it doesn't return any results on AO3. It was definitely on AO3, it was like an AU where troll civilization had invaded Earth and been occupying it since like the 50s? All I remember was that Kanaya lived in the Sahara desert and it was really good. It might have been a series, but I'm not sure.
If this is rings a bell to anyone I would LOVE to know.

 

I don't think I actually read it myself but the name definitely sounds familiar. Unfortunately I can't recall anything else, but the title--while clearly not exact given the lack of AO3 results--is very familiar-sounding, so I feel like you must not be that far off? I could be totally wrong though.

 

Google's turning up Cloverstuck as a humanstuck AU by saccharineSylph, on AO3 under the title Clover.

 

oh you're right! i think i have read this before, but it's not the specific AU i was remembering (seems to be just a regular modern-day human AU). i must have misremembered the title! thanks for the help though.

 

The atlantis twins?

 

No :( im starting to think it wasn't very popular, I may never find it again unless i get REAL lucky at a thrift store.

 

The closest thing I can think of is The Silver Crown, and though I don’t remember it well since it’s been so long, I don’t think it’s that.

 

trying to find a story from a collection of short stories. cw creative animal cruelty, animal death, bullying which involves the previous two warnings, and a swarm of centipedes

Spoiler

it was about this girl, middle or high school, who... her bully, another girl (i think a Popular Girl?) was at her house for some reason, possibly they had been assigned to work on a group project together, and the protag was obviously really uncomfortable with the bully, and the bully deliberately--oh i just remembered, the protag had a tank of fish set up for shock experiments? and the bully turned the power up until she killed the fish while the protag protested, and then she killed the protag's other pets (off-screen, a hamster and a turtle--microwaving and flushing down the toilet, respectively). in the end the protag took her down to the basement and the swarm of house centipedes that she--had befriended? or controlled, or which responded to her emotions, or something--attacked the bully

 

This sounds really familiar to me, and for some reason I wanna say it was either from or reposted in a creepypasta collection somewhere (clarifying edit: online, not in print)? It’s possible I’m just remembering a similar concept, since there are some fairly common themes in there, but this specific execution rings a bell to me, and if I have in fact read it before, that seems like the most likely place I would’ve encountered it.

I’m sorry I can’t recall the specifics, but maybe this’ll provide a jumping off point, or at least narrow things down a bit?

 

nope, it was in print. i think the title of the collection had travel or escape in the title, and maybe there was a sailboat involved in the cover design. that's about all i remember.

 

Hmm, dang, that sounds less familiar I’m afraid—I guess I was just thinking of something with similar broad themes. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help!

 

okay, so, ancient-ass game, definitely released before 1985, for an Apple machine, probably the IIc but I can't be sure on that
i think it had color graphics
you could pick a boy or a girl as your character because i remember being really excited for reasons i couldn't quite put into words that i got to be a girl
you were trying to get through a maze of sorts? top-down very simple sprite graphics
there were worms in the maze that would eat you, but you could find and deploy a thumper to attract them in order to get them out of the way

any ideas?

 

Music video, I thought it was by halsey but I'm not finding it. Female artist. Listened to her stuff a lot a few years ago. Song was called 'one last night' or 'one good night' maybe, there was a phrase in there like "just give me one good night"

Music video was about a valet who has a frustrating shift and drives off with a nice convertible. Later in the night he happens upon a trans woman who is being harassed, gets her away from the dudes bothering her and they end up driving in the car, just enjoying the feeling of being in a nice car on a pretty night. They end up at a diner eating pie and talking and laughing, it is Very Cute and gives me Feels.

The artist has a similar sound to halsey but im pretty sure it's not her. Going to try some other song titles I remember from back in the day, maybe I'll bump into the artist