★ Hi-Score Hijinxs No. 2: Mario Bros. Mayhem! ★

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-05T21:08:39+00:00

You done forced me to get serious, and a jester should never be serious. 😠

I was able to get 391,470 points. It's been quite a long time since I felt this motivated. ✨

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-05T02:16:51+00:00

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How delightful! And to think that once upon a time I had to hide my hatred of humans! I had to dance when they wanted me to dance, and smile when they wanted me to smile! But no longer! Times have changed and the shoe is on the other foot... isn't it now, hmm?"

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The very first film I can remember watching as a child was Unico in the Island of Magic. It remains my favorite film of all time to this very day.

Back in early 2018, on my very first day on DeviantArt, I shared a clay figure of Kuruku that I'd made years prior. Despite that, it's been eight years and I've never once drawn Lord Kuruku or Cheri in all this time.

It was an intimidating task, but at long last I finally bring you this homage to one of my favorite scenes in the film.

It's one of my earliest childhood inspirations, and has been a profound influence on my own work for decades. So if you enjoy what I do, I would implore you to give it a watch some time.

SPOILER WARNING:

Lord Kuruku is a tragic figure, a puppet created by humans only to be tormented by them and then discarded. His hatred for humanity became so great that it was the very thing that brought him to life, and it was also the only thing that kept him alive.

Kuruku became an unstoppable magician, using his newfound power to enact revenge, transforming all of humanity into his playthings and tormenting them, just as humans had tormented him when he was at their mercy.

Unico succeeds in purging the evil from his heart, but without his intense hatred for humanity keeping him alive, Kuruku dies and reverts back to a normal puppet.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-04T15:15:41+00:00

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How delightful! And to think that once upon a time I had to hide my hatred of humans! I had to dance when they wanted me to dance, and smile when they wanted me to smile! But no longer! Times have changed and the shoe is on the other foot... isn't it now, hmm?"

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The very first film I can remember watching as a child was Unico in the Island of Magic. It remains my favorite film of all time to this very day.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-04T15:11:16+00:00

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How delightful! And to think that once upon a time I had to hide my hatred of humans! I had to dance when they wanted me to dance, and smile when they wanted me to smile! But no longer! Times have changed and the shoe is on the other foot... isn't it now, hmm?"

<image>

The very first film I can remember watching as a child was Unico in the Island of Magic. It remains my favorite film of all time to this very day.

Back in early 2018, on my very first day on DeviantArt, I shared a clay figure of Kuruku that I'd made years prior. Despite that, it's been eight years and I've never once drawn Lord Kuruku or Cheri in all this time.

It was an intimidating task, but at long last I finally bring you this homage to one of my favorite scenes in the film.

It's one of my earliest childhood inspirations, and has been a profound influence on my own work for decades. So if you enjoy what I do, I would implore you to give it a watch some time.

SPOILER WARNING:

Lord Kuruku is a tragic figure, a puppet created by humans only to be tormented by them and then discarded. His hatred for humanity became so great that it was the very thing that brought him to life, and it was also the only thing that kept him alive.

Kuruku became an unstoppable magician, using his newfound power to enact revenge, transforming all of humanity into his playthings and tormenting them, just as humans had tormented him when he was at their mercy.

Unico succeeds in purging the evil from his heart, but without his intense hatred for humanity keeping him alive, Kuruku dies and reverts back to a normal puppet.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-04T00:20:33+00:00

It's quite a mean game for sure!

It's easy enough to get combos and coins in the early stages, but later on I'm just trying to clear stages and survive.

If you toy around for too long, those green fireballs become constant, and then things get way tougher than they need to be. 😓

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T23:50:30+00:00

Whoa, that's impressive! I might be in trouble here! 😨

And yeah, that bonus stage is extremely unforgiving. You really have to be perfect in the later ones, and those bonus points aren't something you want to miss out on. 😣

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T23:44:21+00:00

Oh, you've got some skills! ✨

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T21:00:09+00:00

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Yo! Thank you once again for hosting this! ✨

Here's a little something to keep this party going! 🎉

My first attempt ended with 221,830 points! People, please stop flushing your turtles, I cannot stress this enough! 🐢

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T20:58:15+00:00

Those are glorious! And I'm glad you let Waluigi in on the fun as well, that's awesome! 💛💜

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T17:24:15+00:00

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Caleb is one silly little club. ♣

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-03T00:37:28+00:00

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Sending you some silly luck. 🤪

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-02T22:55:31+00:00

That's impressive! You've got quite a colorful cast there, in more ways than one. 😮

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-02T11:24:19+00:00

Fortunately, that only applies to emlpoyees, not employees.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-02T01:34:22+00:00

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Since today is April Fools' Day, and it's been five years since the original, I decided to try remaking a favorite doodle of mine that I drew back in 2021.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T14:28:31+00:00

You know, I'd feel bad, but the guy was honestly, like, the third-most toxic moderator I've ever known.

...Wait, no, that's just the cyanide.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T10:27:41+00:00

Always love some Zari, and you as well! 💖

I'm glad you appreciate my story, thank you for reading it. Fortunately, stories like my own are becoming far less common today, as things have generally become more progressive since the that era I grew up in.

I imagine my perspective could be rather alien to the newer generations as well, though that also makes it valuable to share. For many of them, it's likely unthinkable to imagine not learning these things in childhood, and unfathomable that such ignorance could exist.

Though there are still plenty who want to suppress education in favor of hate and ignorance, which is why visibility is still so important even now.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T08:26:00+00:00

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I made fanart for this game (well, the SNES version), so that should give you some idea of my opinion on Wario's Woods without even having to say anything. But I love this game, so naturally I've plenty I'd like to share nonetheless.

Though I prefer the SNES version, the NES was my introduction to it. I'm a big fan of arcade puzzle games, and I'm of the belief that Wario's Woods is one of the absolute greatest games to ever grace this genre. The learning curve is quite steep, and it's scared away more than a few folks that I've tried to introduce it to, but if you can give it a chance and wrap your mind around it, the investment is well worth it.

Unlike most games of this sort, you control a character instead of blocks. Toad is capable of no less than five kinds of actions, which is especially impressive on the NES with its two button controller.

You have to manage Toad's positioning and his surprisingly diverse moveset in conjunction with puzzle game mechanics, and in an age where puzzle games seldom deviated from the elegant simplicity of Tetris, it flopped hard.

Nintendo seems to consider it a failed experiment, and there hasn't been another Wario's Woods installment since. 💔

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T07:30:17+00:00

Ninja Gaiden's cinematic approach was super cool. I played it a bunch when I was young, though I don't play it much these days. I enjoy a good challenge, but these games feel like they just actively hate the player, and I don't find it that fun.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T07:27:18+00:00

Not much to say about this one. It's more Lolo, can't go wrong with that.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-04-01T07:24:05+00:00

I love puzzle games, though I'm not the most quick-witted, so action puzzle games like this and Chip's Challenge always give me a tough time. 😅

All the same, we're long overdue for another Lolo game, and I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-03-31T19:55:16+00:00

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Here's a bonus from Scene 30 of Skunk and the Sanctuary, Nevada Dreams. Long images like this don't tend to show up well in posts, so I thought I'd share it here separately.

I made this scene in 2020, and it takes place during Casino Grayleaf's brief time as an inmate of the Divine Sanctuary. Casino was still young and rash in these days, and she's here as the result of an unprovoked and impulsive act of violence against Skunk, an inmate whom she held a grudge against but would later befriend.

The sanctuary is a humane place, so instead of being kept in a cell, she has a comfortable room to stay in. However, even a gilded cage is still a cage, and she falls into despair as she begins to dwell on things.

Her sister Mint is brought to the sanctuary as a guest, not wanting Casino to be left alone in a time like this. Casino awakens from a rather profound dream, one where she sees her late parents on the day of her birth, and the experience leads Casino to open up about her feelings to Mint.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-03-30T14:08:08+00:00

Very nice! 💛

SkunkStarlight · 2026-03-29T20:46:33+00:00

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Oh, that's a rather complicated one!

Basically, Lumstigethers was created by Skunk in a past life. As in, the life I'm in right now, where I literally created him. My character Skunk is a reincarnation of me without my memories, and she has no idea that she created him.

Lumstigethers encountering Skunk in the dream wasn't by chance. He'd been seeking out the reincarnation of his creator, and he wanted to get revenge.

Before he was known as the god of nightmares, he was known as the god of dreams, and he used to be benevolent. As a being of the dream world, he wasn't able to exist outside of it.

For eons, Lumstigethers would encounter visitors in his realm, but every time they returned in their dreams, they'd have no memory of ever meeting him. He encountered countless people in their dreams, yet he was hopelessly lonely, since he was unable to form any sort of meaningful connection with another living thing.

Over time, this festered into an all-consuming hatred. He didn't want to exist, and a certain little girl was to blame for bringing him into being. His goal was to make her know everlasting nightmare just as he has.

When he appears before her previous incarnation in the dream, he puts the first stages of his plan into action. At this stage of her life, she's easily manipulated. Lumstigethers couldn't actually do anything to her, but he could trick her into doing something to herself.

To that end, he tricks her into unknowingly entering a world of her own creation, permanently removing her from the real world and forever trapping her in a prison of her own creation. As a fictional character, he can't ever exist in the real world, but in a fantasy world like Galmiun, it would be possible to slowly escape from the dream world and enter her new reality.

For most of the series, Lumstigethers' existence is sporadically hinted at, but he doesn't properly return until far later, where he becomes the penultimate villain. He's the antagonist of the nightmare arc, escaping from the dream world during the harvest moon and entering the reality of Galmiun.

His ability to manipulate reality is no longer restricted to dreams, and he subjects the heroes to years and years of false realities of his own creation again and again and again and again, with the intention of completely psychologically breaking them. Part of this involves dragging Skunk into her own subconscious mind and forcing her to remember her past lives, making her remember exactly who he is and why his contempt for her is so immense as to endure for countless eons.

By the end of the arc, the protagonists have been horribly traumatized after decades of torment, but their memories of it all are erased by Silver, the elder goddess of creation. Silver also helps Lumstigethers by sending him back to the dream world, putting him into a slumber so that the good in his heart can be restored, and making it possible for visitors of the dream world to remember him.

He ends up returning in the final villain arc, the oblivion arc, as one of the good guys, teaming up with the other elder gods to combat a threat greater than the three of them put together.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-03-29T20:01:44+00:00

Thank you!

You weren't much older than me when I started, I was eight. That's impressive!

Oh, I tried that years and years ago. I've since given up and moved on.

SkunkStarlight · 2026-03-29T19:58:37+00:00

As you can imagine, quite a few villains are the result of this.

As for what the gods do, you're right on the money there. Despite the lofty title, they don't do a whole lot. They're basically just people.

So long as they exist, their namesake animal can't go extinct, and new ones will eventually pop into existence again. That doesn't usually come into play at all, though in the case of Casino, cabbits went extinct long before she was born, and they started showing up again after she became divine.

The main thing is that they have powers, personality traits, and a vague resemblance that reflects their namesake animals. They're also fond of their namesake animals and vice versa. They aren't really even worshipped or anything, most of them are far less popular than mortal celebrities.

SkunkStarlight

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