And now for a very different sort of Valentine’s Day manicure! Years ago I was completely enamored with a video game called Alice: Madness Returns. It was a very NSFW, possibly NSFL (Not Safe For Life), retelling of Alice in Wonderland, if Lewis Carroll’s beloved tale were chockablock with mutant baby dolls, Victorian era sanitariums and monsters who look like they were pulled apart and stitched back together again with pieces of other monsters.
My favourite thing about the game was Alice’s wardrobe, which leaned heavily towards the Gothic Lolita and was wonderfully, blessedly free of the all-tits-and-ass style favoured by other video game heroines. Alice had something like 12 different costumes, including six downloadable-only outfits that gave her special powers, as all great outfits do. Perk-wise, my favourite was the Caterpillar dress, which enabled Alice to shrink down to itty bitty insect size to creep through tiny keyholes. But for my visual money, I always chose the original meat dress, Alice’s Fleshmaiden costume, an outfit that really looked like those inside-out monsters I was mentioning earlier. Power-wise, the Fleshmaiden costume (ugh, that name, though) enabled Alice to slip effortlessly into Hysteria mode, a kind of abstract, black and white (and red) world that looked like that metallic taste you get in your mouth when you’re so angry, you kind of lose your hearing. If the DLC items could be said to belong to any given level, the Fleshmaiden costume was the domain of Queensland, a meat and tendon and blood-soaked hellscape ruled by the Queen of Hearts.
My for-a-time obsession with Madness Returns happened to coincide with the earliest days of my all-the-time obsession with nail art, and indeed, I launched this very blog with those initial hesitant attempts. So it felt quite fitting to revisit one of those designs for this Then and Now post that really puts the “anti” in anti-Valentine’s Day. Anyhow, happy day to you, friends, no matter how you choose to acknowledge the day (although hopefully it doesn’t involve wearing your enemy’s heart on your lapel like a brooch.)
Finger Candy 
Great then and now…so much detail in this version…do the teeth have like, plaque? lol!
I did a image search and found one tiny pic of this and a few other of the outfits, so I can see why there are teeth, etc…interesting game… I am not familiar with it, tho I remember it coming up in a cosplay reality show we watched in the past couple years.
I gotta give you credit for a real original inspiration for hearts/Valentines day mani 😀
Thank you so much for noticing that my inside out monster does have plaque – no time for proper dental hygiene when you’re being slayed and slaying alike, right?
That show sounds cool, and I can see how this game would be a big draw for that community – it’s a great game, but it’s almost better visually.