Haunted Paintings

The Haunted Paintings are a secondary enemy encountered in Melodramatic Museum, a level in Dark Deception: Unchecked Limitations.

Appearance
The Haunted Paintings resemble creepy paintings of varying appearances, depicting either real-life artworks or characters from the Dark Deception franchise. The main thing that is common between all of them is that they possess creepy smiles and wide staring eyes that follow the player.

Personality
The Paintings seem to have varying personalities, but are all mainly murderous and patient, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Powers
The Paintings possess the unnatural power of jumping out of their frames in order to grab the player. Their stare can creep out even the bravest souls.

Behavior
These paintings occupy the walls and hide amongst normal paintings. The player can reveal them with Telepathy. If the player gets too close, the paintings will jump from the walls and attempt to grab the player. When this happen, the player to quickily flash them with the camera, this will make them stop before rubbing their eyes, giving the player some time escape from them. If the player doesn't escape, the paintings will jumpscare the player. Looking at the paintings for too long will cause the player to be afflicted with the Feared status effect, where all the paintings begin to move and their eyesight is impaired. With a strong fear, the player's movement speed and reaction will dramatically be increased by 40%, but if the paintings continue to scare the player, the player will die of fear. At higher difficulties, the characters within these paintings will move sporadically and unpredictably around the room. Some paintings will scream and slap the player if they're approached, while others will spit out a paintball projectile in the middle of its respective hallway, which will temporarily cover the player's screen in paint.

During the escape sequence, all of the paintings get turned into various horrifying images with eye symbols. Several characters will emerge from the Haunted Paintings, where they start taking on photo-realistic, grotesque appearances similar to that of MeatCanyon. During this state, these characters become aggressive and attempt to swarm the player. When nearby them, the player will experience hallucinations of various red text on the screen. The texts that can be seen are "YOU MURDERER"," HOW COULD YOU", "YOU'LL PAY", and "I LIKE CHEESE".

Trivia

 * The Paintings are based on the common living painting trope similar to the living statue trope. Their behavior may also inspired by the paintings from the RPG Maker horror game Ib.
 * According to E, it’s been said that anyone who gazes into theze paintings for too long will have their soul taken, trapped inside the artwork for the rest of eternity. Owners of these paintings are said to hear weird crying and moaning from the painting, possibly the spirits trapped within the painting attempting to find a way out. Most of the people who are trapped inside these paintings were victims of Peter Painterson.
 * The Paintings are the second support enemy that cannot move at all and therefore act more like traps, the first being the Despair Duckies. However, during the escape sequences, the characters inside these paintings will start chasing the player.
 * The Paintings have the largest amount of non-lethal jumpscares so far, capping at 19 (counting the default smiling panting, and not counting the five mysterious paintings with unknown characters that were later revealed to be characters from Journey of the Girl in Red, in which case the number would be 24.)
 * The Paintings generally depict characters from Dark Deception: Unchecked Limitations and different fangames in the Dark Deception Fanon Wiki (together with Dark Deception: Resurrection, the Wiki Deception franchise, Toon Deception, Center of Hell's Power, etc). However, the artwork may also include the characters and scenarios that reference Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Invader Zim, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall, Coraline, ParaNorman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Happy Tree Friends, Popee the Performer, Gregory's Horror Show, Salad Fingers, and Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, albeit looking a little bit more twisted than before.
 * These paintings may even cautiously observe the player anywhere they may be going, in addition to now and again muttering random phrases from the show they reference, such as "Green is not a creative color!" (from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared), "Why was there bacon in the soap?!" (from Invader Zim), and "Stupid dog! You made me look bad!" (from Courage the Cowardly Dog).
 * Originally, when players were near the paintings, each painting would play a theme that would sound a little like the show they are referencing, but the developer decided against this, due to the large amount of money and time it would take.
 * As of the latest Halloween Update, the new characters from the Don't Hug Me I'm Scared TV series were added to the Haunted Paintings, which include Grolton & Hovris, Briefcase, Unemployed Brendon, Mr. Lunch, Coffin, Stain Edwards, the Twins and their family, Warren the Eagle, Brain Friends, Choo Choo, Time Child, Electracey the Meter, and Lesley.