#(although this was inspired by weird 911 people not that one)

[meneatyoghurt]

If I'm ever concerned I might be a bit too obsessed with something/someone, I just go look at what the truly deranged fans are up to. And then I'm like...yeah maybe it's a big thing in my life, but at least I'm not trying to be a big thing in their life. Maybe it's something I want to talk about/mention a couple of times a day, but I'm not spending literal hours tweeting about it from dawn to dusk.

[deadwriter16]

Hi.... If you don't mind me asking, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series/games/etc) and your top 10 favorite characters from any media ? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this questions before or if I accidentally send this ask twice.....

Hi! Sorry I'm super super bad at managing my inbox but I am finally answering you, so sorry it took so long!! pls forgive me

as far as media goes, i dont have a rank order or anything really but here are 10 pieces of media i really enjoy:

i wouldnt say these are my top 10, but just some i really love

fruits basket (anime) - most ive ever cried watching anything. watched this during my last year of high school during the peak of college application season and it altered my brain chemistry forever. i will never be the same

assassination classroom (anime) - watched it in middle school and therefore formed a deep and unhealthy obsession with it, also karma is THAT BITCH. amazing show. also so like oddly sad

new girl (tv) - my favorite television show OF ALL TIME

how to get away with murder (tv) - my favorite televison drama show OF ALL TIME

always sunny (tv) - still watching this one but i LOVE it, shows about fucked up horrible people are my favorite, also i really love and admire their writing style and i really want to embody it on a show someday. definitely a huge writing inspiration for me

arrested development seasons 1-3 (tv) (i liked 4 and 5 but 1-3 are incredible) - again, a show about incredibly terrible people, and also really fucking funny in a weird way. and super clever. i love it

sherlock (tv) - i LOVE murder mysteries so so much. also theyre super gay which is fun

soul eater (anime) - my first anime ever, will love it forever

penguins of madagascar (movie) - i am unironically saying this, i am not fucking with you, this is my favorite animated movie

saturday night live (tv) - a classic. i haven't really traversed past the 21st century but i watch it every weekend without fail.

a special eleventh is A.P. Bio, amazing show never should've been cancelled. objectively i can completely understand why it was canceled bc there wasn't anything really objectively special about it, but by god do i love that show anyway. i rewatch it all the time

honorable mentions: on my block, sex education, the office, community, one day at a time (2017), how i met your mother, parks and rec, disney XD's lab rats (also unironically. great show.)

As for characters:

This is so so hard I've read/watched so so many things, I'm just gonna name the first ten freaks that pop into my head, but in no particular rank order and im definitely forgetting people:

bakugou (bnha) bc obviously. my entire blog is like a shrine to him. i don't need to justify this choice tbh he's the absolute best

chimney (911) he is SOOO me coded and he deserves the world and i think he's deeply underappreciated so i shall appreciate him myself. underappreciated comic relief characters my beloved

schmidt from new girl. my boy. my king. THE #1 MASTER OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. i love him so so much

chandler from friends .... extremely self explanatory (also, see chimney. very similar reasons)

kyo (fruits basket) he means a lot to me. i wish him all the best in life although tbh he did canonically win in life so go him

connor walsh (how to get away with murder) i LOVE him. so much. he's so fucked up but i think hes done nothing wrong ever

death the kid (soul eater) LOVE OF MY LIFE. ABSOLUTE ICON

chang (community) maybe its just cause i love ken jeong but i love this little fucked up mentally ill freak. he's so fucking funny

phil dunphy (modern family) - no explanation needed. he's awesome. i love him a lot he gives me faith in family

every other main character in new girl. i love them all so much

honorable mentions: annalise keating (htgawm), ochako uraraka (bnha), bobby nash (911), dwight schrute (the office), and probably many many more amazing characters who i simply am forgetting

i also really fuck with the grandma from fresh off the boat

[cxldblxxded]

get to know the author!

name: carmen / moop

pronouns: she / they

preference of communication: discord ! tumblr ims are fucked and discord is the next best option lol. (if u want my discord hmu..... 👀)

most active muse: lowkey my boy nicky (@yxkanna). i haven't been active on his blog in like three years i think for a variety of reasons but i still write him a lot over discord and i love him and miss his dash presence (especially now that there's a lot of 911 muses he'd love to interact with ugh). otherwise, these two obviously are pretty active, i have a hankering for writing jhin from lol, i have so many other little wretched muses i'd like to write although they're a bit quieter. lots of muses and not enough time lmao

experience / how many years: i've been rping since 2010 LMAO what the hell. my writing experience is in the weird middle school phase of its life now tf

best experience: i like making friends and sending stupid muse related stuff back and forth ! there's something kinda fun about seeing a meme or whatever and thinking of someone else :)

rp pet peeves: untrimmed threads, huge gifs, people who make a big deal of being suuuuuuper selective. like it's fine if u only wanna write with people u already know, nothing wrong with that, but constantly bragging about it feels like watching a weird high school clique unfold.

fluff, angst, or smut: more or less all.....? in order i'd say fluff, angst, and smut LMAO smut is def my weakest genre bc i'm like :| idk what to do to make this sexy....... fluff and angst are more interesting to me generally speaking !

plots or memes: i'm soooooo bad at plotting LMAO i get the worst brainlock when i'm trying to figure stuff out with folks. like i might as well just write it in the moment and have things happen organically, which memes are great for !

long or short replies: i usually do longer replies bc i get carried away, but shorter ones are nice too !

time to write: i usually end up writing at night which is fine until i've taken my melatonin and suddenly have the inspiration of the gods at my fingertips >:|

are you like your muses: a lil bit ?? more like cad imo, given the Everything. but there's a part of me that wishes i was a bit more like k so ! here we are lol

tagged by: @fcllederage <3

tagging: cannae be bothered to tag people in stuff tonight so !! if u wanna do it go for it, happy munday 👍

[penninstitute]

CASE #0140719

Statement of Emma Livingston, regarding her colorblindness and her artist neighbor. Original statement given July 19th, 2014.

Everything I see is a shade of grey. Trees are grey, the sky is grey, et cetera, et cetera. I was born like this, unable to experience color from the moment I was born, but it never hindered my ability to function as a human being. 

I can tell colors apart by the different shades, but it truly is quite hard to when some are so similar. I know yellow is lighter than red, but in my eyes, red and blue look almost completely the same. Well, looked. 

I’ve come to learn what colors look like. I know red is warm and blue is cold. But I came through to this knowledge in quite a… strange and rather scary encounter. I mean, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think it was that bad. But I saw color. And not with those fancy glasses that they make nowadays. But with my own eyes. 

I recently moved to New York for a job. I’m just a simple temp, but I wanted out from my parent’s home in Alabama and to move in with my girlfriend, who my parents despised. I think they despise me too, especially now that they know I have an interest in women.

My girlfriend and I lived in a surprisingly decent building for the price of the rent. It was homey but a little tired looking, but nothing a little bit of redecorating couldn’t fix. We had a neighbor to our left, a little old woman named Belinda, who was probably more of a mom than mine ever was. She made Ari and I cupcakes every other week. Ari is my girlfriend, by the way. Belinda was a sweet woman. She isn’t dead or anything, but Ari and I don’t live there anymore. I’ll get to that soon.

The apartment to our right was empty for about six months after we moved in. Apparently a single mom lived there, but moved out to live with her family in Florida after the death of her nine year old son. Tragic accident, I heard. But this isn’t about that woman, but the man that moved in.

He was weird. I don’t like to be rude, but he really was. Ari told me his pale skin had an almost green, sickly tone. She said his hair was a strawberry blond, whatever that means, and had blue eyes that were puffy and red as if he was always crying. He looked like a disaster to her, and also to me. I felt pity for him.

Oh, I should mention his name too, shouldn’t I? I think it was Frank. Frank Cyrus. Or Sylvester. But I’m pretty sure it was Cyrus. From my limited interaction with him, I learned he was an artist. He worked as a curator at the Met, he said, and was often so inspired by all the works there that he incorporated a lot of things in his own work.

I appreciate art as much as I can. I can look at a painting and appreciate the handiwork or realism gone into a piece of work. But I can’t exactly appreciate the use of color in something like the Mona Lisa or whatever.

Frank would show Ari and I whatever knew creation he’d make whenever we’d see him. It wasn’t very often, but we’re good neighbors, and we try to communicate as much as we can with our neighbors to let them know that we’re good people.

But something about Frank made me want to not be nice to him. I know, I know, it’s really mean of me to just dislike someone because of their vibes or whatever, but God was he unsettling. One time, I was coming home from work, tired and in pain from my new heels I got for my birthday. 

The hall was quiet, the fluorescent light illuminated the decades old carpet and the paint that began to peel from the walls. A light that was just above Frank’s door was burnt out which unsettled me even more.

As I pulled out my keys, movement in the darkness caught my eye. I blinked and shook my head. It was nothing, probably something in my head. I fumbled with placing the key in the lock, now that my hands began to shake with unease. 

The voice from the darkness is what made me drop them. It sounded like Frank. But… different. Something was off. 

“We should call Edward to fix this light, shouldn’t we, Emma?” Frank asked. 

“Y-yeah, we should,” I said, in an attempt to not sound alarmed. But I was pretty alarmed. I bent over to pick up my keys, only to see them not there. There was a familiar jingle to my right. 

I turned to see Frank holding my keys in his hand. It looked wrong. It.. It looked like how in movies, hands look when smashed by a hammer or something. It was so strange. It made me feel nauseous. 

“You dropped these.” He smiled widely and stretched out his arm. I heard a sickening pop in his elbow. His wrist made a soft click as its fingers bent unnaturally to dangle the keys between his thumb and index finger. I gingerly accepted them from him. 

“Thank you, Frank.” I gave him a quick smile, shoved the key in the lock, and bid him a good night. My heart beat thunderously in my chest as I closed the door behind me. I’d never had such a peculiar encounter before in my life. When I told Ari about it, she almost got up to go have a very strongly worded conversation with Frank, but I stopped her. Maybe I should have let her. 

A couple weeks passed and I hadn’t seen him. I was thankful, but there was something in the back of my mind that made me feel bad for Frank. I don’t know why. 

It was about two weeks ago when it happened. I had a day off that day, one that I was going to spend lounging around the house as I awaited Ari to come back so we could have a date night. There was a soft knock at the door around five. It was odd, as Ari didn’t get off until five-thirty. I guessed she might’ve gotten off early, and I eagerly hopped up and headed to answer the door. But when my hand closed around the doorknob, turned, and pulled the door open, no one was outside. I blinked and furrowed my brow. 

I leaned my head out of the doorway and looked around. Nothing looked amiss. Then there was a creak of a door slowly opening. Frank’s door. I don’t know what came over me in that moment, but with a sudden urge I stepped out of my apartment and walked to the entrance of my neighbor’s apartment. It was pitch black in there, and I know that this next thing sounds so stupid. Something an idiotic horror movie protagonist would do. It’s a decision I don’t even remember making.

I walked into the apartment. As my foot touched against the wooden floor the dim lights flickered on. I didn’t touch a switch at all, it just… happened. I looked around the living room of Frank’s apartment, which seemed so strangely bare. Only a television and a couch, nothing more. I remember I called out for Frank, but I didn’t get a response. Every feeling flowing through my body was telling me to get out of there but I just… couldn’t. My body was almost moving on its own. I slowly drifted towards the bedroom, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. When I pushed open the door, my eyes almost popped out of my skull.

Color. It was full of color. I don’t know how else to explain it. There were canvasses everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling. Colors. I felt nauseous, it was so… overwhelming. But it was beautiful. There’s no other way I could describe it, I’d never seen anything like this before. Can you imagine going through life without seeing such beauty?

My eyes flashed across the room, taking in each grotesque, surrealist painting. The imagery itself was unappealing to me, hideous bodies bent in unfathomable ways, patterns covering all of them or behind them in the background. But the use of color astounded me and left me sobbing in the doorway. I don’t know how long I spent standing there, crying, trying to name all the colors I saw. But my attention was interrupted as I saw him.

Frank. On the floor. I don’t know how long he’d been there, I didn’t notice him. He was naked, every inch of him covered in that colorful paint, his body bent in unhuman angles. His spine was twisted, his legs tied into a knot. His face was long, distorted, the jaw crooked, almost resembling Picasso’s “the Scream”. He was still breathing.

I screamed. I ran out of there as fast as I could, my fight or flight, finally kicking in. I sped to the phone and dialled 911.

Ari came home soon and helped me through the police’s questions.

They did find Frank’s body in a similar state as I did, but dead. They said there were no paintings, though. The only paint was the stuff on Frank’s body, painted in patterns. They still don’t know how it all happened, I’ve called the station a few times but never got a word. Nothing on those paintings, either.

I feel like I’m crazy, but I’m not. Ari and I moved to a new building later that week. We’re fine now, I’m fine now. Got a therapist and everything. Ari bought me those colorblind glasses after I’ve rambled about the colors for hours on end. I haven’t touched them. I don’t think I want to see any other colors but those impossible ones again.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

- Quite obviously, a colorblind individual cannot just suddenly start seeing color like this, which makes me doubt the statement to an extent.

- Ms. Livingston refused our request for a follow-up interview.

- Frank Cyrus did exist, although records on him are minimal (save for an extensive criminal record). He seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

ARCHIVIST’S NOTE: This statement was rather difficult to digitalize. The scanner refused to work properly, and had to be transcribed the old-fashioned way from paper to computer. When the scanner was used, flashes of headache-inducing, swirling colors would appear on the screen of the computer. Blair and I had to unplug the scanner and the computer to get it to stop.

[hqcentineo-blog]

A P P R E C I A T I O N   W E E K  —  NOV. 2018

     “ F r i e n d s become our chosen f a m i l y. ”

To the mods — thank you. for all you do, for all the hard work and sacrifice you put in so that we can have a safe space to write with our friends. high enough praise can’t be given. thank you a million times over.   @hollywoodlandhq

To Ally — my sister from another mister. we share a brain & it’s awesome. the friendship we’ve formed - although it was formed long ago, we just didn’t realize it *coughmileyxdylancough* lmao - has quickly become something so important to me that i don’t know how i ever functioned without it. the only thing i love more than writing out precious children with you is our chats out of character. whenever i have a bad day or hell, even a whole bad weekend, i know that i can log on and that you’ll make me feel better instantly. i’m so glad i finally watched the fosters & that my need for more noah/maia interaction led me to you.   @hqmaia

To Vic — one of my oldest rp friends. you’ve seen me through thick and thin and i think the only thing more beautiful than our friendship is noah & cierra’s. i’ve gone to you with some of the craziest shit this weird brain of mine has come up with & never once did you laugh me out of the room or write me off. i don’t know if that says more about you or me but whichever it is, i’m beyond grateful for our friendship that just keeps getting better with age.  @cierrahq

To Kingsley — i’m so glad that you worked up the courage to im me first (bc we both know full well that i was never going to be the one to bother you) because charmila is eVeRyThInG. and we shant forget the time that we /really/ bonded over a certain twitter video(s) which instantly sent our friendship up like 5 million levels. i don’t want to talk about it for fear of getting a lil hot n bothered but know that it was /quite/ the friendship former and i am so glad that you & i will forever share that experience. we saw things, man. it changed us. for the better...i think?   @jfcmelton

To Charlie — another one of my age old friends. at the risk of sounding FIVE THOUSAND years old, i literally watched you grow up. i cherish our friendship so so much and it makes my heart so happy to see you out there killing the game, chasing your dreams, and owning it. i can always count on you for an ego boost and a kind word or two.   @emilybettrickrds

To Bonnie — my bonbon. you are truly one of the sweetest humans i’ve never met. i mean, who tf sends a handmade christmas card all the way to hawaii along with the sweetest note i’ve ever read? things like that really make an impact on me & i hope you know how much i value the friendship we’ve built. your influence on me and my writing is something that i will forever be grateful for. and getting the chance to ship with you? priceless.   @hyfdanielle

To Becca — another one of my lifers. despite all the unnecessary and idiotic bullshit that seems to come your way, you have never been anything but kind, understanding, and wonderful in all the years i’ve known you. you put your heart and soul into every one of your muses and it is absolutely inspiring. the dedication you’ve shown is something that i look to as an example and the creativity that you have is something of an aspiration to me. thank you for teaching me how fulfilling hard work in the name of a passion can be.   @liliisms

To Rose — we’re connected!!! irl!!! who knew that would /ever/ be something that could possibly happen. out of aaaall the people in this big, wide world...the fact that we managed to find a mutual connection is nothing short of a miracle & a sign that we were always meant to be friends. even though i’m old enough to be your grandma (it’s fine, it’s cool, i’m fine...). i adore you & your writing & your muses, each and every one of ‘em. keep shining, you star.   @joekcery

To KJ — you are literally the reason i came back to writing. i was nervous in the aftermath of things but a few simple texts from you & any hesitation was out the window. i couldn’t pass up the chance to round out the riv gang and i knew, if you were happy here, i would be happy here as well. our personalities just click and have since day one; it’s a true gift that i’ll always be thankful for. also, our love for ryan guzman’s face will forever bond us (have you /seen/ the new season of 911? HOT. DANG.). love you long time, honey.   @kjapayo

To Emily — thank you for helping me keep track of our threads because anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that i’m a super mega scatter brain who is very bad at juggling multiple things & would lose her head if it wasn’t attached to her body. that said, i absolutely adore our cami/troian friendship to bits. they’re the cutest thing since newborn puppies & i’m very grateful for each and every chance i have to interact with you.   @itstbellisario

To Sadie — i will never have a bigger brotp than nat & gi. they were cute af fam! not only are you an incredible writer who puts incredible amounts of effort into all her muses, you’re a fantastic admin & i’m so grateful to have you (and the rest of the admin team) at the helm of this machine. each chance i have to write against you makes me a better writer so thank you.   @ohlizzo

To the rest of this lovely, little ohana — for those who don’t know, i took a few months off from writing in a group setting on tumblr over the summer. partially due to a bit of drama in the tumblr rp sphere but mostly due to a stressful solo teaching job that took every second of my life to successfully accomplish (6th, 7th, and 8th graders are no joke, y’all). but once the dust settled and i returned to my normal, far less stressful autumnal job, i came back in search of a new place to call home. thankfully, i heard whisperings of a safe space that had been set up by a few names that were familiar to me and i knew i had to throw my name into the ring. so to those i’ve known for a while from past places, i’ve enjoyed every minute back in your ranks. to those newer who found a home here in this place, i’m so glad you did. i’m glad you found us. to everyone, thanks for being here. happy six months, hollywoodland!

[aion-rsa]

Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

In the winter of 1992, one word was enough to send a chill down the spine of horror fans far and wide: Candyman.

Released in October of that year, Candyman was a slasher movie with a killer hook – quite literally. A horror movie built around an urban legend claiming that if you say the word “Candyman” five times into a mirror, a murderous spirit with a hook for a hand would appear, with grave consequences for those who summoned him.

In a time before the internet and social media, the original Candyman’s lore was enough to spark discussion among curious moviegoers who asked each other: would you say the potentially deadly incantation?

It was a talking point the movie’s marketing leaned heavily into with taglines like “We dare you to say his name five times!” and “Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman… Don’t Say Again!”

Director Bernard Rose took inspiration for the idea from the urban legend of Bloody Mary, rather than the Clive Barker short story “The Forbidden,” which Candyman was adapted from. 

According to the legend, Bloody Mary’s spectre could be summoned by chanting her name repeatedly into a mirror. One of Rose’s masterstrokes was to assimilate this folklore into the Candyman mythology, although it was not without its teething problems.

“In the original script, they were supposed to say Candyman 13 times, not five times, because in the Bloody Mary legend they say it 13 times,” Rose tells Den of Geek. “During the first read through they started going ‘Candyman, Candyman…’ and I was falling asleep. You can’t do it 13 times. It goes on too long. Five is about the largest number you can hear. It did come from Bloody Mary but I had seen Beetlejuice, so I’d have to say Beetlejuice should probably get some credit.”

Rose first hit upon the idea of adapting “The Forbidden” after he was approached about making a film out of another story from Barker’s lauded Books of Blood anthology, “In the Flesh.” But that story wasn’t quite suited to a cinematic adaptation.

“I thought it was really well written, but impossible to make because it’s about two prisoners in complete darkness in a cell,” he says. “And of course, the one thing you can’t represent in a movie is darkness, because if you are in a movie theater there’s nothing to see. It would make a great radio play but wasn’t really a great idea for a movie.”

It was during his initial research into the Books of Blood that Rose read “The Forbidden,” Barker’s short story about a university student who, while studying and photographing graffiti at a local housing estate, learns from locals about a string of murders attributed to a mythical killer known as Candyman.

A rising star at the time, Rose had already collaborated with Jim Henson on The Muppet Show and The Dark Crystal, as well as directing iconic music videos like the S&M themed promo for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax,” which ended up being banned by MTV. His debut feature, the dream-like dark fantasy horror Paperhouse, had been released to widespread acclaim opening up a wealth of possibilities when it came to his next film. 

Rose was immediately struck by Barker’s story and the way it played on “the idea of belief.”

“All of these people believe in the Candyman, which actually means the Candyman exists, whereas if they stop believing in him he disappears, like how the old deities, like the Roman gods, died because people stopped caring. The idea that if enough people believe something, they manifest it. That’s scary.”

By the time he read “The Forbidden,” Rose had already struck up a friendship with Barker, who he met at Pinewood Studios while the latter was working on Nightbreed, the follow-up to his wildly successful directorial debut Hellraiser.

It was a match made in heaven – or maybe that should be hell – and a bond that made securing the rights to the short story that would become Candyman “really easy” according to Rose, who simply called Barker up with the author agreeing to sign off on the deal and sign on as executive producer.

Rose credits Professor Jan Harold Brunvand’s book The Vanishing Hitchhiker as a major inspiration to his script. A folklore scholar, Brunvand’s book explored the origins of several notable urban legends and has been widely credited with igniting America’s obsession with the phenomenon. 

“The whole urban legends thing hadn’t actually been addressed in a movie at that point, which is kind of extraordinary when you think about it,” Rose says. “It helped give the film this intellectual aspect, the idea of having an intellectual elite character studying the myth not from a sociological point of view, but from a semiotics point of view. Somebody who was intellectual and therefore naturally skeptical about something supernatural.”

While some authors have been known to be especially protective of their source material when it comes to adaptation, Rose recalls Barker encouraging him to “run free with it.”

“He liked the script very much. He was very behind it and at certain key moments, as much as anything, he was an enthusiast. Clive is wonderful. A really nice, smart guy.”

One thing they agreed on was that the story would need to be relocated from its original setting in Liverpool, England, for a very specific reason.

“At the time within genre films, there was there was a real problem with people understanding regional accents, and Clive had that problem on Hellraiser where they ended up having to loop (ADR) the whole movie and change it into a sort of weird unspecific setting, when it’s clearly some market town outside London,” he says. “If we were starting the film now, unquestionably we would have done it in Liverpool. It’s funny, things change, but back then, we wanted it to be somewhere specific. So I said, let’s make it specifically American. That seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

Rose hit upon the idea of setting the film in Chicago after noting similarities in the public housing found there and in the story’s original Liverpool setting.

The Illinois Film Commission took Rose on a tour of the city’s most troubled neighborhoods, which included Cabrini Green. “It wasn’t the worst place they showed us by any means, the Robert Taylor Homes on the South Side but Cabrini Green was right by downtown Chicago and was just spectacular.”

Rose recalls first being taken there in the company of a “full police escort.” Eager to see the neighborhood from a different perspective, he returned later on his own and befriended somebody who lived there.

“That’s the woman who the character of Anne Marie [the single mother who helps Helen with her investigation and whose infant son Anthony ends up being abducted by the Candyman] is based on,” Rose says.

Another crucial step in the development of Candyman came when the filmmaker began researching the history of Cabrini Green.

“I discovered old articles in the Chicago Reader about a series of murders that happened in Cabrini Green, including one where the killer came into the apartment through the medicine cabinet through a breeze block.”

One such article, by Steve Bogira, detailed the killing of 52-year-old Ruthie McCoy, whose pleas to a 911 caller explaining that intruders were breaking in through her bathroom cabinet went ignored. 

“There was a weak spot that you could actually get into people’s medicine cabinets, which is basically inserting holes in the breeze block and you can just literally punch them out and get into somebody’s apartment.”

These articles ended up featuring in the film for real, during the scene where Helen (Virginia Madsen) began researching the Candyman myth. Another element that rang true to life was the fact that the nearby Sandburg Village was “architecturally identical” to Cabrini Green with the only difference being that the former was turned into condos while the latter became public housing. These elements all combined to inform Candyman’s biggest departure from the original short story: Candyman would be Black.

“I wanted to make the film grounded in reality and the whole racial subtext of the film came out of that,” he says. “It wasn’t part of the original story. That was about politics and class differences. The racial element was added to it by the specificity of the location.”

Rose also incorporated his own experience discovering much of this material into Helen’s narrative. “I think that’s why it still feels relevant and powerful now because it came out of something real.”

The filmmaker credits the architecture of Cabrini Green with adding a layer of dread to proceedings.

“The early 80s was the point where we were seeing how modernist architecture could really decay in the most frightening ways and be more scary than the old Gothic spaces that were always designed to be plain and simple.”

Rose felt the film offered an opportunity to draw parallels between the Candyman myth and the myths attached to life in Cabrini Green.

“There was always this kind of exaggerated fear of the place like you might get shot, which is ultimately a very powerful form of racism,” he says. “The real danger is probably very, very small unless you happen to be very unlucky.”

While the stories of murderers emerging through mirrored medicine cabinets tied into the Candyman mythology, mirrors played a wider thematic role in Rose’s film.

“The film has got a lot of mirroring in it, from the imagery to the mirrored apartment. The idea that Helen’s apartment is the same as the ones in Cabrini green. It’s just about what side of the road you are on.”

Even so, Rose refutes any suggestion of Candyman having any kind of deep agenda. 

“The film was not done with a thesis in mind that I then went out to prove. It was more like I was interested in the setting we had and the story which is unchanged from the short story.”

Madsen ended up landing the role of Helen, the protagonist after Rose’s then-wife Alexandra Pigg, who had been cast in the role, was forced to drop out after discovering she was pregnant.

When it came to the Candyman himself, one rumor Rose immediately squashes is the notion that Eddie Murphy was ever considered or even interested in the part.

“If Eddie Murphy had wanted to do it in 1991, it wouldn’t have even been a discussion, it would have just happened,” he says. “Yeah, that’s not even a tiny bit true.”

Instead, Rose and the film’s producers only ever had eyes for Tony Todd. 

“He pretty much just came in and was fabulous and that was that. He just had it in every sense of the word and it was pretty obvious. There wasn’t even a discussion about it.”

Securing the rights, finding a great location and landing a stellar cast had all  proven relatively straightforward for Rose. One thing that definitely wasn’t straightforward, however, would be the film’s use of bees.

The film called for scenes in which Madsen would be covered in bees, while in one particularly memorable shot, the insects would be seen emerging from Todd’s mouth, as per Barker’s story, which took its inspiration from the Bible and the story of how Samson killed a young lion only to find bees and honey in its corpse. The imagery struck a chord with the author, who weaved it into the ever-expanding Candyman mythology.

Coming at a time before filmmakers could fall back on CGI, Rose was in need of an expert bee wrangler. He found one in apiarist Norman Gary.

“I saw him, he was on the Johnny Carson show playing the clarinet, covered in bees. He was quite a character,” Rose says. “He had synthesized queen bee pheromones and had hives of bees on the top of the studio and he was hatching them for the first 48 hours of their lives. Their stingers aren’t fully developed at that point so they’re not really that dangerous.”

Gary would supply the immature bees for the crucial scenes, using pheromones to have them cluster in the areas Rose required before gently vacuuming them up into a pouch when filming was complete.

Rose speaks in glowing terms about the bees themselves, describing them as “intelligent but also very predictable” which made filming the scenes somewhat pain free. Except in the most obvious sense of the word. 

“Everybody got stung quite a bit and certainly when we were doing those scenes, there were quite a lot of crew members who just stopped turning up to work,” he says. “I think people didn’t want to go into a studio that was literally buzzing with bees all the time because you would get stung. I remember asking Norman ‘How do you prevent yourself from getting stung?’ and he said  ‘You don’t. You just decide it doesn’t bother you.’”

Away from the sound of bees, Rose credits composer Philip Glass with delivering a pitch perfect score, that imbued the film with a sense of both the Gothic and the academically-minded analytical. 

“I gave him a brief to just score it for organ, voices, and piano,” Rose says. “He loved that idea of it being very kind of minimal orchestration. So he wrote the suite basically of the music that’s in the film. I think he’s hands down the best living American composer. Very original.”

For all the praise the film and its score received, Candyman was not without its detractors including several notable Black film directors at the time.

Reginald Hudlin, who had directed Boomerang and House Party and would go on to serve as a producer on Django Unchained called it “worrisome” while fellow filmmaker Carl Franklin said the decision to made Candyman Black and move the story to Cabrini Green was “irresponsible and racist” for casting a Black man in the role of a killer.

“People were nervous before we made the film because of his ethnicity, but I always said I understand how horror villains work,” Rose says. “The bogeyman is the hero. That’s it. That’s how they function. And it’s certainly true in the case of Candyman in that Tony’s character becomes larger than the film’s other characters.”

Much of that was down to timing. “The most disappointing thing you can do in a movie is bring out the monster,” he says. “This is why The Exorcist is a masterpiece. You never see a monster. What you see is its effect on the little girl.”

In the case of the Candyman, Rose used the first half of the film to build a sense of dread tinged with a sense of tragedy with the character’s backstory which explained how he was killed in the late 19th century over his relationship with a white woman. Even as audiences catch their first glimpse of Todd in that striking leather, fur-lined coat, they are being told a story.

“The idea of the costume was to show that he was quite bourgeois, like he was on his way to the opera when he was killed. It was a reminder that he was successful and affluent yet none of that protected him.”

Rose took his cues from the Orson Welles classic The Third Man in holding back on the introduction of his titular killer. 

“Every single conversation in the first half of The Third Man is about Harry Lime.” he says. “So when Orson Welles finally appears It’s one of the great entrances in film history because you’re just dying to hear what he’s got to say,”

The Candyman writer also points to an alternative reading of the film that adds a fascinating subtext to the role of race in the movie.

“It’s an entirely subjective movie told from the perspective of Helen,” Rose says. “So whatever happens in the film, it’s what she thought happened and isn’t necessarily objective. There is definitely an interpretation of the film where she committed the murders.”

The film, he says, offers up an extension of one of the original themes of Barker’s book which was the fear of poverty.

“Inequality and oppression creates fear among the oppressors, because they’re afraid of one day being called to account,” he says. “The film is about that in some ways, and that’s why it is still powerful. But I did not have any sort of agenda except to try to represent what I’d seen in Chicago as realistically as possible.”

Rose would not return for any of the sequels, with 1995’s Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh helmed by future Twilight Saga director Bill Condon. In his absence and despite the best efforts of Todd in the titular role, the franchise died out after a third film, 1999’s lamentable Candyman: Day of the Dead. 

Rose puts these failures down to a mismanagement of the properties and a rush to get a follow-up out after the surprise runaway success of his film, which made $25 million from a modest $8 million budget.

“The temptation when making sequels is to just basically do the same thing again which actually doesn’t satisfy anyone,” he says. “You have to develop it and you have to make it more complex and make the story actually have a grander arc. I had ideas, but they wanted to make damn sure that they got them out of me as quickly as possible so they could get on with the serious business of fucking it up. But that’s fairly normal, unfortunately.”

However, he says he submitted a proposal for a sequel which was “pretty extreme.”

“One of the producers read it and said it was the most disgusting thing he’s ever read. All I can say about it is that it involved cannibalism and royalty.”

Though he remains coy on the finer details, he insists it would have made a “great movie” though it wouldn’t have been a straightforward sequel by any means.

“It was an expansion of the ideas in Candyman and also involved another short story of Clive’s that was actually made later by somebody else, ‘The Midnight Meat Train,’ which was set on the London Underground.”

That said, Rose remains fully supportive of Nia DaCosta’s new film, which has breathed life back into Candyman once again.

“Honestly, I think that sequel is probably better than anything I could have come up with,” he says. “It needed to be taken over by someone African-American, so it’s better that way because if I make the film again, it’s just going to be about the same thing as the first one.”

Ultimately, he feels “immense pride” at the idea that Candyman has earned a place as a horror icon to rival the likes of Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger though he sees that as “something separate to the movie in a weird way.”

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“It was intended as a horror film, as a subjective, visceral experience. Obviously, if you write something and direct it, whatever you make is a reflection of your views on a myriad number of subjects. That’s one of the things that’s good about the film, the story is open to exploration.”

The post Candyman: How Bernard Rose and Clive Barker created the horror classic appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[mylatesttrending-blog]

Ten gorgeous classic cars with modern hearts

‘They don’t make cars like they used to’ is a phrase often quoted by old people wound tight in the grip of nostalgia. But nostalgia lies. They don’t make cars like they used to, because old cars are generally rubbish. They leak, they break down, they’re slow and they smell of unspecific grandparents. In fact, very few things improve significantly with age - wine, experience and Rachel Riley make for a very shortlist. There are loads of examples as to why. In adopting pedestrian-friendly bonnets, cars lose their slinky, low noses along with the option of bouncing a pedestrian’s head off the engine block. With strong, crashworthy monocoques, you not only lose the ability to be squashed flat during a roll, but also the airy, glassy, thin-pillared elegance of yesteryear. So you get two rather stark choices: pretty, characterful, unreliable deathtrap, or soulless modern conveyance. I may be over-simplifying this, but you get my point. But there is a third way. Because there are people out there who like the style of the old with the convenience of the new. The resto-mod crowd. And the movement is growing. Take Ares Design in Italy - showcasing several models inspired by the old, but powered by the new. The company’s ’64 Corvette Stingray features all the grace of the early sixties design, but with modern Corvette C7 (2017) underpinnings. That means slinky outside, 6.2-litre LS3 V8 with 525bhp inside - and the right suspension to be able to handle it. Then there’s ‘Project Panther’ - a re-imagining of the swoopy, edgy brilliance of the classic DeTomaso Pantera, but with a modern Lamborghini strapped underneath (pictured above). Here are a few more.

Land Rover Defender Works Bit of a weird one, this, seeing as it’s produced by the manufacturer itself, but the recent ‘Works’ V8 Defender counts because the car is out of production. The last V8 Defender was 20 years ago, and this time, the £150k special gets a 400bhp 5.0-litre n/a V8 from a Jag, plus an ultra-modern eight-speed auto to go with it. Scarily, that’s 60mph in 5.6, and a possible 106mph, limited because of the Land Rover’s barn-door/breezeblock aerodynamics. Ok, so it gets a thoroughly uprated suspension, but still. And best of all, it still just looks like the Defender we all know and love… and your elbows will still be forced out of the side window by ergonomics designed by someone with very strange proportions. Obviously, there’s an entire cottage industry devoted to the Defender, so if you want something marginally cheaper, you could also take a look at the JE Engineering Zulu or Twisted Automotive and the like. But if you want something even older…

Congleton Service Range Rover Classic Strange to talk about a company from Vermont when it comes to Range Rover Classics, but by all accounts, Congleton Service does impeccable work. Rather than re-working or hot-rodding, Congleton strip a Rangie down to its component atoms and re-build it ready for the next 50-years of service. Subtle improvements are the key here - and usually down to specific customer request - but generally, they address the weaknesses of the original icon and make it ready for another half-century. It’s not cheap, mind - a full re-work will set you back getting on for $185,000, and the exchange rate isn’t that good. The UK version is probably Kingsley Cars of Witney, who do a very similar thing without the travel costs.

Ring Brothers Defiant Rather than specializing in one marque, Ring Brothers (Jim and Mike Ring), of Wisconsin USA, consistently build top quality resto-mods from across the automotive spectrum. Built mainly as advertising for their parts and engineering business, their various antics have included a De Tomaso Pantera called ‘Adrnln’, the ‘Recoil’ Chevelle, a ’69 Camaro called ‘G-Code’, a similarly ’69 Dodge Charger called ‘Defector’ and even an AMX Javelin from 1972 called ‘Defiant’ (pictured above). But despite the company’s fondness for a decent name, the cars are all famous for one thing: being very modern interpretations of gorgeous older vehicles, executed with the very best modern engineering possible.

Singer Vehicle Design

Probably the most recognized of the resto-mod crowd these days, SVD has a rabid set of lawyerish rules that mean that you have to be very careful as to how you describe them, lest Porsche HQ releases the hounds of the brand. But that doesn’t take away from the product: 964-designation air-cooled 911s ‘restored, reimagined, reborn’. All the beauty and timeless elegance of the old stuff, with rampantly modern bits finagled into the cracks. So you get a seam-welded chassis, composite body panels, sophisticated modern springs and dampers, and engines blueprinted/enhanced by Ed Pink Racing. There’s even a super-lightweight, mega-power version coming soon that’s been developed in conjunction with Williams (they of the F1). These are, without doubt, some of the most desirable Porsche 911s on the planet. The only catch being that you get what you pay for - even a basic resto by Singer will cost you several hundred thousand dollars… Probably the best way of describing it came from TG Magazine some years ago*: “The Tao of Singer is simple. Strip it bare, and remake it better. Identify the weak spots and eliminate them. Improve, elasticate the remit, but don’t Disneyfy the experience and asset-strip the soul. This is the early Nineties 964 Porsche 911, and there’s a confusing aesthetic tangle of earlier 911 design cues littered around the body and interior, and yet - as a whole - it’s pretty enough to be a visual punch in the guts. It’s as easy to drive as a VW Golf GTI, but as challenging to drive fast as anything you care to mention. The most exciting car ever built by Porsche… isn’t.” *full disclosure, this was me.

Eagle Spyder GT Run by possibly one of the nicest men TG has ever come across (his name is Paul), Eagle restores Jaguar E-Types to what it calls ‘zero miles’ specification. But better than that, if you so require, Eagle also takes an E-Type and improves it without losing the character that defines the car. So you can specify if you want, a 4.7-liter motor with throttle bodies, a completely upgraded chassis, modern brakes, cooling, air-con, power steering, brakes, electrics and multimedia (hidden, of course). The interpretations of the Low Drag GT and Spyder GT are worth selling your least favorite child for, and in terms of impact, you could turn up in the most outrageous Lamborghini ever created and still not be as cool as this. They say you can’t buy class, but Eagle begs to differ.

Icon Bronco A wealth of heart-but-not-soul transplants are available from LA-based American restorer Icon. Run by the irrepressible Jonathan Ward, Icon first became noted for their re-workings of Toyota FJ products, later moving into bespoke Ford Broncos (Icon BR, above) with contemporary Mustang engines. Now they re-birth everything from Chevy stepside pickups - the Icon TR - to ‘Derelict’ semi-rat patina rods. As ever with the best of the resto-mod movement, Icon’s products are seriously high-end in terms of engineering, but sympathetic to the point of perfection. All of the cool, none of the drool from the engine bay.

Alfaholics GTA-R 290 Bristol-based Alfa Romeo specialists (who knew?) Alfaholics produce a car that Chris Harris described as “driving at its very best, essential driving” - the GTA-R 290. An Alfa Romeo GTA so thoroughly re-worked as to be unrecognizable to drive and yet completely familiar to even the most hardened Alfisti. A 2.0-liter Twin Spark motor tuned to perfection. Suspension developed to both ride and handle - and featuring things like titanium wishbones if you so wish - this is a car that now performs as brilliantly as its gorgeous (and largely untouched) styling would suggest.

Mechatronik W111 Coupe If big-body ‘Benzes are your thing, then you can’t go far wrong with a re-worked W111 Coupe or convertible from German engineering firm Mechatronik. Restored and improved with a 5.5-liter V8 AMG motor and modern suspension, these cars not only feature modern safety systems but the kind of attention to detail that makes them really very expensive indeed. Mechatronik says that it ‘keeps the appearance of this icon as unaffected as possible’ while equipping it with ‘unexpected performance’. The kind of thing we can get behind.

Spydercars Elan Based in Peterborough, UK, Spydercars take old Lotuses (Loti?) and bring them back to life with a reliable, modern heart. Automotive CPR is provided on ancient, pre-broken Elans via the medium of the reliable - and common - Ford Zetec, meaning you get a car that is effectively upcycled into something you can actually drive without immediately breaking down. You can even upgrade to modern, fully-independent suspension and a spaceframe chassis if you’re particularly committed. The usual re-trims and upgrades can also be applied, which means that you get all the efficiency and usefulness of a modern small sports car, without the oily hands. Although it has to be said, you probably don’t want to crash one.

Frontline Developments MG Twenty-five years of taking various MG products and making them good is no mean feat, but Frontline has managed it. Everything from upgrades and tweaks to MGCs and Midgets, to full, bespoke builds of classic MGBs that include 290bhp and 160mph capability. That also equates to zero to 60mph in under four seconds. Phew. Mind you, even though the performance figures are unimaginable for an owner from back in the day, so are the prices; the ‘Abingdon Edition’ car will set you back some £86,475. Read the full article

[cake-of-awesome]

a few years ago i had joined a roleplay community. it wasnt very big, pretty close knit. like after a few days you pretty much knew the people who would visit the chatroom regularly, those who were regular submitter to the artists galleries and the likes.

whenever someone new joined the community the atmosphere was always pretty excited? since its a new face in a very small group of people and everyones curious what theyre like as a person and excited to roleplay with someone new as a change of pace

it was during this time i met a lot of great and talented individuals and had a lot of fun roleplaying and goofing off during my downtime. everyone had great characters and despite the depressing premise (where everyone was dead p much) the community was pretty jolly and light hearted. although maybe im just thinking that way because im seeing everything through rose colored glasses idkthere were bad times though too. and one time in particular still just.. fucks me up. it was with one member from the community and recently i ran into them again and i just dont know what to do. cause everytime i talk to them i think about the last time we had a real conversation together and it. just. sucks.back in the day the community was split pretty evenly between people who lived in the united states and canada and people who lived in australia and the phillipines. so basically opposite ends of the world.i ended up adding a bunch of them on skype so we could talk whenever and continue talking forever, including this certain member

now to be fair we were friends. i wouldnt really consider us friends now just because i havent talked to them in ages but. at the time we were. we’d talk for hours about our characters and the inspiration that we put into them. i had a lot of fun talking to them and they really made me think about what makes a good character in general

the character i had in the community was basically a self insert. he was originally a poor attempt at some kind of bad boy flirty type that gave way into my own frustrations with depression, apathy, and mangled relationships. but of course at the time i had no word for depression, mostly out of denial, i thought if i said that my character had depression people might actually point the fingers back at me and ask if i was also depressed. which was a road i didnt not want to go on.

this member was not afraid to talk about it though. they were very upfront about having depression and talking about how much it sucked. what led up to it. what they do to deal with it now. i both admired them for being so open and candid about it.... but i was also afraid for them.

a year earlier i had lost a friend to suicide. i had never met them and to be honest i dont think he really cared about me at all. but being in the same situation where someone was talking about how often they wanted to die... it just kept remind me of slo. and how, as an internet friend, there wasnt a whole lot i could do but listen. and eventually i just had to stop.

one night they ended up calling me through skype. i thought it was weird bc up until then we never called. and i dont think i ever told them that i had a slight fear of the phone. i answered it though because, there wasnt much of a reason not to? i was home alone and i was just doing homework so i answered it.turned out the guy had swallowed a bunch of pills and was just looking for someone to talk to while he waited out his death sentence. when i found out i just broke down. i immediately thought of slo, even though his death involved a car crash and this guy was just drugged up on some unknown cocktail of pills.

i tried to talk them out of it. but theres nothing to talk a person out of when they already did the thing. i begged them to see the brighter side but even i couldnt see what that bright side was. i tried to explain what i did when i felt that way. rubbing my hands on car keys or taking in the texture of the carpet. i remember him alluding to cutting. eventually they passed out from the pills and stopped responding. skype disconnected the call, and i, in a panicked state called 911 and talked to an operator who told me there was nothing they could do when they didnt know where the guy lived, what his real name was or any piece of information. they werent miracle workers. although they could pray.

i dont think i went to bed until early the next morning.  my body was too seized up and my mind was just stuck thinking about slo and the unknown state of my friend. im pretty sure one of my roommates came in after hanging out with friends and tried to comfort me at some point too but they went to bed a little later due to being too tired.

in the end they wound up being okay. their girlfriend found them that morning and helped them to get better. i guess whatever cocktail of pills they got just wasnt lethal enough to do much other than give them a really bad stomach ache. which was good. and im really glad for, and part of me also relieved to find out they’re still alive after all these years

but at the same time i just... dont know how i feel about them anymore. after that night i slowly stopped talking to them. kinda avoided the chatrooms for a bit and i think i even removed them off skype when i was cleaning up my contacts. when they were removed from the community for being inactive i was secretly relieved. which then prompted me to hate myself immediately afterwards. i mean! what kind of friend am i? to be secretly glad a friend who i know is severely depressed being removed due to inactivity? im not a friend im a fake.

but at the same time, they terrified me that night. and ever since then whenever i talked to them i was always worried about them somehow calling or telling me that theyre in the middle of killing themselves and theres nothing i can do about it. it sucks. and im powerless and i cant do anything. its a terrible feeling to have and forcing anyone to be in that position is a selfish powerplay. and so... i just stopped talking to them. i’d let time and silence erode the friendship we had until we were total strangers again. let the space between us comfort me while i tried to ignore my own guilt for turning away someone who’s hurting badly

but now theyre back again and, i dont know what to do. i mean i know what to do. i should talk to them and talk about that night and how it fucked me over so badly and how they need serious help. i know i should do this. this is my second chance here but at the same time. i dont want to think abotu that night again. im trying so hard not to think about death. and here comes the person who everytime i think about them i think about killing myself and that powerlessness and slo and everything bad and it makes me sick

but things would get better if i just opened up and talk... wouldnt it?

[forgetmenotblues]

52 in 52

So last year I tried to read 52 books in 52 weeks (aka a year, if you're nasty), and because I was a shiftless philosophy student, I managed and then some.

Here are the books I've read, with some thoughts on them, for posterity, or recommendations

1) Sandman Overture, Neil Gaiman

Pretty solid, usually I hate prequels, but sandman was always pretty meandering and non-linear, so it works well. Just annoying it doesn't fit in with my pretty leatherbound absolute editions

2) Radioactive: love and fallout, Lauren Redniss

Very cool artsy biography of Marie Curie, and glows in the dark!

3) XKCD What if?

Extremely fun science, makes some abstract concepts approachable, I mean it's Randall Munroe, it's solid

4) Rise to Rebellion, Jeff Shaara

Historical novel (gonna be a few of these, I'm dead into them) about the build up to the American revolution . Kinda dry for a lot of it, but can ratchet the tension up, taught me lots I didn't know, and there's a bit towards the end where John Adams' wife calls him out on his privilege and it's pretty rad

5) Dune, Frank Herbert

I hate myself for saying this, but I was expecting it to be a bit more... dry. But seriously, everything described it as complex philosophy and politics, ASOIAF in space, and then it was a pretty straightforward adventure. The dynastic politics boiled down to a family of cool beautiful good guys vs an evil family of "hilariously" fat perverts. It was a great read, but more Laurence of Arabia than anything else

6) Squirrel girl, Ryan North 

Fantastic, fun, brilliantly written - it's Ryan North, nuff said.

7) Virgil, Steve Orlando

A cool, dark, "queersploitation" comic. Your basic "beaten and left for dead, wreaks vengeance" type story, brutal, but honestly pretty cathartic

8) the house that groaned, karrie fransman

A comic about a bunch of dysfunctional people. I didn't care for it, it was a lot of kinda shallow Freudian psychology and slightly tim burton esque "quirky" characters. It was kinda like the A Dolls House arc of Sandman, but... not good

9) The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett

Discworld is always fantastic, and I've got a real fondness for the classic travelogue style rincewind ones.

10) Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist, Russel McCormmach

The story of a German physicist who's dedicated his whole life to ether model physics and is realising his life's work is being disproved by recent advances... so a barrel of laughs. All about mortality, the fear of obsolescence, nationalism, and academia.

11) The Property, Rutu Modan

Indie comic about a girl learning about her family's heritage in Europe, lots of post war stuff and exploring "the old country". Very good

12) The Wake, Paul Kingsnorth

This was one of the real wins of this year, a story about the Norman occupation of Anglo Saxon England after 1066, and resistance thereof. Written in a conlang made to simulate old english, it seems totally unreadable, but you pick it up, and it makes the story infinitely more engrossing. A cool setting plus a whole other language wouldbe enough, but kingsnorth goes one further and makes it a savage deconstruction of nationalism and a beautifully painful exploration of tropes these sorts of books tend to embrace. Can't recommend enough.

13) Adventures of Hergé, Jean-luc Fromental

Biography of hergé written in the style of a tintin comic, a lot of fun

14) Carpé Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, another classic. A lot of fun stuff with vampire tropes, although also a pretty serious discussion of "all evil comes from utilitarianism", which I felt didn't entirely fit, and I disagreed with. But again, the biggest criticism I've ever had of a Pratchett book is "his intelligent discussion of philosophy felt a little out of place", so not the end of the world

15) Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett

I went on a bit of a discworld binge here, another great one

16) Half a King, Joe Abercrombie

Great deconstructive low fantasy  novel, one of the many ASOIAF-esque books out there, and one of the few I've really enjoyed

17) Batman and Robin Eternal, D.C. Comics

Fun story about the batfamily, one of the rare bat-titles to really say "hey maybe this should be fun, you guys?"

18) Magical Game Time, Zac Gorman

Brilliant comics about video games, capture the real magic and freedom you found in games when you're a kid, the epic narratives you'd weave out of very simple Zelda games on the NES. makes me happy on a fundamental level. A lot of its available as webcomics, look it up, you won't regret it

19) The Truth, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld book. Not much to say as there's a lot of these another all just consistently amongst the best books ever.

20) Wonder Woman Earth 1, Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison's always got a gift for finding the heart of a character, and he doesn't disappoint here. A lot of weird analysis of wonder woman as a feminist character, but he handles it pretty well overall.

21) & 22) Half the World, and Half a War, Joe Abercrombie

Parts 2 and 3 of the series, stays brilliant. Abercrombie is apparently best known for more adult stuff and this is more YA, but if anything that refines his writing - stops him being another grimdark game of thrones wannabe, and keeps it slightly more reconstructive and intelligent. Brilliant use of characters, the hero of the first book ends up almost the villain of the last, and all for entirely understandable reasons.

23) Machine of Death, various authors

A short story collection about a high concept: a simple blood test can tell you your cause of Death, but not the time or any specifics. A brilliant idea is explored in a lot of clever, beautiful, and hilarious ways.

24) The Last Hero, Terry Pratchett

Another brilliant Discworld, acting as a bridge between the classic fantasy of the older books, and the renaissance era politics and science of the later books - v poignant

25, 26, & 27) Harlequin, Vagabond, Heretic, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novels about the battle of creçy and the start of the 100 years war. Cornwells always good, although honestly these aren't his best. Pretty cool comparison between the chivalry of grain quests, and the reality of medieval warfare.

28) Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb

A classic batman, the story they based Dark Knight on, with a cool transition from down to earth organised crime of Year One to the zany madness of later batman

29) Little Brother, Cory Doctorow

A novel about post-911 culture, and counter culture rebellions against it. Fantastic novel, available as creative commons, so you can get it for free, so no excuses not to read! Very inspiring in that fuck Bush and fuck this war aesthetic, and Ihve a feeling it's gonna get real relevant in the coming years

30) Enders Game, Orson Scott Card

Pretty fantastic sci fi, analyses the psychological impacts of chosen one children saving the world, and the ethics of a "all the enemy are evil aliens" narrative. Obviously all this ethicality is a bit hypocritical from Orson Scott homophobia, so buy it second hand?

31) Black Guard, AJ Smith

Pretty cool fantasy, another faux ASOIAF type one, fairly straightforward, but plenty enjoyable

32) Deadpool vs Hawkeye

Pretty fun comic, read it on a plane back from Costa Rica, so I dont super remember it? But I enjoyed  

33) The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman

Very cool twisted fairy tale type thing, Neil Gaiman's always good, and beautiful Chris Riddel illustrations on top

34) Dial H for Hero, China Miéville

Great comic series, takes a simple idea (guy finds magic phone, when he dials it, he becomes a randomised superhero) and explores it in every possible way, becoming a full blown epic. Plus a scene where he becomes old timey racist heroes from the 60's and has to balance the good of doing superheroics vs the offensiveness of going out as "super chief" or whoever

35) Ravenspur, Conn Iggulden

Historical novel about the war of the roses. Iggulden is always very good, makes extremely readable stuff, and his war of the roses series is fantastic, a complex story made into an awesome action story. However, this last book isn't his best, it spends about 2/3rds of the book on a 6 month period where not much happens, then blazes through 10 years of action in no time at all, the pacing just felt a bit off. Still very good.

36) Howard the Duck, Chip Zdarsky

Very readable, very fun, very witty

37) Stonehenge, Bernard Cornwell

Historical novel about the building of Stonehenge, this is cornwell at his best, at border of very well researched intelligent history and the slightest hint of fantasy, making a brilliant story that brings history to life.

38) Black Orchid, Neil Gaiman

Slightly deconstructive superhero story, reads very much like a companion piece to Alan Moore's brilliant Swamp Thing

39) The Hartlepool Monkey, Wilfrid Lupano

Historical comic about a northern English town that hanged a shipwrecked monkey as a Napoleonic spy. A brutal read, exploring idiotic nationalism, well recommended

40) Turned Out Nice Again, Richard Mabry

Cute non-fiction musings on the meanings of weather and it's effects on our day to day life

41) The Heroes, Joe Abercrombie

Another deconstructive low fantasy, this time part of his adult series, which actually kind of works against it. Without the lighter edge, it can be a little bit of a downer. Nonetheless, well written, solid characterisation, and an excellent take-down of fantasy's belief in the glorious nature of war.

42) Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett

Another fantastic Discworld, fun, funny, and clever

43, 44, 45, 46, 47) A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons

Reread all of ASOIAF, absolutely fantastic, better on a second read. The first 3 are great as last time, plus all the foreshadowing that now makes sense. And 4&5, which I felt bit more ambivalent about the first time round, I've since read various analyses of (check out @asoiafuniversity), and I'd now consider them some of the best books I've ever read.

48) Gettysburg Address, Jonathon Hennessey

Absolutely brilliant comic, dissecting the Gettysburg address, using each line of it as a jumping off point to explore the history and philosophy of the civil war, incredibly high recommendation

49) Lazarus, Greg Rucka

A fantastic sci fi comic series, brilliant writing and characters, rucka is always great, and this is some of his best

50) Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

Another Discworld, but this one is even better than usual, this is one of the ones that stand out as serious business, much less comedic and much more epic than usual

51) A Brief History of Vice, Robert Evans

Hilarious and informative book from a cracked.com writer about use of drugs and alcohol through history, with recipes and recommendations for legal highs and drink recipes

52) Just City, Jo Walton

Sci fi / fantasy /philosophical novel, where great thinkers from throughout history are brought together to build Plato's perfect city. All about the clash between high ideals and practical reality. Very enjoyable, the sort of book where action scenes are philosophical debates.

53) Goldie Vance, Hope Larson

Fun cool progressive detective comic

54) Temeraire, Naomi Novak

A really fun fantasy novel with a concept that seems so simple, you don't know how no one's done it before. Essentially it's just the classical trope of dragon riders, but updated from pseudo medieval to the Napoleonic era, with all  associated tall ships and iron men and officer and a gentleman tropes