#Seventh son

[laurasimonsdaughter]

The dragon – astonishingly – was a surprise. Even in his worst nightmares there hadn’t been a dragon. But the chains were too well fastened to fight and he supposed that getting eaten was at least quicker than starving to death on this damn mountain. He closed his eyes, but the thundering shake of the ground as the dragon landed was as bad as having seen the claws dig into the earth. He closed his eyes tighter.

“Are you the seventh son of the seventh son?” The voice was inhumanly low and it shook the fear in his bones loose.

“Yes!” he screamed. “Yes! Cursed, blighted, whatever you bloody want! Just get it over with.”

There was a short, tense silence.

“I have not come to kill you, human. I want to offer you a deal.”

His eyes opened in shock. “You what?”

The dragon was sitting a few paces away from him, its scaly claws crossed over one another and its massive, shimmering wings folded behind its hulking back. The look in its glittering eyes was intelligent and calculating, but not unkind, certainly not threatening. It waited.

“What—what kind of deal?” he stammered, heart racing with a wild, terrified hope.

“I understand that you have been left here to die by your fellow humans, because you are an extremely rare type of human, that they are afraid of. Is that correct?”

He studied the dragon’s interested expression for any trace of sarcasm, but there was none. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Well then!” the dragon exclaimed. “I propose to you this: I will break your chains and save you from the humans, and in return you will join my hoard and live in my nest.”

“I’m sorry. Join your—what do you mean live in a nest. Humans don’t live in nests.”

The dragon gave a sideways movement of its massive head, scales glinting in the sun. “There is plenty of room. It used to be a cavern in a mountain, of very respectable depth and dimensions, but during one of my hibernation some humans built a castle on top of it, so it is very suitable for humans.”

He was almost baffled enough to no longer be scared. Almost. “What happened to the people who built it?”

The dragon, somehow, managed to arch a nonexistent eyebrow. “They live there,” it replied, slowly, as if it feared that he was rather slower on the uptake than expected. “That was the start of my hoard, you see.”

He hadn’t misheard it. It did say ‘hoard’. “But...dragons hoard gold, jewels, riches…”

“Uninspired amateurs,” the dragon sniffed. “All very well for one’s hatchling years, but honestly.” The glittering eyes squinted down at him. “Do you not want to join my hoard?”

“I…” Living in a castle with a dragon for a protector sure beat being chained to a rock by feral townsfolk, there was no doubt about that. And what other choice did he have? He swallowed. “I do.”

“Wonderful!” Joyful sparks snapped off the dragon’s jaw as it gracefully leapt upright. “I shall do away with those pesky chains.” And he came towards him with remarkably light steps.

“Do you live very far away?” he blurted out, nervously watching the dragon as it studied the iron rings hammered into the stone. “Will I be able to—I cannot just leave my brothers behind!”

The dragon, who had just crushed one end of the chain to warped bits of broken iron in its claw, looked up distractedly. “Whatever are you talking about? All your brothers are at my nest already. Who do you think told me where to find you?”

His heart leapt in his chest. He didn’t even notice the heavy weight of the chains fall away as they slid to the ground. “You...you’d want to keep my brothers too?”

The dragon made an indignant noise, bowing down low and motioning rather impatiently for him to climb on its back. “What kind of dragon do you take me for! I must have the whole set.”

[glittergroovy]

stitches - frnkiero andthe cellabration

[gavamont]

In my wizard tower doing fucked up experiments where I am breeding hamsters to make one have a seventh son. The magic powers of a seventh son is usually only found in humans, but maybe if I anthropomorphize the hamsters enough, one will start having some magic.

I made the daddy hamster where a little business hat and carry around a brief case. The mommy hamster wears an apron, but also has a pottery studio where she pursues her own interests. The child hamsters however, are subjected to a labyrinth to force any potential magic powers to activate.

[my-beautiful-wickedness]

Day Four [Oct. 29.]

Prompt: Witch(es) + Element(s)

Fire

[heavymetal]

[ben-barnes-world]

[monsterfucker-showdown]

Bracket E Round 1 Matchup 3

May the most fuck worthy monster win!

[booktomoviebrawl]

We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (originally the Darren Shaw saga/The Vampire's Assistant):

Took on a much more early 2000s teen flick approach to a book that, while initially for younger audiences, had a lot of very dark and Intense moments. The casting was also fairly bad and it really went in a different direction from the novel.

Bad acting, weird script choices, not even Ken Watanabe & Salma Hayek could save it

Characterisation was nothing like the books and it couldn't decide if it was a comedy or horror

Seventh Son (originally The Spook's Apprentice):

The book is a dark fantasy book for children, with fantastical elements that ring true to folklore but still have their own distinct flair, really well written horror centered on the fact that the protagonist is still just a boy, and a very strong theme that the spook opposes the forces of darkness and evil with knowledge and wits rather than heroics. The series as a whole has a lot of digs at established powers, both the Church or the nobles. It also has a mentor that is showed as imperfect from the get-go because of sexist tropes, and a protagonist who criticizes it even at the beginning when he's just a boy. The movie makes the protagonist an adult, turns the spook from an old wise man who practices using a stick (peasant weapon!) to fight and throwing silver chains to immobilize supernatural creatures, into the SURVIVOR of an ORDER OF KNIGHTS, and generally removes all the slow creeping horror to turn it into generic shitty fantasy movie #493, with bad acting on top. And it bombed so bad it probably RUINED the Spook's series chances to ever get a good adaptation, damnit!

Mentor gets changed from being part of a long line of people with a cool fantasy job to a discount Templar, cool methods of handling monsters got reduced to just killing them, awesome assassin grandma changed to Default Movie Witch, and more! It's pretty much not the story anymore.

It takes pretty much nothing that I liked from the books with the initial premise and some names being pretty much the only things kept intact.

The plot and world were completely changed. Most of the changes make for a much more generic and, in my opinion, worse story. Spooks in the books are seventh sons of seventh sons who are trained to fight creatures of the dark because seventh sons of seventh sons are able to sense the supernatural. They are hired for jobs by ordinary people, usually exorcising ghosts or capturing creatures like boggarts and witches. In the movie, the Spooks are also seventh sons of seventh sons, but for some reason, they are an order of knights. In the books lot of people think Spooks are charlatans until they come face to face with a ghost or creature of the dark because the world is usually pretty ordinary and peaceful. The setting is inspired by Lancashire and the world feels pretty unique. The setting in the movie is Generic CGI Fantasy Land where everyone has American accents and big CGI monsters are everywhere.

The protagonist Tom and Alice, his friend and later love interest, were aged up like in the Percy Jackson movies. In the books, Tom starts out as a 12-year-old and grows up as the series continues. He starts out very uncertain and wants to stay on his family farm. He only becomes a Spook because he knows he has to get a job to ease the financial burden on his family. He grows into his role as a Spook's apprentice over time. Alice is a pretty interesting character in the books, she is naturally very talented as a witch but struggles with the darker side of her powers over the course of the series. In the movie, they became incredibly generic Hero and Love Interest characters with pretty much no personality and instantly fall in love.

Mother Malkin was a first-book villain, who was mostly only such a threat because Tom was an extremely inexperienced 12-year-old at this point who accidentally released her and didn't realise how dangerous she was. She was monstrous and decrepit and fed on blood. In the movie she is turned into a beautiful seductress and a world-ending threat who can turn into a dragon. They also made her the Spook's lover for some reason.

Tom's mother is a really cool character in the books who pushes him to become a Spook despite him being reluctant and plays a larger role in the later books. In the movie, Tom is the one who wants to be a Spook and his mother doesn't want him to.

I think the character who got it worst was the Spook himself, John Gregory. In the books, he is a former priest at the end of his career as a Spook, he is incredibly uptight and disciplined to an extent that other Spooks find over the top. For example, he has a rule of fasting before a battle that he makes his apprentices follow and he only kills as a last resort. He's tough but usually pretty fair to Tom and explains things to him so he doesn't get hurt. In the movie he is pretty much the complete opposite, he's a drunkard who spends the whole movie making getting angry and fighting and doesn't seem very interested in teaching Tom how to be a Spook. Also, the accent that Jeff Bridges uses is terrible.

I'm not sure the movie would be enjoyable if you hadn't read the books, having read them I hated it, but I feel like it would be mediocre at best even without the comparison. The acting is pretty bad despite the big-name cast. I think you could maybe enjoy it in a so bad it's good kind of way. The books were spooky and pretty charming from what I remember and I think if they had been adapted more accurately, preferably as a TV show, it could have been pretty good. Sorry this is such an essay, I've never hated an adaptation more. It's been a long time since I've both read the books and seen the movie, so if anyone wants to correct anything feel free.

[rwby-dnd]

My headcannon (BOOM) is that The movies The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Walt Disney Studios), Seventh Son (Universal Pictures), and The Last Witch Hunter (Lionsgate Films) are all set in the same universe but at different points in time.

[bestmothertournament]

Propaganda Under Cut:

Mam Ward (Mother of Tom): Mam was upset when the Spook came to take her son as an apprentice knowing the danger and also hiding her own existence as a witch. She gave him a talisman making him promise to never take it off to provide him protection.

Martha Kent (Mother of Clark): Martha and her husband found a strange child in the middle of a meteor storm. She loved him from the start and struggled to protect him from those who may harm him if they knew what he was and help him understand what he was and support him in his destiny. She tried to advise him in his relationships and support him where she could.

[orcabouttown]

Being on the spectrum I find something strangely comforting about rewatching a lot of generic fantasy movies - when I use the term generic it’s not an insult, just an observation. Seventh Son, The Last Witch Hunter, Clash of the Titans (2010), Van Helsing, I, Frankenstein, Hellboy 1 & 2, The Mummy, Priest, all movies I can put on in the background late at night and drift off to without so much as a shrug.

Something about the cookie cutter protagonist who‘s usually some combination of brave/funny/smart/tough/relatable with a tragic/sad/melancholy/irritating/stressful backstory facing off against a series of CGI beasties and an evil sorcerer/conqueror/English person with an axe to grind is calmly reassuring, like walking an old route from your childhood and knowing there’s nothing there to catch you off guard, because even if they add a new postbox or a gate is painted differently it’s still the same path as always.

Those movies and ones like them aren’t explicitly bad, and in fact some like The Mummy and Van Helsing are great, but they don’t stray much if at all from the good old Heroes Journey structure (big ups to my boy Joey C) and I honestly love them for it.

They’re the film equivalent of knowing you should try and cook a nice, healthy, tasty new meal and try to expand your appetite a little all while you fix yourself a simple mac and cheese, because despite what they say familiarity breeds comfort as much as contempt.

More orc thoughts to come, but for now I must slumber to the sounds of studio execs churning out swords and sorcery for the masses - farewell brethren

[moon-child-wild]

I love him so much. He's such a good actor and I just 😍😍😍😍😍

[howardhawkshollywoodmusic]

68. Seventh Son by Johnny Rivers debuted Jun 65 and peaked at number seven, scoring 877 points.

The song was written by blues great Willie Dixon and first recorded by Willie Mabon in 1955.

[raurquiz]

#happybirthday #aliciavikander #actress #exmachina #thedanishgirl #themanfromuncle #testamentofyouth #pure #TheCrownJewels #ARoyalAffair #AnnaKarenina #SeventhSon #JasonBourne #Submergence #TombRaider #EarthquakeBird #BlueBayou #TheGreenKnight #Beckett #IrmaVep #Firebrand

[deepinthelight]

Alicia Vikander and Ben Barnes as Alice and Tom in Seventh Son

[bragascreenshot]