#Slayers Week 2020

[horrorgrl20]

Vampire Movie Recs

1970s

The Shiver of the Vampires 1971

Countess Dracula 1971

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970

Daughters of Darkness 1971

Twins of Evil 1971

Horror Express 1972

Vampyres 1974

1980s

The Lost Boys 1987

The Hunger 1983

Near Dark 1987

The Lair of the White Worm 1988

1990s

Bram Stoker's Dracula 1992

Interview with the Vampire 1994

Blade 1998

Buffy The Vampire Slayer 1992

From Dusk Till Dawn 1996

2000s

Let the Right One In 2008

Blade II 2002

Van Helsing 2004

Queen of the Damned 2002

Twilight 2008

2010s

What We Do in The Shadows 2014

Only Lovers Left Alive 2013

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night 2014

Dark Shadows 2012

2020s

The Invitation 2022

Note: These are just the ones I have personally watched so far. There are so many vampire movies and so little time. It's not easy being a horror girl in the year of our lord 2024. I wish the economy would slow down so I had more downtime to focus on the real priority of my life: Vampires.

And most importantly if you have any suggestions or recommendations please let me know I'll love you forever darlings<3<3<3<3

[vintagegeekculture]

Marvel's 1992 Darkhold Redeemers

“Darkhold Redeemers” was a comic created in 1992 about a group of supernatural investigators in possession of the Darkhold, an evil book of dark sorcery that has evil pages scattered over the world. In Marvel lore, the Darkhold is the book that created the first vampires. The comic was created by 90s Marvel journeyman Chris Cooper (also known for creating Starfleet Academy, a comic about the adventures of Cadet Nog that tied in to the events of Deep Space 9). 

The book is notable for three reasons. 

The first is that the premise is shockingly and coincidentally similar to the later Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with occult investigations carried out by a group that is led by a beautiful, tight outfit wearing vampire killer from a lineage of vampire hunters (Victoria Montesi, the Montesi Formula being the way vampires are destroyed in Marvel Comics), and also includes a mouthy scrappy everyman, an occult expert and archeologist who’s knowledge of the supernatural and collection of books leads to the secret of beating the creature of the week, a tough as nails government agent out of his depth when fighting the supernatural, and finally, a tremendously powerful and immortal dark antihero who joins the side of good despite his dark past (Mordred the Mystic is both Willow and Angel together, I suppose). 

The second detail is that it was the first Marvel Comic with an openly gay lead character. You might have heard it was Northstar, but this is not true. Chris Cooper is openly gay himself and always fought for inclusion of this nature. Victoria Montesi’s debut predates Northstar coming out of the closet (a comic, incidentally, that Chris Cooper wrote as associate editor on Alpha Flight, so he worked on both).

There are, likewise, many candidates for who the first gay character in Star Trek is, but one of the characters with the strongest claim to this title is Chris Cooper’s Yoshi Mishima in his Starfleet Academy series. 

Chris Cooper eventually left Marvel Comics after the 90s. Nothing happened. Most people in a freelance job like comic editing and writing are not Chris Claremont, who are there for decades. Careers in the arts don’t last forever, and they have to come to an end sometime, where you go and get a real job.

But Chris Cooper came up again decades later in the news, was the subject of an incident in 2020 when birdwatching in Central Park (he’d been a member of a birdwatching society at Harvard), where he was threatened by a female jogger, who said she would call the police as he threatened her, when we can see he did no such thing. The incident was known as either “the Central Park Birdwatching Incident” or the “Central Park Karen.” 

Looking at the footage now, it’s easy to see why it was national news and viral on the internet. Apart from the obvious racial angle, it is a chilling reminder of how a woman’s vulnerability can become a weapon, and how man’s strength can turn into a vulnerability. 

All the while watching the incident, I was like "...the Darkhold Redeemers guy? No, it couldn't be...it's probably a coincidence, Chris Cooper is a very common name." But nope, it really was the Starfleet Academy guy from the 90s.

Chris Cooper received a birdwatching show on National Geographic, and inspired many black people to go into birdwatching, but I could care less about birdwatching. I would like to see what happened next with Darkhold Redeemers and Starfleet Academy, which ended at a cliffhanger with a lot of unresolved plot points.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Cory Doctorow Humble Bundle

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

It's been 21 years and 29 days since Tor Books published my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. In the years since, Tor has published every one of my novels, sending me around the USA and Canada to talk about them. Now, they've teamed up with Humble Bundle to sell 18 of my ebooks on a name-your-price basis, with part of the proceeds going to benefit EFF:

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/cory-doctorow-novel-collection-tor-books-books

I've been associated with EFF even longer than I've been published by Tor! My first novel came out while I was working EFF's first-ever booth at CES. I split my time between the booth and my motel room, where I paid $0.25/call to dial up to Earthlink's local number and manage the launch-day publicity. Over the years, I've benefited immensely from Tor's editorial and publicity departments, working with brilliant publishing people like Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Patty Garcia, Dot Lin, Laura Etzkorn, Elena Stokes, Sarah Reidy, Lucille Rettino, and of course, Tor founder Tom Doherty.

But I like to think that it was a two-way street. Tor and I have come a long way together on ebooks: most visibly, they allowed me to publish several novels under Creative Commons licenses (my first book was the first ever CC book, coming out just weeks after the licenses themselves launched). As my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden said at the time, "Ebooks have the worst hours-in-meeting-to-dollars-in-revenue ratio of anything in my publishing career. Why not?"

https://craphound.com/down/download/

Just as important – but less visible – was Tor's willingness to let me insist that all my books be published without DRM, meaning that anything you buy on say, Amazon, can be moved to any reader program if you decide to start getting your ebooks elsewhere. This worked so well that in 2012, Tor became the first major publisher in the world to ban DRM on all its ebooks, flying me, John Scalzi and Charlie Stross to New York City to announce it this at a big, splashy event at Book Expo America:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130512022634/https://tor.com/blogs/2012/06/tor-books-announces-e-book-store-doctorow-scalzi-a-stross-talk-drm-free

Tor's unique status as the sole major DRM-free publisher in the world was well timed! That same year, I curated the very first Humble Ebook Bundle, which was very top-heavy with Tor titles, and raised more than $1,000,000 for the writers, publishers and charities associated with it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121017215636/http://www.humblebundle.com/

That opened the floodgates to a series of Humble Bundles, tempting other major publishers to dabble with DRM-free, including Simon and Schuster:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-I5QyAfglU

And Harpercollins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHMLfeCrCrE

Now, 12 years after that inaugural Humble Ebook Bundle, I find myself honored by being the subject of a bundle of my own (it helps that I've written a hell of a lot of books in the intervening years). Included in the bundle are (nearly) all of my Tor novels and novellas: The Lost Cause; "The Canadian Miracle" (a Lost Cause story); Red Team Blues; Radicalized; Walkaway; "Party Discipline" (a Walkaway story); Pirate Cinema; Rapture of the Nerds (with Charlie Stross); For The Win; Makers; Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town; Eastern Standard Tribe, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Little Brother, Homeland, Attack Surface, and "Lawful Interception" (a Little Brother story).

(The sole exclusion is The Bezzle, which came out two weeks ago and is already a USA Today national bestseller!)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Also included in the bundle is Poesy the Monster Slayer, my 2020 picture book for the littlies:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627/poesythemonsterslayer

All these books are delivered as DRM-free epub files. The Bundle runs for the next three weeks, and the minimum buy-in is $18 – that's just $1/book (full retail value is $187). Of course, you can name a higher price, and, as with all Humble Bundles, you can adjust the final split to share out the money between me, EFF, and the Humble folks.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/03/humbly-bundled/#eff-too

[kuwdora]

Saturday Morning Vid Recs - Women!

Back in January I told @poetikat that I wanted to share just a fraction of vids I’ve seen since I started vidding in 2007 that I love. Taken me forever to format the links into a post to share. I have several more posts half-finished and may show up on your dashboard in following weeks or months.

I'm reccing vids that are at least 1 year old, but most of these vids are 4 and 8 and 12 years old and sometimes older. These vids feature a variety of sources, characters, genres of music, genres of shows. Each of these vidders have their own style and the way they approach a song or a source. I love these vids, they're fun to watch, they're hot, mesmerizing, engaging, thoughtful, full of love and horniness and BAMFs and joy and struggle. I love. I love.

I give to you 23 vids for this weekend's theme:

Women!!

Learning to Fly by rhoboat. Beautiful Boxer (2004). A movie vid based on trans Thai boxer Nong Toom’s life. This song is so good showing her journey to learning to find herself and fly! Ako Te Reo by bironic. Rūrangi (2020). Ana learning Te Reo Māori. This vid is so wonderful! It's never too late to learn. Come on Feet by JinkyO. Pumzi (2009). The song choice and pacing is incredible for this Kenyan sci-fi film. Something has to keep us moving forward. Black Nails by fightingarrival. A League of their Own (2022). A Max vid that is a great look at her journey on the show. This vid makes me want to rewatch all her scenes all over again. Here, take this L. Damned if She Do by chaila. Borgen. This source is the Danish political drama Borgen. Birgette is so kick-ass and this song is perfect for her. She come alive when she dying. "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Strict Machine by such_heights. Doctor Who. River Song. I’m in love with River Song so of course I have to rec this. I get high on a buzz then a rush when I'm plugged in you. Counting Stars by beccatoria. DC Animated Wonder Woman. Beccatoria has always done such a great job of vidding animated source and WOMEN!!!! Superstar by @heresluck. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A Faith vid. This (one of many) epic Faith vids to come out of vidding fandom over the years. This vid lives rent free in my head. But I would pay this vid to live in my head because I love it so much. Never gonna be the same again.

Down & Dirty by @sweeter-than. Killjoys. A Dutch fanvid! A++ song choice for a character study showing her relationship with the Jacobi brothers and her general awesomeness. Make way. Cut Like a Buffalo by kiki_miserychic. Empire. Cookie Lyon fanvid! Cookie has all the skin in the game and she is so good at music, but damn there’s so much bullshit she has to deal with along the way. Yeah, you know I look like a woman but I / Cut like a buffalo / Stand up like a tower, tall / Then I fall just like a domino. Control: A Monstress Fanvid by garrideb. Based on the comic Monstress. You know this Halsey song + any woman who has been Going Through It is going to be a fucking ride. Great editing, amazing art. Fortunate One by @moocowmoocow The Expanse. CAMINA!!! DRUMMER!!!! A Sleater-Kinney cover of Fortunate Son is 10 million kinds of brilliance here for Camina and this source. I ain't no fortunate one. Celebrity Skin by @some-stars. Black Sails. This is an Eleanor and Max character vid. I repeat: Elenor and Max vid to Courtney Love’s music. Heed the warnings. This vid is so goddamn good. It better be worth it. Double Woman by starlady. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. So much awesomeness packed into this vid. Through the camera lens re-editing history gives imagination to the people. Wu Zetian and Shangguang Jing'er are awesome. Hooray for awesome ladies of the Tang Dynasty! Titanium by giandujakiss. Wonder Woman (the original tv show). She is titanium! Suffering Sappho.

Mirrors by @kuwdora. Snow White and the Huntsman. Queen/Snow. Lots of fantasy imagery and bdsm like themes since the Queen wants to suck the youth from Snow. Sex. Love. Control. Vanity. Lightning Field by bradcpu, a Legend of the Seeker fanvid of Cara/Kahlan. The imagery in this vid is outstanding, the tone the atmosphere. I have rewatched this more times than I can count. Strike me down, Give it everything you've got. Hands Away by chaila and beccatoria. Sarah Connor Chronicles/Fringe. Sarah/Olivia constructed reality fanvid that is constructed really really fucking well that you might forget that these are two different shows. I can't reach you. (Or, two messiahs walk into an alternate reality) Hurricane by @laurashapiro. Farscape and Battlestar Galactica, Starbuck/Aeryn.This vid is so epic and hot and incredible...Hot and sexy and can’t take your eyes off them. Two pilots walk into a bar. I Wanna Go by millylicious, a multi-source action vid Angelia Jolie tribute. This is fun and delightful. Space Girl by charmax. Multi-source space women and girls! My momma told me I should never watch Sci-fi but I did, I did, I did. Celebration by sweetestrain. Pop divas. Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, etc. Another one of my favorites of favorites. The connected imagery between all of these music videos still blows my mind, but goes to show you how pop music continues to build and evolve from each other. Plus sexy dancing. If it makes you feel good. Your Song by anoel. Multi-fandom. One of the most epic sapphic/wlw vids out there. I don’t wanna hear sad songs anymore, I only wanna hear love songs.

Hope you like these recs! Follow the tags to keep up #saturday morning vid recs and/or #kuwdora recs

EDITING TO ADD: How to Leave Feedback on Fanvids

[bitter-byte]

✨Throwback to some drawings I did in 2020! ✨ Part 1 of 4

These are from my first Slayers artober.

I was a bit shy about posting my drawings back then so they were only on my IG. And I got rid of that some time ago.

So I wanted to share some of those silly doodles again this week.

And I'm a bit happy to see that my style has improved a little since then ♥

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

So far, the 2024 animated domestic box office shows me one thing...

If you want a big gross, it's still a sequels/franchise game with this medium at the movies, post-COVID outbreak.

KUNG FU PANDA 4 really kicked things off theatrically, and took in $57m over its early March opening weekend, and INSIDE OUT 2 sits among the big leagues with its colossal $154m opening.

Anything more original or based on an untested IP... Same situation as 2022 and 2023, really. Small openings, but if audiences like 'em, then... Leggy runs. See BAD GUYS, MIGRATION, etc.

Speaking of MIGRATION... Most of the first quarter of the year was MIGRATION's post-holiday legs, as it was an audience favorite and was literally one of the only movies to take the family to during the winter... If they hadn't seen WONKA already. Fitting for a movie about ducks, ahem, migrating to a place where it's warmer. It's like FROZEN: Make an animated movie about characters in a cold place wanting things to be warm again, and release it near Thanksgiving/Christmas... Really pushes those winter blues away. (Unless you like winter.)

IF, with its CG cartoon characters, was a real surprise opening at $33m and legging its way past $100m domestic. That has been acknowledged by some of the press, even if it'll still be a "flop" in Hollywood math at the end of the day. The adult, and even older adult/senior turnout, that I see for this one at the cinema I work at... All childless... Something about this movie has struck a chord with audiences in a way a lot of recent animated family movies seemingly haven't. I guess live-action just does make it easier to digest for some...

Elsewhere, THE GARFIELD MOVIE scored $24m for its three-day and has legged itself nicely despite the existence of both IF and INSIDE OUT 2. It's an agreeable little movie, I found it to be alright. Whether it's faithful to the spirit of the comic strip (and many cartoon adaptations, particularly from the era where Lorenzo Music voiced Garfield) or not, the families have consistently chosen this one weekend-to-weekend. Cartoon, cats and dogs, slapstick, recognizable characters even if you don't read funnies in the papers, fits the bill just enough.

DESPICABLE ME 4 will kick off the second half, and should be big. Gang's back together, as it's not a prequel, could make MINIONS numbers on opening weekend or around the unadjusted amounts of 2 & 3 ($83m and $72m respectively), sure to explode worldwide too. Illumination hasn't had a financial miss yet. DESPICABLE ME 4 also looks to be their newest movie for a long while, as nothing is scheduled for 2025 (first time they've skipped a year not counting the early COVID years, MINIONS 2 and SING 2 were made for 2020 in mind), and the MARIO sequel drops in April of 2026.

TRANSFORMERS ONE and THE WILD ROBOT open close to each other in September, but I suspect both will open okay and then leg it out from there. GARFIELD and IF co-existed fine together, and they currently co-exist fine with INSIDE OUT 2. If audiences like them and money's not too tight, they'll both make back their budgets. I'd imagine neither of them cost too much... And honestly, I'm here for it. I'm totally okay with a bunch of animated movies making sub-$100m totals domestically and around $150-300m worldwide, and still making back their money. The antithesis of what the Diz wants out of seemingly any movie they put out.

On the subject of smaller titles: Anime titles continue to do their business, too, i.e. new DEMON SLAYER clipshow, the SPY X FAMILY movie. Year after year, more so than ever before I'd argue. Give 'em a wide release for a few weeks, the base will show up.

MOANA 2 is sure to be massive, MUFASA I think gets saved by worldwide grosses and Christmas legs, SONIC 3 should do great, and then there's THE WAR OF THE ROHIRRIM. I think that'll be an interesting one to track, I don't think it's primed to be an opening weekend winner despite being a LORD OF THE RINGS film. Remember, SPIDER-VERSE 1 opened with an okay $35m in the December frame, MUTANT MAYHEM with $28m. LORD OF THE RINGS is largely associated with live-action for most audiences, despite there being a few animated adaptations made well beforehand. THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, should it actually get the theatrical release GFM has been gunning for, I think opens small too but then legs it up... Again, I hope they make back their budgets, once again showing that little guys are every bit as important as the big guns. It's just cool that movies like ROHIRRIM and EARTH BLEW UP are getting theatrical releases to begin with, that would've been unheard of ten years ago.

Maybe 2025 changes course, and we see more original stuff open higher than usual post-outbreak. ELIO is the one I continue to be curious about, as it's Pixar's second-ever original movie to get a theatrical release post-outbreak, after ELEMENTAL... Which despite its legs, Disney now deems a flop. Pixar films used to get $45m+ on opening weekend down pat with the originals, the last to do that was COCO was back in 2017. ONWARD fell behind at $38m, cut right off by the pandemic a weekend into what should've been its run. Prior to COCO, INSIDE OUT made $90m on its opening weekend, and BRAVE made $66m. Not too shabby!

For some more context, we'll do Pixar originals starting w/ MONSTERS, INC. back in 2001, the first original of theirs to crack $40m on opening weekend:

MONSTERS, INC. (2001) - $62m

FINDING NEMO (2003) - $70m

THE INCREDIBLES (2004) - $70m

CARS (2006) - $60m

RATATOUILLE (2007) - $47m

WALL-E (2008) - $63m

UP (2009) - $68m

BRAVE (2012) - $66m

INSIDE OUT (2015) - $90m

THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2015) - $39m

COCO (2017) - $50m

ONWARD (2020) - $38m

ELEMENTAL (2023) - $29m

Does ELIO return to the days where a Pixar original could almost easily make $45-70m on opening weekend? Or is it ELEMENTAL redux, and Iger arbitrarily tries to find some other thing to blame the failure on?

2025's kinda sparse when it comes to these kinds of animated movies. Everything else - not counting sequels like BAD GUYS 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, and SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS - is associated with some pre-existing franchise, like SMURFS and GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE. There's also DOG MAN, the book series by Dav Pilkey, a spin-off of his iconic CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS series. DreamWorks adapted that into a movie back in 2017. No features are set for March, April, or May, possibly in anticipation of an animation strike very soon. July and October are also without a new theatrical animated movie at the moment. WILDWOOD, from Laika, is without a distributor or release date, but it's eyeballing 2025. That'll be their first feature since MISSING LINK, that came out in 2019, whoooaaa...

Either that, or it's more of the same. I think post-outbreak, audiences are still pretty choosy with theater visits. Again, because of money and because your experience could very well suck and be a waste of $60+ for a family of four. It frustrates me to no end that the press natters on and on about movies being the death of movie theaters, when it's the damn movie theaters themselves. Like an elephant in the room, or in the auditorium. The cinema chains are using an outdated, decaying model that doesn't serve audiences nor them. And I would know, I'm in those very trenches myself! Understaffed, poorly-equipped, management can be erratic, etc. Some of us break our backs so that anyone who comes in doesn't have a hangup about something.

But no, it's always the movies that have to do the work. You flop, it's your fault, or the marketing's fault. International Cinema Day was coined two years ago, in August 2022...

August 2022 was kind of a wasteland month. A lot of the new movies opened very badly, or merely just existed. Movies like EASTER SUNDAY, THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING, THE INVITATION, etc.... And on that low-price day... Every movie was jam-packed, down to the front rows... I dunno, making a gamble of an experience more affordable gets more people coming? Just a thought??

So, if anything, INSIDE OUT 2 doing as well as it did meant that people really wanted to see that movie. Despite their experience possibly sucking, they went in droves to see it. That was one worth gambling on. Much like BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE, much like KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, much like DUNE: PART TWO... But maybe people wouldn't narrow their choices to 3-4 movies a year if the experience was better and/or more affordable.

It would really serve animation well, methinks.

[animesavior]

“We did it! And we all lived to see it, too.” -          Tanjiro Kamado, Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc (Ep. 11)

The Toonami Trending Rundown for March 23-24, 2024. This week marked the season finale of Demon Slayer, as Toonami aired the final episode of the Entertainment District Arc.

For this week’s social media buzz, #Toonami trended in the United States on Twitter alongside Ninja Kamui and Lycoris Recoil. Meanwhile, #Toonami also trended on Tumblr alongside Demon Slayer.

This week’s feature was the promo for Zom 100, which will air Saturdays at 12:30 a.m. EDT/PDT; taking over Demon Slayer’s spot on the lineup as that show goes on a hiatus. There is no word at this time when Toonami and Aniplex plans on airing Demon Slayer's next season, the Swordsmith Village Arc. Let’s hope that wait for season 3 isn’t as long as last time.

If you missed it, this week, I posted an Op-Ed on Toonami Squad titled "The 2020’s Anime and Streaming Service Bubble Burst," as I look into the controversies regarding the Warner Bros Discovery merger, the Funimation-Crunchyroll merger, their respective effects on Toonami, and how what's going on with both could lead to another anime bubble burst, and one for streaming services overall.

I’m unfortunately running a bit late on Trending Rundowns, so expect the March 30-31 edition to be posted tomorrow. Until next time, stay gold as always.

Legend: The shows listed are ordered based on their appearance on the schedule. Show trends are listed in bold. The number next to the listed trend represents the highest it trended on the list (not counting the promoted trend), judging only by the images placed in the rundown. For the Twitter tweet counts, the listed number of tweets are also sorely based on the highest number shown based on the images on the rundown.

United States Trends:

#Toonami [#9]

#NinjaKamui [#8]

#LycorisRecoil [Trended with #Toonami]

Tumblr Trends:

#Toonami [#6]

#DemonSlayer [Trended with #Toonami]

If you wish to send me a tip for the work on the trending rundown, donations can be sent to PayPal.Me/DanielLimjoco.

Only Toonami on [adult swim] on Cartoon Network.

[quirkylilcumlord]

feeling very conflicted about the new demon slayer season bc i was DEVASTED over giyuu and sabito for WEEKS when i read it back in the day (2020)

[burningexeter]

[SECOND HEADCANON/FAN THEORY]

One of the greatest animated shows of all time, Transformers Prime and its finale movie Predacons Rising, takes place in or rather shares the same universe as plenty of other media ranging from other TV shows, movies and even video games.

The theme here that would connect them all is that they focus on ensemble casts of characters not just living in a world where the odds are against, be they supernatural or not, but also having them go up against not just said odds but the highest stakes possible that affects them.

Top it off, the ensemble casts of characters are not the type of standard, generic, heroic superhero type of characters and instead are vastly different from each other with them being distinct and flawed type of people who would never think would be the "heroes" in these scenarios. They're way less Gerard Butler in 300, Liam Neeson in Taken or Robert Downey Jr. in later MCU movies and way more Genna Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Paul Walker/Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious and Clive Owen in Sin City.

Another thing is that with the media here is that no matter how fantastical, grand in scale, epic and supernatural even as they all get, they ALWAYS remain either somewhat grounded OR grounded to some degree. Again for example, they're way less the crappy later Fast & Furious movies, the shitfest that is the DCEU and whatever the hell Ben 10: Omniverse was and way more the Jurassic Park Trilogy (even the third one with the 'Alan' raptor), Die Hard and Big Trouble In Little China.

Now let's get to it, shall we:

• Far Cry Primal

• Solomon Kane (2009)

• Wolfwalkers

• Pirates Of The Caribbean Trilogy

• Red Dead Redemption Duology

• The Wild Bunch

• The Mummy (1999) and The Mummy Returns

• Indiana Jones Quadrilogy

• Overlord (2018)

• Inglourious Basterds

• Kolchak: The Night Stalker

• Runaway Train

• Big Trouble In Little China

• The X Files (first nine seasons, 1998 film, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen)

• Heat (1995)

• From Dusk Till Dawn

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel

• The Incredibles

• LOST

• Heroes

• Cloverfield

• Krampus

• The Invisible Man (2020)

• Upgrade (2018)

and

• Alita: Battle Angel

[ADDED BONUS]

Whatever happened to Airachnid?

After she had drain all of her Inseticons done to nothing but the robotic bone, Airachnid was able to find a hidden yet grungy ship within the moon she was stranded on by Soundwave. Resourceful enough to make it work and turn it into her own twisted and demented ship that's all hers, Airachnid escapes and flies back to Cybertron. Learning of the death of Optimus and the war now over, Airachnid realizes she still has unfinished business she needs to settle right here and right now. She kidnaps her nemesis Arcee, who is now secretly dealing with trauma of her past once again due to Optimus' passing, and offers her an opportunity.... due to their previous fights with Arcee always winning, she managed to do the one thing no other bot or being couldn't - she impressed her. Therefore, Airachnid controls her infection and offers to Arcee that they should team up and become hunters across the galaxy but this time hunt down the worst of the worst, the most dangerous criminals there is and the deadliest of species that do nothing but cause havoc. Sensing Arcee's new PTSD and emotions after the death of Optimus Prime, Airachnid is able to use that to her advantage and manipulates her into taking the deal.... which Arcee reluctantly does.

The two of them are now bounty hunters that take in criminals of all kind throughout space whether they'd be dead or alive and as we speak, Arcee and Airachnid are awaiting their marriage this week.

[supermarine-silvally]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag @chameliyun!

How many works do you have on ao3?

Eight I think! Mostly longform which is why the number is so low lol

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

503,612

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently I'll write for Death Note, My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter, Demon Slayer, One Piece, Soul Eater, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Doctor Who. I have VLD fic up on my ao3 but I don't write for that fandom anymore lol

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Starbound (VLD, 294), Ground Zero (MHA, 223), Far Longer Than Forever (VLD, 76), Tales From Wammy's House (DN, 62), and The Ghosts Within Us (HxH, 57)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I'm usually super late to respond lol but yeah I try to get to all of them! I love interacting with people and I treasure all the feedback I get!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

All my ao3 fics (excluding Tales From Wammy's House, which is a collection of short stories I wrote as part of a fandom event) are unfinished, but I know which one is gonna have the angstiest ending... no spoilers though!

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, they're all basically unfinished so no spoilers!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Haven't so far so hopefully I never will lol

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I am physically incapable of writing smut. I know some ace people write it no problem, but... I am not one of those people lol

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I'm open to crossovers but I can't recall any that I've actually written. Usually I prefer to do them in the same sort of genre (for instance, a MHA/Marvel crossover or Pirates of the Caribbean/One Piece kind of thing where there's a sort of plausibility in setting)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If I have, I don't know about it. Not sure why anyone would bother though lol

12. What's the longest you've spent working on one fic? And the shortest?

Longest: I've been working on A Shot in the Dark since 2020 though I don't update it much anymore. But I don't want to abandon it at this time so I'll count it as ongoing.

Shortest: Tales From Wammy's House since it was for a week-long challenge lol

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! Second Chances is co-written with the amazing @til-the-static-comes :)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I'm a big canon/OC shipper so I'm really attached to my canon/OC (and OC / OC) pairings moreso than most canon/canon, buuuut my favourite all-time canon/canon ship is still the Doctor/Rose Tyler; you can pry them from my cold dead hands. Killugon (Gon Freecss/Killua Zoldyck from HxH) is a close second.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

A Shot in the Dark is already so bloody long and I'm still a ways away from finishing it, but I'm gonna try, I promise.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, I think. And I'm pretty good at character-centric stories.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not great at poetic, descriptive writing since I'm usually more interested in what characters are thinking/feeling rather than their external traits/environment. That might be more of a style thing though. I do have a bad habit of making characters monologue for a little too long sometimes, and relying too much on internal monologues too.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Oooh okay so I actually have so many thoughts about this!! I think it's a really effective tool if done properly-- I frequently use languages other than English in my writing since a lot of my characters tend to be bilingual. For me, it's really important to use it in the right moments that make sense within the narrative, and keep a logical kind of consistency to that rule. In my own writing -- I'll use my MHA fic Ground Zero as an example since I do it a lot there -- I like utilizing other languages in moments that reveal something about the character (Kova's foreignness/identity as a biracial/cultural Japanese-Ukrainian teenager is a major theme of her character and of the story) or when it creates moments in which a character's dialogue is supposed to be impenetrable to other characters in that scene AND THEREFORE to the reader as well-- but I DON'T use it (even though the character would technically be speaking another language in that scene) when I WANT the reader to understand what's being said. In Ground Zero, when Kova is having a phone conversation with her Ukrainian father, she's obviously speaking Ukrainian to him, but I don't write the conversation in Ukrainian because I want the audience to understand the dialogue-- and because that would be really, really annoying for a reader to have to wade their way through, assuming most of my readers are not fluent in Ukrainian (and neither am I, for the record-- I know a bit, but not enough that I don't have to check with external resources created by native speakers). But in contrast, when Kova is with her Japanese friends, if I drop a Ukrainian word/phrase into the conversation, the reader is getting the experience of the friends, and both the characters and the reader are meant to share in that confusion until Kova translates it. (Example: Bakugou is not meant to know that Kova has been calling him a dickhead (khuylo), but the WAY she says it is meant to convey that she's being derogatory so he's somewhat aware he's being insulted without me having to put a translator's note right after). I do translate and put the Latin lettering (as opposed to the Cyrillic) in the notes section at the bottom of each chapter, though.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ever? Pokemon. On ao3, VLD.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I'm so close to finishing Ground Zero and it has such a special place in my heart so I'll pick that one :)

no pressure tagging: @shrinkthisviolet, @deathbecomesnerds, @chickensarentcheap, @antivanruffles, @til-the-static-comes, and anyone else who sees this and wants to!

[coraniaid]

Self indulgently, supernatural dashboard osmosis?

The main thing I know about Supernatural is that if I ever complain about something I don't like about the writing on Buffy, and it gets more than about twenty notes, there is a good chance that one of those notes will be somebody saying "oh, yeah, Supernatural also does this, but much worse".  Despite the criticism, this person will almost always be a fan of Supernatural, probably to the extent that their tumblr is about nothing else.

More generally, the relationship between tumblr and Supernatural is (I am led to believe) analogous to the relationship between tvtropes and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is difficult to imagine one existing without the other. (I have, unfortunately, watched several episodes of BBC Sherlock and I actually quite like what I've seen of Doctor Who, but the impression I get is that -- for better or worse -- the 'Super' part of Superwholock has had a much longer lasting impact on this site's culture.)

As for the actual plot:

Sam and Dean are brothers and they hunt monsters because ... uh.  I think it's a family business of some sort? Their father also used to hunt monsters, but I don't think he's around anymore. The show starts out as a Buffy/X-files-style monster of the week deal, but the show keeps escalating its threats and is never canceled, so by about halfway the 'monsters of the week' are Biblical archangels or Lucifer and the actual Big Bads are ... God, I guess?  The Demiurge?  Something more powerful than that? The world ends at least once.  (This might just be a Heroes-style Bad Future, but Sam and Dean definitely spend some time on the wrong side of an apocalypse.)

The show's writers are very sure that both Sam and Dean are straight.  Nobody who has actually watched the show agrees.  The few characters on the show that the writers admit are gay do not live for long.  

One of the brothers dies and goes to hell but he gets better.

At some point in the show's history, probably after one of them has been to hell, they adopt(?) a child called Jack who is basically the antichrist. He grows up  to be a moody teenager (like Connor from Angel).  Then he dies and everyone is mad about it.

Misha Collins plays an angel called Castiel who falls in love with one of the brothers at some point; I don't know for sure which but I think it's Dean.  (The actor who plays I-think-he's-Dean is Jensen something but I'd have to google to be sure of a last name.)  At least 50% of Supernatural fan discourse is about Castiel; people seem to like him.

Presumably women also exist in the world of Supernatural, as well as all the ghosts and demons and Biblically-accurate angels, but I could not tell you the name of a female  character on this show if my life depended on it.

In November 2020, in the final(?) episode of the show, Misha Collins confesses his love to presumably-Dean and is immediately sent to (super)hell, the show having already established that going to ordinary hell is basically fine whenever it was that one of the brothers went there. As far as large parts of tumblr are concerned this is the most significant thing to have happened in world history that month.  This gives birth to the only Supernatural meme I 100% know is from Supernatural, the "I love you" / "[news of recent horrific event]" one.

The show was on the air for about twenty years.  At the end of it everyone in the cast was utterly sick of it and never wanted to see each other again. About a year later, they started filming a prequel, which everyone involved in the original show came back for except for probably-Dean, who famously reacted poorly to this on twitter. (Screenshots of this meltdown are, I think, the only time I have ever seen the actor's name.)

Test my dashboard osmosis ability.

[theharrowing]

anon message from curious cat: you seem to have a really lovely grasp of horror. can i ask for any favorite books, movies, etc? music, maybe?

hello, anon!!! wow, thank you for saying that! horror is a favorite genre of mine, for sure!!!

i don't read a ton of books, tbh; i am very very very picky, i suppose. but some horror titles that have stuck with me have been House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Come Closer by Sara Gran, Dracula by Bram Stoker. i read a lot of Anne Rice as a kid/teen, and although she's definitely a vampire mommy, her revisionist version of history is extremely cringe, so i don't tend to add her to my lists. but she does get credit for my obsession of heartbreaking longing.

as for movies, i have to deliver this nonsense under a cut because i thought of so many favorites! a lot of these are not in English lol.

i am a huge vampire fan and i love A Woman Walks Home at Night, Interview with the Vampire, Dracula, and even Queen of the Damned (it came out when i was a teen and it is absolutely iconic to me lol.) also Blade, Lost Boys, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie!)...so many great choices. for anything involving witchcraft or lore that seems witchy in nature (including folk horror!) i love The VVitch, Blair Witch Project (shout out to Book of Shadows, the goofy, unhinged sequel that i adore), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders. Huesera: The Bone Woman, The Queen of Black Magic (2020).

i really enjoy hauntings, like the Paranormal Activity films, and Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. i don't like zombies at all, but Train to Busan gets an exception. the v/h/s films have their moments (i think 1 is the best.) i don't fuck with aliens lmao i get TOO unsettled. slashers like Scream and Climax are fun, and the Fear Street series. gosh, this has gotten long haha. i really like horror. and for TV shows, Sweet Home is so good!!! if there is a specific genre you would like me to go into more, lmk because honestly, i could just keep chaotically word vomiting on the topic all night. my lists are LONG.

also, does anime count? Perfect Blue for psychological horror and slasher, Tokyo Ghoul and Devilman Crybaby feel like they might fit? tbh Evangelion feels a little like psychological horror but that might be a stretch.

music-wise, i do like some goth music, but i don't listen to a ton of it. but if you want something cute and unsettling, i have been revisiting The Birthday Massacre while writing. and i am going to try to put together a fun creepy playlist for Carnival of Terror, which may scratch this itch a little more, down the line.

i am going to cut this short but please reach out to talk all things horror again, if you would like to!!! 💜💜💜

got something you'd like to say to me on anon? send it here!

[vampnerd23]

Fanfic/WIP list

I had this on my last blog, and it had a super long introduction, but since that blog is gone....this will probably be short. I was just glad I had the list on a google doc. Some fics are started, some are not. Some fics are already posted, some are not. A choice few are finished, but most of them are not. Links to come later as I get time. For now, here's my archive of our own link and my fanfiction.net link.... List is below the 'keep reading line' for convenience.

Agents of SHIELD

Untitled Daisy/Sousa post s7 drabble

The Flash

Snowbarry

Untitled seasons 1-6 AU w/ original child

Snowbarry Week 2019

Unravel Me

Our Souls They Blend

But We Still, Hold On

Some Dumb Stubborn Martyr Hero Sacrifice Thing

SB Valentine 2020 - We’ll Be Counting Stars

SB Week 2021

Your Faith Walks on Broken Glass

SB April Minibang 2020 - Sat by the River and It Made Me Complete

SB April Minibang 2021 - The Hardest Part of Ending (Is Starting Again)

SB April Minibang 2022 - Tiny Boxes For Memories

SB April Minibang 2023 - Still Believe in Fairytales

Untitled Season 2 WIP

Snowstorm

A Promise Made

Snowells

Snowells Week 2020

Open Mind For A Different View

For Your Love, All You Are

I’ll Take You To The Dark Side

Keeping Up With The Wells’s 

The Stars in the Sky Illuminate Below

Want You To Stay

Snowells Week 2021

how can I stand here with you (and not be moved by you)?

You should stay away from the cheese curds - they’re addicting

Days Dark as Ebony Nights

Snowells Week 2023

Things We’re All Too Young To Know 

Untitled Sherloque/Cailtin season 5 WIP

Untitled Harry/Caitlin season 4 WIP

Untitled EoWells/Caitlin season1/season5 timetravel WIP

Killervibe

Killervibe Week 2020 - Celebrate Me Home

Arrowverse Quarantine Fic Exchange - Yes It’s True (Happy to Be Stuck With You)

Gen/Character Fics

Between the Lines - Caitlin and Frost season 6 conversation

Arrow

Olicity

Caught in the Riptide

In this Grief

Once Upon A Time

Amelia

Outlaw Queen

OQ Prompt Weeks:

Yours, Mine, & Ours

Home Sweet Home

A Glimmer of Hope

A New Beginning

Rose Petals

Leap of Faith

Operation Lupin

Fireworks

Shot Through the Heart

Operation New Adventure

Knight in Shining Dimples

OQ Fix It Week 2017:

Feather Light

Family Reunion

Of Arrows and other Remnants

Tea for Milady

A Bond in Time

The Heart of the Matter

Safe & Sound

Right Here With You

Vampire Diaries/The Originals

Delena

So Far Away

On the Corner of First and Amistad

Tell Me What You Want Me To Say

Holding On And Letting Go

Untitled season 1 Delena/Steferine WIP

Untitled season 4 DE WIP

Untitled AU DE WIP

Soul Bound

On Another Love

What Are You Prepared To Do

Rebuilding Blocks - single parent/therapist AU

Bonds Unbroken

Future AU

August Rush AU

Blended AU

Cure AU

Friends with kids AU

Family AU

Untitled future season 4 AU

The Devil Inside AU

Life as We Know It AU

Untitled season 1 warped WIP

Stelena

Where’d You Go

Fading Light

Need You Now

Datherine

Back to Humanity

Elejah

Apart No More

Steroline

Steferine

Lights Will Guide You Home

Together Again - season 1 reincarnation 

Kalijah

TVD Season 4 AU

Only For Her

Starting Over

Together in Normalcy

Unexpected

Diabolical Sacrifices

Untitled Klaroline/Kalijah in NOLA WIP

Klayley

Untitled WIP

Darkness I Became

Haylijah

Untitled AU

Hayley/Stefan

Spiraling Out of Control

Untitled AU

Gen/Character/multicouple works

Miss Mastermind - Katherine fic

Raising Jenna - Raising Helen AU 

TVD/Originals foster fic - Katherine was Hayley’s foster parent

Katherine season 2 fic

Charmed

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel

Bangel

Always

Divine Interference

Uncursed

Annie

Waking Up

Redemption Fulfilled

Spuffy

Untitled season 5/6 WIP

Gilmore Girls

One Tree Hill

Naley

Once Upon a December

Leyton

Remembering Forever

Fringe

Untitled Polivia WIP

Crossovers

TVD Katherine Pierce/The Flash Killer Frost WIP

TVD Katherine Pierce/Angel Angel - Wait For You

TVD/Charmed WIP - Prophecy Girls

Buffyverse Spike/ One Tree Hill Brooke - 

Original works

TVD Fanfic conversion to original short story

Original guardian angels novel

[libraryleopard]

top 5 pieces of vampire media!

Oho thank you for indulging me, don't mind if I do. I half-drafted this and then forgot about it for a while, but here we go!

So if you haven't noticed, I periodically go through a vampire phase every fall but it's somewhat haphazard because I've never watched some well-known pieces of vampire media like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, or Castlevania. Also, this list might be entirely different in six months when I've read/watched more vampire media if this phase continues! So, with that caveat:

Bonuses: "The House of Aunts" by Zen Cho (amazing short story about Malaysian vampires), the opening sequence of The Hunger where vampires are killing people to "Bela Lugosi's Dead," The Accursed Vampire by Madeline McGrane (cute middle grade graphic novel about a kid vampire).

5. House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson. I read this recently and it fulfilled me need for fucked-up gothic lesbian vampires PERFECTLY. Very atmospheric and claustrophobic and intense and the central relationship between the protagonist and the vampire countess she serves is just *chef’s kiss* in its spiral of lust and obsession. 

4. The Lost Boys (1987). This movie is a cinematic masterpiece do NOT @ me. Top-notch soundtrack, amazing vampire deaths, more 80s fashion than you can shake a stick at, a vampire motorcycle gang…what else do you need?

3. A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson. It’s deliciously gothic! It’s queer! It’s an emotionally intense exploration of abuse and survival! It’s epistolary! Great novella.

3. What We Do in the Shadows (TV show). I do enjoy tragic, gothic vampires for the most part, but I also really enjoy vampire comedy. I watch this with my mom and sister when we’re all home together at the same time and it routinely makes us laugh until we cry. (I’m not caught up on the most recent season, though.) 

2. AMC's Interview With the Vampire. I mean this one is pretty obvious if you have at all glanced in my blog's direction the last few weeks? I’m unfamiliar with the novel or the movie, but this TV show has kind of devoured my brain. I love unreliable narrators! I love tragic father-daughter relationships! I love gothic horror! I love historical fiction set during the Jazz Age! I love the performances of the three main actors! I

1. The vampire ARG that I played during fall 2020. Okay, listen, this one is probably a surprise because I don't think I've ever mentioned it on this blog, but this is what got me into vampires! It was a really elaborate ARG (alternate reality game, like an interactive puzzle game your act out where there are characters played by real people you interact with). I played through my college during the depths of the pandemic, conducted largely through Zoom and Discord (and a few socially distanced outdoor meetings), but this is what really opened my eyes to what I enjoy about vampires. Prior to that, I feel like my main experience of vampire media had been…uh…watching half of Twilight, which did not awaken a vampiric fervor in my heart. But the vampires in this ARG appealed to me a lot because 1) there was really more of an exploration of the moral quandary of being a vampire than I’d encountered before and 2) there were dramatic romances between vampires instead of star-crossed human-vampire romances. Because the world-building was constructed as part of a game, there were different factions of vampires you could align yourself with that had different attitudes towards what it meant to live forever and to feed on people, plus all the characters were essentially part of a giant, dysfunctional polycule in which everyone had dated at some point and there were two exes-who-still-had-feelings-for-each-other on rival factions. It was also fall 2020 and the world felt apocalyptically bad, so everyone got incredibly invested in the lore, characters, and puzzles of this game to a degree that I don’t think can ever be matched. Anyway, that’s basically the root of my annual vampire phase. 

[jj-the-writer]

'ELLO HELLO! And WELCOME, to this HELL OF A TRAINWRECK!!!

This blog is here so I can post everything that has to do with my book, Flaming Liberation, as well as fanfictions for my favorite franchises! More details under the cut!

These franchises include (in no particular order):

Undertale

Delatarune

Omori

Kingdom Hearts

Pokemon

Genshin Impact

Demon Slayer

Cave story

ENA

And more!

You can feel free to send me asks about anything! Be it asks for the characters, for me, feedback or advice, as well as recommendations for any fanfics!

About Flaming Liberation: This book started as an idea around 2019, and around 2020 as a Wattpad original by a middle schooler (me) who wanted to share his OC's to the world! Since then it has developed into a sort of passion project of mine, and has gotten a lot bigger!

Flaming Liberation is a fantasy story that explores themes of child abuse, oppression, war, as well as grief. Needless to say the story gets dark at points, but that doesn't set it aside from having humor and wholesome relationships. Starring a teenage girl named Shelingia who has grown up in confinement because of her supernatural abilities, and her young friend Leo who lost his parents to people who wanted to abduct him because of his powers. This is the story that explores the events of how Shelingia frees herself and Leo and gets revenge on those responsible for their and other people's suffering.

Main blog (chaos): @just-an-otaku-fox

->Flaming Liberation chapters:

Prologue.

Chapter 1. Parental Love.

Chapter 2. Test Subject.

Chapter 3. Not a Sound.

Chapter 4. Rebellion.

Chapter 5. Warmth.

Chapter 6. Another Day.

Chapter 7. Tears.

->Other works of mine!

Kelbrey week 2023

Day 1. Comforting/Grieving.

Day 2. Aged up.

Day 3. Flower Languages.

Day 4. Free Day.

Day 5. Prom.

Day 6. Valentine's day.

Day 7. Wedding day.

[charmedslayer]

Artists self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five arts/sets/edits/gifs that you've done, then pass on to at least five other people. Time to shine and spread some self-love and appreciation 💖

Thanks for sending this! I looked through all my gifsets and god it was really hard to narrow down to just 5! If I were to list all my favorite gifsets the list would probably go to about 20... 

Halliwell Sisters Appreciation Week: Fav Trio: Prue/Piper/Phoebe

Fav Duo: Prue/Piper. I made this in August 2020 and it is my number one favorite gifset I’ve ever made that I have not topped since, I will never stop thinking about it.

fav vampire fiction: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

every ep of angel: 1x01. again, don’t think I can ever top this gifset. actually maybe this is my number one fav now, Prue/Piper might have moved to down to number two fav...

pink/purple Fuffy

Honorable mentions (cause outfit sets take forever and i love how these turned out):

Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (1991) Swell Crandell

BUFFY SUMMERS | halloween costume