#academic horror Jesus

[minnesota-fats]

“Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing.”

I love this little bastard man and I finally got back into my groove of drawing I think!!!

[alocalband]

(Don't) Stay Sterek, 17.6k, Teen Summary: Stiles goes away to college, and Derek suddenly falls ill. Obviously, the two things are completely unrelated. And, obviously, Stiles doesn't make the drive back to Beacon Hills at every available opportunity, to the detriment of his academic career, because he's secretly in love with the guy. That would be ridiculous.

“Derek’s sick.”

It’s not what Stiles was expecting Scott to open the conversation with, but at this point in his life he’s used to handling curveballs. “Derek’s a werewolf,” he responds. Because duh, it’s not as if the guy needs to worry about flu season.

“No, I mean really sick.” Stiles’ grip on his cell phone tightens as Scott’s voice then pitches lower, like he’s trying not to be overheard. “Supernatural sick.”

Supernatural anything, in Stiles’ experience, does not bode well for his immediate future. A headache and a couple of all-nighters at best; horror, bloodshed, and nightmare fodder at... Well, at medium. He tries not to think about what “at worst” entails.

“What, did he get shot up with wolfsbane again?” Stiles tries to make light, but it comes out sounding strained and half-hearted. He licks his lips and ignores the pit in his gut.

“He won’t tell me.”

“Jesus, Scott, you have eyes. And other very effective werewolf-y skills. Are there any bullet holes in him? Any suspicious purple flowers lying around the loft?”

“He’s not at the loft.”

“Then where the hell is he?”

There’s a long enough pause in response that Stiles somehow guesses the answer before Scott finally speaks it. He has no idea how he guesses it, because the very idea is absurd and kind of comical, but his own thoughts land on the very words Scott reluctantly admits right before he hears them.

“He’s at your place.”

Continue reading on AO3

[h00nerz]

bodybag!

masterlist | 1k celebration

pairing: kang taehyun x gn!reader (slight park sunghoon x gn!reader)

genre: angst, fluff, college au, sort of academic rivals to lovers, tsundere!taehyun, jealous!taehyun

word count: 2.2k

warnings: none afaik, just taehyun being possessive

prompt(s): #33 — “i can’t pretend anymore.”, #34 — “you’re all i can think about”, #35 — “i am so very in love with you”, #36 — “it’s you. it’s always been you.” & #37 — “i cannot stand you, and yet, i cannot fathom being away from you.”

requested: “okok i wanna send in a request bcs this kind of drabble has been living in my brain and idk if anyone wrote smth like it before but anyway!! lines 33 through 37 would lowk be so good for a jealoustsundre!taehyun where he acts like he fr despises you, but he like overhears u talking abt going on a lil date he gets so upset and mad 🤭🤭 i lowk got this idea from that one video i dont remember where but taehyun held a drink and was talking to the camera and said like " got this for you but that doesnt mean i like you or anything" HES SO 🙏🙏” — anon

authors note: omg heyyy my first time writing for tyun i am so excited!! enemies 2 lovers again bc… yeah. anyways enjoy~~

SO FAR, YOUR JUNIOR YEAR OF UNIVERSITY was proving to be the worst year of your life. You were finally starting to take classes more specific to your major, which meant things were starting to become a lot more serious. You didn’t have time to work anymore, and even though you had spent the whole summer leading up to the start of the semester working two jobs to have enough money for tuition, you were still barely managing to scrape by. 

Worst of all, though, was Kang Taehyun. 

Kang Taehyun was the bane of your existence. You had first met as freshmen at your university, in the same philosophy course, and you had immediately despised him--or rather, he despised you, and your hatred was just reactionary. It didn’t really matter, though, all that mattered was that he was a menace that made your life ten times harder than it needed to be. 

After that semester, you thought you’d never have to see him again. But, of course, fate had different plans for you. It turned out, Taehyun was pursuing the same major as you, which put you in multiple of the same classes by the time your junior year rolled around. By that point, it had been nearly two years since your last encounter, so you’d hoped he’d grown just a little bit since then. But, of course, he hadn’t.

Kang Taehyun had a vendetta against you that he wasn’t quite ready to let go of. 

Your last class of the day had finally let out, which meant it was time for you to head to the library. The night before, you had stayed up late pulling an all-nighter, and you really were not looking forward to another afternoon filled with studying, but if you wanted to make this deadline, you had no choice. 

With a sigh, you stood up from your seat, and were overcome with dread when you recognized a head of pink hair approaching you. “Not today, Taehyun. I am not in the mood.” You grumbled as you stuffed your laptop into your backpack, purposefully making sure not to even glance in his direction. 

“Yeah, obviously. You have a late night or something? It looked like you could barely stay awake the whole lecture.” He laughed at you, and now you finally looked over at him with narrowed eyes. “Jesus! You look like you just stepped off the set of The Walking Dead!” He exclaimed. 

Horror overcame you, as you realized just how bad your dark circles probably looked. “Shut up! I don’t look that bad!” You snapped at him, zipping your backpack shut so aggressively the zipper nearly broke off. “Even if I did, though, this is the face of someone who’s about to get an A on our midterm paper. So, ha.” 

Taehyun rolled his eyes, trailing after you as you exited the lecture hall. “Please. When I got Kai to review my paper, he said it, and I quote, ‘brought tears to his eyes’. It was that good. And I don’t look half as shitty as you do.” 

He was right. He didn’t look shitty at all. In fact, that was the most infuriating thing about Kang Taehyun. Even though he had shown time and time again that he had an ugly personality, his physical appearance was the opposite. Everything about Taehyun was perfect. His recently dyed hair, that was so fluffy atop his head it was reminiscent of cotton candy. His dark brown eyes that were simultaneously adorable as well as mysterious and inviting. You knew he worked out, he talked about it all the time, and it really showed. You hated him for being such a repulsive human inside of such an attractive body that must have been crafted by the gods themselves. 

“Probably because staring at his laptop screen and trying to decipher whatever bullshit you were spewing dried out his eyes.” You suggested. As you walked, you felt a yawn bubbling in the back of your throat, and as hard as you tried to suppress it, you were unsuccessful. 

“How late did you stay up last night? Really?” Taehyun asked, raising an eyebrow at you. For a brief second, you thought you saw a flash of something different, a flash of something human in his pretty brown eyes… But, you shook your head, positive that you had been imagining it, and sure enough, it disappeared.

“That’s none of your business.” You were quick to snap, quickening your pace in hopes of getting away from him. Instead, though, you ran straight into someone else, and knocked a couple of textbooks they were carrying onto the ground. 

“Oh no! I’m so sorry!” You immediately started apologizing, bending your knees so you could start to pick up the books. When you glanced forward, you felt your cheeks redden as you realized you had bumped into the Park Sunghoon, and the Park Sunghoon was looking at you with wide eyes. 

Park Sunghoon was, like, the star of your campus. He was the captain of the school’s extremely famous ice hockey team, which made him basically a celebrity on your campus. That combined with the fact that he had a face only someone blessed by Aphrodite herself could wield. So, for that perfect face to be just inches from your own right now has your stomach doing somersaults. 

“Oh. Hi, Y/N.” Sunghoon greeted you, and as the two of you finally stood, you blinked at him. 

“You—how—my name?” You stuttered out, staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. 

He furrowed his eyebrows together. “We had a class together last year, remember? You always sat in the row in front of me.” 

You slowly nodded. “Oh. Yeah. I’m surprised you remember that.” 

“How could I forget? You know, I always thought you were really pretty, Y/N.” He smiled at you, revealing his fang-like teeth, and you swore your heart stopped. 

There was loud coughing behind you, and when you glanced over your shoulder you were surprised to see Taehyun was still standing there. He was watching your interaction with Sunghoon with narrowed eyes, like he was contemplating murdering the ice hockey captain. You wondered if they had some kind of rivalry with one another, or maybe he was just irritated by him for the same reason he was irritated by you: just because.

You jerked your head to the side, trying to gesture for him to get out of there, but he stood in his place and looked as though he had no intentions of leaving. 

Deciding to ignore him, you looked back to Sunghoon, and flashed him a shy smile. “Really? You do?” You asked, batting your eyelashes at him. 

He nodded. “Yeah, really. Um, I’ve gotta go, but if you wanna get coffee sometime…” His voice trailed off, as he pulled a marker out of his backpack. You thought your heart was going to literally beat out of your chest when he uncapped the marker and started writing on your wrist. “There’s my number.” He grinned at you, and you watched in awe as he backed up and walked away. 

Once he was out of earshot, you turned around to face Taehyun, a big smirk befalling your lips. “I guess Park Sunghoon is into The Walking Dead!” You announced triumphantly, like you had just beat him in a game of sorts. 

He didn’t react, though, still wearing the same, ticked off expression from earlier. 

“What? What’s your problem?” You furrowed your eyebrows, and suddenly he snatched up the same wrist Sunghoon had just written on. “Hey! What the hell?”

“I need to talk to you.” He said in a low voice. 

“Then let go of me and let’s talk!” You hissed, trying to break free of his grip, but he wouldn’t let go.

He shook his head. “Not here. Follow me.” Unfortunately, he didn’t give you much of a choice, as he started dragging you through the great big hallway of bustling students. Eventually, he found an empty classroom and pulled you inside, shutting the door behind the both of you.

Finally, he let go of you, and you immediately stepped away from him, reaching up to rub your sore wrist. “What the hell was that, Taehyun?!” You demanded, practically spitting in his face. 

“I told you. I need to talk to you.” He repeated himself.

You rolled your eyes. “So then talk! I have places to be, I don’t have time for this!”

“Oh, like coffee with Park Sunghoon?” He spat, his voice laced with venom. 

“Maybe! Doesn’t matter, because who I hang out with is none of your business!” You jabbed a finger, and he once again caught hold of your wrist, holding you in place. 

“Listen to me, Y/N. I’m only going to say this once.” He warned you, and although you wanted so badly to fight him and get out of that stupid classroom, you were also desperate to hear what he had to say. He let out what sounded like a sigh of defeat, and he hung his head loose in front of you. He mumbled something unintelligible, and you raised an eyebrow. 

“What did you say?”

“I said I can’t pretend anymore!” He exclaimed, and the sudden outburst caught you off guard as you took a step back. 

“What do you mean…?” You asked quietly, but there was a small part of you who knew the answer to your own question already. 

He let go of your wrist, reaching up to run a hand through his strawberry colored hair. “You know, Y/N… I can’t stand you. And yet…”

“Yet…?”

“I can’t… I can’t fathom being away from you.” His pretty brown eyes finally gazed up to meet your own, and you realized his face had become almost as pink as his hair. Your own cheeks started to heat up at the sudden confession. “Ever since our first class together, you’re all I can think about. Y/N…”

He took a step closer, and you didn’t know why you didn’t back away. Instead you stood still, allowing him to gently take your hands into his own. “As much as it pains me to admit it… I am so very in love with you.” 

You blinked at him. “Y-You are?” You whispered, and he nodded. Kang Taehyun, the pretty boy who had been tormenting you in your classes, who you swore you hated, was in love with you?! It sounded made up. And yet… It made a lot of things start to make sense. 

“Which is why you can’t go out with some idiot like Park Sunghoon.” He pressed.

You frowned. “He’s not an idiot!” You snapped at him, finally gaining the sense to pull your hands from his. “And--And you can’t just spring this confession onto me! You’re probably just trying to distract me because midterms are happening, and--and you want to be the top of the class!”

He rolled his eyes. “No, Y/N, I don’t--”

“Yeah! And you’re just going to--to pretend you love me, and then get me to realize my own feelings, and then right when I start to fall for you, you’ll rip my heart out of my chest, and--” 

Before you could finish your ramblings, Taehyun was cupping your face and connecting his lips to your own. You let out a soft gasp in surprise, frozen for a moment, because Kang freaking Taehyun was kissing you. This was absolutely not what was supposed to happen! But… Something about it felt so right. It was like your body had a mind of its own as you relaxed under his touch, kissing him back with as much passion as he had offered you. 

He pushed you forward until you stumbled back onto one of the desks set up in the classroom, and you gasped again when his hands slid under your thighs to lift you up onto it. Your fingers laced themselves in his pink hair, which was surprisingly soft for having been recently dyed. He was kissing you hungrily, like you were his first meal in days, and he couldn’t get enough of you. 

He was kissing you like he was in love with you. 

After what felt like an eternity, he was forced to pull away from the kiss to catch his breath, and you found yourself chasing after his lips. He smiled down at you, and you felt his fingers brush against your cheek as he gently tucked a loose strand of your hair away. 

“I’m not lying to you, Y/N. This isn’t some cruel trick to make you fail. It’s you. It’s always been  you.” 

You smiled. “You really mean it?” He nodded. “Hmm… I’m not sure I believe you… I think I’m going to give Sunghoon a call…” You lifted your wrist to look at the numbers, unsurprised to see the ink had smeared after Taehyun dragged you into the room.

The color drained from his face. “What? Are you serious? I confess my love, and--and you’re going to call Sunghoon?!” He stared at you in disbelief. 

You tried your best to keep a poker face, but were unable to fight back the laughter for very long. “I’m joking, idiot! Holy shit, you should have seen your face!” You began to cackle loudly, but Taehyun was quick to shut you up with another kiss. 

Maybe the rest of the year wouldn’t be so bad after all.

permanent tag list: @jakeshands @therealhyunjingf @exohclipse @ttyunz @naveries @mazeinthemoon @luvsoobs @n0-thisispatrick @arizzu @dewyboi @yeonboy

[wutheringmights]

The first time I read Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, it was 2016 and I was in a college course taught by a professor I hated. Making us read the novel had been the one good decision she made, though I didn’t learn much from her. 

She more or less tossed the book at us and told us it was relevant to the times-- and that was the whole lecture. Flipping through my original book (I used to write my course notes in the book itself for easy review later), I can see that I learned close to nothing from her. Her lecture material had no insights an average person couldn’t have gotten from reading the damn text themselves. Where’s the review of academic literature? The historical context? Interpretations based on different schools of thought?  And she had the audacity to complain that my class was made of the worst students she ever had. Ma’am, you were one of the worst professors I ever had. I would curse your name, if I had bothered to remember it. 

 Anyway, I read the book in 2016 and decided that although the book was relevant, it still felt a degree removed from the current state of affairs. In the privileged bubble of having all of your needs met while in college, I was convinced that the world would miraculously fix itself by the time I graduated-- or that the world would suck, but I and everyone else I cared about would miraculously be effortlessly thriving. Call it optimism, naivety, or sheer delusion: the world sucked, and maybe it would get a little worse, but surely things will turn around soon. 

Now it’s 2025. Jesus christ. 

I’m in a book club now and, by the democratic will of the club members, we decided to make Parable of the Sower our first book; which also makes it my first read of the year. 

What a fucking time to go back to it. This was perhaps the worst time I could have picked to reread this book. 

Parable of the Sower  hits way harder now, in no small part because I grew up and got a reality check. Butler famously said that her near-apocalyptic depiction of America was born from exploring what the state of the country would be if the problems present in 1999 weren’t solved and continued to worsen. She’s succeeded. The housing crisis, climate change, wage gaps: all of our familiar everyday terrors are here, vivid, and downright terrifying. 

I was not having a good time. The entire time I was reading it, I was in a terrible mood. But as dark as the story gets, it never feels overdone. There’s cannibalism and sexual assault in spades, but Butlet lifts the tone by showing that the relief from the horrors is in being good to others and building a community. 

I love Butler’s writing. I loved it in 2016, I loved it when I read Kindred, and I love it here. She always writes with a strong, unique voice, and her plots are always on point. With some authors, you can see their tinkering all over the prose. Everything Butler writes feels perfect. No sentence is out of place. Her ideas and themes are well-developed and culturally relevant. She writes books that remain wholly original no matter the genre she writes in. 

If you can spare the stress, please read Parable of the Sower-- or Kindred, or any other of Butler’s books. This has definitely reminded me that I need to go through her entire catalogue and get my hands on everything she has ever touched. Butler is truly one of a kind and a cut far, far above the rest. 

---

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Rating: 5/5⭐

[iwtvfanevents]

Rewind the Tape —Episode 1

Art of the episode

During our rewatch, we took note of the art shown and mentioned in the pilot, and we wanted to share. Did we miss any? Do you have any thoughts about how these references could be interpreted? How do you think Armand and Louis go about picking the art for their penthouse in Dubai?

The Fall of the Rebel Angels

Peter Bruegel the Elder, 1562

This painting is featured in the Interview with the Vampire book, and it was important enough to be included in the draft pilot script!

Bruegel the Elder was among the most significant Dutch and Flemish Renaissance artists. He was a painter and print-maker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes.

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Francis Bacon, 1944

Bacon was an Irish figurative painter, known for his raw, unsettling imagery and a number of triptychs and diptychs among his work. At a time when being gay was a criminal offense, Bacon was open about his sexuality, and was cast out by his family at 16 for this reason. He destroyed many of his early works, but about 590 still survive. The Tate, where these paintings are displayed, says this about the work: "Francis Bacon titled this work after the figures often featured in Christian paintings witnessing the death of Jesus. But he said the creatures represented the avenging Furies from Greek mythology. The Furies punish those who go against the natural order. In Aeschylus’s tragedy The Eumenides, for example, they pursue a man who has murdered his mother. Bacon first exhibited this painting in April 1945, towards the end of the Second World War. For some, it reflects the horror of the war and the Holocaust in a world lacking guiding principles."

On the Hunt or Captain Percy Williams On A Favorite Irish Hunter and Calling the Hounds Out of Cover

Samuel Sidney, 1881 [Identified by @vfevermillion.] and Heywood Hardy, 1906 [Identified by @destinationdartboard.]

Sidney was an English writer, and his prints usually accompanied his publications about hunting, agriculture, and about settling Australia during the colonial period. Hardy, also British, was a painter, in particular an animal painter. There's also a taxidermy deer, ram, and piebald deer on the wall.

Iolanta

Pyotr Tchaikovsky, 1892

The opera Louis and Lestat go to was composed by Tchaikovsky, another gay artist. The play tells a story "in which love prevails, light shines for all, lies are no longer necessary and no one must fear punishment," as put by Susanne Stähr for the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Strawberries and Cream

Raphaelle Peale, 1816 [Identified by @diasdelfuego.]

Peale is considered to have been the first professional American painter of still-life.

Outfits inspired by J.C. Leyendecker

Leyendecker was one of the most prominent and commercially successful freelance artists in the U.S. He studied in France, and was a pioneer of the Art Deco illustration. Leyendecker's model, Charles Beach, was also his lover of five decades. You can read costume designer Carol Cutshall's thoughts on these outfits on her Instagram.

The Artist's Sister, Melanie

Egon Schiele, 1908 [Identified by @dwreader.]

Schiele was an Austrian expressionist painter and protege of Gustav Klimt. Many of his portraits (self portraits and of others) were described as grotesque and disturbing.

A Stag at Sharkey's

George Wesley Bellows, 1909 [Identified by @vfevermillion.]

Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City.

Mildred-O Hat

Robert Henri, undated (likely 1890s) [Identified by @nicodelenfent, here.]

Henri was an American painter who studied in Paris, where he learned from the Impressionists and determined to lead an even more dramatic revolt against American academic art.

Starry night

Edvard Munch, 1893 [Identified by @vfevermillion.]

Munch was a Norwegian painter, one of the best known figures of late 19th-century Symbolism and a great influence in German Expressionism in the early 20th century. His work dealt with psychological themes, and he personally struggled with mental illness.

If you spot or put a name to any other references, let us know if you'd like us to add them with credit to the post!

Starting tonight, we will be rewatching and discussing Episode 2, ...After the Phantoms of Your Former Self. We hope to see you there!

And, if you're just getting caught up, learn all about our group rewatch here ►

[cult-of-the-eye]

Mag 81 A Guest for Mr Spider

FUCK FORMER HEAD ARCHIVIST

Wait I need to check the timelines - this was 2 days after leitner's death

New spooky music???

My man is so fucking dramatic I love him so much "grand of sand behind my eye" love the way he speaks

Yeah FUCK JURGEN LEITNER

Omg the greying hair is canon??

Child in the 90s makes him at most 27 GOD DAMN. I was imagining like mid 30s...can you imagine a fucking 27 yr old using words like "ilk" when talking to you

Oh shit he's an orphan poor guy

Yeah ok a lot of his personality seems to make sense if you realise he was raised by his grandma

You know those memes that are like people raised by their grandparents are exceptionally polite but in a brisk way, talk fancy and are super posh? Yeah that's him.

Getting such neurodivergent vibes

Yeah he sounds like a main character from the start Jesus Christ he's such a kid who got traumatised and then grows up to be a horror protagonist vibes

My First Leitner lol like kids had to be introduced to them at a young age like those my first toys

He's so funny I can just imagine him as an 8 yr old getting super like affronted at this like how dare my grandma think I am of subpar intelligence he's such a little bitch from the start

"The eponymous Mr spider" even talking about his childhood trauma he's busting out the vocabulary

Fuck that story actually kinda rattled me I had my hand over my mouth in shock for most of it

I think it was the bit where the horsefly brought his son and they were both crying that got me, I could definitely imagine it scaring an 8 yr old

The way it drags out as well, with the pages of the same scene it really heightens the suspense

Is his childhood bully someone we should keep track of?? Love how he says Michael probably cause he sees him as a bully lol

It's interesting how despite him bullying him (quite badly seeing as though he beat him up) he's still like yeah but he saved my life and that means he deserves to be remembered

My bro didn't save your life on purpose, he was just trying to make it worse and happened to come to a terrible fate cause of that

I guess underneath it all he was still a kid who watched someone die, knowing they'd get eaten by a fucking spider, he still held him in some regard

The way he specified the guy was his bully even after he was being eaten though lol

He was desperate to get the book back? That's a leitner thing I guess, the book makes you want to keep it so it can finish whatever it wanted to do to you

On my relisten (which I will do once I've finished the series I'm sure of it), I'll have to look out for any reaction of leitners name

I wonder why Jon didn't react more to Carlos vittery's statement, like it must've terrified him? I saw a post a while back explaining Jon's thoughts and IT WAS GENIUS it was like of course he doesn't react, he must be terrified that someone knew about his experience and somehow did this to mess with him or it was a joke and he can't let anyone know that the Head Archivist is not Good at This ugh it's so good I'll tag it if I can find it

AHHHHH HE REGRETS DISMISSING THE OTHER STATEMENTS AHHHHHH

HE FINALLY ADMITS THAT HE NEEDS HELP WE LOVE THIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT YES YOU FUCKING DO BITCH.

yeah at least he's right about Elias killing leitner

GEORGIE THE EX GIRLFIEND

ITS SO WEIRD TO SEE HIM ACTUALLY NICE TO SOMEONE WOW HIS VOICE CHANGES SLIGHTLY AS WELL HES LESS ACADEMIC

THE ADMIRAL

Awwww he's so cute with georgie

GHOST PODCAST GHOST PODCAST

THE WHAT THE GHOST T SHIRT IS CANON???? AHH THATS SO CUTE

Can he not go back to his own flat?? Did he bring all his clothes to the archive and then subsequently leave them there? Does he even have a flat??

God Georgie is so nice I would kill for her

It's so funny that an apparent supernatural cynic dated a ghost podcaster

WOW SEASON 3 OFF TO AN AMAZING START I CANT WAIT TO KEEP LISTENING IM GONNA TELL MY THERAPIST ABOUT THIS TOMORROW!!!

[witchinatree]

magnus protocol episode 26 ramble

the academic victim era continues. i like putting my lil personal bits at the beginning of these i think it humanizes me

ok. i have to pause mid intro song. i just hit my bowl of snap pea crisps and spilled them everywhere and i'm going to tweak

3 of them fell on the floor.. but they're kinda expensive so we don't get to have them very often.. is it worth it..

i ate them i don't care

this has become more about me than the episode i'm gonna unpause it now

we're so back

celia at work core!! she dgaf!!!

MEET HELEN. pls don't be a tory in this universe pls pls pls pls. i didn't fw human helen at all i am less excited than i was about basira but also basira was one of my all time favs forever

hiii aliceeee <333

magnusing is so me tbh if you think about it

so does alice's voice have a slight hint of that effect they use for chester and norris to anyone else or.. like she sounds computer-y and i don't know if it's just the microphone or something real

"take protection" "jesus christ!" "LIKE A BIG KNIFE OR SOMETHING" CRYING. see my mind didn't go there sam so what's up with that sam huh sam

the hell does celia have in her workbag wtf. queen what. it's the trauma "are you sure that thing is legal?" LMFAOOOOOO

ok i don't like you saying nauseas because i'm on TWO medications that make me nauseas and i just ate pls don't be gross

DAMN. i was gonna be like JARED? HOPWORTH? but it's jared 'smith.' gerard jared is kind of like michael

P.E. teachers creep me out but probably because the only one my high school has ever officially had got fired my freshman year for spanking girls in the locker room and they never actually replaced him they just had various sports coaches take over

yea this is freaking me out already i don't like it

oh that's so sad the dad fucking died poor kid omg

wtf was he possessed by the soul of cross country. what is the horror here. ohh running for his life ok thanks

oh so the horror isn't mr jared it's what happens to him i guess. sorry man i shouldn't have called you creepy

this is just how my friends describe morning cross country practice

yeah so i was right to quit cross country in 5th grade then!!! running IS the horror!!!!

NOT THE TAPE RECORDER WTFFFFF IS THIS ERROR. ANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN ARCHIVIST.............................................................................................................................................................................................

AT A LOSS AT A LOSS AT A LOSS AT AT AT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

we were right guyss it's an archivist...

IT SAID ARCHIVIST ALICE YES LOCK IN QUEEN LOCK IN SHE'S SOOOOOOOO HEHEHE SHE'S SO SMART I'M IN LOVE WITH U

yes alice connect those dots!!! connect them babe!!!!! i'm scared though to be honest with you

SHE DOESN'T THINK SHE KNOWS DUMBASS. PLEASE LISTEN TO HER OR I'M WRITING ANOTHER HATE POST ABOUT YOU. oh thank you sam i don't hate you

HOW I WOULD'VE EXPECTED HOW I WOULD'VE EXPECTED hey helen

has celia shut down. oh my god she sounds really scared. probably because helen tried to eat her in another universe.

CELIA'S SO SCARED HONEYYYYYYY. wait now she's bringing up the magnus institute LMAOO

bloody big basement lmao it's where they keep the bodies

at least 20 years? it burned down 20 years ago? who's reaching out after it burned what

HELEN'S LAUGH MADE ME JUMP LMFAOOOOO HELP

SAM MEETING JACK???? SAM MEETING JACK??????? THEY'RE SO CUTE WTF OMG ur baby's a tory HAHA

celia you are being watched honeyyy you are you need to connect some dots. alice style. obsessed with her.

calling her baby goblin after that baby episode that celia was mentioned by name in hello. hello.

ok sam let's go no longer being as selfish thanks sam.

awe that's adorable i actually think he's been really nice lately holy shit.

LMAOOO WHY DID WE GET AN AUDIBLE KISS ON EPISODE 26 I THOUGHT THEY DIDN'T LIKE THOSE

[lefresne]

can i ask you to share your favorite essays on medieval lit/arthurian legends? i wanted to read something that shows me different ways to interpret things, like i've been reading some bible lore essays recently (like ones that can deepen my knowledge on specific subjects/there's a book about cannibalism and how it's really keen to the figure of Jesus) and i really wanted to see if there was something similar for arthurian stuff, i'm sure there is but personally i wouldn't know where to start, sorry if my english was bad i hope you understood, thank you in advance for your answer, have a good day :)

hiiii <3 so obviously this all depends on your personal interests but as you are interested in cannibalism in Christianity I can imagine we have similar interests hehe :)

Here are some of my all time favourite academic essays ! I like them because they are thought-provoking to me and often involve applying (post)modern critical lenses to medieval literature!

The Ends of Excitement in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Mark Miller: examines the intersection of horror and eroticism in SGATGK and the notion of 'climax'.

Gawain and the nick of time: Fame, History, and the Untimely by Richard Godden: on temporality and intertextuality in SGATGK

From Lancelot to Galahad: The Stakes of Filiation by Emmanuelle Baumgartner : chapter in a book - really interesting reading of the introduction of the character of Galahad and how it works on both an intra- and extra-diegetic level within the Vulgate Cycle.

Feminine Knots and the Other by Geraldine Heng: a reading of the relationships between women in SGATGK. Heng is also the author of Empire of Magic (book on the trauma of the crusades and how it inflects romance) and The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages and Enchanted Ground (a book chapter but very difficult to get a hold of, examines the role of women within chivalric ideology)

Guinevere's Politics in Malory's Morte Darthur by Kenneth Hodges: very interesting analysis of Guinevere's political machinations in Malory.

[archivist-the-knight]

xiv's cute little "well it couldnt hurt :-]" before getting exploded AAAAAAA literally prime xiv moment. also stick your head innit also xiv freshly being out of the tower makes this moment a little cuter i think. xiv's out and the first thing they're being encouraged to do is to make a reckless decision thats actually THEIR decision for a change and tals cheering them on. its so... its so silly its so goofy. comfort in the comedy or whatever.

"I see this all the time back on the farm" "what kinda farm do you work on..."

"think of all the thoughts its probably thinking it could probably think us a way out of here" yeah since we got two academic minds one taxpayer one tal and zero braincells in this group. rai had the braincell for once and look where that got him.

THE NECRONOMICON RAI'S EATING IS TITLED MAGIC FOR DUMMIES IM GIGLGING. AND IT SWITCHES FROM EIGHT TO NINE AS HE EATS IT PLEASE...

"it says that it hunts smart creatures. ok so we adopted the brain-"

also xiv's cursive handwriting is so so cute.... very contrasting to the FAMILY GUY CLIP. why is XIV LOIS.

the "fighting cheeks and balls out" is so insane. put those AWAY. rai also is the one to get to the helm first!!

also i was going to say on my last liveblog post that xiv's father looked like he had a tentacle beard but deleted it but!!! now i know why i was going to!! xiv calls the ilithid they see papa + sees the grandmaster i think hes called as a father figure. :-3 thats why!!

im sorry tal. i dont give a shit. also xiv's outfit in the 3d recreation segments being a bard fit is really funny but also as a bard-main the bard fit is attrocious. get it off them

xiv killing the mind flayer immeaditly even though tal was talking to it because it tried begging for its life despite what it had done ^_^ verse 1 of father by the front bottoms not the rest of the song just that verse

rai vc hey babygirl do you. come.[persuasion failed] HERE OFTEN HERE OFTEN

xiv's first casualty is pushing someone off the ledge + unintentionally nearly kiling tal with that stone thing. btw i know act 1's intro area is like that to teach the general rules of the game but i love how that thng isjust. there. no context. its just a stone on a fucking rope dangling pecariously over a kinda broken hole. thats really funny to me

"no. i dont think it was the fall <3 anyway im sure hes fine" HORROR MOVIE TRILL

XIV'S LITTLE SHOCKED SPRITE AT THE TRAPPED SACROFOGAPHS. i dontk now how to spell that ROOM ITS SO CUUUTE AAHH

tal with his ass out talking to withers. tal thats an ancient god... tal....

tal saying "well i think every life is of infinite value <333" foreshadowing...

"JESUS I SAID LONG REST NOT SCHLONG REST PUT THAT WEAPON AWAY!!!"

that was a ganon event....

"youre gonna wake them up with your shitty fucking song!!"

[ID: screenshot of xiv walking into the scene when you enter the druid grove in bg3. they're smirking a little. end id]

clearly you dont own an air fryer <333

"some other stuff happened here. i ended racism!!"

I THINK ITS IN ONE OF YOUR INVENTORIES HELPPP. this happened while tal was still in his damn underwear.

also the xiv scaring kids so they call the law thing is really really funny im not gonna lie. it makes sense they were sheltered blah blah blah but also ngl it is really funny

he was to able to intimidate the goblins into running away. and now for an act of heroism!! be free <3333 ...... too free.

SUPPLEX HIM INTO A CONVERSATION...

xiv saying "having no friends myself!!" GIRL YOU'RE ABOUT TO HAVE EM. sorry they handed you a leash and said you have to deal with three crazy ass dogs

sorcerer's guide to jelquing. no not that one

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

Penn has been embroiled in controversy this academic year stemming from concerns over antisemitism. Last month, a pro-Palestinian protest on campus devolved into intimidation of Jewish students, as speakers berated pro-Israel counter-protesters in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist onslaught against Israel.

“The Israeli Jew has bastardized Judaism! Bastardized it! Trampled on it! How could you let this genocidal regime crap all over your God and your religion like this?” one speaker said at the protest, according to footage seen by The Algemeiner. “How can you, as a people who have seen the same amount of oppression in the past, stand by the same genocidal tactics, and lies, and methods that they use on our people? How could you stand for that? Look at you — you’re not even looking at this direction. You’re scared. You’re scared of being wrong.”

Addressing Jewish students who were standing nearby holding a counter-protest, the speaker continued. “Israelis! Hello, Israelis! Look at me! If I asked you to give me one justification, it would be a lie, misinformed, or consumed in post 9/11 dogma. Ask yourself, Israelis: Do you want to continue living in this false narrative, this fairy tale, or do you want to actually talk to the people? That [Israeli] flag has murdered.”

He concluded: “I hope you sh—t when you go on your bed tonight. I hope your dreams are filled with the horrors of dead Palestinian babies, burned Palestinian children, dead Palestinian women, a hundred square miles, leveled. I hope this scorches your brain. I hope you are terrified of this, because you should be.”

Professor Eve Troutt Powell, who teaches history of the modern Middle East at the university, accused Israel of not learning “the lessons of the Holocaust” shouting at the demonstration, “That was the lesson! Never again! This now is never again!”

Professor Huda Fakhreddine, who teaches Arabic literature, added, “Israel is the epitome of antisemitism … it desecrates the memory of the Holocaust victims. It humiliates every Jewish person.”

Days later, members of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), a traditionally Jewish fraternity, discovered graffiti saying “The Jews R Nazis” on the door of a property next to their house. The campus’ Division of Public Safety was investigating the vandalism as a potential hate crime.

Before the war in Gaza, the university came under fire in September for refusing to cancel or move a “Palestine Writes Literature Festival” held on campus. The event, which caused outrage and heightened tensions across campus, featured several activists who promoted conspiracies about Jewish power and called for violence against Israel.

One day before “Palestine Writes” took place, an unidentified male walked into the university’s Hillel building behind a staffer and shouted “F—k the Jews” and “Jesus Christ is king!” before overturning tables, podium stands, and chairs, according to students and school officials who spoke with The Algemeiner.

[therealaiko-yumei]

Aiko's character profile(Prob wip will change every now and then)

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General

Name: Yumei Aiko

Kanji: 夢依 あいこ

Kana: ユメイ アイコ

Age: around 18(not confirmed due to being an orphan)

Birthday: September 15th, 2005/1994(Also not confirmed😓)

Sign: Virgo(probably not confirmed too🥰)

Nationality: Filipino/Japanese(The Filipino part not confirmed 😓😓)

Species: Half-human half-vampire(Explains why she has natural fangs😯‼️‼️)

Blood type: A

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual(heavy on women)

Pronouns: She/her

Occupation: third year high school student/student council secretary

Japanese voice actress: Yui Ishikawa(violet evergarden)

English voice actress: Erika Harlacher(Violet evergarden)

Nicknames: Schelm(the user she goes by online), Ai-chan(what her friends(Aisy, Yuki, and Rinsuu) calls her)

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Appearance

Hair: Aiko has short and soft black hair with a fringe that is divided into three strands: one falls on her face, and the remaining two blend into two longer strands that end on her shoulders. At the back, using the two remaining strands of her hair, she ties them together to make it look like she has a half pony tail.

Eyes: Aiko has dark magenta eyes. She also has slight dark circles under her eyes due to lack of sleep.

Body type: Slender body. C cup I guess

Height: 170 cm(5'7)

Weight: 49 kg

School uniform: She wears the standard Ryoutei Academy uniform, but she puts the bow in her uniform under her collar. She also braids her left fringe and ties it with a magenta ribbon.

Casual wear: She wears a white dress shirt underneath a black sweater and black pants. She doesn't braid her left fringe(sometimes she wears something else). But in general, Aiko's clothes are more tomboyish than girly. She also prefers wears a black suit and neck ties instead of skirts and gowns on special occasions.

Aiko's wardrobe in general:

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Personality

Aiko is a quiet, intelligent girl who is usually seen alone or with the other members of the student council. Aiko is a student with high honours. Aiko is said to excel in both academics and sports. Hence, many individuals set high standards in her when it comes to those topics. However, she is still in the top 2 in her classes, Sakamaki Reiji being the top 1.

Aiko is aloof and usually shows a calm demeanour even when in serious situations. She is also pretty blunt.

MBTI: INTJ

According to google, INTJs is a person with the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one.

Positive personality traits:

Helpful

Kind

Open-minded

Hard working

Modest

Negative personality traits:

Slightly mean once she gets comfortable with you.

Does not care about her mental health

Will NEVER get therapy

Abilities:

Carries a pepper spray

Knows self-defense

Knows how to use a bow and arrow

Weaknesses:

Her loved ones

Math

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Likes/Favorites

Color: Black

Food: Pasta

Drinks: Nothing in particular

Game genre: Indie horror

Favorite video game: Alice: Madness returns

Music genre: Alternative rock/pop, J-rock, gothic metal and a bit of classical

Favorite music artist: Mitski, Das Feenreich, Malice Mizer

Favorite songs:

Flower: Irises

Other things she likes: Quiet places, listening to music, playing the piano, her thoughts, goth/ouji

More facts abt her if u want lol

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History

Aiko was an abandoned child since birth. She lived in the streets, and yk was homeless and shit. Aiko's health was bad, and she gets nosebleeds often. Aiko felt empty like there was something missing in her life. One day, when she was around the age of 6, she was founded by an orphanage who took her in. The orphanage staff taught her speech, writing, reading, and other things a child should know. Aiko's health was also getting better. One day, while she was playing piano in the orphanage, she encountered a new kid. The new kid's name was Isabella. Isabella and Aiko soon became very close friends, and Aiko soon gained feelings for Isabella. Isabella was the one who filled the void in Aiko's heart. However, when Aiko was 10, Aiko got adopted and not Isabella. Aiko was devastated when she heard that she won't be with Isabella anymore. Aiko tried everything she could to make Isabella stay with her. But nothing worked, and they got separated.

Aiko's parents were not the best. Aiko's parents were strict, distant, and ignorant to Aiko's feelings. They always had high expectations with Aiko, which REALLY pressured her to the point that she changed herself around her parents and to her elders just to please them. When she enrolled in Ryoutei Academy, her parents went overseas for work matters.

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Relationships

Mother: Unnamed foster mother

Father: Unnamed foster father

Others: Mukami Yuriko(Friends), Sakamaki Reiji(Lover/Acquaintance), Hoshiko Yuuki(Friends), Tanako Roo(Acquaintance), Rinsuu(friends), Yuki(friends), Aisy(friends), Kauze(Friends?), Scarlett(Acquaintance), Komori Kianna(Friends?), Yui Komori(friends)

What Aiko thinks about the diaboys

(This part of Aiko's char profile will be updated depending on her interactions with other OCs or canon characters)

Other character info

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[grigori77]

2024 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)

10. HERETIC – I’ve never considered myself to be a very religious person, I’ve always preferred to just be spiritual and not worry too much about the specifics of what might come after we die, so my particular relationship with organised religion has always been pretty academic. So I’ve always looked on the particularly interesting case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from a distance, not judging them on the controversies or the running jokes from those outside of it, which made this deep-dive through the lens of psychological horror quite fascinating. Sophie Thatcher (who I completely fell in love with as an actress when I first saw her in Prospect and hasn’t disappointed me once since) and Chloe East (who I first saw in the criminally overlooked The Wolf of Snow Hollow) are Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, who come to the home of Mr Reed (Hugh Grant) looking to convert him to their faith. At first it seems cosy and intriguing, as their verbose and highly intelligent host engages them in a fascinating debate about the values and tenets of their church, but as time passes they grow more uneasy, little hints telling them something is terribly wrong. But when they want to leave he won’t let them out, instead ensnaring them in a far more troubling debate about the nature of belief itself, and it finally dawns on them that they’re both in very real danger … I don’t want to give any more away, this is definitely a film which lives and dies on its surprises so I won’t betray any of the myriad skilful twists and turns the razor sharp screenplay takes. The writer-director duo of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods have been impressing me for a while already, first coming to my attention by conceiving the original story that John Krasisnki went on to refine into A Quiet Place before going on to create 2023’s criminally overlooked sci-fi thriller 65 and penning unsettling Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman,but this goes WAY BEYOND anything I’ve seen from them so far, the pair seeming to have progressed in leaps and bounds in the creation of what has to be one of the smartest and most downright ORIGINAL horror movies I’ve seen in absolutely AGES. They weave an atmosphere of pregnant dread that slowly blooms into deep existential horror when the big reveal comes, while asking far more profound questions than the already weighty central concept originally promised, ultimately making some particularly astute points that genuinely left me a little mind-blown for a good while after, ably supported in what’s essentially a three-hander by some truly exceptional tour-de-force performances – seriously, the small but EXTREMELY POTENT main cast are ON FIRE, Thatcher and East effortlessly supporting each other as their characters’ seemingly disparate personalities turn out to be perfectly complimentary, making it VERY EASY for us to root for them, while Grant is simply MESMERISING in what may well be the very best performance I’ve EVER seen him deliver, at once affably charming and unsettlingly threatening with nary any warning about which way he’s about to turn. This is a truly TERRIFYING piece of work, but more than that it’s incredibly challenging and thought-provoking too, a fiendishly smart little indie horror that deserves to be a proper MASSIVE hit, marking a major turning point for two filmmakers I’ve already come to admire a great deal. If this really is an honest indicator of what they’re TRULY capable of, then I’m beyond excited for what they do next ...

9. KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES – Matt Reeves is a tough act to follow, even before The Batman he was already blowing us away with his star-making directorial breakthrough helming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and its follow-up War For the Planet of the Apes. The conclusion of that latter film put a very definitive exclamation point on one of the best cinematic trilogies of the 2010s, making ANY attempts to continue the rebooted franchise a tough prospect indeed, and something that even a seasoned filmmaker might balk at. But when I heard the proposed new trilogy, set hundreds of years after the events of War, would be directed by Wes Ball, I breathed a big sigh of relief – he did an INCREDIBLE job with the sci-fi trilogy adapting YA novelist James Dashner’s popular Maze Runner series, so I knew the saga was in very good hands indeed. Having come up in visual effects, Ball’s always maintained a very strong balance between physical and digital filmmaking, so he was certainly up to the challenge of bringing a new generation of photorealistic, vitally ALIVE super-intelligent talking apes to the big screen, as well as putting his flesh-and-blood actors through their paces with similar skill and flair. Most important, though, this film introduces a new lead protagonist who’s definitely got what it takes to succeed Andy Serkis’ mesmerizing Caesar in a new story, Owen Teague (It, I See You, Inherit the Viper, Black Mirror) thoroughly impressing in his first lead role as Noa, an uncertain young chimpanzee from an isolated tribal clan forced to grow up fast when his people are stolen in one terrifying night by masked ape raiders, leaving him to follow their trail with only intellectual orangutan Raka (The Orville’s Peter Macon) and an unusually smart “echo” (basically what humans have become since they lost their speech and intelligence) named Mae (The Witcher’s Freya Allan) to count as allies. Macon is a thoroughly endearing presence throughout, while Allan delivers a fascinatingly complex performance that fuels many of the film’s most interesting twists (although I’m sure you can spot one or two coming ahead of time); and then there’s Kevin Durand, who’s clearly having a whale of a time getting his teeth into a rewardingly robust screen villain in the form of Proximus Caesar, an ambitious bonobo warlord who’s using a corrupted version of his namesake’s teachings to build a tyrannical empire of oppressed apes – he’s not quite as compelling an antagonist as Toby Kebbell’s Koba, but serves most admirably indeed here. Altogether, this film definitely had A LOT of heavy lifting to do to even APPROACH the heights of Reeves’ tenure on the franchise, and Ball and screenwriter Josh Friedman (War of the Wolds, Terminator: Dark Fate, Avatar: The Way of Water) have risen to the task in fine style, delivering a thrilling, affecting and inventive epic action adventure which skilfully builds on the framework provided by the previous trilogy while courageously forging ahead into the future, leaving room to venture forward into exciting further instalments. Ultimately this isn’t QUITE as good as Dawn or even War, but with this the saga remains as rewarding, compelling and majestic as ever, and I see great promise in its future …

8. KUNG FU PANDA 4 – The Dragon Warrior is back once again for a long-awaited fourth adventure, and while there’s always room for more of my second favourite Dreamworks animated franchise there are strong indicators that this could well be the last, and if it is, it would certainly be a worthy bow-out for one of my favourite anthropomorphic movie characters. The eponymous martial arts master, Po (the boundlessly endearing Jack Black, inexhaustibly effervescent as always), is at the height of his astounding abilities, and his crabby red panda mentor Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) thinks it’s time for him to take his place as the spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace, while also choosing a successor to begin training as the new Dragon Warrior. Po, however, couldn’t be more against this particular idea, since there’s nothing he loves more than kicking butt and taking names (although he’s never been very good at the latter), so when it seems like his old foe Tai Lung (a welcome return for the great Ian McShane) has returned he jumps at the chance to investigate. Instead he discovers that there’s a new threat out there – a shapeshifting sorceress known as The Chameleon (Viola Davis) has taken control of the distance metropolis of Juniper City, making it her base of operations from which to launch her nefarious plan to reach into the Spirit World and steal the Kung Fu of ever master villain there. Po’s only hope of defeating her is to enlist the very reluctant help one of the city’s residents, a nefarious corsac fox thief named Zhen (Awkwafina) who may prove more of a handful than he bargained for … the series continues to fire on all cylinders with all prerequisite elements functioning exactly as they should – the franchise may have peaked with the second film, but they’ve maintained an impressive level of quality throughout, and this fourth entry definitely measures up very well in comparison, regardless of what some naysayers may have said. This is just as amusing, ingenious, exciting and visually arresting as previous outings, and rather than stripping away much of the fun by leaving the Furious Five out this time round, the story’s a good deal tighter and much more focused, rightly focusing on the relationship that develops between Po and Zhen as they go from rivals to uneasy allies to true friends in very organic fashion. It certainly helps that the two leads have such strong chemistry – Black’s having as much fun as ever while his creation remains his adorably geeky self, while Awkwafina brings plenty of likeable sass and snark to proceedings, and they gel very effectively over the course of the film. Davis, meanwhile, creates a compelling villain with strong motives for her dastardly plot, while there’s quality support from returning voices like Hoffman alongside Bryan Cranston and James Hong as Po’s two dads Li Shan and Mr Ping and series newcomers such as Ke Huy Quan, fresh from his post-Everything Everywhere All At Once success as Zhen’s estranged pangolin mentor Han. Granted, ultimately this feels like just a lot more of the same, but when the end results are still so consistent there’s no real room for complaint, and as far as I’m concerned the series remains as strong as it was when it started, from the gorgeous animation and stylish design to the exquisitely executed action and, once again, a spectacular score from Hans Zimmer, this time joined by regular collaborator Steve Mazzaro (the highlight here is a truly WILD orchestral rendition of Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train during the film’s best set-piece). Ultimately, if this really IS the end of the franchise, it’s a fitting place to call it a day, although I’m sure I’m not alone in hoping for a little more, and there’s definitely a strong indicator where they COULD go from here …

7. A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE – It’s interesting, most of the time when you get a really great movie that becomes a big hit and spawns a franchise, THE LAST THING it needs is a prequel, and oftentimes when it DOES happen it feels like a shoehorned mess or even a disrespectful retcon (they can’t ALL be Furiosa, after all). A Quiet Place was never one of those – right from the start it was clear that how it all began was going to be JUST as interesting as where the original story was going, a fact that was DEFINITELY reinforced when Part Two dropped that TERRIFYING flashback cold open. So when this finally arrived I was FIRST in my local queue, raring to go and so unswervingly excited that anything less than amazing was liable to be a disappointment. Thankfully it turned out to be EVERYTHING I was hoping for – this is a super trim 99 minutes of knuckle-whitening terror with a (by now, not really all that) surprising amount of emotional power packed in, one of those films that brings you to tears when it’s not scaring the living bejeezuz out of you, just like the first two. Lupita Nyong’o is a breath of fresh air as our new lead protagonist, Samira, a world-weary young New Yorker who’s been beaten down by a life of tragedy and chronic pain from the very same kind of advanced cancer that killed her beloved father, only to find a reason to stay alive (at least for a few more days) when the sound-seeking murder-beasts crash-land in the middle of the loudest city in the world and instantly go apeshit from all the noise. Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn, meanwhile, puts us through the emotional wringer right from his entrance as Eric, a timid Brit law student whose anxiety is going THROUGH THE ROOF as this all goes off around him, forced to find inner reserves of courage he never knew he had after he latches onto Sam as she makes her way across the city in search of the last slice she’ll ever be able to get from her favourite Harlem pizzeria. There are equally heartfelt turns from Alex Wolff (Hereditary, Jumanji, Pig) as Reuben, Sam’s put-upon hospice nurse, and Djimon Hounsou, showing how his character started his own apocalyptic struggle as Part Two’s Henri, but perhaps the biggest stars of this film are, unsurprisingly, Nico and Schnitzel, a pair of tuxedo cats who perfectly portrayed the role of Frodo, Sam’s service cat, who’s probably THE MOST CHILLED-OUT feline I have EVER SEEN in a movie, and definitely one of the cutest. Ultimately this is an absolute TRIUMPH for its breakout writer-director, Michael Sarnoski, whose INSANELY impressive feature debut Pig already made him one to watch back in 2021, and he definitely did the original property justice while carving his own equally impressive path in the franchise. The end result, then, is a welcome addition to an already INCREDIBLE horror movie series, and definitely a strong contender for the genre’s movie of the year.

6. DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE – Damn … if ever there was a movie that I really can’t say much of ANYTHING about for fear of dropping spoilers, even if most of the core fandom has already seen it … this is an IMPORTANT MOVIE, maybe the most important of the past year, because the MCU has been on the rocks of late, despite Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 going a long way to setting its fortunes back on the right track (but then that one has very much been considered a BLIP, really), and this one looks to have SINGLEHANDEDLY knocked the whole mess back on the right track while simultaneously mercilessly ripping the piss out of the whole debacle. No, I mean IT REALLY DOES, there isn’t A SINGLE STONE that the Merc With a Mouth leaves unturned in his quest for meta-fuelled irreverence (except maybe that dead Celestial poking out of the Pacific that NOBODY seems to be talking about after Eternals … or maybe I missed a joke somewhere). Anyway, this is EVERY BIT as good as James Gunn’s third and final feature for the franchise, as well as another SUPER-solid entry in what was already Fox’s now expired X-Verse’s most popular series, but most importantly it’s also an EXTREMELY successful bridging film between that and the flagging Marvel Cinematic Universe, the perfect way to bring Mutantkind into the franchise with the least amount of fuss. That being said, the BIG attraction here is getting to see two of Marvel’s biggest heavyweights going head-to-head in one movie, and of course beating seven shades of shit out of each other while they’re at it. If you will … yeah, if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want to get spoiled, you really should jump off at this point and just GO SEE FOR YOURSELF, safe in the knowledge that it’s a fucking AWESOME movie and you won’t be disappointed. Now SHOO!!! Be off with you … okay, still here? Right then, watch me try to be as spoiler-light as I can moving forward … as much as Wade Wilson and Logan may be the very EPITOME of chalk-and-cheese onscreen, behind the scenes Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman have got on like a house on fire for a while now, ever since the former started lovingly teasing the latter in the first Deadpool movie and started his long-running campaign to lure the original Marvel Movie superstar into a big screen team-up, so

it comes as NO SURPRISE that they’re both clearly having the time of their lives finally working together. Their chemistry in this is OFF THE CHARTS, the pair trading razor sharp quips, dirty looks and well-deserved face-punches with gleeful abandon from their first scene together RIGHT to the end, while the incredibly strong screenplay from Reynolds, series regulars Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, Robot Chicken’s Zeb Wells and the film’s director Shawn Levy (who previously worked with Reynolds on Free Guy and The Adam Project, as well as Jackman on Real Steel) definitely gives them a really big Multiversal playground to let loose in, all while doing a really beautiful job of taking the baggage that the current condition of the MCU property’s left the franchise in and stuffing it all into what’s always been a much more stable (if also far less RESPECTFUL) cinematic sandbox. There are easter eggs galore, both overt and a whole lot more subtle throughout, especially during an extended sojourn in the Void (the TVA’s pruning dumping ground) which not only introduces a few fun (relative) new faces (including at least one X-Men franchise missed opportunity AS WELL as the VERY welcome return of my very favourite Marvel mutant of them all – so nice to see you back, Laura! Sure hope you get to stick around for more) but also a bunch of fan favourites from across Fox’s Marvel pantheon, and as far as I’m concerned there ain’t a single bum note in the entire symphony here! Certainly this is BY FAR the funniest Deadpool movie so far (which is saying something), but that’s not really surprising since Shawn Levy has consistently proven to be one of the VERY BEST cinematic comedy directors out there (especially with his consistently high quality Night At the Museum series), so this is just another day at the office for him, and he definitely delivered something TRULY SPECIAL here. This is THE MOST I laughed at the cinema this past year, but thankfully like its predecessors it’s got plenty of emotional heft on offer too, meaning that it definitely fits in JUST FINE with the best that its new peers in the MCU have to offer. Topping this off with a selection of genuinely BRILLIANT soundtrack needle-drops (particularly in the thoroughly irreverent and MASSIVELY disrespectful opening title sequence which sees Wade mercilessly desecrating one of Marvel’s most sacred cows) and a genuinely moving closing credits farewell homage to Fox’s Marvel legacy, the filmmakers have done their material so very proud as well as opened the door to so many fresh possibilities in the Marvel Cinematic Universe moving forward, and I for one hope this is a sign that things really are FINALLY back on the right track for the series. Now if they could just get that Blade reboot out of Development Hell (wink wink) …

5. THE WILD ROBOT – My animated feature of 2024 pretty much came out of nowhere to steal my heart in the closing months of the year, a truly spellbinding work of art which made me cry MULTIPLE TIMES through its hundred-odd minute runtime. Writer-director Chris Sanders, who already had strong form bringing us to tears helming Lilo & Stitch and the first How To Train Your Dragon film, continues to manipulate our emotions without mercy by introducing us to Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a caretaker robot who’s part of a shipwrecked cargo consignment which washes up on the shores of a deserted forest island. After being accidentally activated, she follows her prime directives and goes in search of someone to assign her a task, but with only animals around her she finds this is a far harder prospect than she has any kind of programming to compute. Ultimately her journey finds her taking accidental responsibility for a lone gosling, Brightbill, forcing her to rewrite her core programming and become something more than a mere thinking machine as she discovers what it really means to become a parent. Roz is a magnificent creation, endearingly fallible as she goes far beyond her initial capabilities without ever losing her core principles to help those around her by any means necessary, and in a way this is just what ultimately makes her such a great mother; Brightbill, on the other hand, is a wonderfully complex character in his own right, perfectly encapsulating the various evolutions a child goes through from sweet innocent to awkward, uncertain teen, with Kit Connor getting to build upon his similarly exceptional vocal work on His Dark Materials; Pedro Pascal, meanwhile, is very much the third part of the heart of the film as Fink, the wily fox almost universally hated by the island’s animal population, who goes from initially trying to take advantage of Roz for his own gain while helping her navigate the wild world she’s found herself thrust into to genuinely coming to love and depend on her while becoming just as much of a loving parent to Brightbill. The rest of the cast is pretty stacked too, rounded out with stellar turns from Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Mark Hammill and, best of all, a particular scene stealing performance from the ever reliable Matt Berry. Not only is this a really excellent example of how to do a perfect family film, it’s ultimately one of the most perfect FILMS I’ve seen this past year, PERIOD, incredibly well written and directed with particularly inspired flair, gob-smacking gorgeous compositions and complex but rewardingly clear thematic insight, Sanders and co delivering something which is so much more than the sum of its already quite superior parts. Perfectly pitched in its humour, wonder and pure, beautiful HEART, this is an undeniable MASTERPIECE of the animated art-form, and I really cannot possibly praise it ENOUGH. This is one of those films that deserves to be seen by EVERYONE ...

4. CIVIL WAR – Alex Garland is a filmmaker I’ve been a big fan of since before he even WAS a filmmaker, back when he was just writing screenplays for the likes of 28 Days Later and Sunshine. That being said, he’s consistently blown us away ever since he covertly took the reins for 2012’s criminally overlooked Dredd (I’m definitely inclined to believe the rumours that he actually helmed that one himself, since it’s SO MUCH an Alex Garland movie), rightly wowing audiences with both ex_machina and Annihilation (Men was, ultimately, TOO strong and visceral an experience for me to really LIKE, but I must admit I was definitely IMPRESSED by it), so I was already onboard for this one even before the genuinely exciting first trailer starting making the rounds. But even if I hadn’t already known his work, I definitely would’ve been up for this truly fascinating premise – set in an uncomfortably believable near future (especially given where the current US political system looks to be heading), it follows a quartet of journalists as they travel into the war-torn heart of an America ravaged by a potent clash between the loyal forces of an authoritarian President who’s refused to step down after the end of his official term (Nick Offerman) and a coalition of secessionist states determined to oust him and his administration. Kirsten Dunst leads the cast with what might be the best performance of her career as Lee Smith, a cynical photojournalist with a fearsome reputation, joining her longtime work-partner Joel (Narcos’ Wagner Moura, effortlessly charming and lovably cocky as an unapologetic adrenaline junkie) in his quest to interview the President before he’s forcibly removed from Office; tagging along, meanwhile, are Sammy (a typically charismatic and stately turn from the mighty Stephen McKinley Henderson), a world-weary veteran reporter who’s just hitching a ride to the front lines of the conflict, and Jessie Cullen (Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny, sweet and naïve but with a deep reserve of feeling), a wannabe photojournalist who idolises Lee and is determined to prove herself to her hero, even if it ends up getting her killed. Through their experiences on the open road and the various events they witness, we watch this terrifying war unfold as it builds to its powerful endgame, moving from the wilds of Upstate New York to the streets of Washington itself, and it’s brought home in genuinely harrowing detail just what a nightmare this could well be if it really does happen. Garland’s certainly not pulling ANY punches here, clearly fundamentally aware of where America might end up if we don’t wise up REAL QUICK (although by this point I wonder if the warning came a bit TOO LATE), while also delivering an endlessly fascinating dystopian action thriller for good measure, packed with stunning explosive action sequences and at least one genuinely UNBEARABLE scene of proper pants-wetting pregnant implied threat (those who know will already know), all while making us really THINK thanks to a particularly shrewd and fiendishly subversive screenplay, and even offering up moments of incongruous aching beauty in the midst of all the chaos, much as he did on Annihilation. Ultimately this is a perfect demonstration of a master filmmaker reaching the very height of his powers, final confirmation, if it was even NEEDED any more, that Garland is one of the most original and challenging cinematic storytellers out there right now.

3. REBEL RIDGE – I’ve been a pretty massive fan of writer-director Jeremy Saulnier ever since I first stumbled across his very original indie thriller Blue Ruin, and that love grew consistently with his next two feature films (Green Room and Hold the Dark) and the first two episodes of True Detective season 3. So I was VERY EXCITED when I learned he was returning to the big screen (sort of) with his second collaboration with Netflix … but I really wasn’t prepared for what was to come, which is essentially HIS VERY BEST FILM YET!!! Seriously, this is a stone cold MASTERPIECE, not just the best screen thriller of 2024 but one of the VERY BEST for the decade so far, and to be honest one of my biggest takeaways from it wound up being what a criminal shame it was that this DIDN’T release in theatres! The Underground Railroad’s Aaron Pierre (soon to be seen as the new Green Lantern in the upcoming DCU TV series) stars as former US Marine Corps instructor Terry Richmond, who finds himself the victim of an unfair civil forfeiture of funds which he intended to use to bail out his little brother during a seemingly routine traffic stop in the small Louisiana town of Shelby Springs. Backed into a corner, he attempts to come to an arrangement to get the money back from local police chief Sandy Burne (Don Johnson), who instead gives him the runaround just because he can, which just makes things SO MUCH WORSE, because it turns out that Richmond really isn’t the kind of person you screw around with … starting subtly, this is a wonderful exercise in increasing stakes and cranking tension, Saulnier letting the story and characters breathe first while slowly revealing just what a serious BADASS the main protagonist actually is before FINALLY letting him off the chain in SPECTACULAR style, and the film is all the better for the time taken to establish just how badly these ignorant, self-entitles racist cops have fucked up before it finally all goes off BIG TIME. Of course it helps that Pierre is SO GOOD at being quiet, still and oh so patient, doing so much with a simple look or gesture to deliver a genuine MASTERCLASS in subtlety while letting his showier cast-mates let off some cracking performative fireworks around him. Johnson is, as always, AMAZING, portraying a pitch-perfect entitled douchebag villain that it’s so easy to love to hate, and David Denman (13 Hours, Brightburn, The Equalizer 3) and Emory Cohen (The Place Beyond the Pines, The OA) both shine bright as the two very different patrol cops who kick this whole mess off in the first place, while AnnaSophia Robb (yes, that IS the little girl from Bridge to Terabithia) is the film’s only real ray of light as local courthouse clerk Summer McBride, the one friend that Richmond has in this whole shitshow, often very much to her own detriment. This is essentially a PERFECT THRILLER, Saulnier having basically unlocked the ideal blueprint for how to wring tension and dread out of a seemingly everyday miscarriage of justice in America and showing how, when the wrong person’s pushed too far, it can go so terribly wrong for EVERYBODY. No surprise, then, that this film has been very favourably compared to First Blood, and indeed this does feel like a very natural successor to that action cinema classic, albeit one which is much better suited for today’s far more morally ambiguous cinematic landscape. Needless to say Saulnier really does deserve to become a proper MEGASTAR filmmaker because of this, and I’m just happy to have been proved right for all the faith I’ve had in him over the years ...

2. DUNE, PART TWO – As if there was ever any doubt, after the already amazing first part made its KILLER debut back in late 2021 … no, it was a foregone conclusion that the second half of writer-director Denis Villeneuve’s immensely ambitious adaptation of one of his very favourite books OF ALL TIME, Frank Herbert’s genuine game-changer space opera Dune, would be JUST as incredible as the first, and it thrills me to no end that that proved to be entirely the case. After all, this is also MY favourite book of all time, if they’d f£$%ed it up I would have been more heartbroken than I could possibly imagine, so Villeneuve and co have made me a VERY HAPPY BUNNY INDEED!!! Picking up RIGHT where the first film left off, we return to the desert world of Arrakis tens of centuries into the future, with young Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), now the Duke of an all-but-eradicated Galactic noble House, and his mother, the Bene Gesserit holy woman Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), forced to hide among the desert tribes of the Fremen, hatching a desperate plan to take revenge on the monstrous Harkonnens and seize control of the planet, its massively lucrative trade in the obscenely valuable spice Melange, and through it the Galactic Empire in its entirety. To do so, Paul must use his growing prescient abilities to convince the Fremen that he is the Kwisatz Haderach, their prophesied messiah, but he’s keenly aware that this means walking a deadly knife’s edge in order to prevent triggering a bloody Holy War that will burn half the known Universe … once again, Chalamet and Ferguson are the beating heart of the story, both acquitting themselves admirably throughout as they perfectly encapsulate the myriad complexities of their characters, but this time round they’re finally joined by Zendaya, barely glimpsed in the first film but now brought front and centre as the emotional CRUX of the film in the role of Chani, the free-spirited and stubborn Fremen warrior Paul falls in love with as he learns to become a true denizen of Arrakis; other old faces return too, with Josh Brolin bringing a roguish twinkle and welcome sense of humour to proceedings as the exiled Atreides warmaster Gurney Halleck, and Stellan Skarsgård once again chills our blood as the repellent Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. More newcomers make their presence felt throughout, however, with Florence Pugh particularly standing out as Princess Irulan, the fiercely intelligent daughter of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken, nowhere NEAR the bum note some have made him out to be), although the true shining star among the new cast (beside Zendaya, at least) is Austin Butler (Elvis), enthusiastically sinking his teeth deep into the meaty role of the Baron’s viciously sadistic sociopathic nephew Feyd Rautha. Once again Villeneuve has done his dream project justice in EVERY conceivable aspect, continuing to pay truly REVERENT respect to the source material as he makes Herbert’s incredibly rich universe live and breathe on the screen, the peerless production and costume design, visual effects and cinematography never hitting a single off-note in any scene, while the screenplay perfectly translates the weighty themes, compelling narrative and shocking twists into a deeply involving cinematic tour-de-force that keeps you invested throughout its seemingly brisk and pacy run-time (this may be close to THREE HOURS LONG but it sure doesn’t FEEL like it), enthusiastically propelled by another MASTERPIECE score from fellow Dune superfan Hans Zimmer. This was a truly MASSIVE cinematic event that left 2024 audiences awed by the experience while also drumming some EXTREMELY weighty ideas and themes into us, as well as perfectly setting up the continuation when Villeneuve gets his already in-development adaptation of the next book in the series, Dune Messiah, off the ground. I’m definitely looking forward to that, and I know I’m not alone …

1. ALIEN: ROMULUS – Ultimately landing JUST AHEAD a certain other major genre heavyweight entry on my list for the past year, my number ONE science-fiction film of 2024 was also easily the SCARIEST movie I saw in the entire year. It’s also a very interesting and IMPORTANT film in that it goes A LONG WAY to knocking yet another major cinematic franchise back on track after spending years spiralling further and further out of true alignment. Okay, I admit it, I LIKE Prometheus a whole lot as an actual FILM, but even I can admit that IN UNIVERSE its attempts to connect with Ridley Scott’s own original masterpiece and James Cameron’s (even better) follow-up were clunky at best and downright EMBARRASSING at worst (and in the end, the less said about Alien: Covenant the better, really). So I guess it’s actually A GOOD THING that Scott took a step back into more of a producing role to allow somebody else to take the reins for this sort-of soft reboot, and it turns out that Fede Alvarez, writer-director of the first Evil Dead remake and Don’t Breathe (as well as the CRIMINALLY underrated The Girl In the Spider’s Web), was the PERFECT CHOICE for this job. Fitting in somewhere between the events of Alien and Aliens, Romulus sees the dastardly Weyland Yutani Corporation find the blasted remains of the Nostromo floating in deep space, as well as traces of the original xenomorph itself, which they transport to the film’s eponymous space station, in the orbit of colony world Jackson’s Star, in the hopes of exploiting the organism’s unique properties for their own gains. Something clearly goes HORRIBLY WRONG in the interim, because when a gang of opportunistic young colonists, looking for a chance to jump ship to a freer life in another system outside of Corporate control, sneak onto the station in the hopes of scavenging some cryogenic resources for their journey, they find it derelict and ravaged by some kind of horrific disaster. Then their poking around lets loose some of the fruits of the scientists’ biological labours, and before they know it they’re neck-deep in facehuggers and more than a few of their bigger brethren too … Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, Civil War, Bad Times At the El Royale) is a surprisingly robust action heroine in the classic Ripley mould as Rain, her diminutive size belying her character’s fierce determination and wily resourcefulness; Archie Renaux (Shadow & Bone) and Isabel Merced (Sicario: Day of the Soldado, Dora & the City of Gold, Turtles All the Way Down) are both extremely likeable as Tyler and Kay, a brother and sister who are, respectively Rain’s ex-boyfriend and best friend, while Spike Fearn (Tell Me Everything) is kind of a prick as their cocky cousin Bjorn, and newcomer Aileen Wu is standoffish but precocious as talented young pilot Navarro. The real breakout star of the piece, however, has to be Rye Lane’s David Jonsson, who delivers a complex, multifaceted turn as Rain’s adopted brother Andy, a former Weyland-Yutani android dug out of a scrapheap and reprogrammed to protect her by her late father.

They’re all put through hell by the events that unfold within the faltering station, Alvarez turning the screws and fraying our nerves with his characteristic masterful skill as their situations progressively go from bad to worse to truly fucked, paying loving homage to the first two movies while also creating something new and fresh for the series if they do decide to move forward from here. Best of all, though, as he’s always done in the past he largely eschews CGI, preferring to do as much as he possibly can with physical effects, which makes the impressively icky creature work and seriously NASTY gore all the more delightfully gnarly throughout, with the film’s ONLY bum note being a particularly problematic “resurrection” choice which has already had a great deal made of it in the press, but which I, ultimately, found was actually handled surprisingly well in the end, so that it didn’t really detract very much from my personal enjoyment of the film as a whole. Rounded off with an evocative and enjoyably old school score from Benjamin Wallfisch (who clearly had a great time channelling both Jerry Goldsmith and James Horner here), this is a rousing success, a phenomenal return to form for one of my very favourite sci-fi cinematic franchises and yet another standout offering from one of the very best young turk talents working in horror cinema today. If he does indeed choose to stick with the property, I think Alvarez could well keep this series fresh and exciting for a fair few years yet.

[magictavern]

also if you enjoy cohen's monster culture paper, i have two other pieces to recommend for further lines of thought -- first, mieville's theses on monsters. it's annoying and obtuse in the way that mieville's academic writing often is (i enjoy him but Jesus Christ), but i think the core of it is a really engaging and quick exploration of what we mean when we deploy the concept of monstrousness, and how monstrousness requires a certain uncertainty and inability to be pinned down.

second: theses on plant horror (this is a shortened version of the original piece, and i think you can get a full scan on academia dot edu but i am NOT sending anyone there without proper warning). it's very overtly riffing on the form and style of cohen's piece, but is a lovely bit of writing on eco-horror and a general philosophy of nature and our relationship to it. i read it while having an existential crisis and reading the area x trilogy, so take my fondness for it with a grain of salt due to that specific set of factors, but ultimately, it made me think a lot about flora through the lens of horror and what it means to be so intertangled with it in general

[pentanguine]

Worst Books of 2023

5. In Search of a Prince by Toni Shiloh

Whose fault is it: School book club

One thing I will say about this book is that it exceeded my expectations. The writing was decent! The author did actually research West African culture and history! Unfortunately, the book simply cannot escape the fact that a) it’s a plot point for plot point retelling of the Princess Diaries; and b) it’s a Christian romance. The villain is a sexually promiscuous woman born out of wedlock (whose motivations also make no sense), and every romantic scene leaves so much room for Jesus it forgets to leave room for romance. At one point the villain says: “Love is for children and pets. Just like Santa.” Spoilers, the last line of the book is “they would say I loved God, loved my country, and loved my husband,” and when I read that I think I retched.

4. Seducing the Sorcerer by Lee Welch

Whose fault is it: School book club and EBF

Honestly, the first part of this book was good. The characters were well-drawn and sympathetic, they had good chemistry and clear reasons to be interested in each other, and who wouldn’t love the worple horse. And then, somewhere in the second half, it all went to shit. The romance was underwhelming when they actually got together, and the sex was thin on the page and way less intense than what the book (and the baffling Goodreads reviews) had been implying. The political situation quickly went off the rails, before being wrapped up in an ending so neat and tidy Marie Kondo could have written it. Everything that can’t be logically resolved gets conveniently handwaved, and compelling character development goes out the window so the author can abruptly focus on high stakes international conflict. The villain is ultimately defeated by the vague threat of an army of enchanted fabric. In a lifetime first, I’m going to say this book needed less politics and more romance.

3. Devil's Night Dawning by Damien Black

Whose fault is it: Mine :(

I should never have picked it up knowing it was by a straight white man. “Great worldbuilding, truly epic,” said the reviews. “Dark, creepy horror vibes,” said the reviews. “It’s so original,” said the reviews. The great worldbuilding is periodic info-dumping on unimportant historical details by someone who thinks they’re writing LOTR and is actually writing a textbook. The dark, creepy horror vibes would be there if only the author could focus on his alleged main character, a demon hunting monk, for longer than one chapter out of ten. The originality is a religion in which Jesus The Redeemer dies on the cross wheel for our sins, and characters wander around saying “the power of the redeemer compels you.” Throw in a few misogynistic knights who casually murder each other while fetishizing chivalry, one (1) female character who of course has a very nice figure, and a lot of irrelevant POV characters who simply weren’t interesting, and I gave up at page 291.

2. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Whose fault is it: Mine and everyone who’s ever raved about it

I finished this book out of sheer bloody spite, and I wish I hadn’t. Tedious, overly full of itself, impenetrable, opaque, misogynistic, and enmeshed in ideas of machismo and the nuclear family that made it impossible for me to connect with. The truly frustrating thing is that there were many genuinely good moments of skin-tingling horror, but they’re so buried under all the bloated academic hogwash that they failed to make an impact. This book is the guy in your philosophy class who thinks he’s smart but has just never been told to shut up. This book is a male author who thinks he can write women well because he gives them compelling thoughts on sex, motherhood, romance, sex, stripping, modeling, their own bodies, and sex. I would rather live on Ash Tree Lane than read this book again.

All Four Twilight books by Stephanie Meyer

Whose fault is it: EBF

These books are genuinely, appallingly, hilariously, pathetically, bad. As an adult, I try to be charitable to things that I disliked (or in this case, refused to interact with at all) when I was younger, because teenage girls get a lot of shit and the things that they like tend to automatically be labeled cringe, but…these books are actually shit. Not just mediocre, or a little juvenile, or with some notable flaws, but BAD. And they’re not even shockingly sexy! I thought Twilight was the series that parents wanted to protect their innocent children from, in which maidens were ravished by whole covens of vampires, bodices torn, innocence lost, werewolves howling in pleasure, etc. Stephanie Meyer is way too fucking Mormon for that. I’ve never read a less sexy vampire in my life, and yet these were the teen heartthrobs of my youth?? The first book was honestly fun to hate-read, but by the time I got to the fourth one I was just depressed. It opens with Bella feeling genuine dread at her upcoming marriage to “the love of her life” that she’s been manipulated into at the age of 18 against her will, and the idea of this being the thing anyone is obsessing over just makes me sad. It’s just Mormonism with bad writing and worse characterization. Allow me to present my reviews for each:

Twilight: “Such a fucking dumb book.”

New Moon: “A whole lot of nothing happens to the world’s most depressed teenager”

Eclipse: “No plot, just endless rehashes of the same vampires vs. werewolves argument with pedophilia for flavor.”

Breaking Dawn: “The bar was in hell, and she still managed to let me down.”

[k00297602]

Disrupt Project - Artist Research

(2/11/23)

Francis Bacon (1909-1992)

After looking at nonsense and words I wanted to dig deeper into childhood, and more specifically, my own. Children usually being blissfully ignorant and living in their own imaginary nonsensical world, unable to understand the horrors around them.

Francis Bacon is one of my favourite artists and I feel a connection to his work and his personal struggles. I thought there would be no better artist to look into when focusing on disrupted childhood, than Bacon.

I took many notes while sifting through academic journals, books, interviews and documentaries.

Francis Bacon was a self taught painter, born in Ireland but later moving to London and Paris to escape his abusive father. He recalls his childhood as ‘very cold, like a block of ice’.

After working a brief career as an interior designer, Bacon turned to painting. His work is described as experimental and figurative, capturing the essence of his subject matter (often being people very close to him) brutal and grotesque in nature.

He first gained fame from his triptych titled, Three studies for a crucifixion which was exhibited in 1945, during the end of WWII.

The triptych, taking inspiration from both the crucifixion and death of Jesus and the Greek mythological avenging furies presented grotesquely, stripped of humanity, merging bloodshed and flesh with paint to create an appalling animalistic piece.

Many who went to the exhibition were reminded of the brutality of the war and the holocaust and fled shortly after seeing the paintings.

Despite being an atheist, Bacon’s art is full of religious imagery, this is likely because Bacon struggled to explore his homosexuality in early 1900s Ireland, which was condemned by the church and Bacon being homeschooled by the local priests in his childhood.

Being abused as a child, sexually, verbally and physically, most definitely impacted Bacon’s works, gory scenes and distorted experimental portraits influenced by his dangerously masochistic desires and distressing abusive relationships, familial and romantic.

I find Francis Bacon’s work incredible, his chosen subject matters and themes of violence and powerful vs powerless fascinates me. His personality and past also pique my interest, how he was an optimist who focused mostly of the sadistic brutality, how he ridiculed the concept of love despite being notorious for his many controversial relationships with other men.

I am deeply inspired by the painter and will use him as my inspiration in my future works revolving the disruption of childhood, from blissful ignorance to painful awareness.

[zooterchet]

Essex County (The Jesuit Sports Union)

The American Government:

Ever wonder why the Americans, won't let anybody win?

Bill Clinton, saved NAFTA, but Rush Limbaugh's TV show had already taken him down for funeral debt, as if racist; his MI-6 ties in Canada, demonstrated.

George W. Bush, won the War on Terror, by framing himself as German, actually Turkish, the Diner's Association, the defense attorney's union; the prison chaplins. Yet Charles Manson, framed him as gay, through Metal Wolf Chaos, for having a Vice President with a lesbian daughter (frauded in courts, kidnapping with more than one charge, schizophrenia of womanhood).

Barack Obama, had stolen a speech sample, through Rahm Emmanuelle, from another Charlebois, so the Fiqh's state embassy, would be frauded as Jesus, taken from Doubting Thomas, the same student, David Charlebois; the Temple on the Mount, intended for an academic thief, the scurrilous Rahm Emmanuele labeling Hoover on the Presidency, denoued from Grant, defrauded by his children through wage of debt of Salvation Army; Five Points Gang, child through nominated theft of Inquisitor to return to origin for grocery trade of common good; Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, refused of independence of poor to cook and clean on their own, psychiatric traditions of anti-Semites, Slavics.

Donald J. Trump, elected by drug use among CIA, DEA, and ATF, propaganda unions, falsely advertised on internet by Air Force and Army, movie fans; Westerns, Moorish food traditions, government separatists, like at Ruby Ridge. Never meant to be President, having miswriitten a self-help to become a billionaire, instead of already being one, he's been pawned and traded as an MI-6 mule and donkey, opposing the CIA's tradition of considering film as pederasty, supporting white trash parents, MMA and prize fighting and "Hindu Boxing", dog fights by black men, "Negros", Checkers and Horror film fans, Africans and Jews of the lower South.

Biden, Italian-Sicilian, has been fed Italian food meant for French, rumored to be "Jews", by Germans and Yugoslavs and Chechnyans, spelling the death of their country; directed by Swedes, through a Jew in the Kennedies, Josh Moen, leading to the Holocaust; arranged by Josh Moen's father, Joseph Kennedy III, as payback for putting him in AA, a full horse radish purge of Jews, for refusing cigarettes and marijuana, mandatory to survive, or else "mentally ill", CBD for Arabs.