#and i seen many different horror films and games since then

[littlealeta]

Me: Recovers from Amanda the Adventurer and then searches again for theories on wtf is going on in it.

Also me: gets depressed and sleeplessly disturbed all over again.

[cleolinda]

The Scariest Movie I Ever Saw in a Theater: The Ring

I'll tell you up front that the story I'm going to tell you is about "The Ring (2002)," in the sense that it is about The Ring in the year 2002.

See, I don't know what The Scariest Movie Ever is. A quick google says that the consensus is The Exorcist (I haven't seen it, because I never felt like scheduling a day to freak myself the entire fuck out). But horror is specific, and not just to a person, but to a time and place, even. When I saw The Shining as a teenager in a well-lit living room with other people, I didn't even really flinch, but I bet it would play very differently to me now. I don’t think The Ring is at the top of anyone’s list, but twenty years ago, I had a personal interest in it—at the time, I was running a dinky little Geocities site devoted to movie news. Links curated and compiled from all the other, bigger sites I followed—basically, it was the linkspam format I have used on multiple platforms, including here on Sundays. And so, as someone who followed theatrical releases pretty closely for two or three years, I saw the trailer for The Ring, and I immediately knew it was going to be huge.

To locate you in time, this was just after three self-satirizing Scream movies and the Overcomplicated Serial Killer films of the '90s. The Ring was something completely different: chill aqua-blue color grading a good 5-6 years before Twilight; a mournful Hans Zimmer score; no jokes, no quips; and a slow, inexorable sense of doom. Grief, even, given that the movie begins with the death of the main character's niece. What immediately struck me about the first trailer was 1) the melancholy of it, and 2) how much it doesn't explain. Onscreen, you get the title cards,

THERE IS A VIDEOTAPE IF YOU WATCH IT SEVEN DAYS LATER YOU DIE

Concise! Understandable! A woman (Naomi Watts) is freaking out upon discovering that her young son has just watched it! Admirable job setting up the premise and the stakes of this entire movie in thirty seconds flat, without even any dialogue. That's all you need to know, and thus, the remaining minute of the trailer can do whatever it wants, and what it wants to do is be fucking weird. Echoing voices, TV static, a closeup of a horse's eye, ladders, a girl with dark hair, people reacting to things we don't see, drippy doorknobs, rain. Characters don't give us the whole plot in convenient soundbites of dialogue (like they do in a later trailer); we just hear lines, overlapping, murmured out of context—

did you see it in your head? she talks to you... leading you somewhere... showing you the horses... you saw it. did you see it in your head? she shows me things. Everyone suffers.

That you saw it has lived in my head ever since, and not once have I charged it rent. But the "best" part is Naomi Watts screaming at the end, because you don't hear her voice; you only hear this heartless telephonic beeeeeeep. It's 2002 and I'm watching this trailer, thinking, I have no idea what the fuck I just saw. This is going to be huge.

And it was, to the tune of $249 million on a $48M budget.

At risk of recapping what you might already know, Ringu, aka Ring, is a media franchise that spiraled out from a trio of Koji Suzuki novels into Hideo Nakata's film Ringu (1998), a landmark of Japanese horror, plus several other movies, some TV series, many comics, and even a couple of video games. The overarching story is about a murdered girl/vengeful ghost named Sadako Yamamura whose rage and pain have created a cursed video tape, you watch it and you die unless you pass the tape around like a virus, seven daaaaays, etc.

The "ring" in question is the rim of a well. Keep that well in mind.

The movie I saw is the U.S. remake, which itself had two sequels. (The iconic Sadako is now named Samara Morgan. Keep her in mind, too.) Director Gore Verbinski moved from The Ring to Pirates of the the Caribbean (!), and so Hideo Nakata himself would direct The Ring Two. I... honestly have only seen the first one. And I was right, it was huge, and it kicked off the American J-Horror Remake genre, for better or worse. But what gets forgotten about The Ring is its marketing campaign, which I followed pretty closely for my doofy little news site.

It was inspired.

The story of The Ring is partly the story of the sea change in the media landscape—how we watch movies. And the story of its marketing is a picture of the very last years before social media changed the wilderness of the internet into something that feels so big, like a billion people could see anything we say, and yet so small—only a tame handful of places to say it, owned by three or four companies, and corraled by algorithms.

Back around 1997-1998 or so, I worked at a video store (Movie Gallery, where the hits were there then, guaranteed) for about a year and a half. By the time I left, we had started adding DVDs to the VHS tapes on the shelves, but we hadn't replaced the entire stock. Video stores might have transitioned fully to DVD by 2002, I'm not sure, but people still commonly had both VCRs and DVD players in their homes. And I remember that The Ring was sold in both formats when it eventually hit home video. Which is to say—you know the analog horror genre today? Marble Hornets, Local 58, The Mandela Catalogue?

Analog horror is commonly characterized by low-fidelity graphics, cryptic messages, and visual styles reminiscent of late 20th-century television and analog recordings. This is done to match the setting, as analog horror works are typically set between the 1960s and 1990s. The name "analog horror" comes from the genre's aesthetic incorporation of elements related to analog electronics, such as analog television and VHS, the latter being an analog method of recording video.

Okay, but this is just what home media was like, and 2002 was at the very tail end of that—boxy black VHS tapes that degraded with time and reuse were just how we lived. At the same time, I'd been using CDs for music since about 1991, and all our software installs came on CD-ROM discs; a "mixtape" by that time had shifted to mean a rewriteable CD rather than a cassette tape. In college, I—well, I'll plead the Fifth as to whether I downloaded mp3s via Napster, but I was also taping Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS over the weekends. It was Every Format Everywhere, All At Once, and we kept half a dozen kinds of players around for them. Here in 2023, we stream and download everything invisibly, unless we choose to engage in format nostalgia. (I've already run into the problem of Apple Music deleting songs I really liked, due to this or that licensing issue, because I was really only renting them.) The year The Ring hit theaters was the edge of a last shimmering gasp of physical media where iTunes had only come into being the year before, and iridescent discs were still mostly what we used, but cassettes, both video and audio, were still viable. And so, people did not think it was terribly weird when they started finding unlabeled VHS tapes on their windshields.

Movieweb, quoting TikTok user astro_nina:

"Their marketing strategy was essentially 'let's get this tape viewed by as many people as possible without these people being aware of what this is, sort of raising intrigue," she says. One way they achieved this was by airing the tape, which allegedly marks its viewers for death within seven days, as a commercial with no context. The video would air between late-night programming "with no words, no mention of a movie, for like a month...so people would run into it and it would just go on to the next thing, and people would be like, 'what the f--k is this?'"

I remember seeing the Cursed Video as an unexplained ad at least twice, by the way. That TikTok also indicates that DreamWorks straight-up sent copies of the tape to Hot Topic stores, as well as planting them under actual movie theater seats. While running my movie site, I heard at least one story of someone finding a tape on the sink counter of a restroom at a club. Did the marketing department actually plant tapes in bathrooms—or did a freaked-out recipient leave it there, hoping to dodge the "curse"?

(I haven't embedded the Cursed Video here, by the way—but I could have. If you'd like to see the American take on it, you can watch both the full version and the shorter variant that appeared in the movie itself. A text description of what the fuck you're even looking at is here [content note for both: blood, insects, animal death, body horror, and suicide by falling]. The original version from the Japanese film is shorter, and it's eerie rather than gruesome.)

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS MORE: DreamWorks had something of an alternate-reality campaign going with a handful of in-character websites. This was only a year after Warner Bros. ran the groundbreaking "The Beast" ARG for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence: "Ultimately, fifty websites with a total of about one thousand pages were created for the [A.I.] game." (I lurked in the Cloudmakers Yahoo group.) Marketing for The Ring did not go anywhere that in depth, nor did it need to; it was both a smaller film and a smaller story. I saw at least two “personal” websites (seemingly amateur and a little tacky, like my own), but the one I particularly remember was about someone who owned/trained horses? I'm not sure if it was meant to be the actual Anna Morgan character—Samara's mother—or maybe someone who had noticed that the Morgans' horses were disturbed? I'm not even sure anyone even remembers this but me. Reddit users dug up a few other archived websites, but they're about Sadako, the curse and/or videotape; they aren't as subtle or character-oriented as the site I remember. (Honestly, I wonder if weird shit like "What Scares Me" or "SEVEN DAYS TO LIVE" were made by fans rather than a marketing department, but who knows.)

[The “About” page from Seven Days to Live on the Internet Archive.]

[The entirety of An Open Letter on the Internet Archive. “UPDATE” is a now-blank pop-up. I would bet $5 that it was originally a pop-up of the cursed video.]

I need to point out here that Facebook did not exist in 2002. It would not exist for another two years, and Twitter wouldn't exist until 2006. Even MySpace was not a thing until the next year. I didn't start my Livejournal until October of 2003. What we had, for the most part, were independent forums and blogs. We also had Creepy Internet Fiction like "The Dionaea House" and "Ted the Caver"; their use of the blog format, of people out there seemingly living their lives until something fucked up went down, gave the stories the shape of reality. And it helped that these blogs had comment sections, sure—sometimes more story unfolded there—but for the most part, an author could "abandon" a blog, and you'd just find the story there via word of mouth. Like the Ring blogs I remember, it wouldn't seem strange if no one replied to you, whereas today, you'd have to hire a writer to sit on Twitter, or Reddit, or even Tumblr, and interact with people in character. Could you do something like The Ring's mysterious, weird-ass blogs today? Would anyone even notice?

So: It's 2002, my head is full of Alternate Reality and eerie images and you saw it, and I'm hype as hell to go out and see The Ring. I'm perfectly happy to go see movies by myself, so I went in the early afternoon (best time to get a good seat). The movie ended up being a sleeper hit, and the first weekend, the public was still sleeping on it, so there were only 7-8 other people in that theater, grouped in maybe two clusters. I was off in my own little pool of darkness in the upper right quadrant. Functionally, once the lights went down, I was alone.

Despite some middling reviews at the time, The Ring is something of a horror classic nowadays. If you want a scary movie this Spooky Season, check out The Ring. Or don't, because it nearly killed me.

We're at the last, I don't know, third of the movie? And Our Heroine has tracked down the origin of the Cursed Videotape to some creepy mountain motel or whatever. SPOILER, it turns out that it was built over the Cursed Well (everything in this movie is cursed) that Our Villain was thrown into—that's why Sadako/Samara is a vengeful wet murder ghost crawling out of TVs now. While investigating this decrepit hotel room, intrepid journalist Rachel and her, who is it, her ex-husband? her kid's dad, idk, discover the well under the creaky old floorboards. And then, wouldn't you know it,

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE WELL

NAOMI WATTS FALLS INTO THE FUCKING WELL

THAT'S WHERE SAMARA'S BODY IS

[The rather slapstick moment when Rachel falls into the well. Does not include what actually happens next.]

I go absolutely rigid in my seat. Naomi Watts is splashing around this dark-ass death swamp of a well and I know, with as much certainty as I have ever known anything in my life, that Samara is about to pop up in all her pasty, waterlogged glory. All the sad creepy dread, all the desperation to figure out what the fuck all that shit on the tape was and stop Samara from killing Rachel's son, all the horrible contorted victim faces, all the alternate reality I’ve been soaking in, it has all come to this. I have to leave the theater. I cannot be having with this. I have to be gone from this place. My legs do not work. I cannot feel them. I am frozen. I want nothing more in this life or any other to get up and leave this cavernous pitch-black room, and I cannot. I start praying for death. I want you to understand that I am not trying to be flippant or humorous. This is genuinely what went through my head. I was too scared to even think, "You know, you could just pray to pass out or for motion to return to your limbs or something." No, I sat there in The Ring thinking, Please for the love of all mercy just let me cease being.

You know that scene in Mulholland Drive (also starring Naomi Watts)? Winkie's diner and the EXCRUCIATING tension? It was a little like that, except I wasn't watching it, I was experiencing it, and Samara was my dirt monster out behind the diner.

Except that the jump scare didn't actually happen. I mean, yes, Rachel finds Samara's body down there, but—I don't remember exactly, please don't make me go watch it again to tell you what actually happens. It's played more sympathetically on Rachel's part, as I recall, and she and her ex get Samara's body out so that she (Samara) can have a proper burial.

And then it turns out that this is not the end of the movie. It turns out that Rachel has Fucked Up.

I think I was relatively okay through the rest of it, although the climax is Samara emerging from a TV in her full glitching swampy glory to scare [SPOILER] to death. I don't recall praying for death twice. There's a point when you're so exhausted from fear chemicals that you're like, yeah, this might as well happen. Bring it, Soggy. I did have a hard time prying myself out of that seat afterwards, though, and my mom says that when I got home, I had the classic thousand-yard stare. How was the movie?

"It was great," I said, and I meant it.

I've seen things that were objectively scarier (I watched much of The Haunting of Hill House from behind a pillow, to be honest), and it's not like I've never experienced fear in real life. But I respect when a movie that can make me feel so intensely, and there's something weirdly precious about the way horror is a safe roller coaster, as it's often been said. So I love telling the story about The Time The Ring Nearly Killed Me—a movie that actually made my body stop working—and I love thinking of how embedded in a specific time and place that movie was for me. The last gasp of VHS when the Cursed Videotape still seemed plausible; the way the internet was still wild and weird and free; where I was in my life, keeping up so avidly with all the movie news, and finding myself in such a little pool of darkness early one afternoon. It's the scariest movie I saw in a theater; that's the alchemy of circumstance.

[twstfanblog]

*~Murder Movie Madness~* PT 2

Word Count: 2.6K Pairings: First-year poly minus Ortho and Yuu Warnings: Animal gore, Swearing, Me typing out a country accent

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

They spent nearly another hour outside in the woods, exploring the grounds and coming to terms with the fact they were currently trapped in a horror-slasher film. Epel had to routinely stop as his heeled sandals kept making him nearly roll his ankle, leaning against trees with his head hung down and Jack's oversized varsity jacket falling off his shoulders. Not to mention Deuce having to peel leaves off of his body and cringing at the feeling of dirt against his oiled skin.

The cabin was a godsend, a massive house that had the appearance of a decently modern building but the decor of an old-time lodging inside. They found suitcases in the upper rooms of the cabin, filled with other clothes they could change into (much to Epel and Sebek's happiness). Deuce took a shower, free of the oil he woke up in, but seeming to still have a fine layer of body shimmer in every nook of his person. A trait that Epel learned he shared while changing.

Once freshened up and redressed, the group could truly appreciate how nice the cabin was. Jack had found a note card folded on the massive kitchen island tucked into a bowl of fresh fruit. A short message wishing them a fun and safe spring break, signed by two different signatures of Arnold and Lucy. Epel had claimed they must of been side characters who came to the cabin beforehand and prepped the home for the characters' stay.

The fully stocked fridge, every inch cleaned and sparkling, and a hot tub on a tastefully decorated back patio was now all theirs to use. A perfect location for their group to all climb into, drinks in hand, as they proposed a game plan after their long day of horror movie survival prep in the early afternoon.

“Ok…” Yuu wasn't sure what their glass bottle had. If it was soda or booze, but they would take whatever at this point, “We're still in the first act; the killer most likely won't strike or even show himself until tomorrow or late tonight.”

Sebek nodded from beside them, “I haven't seen many movies, let alone horror films. But if we're dealing with a lone assailant their strategy would be to pick us off one by one.”

“So we stick together.” Jack sipped at his water, still tired from chopping down a tree with an old axe. The tree had been fashioned into thick planks that they planned to use to barricade all main entry points when night fell.

The firsties had unfortunately hit the ground running once they had calmed down; being constantly thrown into life-or-death situations preparing them to adapt on the fly. They began properly surveying their surroundings, making note of the terrain and every maintenance building on the property. Searching for any other signs of life in the small radius from the cabin,  but finding nothing in their search. While Jack and Sebek used their combined survival training to further refine their plans, Yuu and Epel spent time going over the various gardening tools at their disposal to use as weapons. Epel had noted with the type of vegetation surrounding the cabin, a machete would be the perfect tool to get around. A tool that was noticeably missing…

Deuce hums, merely enjoying the toasty waters, still partly upset that his second shower hadn't removed any of the body shimmer he was mysteriously coated in.

Sebek spoke up as Epel and Ace came back from inside, everyone having agreed to go places in pairings, “Since the killer is most likely a stealth hunter, the egg bombs should be helpful in detecting him from a safe distance.

Ace and Deuce had destroyed the two cartons of eggs from the fridge. Hollowing them out and drying them before filling them with a mixture of flour and garlic powder. They had been finished and passed out in makeshift bags made from the couch's throw pillow fabric. should any of them see the killer they were to throw an egg or two at him in hopes the flash of white in the green scenery and the smell of garlic powder would make him painfully obvious to even the less scent-inclined members.

Each firstie had picked a weapon for self-defense; Epel laying claim to a shovel and Yuu asking Jack to bend a hoe to more closely resemble their trusty golf club. Both Deuce and Jack had taken Epel's metal bracelets, bending the metal to act as brass knuckles. While Sebek had taken to sharpening the axe and keeping it by his side, Ace had stated he was not a close-range fighter in any sense and would simply stick to one of them for protection.

Climbing into the hot tub, Epel leaned against Deuce, “Did anyone have any idea where Ortho is?”

“None of us know this movie. He might have been spared because there weren't enough characters for all of us.” Yuu spoke, “If we're lucky he's chilling back at Ramshackle, if we're not, he's trapped in the disk void, pissed.”

Ace hummed, “We've got limited magic so Ortho most likely has enough battery power to keep awake for however long this is gonna last.”

“Gonna last…” Deuce suddenly shot up, sending Epel off his shoulder at the movement, “Wait, are we gonna die while in here?”

Jack shook his head, “Interactive movies aren't lethal in that sense. Though…yeah we might…end up getting killed for the experience…”

Yuu finished off their bottle, submerging it into the bubbling water and pouring it out over Sebek's head, “Why the fuck is this a thing you can pay money to go through? What if one of you guys die tonight?”

“No one's dying! We're all staying alive and leaving this situation unmurdered.” Ace managed to keep Yuu and Sebek from slapping at each other, sighing before he relaxed back into the waters, “For tonight, let's just relax and enjoy yourselves…But, not too much, this is a horror movie after all…”

And they did. The group spent the rest of the night having fun. Grilling the meat and various vegetables from the fridge, playing catch on the patio with the football. A game that ended on a bad throw and the ball disappearing into the darkening treeline.

One last group soak in the hot tub and they all piled back into the house. The front and back doors locked via boards of wood and makeshift door stoppers placed to keep them closed. They all gathered in a single room, locking it down with boards, door stoppers, and the furniture placed in front of the door. Squishing tight into the master bed, each of them wearing shoes before they started to sleep in shifts. A valiant effort but sadly at a point all of them were fast asleep, unable to notice the red-eyed figure staring at the master bedroom window from the tree lines.

Morning light had barely reached the bed when the window broke. Everyone had startled awake at the sound of glass crunching, Sebek bolting up brandishing his axe in a defensive position before realizing no one new was in the room.

Deuce sleepily pointed toward one of the windows facing out to the lake, “Window…it…broken. It wasn't like that…night night…”

Ace sighed, patting Deuce’s head as the other card soldier drifted back to sleep, “Come on, Juice. Time to wake up and see what bullshit we're dealing with…”

Sebek and Jack had already gathered around the window, both muttering as they noted the newly formed cracks.

“Came from outside, obviously.”

“From below, but we're on the second floor, so again, obviously. The cracks though…”

“Yes, there was more distance than just below the window. At least from the treeline is where they threw whatever cracked the glass.”

Epel had climbed out of the bed, helping Yuu dismantle their bedroom barricade, as he called out over his shoulder, “Why the hell do you two know glass forensics?”

“Siblings.” Jack and Sebek said it in sync, eyes still scanning the glass.

Ace laughed, rolling his eyes at Epel’s confused expression, “Obviously.”

They all piled out of the bedroom, walking out and onto the patio only for Yuu to groan and roll their eyes seeing they had been changed again, “Outfit change, I guess…”

Everyone had spontaneously shifted clothing, walking out of the cabin seeming to be the trigger. While most of the group kept outfits they didn't mind staying in, Sebek and Epel were once again the unlucky ones. The half-fae walked out in suspenders and Epel only managed a few steps before he tripped over nothing and fell bikini'ed chest first onto the wood floor, knocking the wind out of himself.

“Ah…aaaaaauuuuugh…What did ah trip over?”

Yuu groaned again, trying to run a hand through their hair only to feel it was placed in a ponytail, “Please don't let the hot girl curse start. That's the worst trope.”

Ace pulled a face, “Hot girl curse? What's the hot girl curse?”

Epel looked bewildered at the empty entryway he had tried to step through, hoping to find an uneven board or something but only seeing the old rug.

“Oh, please. Don't act like you don't see what's happening. We're all playing stereotypes and, unfortunately, Epel got hot girl.”

Epel was slowly getting his breath back, reaching out to Jack's offered hand, “No, Ah'm serious, what did ah fucking trip on?”

Ace responded to Yuu, standing beside them, “The hot girl? Epel's the hot girl, is that the hill you wanna die on?”

“Ace, he's wearing a fucking neon yellow bikini top. He has been assigned hot girl. Just how Jack is the jock, Sebek is the nerd, Deuce is hot guy, you're comic relief, and me and Ortho are obviously final girl energy.”

“Ok, I was following until you said Juice was the hot guy, but me as comic relief? You? The final girl? What makes you think you have that title!? And Ortho isn't even here!”

“My willingness to murder for way less than the insurance of survival and Ortho is a fucking mini tank. He's been the final girl this whole time, you IDIOT-”

Deuce’s groan pulls everyone's attention to him. The spade soldier looking down at himself with a distressed expression, “I'm covered in oil again! And now I don't have a shirt!”

Ace looks his boyfriend up and down, eyes locked on his bare chest before shrugging and walking down the patio stairs, “You look fine, come on.”

“Told ya~. Hot boy, Deuce-”

Jack had followed after them, Epel and Sebek behind him with Epel clutching onto Sebek's arm, “Don't call him that…”

They found the lost football from the night before. A few feet away from the area of the broken bedroom window. Now seeing where it had landed, Sebek had pointed toward the tree line.

“The distance is a bit far for a human to throw. But if the killer isn't supposed to be fully human, he's potentially been watching us the whole night from that point.”

Ace shivered, glaring into the trees, “Creepy…”

And unfortunately, like the pack of dumb teens they were, they walked into the woods. a second search of the woods for clues or any sign of Ortho. Weapons clutched tightly in hand and refusing to move to far away from each other.

Sighing, Deuce wiped at his arms in hope to remove leaves sticking to his skin, “So annoying…I've gotta shower when we get back to the-...Guys!?”

Everyone turns around, watching a frantic Deuce wiping at his arm and the bright red smear along his arm.

Ace rushed over to his side, wiping at Deuce’s arm in an effort to see how he was bleeding, “It's barely been an hour! What even made you bleed!?”

Jack and Sebek both looked around, the beastman's ears swiveling around in an effort to hear anything in the woods. They continued to fuss and panic the longer nothing happened. Ace only quieted down at having a drop of red splatter on the back of his hand. As another drop fell he looked up, yelling and pulling Deuce along with him while staring into the treetops in horror.

The group followed his line of sight, expressions turning terrified at the scene before them. A fully grown buck was hung meters in the air, its antlers keeping it locked in the thin branches of the tree. It was gutted open, the blood and organs lazily dripping blood from its ripped-open midsection. The group all jump back as a mass of the animal’s innards fall out and plop wetly onto the dirt.

Ace lets out a wet-sounding retch, turning away to spit out the acidic taste in his mouth, “Oh, that’s fucking gross…”

Sebek sucked in a breath, gripping tighter to his axe and looking around, “The blood is still fresh. The killer did this only recently-”

Yuu spoke up, their scared expression having faded to one of question, “How’d this deer get here?”

…

Jack pursed his lips, his nose scrunched up as though offended Yuu was asking questions, “What do you mean? Obviously, it got there from the killer butchering it to send a message.”

“No, listen. We looked around yesterday, none of us saw any deer. So is there a small deer population on this island or what? Did he bring a deer here to scare us-wait, can deer swim?”

Ace spat once again, glaring over his shoulder, “Is that really what you’re concerned about right now!?”

Yuu turned to the scowling half-fae, any terror they had felt long gone, “Sebek, you were raised in the woods, do deer swim?”

“We are trapped on an island with a murderer and you want to know if deer can swim?”

“Just say you don’t know, god damn. Epel, can deer swim?”

The Pomfiore student had started to calm down, looking at the deer from a more practical side, “Yeah…yeah, deer can swim…normally only when they're hot, but they can swim…” He frowned, thinking it over in his head and remembering just how far the town was from the island, “Not sure they could swim this far out though…”

Deuce looked between the two shorter members of their group, “Are you both…really having this conversation right now?”

“Actually, Epel?” Yuu pointed at the deer, “Can we eat that? Like can we get that down and eat it for dinner tonight?”

Jack instantly lost any disturbance in his body, walking closer to Yuu and Epel ready to physically restrain them from scrambling up the tree, “Ok, no…no. We don’t know where that deer has been. It could have diseases.”

Yuu shrugged, gesturing to the deer lazily, “That’s what the cooking is for, Jack.”

Sebek sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and regretting the multiple choices that led to this moment. Lilia had only giggled when he stated he was invited to a movie marathon with the other first-year group, stating he was sure to have fun. He only laughed harder hearing it was for horror movies. Silver had to step in to explain when Sebek also revealed it was a competition to scare Yuu with a horror movie, since Lilia was barely breathing let alone speaking. His only explanation was that Yuu was not…a standard movie viewer. And as he watched the human-pixie stand their ground on being allowed to eat the mutilated deer instead of feeling an ounce of fear, he realized the Vanrouge duo were trying to warn him of the fact Yuu was most likely to ruin any horror movie experience.

Looking around he felt a bolt of panic pass through him, Epel was missing. He opened his mouth, moving to shout for everyone’s attention only to step back as the deer carcass slammed into the ground right before his feet. The thud it made startled everyone to focus their attention on him, staring at the body in wide-eyed terror.

From up in the trees, Epel grinned down at the group, “I got him! Let’s take this back to the house and get some stew started.”

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

I saw The War Games in color tonight! :D

So on the whole

I really liked this effort to turn the story into a movie length tale

I think at times you could very much tell the story had been chopped down considerably given that it went from 250 minutes to a tight ninety here

It was less evident at the start and the end but in the middle section there were definitely moments that brought to mind the "With modern editing techniques we can finish the film WITHOUT Milhouse!" moment from the Simpsons

That said it was still VERY fun to see the story in a new way

The newly added effects were very solid

I liked the silly easter egg of Two's horror at his possible future regenerations all being his actual future regenerations as that is very in keeping with the running gag that the Doctor NEVER likes their past/future selves looks

I am also very interested to know what the rest of the fandom thinks about how the story decided to use two very iconic pieces of music to imply that the War Chief is in fact not just A Rogue Time Lord but a very specific Rogue Timelord who we've seen many times since under a different name....

[fernsnailz]

January 2024 Review Roundup

hello everypony‼️ something i want to do through 2024 is a mini review series where i recap some of the media i watched/played/read at the end of every month. this was inspired by tumblr user ponett’s 2023 media wrap-up, it's a great collection of quick reviews so go check it out!

i’m doing this partially as writing/analysis practice, but mostly because my memory is really bad and i want to keep track of what i've seen this year. with that said, my thoughts on everything i finished in january 2024 is under the cut :]

Portal 1 + 2

yyyup i beat Portal and it only took me (checks watch) 13 years

the first time i played Portal 2 was at a friend’s house when i was in middle school, and i had a fuckin blast. but after all that time... it still holds up! i don’t think anything i have to say about Portal will be particularly new since people have been praising this series since it came out. the writing, the level design, even the controls feel tight and engaging the whole way through. i played on switch and expected a bit of jank, but i was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it felt to play. the only part that dragged for me were the levels through the old aperture labs, but i think i would like them a lot more on a second replay. Portal 2 is fantastic and one of my new favorite games, the artistry behind it is truly incredible and i’m really glad i finally finished it. while i was playing Portal 2, i described Glados and Wheatly to a friend and said “they’re like if a ceiling fan could be passive aggressive and if Fozzie Bear was an evil golf ball”

I Think You Should Leave

finally. i can truly understand and appreciate Subspace Dubbed Over

i think one of my favorite things about I Think You Should Leave is how it utilizes horror. beyond sitting slack-jawed in disbelief at the crazy events unfolding before my eyes, a number of the sketches dipped into bits that genuinely kinda scared me. like the one sketch that circulates on here where the guy (pig?) in a mask crawls through a dog door, which is. genuinely terrifying. but so many of the other sketches have slow, nerve-racking pacing leading to crazy shit that would be perfect in a horror film were the context different. idk i like dissecting how horror and comedy are essentially the same thing and I Think You Should Leave was very good at enabling that <3 favorite sketches are probably “then let my wife eat the damn receipt” and “55 BURGERS 55 HOTDOGS 100 FRIES 100 TATER TOTS”

Sonic Prime Season 3

man. ohhhh man. i didn’t go into this with high expectations and i still feel let down. Sonic Prime Season 3 was definitely my least favorite “season” of the batch - abysmal pacing, very few character moments i actually enjoyed, and the things i praised about the show felt very underutilized through these episodes. Nine is the shining star of Sonic Prime and i was looking forward to seeing his more villainous side, but his character took such a sharp turn into pure evil and it felt like he spent the entire season repeating the same three lines. and as much as i praise Shadow’s writing in Prime, it doesn’t really matter when he spends half of the season trapped in a hole that he just… runs out of later.

lastly, i cannot stop thinking about how bad the pacing of this season is. three episodes for a repetitive final battle feels like such a waste of time when you see just how much they rush the emotional resolutions in the last episode. however, there is one thing i truly love about Sonic Prime Season 3 - i love the Sails and Mangey fakeout death. it's so fucking funny. like you really expect me to believe that two cartoon animals in this Y-7 rated show EXPLODED?????? absolute comedy gold.

overall, i just… don’t really know what to think of Sonic Prime. anything i enjoyed in the show was often fleeting, and much of it felt like its only purpose was to waste my time. also Rouge i can’t believe they did you so dirty oh my god

Ghost Trick

i was so proud that i figured out the secret behind Sissel’s memory loss like halfway through the game. however i also kept getting caught during the prison escape sequence like an idiot

Ghost Trick is in a similar situation as Portal where 1. it’s incredible and one of my new favorite games, and 2. there’s nothing i can really say about it that hasn’t already been said or just. shouldn’t be said. Ghost Trick is a fantastic mystery game, and because of that i think it’s best to go into its story as blind as possible. the narrative unfolds in such fascinating ways - even though the actual object manipulation gameplay isn’t directly about solving the mystery (like in Ace Attorney or other mystery games), it still ties wonderfully into the story in some incredibly unique ways.

i also really love the artstyle of Ghost Trick - i love 2D character artwork with that sharp lineweight, it reminded me a lot of Sonic Battle (another game with an artstyle i love). i was also really impressed by the 3D character models and animation - despite the limitations of the camera, you get a wonderful sense of everyone’s personality from the limited body language expressed in the overworld (even though the models lack much facial expression which. i guess they don’t really need? idk that was the only thing that threw me off). anyways yeah everyone should play Ghost Trick so Ghost Trick fans can be freed from their curse and talk about it without having to tag like 10 different spoiler tags. and for Missile

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

ok bear with me. i went into Scott Pilgrim Takes Off without reading the comics first. and i fuckin loved it

my understanding of Scott Pilgrim before SPTO was mostly from the movie (I KNOW I’M SORRY), but even with my base understanding of the series i really enjoyed this show for what it was. i found myself appreciating the time they dedicated to further develop every single character in the show - especially Ramona. she’s fantastic as the lead, i really loved watching her reconcile with her exes and seeing all of them grow instead of exploding into coins. my favorite episode was probably the one with her and Roxie - not only did i adore the movie-jumping set pieces, but you really understand the weight of Ramona’s mistakes in their past relationship and how much it hurt Roxie. despite the big climactic fight, the flashbacks are quiet, subtle, heartbreaking. Ramona’s apology is genuine, and it feels so wonderful to watch her confront her past throughout the show. also i think it’s really funny that for all these characters to become the best versions of themselves, they had to kill off Scott for most of the story

and holy shit the artstyle and animation. oh my god. i love watching something that makes me immediately go “i need to see the storyboards for this RIGHT NOW.” SPTO is such a visual delight to watch, it elevates the artstyle of the comics while also keeping what makes that style so appealing - i love the line weight on the characters, i love how much forward energy the animation has, i love the fucking. virtual boy section. as soon as i found out Science Saru was also behind Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, everything made immediate sense. i was destined to love this show.

another worry i had going into SPTO (besides the fact that i hadn’t read the comics lol) is that the original cast from the movie was returning. i think the movie cast is fine, but i wasn’t sure how some of them would fare with voice acting for animation. however, i thought they all did a good job - i think the whole cast loves these characters and would be able to fit into them fairly easily no matter what form their performance takes, and they definitely had a good voice director in the studio with them. the only thing that felt off about the voice performances to me was that sometimes it sounded like some of their mics kept peaking?? idk some of these episodes i watched high as balls and i felt like i could hear and see every single sound and frame of the show. so that might have just been me.

god i did not. expect to have this much to say about Scott Pilgrim. i really loved this show and i’m currently reading the comics to fully catch up on the general Scott Pilgrim experience - i think reading the comics AFTER Takes Off is making me appreciate even more of the character work that went into the show. like they do so much with Mathew Patel in SPTO, a character that was. not originally around for a long time from what i’ve gathered? also i like the funny little robot. oh my GOD i cannot talk about this show anymore whatever it’s good get me out of here

Sword AF Season 1

i put on the Smosh cast’s D&D series to play in the background while i was drawing. i did not expect to think much of it. instead, i had one of the most enjoyable D&D podcast experiences since i listened to The Adventure Zone Balance???

i haven’t really enjoyed other D&D podcasts since i dropped off of The Adventure Zone, and i wasn’t expecting much from Sword AF of all things. then i saw that Shayne was playing as a druid warforged made of plants and his name was fucking Fernie and i sat my ass down and LISTENED. while i think Sword AF is currently lacking in its world and larger story, those things just. aren’t really what Sword AF is really trying to provide at the moment. it’s main focus is comedy, and the players are genuinely such a delight to watch play together and build off of each other. they mostly focus on bits and goofs for the sake of she show's comedic tone, but i still found it thoroughly enjoyable because every player embodies and performs their characters really well. idk Sword AF was an unexpected hit for me this month, i thought it was fun. and i love Fernie so much

Plastic Death - Glass Beach

so originally i wasn’t going to include music reviews in these roundups at all, but then i was entirely surprised by a new Glass Beach album and oh my god. holy shit. oh my fucking god jesus christ. holy shit. its preddy good

Plastic Death gets the low point of the album out of the way immediately. it starts with the “phone call/conversation audio” trope that i don’t particularly enjoy - HOWEVER despite me disliking this opening, 1. it sets up the overall themes of Plastic Death very quickly, and 2. the rest of the album blows this 40 second opening completely out of the water. from there, the album grows into something beautiful and uncontained, and i just. i really like it

Plastic Death captures the beauty of the temporary, asks what it means to be created for a cause you can’t fulfill, questions if you can reclaim yourself from cycles and constraints designed to destroy you. and is also about being transgender. the lyrics are abstract in a way that requires a conversation with the listener, many of the vocals obscured and smooth like waves - this album is definitely one that needs to be listened to a few times. i wasn’t sure how i felt about the vocal style at first before realizing the vocals were the main reason i was relistening to this album, allowing myself to find even more that i loved about it. the instrumentation is also incredible, i love the use of marimba in a number of songs - distant, eerie, almost skeletal. and the fucking. 8-bit section?? which kinda rules???? and that’s the only point in the album it ever shows up??????? incredible. a fleeting, somewhat silly moment that i love every time.

this album left my heart aching, in part from my connection to it and in part from the pure love and joy emanating from this music. i can feel just how much fun this music was to perform and create, a cohesion of time and sound that just clicked for me. Plastic Death made me miss playing music, which is something i haven’t felt in years. all from an album that starts with a conversation about CrankGameplay’s dead youtube channel. good lord

i like this album a normal amount. go listen to it a few times. my favorite tracks are cul-de-sac and commatose

Wish

i watched Wish with a couple of friends and knew i probably wasn't going to like it. with that in mind, i gave myself a challenge: i wanted to find one thing about this movie that i genuinely really loved. it could be anything, and loving it for ironic reasons was allowed.

here's the complete list of things i loved about Disney's Wish (2023):

i love the one shot where King Magnifico stirs an evil caldron evily. i thought it was hilarious. what was he cooking

i loved that the end credits included a reference to Dinosaur 2001 at all, and i loved that they paid homage to Big Hero 6 by showing the forgettable villain of that movie instead of their Baymax cashcow for some reason. my friends and i saw him show up in the credits and were like "who's the trenchcoat guy??"

you may notice that this list is very short and 50% of it is about the movie's credits. so yeah this movie is not very good

Wish is an empty husk of a movie. everything about it feels so, so hollow - lifeless town squares, uninspired character designs (to quote a friend: "i have all of these characters' hairstyles in The Sims"), characters whose existence is only justified to fill empty space or an overused archetype, and an "evil" villain who lacks charisma and spine in a futile effort to remind the audience of previous disney villains with actual character. even the artstyle lacks any sort of sauce, the watercolor effect they were trying to go for only makes the backgrounds and character textures run together, and the dull lighting makes things look even more faded. it's like disney was scared of making a movie that made its audience feel... anything. all to celebrate 100 years of Disney slop, baby!!!

Some YouTube videos I liked in January: 💥 An Exhaustive Look at Pokemon Brilliant Diamond 💥 TomSka's Guide to Plagiarism 💥 Paradise Bombed (this video is a great piece of journalism and i’m definitely not doing it justice by throwing it into the youtube vid list) 💥 Surprising Our Friends with Zoo Animals 💥 Did FNAF Ever Have a Good Story?

thanks for reading! next month’s roundup will be wild because i’ll likely be reviewing House of Leaves and Hazbin Hotel. can you guess which cursed house gives me a worse headache? WHO KNOWS! (hint: it's Hazbin Hotel)

[seasonofscreams]

Until Dawn Fan Cast

Wanted to throw my hat into the ring of fan casting the new Until Dawn movie.

SPOILERS FOR UNTIL DAWN BELOW

(also just assume there might be bl**d & g*re depicted below)

I wouldn't be surprised if Kathryn Newton becomes the new scream queen so it makes sense for her to follow in Hayden Panettiere's steps. She was brilliantly versatile as her two characters in Freaky & has a natural charisma that would be great for Sam whose all-rounder character could fall flat in another actor's hands. Pretty much everyone agrees on Sam being one of the few left alive if not the Final Girl & I think Newton would excel in the role.

Mike is pretty conventional as a Final Guy - objectively attractive, resourceful alongside headstrong with a funny side. Tom Blyth displays these traits himself in his portrayal of the younger Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes as well as a charisma that had many a watcher rooting for him despite portraying one of the most evil characters in The Hunger Games franchise. It would be interesting to see him tackle the complexities of Mike and even more fun to see him engage in the action scenes sure to be in the movie.

I never got into Stranger Things but from the limited amount I've seen Caleb McLaughlin is one of the best actors in the show. Matt is a contradiction to his own trope. He's a jock who is insecure in his relationship with Emily compared to how she feels about her ex, Mike, but also potentially wants to be seen as the hero. There's very much parallels that can be drawn between Lucas and Matt as well as enough differences and it would be really interesting to see how he would tackle the role.

Olivia Rodrigo is most famous for her music but her acting turns (admittedly in Disney & mv's, yes) have always been received pretty well. Emily is a hard character to cast especially when comparing to original actor Nichole Sakura since Emily is smart and resourceful whilst being blunt and - for a lack of a better word - wonderfully bitchy. There's a certain aura within the SNL performance for all-american bitch and music video of bad idea right? that gave me this feeling i can't shake that i want to see Rodrigo as the likely other Final Girl (I hope Emily survives to the end alongside Sam).

When Sweeney (as Cassie) was hiding in the bathroom in Euphoria, many people were desperate to see how she would fare in a traditional horror film - she plays terror great! maybe it's cheating to fancast her as Jess since she's played a promiscuously perceived blonde 'home-coming queen' type before but... if it ain't broke. I can't see a more perfect Jess to be honest.

according to luckyleftie on tiktok, Ashley's original horror trope was that of the stoner, rather than the academic - which clarifies the origins of the anxiety her character exhibits throughout. Personally, I'd love if they explored this in the film more (it's gonna be rated R after all). Sophia Lillis proved herself in the horror genre as Young Beverly in IT (2017) and would be really fun in the inquisitive/conclusion jumping Ashley. (Also I think she does resemble Ashley/Galadriel Stineman but that may just be me).

(Chris is deffo dying when Ashley doesn't let him into the house it's too potentially big of a scene to not do so) Tony Revolori is a funny actor and as self-proclaimed comedian of the group, I'd love to see his interpretation of Chris who pines after Ashley as well as how he could potentially approach the investigative chapter during Josh's 'prank.' Plus I loved him in Scream and wish we'd seen more screen time of him playing in the horror film.

Have you seen Hereditary? Point made.

in all seriousness, Alex Wolff is talented and plays awkward, yet charming alongside disturbed characters amazingly. Josh is quite an awkward guy ('party like p*rnstars' anyone?) and dealing with rapidly declining mental health as well as grief from his sisters' disappearance. Josh is a very complicated character whose actions cannot be justified but mental health cannot be ignored. Wolff could be a fantastic choice - especially if the mental health representation through Josh was updated with more advice and guidance from professionals.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!! I'd love to hear if you agree (but pls don't be rude about it i put a lot of time into these edits/fancasting choices/individually crediting where i got the photos so if you hate it pls just move on) :)

[flanaganfilm]

Hi Mike! I created an account just to ask you questions. I’m a huge fan, and I’m a dollar baby filmmaker, I got to adapt King’s story Cain Rose Up. So many questions I’d love to ask you about the adaptation process because from what I’ve learned it’s a tough one. But I’ll just ask this.

Have you seen any dollar baby films? And what do you think of the dollar baby program itself?

I have another question… I noticed after Gerald’s Game your work started to have a different look to it. Cinematography wise. Your work previously was always in 2.35:1 with black bars on top and bottom. Haunting of Hill House all the way to The Midnight Club has been full frame. Was this something Michael Fimognari did or was this your input?

Best of luck with your movie! I'm very familiar with the Dollar Baby program, it's a great thing, and I hope you have a great time. As far as aspect ratio, this isn't quite correct. Michael and I make that decision together project to project for any number of reasons. Oculus, Before I Wake and Hush were 2:35:1 to take advantage of the theatrical experience, but Ouija: Origin of Evil was shot anamorphic and then cropped to 1:85. This was a decision unique to that movie because we wanted to emulate the horror films of our youth. We wanted anamorphic optical quality, but a more contained aspect ratio. We had experienced a lot of horror movies on VHS when we grew up, and a lot of those were shot scope and then crammed onto VHS through a hideous process called "Pan & Scan". It created this strange dissonance where we'd see anamorphic optics in a frame that filled our television sets, so we did a variation on that. Ouija: OOE is probably the only project I'd ever consider handling that way, and it was really fun to do.

Gerald's Game is back to 2:35 again because we preferred the look when we considered Jessie's blocking in the movie (sitting up with her arms fully outstretched). It helped her fill the frame while feeling the claustrophobia of the movie. Hill House was not full frame - in fact, it was 2:00:1 and still had subtle letterboxing. We wanted to go scope but Netflix had an internal policy that wouldn't allow original programming to have an aspect ratio wider than 2:00:1, because they were scared of subscribers watching it on their devices and kicking back on any black bars (this was a very stupid decision on the behalf of Netflix, and they've since backtracked on this). That locked us in to 2:00:1 for Hill House, Bly and Midnight Mass, but that was all about Netflix's policies. I would have shot Midnight Mass scope if they'd allowed us to. With Doctor Sleep, we opted to shoot 1:85 because that's what The Shining was, and strange as it sounds, we wanted them to work together as a double feature. Midnight Club actually employs a lot of different aspect ratios. By this time, Netflix had done away with their dumb aspect ratio rule, and we were free. So we opted to shoot 1:85 for the "A Story" of Midnight Club, so the world felt more ordinary and real, and so younger viewers would have their devices' screens filled. But for the "B stories" that the club members tell each other, we use a ton of different ratios. 2:35, 2:00, even 4:3. For The Fall of the House of Usher, we went back to 2:35. It has a very gothic theatrical feeling throughout. So there you have it - every project is different and we have a thoughtful conversation about what the right aspect ratio will be. There's really no overarching rule at all, now that Netflix's policy has changed. FWIW, Hill House wanted very much to be 2:35. They were wrong to jam us on that.

[coralinnii]

Hi....If you don't mind, can I ask, what are your top 10 (or top 7) favorite media (can be books/ manga/ anime/movies/tv series)? Why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before......Thanks....

If I’m being honest, I have been more into just listening to music during my free time more than anything and while I read a lot of manga, my goldfish brain would blank out if someone were to ask me anything about it. However, I will tell you my list of definite rewatch/reread series though some of them are pretty old or obscure.

My Top 10 (in no particular order)

Welcome to Demon School, Iruma-Kun (manga/anime)

At first, I watched it mainly for the fun aesthetics (cute colourful characters with spooky backgrounds) but I fell in love with the characters and world-building of this series. The whole cast, be it main or supporting, are absolutely amazing and capable of running a story arc of their own even without the main cast which is seriously impressive. And while the anime only just scratched the surface, the author really built the setting of this series with great thought, with its own politics, history, systems, and culture that impacts the story well. No random fact is without purpose and I love it.

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (manga/anime)

I’ve been watching anime since I was 4 so I can confidently say that I’m familiar with many classic anime tropes and cliches. This series is like a kudos to longtime anime fans with its jokes and jabs as it follows a strong psychic boy being absolutely done with the insanity of his life as he tries to keep his powers a secret from his schoolmates like a sports anime jock, a shojou girl, delinquent gone good, etc. The comedy coming from this deadpan omnipotent high school student is just an absolute delight. I kin Saiki so much

Nope (movie)

I’m a real fan of horror movies, especially those with undertones that bring a critical element to humanity. While I love all of Jordan Peele’s current works, Nope has got to be one of my favourite movies overall. I’ve heard of some of the criticisms people had with the film (pretty ironic ones too) but I personally love the pacing and suspense of the film. While it’s fun to watch monsters and killers get crazy from the get-go (that’s why Saw movies and slasher films were popular) but Nope touched on that all-too-real fear of not knowing what’s going to happen. That fear where you’re afraid but you’re not sure of what yet.

Petshop of Horrors (manga/anime) and the sequel Neo Petshop of Horrors (manga)

Speaking of horror with critical undertones, I was obsessed with this manga series that came out in the late 90s. I would try so hard to find a way to read this series every chance I could growing up. It’s a sorta episodic style story that stars a mysterious petshop owner that often becomes a suspect in the deaths of people who have bought animals from his shop. I love the philosophy of each new story that touches on humanity and how different (or similar) we are to animals. It questions our societal norms, expectations, base desires, mythology, what it means to live, and what is “acceptable” in our world. Unfortunately, the series was never fully translated and only published fewer copies than typical manga series due to reasons I’m not too sure of (possibly conflicts with ownership and company copyrights at the time, think Baccano situation). The series had an anime but even that anime only had 4 episodes (I still highly recommend it however). I’ve managed to get a few volumes for myself and I know people are selling certain volumes online but I have to save for essentials so collecting them is unfortunately a lower priority now.

Pokémon (video game/manga/anime)

Is this a cop-out? Nah. To this day, I would still have to physically fight myself to not buy plushies and games when I’m already broke af. Pokémon might be one of the first animes I have ever seen (I have seen both sub and dub because my brother found a way) and I would still on occasion go back to rewatch literally any season and any movie of theirs, Nintendo really hit the marketing jackpot with this franchise. The creativity and design are so iconic and memorable that it’s so easy and fun to get into the fantasy of going on an adventure with your favourite Pokémon. There’s of course some nostalgia at play since I loved the moments where my older brother would watch the movies with me and my cousin and I would collect the figurines together.

One Piece (manga/anime)

Is this also a cop-out? Don’t care. I LOVE ONE PIECE! I will sacrifice my time and tears for this series. I have legitimately managed to rewatch this 4 times in my life (granted I started when it only had 400+ episodes so I had an easier time) and I would willingly cry over a flashback, a whale, even a boat over and over again. The action and story-telling of this series just keeps me running back for more even if I keep meeting dumb gatekeepers (yea, people don’t believe me when I tell them I’m a One Piece fan, what are ya gonna do?) I haven’t watch the Netflix live action yet but I probably will once I get my friends to watch with me (I like to fangirl with friends~)

Forget my Husband, I’ll Go Make Money (manhwa)

Despite my blog probably being best known for the villain/ess series, the banner of my blog is not an isekai villainess story but a fantasy series where a woman who can see the past, present, and future tries to make money while being married to a foreign prince before expecting a divorce (because she assumed he rather marry for love than for political reasons). Fun fact, this series was actually one of the foundations when I was writing the villain/ess story for Leona. The art and main couple are just absolutely delightful, I can’t help but reread it as it returns for a new season. Not only is the art just gorgeous, the main couple is just so gosh darn entertaining with their conversations, personal dynamics, and hilarious misunderstandings. Just beautiful.

Hotel Del Luna (K-drama)

Leave it to my interest in horror to love a romance drama with ghosts in it. It’s funny, it’s cute, and some of the ghost’s backstory is heartbreaking as well. This is a great story to just have a nice cry out. I love the story, I love the music, but most importantly, I love IU! She is my queen and every scene she is in, she kills me with her fashion, her haughty character, and her tragic backstory. She and the male lead was such a fun twist of the typical k-drama relationship where she was the powerful but broken character who ended up being healed by the kind, hardworking character. I've watched this 3 times at this point, but I still cry Every. Single. Time. No exceptions.

Hell Girl (anime/manga)

If I haven’t sold you on how I was probably that kid with creepy interests, maybe this will convince you. This was my go-to show back when I was in middle school. There is no excuse, I just really love the psychological horror of this series. In the show, there is a website you can access at midnight where you can ask Ai or Hell Girl to send your most hated person to hell, with the price that you will go there too when you die. While there was a linear storyline in the background, the episodes were always new people who requested Ai’s help with different cases of their own hell on earth. It touches on some really heavy real-life topics but what made it memorable to me was how sometimes I would feel saddened by the choices the people in the show made. Sometimes, they’re in the situation where all they can do is curse someone to hell but then was it really worth losing your chance at a happier afterlife? I watched this show with some of my friends who either saw Ai as a villain for sending people to hell, or a saviour who helped these people find an escape from their torturer, and that honestly made me think about what it means to have that much hate in you. I always wondered if I was ever in that situation, what would I do if given the chance?

Big Hero 6 (movie)

Arguably the first Marvel-Disney movie since Disney bought Marvel, I remembered people having weird thoughts on the usually cartoony company taking over the superhero franchise but I fell in love with everything that was this movie. It had Marvel-style action mixed with classic Disney wholesomeness and gut-wrenching emotional moments. I loved the message and warmth that was in this movie. Having an older brother myself, I couldn’t imagine how I could go on if I lose him but watching Hiro being so well supported by Baymax and his friends cemented within me the importance of helping others and that supporting those in pain can be as powerful as stopping bad guys (sappy, I know but hey I’m now learning to be a preschool teacher so this really stuck with me). Tadashi’s recorded message brings me so much comfort that I didn’t realize I needed. He may have been the closest thing to a Disney crush for me.

[readordiebyemilyt]

Here's the next round of scary movies I've enjoyed this October:

Return of the Living Dead: I'd never seen this one before: it was at the Last Picture House last weekend, and I had a lot of fun. The punks were great, the zombies were scary (and looked fantastic), and Clu Gulager was, to my surprise, a serviceable action hero. (Also, I like a deus ex machina when it's exactly what the military industrial complex would do to "solve" a problem.)

Ju-On: It's been a long time since I first saw this movie, and I'd forgotten how it plays with time: each section focuses on a different character, and how they're cursed in different ways. Rika's story bookends the film, and even her eventual understanding of what happened in the house can't save her, but it's a haunting journey.

Killer Fish: The MST3K version of this features a great song, Crow as a killer fish, and, you guessed it, piranhas eating people.

Halloween: I watched this with Rifftrax, as I do most years: it was the first movie at the Dusk Till Dawn event at the drive-in on Saturday. There are so many sequels, and at least three continuities I can think of. (Four?) But this one is the first, and it's still the best.

Halloween II: I'll be honest, I tuned out for parts of this one, mainly because I wanted to finish an audiobook. It has its moments, and the use of Mr. Sandman is a great musical leitmotif, and we start to get into the druid stuff that comes up in movies 4, 5, and 6. Probably the scariest thing is the fact that most of the hospital staff act like horny teens, which they're of course standing in for for the sake of the plot.

Christine: Another first time watch for me: the fact that the cursed car Christine has, in 1983, what look to be LED headlights that she uses to blind her victims further proves the evil of that invention.

The Shining: Again, there are parts of this movie that I just sort of tune out, especially since this watch started around 2:30am. The scariest parts IMO are when Jack yells at his family: this movie is full of effective visuals that stick in your head and an iconic soundscape. In many ways, it's a beautiful film, and every time, I wish Scatman Crothers didn't die. (Spoiler alert: he doesn't in the book! He becomes an important part of Danny's life!)

The Most Dangerous Game: Can we go back to some movies only being 63 minutes long? I just think it would be a nice change of pace: not every film needs to be two hours long. Anyway, I watched this with Rifftrax, and it was fun. A man hunts people for sport, Faye Wray is there, and the protagonist here seems very unmoved by the deaths of his best friends in a shipwreck. Maybe he's in shock? Or maybe they didn't have time for that trauma when the whole "our host is trying to kill us" plot point was coming.

Ringu: Still compelling and deeply disturbing even after all these years: Sadako is one of, if not the best, modern horror icons. I'd forgotten that her victims die not from fear, but because of her incredible psychic power, which she possesses even after death. Also, the way to break the curse is interesting, because in theory, would-be victims could just keep showing the tape to others, copying it, then instructing others to repeat that cycle indefinitely, with no one dying.

Nope: This is my favorite Jordan Peele movie so far. It explores the consequences of thinking you're chosen, or just a mere spectator when, in fact, you are a participant in whatever entertainment you consume. So in watching this, you the viewer are engaging with spectacle, and seeing the characters try to survive that very thing. As a former English major, watching this always makes me want to write an essay.

[synergysilhouette]

"Strange World" (2022) overhaul rewrite

I never expected to do a rewrite of this, despite my issues with it. But then I decided I should just do an overhaul of it. Be forewarned: I'm taking this in a VERY different direction--like, almost unrecognizeable; how do you feel about an Arthurian epic with aliens? As always, be kind--but if you have critiques/questions, I'd be happy to hear them!

Plot:

On a planet far away, there was once the mystical alien planet of Siyned. Twenty-five years ago, King Ursam of Lonava, a prosperous and mystical country on Siyned, disappeared without a trace, leaving his young son Taurus in charge of running a kingdom. For a time, all was prosperous, but now, a powerful sorceress named Niobe has come to battle for the throne, and threatens to engulf the kingdom in darkness and horrors unlike the world has ever seen. Together with his wife Iopeia, son Boralis and their band of allies, Taurus must navigate being a king as well as sorting out the secrets that come out with Niobe's arrival.

Important story/world details

As you may see, the storyline is inspired by the tale of King Arthur, inspired by the fact that Searcher Clade is from a land known as Avalonia, and my first thought was: "Man, a King Arthur-inspired story would've been so much better than what we got." This comes with certain important story/world details:

The cast is made up of aliens. Given the pulp magazine inspiration the original SW film takes from, I'd enjoy seeing a comicbook inspiration for the alien races here, as well as video game inspiration from the fantasy side of things. In the best case scenario, this would be a spiritual successor to "Atlantis." I'd enjoy seeing different races of aliens, though I personally do like the idea that Taurus looks human (though since his wife and son are POC in the OG story, making them appear inhuman might be a bad call if he still appears white). And excuse the use of AI art here; I just liked the video for it's use of 80s dark fantasy inspirations, which I'd also want to be the inspiration for the fantasy aspects of "Strange World."

2. The culture is more medieval/ancient--except for the technology (and maybe fashion). I like the idea that it takes inspiration from various world cultures similar to how "Atlantis" does.

3. The cast is obviously different.

King Taurus--A kind and intelligent king, albeit sensitive and sometimes overcome with his emotions due to unresolved feelings with his father (I thought that'd be a good thing to keep). He's a gifted mage, and I'm definitely getting Gale of Waterdeep vibes from him--albeit less problematic. He's also in his 30s, so slightly younger than Searcher Clade. Still, he's older than most Disney protagonists, which I think makes the film more accessible for an older crowd, and an established Disney romance between a husband and wife rather than two people about to get married or just getting to know each other carries nuances that you can't get with many "kid films."

Queen Iopeia--A scholar and trained warrior who managed to capture the king's heart, and they fell in love. While she doesn't have any magic per se, her physical abilities make her a threat to all who wish to harm her loved ones. She often serves as the emotional anchor when Taurus is frazzled, and on rare occasions, their roles are reversed.

Prince Boralis--The young man who dreams of adventure, a Hercules-type protagonist who has self-esteem issues given his family's legacy. Of course, his crush on Castelon, Niobe's lead soldier, weighs on his heart heavily, since they grew up together before he disappeared and decided to side with her, seemingly with no explanation a year ago. His conflicting feelings make it difficult for him to use his powers (either alien or magical) to full potential. Definitely think his style is more akin to Ekko's from "League of Legends."

Niobe--Vicious but sad, she is the powerful sorceress from the Lands Beyond, a realm of darkness that engulfed the lands west of Lonava. She is much more powerful than Taurus, but wants to destroy him emotionally before killing him, hoping to break him and make him give her the crown that is rightfully hers. She sees him as living the life she always wanted, and despises Taurus for "taking" it from him. She has an affinity for petrifying her enemies--and keeping their consciousness intact. It's later revealed that when Ursam discovered a prophecy that Niobe would bring about the kingdom's destruction, he left her in the Lands Beyond as a toddler. It's somewhat akin to how Cora abandoned Zelena in Once Upon a Time ("I have to leave you to give me MY best at life"). That said, given that many Disney fans want an unapologetic villain, I'd make her too bitter and angry to be swayed by Taurus' pleas, but at her defeat, it's brought to light that despite being a good king, Ursam was NOT a good person.

Serioph--A wise mage (our Merlin figure) who serves as a parental figure to Taurus and a mystical guide. He has the ability to change his form at will, and ocassionally takes on a female form following Taurus' mother's passing and seeing that he needed a mother figure as well as a father figure. However, despite his power, he is tied to the laws of neutrality: if he was to battle someone of great good or great evil, his magic would cease to exist--which includes his power of longevity, and he would cease to exist. He knows this, but uses his powers to harm Niobe and prevent her from killing Taurus, killing himself in the process.

Ienvy--Serioph's daughter, inheriting his magic by lineage, and thus not tied to the Laws of Neutrality like he is. Niobe is drawn to her and attempts to persuade her to join her side, but when Serioph is killed, Serioph curses Niobe to become undone, giving her a sense of insanity that makes it possible for Taurus and the group to defeat her. Despite her help, Ienvy feels guilt for what she's done after learning about Niobe's past, and imposes a self-exile upon herself after the battle is over.

Castelon--Boralis' crush and childhood best friend. He eventually left and joined Niobe due to being tricked into joining her service by failing to prove his selflessness (similar to the tale of Gawain and the Green Knight). As such, he has become warped, becoming a smug Namaari-type villain, so there's a lot of tension between him and Boralis. (Note: This goes without saying, but he'd get a major design overhaul. Some people say he looks like Frankie Grande, but he gives me Jay Manuel vibes from "America's Next Top Model" and I CAN'T STAND IT. I'd rather he looked akin to Lucio from "The Arcana.")

Different Design style FOR SURE

Part of me finds the looks to be too normal; the characters don't grab my attention because they look either too realistic or too cartoony. Even if they weren't aliens, I'd want new looks for their clothes, at the very least. And the non-human-looking aliens felt way too cartoony here, not really ethereal or interesting in the slightest. Honestly, THIS deserved to be a hybrid film, tbh; it'd help to sell the alien vibes, as well as the fantasy aspect. And in particular, if we're going for a more mature look.

Lemme know what you think! I may come back and tinker this a bit.

[kidlit-queen-competition]

I would love to hear the mods top ten train media we should all be consuming if that's okay.

Well, I am no authority on what train media you "should" consume- anyone who is is probably several decades my senior and a lot more experienced with model railroading- but I can tell you some of my favorites! I'll do five fictional and five nonfictional.

Fictional:

Sunless Skies. this one is kind of cheating, but the main way the player interacts with the spooky, steampunk-y, alt-Victorian skyscape of the Reach is by driving their locomotive. it's also one of my favorite games in general, and I think a lot of people who follow this blog would adore it.

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett. Its main train was knocked out of this pole in round one, but I'm about three quarters of the way through this book, and it's one of the few I've read that really manages to capture the feeling of steam trains. It is, of course, fantastic in many other ways, but it's a standout piece of train media all the same.

Bullet train (2022). I love dumb action movies and I love shinkansens and I love murderous women in pink. 10/10, shapes and colors the likes of which I've never seen.

the Titfield Thunderbolt (1953). unfortunately this film is from 1953 and also British, but is a great little comedy all the same, and the special effects are very impressive for the era. I especially recommend this one to enjoyers of a certain 70+-year-old massive franchise about a little blue tank engine, because there are similarities in the humor I think they would enjoy.

Tales of Terror from the Tunnel's Mouth by Chris Priestley. this is another horror thing, specifically a children's book. Its framing device is a train trip, and well it doesn't go into like, indulgent detail about the mechanics of it, good use is made of it all the same, and the stories really stuck with me-I remember some clearly and still find them scary, and it's been more than 10 years since I read the book.

non-fictional:

basically anything from Network Nathan, my train vlogger fave du jour. I really like his presentation style and charisma, and I've learned a lot from his content that I probably couldn't have picked up otherwise.

The Train Book: The Definitive Visual History from DK. this is basically a picture book for adults, going from the early age of steam to roughly the 2010s. I like it because it's broad-scope and accessible, both of which are hard to come by in rail literature.

Steaming Eccentrics: Life on the Footplate by Stan Wilson. this has the previously mentioned problem of being British and old, but is still a good account of some delightful (and probably slightly exaggerated) railway shenanigans all the same. I much prefer memoirs to history books, so if you're similar, I'd recommend this one.

Steam Railways Explained - Steam, Oil & Locomotion: Steam, Oil and Locomotion by Stan Yorke. this is a great little explainer of railways, not just locomotives. It's easy-to-read and understand, and doesn't suffer the mind-numbingly dry tone a lot of railway nonfiction does.

tie between the YouTube channels Mid Hants Railway 'The Watercress Line' and Hyce. both are educational channels about steam locomotives/railway operation, and occupy very similar spaces. The former is British, the latter is American, so the engines they work with are very different, so I feel comfortable letting them share spot.

[bluegekk0]

I'm assuming based on your last post you are in college so I have 2 questions, one based on your personal life and one based on the AU. You don't have to answer the personal one.

What's your major and or minor? I would think it may be art related, but idk.

Based on a modern AU, if the Pale Household were to go to college, what would they study?

yes, i study at a university. and no, surprisingly is not art related, i'm completely self taught in that area. instead i study the english language. i think there's some debate as to how you would translate my major from polish into english, some say english philology, others english studies. but basically it's english linguistics, literature and culture, with a specific specialization in translation. already finished the bachelor degree in the same major, now i'm in my last year of master's

as for the modern au, hmm. i guess i'll start with those i've already thought about. also the difference between college and university is still a little confusing to me, i'm more used to the term university so if you see me use it, that's why

i know holly would be an art student, they already have an interest in drawing in the main au, so it seems like the most reasonable direction. during the modern au, they primarily focus on their degree, though i like to think they also do art commissions in their free time. i think they would lean more towards traditional art, they' would'd find the actual process of using canvases, paint brushes and other tools very relaxing, even if it's messy and time consuming

then there's grimm. i love the idea of him having a career in filmmaking. in the modern au he works in the film industry as a director (with divine and brumm as members of his film crew), so it's a reasonable assumption that he has a degree in that field. as for what kinds of films he'd make, i imagine he'd dabble in many genres but lean more towards drama or horror. that being said, i could also see him having some experience in theatre, perhaps he used to be an actor? i could absolutely see that, especially if i don't change their ages for the modern au and he remains as a vampire with hundreds of years behind him haha

fpk in the modern au works from home, i like to think that similarly to his main au self, he'd have a small business he operates from his house. since he has an interest in mechanical engineering in the au, my first idea was that he'd offer watch repairs, but depending on how "modern" the modern au is, that might not be the most lucrative business. though i do have a lot of nostalgia for early 2000s and i imagine that's the time frame in which the modern au takes place, so who knows. but another idea i had was that he'd instead go in an electronics repair direction. maybe something like computer repair? i love the mental image of him sitting in his office, hard at work, surrounded by a bunch of broken computers, laptops and game consoles, like a whole electronic maze on the floor. and to answer the question, he'd probably study something related to IT and/or electronic engineering. but i could also see him being mostly self-taught

now comes the part where i make things up on the spot since i haven't decided on anything for them yet

with hornet, all i know is that whatever she'd major in, she would be a member of her college/university's sports club (maybe she'd like football? or soccer depending where you're from). but she does have an interest in literature, so perhaps she would go for a degree related to that? i think the contrast between studying something seen as sophisticated and cultured, and then getting into fights with tiso at the sports club, is very fitting for her hahah

and then there's zote. i'm not really sure if he'd study anything, but perhaps he would opt for something related to music? i mentioned in a previous ask that i like the idea of him finding interest in playing a trumpet, so maybe he would want to expand his knowledge. though it's zote, i could also see him being so convinced of his skills that he'd claim that there's nothing for him to find there. maybe he doesn't study anything, maybe he's stuck in a fast food job or something. it could go either way

lastly, there's lewk. but he would be kindergarten age in the modern au. though he is interested in cooking and food in general, so perhaps in the future he'd aim for something like culinary arts? it's difficult to say, he's still very young so things may change

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2024-07-22

There are many upsides to the city in the summer. But there's also the horrors.

Listening: I am (I think) almost but not quite done with Paradise Killer, a first-person detective game set on the extradimensional luxury island headquarters of an eldritch cult with a truly incredible soundtrack. A mix of city pop and vaporwave that really goes hard if you love the sound of the perfect imagined city. Here's "Knife and Crystal"

The entire Paradise Killer soundtrack is great, and in game each song has a little snippet of text to go with it, this one's is

The heat helps cook mysteries. People get weird in the heat. They get dangerous. Dangerous people create mysteries.

I'll write this up probably separately and it'll go in next week's monday, since I haven't called the trial yet and still have some snooping to do, but it really is a fantastic game. Try it, if you have the time, I got most of the way through it in about 8 hours.

This music sounds like a perfect summer day in the city we all wish we could be in, where there are exactly as many people around as you want, and you always stumble into what you need.

As a note, I think it is an interesting comparison to the Marielda soundtrack, which feels to me like a very different kind of summer city, a languorous city on the edge, an, overwhelmingly hot city, with only a few afternoon thunderstorms and passing clouds to break an almost oppressive heat. So you know, where I am now. I'll link the title song here too:

I mean the podcast helps sell it, but this would also fit into uh. The spanish civil war? Clarinet is like that sometimes.

God damn I have opinions on city-esque music huh.

Reading: Had a bit of a slump coming off of The Traitor Baru Cormorant but I finally picked up Monster and was immediately blindsided by the perspective change. Very interesting. The letter Baru receives from one of the other cryptarchs is making me go insane.

Watching: Movie night this week was RRR, which I have seen a couple times already but did get the joy of watching with some friends who had not seen it at all. There is so much going on, it turns out if you run out of making one movie you can just pivot to making another movie with the same guys and if you do that for long enough you have a three hour feature film.

RRR has lots of subtlety that can be debated but it is also so much fun to watch. It is up front and largely unironic in a way that is very refreshing because it is also done well. There are a lot of bad movies that are unironic and unfortunately that mostly hurts them because they can't deliver on their earnestness.

The thing that really stands out is that it knows how to hold a shot well. So many scenes in the movie just go on forever, whether that's the extended BFF montage or the torture scenes or the slow motion action, it just holds a shot in a way that feels obnoxious at times.

It helps that they're both impossibly hot.

Playing: I picked up a couple VR games in the steam sale to try and expands my horizons. One of those is The Utility Room, a fairly old VR experience based on a VR museum that's even older. Its age shows, it lacks a lot of the creature comforts of more modern games, but it is clever. It uses VR to put you in huge spaces in proximity to enormous objects that move way faster than anything like that does regularly for most people. It's a fun little experiment.

Also got Half Life: Alyx which I am really enjoying, I just got to the part where you get the flashlight which I assume means I'm about to get sosososo scared. VR so dramatically changes the way you think about interaction especially in games. Most obviously, this is a shooter, but in a normal shooter you shoot things by putting them in the middle of the screen and pressing "shoot" and then some HP is deducted. Here I am reminded that even when I handle real pistols I have a bad habit of raising the barrel a few degrees too high and I have to compensate for that. You have to fumble with magazines and rack the slide in the heat of panicked combat where you feel very much like a headcrab is about to tear your face off. It's great.

You also get the sheer physicality of the environment. Valve did not skimp on this game, it's not a little demo or a toy, it's a whole-ass game, and they made sure that almost anything reasonable you can think to do works. You just reach out, you can move barrels by grabbing the rim and rolling them, you can open boxes, you can smash crates. You have a really smart gravity grabber system that makes interacting with the environment less arduous, and some very intelligent use of the fact that you have to switch what's in your hand to make you feel endangered any time you have to put your pistol away to hack a circuit or move an object.

Making: Disastrous burfee making misadventure when a friend said she had been wanting to make burfee and I invited her over. Got mixed up while trying to host and cook simultaneously and didn't boil the syrup long enough, resulting in liquid burfee that did not ever set up into something usable. Salvaged haphazardly with some dessicated coconut to form a structural mesh, but it was not good. Syrup is the most important and least fixable part of a burfee recipe, you really just have to learn to eyeball it to make sure it's right before you continue. Learn from my mistake. Make sure your bubbles are stacking to know you've driven off enough water.

Tools and Equipment: Thin, fine cotton sheets are a great way to avoid messing up pillows if you aren't able to wash your hair as regularly as you'd like, or if you just don't like generic grease build-up. You can keep so many of them on hand and toss them in for washing every couple days.

I didn't have hot water this week because of the annual maintenance cycle, so. You know.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Fics With Titles that Start With G (3) Masterlist

part one, part two

garden camping (ao3) - possumdnp

Summary: They sit in Phil's parents' garden, sharing childhood stories and making plans for the future.

genre of choice (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Dan and Phil have a romcom meet cute at a horror con.

Gentle (ao3) - Lesbianphan

Summary: Phil doesn't really look at photos of their faces that much. Truthfully, there's only so many gifs and videos of people pointing out how utterly hopelessly in love you and your partner look at each other that you can actually absorb into your brain. Phil's brain feels like mush sometimes, with the amount of feeling right there, displayed for the world to see. This livestream was special though - in so many ways, - and he found himself transfixed by the animated images of Dan's gentle touching of his face, feeling some kind of cosmic shift happening on screen, the realization on the tip of his tongue. Just a fluffy thinkpiece on their current content, and all the little moments they decided to share with their audience these past few months.

get my good side (ao3) - watergator (orphan_account)

Summary: dan and phil try to film a sex tape (just for them)

give this thing a try (ao3) - pasteldanhowells

Summary: Dan is a cashier at a grocery store, and Phil is his supervisor. One evening at work, Phil surprises Dan by asking him out on a date, and of course Dan, who's had a crush on Phil since forever, says yes. Cue, the freaking out and comfort ensues.

Glad to Be Home (ao3) - ticklishraspberries

Summary: Dan and Phil make up for the time they lost for intimacy on the tour.

Glitch (ao3) - Anonymous

Summary: Phil wrote a movie screenplay

Gloves On (ao3) - yikesola

Summary: “I can’t believe you ripped the costume off,” Phil says after the camera and lights are both turned off. He’s laughing, but there’s something in his tone that has Dan wonder if it means something other than I can’t believe you actually just got fully naked on the gaming channel.

A fic about accessories and antics.

go your own way (I'd give you my world) (ao3) - itsmyusualphannie (itsmyusualweeb)

Summary: “I’m Dan,” said Dan.

Phil could not look away from him. He thought that Dan was probably the prettiest boy he had ever seen. “I’m Phil,” he said back, because it was polite to introduce oneself to people, otherwise they would remain a stranger. “Phil Lester.”

And so they became friends.

or: a Forrest Gump AU where Phil slowly falls for his best friend as the years go by, but Dan loses himself to the world and his past.

Going Forward (ao3) - softiejace

Summary: When Phil Lester signs his students up for a mental health workshop, no scenario he's prepared for includes running into his ex...

Going Nuts (ao3) - schnaf

Summary: Dan is going nuts in Manchester. But one midnight trip to the supermarket changes everything.

gold (ao3) - catboyhowell (bloodyscarab)

Summary: i got bipolar confidence

wake up like 'shit,' then i feel like the shit

so i guess i'm the shit

gold by brockhampton

Golden Boy (ao3) - hygge

Summary: Phil takes a drawing class in university and needs a subject for his drawing final.

Gone are the days of Wine and roses (ao3) - Lizzyboo

Summary: Dan knew it had to happen eventually. And logically, he knew it was his fault. He was the one who broke it off between them all those years ago. He didn’t expect Phil to be single forever, not really. But he also kind of expected to move on himself by the time Phil would start dating.

------------------

or the one where Phil starts seeing a girl and Dan understands that maybe he still has feelings for him.

Good Girl (ao3) - Absolutefilthimsosorry

Summary: Phil calls Dan a good girl and Dan really likes it.

good night bear (ao3) - loveforlester

Summary: “good night bear i love you”

dan howell loves phil lester.

phil lester loves dan howell.

you know the story two soulmates who met on the internet. just something is different.

dan can’t sleep without watching phil’s videos. oh and phil stopped filming videos

Good To The Last Drop (ao3) - Boardgamedanny

Summary: A bloody fic about Daniel Howell and Philip Lester

Gotta Get An Upgrade (ao3) - your_starless_eyes

Summary: Phil notices Dan becoming more and more aloof and obsessive as the tour continues on. He ends up talking to a high school in New Jersey's resident "stoner" after a fatal mistake is made on stage.

Green Sofa (ao3) - Scuddleduck

Summary: This might be Phil’s favorite place in this house to fuck, he thinks. The beds are nice, and they’ve certainly tested the integrity of the office chairs a time or two, but this green couch in the nerd cave, it really is his favorite.

Grey Sweatpants (ao3) - Absolutefilthimsosorry

Summary: Set after the filming of the fall guys dvp where dan was wearing grey sweatpants.

Grow as we go (ao3) - Mangomelions (orphan_account)

Summary: After ten years of being best friends, Dan decides he can't take it anymore. He moves out, claiming he needs to find out who he is without Phil, and that he can't stay like this forever. Really he just got sick of waiting for Phil to realise they should be more than friends. Very angsty but fluff to come. Based on Ben Platt's song Grow As We Go.

growing up or just going down (ao3) - SylvesterLester

Summary: Phil is 15 years old today. He's going to have the best birthday of his life, to kick off the best year of his life.

Right?

Guilty Pleasure (ao3) - ThoughtaThought

Summary: Dan and Phil meet at a BDSM club and decide to play. Dan is a rigger and a masochist. Phil is a sadist and a rope bunny. It’s perfect.

Guilty pleasure or: In the devil we trust (ao3) - Fearain

Summary: Basically Dan being obsessed with amazing piano music (and playing said music) and Phil slowly understanding why. Plus some friendship talk about trust, fears and dreams.

Guy Fawkes Night. (ao3) - 221bPhan

Summary: When Dan and Phil have to go to Phil's parents to celebrate, Martin's kids are put into the hands of Dan and Phil.

[phoenixwatchesmovies]

What I'm Watching 2023: May

Evil Dead Rise

GAAAAAHHHHH HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS FRANCHISE! I ended up watching this twice and while I would have loooooooooved more body horror, the story more than delivered in my book. So it's a wash. You know the drill, franchise rant someday, etc.

Gerald's Game

Fun fact, I passed out the first time I watched this. I think it's a trend of mine with Mike Flanagan works to enjoy them exponentially more upon revisiting, because I was middle-of-the-road with this one the first time and got my socks knocked clean off this time. Might have to do a Flanagan ranking thingamajig sometime...

Evil Dead 2

GAAAAAHHHHH HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS FRANCHISE! Hot take, but this one is my least favorite of the franchise. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic and you can see where Raimi and Campbell have grown between the original and this. There's a reason why it's most fans top pick.

The Simpsons Movie

It's been almost a decade since the last time I watched this, and it's...actually as good as I remember.

The Babadook

I love this movie more every time I watch it. The performances, the sound design, the practical effects, etc. Different parts hit harder every time, but the same parts always have me bawling.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Incorporated

I'm finally watching this after hearing so many good things about it. I don't care how old you are, you are NEVER too old for Scooby Doo.

Requiem For A Dream

By several metrics, this is one of the most unique films I've ever seen. I didn't find it quite as depressing as I've heard it made out to be, but it's still a tough watch. And it certainly sticks with you. I still have the theme stuck in my head.

Doctor Sleep

I'm going to need a bigger post to talk about this movie. It's special. It's devastating. I took it way too personally and I'm still fucked up over it. And if you'll excuse me, I have to go cry about it again.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

This movie is every bit as good as I hoped it would be, and it lived up to the hype. You can't go wrong with it. If you know D&D, it's a fun campaign. If you don't, it's a fun movie. Good humor, great story, excellent cast, practical effects, and I'm pretty sure everything has a payoff. I'd have to watch it again to be sure, but hey, I'm not complaining.

Gunpowder Milkshake

I'm not usually one for straight-up action movies, but this cast was too good to pass up. The script was a little iffy at times, but that's just one tiny nitpick. The rest was a blast. Beautiful sets, badass fight scenes, great soundtrack, and did I mention this cast? 😍

[foxieflower]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wANmsHNInQo

(You can remove the link if you want to)

Kinda tired of gluskin fans, fic writers etc being accused of something. Also funny how she calls Blaire a cute baby, dude, you can dislike Gluskin, of course he is not a saint, but Blaire literally gets advantage of people with some mental illness and child abused victims, and even use their trauma, allowing beatings AND rape, for the experiment to success. People sympathize with Gluskin and Walker since both were victims at some point. Trager gets a pass, despite him RAPING women willingly (though people like him because his design is cool and his BUDDY) before the experiments, and as far as we know Eddie never targetted children or raped women, he mutilated them during some kind of psicosis

I'm gonna be very straight forward, but I cannot stand to watch videos that just berate things I enjoy, so I will not be watching the video for greater context but will however respond to the actual information you sent me directly.

I absolutely agree in the points you made. I find it incredibly contradictory to find people who like one character disgusting but then immediately turn and love the character that's just as bad (or worse). I have gone at length for my dislike of Jeremy and you put it out plainly that is simply due to the fact that he is the one actively creating these monsters. And he knows what goes on within the walls of that asylum. He's a terrible man, but it does make him an incredible villain, so I can totally understand why people enjoy him, I simply do not.

Something important about this game is that it's very blunt, red barrels does not beat around the bush, if they want you to know something about a character, they will directly tell you. So it's easy to very much note that none of Eddie's crimes are that of the sexual nature. He has some wild dialog and very handy in game movements, but if they had wanted you to know of him as someone that executes crimes of that nature, we would have seen in in those flashes of life during the locker scene. Instead we just continue to see a delusional and violent man. Which is a very important thing to note, as when anyone takes part in horror films and enjoyment of the slasher genre, the fact people die is meant to be scary but it's never meant to be some sort of damnation of the monster that is doing it. Or else you wouldn't see so many people enjoy characters like Jason or Michael. Where as if a horror film takes note of a rape scene, it's meant to feel much less like an action scene for your to scream and get an adrenaline rush from, and is very much a tone shift to make you feel uncomfortable and distressed. And not in a pleasant way, it's something entirely different in film versus a villain killing someone.

Now it's to note that from here, it's pointed out that it's obvious that these people in the asylum are essentially just a bunch of slashers, aka, the fact they are killing people is just meant as actions/excitement. It's what you are expecting to come from playing these games. And instead what you are meant ro focus on, story wise, is the underlying information. I'm just going to focus on Eddie to make it easy, but you find his papers that say he has a terrible home life and was assaulted by his father and uncle, you learn that he mutilated women but never did anything uncouth with the bodies, you find out through Waylon that... the scientists are just as gross as his father and uncle were, and that he wasn't cooperative with the obviously bad therapists and would lie to try and get himself in a better situation. People chalk this up to him trying to be manipulative bit it feels much more obvious as a defensive tactic. He's scared and wants out. You are meant to feel for those in the asylum, just like Miles and Waylon do. When he dies, he gifts you with a weakened and delusional message.

Jeremy on the other hand, you get little to no secondary backstory to him, you are meant to see him directly as he is. The man with the money that is making all of this happen and knows it is happening. You are meant to just see him as the man making this asylum work, this terrible place exist. He is only there to kick Waylon at every chance for his escape, to tell him that he wants him dead, he is not there for you to sympathize with. He is supposed to represent the reprehensible company you want to see fail. That's the entire point of Waylon's and Miles' characters, to be the breaking points to destroy this company. When he dies, he is destroyed, he stabs you and then is mutilated by the walrider. He doesn't give you anything to sympathize on.

Now this is not to say that I wouldn't allow people to give him sympathic headcanons, I have read some, I have enjoyed them. They simply aren't my takes on the character and that's fine. I would never send hate to those that like him, but it is fun to bully him as the villain he is.

What does all this rambling mean though? It means that anyone that viscerally hates Eddie snd those that like him while actively saying how much they like Jeremy is entirely missing the point of the first game. The point is that no matter how terrible of people all these variants are, you are still supposed to hate what is happening to them, you aren't supposed to think they deserve to be there and should be without help. No, you are meant to see this as the greater ide aof how mental health is often toyed with and overlooked, how people are often let down and made worse by how terrible many systems are. How money can make those with just as devious thoughts be CEOs while those without are just tossed into a dirty box to be laughed at and prodded, destroyed further. It's meant to show that power imbalance.

You aren't supposed to agree with Murkoff, the point of the game is to see them as the villain. And if you instead are siding with the evil company at the end of the game, either you didn't play it right or you need to execute better critical thinking when enjoying media.