#how could I not include that movie?

[wistfulwatcher]

As for myself, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. The creature spared our lives, and in return I honored her with my absolute silence. Some things, no matter how magnificent they are, are best left alone. And as to whether I'd ever see her again, the answer is yes. But that's another story.

LILY & THE MERMAID in SHE CREATURE (2001)

[petr1kov]

actually an underrated little song from wicked to me is 'something bad'. i really like the ominous vibe and i kinda love dr dillamond tbh

[legallybrunettedotcom]

looking for America... I youtube link

[cluescorner]

The Council of Optimuses: Pleasant, generally positive, they exiled Bayverse a while ago but they still check in once in a while to make sure he's ok/out of curiosity, Earthspark enables One's 'I can fix him' delusion to the point that Prime is falling into it too, IDW does NOT want to add to the delusion pile so he shuts up, Cyberverse kinda doesn't want to be at this meeting it feels too much like a party, IDW keeps making calls to somebody but he won't tell anyone who, they used to have 'bring your Bumblebee to work day' but Skybound had a breakdown over it so they can't do that anymore, everybody is suspicious of Skybound's new arm but the only person who actually brought it up was Bayverse whose solution was 'kill him' so now everybody thinks they are getting paranoid and should maybe start seeing a therapist (they should start seeing therapists, but they ARE right about the arm).

The Council of Megatrons: They are having a great time even if it looks horrible from the outside looking in, Prime constantly wants to fight IDW for his spot as the strongest Megatron but IDW is not about that, they tried to kick out Earthspark but he somehow keeps getting in (IDW leaves the door open), One has like 5 devils on his shoulder telling him to escalate and two fallen angels who are desperately trying to get across that maybe total destruction isn't the move, IDW is trying to hide his redemption arc in order to keep the situation under control (only Earthspark is aware of it, though Skybound has his suspicions), Cyberverse always tries to kill the others to take over their universes and it's the highlight of everybody's month, Bayverse is mocked for being killed by Optimus but secretly everybody is kinda jealous about it (Prime especially), one time an unidentified Starscream (it was Animated) broke in and it was on sight (he got away because every Megatron wanted to be the one who killed him and they fought each other over it), IDW keeps taking calls from somebody but he won't tell anyone who, Skybound can listen in on his Optimus's meetings due to being his arm and reports back, there is an ongoing debate about whether Galvatrons should be included.

Inspired by @jyang030107 's art of ES and IDW Megs advising their One counterpart.

[skz-miroh]

the way i audibly gasped when they included “history huh? bet we could make some” in the museum scene

[lass-us-slay]

I love how D-16’s optics are yellow, instead of the same blue like the other bots. Showing that although he’s not a “good” bot, he’s also not “evil” that D-16 does have a heart. No matter how buried it is under all that hate, betrayal, and hurt.

I also love how D-16’s optics slowly get more red as he finds out the truth of Sentinal Primes lies. I love how even if it seemed he really did want to kill Sentinal (and did), there was still a chance to turn him back. But no one was able to, no one saw that “hey, maybe if I push harder, he’ll listen?”

I love how close D-16 was to not become Megatron. But still did because the world is not perfect, the world isn’t fair.

Anyways I just got back from watching Transformers One and absolutely loved it!! Gives me soooo many brain worms eating away at my actual common sense <3 ✨✨🫶✨🫶🫶

[reineyday]

mourning the half-episode this yaku moment could have been 😔 but happy the movie exists at all 🙏

[ennard-is-near]

I’m so serious when I say that Scott Cawthon could make billions and crash the economy if he released merch that was just high-quality masks of the original four animatronics bc I know billions of people would cosplay as The Bite of ‘83

[micahdotgov]

hot. who said that

[spork-supremacy]

There’s going to be a live action.

Heheh… I THOUGHT THAT WAS A JOKE FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR NOT ACTUALLY REAL.

Writing quality will be anywhere between hunted or skybound.

Casting as a whole might actually have to be the canon looks for everyone.

Everything within me is screaming about the casting because it can go inline with fandom thinking, or very wrong. And we’ll be stuck with it. We don’t have to justify design headcanons but once that comes out I see potential for more harassment over it because of the canon looks.

[blaithnne]

What's your fav Hilda episode?

It’s GOTTA be The Forgotten Lake. It’s got adorable mother/daughter bonding, endless amounts of trauma, badass Johanna, BLOOD ⁉️

Pre-Season 3 though, I love The Tide Mice. It’s such a fun concept, it has a partial focus on Johanna, and we get to see David singing !!! The Troll Rock also holds a special place in my heart because it’s the first episode where we get to see Johanna interact with people other than Hilda and kind of see her personality outside of being a mother — it’s the episode where we learn her name !

[yuanw3i]

a lot of thoughts about silver twisted wonderland

Good morning it’s 3:45 am and dorm silver dropped after almost 3 years so here’s a full length post dedicated to him. not spoiler free

Quick Note: I remember when I first saw all the twst characters lined up and he honestly…didn't stick out much. i picked him as my first favorite anyways though because of zakki and hes been trapped in my brain ever since. Even though his background is still shrouded in ??wtfs i think exploring that is part of the fun of silver!! Personally, I really love him because a lot of his character beyond niceguy.jpg is rooted in subtext and it's super fun to delve into. so i can’t promise this is an unbiased analysis, but I hope you enjoy it anyways. 

Translation Credits: @mysteryshoptls, @twstarchives, and TWST Miraheze’s Enharo translations

OVERVIEW

Silver, at a quick glance, seems like both the most normal and most bizarre character in Twst. In a sea of self-serving, scheming villains, he lacks the sort of insidiousness most of his peers are constantly displaying. From a player’s perspective, we know this is because he’s most likely based on Aurora; but other NRC students simply deign to see him as an oddball. From the Disney properties he’s twisted from to his own strange upbringing, Silver is a bit of a question mark to both us and the ingame characters. In this post I’m gonna try to dissect some underappreciated complexities of his character, and hopefully get you or whoever’s reading this to give him some love! haha hope this doesnt get too long

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 

First off, Silver’s a pretty lowkey guy. Not in the way Jamil is (forced), or the way Trey is (less forced than Jamil but still forced), but moreso in a way that points to him being out of touch with himself and his own internal state. He doesn’t really…stick out in comparison to the more bombastic members of his dorm; at least not at first. A lot of his quirks are hidden behind his cool expression and appearance, and the gap between those two qualities leads to some funny gags in his interactions with others. 

Part of Silver’s charm as a character comes from his super blunt way of speaking, especially when he starts to describe extremely weird situations that he deems are normal. Like in Endless Halloween, when he casually mentions that he’d used to fight bears to Jamil and Jack (who react as expected). He isn’t used to “regular” social conventions, and this is coupled with the fact that he doesn’t really think like a villain does. In Fairy Gala IF, Ace comments on his heroicness, wondering how they both attend the same school. 

Essentially, there’s a significant divide between him and the people around him in both mindset and in lifestyle. Other students also view him as strange due to unchanging face. Some of his voicelines point this lack of expressiveness, like these:  

“They say that silence is golden. But in my case I just don’t have anything worth talking about…” (Ceremonial Robes SR) 

“I’m happy. ‘I don’t look like it’? Understood. Next time I’ll try harder.” (Groovy Voiceline)  

His dorm SSR also places this aspect of his character front and center. In Part 1, he overhears his peers whispering about how expressionless and weird he is. One of the students even questions if Silver has feelings, which triggers Silver to try to “learn how to be more expressive” with Kalim and Jamil’s help. Thank god for Sebek, who plans to spar with him in the courtyard so Silver’s classmates can witness his true, extremely cool self. He reiterates that Silver shouldn’t care about their opinions and doesn’t need to change.  I don’t think being as on display with one’s emotions as say, Kalim, is necessary for Silver to show growth; he doesn’t have to change who he is to please others. I also really really don’t think that him being less externally expressive is a fault. Sebek’s lines in Silver’s dorm uniform story make this very clear. 

PART 2: SILVER IS A HUMAN 

Still, an important part of his dorm uniform personal story is his reasoning behind wanting to change his expressions. He says he feels bad for burdening his classmates this way, and doesn’t want this issue to reflect poorly on Malleus. Silver’s dorm uniform story, as well as countless others (see: his PE card, where he only helps Vil after the former mentions Malleus), show off a key facet of Silver’s character. Of course no man is an island, but Silver only seems to exist in relation to Lilia and Malleus. His lack of self awareness can thus be linked to his constant drive to be useful to them. Silver only focuses on training and bettering himself in academics, physically, magically, etc in order to better serve others or avoid staining Malleus’s reputation; it’s all he can talk about. So much of his life is spent dedicated to his family that he’s frighteningly UNself-centered. And I know that his selflessness is part of the joke, but he really doesn’t seem to be thinking about himself at all, ever. 

One way to read into Silver’s devotion is through the lens of his mortality. Like Sebek, I think Silver has some internal struggle surrounding his humanity. Unlike Sebek, I don’t think Silver is necessarily ashamed of his race or cognizant of this inner conflict; rather, the fact that he is human and is mortal influences his dynamics with the other three greatly. Something easy to overlook with all the gags about Silver falling asleep in random situaftions or playing with animals is that he is burdened with the knowledge he will die long before his loved ones. Lilia, Malleus, and potentially Sebek (not sure about his projected lifespan yet?) are all likely to outlive him and there’s nothing he can do about it. Unlike the others, his time is palpably finite. 

This inner conflict manifests most obviously in his desperation to fix his sleeping issues. While it's in part just a dislike for it constantly disrupting his everyday life, any time spent unconscious is just another reminder of the limited time he has in comparison to his quasi-immortal loved ones. His character profile also marks his dislike as "being idle", which makes total sense when considered in relation to his mortality and not just in relation to his narcolepsy. in this short time he's been blessed with, he should devote his being to giving back to those who raised and cared for him, those who he lives for and who gave him the chance to live. Not a second should be wasted when he could be improving himself as a son, guard, student etc, and this fixation then feeds into his already lacking sense of introspection. While I don’t think he’s necessarily aware of this view of his own humanity (ie it doesn’t cross his mind in such a melancholic or existential way when he’s looking for a cure to his sleeping) I think it’s a key part of his character that explains a lot about his motivations and being. 

But what makes the divide between human and fae lifespans even harder to navigate is the sheer difference in their experiences and values. Of course Lilia and Malleus care for Silver, but the difference in perspectives between a human and a centuries old fae is massive. An example of this is in the Endless Halloween event: 

Silver: There’s no way I could doubt you, Fath…Da…Lilia! You both took this way too far! 

Lilia & Malleus: Hm?

Silver: I understand that you and the ghosts just wanted us to have fun. But those who were taken over by the ghosts tried to fight us. All it would’ve taken was one mistake and someone could’ve gotten seriously injured. Are you saying that was a hint, as well? 

Though Lilia and Malleus clear up the misunderstanding-the ghosts were supposed to tell everyone it was entertainment but were attacked before they could-Silver still shows his willingness to challenge them when he believes it necessary. I wouldn’t add this as an example because it is part of a misunderstanding, but Ace criticizes Malleus in his own SR Scary Dress personal story, citing that “normal students can’t compare”, so he should be more aware of how powerful he is. 

Endless Halloween is in general a really great Silver event. Not only are we shown his willingness to stand up for what he believes is right, even against the people who make up his whole world, he’s forced to confront the question of his humanity in relation to them. In his SSR Scary Dress personal story, he acknowledges that he never thought they could part: 

Silver: Lilia-senpai was always there for me, so I was never lonely.

Silver: Training with Sebek was always fun, and sometimes Malleus-sama would come and visit us in secret…

Silver: Somewhere in my heart, I had decided that that peaceful time would continue on forever.

Silver: …I had never even given it a thought that I could experience a parting.

That’s what makes part 1 of episode 7 is such an interesting set up in terms of character drama- as with the Endless Halloween kidnapping farce, the roles between son and father have been reversed. This time, though, it’s seemingly for real.  Silver can’t picture outliving Lilia, or even just living apart from him forever because the first seemed biologically impossible and the other extremely unlikely, and now everyone is crying and Malleus is burning down NRC. 

The Valley of Thorns is behind on the times. It’s a stagnant and slow to change, a point emphasized in almost all of its mentions, so I think the Diasomnia chapter will center on them coping with time,  change, mortality, etc. I’m trying not to cross over into theory territory, but another possible route episode 7 could take is surrounding Silver’s origins. We see Lilia give him the ring from his original parents. What if he leaves to find them? I really really don’t think he will, but there is that threat of “Silver has ties to another place besides Diasomnia” which is another stake in how lonely Malleus, as the overblotter, is. 

JUST TO REITERATE AGAIN BECAUSE I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT WHEN DISCUSSING SILVER LIKE THIS: I also don't think he's super self-aware yet considering his general lack of introspection, or at least doesn't think about it too often unless he's confronted with a change in the status quo (like in his Scary Monsters SSR). He’s very here-and-now minded. I’m not saying he’s secretly hiding some dark and sad secret side, just that his situation’s complexity extends beyond the falling-asleep-everywhere gags. Mortality and all that. 

PART 3: I LOVE SILVER TWISTED WONDERLAND 

But one thing that always makes me sad about Silver’s situation is wondering…is he lonely? It must be lonely right? Or does he throw so much of himself into others that he isn’t even aware if or when he is? So much of twst boils down to how loneliness absolutely destroys a person, and how understanding from others and human connection is incredibly necessary. Without it, people can turn into literal monsters, consumed by their pain and isolation. Like their leige, Silver and Sebek haven’t socialized with others much until NRC. But a big part of twst chapters is the dorm head/members of the respective dorm connecting with their classmates a little more, which is why I’m hopeful that Diasomnia will have a happy ending. The game is a Disney property after all. 

And as Lilia says, human or not, Silver will always be his son. Sometimes a family can be two fae, a human baby, and their giant crocodile. 

tldr; Silver is isolated in a lot of ways (human instead of fae, has morals unlike the other scrubs at NRC) and hyperfocuses on others instead of his own sake because of it; I think episode 7 will be about him and the rest of Diasomnia learning how to make connections with others while coping with time, change, and mortality. 

[jq37]

Please let us know if you solve this mystery!

OK! It’s the end of the year so let me compile everything I was able to come up with (with the help of everyone I dragged into this–you know who you are and thank you and I’m sorry). 

To anyone who’s just seeing this and doesn’t have context, in November, right before the movie Wish came out, I made a longish post questioning who Allison Moore was (which, incidentally, is the first post that comes up when you Google “Allison Moore Disney”).

The reason I was curious about who this random writer is is because she’s credited as one of the co-writers of Wish, Disney’s 100th Anniversary Feature Film BUT she has no obvious experience writing for animation, children, or fantasy when everyone else on the main team has credits on stuff like Frozen and Encanto. I thought it was bizarre that there would be someone so green on a project so big so I went digging. 

Here’s what I learned:

(1) Moore wasn’t originally announced as being attached to the project. Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Fawn Veersunthorn were all mentioned when the project was officially announced in Sept 2022 (for example). Moore was not. And you’d think they’d mention the *co-writer*, right? You don’t start to see her name until a year later in Sept 2023 when the trailer dropped (for example). So it seems like she was brought onto the project later. Of course, this could just be a normal quirk of the industry or something I’m misinterpreting, but I think it’s worth mentioning. 

(2) Moore seems to have a lot more credits in stage writing than she does in screenwriting. I wasn’t able to 100% confirm it until recently (I’ll get to that in a second) but she’s written a bunch of plays and it seems like this is where she has most of her bona fides. 

“Allison is the recipient of two Jerome Fellowships, two McKnight Advancement Grants and the Bush Artist Fellowship.”

That sounds fancy. But it still doesn’t say “Top Choice for Disney Anniversary Movie” to me. That’s not a statement on writing quality. I haven’t read/seen any of her plays. It’s about the subject matter. Look at some of these synopses:

None of that really screams Disney. Which isn’t to say people can’t have range. George Miller wrote all the Mad Maxes but also Babe and both Happy Feet. But if I was hiring someone for a really big project, I wouldn’t want that project to be their first attempt at expanding into that genre. 

(3) This isn’t actually inherently important but she was on an episode of Nailed it. That’s where this picture comes from:

She won the first round and the game ended in a three way tie for the first time in the show’s history. 

The only reason this is noteworthy in the larger scale of things is that, until very recently, this was one of only two places online you could see Allison Moore talking. The other is this very short interview on the red carpet during the premiere. 

There’s nothing in that interview that explains anything. It’s mainly her talking about how it was fun working on the movie and how good the movie is. 

Honestly, good for her for not being Extremely Online, but it really felt like I could get a bit of a handle on everyone else who’d worked on this project in a high profile way but not her. Which is part of why I started down this rabbit hole to begin with. There was nothing to show where she might have had a connection or an interest or anything that would connect the dots. 

For reference, Fawn (who was one of the Directors and story writers) has the kind of resume that I was expecting Moore to have when I initially Googled her:

Smaller jobs on other kids/animated movies (Hop, The Lorax, Despicable Me 2), some storyboard or art work on other Disney stuff (Frozen, Moana, Zootopia, Ralph), and then a big break (Raya and Wish). Based on my understanding of the industry (and I know a fair bit because it’s one I’m interested in professionally) that’s a very typical track to get to the writing side of animation.  

A couple of people speculated that Moore got onto the project in a mentorship capacity. Now, I’m a Black woman who writes fiction professionally when I’m not on this hellsite (affectionate) with the rest of y’all. That means I have firsthand experience with what mentorship looks like in writing–both official Diversity and Inclusion type mentorship and more organic “Let me take you under my wing” type mentorship. I have *never* seen anyone get a job this high profile at the jump just due to mentorship alone. Going from zero to Disney’s 100th anniversary is kinda insane. This wasn’t some B project or something. It was a Big Deal Project. And this is Disney so they could have hired basically anyone they wanted. So you have to assume this was an active decision someone made and not just a thing that happened for lack of options. But in all my searching, Moore wasn’t mentioned except to just say she wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Lee. It was just the baking show and the Youtube clip.

Until today.

(4) I’m going to preface this by saying this doesn’t actually answer the question in a big AHA! way, but it is the only interview I’ve seen about Wish from Moore besides the red carpet clip.

On December 15th, Moore gave this interview with the San Antonio Current.

I stumbled across it while searching for a different piece of information and eagerly clicked to see what she had to say after three weeks of silence after the movie dropped on November 22.

Here are some highlights:

-In high school she was a theater kid and thought she wanted to pursue acting. 

-I college she did playwriting and eventually she got her MFA from Iowa (which has a weirdly great MFA program btw, and also, this interview is how I confirmed she was the playwright Allison).

-When she started on the theater track at her college, she told them she was a playwright so she could study that too even though she’d never written a play before. So it sounds like Wish isn’t the first time she’s just jumped into a new thing without experience. You have to respect the hustle.

But this is the most important line in the interview because it’s like, an answer and a non-answer all in one. She’s asked, “How did you go from writing plays to writing for TV and film?”

And her answer is, “I had a whole career writing for theater, and then when my son was born, I realized I needed to make more money, so I started pitching for TV. I worked in television for about a decade. In the midst of working in TV, I continued playwriting. That's how I got on the radar at Disney.”

Which kind of sidesteps the most intriguing part of the question? Like, first of all, it’s not 100% clear if she means her playwriting or her TV writing caught Disney’s attention. I’m guessing playwriting, but I could be wrong. Secondly, who is “Disney” in this situation? A Disney recruiter? A Disney director? Did Jennifer Lee see a production of Slasher: A Horrifying comedy while passing through Texas and think, “Her. I want her to be my co-writer on this children’s film.” And what did she do to impress them so much that they right away put her on the the *Anniversary Project*? Like, I know I keep harping on this but I can’t stress enough how big of a deal this is. It’s hard enough to write for just your average sitcom or little movie. To just jump on something this big is baffling. I obviously don’t expect Disney to be justifying their every hiring decision publicly but, usually, when someone is doing something like this, it’s very obvious why they were chosen and, even with this sliver of explanation, it’s still frustratingly opaque. And with the strange post hoc timing of the interview (seriously, doesn’t promotion usually happen PRE movie release?) It almost reads like an interview that exists because someone realized the lack of any online presence was weird. 

(5) When she was a kid, Allison Moore had a crush on Fox Robin Hood. That’s not at all important to the mystery, that’s just information she volunteered during the interview and that I’m now sharing with you. So when you search her name now, the top results are me wondering who she is, her IMDB, and her talking about how she liked Fox Robin Hood's little hat. Which isn't a LOT of information, but it’s more than we had before and that’s something.  

[tommygotwrittenoff]

my favorite thing about bt is when there's an opportunity for buck and t to have a deeper connection, but then t just shuts it down. like, go girl, give us nothing!!!!

[hersweetrevenge]

corey commentary: the official making of h40 🎃🔪

honestly i feel like this book really helped me refocus my thoughts on corey and brought me back to basics for the first time in a while.

i've split this post into a few specific topics based on my own thoughts and the book details that i found most interesting. a lot of this i've talked about before but i'm bringing it back with evidence babyyy.

WARNING for suicide and suicidal ideation, murder, manipulation, mental health issues and crises, and passing mentions of child abuse.

costume

corey's costume was developed in reverse (pg. 176), starting with his final look, the leather jacketed bad boy, and working backwards to the opening scene look, the good boy on his way to the sock hop.

i love that this was the process, i think that's so interesting from both a design and character perspective. taking him from what he became to what he was? it feels sort of like they were centring nostalgia in a way, starting with who corey became and then looking back to who he was (and who he will never be again). it kind of makes his downfall even more heart-breaking to me.

rohan mention's wearing coreys clothes in his real life and how no one even looked at him (pg. 184). in the commentary he also mentioned wearing corey's glasses a lot to get into the character mindset.

very interesting that we have tried and tested proof that corey can literally fade into the background and go unnoticed. it must be a combination of trying to be visually more plain but also a very quiet demeanour. but then you have the angle of corey being forced to reduce himself to as small and quiet and invisible impossible. i like the way corey both wants to be invisible (to avoid confrontation) but also desperately wants to be seen and heard and believed and understood by someone.

frame of mind/suicidal ideation

rohan mentions that there's an element of corey having not been able to kill himself before, because it was too hard to do, but looking into michael's eyes he realises he can just "call it quits" and let michael do it. then, after he is spared by michael, it gives him "permission" (pg. 198)

i think it makes a lot of sense though that michael letting him go is what tips corey over the edge, maybe reinforcing his own buried guilt (if michael let him go, he must be evil, right?) and making it feel a lot easier to make horrific choices (murder) while also making his emergency exit plan (suicide) feel easier too, if he wanted to.

corey being "tainted" by the shape because he's so close to being that anyway (pg. 172).

i don't personally believe in evil as an actual supernatural force in these movies, but corey is definitlel portrayed as more susceptible to michael's influence, even if michael does actuall demand anything of him.

i think @/slutforstabbings was the one who mentioned this to me. but when corey meets michael he is mentally and physically more susceptible to reacting irrationally in a very real-world sense. he has a history of abuse, experienced a major trauma (the accident), been under intense stress (the party), and had a recent head injury (the fall from the bridge and smacking his head in the sewer). these factors all contribute to a mental health crisis and drastic change in personality.

i feel like this confirms that corey was likely headed for (possibly another) breakdown in the future, but the events of the party/meeting michael just triggers it sooner.

emotional control

rohan mentions corey purposely doesn't feel anything since the accident (pg. 188).

this might have been my favourite detail that gets mentioned. i've always thought that corey's way of surviving post-accident was to just shutdown completely and switch off all his emotions. it's interesting to know that rohan was playing him that way.

and also a lot of the time when corey does feel strong emotions, they are turned in on himself to try and keep them private, like his anger at terry results in him hurting himself (accidently) with the milk bottle, or him regularly climbing over the bannister at the allen house but not being able to let go while during the day he thinks about some outward expression of rage through the blowtorch at the garage.

the mirror scene symbolises the first time corey feels in control (pg. 198).

i've written about this a lot before, but i very much agree that the mirror scene is a moment of processing both "what the fuck just happened?" but also "this is what control feels like". corey's whole breakdown, starting from killing nelson, is about regaining control over his own life, even if it means un-restraining himself and doing horrific things.

killings

ryan turek (exec.) and paul logan (writer) specifically state how ends is essentially a revenge movie, with corey's kills start as revenge killings, but if he survived the kills would get more random (pg. 167).

i feel like this highlights the way that corey's connection with the shape is cut short, unlike michael who had it for decades. the shape (or the idea of it) lets corey get his revenge, but after that he could keep going, he'd pick up momentum and he wouldn't be slowing down.

this seems like this is pointing towards killing being corey's method of control rather than some more direct desire to kill.

he becomes "addicted" to violence and he knows it (pg. 191).

"addicted" is a super interesting word choice and i feel like it fits perfectly. corey starts with revenge, he has his reasons, but as time goes on he could find a reason for anyone if he wanted to.

if corey survived ends and got away, he'd be living his own life for the first time ever. i think there are a lot of things he'd over indulge in, and killing being an addiction plays heavily into that -- there would be nothing to tell him to stop.

high priest!corey

rohan specifically describes corey leading doug to the sewer as him bring michael a "sacrifice" (pg. 206).

vindication !! @/slutforstabbings once said to me, while we were talking about the ritualistic nature of corey and michael's relationship and killings, that corey replaces nelson as michael's high priest, as the person who brings the sacrifices and channels michael to the outside world.

manipulation

rohan says that corey "plays" at being the shaking little boy again when he jump scares laurie while waiting outside for allyson (pg. 204).

i love this, because i fully believe corey thrives on manipulation. i think corey is fundamentally a good person anyway, but in dealing with joan he knows how to make himself inoffensive and agreeable, and i think he knows that that "character" is a safe bet to keep people happy.

and the novelisation confirms that this almost works !! laurie thinks he's just awkward and still upset from the night before. the thing that makes laurie doubt how genuine he is, is that she can see how he changes -- she can see the way he switches from one demeanour to another. proof right that he can play at being who he needs to be in the moment.

but then, by the time laurie shoots him, corey really is just a scared little boy who is in way over his head and unequipped for the situation he finds himself in (pg. 226).

corey is unprepared and unpractised -- he doesn't have the experience that michael has in bouncing back. he isn't michael. he's fucked up big time, his plan has fallen through, and he's backed himself into a corner. all the terrible things he's done, everything he's been through, the taste of control -- it's all for nothing is laurie can get the upper hand on him like this.

he's scared and out of his depth but he's dangerous, but corey ends the film the same way he starts it, in a situation he has no control over and with only himself to blame. only this time he's having the last word, he's going to do what he could before and he's going to take laurie down with him.

relationships

rohan said ronald is "the loveliest thing" in corey's life, and that the gesture of giving the motorbike is "beautiful [but] manly and detached" (pg. 182), which is a way more sympathetic view than i have.

this is a wayyy more sympathetic view of their relationship than i have. i do like this angle though, the idea that corey and ronald did have some sort of relationship but that neither of them can express it very well, that they're taking the stereotypically masculine route of small gestures and not a lot of words. which seems at odds with what corey really needed from the only male role model in his life, but it's kinda sweet that corey must like ronald enough for him to be a good part of his life, rather than just neutral.

maybe the takes about ronald being a good stepdad aren't wrong 👀

corey falls for allyson most deeply when he sees how she is on the edge just as much as he is (pg. 215).

this made me wonder if allyson and corey could have ever been together without the events of the movies? if they still met by chance, would they get along? would the attraction still be there?

their relationship is based on parasocial affection and shared similar traumas, there's a certain emotional intensity there that translates to them making rash decisions and commitments that i don't think they would otherwise.

joan's last words (in an even more extended death scene) are begging "michael" not to hurt corey (pg. 222).

joanne baron has talked about joan's motivations and perspective in some interviews, so this scenes lines up very well with what she's said previously. joan has never treated corey like a person, he's an object for her to control, but her two moments of concern for him (when he comes home the morning after the party and her death scene) come from a seemingly natural and genuine place.

also, the biggest factor that made me loose my mind over this: she doesn't know it's corey killing her. she begs this masked murderer not to kill her son, not know that it is her son beneath the mask 💀

she's begging someone not to hurt corey after years of being the one who has hurt corey. it's too late to turn back, it was always going to end like this, but can you imagine what went through corey's mind in that moment? that his momma wanted him to be safe but never made him feel safe when she had the chance.

me whenever there is a direct quote from rohan in this book:

[sa1808fi]

Here we go

Okay, Rex relating/sympathising with the raptors from the first Jurassic park movie because he went through a similar experience they did.

Like if you think about it, those raptors were left trapped in an enclosure that was way too small for them, and raised in isolation with nothing to interact with to keep them stimulated. This treatment by their 'caretakers' essentially was what raised them to be psychos and kill the humans. Does that sound familiar?

Yeah, Rex was also trapped in isolation, with nothing but his thoughts, much like the raptors. And because of this, his personality and way of thinking did a 180 flip, resulting to him becoming a psychopath bent on revenge and destroying the universe to get back at his 'friends'.

Both of these cases have that 'not born a villain, but raised to be one' to them. And I think that's one of the reasons Rex loves raptors so much.