#or entirely remake it honestly who knows

[angrymemesandicecreams]

forgot i drew a zoey on newyears that i never finished. I used a ref of zoeyas that @yogurtyogitup made forever ago (that i now cant find oof-)

baby middy used to go APESHIT for blackrock. And even though i know its over that lil piece of brain in the back of my head is still singing the ender boy parody thing.

(Also yes i posted this to tiktok on newyears and then forgot to post it anywhere else shush)

[hawkeshep]

actually Varric is alive and right next to me? no clue wtf you’re all on about

[goldentigerfestival]

i will never not find it hilarious that they completely forgot to animate patty at the very end of the final cutscene in the last three frames of the whole group

and the dub didn't even give her voiced lines when everyone was shouting they so the localization forgot about her too

[hughmanbean]

Loving Threats

Inspired by a song and its remake. But I am trash at syncing lyrics to storybeats.

Danny and Jason met in the ghost zone when Jason was dead, but he forgot it all coming back to life. When the two of them were together, they went through the entire song and dance (literally) of asking each other out.

I'm serious. There were like 10 different musical scenes with varying themes. It was Fenton Romance at its finest. And Jason's old school romance heart was certainly played a large part too.

It was their love language. Dramatic acts, vague threats and all.

Post revival and reconnection with the Batfam, Jason spots a familiar face. A flood of memories wash through him, and with it a bout of giddiness. Though he's currently dressed as Red Hood, Danny'll be able to tell who he is and keep quiet. Just have to greet him in a way that he'll recognize.

---

Danny is out taking the kids for a walk. Dan was grumpy since he wasn't allowed any ecto chips, for both his health and as punishment for severely beating a guy who tried to mug Danny without permission yesterday. Ellie is quite cheerful, since she's going to visit the Crocodile and Zombie sewer-dudes when Danny's not looking.

All of a sudden, Red Hood, casually wielding a gun, approaches Danny. He makes an overly familiar gesture, wrapping an arm sideways around Danny's waist. He whistles under the hood, a faint green glow from the white eyespaces.

"Well who do we have here? You look half dead, honey."

Danny looked at him. Horrible pick up line? Check? Thin veneer of confidence? Check. Zero self control around Danny? Check.

Jason. The rancid ecto signature is new, though. Honestly, not surprised he's a crime lord now.

"Well, you know how it is. The kids have been running me ragged. And you sure haven't been any help."

Danny puts on an innocent smile. Jason sidles closer. A few bystanders watch them with varied expressions.

"Well you don't need to worry about that now. How about you and I go somewhere more private?"

---

"A crime boss, huh?"

Dan is raiding the fridge. Ellie is watching a fight on TV.

"It was a... necessary step. I promise I would've visited you sooner if I had known."

"It's fine. What else happened while you were gone?"

"Well..."

[mushroomjar]

If you saw my previous posts on @fadel-dani / @fadel-aldani1 and his campaign, you may assume that he has gotten a lot of donations, since some of those posts have over 2000 notes. And yet, Fadel's campaign is only at 2% of its goal, and he sometimes goes multiple days without receiving a single donation. If you think this is because he's had to remake his campaign, I'll let you know that his previous campaign was only at 12% before being shut down by gofundme

In case you don't know him, Fadel is a displaced Palestinian, who is currently in severe and extreme daily pain due to shrapnel stuck inside his body. He needs surgery to get the shrapnel out and no longer be in pain, but this operation can only be performed outside of Gaza. He desperately needs donations to evacuate and have the surgery. This is extremely urgent, but his campaign doesn't get much attention and is going very slowly. And like I mentioned previously, his previous campaign was shut down by gofundme and he had to remake it! How unfair is that!!

Right now, his campaign is at €195/€10,000, having received only 14 donations so far. Before today, his campaign had gone 4 entire days without a single donation! And like I said, unfortunately, this isn't uncommon, and happens very frequently. Please, if you are able to, donate to his campaign, and share it even if you can't donate so more people see it, share it and donate to it. Fadel is a very kind man who doesn't deserve any of the pain he's suffering, and anything you can do goes a long way to help

Fadel's campaign has been verified by gazavetters, line 197 in their spreadsheet

[inf3ct3dd]

streamer!ellie pt.2

summary: i hated the other one of this that i made, so REMAKE TIEM!!!

warnings: miiinor sexual content, shit talking, gay people 😒

authors note: heheheh ples don’t flop this time..

- during her faceless days, she opened up a po box so ppl could send her things, and she made an amazon wishlist and she unboxed stuff on stream 😍😍

- one day she was unboxing a giant box of cat toys. string, those little feather stick things, even that weird automatic flapping fish thing (that she secretly loves and taped to her back one time)

- she was playing with this one toy that was a little fishing reel, and it had string and a little fish on the bottom. she went on and onnn about how shes a self proclaimed “fishing master” while garf chased it around, letting out little meows and growls of frustration.

- eventually, she lost her grip and let go of the pole. she bent down to pick it up, forgetting that her face would be in view. thus, the chat started blowing up.

ewwwbruh: FACE REVEAL

ewwife: EW WE CAN SEE UR FACE

ewwife: JUST THE SIDE BUT WE CAN SEE YOUU

ewssidechick: her nose looks so rideable…

- she got distracted petting garfield, and didn’t realize anything until she stood up. she was getting tagged over and over again on twitter, blurry pictures of her face (curtesy of the shitty webcam) circulating through her subreddit.

- “guys. im gonna erase this from ur memory…” and she literally held up this goofy ass hypnotizer pendelum and started fake hypnotizing everyone like “that never happenedddd” “you don’t know what i look likeeee” “that was fakeeee” “chat that was not reallll”

- and everyone literally js went along with it and pretended it never happened. like ppl were tweeting about it and everyone was like “huh??? what are u talking about bruh??”

- she did the same thing after falling off her rainbow unicorn scooter 😞

- one time she revealed that the “ew” in her username stood for her initials, and everyone was making the most horrendous guesses. elliam willace being the favorite one.

- “guys, my name is not edward wilson??? i am…not a man”

- shes gotten into so much drama…multiple notes app apologies have been issued via her instagram story.

- people would ask her opinions on other streamers, and she’d literally just be like “…i have no idea who that is.” and people would get so MADDDD but homegirl is literally just blatantly unaware

- or she would know , and would literally be like “they’re honestly super annoying and i would rather kill myself than watch them but whatever floats ur boat ig!”

- she played that “womp womp womp womppp” sound effect on her soundboard afterwards.

- SPEAKING OF. she abuses that soundboard sooo much. its so obnoxious and annoying like I SWEARRR!!! she’ll tell a horrible pun and play the crowd laughing and cheering sound effects while literally no one laughed.

“guys. whats the best way to watch a fly fishing tournament??”

“…live streaming.”

(crowd cheering sound effect)

“nooo thank you thank you, you’re all too kind, really!!”

- meanwhile chat was dead silent.

- every time she gets to choose her own name on a game its some dumb shit like "jizzmaster" or "chris fucker"

- “it appears you have entered innapropriate content.” “OHHH LOOK AT EPISODE LOOK AT THESE CORPORATE BIGWIGS TRYING TO CONTROL THE LITTLE MAN???”

- she just ended up naming him “chris phucker”

- like when she played episode on stream and made up really annoying voices for all the characters and made her character look like an elderly man, and made the love interest look like you 😍😍

- she messes up sm on games when she streams normally, but when you're there? she is LOCKED THE FUCK IN. sitting there so focused the entire time just to show off

- whenever she randomly goes silent she just starts SINGING. it's either nicki minaj or some fucking fnaf song

"IS THIS THE THANKS THAT I GET FOR PUTTING U BITCHES ON???"

- speaking of, her favorite fnaf song is def “stay calm” cuz she loves saying “hey kids. Nice to eat ya.”

- bought one of those "i paused my game to be here" tshirts…ironically. you refuse to let her wear it in public

- beefs w kids on fortnite sm... she has definitely gotten banned for saying she was gonna bomb a kids house or fuck their mom 😞

- every time she plays a game, she'll literally sit there and watch an 8 hour long video about the lore. she'll plop down on the couch and watch it like a movie

"did you know everyone actually thought that fnaf one took place in 1993, but it was actually 1992?"

- she definitely had you sit next to her when she played through fnaf because she was lowk scared the entire time whenever she heard you walking around the house while she was playing she'd hear footsteps in the hallway and be like. WHAT THE FUCKKK

-she'd have you right next to her, laying your head on her shoulder and messing with her free hand. if you fell asleep, she would be sitting there slapping her hand over her mouth whenever she gets jumpscared bc she doesn't want you to wake up 😞

- sometimes, while she streams , she plays one handed games and lets you sit and draw on her arm for fun. even got you a whole set of those skin markers so u could go ABSOLUTELY HAM. she got one drawing you did that said “r + e 4eva” tattooed in ur handwriting…such a sap

- she loves watching fan edits of herself...AND OF YOU. she'll be on her burner account with a whole collection on tiktok of edits of you.

ewwsbiggestfan: shes so bad i want her to hit me w her car...

- speaking of. imagine her using that account to make shitty capcut edits of you like

- shes ur biggest fan ongod

-WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC OF “fans”…what if i made a completely new origin story for streamer!ellie and reader. what if they were both streamers….

- OKAY SO BASICALLY.

- you had started streaming about a year before ellie did. butttt, you two did very different types of streaming.

- you weren’t very into like, SERIOUS video games. sure, you played some stuff, like animal crossing and roblox and the sims, but nothing more than that.

- that wasn’t what you were streaming though.

- ever since you were younger, you had been wayyyy into…literature.

-by literature i mean fanfiction. heaps of it.

- actors, anime characters, BOOK CHARACTERS, you were in DEEP

- sometimes, for fun, you used to read them out loud in stupid voices. when you were alone, or with your friends, it was very entertaining

- that’s when you got the idea to start streaming it. if it could entertain your friends, and you, whos to say it wouldn’t entertain other people.

- well, it definitely did. in your first year, you hit 10k followers. people loved you. theyd make edits of you, send in requests of fics for you to read, everything.

- a while later, ellie started gaining more and more popularity. out of all the incomes of fame, fanfiction was the most. abundant!

- one day, you got a request to read an ellie x reader fic. at the time, you barely had any idea who she was, but you decided to just go with it 🤞🏽

- “who the fuck is elliam willace???”

- the fanfic was definitely very…graphic!

- “your hips rolled onto her thigh, her slender, tattooed hand palming at your waist. ‘you’re doing so good babe, fuck.’-“ “GUYS. ISN’T SHE NOT ON MUTE RIGHT NOW???”

- you couldn’t help but giggle the rest of the fic, feeling a nagging heat in your core. you didn’t even know who the girl was, but if this fic was accurate, someone would have to sedate you.

-“im actually. gnawing at the iron bars of my enclosure. GUYS. who is this woman…is she real… if she is. things are about to get WICKED.”

- not very thankful to you at the moment, she was very real. apparently, you and her were streaming at the same time, and your followers raided her stream telling her she was reading about you. her curiosity was obviously piqued, and why would she NOT join the stream?

- creeperewman: im definitely real!

- the text on your screen literally made your stomach fall into your ass. you stood up and legit just walked out of the room, camera still on. was she there the whole time???

- creeperewman: aww 😞 where’d she go she’s so badddd

- you eventually returned after a minute of calming yourself down, and low and behold, she gifted you 100 subs and followed you on instagram.

- she was definitely very real!! and that fanfic was…lore accurate. to say the least 😊

- after you two started dating, the two of you would often show up on eachothers streams. ellie, teaching you how to play cod, and you, reading with her.

- she secretly loves reading the fics people write about her and making fun of them, and every time you stream with her shes “subtly” hinting that you should read about her

sitting there pulling on her collar, looking away like “gee, wonder who you’re gonna pick today” with the worst fake laugh ever.

- “ellie can barely ride a scooter, idk why she’s in the mafia rn…” “you fall off ONE TIME and all of a sudden you cant ride a scooter. bullshit.”

- she makes fun of all the dumb pet names like “babygirl” and “darling” and randomly calls you them and bursts out laughing

- you still read those fics when you’re bored sometimes. and ellie MERCILESSLY makes fun of you for it

“yknow, if you missed me that bad, you should’ve just told me.”

[perfectlysanexd]

I haven't done one of these kind of posts in a while, but the expressions in Rebirth were top notch, and I wanted to talk a bit about and analyze Sephiroth's different smiles, both pre and post Nibelheim.

Nibelheim itself is difficult to gauge, because SOLDIER Cloud is actually Zack, and furthermore, some of it is definitely his own wishful thinking. But one thing you can say for sure, is that they portray that Sephiroth, despite being so emotionally weary, still summons up the energy to smile at his friend.

As soon as he turns away from Zack, his smile falls, and he doesn't give one to the Mayor at all.

However, when he turns back to inform the men that they're free until sundown, he summons up another smile for them. I don't think that he's just attempting to keep their morale up, he genuinely has affection for Zack, and cares for the others. He respects them for their service, putting their lives on the line for what they think is a good cause, and Sephiroth—as we saw in Ever Crisis—learned to be a compassionate person, who cares about the lives of others, even enemies.

Of course, he's deeply distressed during this time, the despair is eating him alive. Even Cloud acknowledges(despite having not known Sephiroth on a personal level) that he just wasn't himself once they arrived. But I'm not going to talk about my theories on all the Jenova stuff right now, that's not the focus here. Even at the window, you can tell he's feeling off, but when he turns to Zack, he attempts to smile again.

Sephiroth has never enjoyed his fame, and as we learned in Ever Crisis, he didn't choose it; Shinra made up bogus achievements and declared him to be a hero before even his first field assignment, as part of their recruitment campaign. Can't argue with results, I guess—it certainly got Cloud to join up out of hero worship, right? In EC, Sephiroth admits that all he ever wanted was to be normal, something that he knows he can never have. How sad...

So when this man wants to take his picture, it's no wonder that he's over it by then, and tells him no. And rather politely, too, all things considered. But even before that, he smiles and tells Zack that as long as he does his job, their young tourguide will be safe.

But as soon as he turns his back and walks away? Yeah, that smile immediately fades.

Which certainly doesn't change when the guy takes his picture. But of course, when Zack asks Sephiroth to pose for one, he just can't say no, even though he's not super happy about it. Anyway, he continues to smile at Zack for the duration of their journey up Mt. Nibel, making an effort to talk and even cracking a couple jokes, just trying to be a good leader and keep them in good spirits.

And of course, there's the very sad bridge part, where you can tell that he's genuinely upset that he failed to save the other infantryman that got washed away. He searches for him, but comes up empty-handed. Still, he smiles for Zack and teases him about a performance assessment, since their morale is quite low now, but they need to keep going.

Honestly, the Nibelheim part of Rebirth really did an excellent job of portraying Sephiroth's inner struggle. For reference, there are only 3 points in Remake, I think, when Sephiroth drops his ever-present, sometimes affectionate(towards Cloud) and often unhinged, smile: First, it's replaced with sheer rage as he kills President Shinra.

Second time, is when Aerith has a Cetra moment and suggests that his entire existence is "wrong".

And the third time is when he holds out his hand to Cloud at the Edge of Creation, and is rejected by him.

Anyway, back to Rebirth. Ignoring the bizarre smiles he showed us as Nibelheim was burning, as if he was in a trance and just not all there(that's a subject for a different chat), post-Nibelheim Sephiroth's smiles are interesting, too, if we consider what kind they are, depending on who he's dealing with.

For people he hates, like Tseng, it's much more unhinged looking, and very cold. You can tell there's a certain measure of satisfaction from shanking him, haha...

For someone like Aerith, who...I wouldn't exactly say that he hates her, but she's definitely in the way. I would almost say that he considers her to be actively preventing Cloud from recovering his true memories, leading him to remain as merely Sephiroth's "puppet", but that's a theory for another day. He looks at her coldly, as well, but it's a bit different. There's a bit more respect there than there was for Tseng.

And then there's Zack. Actual Zack. I feel like, deep down, he still cares about him, and has no intention of killing him. I almost sense a little...regret? Maybe? Hm. It's definitely a bit warmer of a smile. And of course, although he had many opportunities to get rid of Zack, he doesn't. Instead, he sends him off into the space between worlds safely.

And of course, last but certainly not least, is the way he smiles at Cloud. I know, I know. "But Sane, you like sefikura, so you're biased!" Look, I won't deny that. However, when you really look at it and compare his smiles, which is what this is all about, his truest smiles are always saved for Cloud. He has 2 different "flavors": pure affection and cruel affection. (There are also a few pity smiles, I think.) The former is used most of the time, whenever Cloud is in his sight, and the latter is used during moments when he's trying to control/influence him. I would almost say that he's...satisfied, yet regretful at the same time?? Like these:

And now, let's contrast that with his more genuine, affectionate smiles for Cloud... (The first shot here ⬇ can be contrasted with the shot 2 up from the bottom there ⬆, as the one above is when he's calling Cloud his puppet, and the one below is when Cloud goes to attack him and he opens his arms wider for the incoming uh...embrace.)

Remake had many interesting smiles from him, too, but that will have to be a different post, as this already has 30 screenshots. Anywho, you're free to draw your own conclusions, and not everyone reads faces in the same way, so maybe I'm nuts. Who knows? Either way, I hope you enjoyed this random, indulgent, very long post, haha. If you made it to the end, you're awesome. 💕

All screenshots were taken by me on my PS5. I won't ask for credit on them, since literally anyone can take an identical shot if they pause at the right second. (The exception are the 3 Remake shots, which were taken on PC with mods and the freecam. For those, I would appreciate credit if you use them anywhere, since I don't watermark them.)

[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.

[medusas-daughter]

When I think about it, Billy kinda gave the coven a canvas and the entire coven contributed to build the road we have at the end and I think that's kinda beautiful in a way.

Like .. Agatha had more control than the others and actually set up the rules because she had the knowledge that the road was being built by Billy's subconscious this entire time and because she co-wrote the Ballad in the first place but all of them contributed to it to some extent because Billy was soaking up everything all of them were saying.

Both because he is a telepath (so the road adds the knowledge of the other witches like alewife revenge) and because he agrees with them on what the road should be like: Lilia is the one who suggests they have to face theirs worst nightmares, Jen explains to Billy what a Green Witch does and that's how the last trial is about growth. The entire coven (except Agatha) agrees they can't cheat so they can't cheat and they all think the Green witch is indispensable (I think Jen is the one who says it first before the road).

Also Nicky is part of the creation of the road too without even being there !

Also the fact that Billy's subconsciously thought Agatha's worst nightmares was to put her in a 80s sleepover is kinda funny if I'm being honest.

The more I think about it, the more fun the twist become honestly.

I'm so sorry for the rant, I love your blog 💜

thank you so much for this please feel free to rant here anytime you want 💜

and you're so right they really did all contribute! even Mrs Hart contributed, she mentioned the old transportation system and the exit became an abandoned subway station

i think that's why Agatha panicked during the first trial and right before the last because she realized that she can't control every thing not even if she tries to manipulate him because he has his own beliefs and then he looks up to the other witches as well so they influence him just as much

Agatha's hallucination being the Darkhold in a baby craddle which has nothing to do with how Nicky died but is exacthy what Jen mentioned is also so brilliant, because he couldn't read Agatha's mind to figure out her worst nightmare so he just went with what Jen said

and putting Agatha, the most antisocial witch he's ever met, in a slumber party was hilarious he really said "punish Agatha" and meant it

it was so much fun rewatching after knowing the twist Lilia called the Road a death trap so every trial was a literal death trap Jen said the green witch is indispensable so when Rio leaves he says "we're right back at the beginning" and they immediately trip on their shoes right back at the beginning he says "I wish Lilia was here" and she just falls out the bookshelf like all these little moments became so much funnier poor guy was really making it up on the spot

and the way both Nicholas and Wanda were haunting the whole thing, Nicky with his song being the catalyst and Wanda with her magic creating it was so bittersweet

i'll admit when i first read this theory after like the first trial i hated it i thought it would be a cheap remake of "oh no a Maximoff is creating a fake reality again" but they managed to make it super fun and exciting and i love it now!

[passions-and-pupils]

This guy. This guy is proof that if you are passionate about something and you talk about it, it will be entertaining

I watched this guy talk about a series of movies that I have no interest in for an entire hour. I watched him go on a rant about the handling of a character I had never heard of in the remake of a game I had never played. It was still entertaining because it was genuine, because viewers feed off passionate, because this guy only seems to talk about things he likes even if those things have nothing to do with his channel. I could listen to him rant for hours about literally anything as long as he felt strongly about it, or at least seemed like it and honestly I don’t think that power is exclusive to Pastra

if you are passionate about something and you want to talk about it, do it in front of a camera and show me the video I will watch it while I draw. Who knows maybe I’ll even know what your talking about once in a blue moon.

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Katharine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen)—This woman. I have been obsessed with her for years. I know the urban legend is a popular one at this point of her walking around set in her underwear when her pants were stolen and she was left with only a skirt, but the pants thing is honestly enough for her to be the hottest in the room in my book. She refused to wear anything else at a time when the public in general and especially the studios did not like that. She was independent, stubborn, and so so very capable. Competency kink anyone? Also, if you want one final way that Katharine's entire life was saying "fuck you" to the establishment, it started young! Her mother took her to suffrage events, and she never got rid of that attitude of justice. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of all the ways she was such a badass that I'm turning into a rambling mess instead.

Jessie Matthews (Evergreen, First a Girl, It's Love Again, Gangway)—known as “the dancing divinity”, jessie matthews was a british musical star of stage and screen in the 20s and 30s - if you're an enjoyer of lavish art deco musicals of the likes of fred and ginger, busby berkeley etc, definitely give her movies a try they are delightful! (tantalizingly there were multiple attempts made to pair her and fred together that never came to fruition - gaumont-british tried to get fred for evergreen and mgm wanted jessie for a damsel in distress.) and for the women in tuxedos enjoyers, her 1935 movie first a girl was the first english language remake of viktor und viktoria, famously later remade with julie andrews.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Katharine Hepburn propaganda:

I'm sure one million people will submit her as an iconic Hollywood star but that iconicness might lead people to forget just how insanely hot she was like she had it ALL she was skilled she was funny she was smart she was beautiful AND she was likely bisexual

The single word I would use to explain Katherine Hepburn's appeal is *range*. In her acting career, that meant covering all the ground between lush period dramas and the comedies she did with Carey Grant and Spencer Tracey. In terms of hotness, it meant an uncanny ability to bring anything from a Dietrich-esque androgyny to some of the best Classic Hollywood Glamour you will ever see.

Katharine hep was so cool. The VIBES, the INDEPENDENCE,,, living life on her own terms.

she just had this.... bearing to her, this power. she could be funny, even silly (like in bringing up baby) but also so regal and elegant. she was nobody's fool and dear GOD that's so hot

Fancam link

She’s not only stunningly gorgeous (those eyes that pierce your soul! a jawline you could cut glass with!) but her delivery and physical presence in roles gives off confidence and authority in such a sexy way (truly the biggest dick energy of Old Hollywood). Her fiery energy in The Philadelphia Story? Unmatched.

God she's. She's so hot y'all. She has the range!!!!! Funny and dramatic and lovely

She IS the transatlantic accent. Classically gorgeous and such a strong personality.

She's literally one of the funniest women to ever live! She goes shot for shot with Cary Grant in Philadelphia Story and we damn well love her for it! She's the most annoying creature to ever live in Bringing Up Baby but she's so insane and funny that we simply cannot help but fall in love with her (and root for her to give Grant an aneurysm!)

i know she's accounted for but i really want to be sure someone has submitted the scene in bringing up baby where she's pretending to be a gangster

She simply stuns onscreen; you cannot do anything but be captivated by her presence. Also a non-gender-conforming icon and mild tumblr celebrity by virtue of that one picture from The Warrior's Husband (stage play).

Katharine Hepburn was out here casually changing the lives of young butch lesbians with her gender swag! She wore pants even when people said she shouldn’t, she refused to marry or have kids, and she wore menswear in at LEAST one movie!

If I start thinking about her face for too long I will cry she is so so hot. Katherine is so charismatic and charming in everything she appears in - watch her adopt a leopard and fall in love with her. Also she has the biggest dick energy ever (she and her pal Lauren Bacall share that accolade). Also had an incredibly long and varied career from screw ball comedies to serious dramas - she’s a queen of the screen and I adore her.

Someone's got to mention it, but she's won the most Oscars out of any performer and is largely considered one of the greatest actresses ever. She's got an incredible voice, an incredible presence, and she absolutely steals every scene she's in. She was private person and deemed standoffish and unapproachable, but she was also profoundly concerned for people's rights and was an outspoken supporter of abortion access. Finally, the Katharine Hepburn slacks look is just iconic. I mean look at her.

(I hope someone else submits real propaganda but just in case they don't:) Cries. Screams. Wails. The woman who singlehandedly made me realize I was bi. A real "do i want to look like her. be her. or be with her.' crisis, where the answer was all three. Holy shit please all three.

Jessie Matthews:

Star of British 1930s stage and screen, she introduced classic songs by Noel Coward and Rogers and Hart to English audiences, and then played perky heroines, but today it’s her genderswapping role in First A Girl that probably gets most attention.

[ninelivesastrology]

SATURN & MARS: The Astrology of Horror

Scream (1996), directed by Wes Craven

The horror genre is my favorite genre in media and within it are some of the best and honestly, extreme examples of the significations of Saturn, the Greater Malefic and Mars, the Lesser Malefic.

Saturn is the Greater Malefic, its nature is cold and dry. It joys in the 12th House. Saturn is the signifier of darkness and dark places, enclosed spaces, restriction, control, secrecy, isolation, illness and death, taboo...

Mars is the Lesser Malefic, it's nature being hot and dry. It joys in the 6th House, a cadent house. It rules aggression, fighting, conflict, injuries, blood, deception, lying, weapons but especially sharp objects...

Starting off with the Slasher who walked while everyone else ran, I'll start with Halloween (1978).

Michael Myers moves slow, a Saturnian signification, but he gets things done. Michael spends a lot of this movie stalking Laurie, a 12th House signification.

Halloween (1978), directed by John Carpenter

I also find that very act of masking to be Saturnian in nature because of Saturn's signification of secrecy and mystery, which is given to the 12th House.

Moving onto my favorite Slasher.

Scream is the ultimate Martian movie to me. The Scream franchise itself is a masterclass in homage to so many horror films before it, but also in the concept of betrayal, something Mars rules. Its tagline is, "It's always someone you know." And in the history of this franchise, the audience had so much anticipation in finding out who Ghostface was in each entry, a true Saturn-Mars mix of mystery and bloodshed.

Scream (2022), directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Ghostface, like many other Slashers, wields a knife, but isn't exempt to using other weapons, such as guns. Mars rules all weapons.

One of my favorite creature features is Alien (1979). I have not seen Romulus! The tagline, "In space, no one can hear you scream."

One of the lesser known significations of the 12th House is travel, so get this, you're on a ship, isolated from everyone, in the middle of deep space while you and your crew members are being hunted by a large creature. Usually, the 12th House rules large animals and I would like to gently debate that the 12th House rules large, foreign creatures as well.

The Xenomorph is the ultimate monster, Saturnian by its appearance: Black. In addition, the 12th House is before birth and I find it funny how the Xenomorph impregnates it's prey, only for it to burst out in the most Martian way.

Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott

Found footage itself is especially Saturnian, since the 12th House rules missing people. I would go even farther to say that the 12th House rules the unseen. So the Paranormal is especially Saturnian in nature, given its cold and dry nature. Saturn is the absence of life and what persists beyond it.

The Blair Witch Project (1999), directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez

Onto another subgenre, one of my favorites, pestilence and death.

Saturn rules death and Mars signifies pestilence and the survival of said pestilence. Most famously, two of my favorite survival horror franchises are Resident Evil and The Last of Us. Resident Evil's entire premise of infection is centered around bioterrorism, starting with the corrupt Saturnian company named Umbrella.

Resident Evil is infamous for its body horror. In this instance, Mars rules body horror due to the painful injuries sustained from the transformation.

Resident Evil 4 Remake (2023)

In The Last of Us, we follow a man who survived the Outbreak, Joel Miller and a young girl named Ellie Williams who survived being bitten and is found to be immune. I find immunity to be Saturnian because your body is suppressing or resisting the infection. The infection itself is Martian as the 6th House rules illnesses.

The Last of Us Part I (2022)

The Cordyceps virus is very Saturn-Mars, given that the fungus attaches itself to the brain and controls it, causing the Infected to sustain its survival aggressively.

The Last of Us Part II (2020)

Survival itself is Martian in nature. Scarcity, a notable Saturnian feature of the Last of Us' intense and highest difficulty, GROUNDED, makes this a unique entry into the survival horror genre across all media. If you know, you know, the Last of Us has a theme of betrayal running through it and with that betrayal eventually comes consequences. Saturn and Mars.

I wanna talk about the Final Girls for a second. We love them. We root for them. We are them. I consider Final Girls to be obviously Venusian, given that the two domiciles of Venus, Taurus and Libra, are the detriment of Mars. Venus finds herself in trouble in the signs Mars rules, Scorpio and Aries.

In traditional astrology, detriment is considered to be the toughest placement for a planet considering it is the opposite of its home, facing conditions it is not equipped for. Certainly, the worst place and the worst time which is a Final Girl thing. Despite this, they still persevere.

Jennifer's Body (2009), directed by Karyn Kusama

If you loved this post and would like to support me as I am a Saturn Return Mommy, you can reblog this post and/or send me a tip on CashApp or purchase a $20 horary reading if you want to know about your life, click this for more details!

Happy Halloween and be safe!

Oh and what's your favorite scary movie? *wink wink*

—Nine

[rottenpumpkin13]

[Spoiler warning]

I have so many thoughts right now....We knew Sephiroth was good person before, but seeing him interact with other people in the demo, he had a sense of humor, was encouraging and HIS CLEAR DISDAIN FOR HOJO MY GOD. Him slashing the incubator tubes because he was against whatever the fuck Hojo was pulling spoke volumes of his character before the incident. And don't even get me started on the incident. The library scene did a fantastic job of showing why and how Sephiroth lost his mind. Honestly, with the shit he found out, who wouldn't?? That man was holed up in there for a week slowly losing touch with humanity as he found out that his entire life had been a lie. The Nibelheim fire was absolutely horrific and it did a great job at showing just how terrible of a tragedy it was. Sephiroth's cruelty and ruthlessness as he slaughtered people who were already suffering made me lose it. That man was pushed over the edge and be became a monster. And then there's the entire sequence of Cloud hyper-focused on looking for his mother and making sure she was alive. That made my heart ache, especially her last words to him (which we all know Sephiroth recites to Cloud when we first see him in Remake) UGH. This game will be the death of me. The 29th cannot come soon enough 😓

[anonymous-archive]

lmao @ this reblog “calling me out” and then blocking me despite apparently beforehand nearly deciding not to quietly block & report me instead of that giant wall of useless text like… i honestly didn’t know how to react/respond initially other than “holy shit dude that’s crazy” and then laugh incredulously but here we go since i’m petty:

first, this is a burner blog i made a week ago maximum and it only has 5 posts (excluding this one) so i’m not sure what you think you’re accomplishing here since i could & would just make another one and repost it all again? i’m under the impression that what would actually happen is the original posts themselves as well as any reblogs get taken down rather than the overall blogs themselves, but if i’m wrong then see above lol.

second, my bad for trying to genuinely, helpfully inform you that unfortunately many others out there don’t have the capacity to realize that you are not an anti and/or won’t read the entire post before assuming. this in turn might hurt your own community since stolitz stans may want to protect themselves from even potentially reading something they consider hurtful and therefore not wasting time by risking it. in fact you just proved my point by reacting and attempting to keep yourself safe from, what, leaks that were hidden behind an active choice to click? i as an individual don’t care that you like that ship so i wasn’t here to harass you or whatever. i didn’t think anything of you for it, that’s not why i spoke up.

third, clearly some people don’t understand “don’t like, don’t engage/read/watch/etc.” especially if you already know the content will upset you! also this large & loud fandom has never learned to keep controversial things on the down-low and ignore it in order to avoid gaining too much attention and inadvertently advertising it to people who otherwise wouldn’t know, but what else can i expect when y’all worship your annoying lord and savior ayylmao? so congrats on opening up the chance for someone to stumble upon your unnecessarily massive post and wanting to take a peek! you can’t control your followers/lurkers so that would be hilarious!

by the way, if you somehow do end up finding what my other hellaverse-critical blog is then… okay that’s fine. it’s not very big and it’d be disappointing if attacked but not a big deal. like i said, it’s easy to move & remake. hate to tell the truth but you do not have the power you wish you had here.

[thehelltingvilleclub]

OKAY OC POSTING

If you don't gimmie your OC lore in the replies I'm gonna take your toes--

Introducing:: May Osewai - Secretary of Manga Theme Songs:: Living Dead Girl - Rob Zombie | She's Out Of Her Mind - blink-182 | FUNERAL GREY - Waterparks Favorite Shit:: Anime Adaptations, Visual novels, Horror / Guro, Battle Royale(s), Monster Movies, Slasher Flicks, Acrylic Stands, Hard Covers, Asian horror, Foreign Films, Evangelion : Neon Genesis, Ghost in the Shell, Corpse Party, Torrent Sites, X-Men, Spawn, Teen Titans, Accurate Translations, Uncensored Doujins, Silent Hill, Serial Experiments : Lain

Japanese Native, although only half japanese, who moved to the suburbs of NY with her father while she was still in middle school. Outwardly, you'd think she wouldn't belong in the Eltingville Club (Aside from.. Girl--) She's quiet, generally keeps to herself.. UNTIL You try to mention anything related to Manga, Mythology Monsters, or Movies, ESPECIALLY foreign movies. A toxic fan just like the rest of them, she belittles "improper" American remakes, English Dub IS for posers, and she will die on the hill that Evangelion is an under rated masterpiece and that nobody actually understands the ending. If she saw how people interpret Serial Experiments: Lain in this day and age of the internet she would actually have a stroke. She became friends with the boys through Pete, though she attended school with all of them throughout their teens. One of her many nicknames was "Sadako", (and yes she would absolutely yell at you if you tried to call her "Samara" instead) due to her generally dead-tired expression and her hair, which used to be significantly longer when she was a kid, to the point that it eventually became her AOL handle (sadako_chan) as a joke to herself. She lives with just her dad, her mom having passed away before they moved to Eltingville, and according to him, Mr. Osewai wanted to try and find her a "less hectic" environment than a tiny Tokyo Apartment. Suffering from the curse of gifted kid burnout and also an only child, she extra didn't have anybody to build social skills with when she was young, so her outlets were manga and cartoons which turned into movies as she got older. She also will randomly blurt out facts she knows about franchises/films she is watching when she is with others (and.. honestly she does it even when she's by herself like a goof), but will get PISSED if people are talking during a scene she likes or something she deems "important to the plot". She also loves to rewatch movies, but gets frustrated when people don't notice or understand things the first time they watch something. She owns dozens, if not nearly a hundred different figures from various franchises, Western or Japanese, including the entire Teen Titans roster as poseable figmas that are practically her prized possession-- That's reserved for her signed poster for the original Battle Royale and her art book for corpse party. She is a bit of a gore weirdo, there's a reason she gets along with Pete after all, so don't be shocked if she starts going off about some random underground 4Chan shit like Metamorphosis on steroids.

Her birthday is September 9th, she thinks Mecha-Fans are a bunch of man-babies that couldn't decide if they wanted to be or fuck Optimus Prime, and absolutely will roundhouse kick you in the shins if you try to use her as an armrest.

Also, some of her favorite game franchises include: Resident Evil/Biohazard, Final Fantasy, Xenoblade, Silent Hill (Yes, even The Room), Mortal Kombat, Corpse Party (obviously), RPG Horror Games, and Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask to name a few. Oh, and the Lego Star Wars and Lego Batman games, but those are guilty pleasures she'll never admit to unless someone offered to play it with her--

[always-a-king-or-queen]

there are literally so many reasons why we don't need a third Narnia adaptation

first of all, while they might not be the most accurate, the Disney movies are actually so good and, in my opinion, still manage to capture the heart and soul of the series and what it's truly about. The characters are each perfectly portrayed; the Pevensies act like actual siblings and yet love each other dearly and would die for each other even through all the petty arguments; the music creates perfect atmosphere and emotion and never fails to make me tear up or get shivers down my spine; and the CGI is honestly just absolutely stunning.

I really do not feel like we need another adaptation by Netflix.

Especially not through Netflix.

Netflix has already been known to mess up so many shows and movies by completely changing the source material or adding in unnecessary things that completely take away from the purpose of the story. I can already see them warping Narnia into something that barely even resembles the books, that strips it of its purpose and simply makes it about a fantasy world, nothing more. I've already seen posts saying that the new movies just can't end the way the books end, that heaven must be explained away, that Susan never forgets and falls down a dark path, that the faith aspect must be taken out so as not to offend new viewers.

Here's the thing.

If you take faith out of Narnia, you remove the very heart of the series. you remove the entire purpose. Because Narnia is entirely about faith, and trust, and Someone greater than yourself who sacrifices everything to save your own traitorous soul. the Disney movies did not shy away from portraying this faith as openly as possible. if anyone was offended, I've never seen proof. I have seen many nonbelievers talk about how much they were affected by Aslan's death, which goes to show that you simply don't have to be Christian to understand what Narnia is about, and to love and enjoy it.

So if these new remakes remove the faith aspect, then what is the point? four siblings go to a magical land and save it from a witch and befriend a talking lion with nothing special about him and live there as kings and queens and return home and live happily ever after? there is no sacrifice, there is no "he's not tame, but he is good," there is no creation, there is no redemption, there is no last battle, there is no "in your world, I have another name", there is no sister straying down a dark path because she has forgotten how to hope, and then returning because her story is unfinished and the road to heaven is paved with flowers that symbolize her name.

so then, what are you left with? Aslan is just a talking lion, nothing more. the stone table never cracks, the sun never rises. "That by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there" is forgotten entirely, because why would Aslan exist in our world if he is merely a talking lion in Narnia? Aslan's country is changed to be something else, and there is nothing about how Aslan suddenly no longer looks like a lion, and how the things that happened after are more great and beautiful than can be described. Edmund's life is never threatened because of his traitorous deeds; Aslan never offers his own life in place of a guilty boy, is never killed, is never resurrected.

the very core of Narnia is removed, and what you are left with is emptiness.

sure, it might make for a good fantasy story nonetheless. you might still have sweeping views and epic music and an intriguing plotline, but something will always feel like it is missing. like there is an empty hole, desperately needing to be filled.

of course, I don't know that all of that will happen; it's just speculation at this point. But I am fairly sure that it is safe to predict these upcoming movies as such. I highly doubt the producers will want to include the faith that shapes Narnia, because according to them, having a faith aspect means less viewers since too many people would be offended.

but if only they would look at the already wonderful existing adaptations, they would know that is simply not the case.