#our horror tends to be more general? like zombie apocalypse sort of thing. everyone's getting hurt

[daz4i]

watching lots of videos abt horror in my free time and i noticed smth interesting. american horror very much follows the "if you do bad things/make irrational decisions, you will get hurt" rule, while japanese horror tends to not care about who the victim of the monster is - you can be a perfect person who's never done anything wrong, you can do everything in your power to avoid the monster, but you'll still get hurt

i think it's an interesting thing to study. I'd love to hear abt horror in other places around the world and what sort of rules they follow, and compare and try to figure out where they came from

i may be wrong, but it's easy to assume that the american rule of horror - do bad things and bad things will happen to you - is very christian. there's other things like leftovers from the hays code (like having sex means you'll die later, for example) but these are usually more abt specific actions, while i'm talking more generally now. i think it's affected by the whole fear of hell, obviously - if you do things right, you get to go to heaven, you get to escape the torment. and even non-christians are affected by these ideas bc this is just what american culture is like.

i can't speculate much abt the japanese rule (or rather, the lack of rules in that regard) bc i'm not as exposed to japanese culture and history as i am to american culture, but i will say, on a personal level, this is way more scary to me 😳 for obvious reasons.

also ngl it can get annoying to hear american youtubers try to analyze japanese horror and fight for their life to find Wrong things the protagonists do in order to justify their torment. i swear they end up demonizing the most mundane shit 😭

[death-death-devil]

I hate how weird dreams are for our system.

Sometimes, who's in the front doesn't matter. (Thank you, Barnabas, for letting me co-con long enough to write this.) The Host is usually the one who actively dreams. People in the front do dream sometimes, but other times they get shoved into its dream, or they just get left in a sort of dormant state in the headspace. It's sort of like a dreamless sleep?

The thing is, our Host's dreams tend to leave it in the headspace, sort of? It's at least connected, though more malleable to the dream's narrative. Usually, we watch out for if whoever is dreaming is having a nightmare, and if so, send into that weird, malleable place someone we think could redirect it.

Tonight, that was my job.

I've seen a few people play along to the dream to sort of blend in, but if anyone else has ended up swept into the narrative, I don't know. They haven't spoken about it if they have. This essentially became my nightmare as much as it was our Host's nightmare.

I've been avoiding naming our Host since it wants to remain semi-anonymous to soothe its own paranoia, but it is polynomial... So I'll pick one of the more generic names it uses for the sake of explaining this dream in a more streamline fashion.

We collectively have a lot of trauma around our high school experience, so it's no surprise the nightmare was loosely about a fucked up scenario in the high school. I hadn't entered yet, but from what Barnabas remembers of sharing the dream: I didn't miss much. Jack had just gotten to school, and there was an assembly called before there was even homeroom. To the context of the dream, this was everyone's first day back after summer.

Jack saw a few faces the dream implanted as friends, some real friends we had back then, some others. Peculiar inclusion was a person who looked like an old abuser's oc (for the sake of streamlined explanation) though he didn't do any of the torment in this. This is around when I got in, supplanting his place in the narrative.

The principal revealed that they (collectively the school?) knew everything about the students. Personalized handouts were given to everyone, with Jack's being a somewhat badly printed, but still entirely accurate depiction of its sketchbook. This came down to the page it has just finished. (My handout was a kill count, though I was shocked I even got one.)

She went on (the principal) to talk about thought crimes and such, sexuality in or out of school being banned, and a lot of other rather dystopian things. At the end of it, I got a bit of a surprise. Jack got up and immediately called this on being a breach of privacy, on several levels. Plenty of other students started chanting, and I joined in if not just out of shock. Jack is usually rather submissive to the whims of school related nightmares. The only other times things like this happened were the zombie apocalypse nightmares we had, where Jack (to its credit) stepped up to the horrors as a natural (dream) badass. If I have to guess when I got swept into the narrative, it was probably in this moment where I was blindsided.

It kept going, explaining not only all the ways this situation was demented, but all the ways it would protest and attempt to organize others. The Principal's retort was that this was all for the sake of everyone's success. Jack came back saying that lots of authoritarian practices masquerade as being for the people's best interest.

In the end, it was said that those who want to stay in the school for food and sleep were welcome (ah, dream logic) and those who didn't were free to go home. (This came with the mention of when class was.) The narrative seemed to take me into account, in a way. I decided I was staying, if not because I thought Jack would. Jack did not. I spotted Jack heading for the halls leading out after I'd had a small argument with one of its friends over the whole affair. Apparently, it was staying with them at their house to avoid the hell of its home, and the fact I would be staying here after all that was a deep offence.

We had a second argument in front of the exit doors, which Jack witnessed. I was trying to say that I had no idea Jack was staying with them, and they just threw a fit over me even implying I'd have stayed there (or assuming that Jack would.) They stormed out after, leaving Jack to go comfort them. In the meantime, I just left. There was someone looking to contract me anyway, and I couldn't be bothered to deal with them both if they were going to be needlessly emotional over a misunderstanding.

(Filled in by Barnabas for me) apparently it told them that it was sure I was just mixed up, since I was at the entrance that second time. They confessed that they hadn't met me in person before that: "not only does he have muscles, not only is he tall, but his voice is deep too?!" being the follow up. The dream's narrative decided we (me, Jack, and this friend) had been in a QPR. It told them that it loved it's boyfriend (irl husband) and that it liked us, and that none of these relationships have changed. That make up is what brought us together in the dream again.

(There was also apparently a small dance session? While waiting for them to fully calm down afterward? Apparently that was fun. God, dreams are weird.)

I was talking to my new contractor this whole time. Nothing entirely interesting. He communicated through mostly grunts and growls most of the discussion, all of which I interpreted without fault (and so did Jack.) When Jack caught up to us on the impossibly long walk back to somewhere that probably wouldn't be anyone's home, Jack gladly caught up to me.

When Jack saw I was talking to someone, it stopped through. It went far ahead, and then slowed down, trying to become a part of the crowd (as though I wouldn't notice?) It eventually was even with us, and my client made a rather disparaging comment about Jack being quite small and frail looking. I snapped back, saying that Jack was the one who rescued me and gave me asylum, and he'll pipe the fuck down about any opinions he has. There was active apology, so I was satisfied.

After a bit, we heard a whistle. Loud. Shrill. A girl on my side of the crowd of people who had yet to take separate paths... She complained that her whistle seemed broken, as it wasn't supposed to sound like that at all.

(Tumblr cut off the rest of this draft, so I'm editing the rest back in.)

Weather sirens came next, all sounding like more distant versions of her whistle. The crowd of people, us included, all had the immediate reaction that we should run. The problem was that after some running, a tornado was before us.

I nearly got pulled into it. My client grabbed me, and Jack grabbed him just in case. The both of them inched back as quickly as possible from the slow moving tornado, until I was touching the ground again.

At this point, we bolted. My client has let go of me, but Jack grabbed my hand. He grabbed it's while it was giving me a pep talk. Death-by-tornado was new, and as many times as I've died in source, I never entirely liked it. With this context, the comfort was nice.

The sky went dark above us though, and that's what woke Barnabas.

I think the strangest inclusion is the idea I'm in a QPR with our host. It doesn't exactly have interest in a relationship like that, and I've never even touched the idea. Dreams are weird, but they do leave you shaken for a bit--but that part has me mostly confused.

What a fucking dream.

[askmerriauthor]

Soft Apoc Ideas - Zombies

Because @techmomma mentioned it before and now my brain’s been rolling it around in my head.  Discussion of Zombie films below, along with some potential spoilers for certain films used as examples.

So a “Soft Apocalypse” is a narrative genre where the end of the world/fall of civilization has occurred, but it wasn’t some big cataclysm.  Things just kind of... fizzled.  A slow ease into the grave rather than an earth shattering kaboom.  And, more often than not, the end isn’t really the end - it just marks the conclusion of one method of civilization giving rise to a new one growing atop the ruins of the old, still clinging to some ideas of that past.  As far as end of the world stories go, the Soft Apoc tends to be a little more introspective, focusing on the feelings and thoughts of the survivors rather than the disaster itself.  Often the actual cause of the end of the world isn’t really discussed in great detail or even at all - it might purely be an background concept that sets the stage rather than the focus of events.  It’s not about what happened then, but what’s happening since.

The Zombie genre, on the other hand, is a lot more immediate and active in it’s threat.  We usually see Zombie stories taking place either immediately before or immediately after an outbreak, where the presence of the undead is the primary source of danger for the cast to contend with.  What Zombies represent varies wildly from story to story.  They may be presented as a biblical apocalypse, the result of science gone amok, the flaws of man’s hubris, an analogy to man’s selfish consumerism, or even just an unfeeling, inevitable force of nature that can only be endured but not defeated.  As @techmomma observed, it’s difficult to write a Soft Apoc concept given the two genres’ contrasting elements.  But not impossible; Zombies is such a densely saturated genre in and of itself that there’s always examples to be found.

Some good examples in recent cinematic history include “Zombieland”, “Sean of the Dead”, “The Dead Don’t Die” and to some degree “Warm Bodies”.  These four immediately leap to mind as being examples of the most common examples of different outcomes of a Zombie infestation.

“The Dead Don’t Die” is a quirky, fourth-wall-breaking novelty film set in a cozy little nowhere town, with the focus being on the small time sheriff and deputy pair who find themselves caught in the end of the world.  The dead rise and begin killing everyone, but the characters meet the whole conflict with a weirdly passive, bemused reaction both for the situation at hand and their own behavior.  The cause of the Zombies is never explained and, in the end, it’s assumed that all of mankind will die in a hopeless, slow-spreading downfall.

“Zombieland” is another comedy/action-based film where the bulk of the story is told post-outbreak, where a group of survivors is making their way through the ruins of civilization.  It’s mostly a vehicle for amusing banter and gratuitous violence toward Zombies, all played for humor as everyone involved is 100% genre savvy.  In this case the threat of Zombies is still active and present, but more easily contended with despite not being solvable.  The cast are simply living what time they have left as best they can, knowing the world they knew is gone forever but trying to have fun on their way out.

 “Warm Bodies” is the curious addition of a romance story told between Zombies and Survivors, where the primary protagonist is a Zombie himself.  In this story the Zombies have the previously unknown potential to return to life and gradually re-integrate with the remnants of Human society, even joining forces with mankind to fend off undead that have gone too far beyond the point of no return.  The story is firmly in the Soft Apoc style as it ends with a hopeful note of restoring both the world and the still-salvageable undead.

“Sean of the Dead” has all the trappings of your standard Zombie movie, albeit told very tongue-in-cheek.  It doesn’t seem to take the outbreak seriously right up until the mid-point in the story where the shoe drops and everyone realizes “yes, this is in fact horrific” as the tone of the movie changes instantly into straight-up horror.  But the rug is pulled out from us again as it’s revealed that it’s only horror because the cast we’ve been following were a bunch of idiots who put themselves into the worst situation possible.  At the end of the movie the military rolls up in full force, logically wipes out the shambling hordes of Zombies in a hail of gunfire, and contains the outbreak very swiftly.  Humanity at large never really collapsed and, in the last minutes of the movie, we see how mankind has adapted to the presence of remaining elements of the undead.  Such as using them as mindless slave labor, for callous daytime television entertainment, and very lightly touching on what sort of social and personal impact the remaining presence of Zombies has on individuals.  It leaves the audience with the understanding that all it will take is these idiots doing something dumb again for the outbreak to return and likely be quashed just as quickly, but they’ll never learn.

While I don’t have an immediate example off the top of my head, I do have my own idea for how a Soft Apoc Zombie setting might go.  I’m certain I’m not the first to have this idea, so if anyone can send me some titles that already delve into this concept, I’d appreciate it.

My basic idea would be that the Zombie Outbreak, whatever may have caused it, led to the collapse of most elements of society but not all.  It was also in the vaguely recent past - maybe within 100 years of the present story taking place.  While there are still roving Zombies out there in the world, they’re not an active “unstoppable hordes of millions consuming all they cross” threat any longer.  They did their damage, were widely defeated or just fizzled out on their own over time, and now there’s only traces of them left.  Their presence is less of an overwhelming tidal wave swallowing up everything and treated more like “Yeah, we always get flooded this time of year, so we built our houses on stilts and have good water-damage insurance” sort of disaster.   The real issue is that the infection rate of Zombification is 100%: it is known and completely guaranteed that every currently living person and any young that are born in generations to come, upon death, will rise as a Zombie.  This is just how the Human life cycle operates now - you’re born, you grow old, you die, you come back as a Zombie.  No exceptions, no cures, no way to avoid it.  So then the story becomes less a matter of trying to solve Zombification and more of an exploration of how people react, how society changes, and what sort of practices come out of this known state of being.  How does society change to protect itself knowing that any accidental death could potentially cascade into countless more?  How do people address end-of-life preparation both in practical and spiritual aspects knowing they will shortly rise as a Zombie?  How do art, culture, medicine, and science change to factor in this new facet of the life cycle?  How is the nature of Zombies and the original outbreak recognized so long after the fact - is it still seen as a disaster, or has it warped into legend and taken on elements of a cultural origin tale?  It can even be pushed out further to address environmental questions, such as what happens to Earth’s ecosystem when the food chain is so heavily upset, if some or any animals also became Zombified, what sort of impact there is on the environment with the shift both in population/production as well as the sudden presence of so much methane and nitrogen in the atmosphere from all the dead wandering around.

Despite all my chatter on this stuff, I actually hate the Zombie genre in general because it’s so often nothing but grim hopelessness and gratuitous suffering - same for the Disaster/End of the World genres by and large.  So it should be little surprise that my personal exploration of the medium would be “Zombies, but where everything except Zombies is what’s actually important”.

[officialthiamlibrary]

Meet The Mods - iftheskyisthelimit

We’ve had a few requests to do something similar to our “Behind The Screens” features in order to introduce ourselves, and we felt that after around a year of running this blog, and having another few people come on board along the way that now would probably be a good time to do it! 

The idea is that we’ll each take a turn at filling out and posting one of these so that you guys can to know us all a little better including our own personal tastes/preferences and get a little bit more of an idea of how we all work and what we each bring to the team etc…

About You

Username/Name: 

iftheskyisthelimit / Lisa

AO3/Tumblr: 

https://archiveofourown.org/users/iftheskyisthelimit / http://iftheskyisthelimit.tumblr.com/ 

How did you find your way to the Thiam fandom? What about them drew you in? 

I’d lurked in the Teen Wolf fandom for a while on Tumblr, and became really interested in Theo’s character and his story since he’d shown up in Season 5 (okay at first it was his looks that got me interested… let’s be honest), which evolved into being interested in his backstory when we found out a bit more about him. It wasn’t until his return in Season 6 that I enjoyed watching their characters together and their interactions and started looking around more on Tumblr for their characters that I discovered it wasn’t just me... then I randomly came across the Thiam ship through seeing some fics on Tumblr and found the Official Thiam Library as result of that... 

Using a sentence, where the word count is either equal to or less than the number of letters in your two favorite Teen Wolf episode names, tell us about yourself. (ex, Motel California + Werewolves of London = 33 ; Raving + Galvanize =15)

Memory Found + Apotheosis = 21 - I’m slightly quirky but serious, love music, reading and travelling... kinda funny and always overly organised. Can’t ever cut something short...

What’s one thing about you or your life that we’d be surprised to know about?

Do you want serious, interesting or fun facts? I’ll do both as they might surprise people. Serious/boring: I have at least 3 chronic illnesses which tend to floor me, hence my long absences between writing & updating what I’m working on. Interesting: I can speak/read/understand around 5 languages and I’m a bit of a different cultures & sociology nerd.

One other thing I guess is when I get interested in a topic I get interested and have to know aallllll the ins and outs of it and thoroughly research it, so I’m probably full of boring random facts about a bunch of things that come in handy on general knowledge quizzes, but which no-one has any interest in knowing...

Other Shows/Movies You Follow:

Does too many to mention count as an answer? No? Okay… In no particular order *deep breath* 

Shows: The Handmaids Tale, Animal Kingdom, The 100, Vikings, Stranger Things, All American, Riverdale, Scream, Supernatural, Parks and Rec, Vampire Diaries, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, Twelve Monkeys, Shadow Hunters, Game Of Thrones, Reign, American Horror Story, Buffy… There are literally a ton more but I really can’t think on them at the moment….

Movies: I can’t really say that I follow movies per-se… if I had to choose I’d say Marvel movies though if that counts as an answer? Umm… genre wise I like a wide range but mainly gravitate towards comedy, action and thriller movies. Or something with a good twist in the story where it either throws what you thought you were watching on its head, or you get an “aaahhhhh that’s was happening” moment. To watch a horror, it has to have that something that makes me want to watch it or get invested in it… whether it’s a character I really relate to or can get invested in, or a really good story. My favourite horror is probably Haunting In Connecticut, and I saw Midsommar recently and thought it was really amazingly done!

Other Fandoms You Follow:

I don’t really follow a lot of fandoms if I’m honest. I would probably say after Teen Wolf I follow the Marvel, The 100 and Supernatural fandoms more. Mainly the Captain America/Steve/Bucky fandoms. I love a good discussion about Animal Kingdom too!

Other Favourite Characters from shows/movies?

Uuuuhhhh…. Okay you asked for it, I was going to explain my reasons for why I love each but I’d be here all day and this part alone would end up turning into an essay.

Steve Harrington (Stranger Things), April Ludgate (Parks and Rec) , Sam Winchester (Supernatural), Craig Middlebrooks (Parks and Rec), Mickey Milkovich (Shameless US), Bucky Barnes (Marvel), James Cole (Twelve Monkeys), Jack Kline (Supernatural), Michael Langon (American Horror Story), Catherine de Medici (Reign), Constance Langdon (American Horror Story), Dean Winchester (Supernatural), Alec Lightwood (Shadow Hunters), Anya Jenkins (Buffy), Raphael Santiago (Shadow Hunters), Stephane Narcisse (Reign), Kai Parker (Vampire Diaries), John Murphy (The 100) 

What do you like to create (writing/art/videos)? 

I’d really love to be creative enough to make art or videos, but I’m really not! I’m far more comfortable with writing… I find it a lot easier to plan a story, or just to start writing and let the words flow that way and see where it goes. It’s a good way for me to express myself and to work through feelings or to just switch off for a while and create words on a page.

Do you only create for Teen Wolf/Thiam?

I have written for Supernatural in the past and I’m planning to write a Raphael fic for Shadow Hunters at some point and maybe a John Murphy one because I’ve not found many for him that cater to my angsty tastes when there’s so much that can be explored... But at the moment yes it’s only for Teen Wolf. I’ve also posted one Sceo fic which I would like to continue as well!

Which genres do you prefer reading and creating for?

Angst, angst, angst… did I mention angst?? It just feels right to me to write angstier fics, the words and ideas just seem to flow really well, which is a surprise as I’m not really an angsty person in life. It’s just what I’ve always gravitated towards writing and I find a lot better to express myself in that way. I have a humour/angst WIP which I decided to attempt a while ago and I did quite enjoy writing something a little different from what I normally do and people seemed to enjoy it.

If your creative process was a person, what type would they be? What would they do? Wear? Listen to? How do they handle conflict?

Quite probably the most disorganised messiest person alive… No not really… just sorta… kinda… maybe… In all seriousness, they’d be half organised and half “ lets see where this road takes us”. They would probably wear all black all day every day, and be a half emo kid who listens to punk pop and emo music from their teens with a healthy mix of dance and sad songs. Handling conflict? We don’t do that here… we bottle up our feelings and hide them away until they come out in the wrong ways. No really… I think they’d express themselves pretty clearly with 1000 words instead of 100.

Official Thiam Library

How did you find the Official Thiam Library?

I found the Official Thiam Library through searching the Theo Raeken tags on Tumblr and seen the page name pop up a few times, I had a look at the page not long after and followed pretty quickly, I needed my Theo/Thiam fix and this page covered it very well!

First impressions?

“Woah, they’re on the ball!” and then when I saw a few of the events the page done I was really impressed at how often they posted recommendations and how they could organise it all.

How did you come to be involved on the mod team?

I filled in the form for Beta Readers and Helpers for the Thiam Big Bang, I’d have loved to have participated but I didn’t know if I’d have been able to commit to having such a large work completed on a deadline, so I thought I’d offer to help in another way, having helped to run the Supernatural SummerGen for a few years. Tiffany got back to me pretty quickly about it and I came on board at that point.

What do you feel that you bring to the team?

Uuuhhh… I hate these types of questions haha! I really feel like I mostly bring my organisational skills, along with the way that like to try and help out where I can in the background with writing/explaining things or getting back to people with asks/emails etc... With the Big Bang I brought my experience of things I’d learned from the Supernatural events I’d worked on too which I think/hope was of use?

How do you help out?

Mainly what I’ve answered above applies to this question too I think?

What would you like to see for the Official Thiam Library over the next year?

I’d really love to see the page continue… continue on as is, doing a few more fandom events, grow as a page and fandom... also to help keeping the fandom going which is important right now I think… we’ve managed it so far though! We were just speaking about how thrilled we are that the fandom is still going strong. I also think it’s important to give older and newer fandom creators the recognition & cheer that they deserve too, which can be done through reblogging/recommendations and different events too. 

 Cute BTS Questions

Let’s imagine you’ve landed in a Zombie apocalypse, Walking Dead/Zombieland style. You’re among seven survivors–yourself and six characters from Teen Wolf. Which five would be your first choice for survival, entertainment, etc? And who would be the sixth character, the one you’d willingly push in front of a rage-filled zombie mob given the first chance? 

I can’t help but feel that my choice for the last part will be unpopular but here goes:

Theo and Chris for survival… they seem like they’d both be good to have around in this sort of situation, Stiles for entertainment because he had his funny moments and would keep everyone going I think. Melissa because we all need a mother figure who knows when to be tough but can also provide you with the loving support you need. Scott because… well… he’s a the alpha and we’d need someone to lead our small group and take charge when needed. 

Who would I willingly throw to the zombie mob given the first chance? Allison and Kira are both a tie here. Can’t I throw them both?? I never really liked Allison as a character… I don’t even really know why I just never gelled with her as a character I would like or could even get behind. Kira… ugh… just ugh… I feel like she was quite a forced character, they tried too hard to make her this cooky/funny character who could also kick ass and it just came off wrong to me… I never really warmed to her as she just felt forced. 

If you could read only 5 fanfictions for an entire year, which would you choose? Thiam or another fandom, if not Thiam, which fandom? 

In no order at all because I never tire of reading any of them:

1 - Airplanes by Captainmintyfresh - Teen Wolf - Thiam fanfiction

2 - Despite The Threatening Sky And Shuddering Earth (They Remained) by praximeter (Zimario)  - Captain America - Steve/Bucky fanfiction

3 - The Call by DemonzDust - Teen Wolf - Sceo fanfiction

4 - The Crow On The Cradle by Refur - Supernatural fanfiction

5 - Gotta Have Faith by arxiver - Captain America - Steve/Bucky fanfiction

You are our sensei and us your pupils, can you impart any life/writing wisdom? 

Life wisdom: Don’t sweat the small stuff... seriously… it wastes so much time and energy that you could be using for other things. If you can’t control it or you don’t feel it’ll be bothering you this time next year, then don’t let it bog you down.    People will come and go, that’s a part of life, take the lessons that they taught you from their time in your life (whether positively or negatively) and use them wisely. 

Writing wisdom: Don’t force yourself. If you’re having an hour, a day, or a week where the words or ideas won’t come then don’t force it to happen, you’ll only feel worse. Step back, put on some music which suits the tone of whatever you’re writing and try to get in the mood of your story that way, it’s amazing the words that can come or the complete change in direction you can go from doing that. 

Finally, what’s next for you?

Hopefully getting back into the swing of things with the Official Thiam Library and writing more again, getting ready for the Reverse Big Bang, and planning a few things in my personal life, like a few trips, my wedding and a house move (yes… I’m becoming a boring adult and it’s a scary new world!)

[theravencroft]

Towards A Less Sexy Apocalypse Or, Do 70 Million People Shit In The Woods?

I harbor a love of post-apocalyptic writing that dates back to The Cold War, because I came of age when dad books about Soviet tanks charging through The Fulda Gap were all the rage. The current wave of post-apocalyptic books inspire a sort of rough romance amidst the fantasy of prepping, imagining riding around in your modified dune buggy with an AK gunning down the zombie hordes or the undead or whatever other monsters are out there.

But where, dear friend, do you poop? 

Even Immortan Joe and his coterie of wives had to poop somewhere, and this is something we don’t often see portrayed in the literature. The truth of the matter is a lot less sexy: you’re less likely to die from the killer walking corpses than anything else out there. Millions of walking corpses shambling around and millions of dead corpses rotting create all matter of disease-ridden filth. 

One good rain shower washes all that into the rivers. 

You drink from the river downstream.

You die, eventually, shooting liquid from every orifice because you got cholera.

I am going to say “shit” a lot in the post, by the way. 

One of the most important--but decidedly unsexy--parts of modern civilization is readily available, clean, drinkable, fluoridated water, and we do take it for granted. 

A very general guideline can be 3-4 liters of water per day to stay alive, more if you’re, say, tilling the fields of your subsistence farm to try and carve out a living now that modern civilization has been destroyed by The Bomb. And consider all the other things we use water for. There’s all the cooking, the laundry, and the hygiene. 

Let’s talk about hygiene for a moment: Washing your hands is a very modern idea. In fact, it was in the late 1840s that the idea occurred to doctors that hey, maybe we should wash all this blood and stuff off our hands, and it took substantially longer to catch on. 

If you’ve been on a camping trip and don’t have access to a stream, you know you tend to get a little funky by the end. If you’re drinking from cantines and rainwater traps, you’re probably disinclined to waste water that could be saving your life or getting yourself through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on washing your hands, especially when they just get dirty anyway. 

Ah, but perhaps your raiders will just pillage the local supermarket and get all the bottled water there.

One of the problems I have with the theory of the supermarket as survival cache is supermarkets don’t actually have that much food in them. It seems like a lot when you’re doing your weekly shopping, but you’re actually at the end of a very long chain of suppliers. Most businesses today operate using a “just in time” chain of production, where they forecast demand and then get in what they think they’ll need, then put it out where it sells so they don’t have to keep it for long.

This is where I break some bad news to you: That’s why they never seem to have it “in the back” when you ask. There’s usually not much “in the back” unless they’ve just gotten a pallet in. Usually it’s a nice excuse to hang out and make fun of you with whoever else got sent back there. Sorry. 

As a child that grew up in the South, I can tell you that any weather stronger than a thunderstorm is preceded with dire warnings to BUY BREAD AND MILK. I never knew why. I don’t think anyone knows why. But you go into the supermarket and all the bread and milk is gone. Likewise, when a natural disaster like a hurricane or big storm is coming, the shelves are gone of anything tasty or even useful. Hope you like radioactive beets or those weird mixed vegetables we used to get in a grade school cafeteria.

To say nothing of the simple fact that literally everyone else is going to have the same idea of heading to the grocery store. And that’s without taking into account all the rotting perishables, themselves additional vectors of disease. If you haven’t smelled rotting chicken and spoiled milk together, I suggest you don’t. The linoleum floors are likely to be covered with the vomit of those that tried before. 

And that’s not even bringing up the biggest issue of all. 

Let’s talk about shitting: Where are you going to shit?

Imagine trying to find a public bathroom in any major city. A former work colleague and I used to play a game in the morning when we went to San Francisco. The game is “How far can we get before we see a pile of human shit on the sidewalk?” 3 blocks was the record.

Until recently, the public sewer was “the street when it rains” and if you lived in a modern utopia, they may have bothered to cut a ditch in the roadside so you weren’t knee deep in human filth. It’s still like that in many cities of the world and even if you have a pretense of a sewer system, the fallback if the sewer system backs up is just dumping it into the nearest body of water.

Imagine a rainstorm in a post-apocalyptic city with knee or waist-high water filled with dead bodies and all the effluences and leavings of human civilization. We already know what that looks like. It’s called Hurricane Katrina. And that’s with a FEMA and local effort to clean up the debris and chaos. What if it just hangs around? 

To say nothing of finding toilet paper or, like I said above, washing your hands. And you’re not going to use precious potable water cleaning out your butthole. C’mon now. We’re among friends here. 

Ah, but you’ll take to the woods, you say. Just bury it in a hole in the backyard. Perhaps you even have dreams of composting toilets in your tiny post-apocalyptic house. We can entertain that idea, certainly, and that may be a suitable solution for a small family in a remote area where a hole in the ground. But the estimated population of Europe in 1340 was close to 70 million. Can they all, dear reader, shit in the woods?

That’s not really a solution that scales. A few people can use an outhouse. But get yourself a proper raiding gang or even the beginnings of a post-apocalyptic cult, and that outhouse is going to start filling up fast. Even nutritionally deprived apocalypse survivors poop a lot, and that’s assuming you can dig a hole and bury it without hitting the water table you’re drinking from. And just a little bit of the wrong bacteria or virus in the wrong water going into your mouth means you spend what’s left of your life praying for the sweet release of death, because there’s something else we aren’t going to have.

Medicines.

It’s a New Age fantasy that all those herbs are waiting out there in the woods to be discovered and, even if they are, are you suddenly going to become an expert on herbal lore. The truth of the matter is you depend on antibiotics. Even if you’re not taking them yourself, they’re what keep that guy in the next cube that insists on coming in from coughing infectious bacteria into your face when he starts bragging about how he’s never missed a day.

Let’s not even mention vaccines because good god that is the stupidest debate of all time and isn’t even a debate.

But we can mention them for the sake of this: You step on a rusty nail in The Wasteland and you’re not getting a tetanus shot. 

Okay, and we can mention them for the sake of this: All those dogs and cats that survive us (my cats hide under the bed just for the sake of doing so, they’ll survive When The Nukes Drop) won’t be getting rabies shots anymore. Or any shots, really. So add tetanus and rabies to measles, mumps, whooping cough, and everything else coming back because Kale Smoothie Junior couldn’t get a stick in his precious arm.

And then there’s the less urgent drugs: Raise your hand if there’s a drug you take every day to survive. Think of mundane things beyond even antibiotics. Heart pills. Insulin injections. Vitamin supplements. Mood stabilizers. Imagine the entire drug supply chain has gone away. Grandpa doesn’t get his heart pills, you don’t get your insulin, there’s no blood transfusions, and if a limb gets infected you get a leather strap to bite and a shot of whiskey before a carpenter cuts your leg off with a saw.

Moving beyond the obvious medical issues, let’s discuss the one addiction pretty much everyone on the planet has: Caffeine. Imagine everyone that has soda, tea, and coffee going through withdrawals at once. Sure, if you’re lucky enough to live in Kenya or Colombia, you’ll be rolling in the stuff but it’s not like any of us know what a coca leaf looks like or how to synthesize caffeine. It’s not going to be the zombies that get you. It’s going to be the red-eyed zombie that didn’t get twelve lattes yesterday and is really trigger happy as a result. 

Let’s not even discuss smoking, good lord. Every smoker in the world suddenly going cold turkey. Think how pissy they are in our world. Imagine how pissy they’ll be in the Wasteland.

Now that’s the real horror show. 

[sending-the-message]

I'm Hiding In A Mall Bathroom With A Fire Axe by molotok_c_518

I come out occasionally for food, but otherwise, I have been hiding in there fr several weeks.

The mall has been empty. No customers, no employees... everyone is outside, somewhere else, and that is what is keeping me mostly safe.

...and it's all thanks to some dumbass redneck who stole an experimental technology, and doomed us all.

I'm not sure if it has spread out beyond the city. For all I know, the National Guard has us quarantined to keep the violence contained. All I know is, I am hiding to keep myself alive and sane.

Let's back up, though. It's important that the world understand that I didn't do this to destroy us all. I did this to save lives, which makes this all the more tragic.

About 15 years ago, my sister died. Cancer... more specifically, an inoperable brain. We watched as she wasted away, in agony, while doctors tried first to save her life, then save her self, then "make her comfortable." It was like living in a horror movie.

It killed my father; the stress ruined his health, and he died of a heart attack while eating a bagel in his car. My mother took up drinking to cope with the double tragedy, and to this day she spends every waking moment in an alcoholic stupor.

I decided that I would dedicate my life to making sure this stopped happening.

I wasn't very good at biology, but I got good, and combined it with my abilities as a programmer. I threw myself into studying nanotechnology, and puzzling out how I would program nanobots (robots built on a microscopic scale) for complex surgery. I gathered like-minded individuals, and basically infected them with my vision of a troop of 'bots carrying out the kinds of life-saving surgery that was generally deemed too invasive and destructive to perform.

We set up shop on the campus of our local campus of the state university. After painstakingly applying for grants and donations to fund this research (which was hard, as no one wanted to put "real" surgeons out of work), we managed to get the money and time to begin.

It took 10 years, and numerous dead ends (examples: metal didn't work, and tended to degrade and poison the patient; ceramic was too dense to work properly, or so my materials guys said) to finally strike on the perfect solution:

We took a microorganism, and programmed it at the DNA level (creating a compiler that translated my proprietary language to "the machine language of the cells" took months) to repair damaged and infected tissue. A host of them was injected into the bloodstream, and they sought out tumors, nerve damage, torn intestinal sections, etc. The host would swarm these anomalies, and repair them by "eating" the non-viable tissue, replicating more of itself from the protein contained in it, then stimulating the natural regenerative properties of the body to replace the damaged tissue. If anomalies cropped up again (like cancerous tissue), it would sense them, "eat" a bit deeper until the cancer was gone, and try again. Once it stopped sensing cancer, and the area had healed, it would wait a set period of time (usually 8 hours), then "die" and be flushed from the body.

Testing, failing, recoding the DNA in the "meatbots" (as we affectinately referred to them), testing again... years passed, and we finally got consistent successful trials in rats.

In fact, we got miraculous results from rats: We were literally raising them from the dead.

We discovered it by accident, when we were trying to find the optimal time to inject after subjects were poisoned. Several of our test rats had ingested ricin, as a way of finding if the meatbots would save them (it worked). The ones we injected last had died... but then they popped back to life.

It was scary, actually.

The moral ramifications were immediately obvious to us: a world without death would rapidly become overpopulated, and the means to restrict access (by pricing the treatments higher, by restricting production, etc.) would get decried as unethical, or even tyrannical.

We decided, as a group, never to mention this side effect to anyone outside the organization. We instructed everyone to stay quiet about it, and if it did leak, we would terminate the employee and deny everything.

Since we had successful tests, we chose to move on the primate trials. It required a massive recoding of the meatbot programming, as they were set for rodent physiology and anatomy, and regrowing our stock.

As a result, an error crept in: The "killswitch" that was built into the original 'bots got commented out. They didn't become inert and get flushed; instead, they replicated using the "ambient" protein in the blood, and invaded the rest of the body.

I caught the error after one of our monkeys (test subject P1-1) started eating itself to replenish the protein in its blood stream. The wounds bled meatbots. I deleted that recording after we all agreed that no one should watch the poor thing destroy itself.

As I was frantically restoring the killswitch to the rest of the meatbot stock and making sure there were no repeats, our security chief discovered an anomaly in the security logs.

We had a security guard who was stalking a scientist in another department of the science facilities on campus. Somehow, his key card was still left active, and was used to access the "Lazarus Room" where we kept the meatbots. They were sort of clever, in that they put some protein mix into the storage tank to try and cover the depleted 'bots... but didn't think that we kept track of that protein.

It took us several weeks to find the culprit: A Kentucky-born guard named Bobby called in sick for an entire week, and then just stopped calling.

Our chief got together several of his guys to check up on him. An hour later...

"Hey, Dr. {Smith}, this is Chief Red. We need you here. Now. Something went horribly wrong."

"'Something', Chief?" I asked. "Be specific."

"Not on an open line. And definitely not if you have eaten." With that, he hung up.

The address was 15 minutes away. I took the time to stop at Taco Bell and have a burrito, because there was no way it could be as bad as he said.

It wasn't.

It was much, much worse.

The house itself was a tiny two-bedroom bungalow on the outskirts of the city. It was a bit beaten up around the edges, but you could tell it was well-cared for in better times.

Inside, in the living room, were the guard and his wife. They had been zip-tied back-to-back, with their arms tightly tied to their sides.

Those arms were chewed to shreds. Our meatbots were oozing from the gashes, which were rapidly healing themselves.

The two were struggling to get out of their bonds, and were trying to bite into anyone getting near them. "Hungry," the wife moaned. "We're so hungry..."

There was a spoiled-meat smell permeating the air, the result of hundreds of empty containers and plastic wrappings from grpund beef, fast food, and raw beef, as well as shreds of meat and flesh that were strewn along the floors and stuck to the walls.

One of the guards was limping. Bobby had taken a chunk out of his calf when he wandered too close, and the resulting wound was being bandaged by his buddy.

I really regretted that burrito.

Just when I thought it had gotten as bad as it could possibly get, though... it got worse.

See, they had also tried to eat several local animals. Those that had escaped had picked up meatbots, and had spread them to other animals.

Some of those animals had attacked humans. Those humans had picked up meatbots.

Within a week of discovering Bobby and his wife, we had an entire section of town infected with meatbots, which drove them to try and eat as much meat as they could get to feed the replication.

Within a month, no one in town was left unaffected. People ran through the streets trying to eat each other, or any animal they could get their hands on. Wounds would close immediately as chunks were torn from flesh, or gunshot wounds were inflicted.

Headshots? Healed in hours.

The only thing I saw that stopped them from coming back was full immolation. The poor fucker I saw do this screamed and laughed at the same time as he burned away to ash... and it was a close thing, as he was healing almost as fast as he was burning away.

I tried to cure some of them. I injected Bobby and his wife with the new meatbots, with the killswitch reinstated. The old 'bots ate them.

I ended up burning them both away. It was better than Bobby deserved, in my opinion, and I felt horrible about his wife... but she looked at me and thanked me was I poured kerosene over them both and lit the match.

...and so here I hide. I've seen Dawn of the Dead, and I locked the doors to the mall like the protagonists of every version of the movie did. I hide in the bathrooms, where I can hear the slightest whisper of sound in the doorways and be ready to defend myself.

I have stepped out on the roof, and watched an orgy of self-cannibalism play out in a parking lot before a horde of the infected moved on.

Hunger has overtaken logic and compassion. All that drives human and animal alike is the need to eat, and to feed the dreadful miracles that keep them whole.

People have semi-jokingly feared the Zombie Apocalypse. This is much, much worse.

[charliestaplerasmedia]

Analysis of Film openings by Charlie Stopler

The Watchmen   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVUDdQS2UxA

Straight away, it is a clearly a superhero film. The opening credits montage set to Bob Dylan’s timeless “The times they are a-changin” is well constructed and sets the nature and tone of the twisted world of Watchmen to great effect. The montage opens by introducing the reality of real-world superheroes in the 1940s with Hollis Mason, dressed as Nite Owl, punching out a criminal as cameras flash around him. Instantly noticeable is the  decision to present the entire scene in slow motion, a brilliant inclusion that, when combined with Dylan’s tune, creates a hypnotic, nostalgic effect perfect for the arrangement, while “warner bros. pictures and paramount present” is above his head in large text. A few shots later, Snyder captures an image of the minutemen posing for a picture in 1940. The costumes and general aesthetic work in these early depictions are authentic and stunning.

Most notably, the montage works to detail the turbulent nature of superhero popularity as depicted in the media leading up to the present-day of the novel. After initial successes and stardom, heroes are shown to be murdered, retire, go mad, and fall out of favour with the public. In sequence, Dollar Bill is shown dead at a crime scene with cameras flashing about, Sally Jupiter is shown pregnant at a party with the rest of the minutemen under the banner “Happy retirement Sally”, and Mothman is shown attempting to flail and fight his way out of the arms of men in white coats taking him into an ambulance. Snyder depicts the rise and fall of the original Watchmen superhero.

Some of the most fun moments of the montage come from depicting bits and pieces of Watchmen’s alternate version of history. The heroes of Watchmen are shown to have had a direct impact on many major historical moments of the 60s. One shot faithfully recreates the Zapruder tape assassination of JFK only to pan away to a hill, revealing the Comedian incriminatingly  holding a rifle, while another twists the moon landing by showing Dr. Manhattan’s face in the reflection of a space helmet, while yet another depicts Richard Nixon being elected for a third term. All these things help to add to the idea that in this film, these superheros have had a direct impact on our past.

Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJCvU-91eAo

The great thing about the sequence is the explosive start when a fuse is lit as the music begins. As its lit “Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions present” is shown in large text, establishing the main distributors and producers. This is followed by “A Tom cruise Production”, showing that he is a huge part of the films success.This fuse is subsequently featured throughout the entire sequence and ties the whole thing together, with the camera following it wherever it goes. With burning circuit boards, skyscrapers with graphically-overlaid blueprints, an underwater shot, bullets, missiles and fast cars, the viewer tends to miss the fact that some of the movie ending (such as the circular car park) is featured in these opening credits. The audience also sees this with the props used in the title sequence such as the fuse which is lit (symbolising an explosion), Missiles, Guns/Bullets and even fast sports cars. There are various camera scenes and angles such as close ups, long shots and cinematic/establishing shots.

Overall, a captivating and thrilling sequence. It gives hints as to what the film is going to be about and includes objects and scenes from the film without revealing the story line. Rewatching it after having seen the film creates a whole new experience watching the title sequence as you recognise everything shown. The classic mission impossible theme tune that everyone knows and loves is used, creating nostalgia and excitement from the start. Following the fuse is a clever and innovative idea which keeps us engaged in the action.The "Ghost Protocol" font is very misty and a faded grey giving the audience the feel of a ghost or something quite mysterious. The title sequence shows the Production Company and Producers first, then it goes into the title of the film and the rest of the casts. The font for the title of the film is different to the others, it is much bolder and more attractive to the audience to make sure that they read the name of the film.

Fight Club https://vimeo.com/90519890

The opening starts with a quick sound of an old classical music and after about 2 seconds the soundtrack changes into a loud, full of beat tune and it being low key creates a creepy atmosphere. The movement on the screen is fast paced in dark colours and it is supposed to reflect the inside of someone's brain. The camerawork shows  very precise details and there are sort of electrical impulses running through the brain that can represent different feelings, in case of this atmosphere it is more likely to be fear and confusion. The scale is changed the whole time, so the audience are able to see close ups of different lobes and also medium shots of other brain chords, nerve connections and particles. What is also interesting to notice that as the sequnce goes on the pores seem to be more and more clogged. Overall this represents and shows that the film will have a lot to do with someone's thinking, mental stability and there is going to be a lot to think about for the audience as well.

The credits are going on at the same time and Brad Pitt has one of the main roles, which will attract more audience. As the credits finish the pulling out of the brain fades into an extreme close up of what we discover to be a gun inside someone's mouth. At the same time there is diegetic narration that mentions the name "Tyler Durdan." This establishes two characters for the audience and creates an enigma, as we are wondering what is the link between them. At the same time another enigma is created as the person who holds the gun speaks, but we can only see a close up of his arm and later backside, which creates a mystery of who he is. He mentions the time of "3 minutes" and asks if the other person has any "last words to mark the occasion." This is another confusion for the audience, as we are wondering why he is so specific with time and if the occasion is killing the man or something else.

There is a slight humour to break the tension as the man attempts to talk with the gun in his mouth and when his mouth is free he says "I can't think of anything." This little moment in the opening is a huge enigma, as the film has a non-linear narrative and as it starts at the end, we have no idea what is the story behind what is going on. The antagonist-potential killer and the protagonist-victim are established, as well as the mysterious persona Tyler Durdan. The setting is in the dark and the atmosphere with gun is very tense and nerving, which creates a worrying mood. Just from this little clip the genre of the film can be established as a thriller and there are a lot of enigmas and puzzles created for the audience right from the start.

Shaun of the Dead     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCso753oVfw

This film follows the experience of midde-class English 20 year  olds survival of the zombie apocalypse by hiding in a pub. It is a clever parody of the zombie genre. It can be seen as a zombie-romantic-comedy as the main character Sean (played by Simon Pegg) attempts to win his girlfriend back while trying to survive. The opening sequence shows many people doing their boring, mundane deadend jobs as if they were on autopilot. It gives the audience the impression that they are not yet zombies, but are basically zombified by doing their routine jobs every day with little thought or regard. It questions social norms. Cleverly, at the end of the film the same people are shown doing the same jobs expect this time they are zombies. This is a clever method to show how mundane working life can be.

The first shot is of someone pushing trolleys slowly while “Universal pictures Studiocanal and Working title films” is shown, confirming the producer and distributor. The lighting is bright throughout, unlike most zombie films that use darkness to create suspense and fear. For example, the supermarket during the day shown is an unconventional place for a horror to be filmed. The camera then cuts to people waiting at a bus stop who check their clocks in sync, reinforcing the idea of people turning into zombies by doing the same thing every day. The whole opening sequence is a mid-shot with a slow pan that cuts to the next shot. This shot is repeated which again adds to the idea of mundane conformity zombifying people. It makes the audience feel less involved, like an onlooker.

The next shot is different to the rest, indicating change of pace and story. It starts with a low angle shot of some feet stumbling with a large shadow, accompanied by zombie like groaning. This is typical in horror and zombie films to make someone seem more frightening. The camera then pans up to reveal that it is not a zombie, it is Shaun the main character yawning, stumbling as he has just woken up. This perhaps is a mockery of the usual horror genre.

The next shot is of Shaun and Ed. Their close relationship is shown when they sit next to each other both with their feet on the table. We hear “player 2 has entered the game” as shaun pick up the controller. His instant joining into the game signifies the close bond they share. Ed then says “haven’t you got work?” followed by a voice saying “player two has left the game”. Shaun gets up as quickly as he sat down, reinstating the idea that having to do the same tasks everyday is like already being a zombie.