#rounded out the trilogy my dudes

[ribbittrobbit]

The Devotion of Saint Kristen Applebees

"devoted to [her] mission, is faithful to the call of the gods on [her] life. [She] is willing to sacrifice [her] own interests to those greater interests (...). [She] binds [her] will and [her] heart to that task. This is what it means to be pious."

(bastardization of Alan Jacob, on the origins and early meaning of the term pius)

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

FIRST ROUND: 17th Tilt

Hubert Hawkins, The Court Jester (1955) VS. Haldir, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

Propaganda

Hubert Hawkins, The Court Jester (1955) Portrayed by: Danny Kaye Defeated Opponents: - Saburo Naotora Ichimonji [Ryu Daisuke], Ran (1985)

“he's hot both in “local out of his depth idiot mode” and “over the top romantic hero mode”. he fences like nobody's business. he's the only man of all time to pull off a jester outfit and make it look actually snatched. Danny Kaye needs this, please.”

Haldir, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) Portrayed by: Craig Parker Defeated Opponents: - Robin Hood [Douglas Fairbanks], Robin Hood (1928)

“Long is the crush I have harboured for Haldir. My man. My dude. Literally as close to "just a guy" as any elf has ever gotten and I love that for him. He doesn't make the rules, he just follows them. He's reliable, solid, good humoured. He's one of the few elves in the movies who achieves the true elf vibe of the books, and I know this because I feel a sense of comfort and happiness any time he's on screen. The kind of guy you want to sit and have a draught with in companionable silence. The way he looks down at you. But also the way he looks up at you. Grade A Husband Material; he deserved so much.”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Hubert Hawkins:

“He sings! He dances! He fences! He wears really tight leggings!”

“We love a hot, funny, good-hearted man who subverts the gendered tropes of the subgenre! He is absolutely shit at sword-fighting! He is great at doing funny voices! ‘Tenderness and kindness can also make a man,’ says the awesome trousers-wearing heroine who works alongside him in the anti-tyrannical resistance, ‘a very rare man.’ She's right and she should say it and I support them both so much. Hubert Hawkins, world's sweetest and funniest surprise regent (who gets the girl.) See also attached photo of him goofing around with drums on set, I love him so much.”

For Haldir:

[physalian]

#Writer Problems

Meet the 15th character in this series with a name that starts with A! No one will notice hahaha

Going back and deleting the sighs to shake things up a bit because there’s 120 in the manuscript

*checks notes* whoops you died already, Side Character, my bad

*one paragraph* Perfect. Amazing. Poetic. Profound. *the next paragraph* what is words do?

Knocking out a 6k word chapter in an hour/Spending a week on a single transition

*slaps down a shiny new character with zero plan* You don’t know anything about them and neither do I, let’s discover them together

Realistically, there’s gotta be at least one casualty from this fantasy battle so…. *rolls dice* no not you. *rolls dice again* yep. That’ll do. Sorry, pal.

Is this badass or stupid?

Is this hot or cringey?

*checks notes* damn it, plot hole.

Upon this most recent round of edits, you, Cool Side Character, no longer made the cut. Mayhaps you’ll be recycled later.

*checks notes* damn it, I fixed that plot hole by opening another plot hole.

Jesus christ I wrote ‘just’ 308 times across 120k words?

That is definitely not how you spell that

*dreams about my characters in full HD technicolor* awwww yeah, where’s the popcorn? *cannot replicate how cool it was in actual words*

Unes- Unnecs- Unessis- Unnessessarily- Unnecessarily fuck

Do I go with the British grey or the American gray?

*cries* this epic was supposed to be a novella

Well these two were supposed to be having an argument here. But making out is fine. I’d like to see where this goes.

Oops I forgot the straights, here that nameless dude over there isn't confirmed gay, so you can headcanon that he's straight if you want

Oops I forgot that marriage exists uhhh yeah their other parents are all dead or deadbeats

Fuck love triangles here’s a double-helix dodecahedron.

One day my fandom will write so much smut about this guy and I am here for it cause I sure ain’t doing it myself

Oops I forgot people with green eyes exist but brown eyes? I got 20

*describing the writing process* It was the best of times, it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

I. Hate. Chapter. Titles.

Is this profound or pretentious?

*crafts an absolutely banger metaphor* I hope someone notices this. I put a lot of work into it

I didn’t spend 6 months perfecting this masterpiece for you to sass that the curtains are just blue. I’ll write the goddamn essay myself about all the depth behind my color choices, sir.

Picture that Spongebob dehydrated in Sandy’s treehouse meme ‘cause that’s me on round 12 of edits

I gotta be up for work in 4 hours but this monologue is more important

*distills 30 pages of worldbuilding notes into 2 paragraphs of a fluff scene* somebody will appreciate this, won’t they?

*listening to my book playlist* one day when this is adapted I hope this artist is still alive to compose the main theme cause this shit fucks

*cries* this trilogy was supposed to be just one book

If I turn this plot hole into a character flaw, they become the problem while I remain god

*looting themes, monologues, character names, and archetypes off the corpses of my dead WIPs* You won’t miss them anyway.

While it also immortalizes this person’s dickish behavior, yes, I will, in fact, write a whole character’s backstory as a middle-finger to this one bitch from 10 years ago.

*steps back to gaze at all the suffering done unto my deuteragonist* but it was worth it, wasn’t it?

*staring down yet another loathsome action set piece* whyyyyy do I do this to myself?

Nobody’ll notice my author insert if I dice them up and divvy them out in bits to my entire cast, right? Right? It’s like a shell game of what’s author and what’s fiction

These two are going to be a problematic ship one day and I will burn that bridge when I get there

*2am and I am scouring the internet for that one piece of a fort’s defenses because not remembering is the current root of my insomnia*

*Nudging my favorite character who isn’t the protagonist out onto stage* golly I hope the readers like him

Waiting. For. Editors. Takes. So. Long.

Holy butts accidental motif and deep symbolism fucks. I am so pretending I did that on purpose.

To subtext or not to subtext? Nah, to subtext. *laughs maniacally*

Trying to ride that line between so obvious it’s painful but also juuust enough foreshadowing so you slap yourself for not seeing it sooner

TIL that I have been using that word completely wrong for years. How quaint.

No you’re derivative schlock. I’m crowd surfing the books that came before and loving every second of it.

Damn I wasted a really good name on this throwaway character

*checks notes* wait, who's taller? Where does your hair part? Are you left or right-handed?

*musing over a character slated for death* damn, I really like you. Since I am in fact god, you shall live another day. *rewerites the entire finale*

God I hope people like this story

[flanaganfilm]

Hey Mike! First off, it makes me so happy to see you out there fighting with your writer friends to ensure they receive a decent living wage for the amazing work that they do.

As for my question, I would love to hear about some of the inspiration for making Before I Wake. It and Absentia were the last two of your films that I watched, and BIW just absolutely destroyed me. No other movie, including and especially a horror flick, has ever made me bawl like a baby like that. The entire tone of the film is so spot-on, and the climax of the nightmare monster “dissolving” from its evil form after being embraced…. To me that scene just perfectly encapsulates what it’s like to be a parent, and human; sometimes we just need someone to hold us and let us know things will be all right. We spend so much of our time making sure that our children feel loved and cared for, that sometimes we forget about ourselves. And you just fucking nailed it, my dude.

Like I said, I would LOVE to read any backstory or inspiration that you have for this film! It’s so beautiful and underrated.

On the WGA front, don't be too impressed with me - I mean, I'm a professional writer, I've been a member of the WGA since Absentia, so I'm out there fighting for myself as much as everyone else.

But on the Before I Wake front, you know I very rarely get asked to talk about this one, so I'm happy to... fair warning for another long post!

Before I Wake was originally titled Somnia, which is latin for "dreams." It was part of an unofficial trilogy of sorts, comprised of Absentia, Oculus and Somnia. All three of those movies were meant to work together as a thematic triptych.

Ultimately, Before I Wake was brutally sabotaged by its own studio, who drastically undermined it creatively and then destroyed any hope of a meaningful release. It remains a particularly heartbreaking chapter of my career... but a film I have and will always have tremendous affection for.

A lot of people think that Somnia was made after Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil, just before Gerald's Game, but this is entirely incorrect. It was actually the second "real" movie I ever made, and was actually shot before Oculus was even released.

The basic premise of Somnia focused around a little boy whose dreams manifested physically in the world around him, and was an original concept I carried around for a few years before Oculus got picked up by Intrepid Pictures. In fact, I've talked about my first meeting at Intrepid, where I pitched a few ideas that were rejected... Somnia was the first one I pitched. Trevor Macy opted to pursue Oculus that day, but he ended up producing Somnia right after.

This unofficial "latin trilogy" seemed to fit together well. Absentia was a somber and bleak look at the loss of hope, Oculus was more thrilling dive into the labyrinth of past trauma, and Somnia was meant to take that loss and trauma and end the triptych on a note of hope and healing.

In fact, the script for Somnia was written before Oculus was greenlit. On the page, it was my favorite of the three. I was very taken with the story of little Cody and his personal boogeyman, and of the revelation at the end of the story... that with understanding, even the most monstrous of our fears can lose their destructive power.

Cody's birth mother had died of cancer, and he had seen her just before her death. That final image of her, as well as a misunderstanding about the pronunciation of the word "cancer" had led to the creation of a monster in his mind, who he called the "Canker Man"... a gaunt figure who took away people that he loved. When he finally learns the truth about his monster, and about his mother, he begins to understand it all... and the monster loses its awful powers as empathy and understanding take root.

While Absentia finished its festival rounds and Oculus inched its way toward production, Somnia was my first script taken out to market by my new agency. I had signed with APA just as Intrepid engaged me on Oculus, which was my first studio writing and directing job. Jeff Howard and I finished our first draft of Oculus and turned it in to Intrepid, and immediately turned around and started writing Somnia.

The script got some interesting attention. While some of the more mainstream horror companies balked at the emotional ending and preferred a story that was "more about a boy and his monster" than the emotional wrap-up we insisted on, others understood it right away.

Elijah Wood and his producing partner Daniel Noah sought me out when they read the script. We met for drinks in Venice and I was absolutely starstruck, and we've remained friends ever since.

Jada Pinkett Smith was another big fan of the script, which led to a surreal afternoon at her stunning home where we talked about the story at length and watched an early cut of Oculus in her home theater. Will Smith joined us toward the end of the meeting, and I had a difficult time speaking.

I've written before about the drama surrounding Oculus' premiere and eventual sale to Relativity Media, so I won't rehash that now, but as Oculus raced toward release, Trevor Macy at Intrepid made an offer to produce Somnia for Relativity and I eagerly accepted. My first "real" movie was going to be released wide in theaters, and the same studio was going to double-down on me - Somnia was greenlit by Relativity for a big domestic theatrical release. We'd pre-sell our foreign territories on this promise, and they eagerly snatched the movie up. This was my own Hollywood dream, coming to life.

It wouldn't work out that way. In fact, Somnia would turn out to be the first nightmare of my career.

It started well enough. We had filmed Oculus in Daphne, Alabama, taking advantage of an aggressive tax rebate. We would do the same with Somnia, bringing back a lot of my Oculus crew and shooting in and around Fairhope. We began shooting in the fall of 2013, less than a year after we'd wrapped Oculus.

We hit the ground running. Very little time had passed since we wrapped Oculus, and the movie hadn't come out yet, so at first it felt a lot like we were just picking up where we left off.

Bruce Larsen, who also carved the Oculus mirror, working on a prototype of the Canker Man.

We had casting challenges. I was still a relatively unproven director, my first studio film hadn't been released, and this was an ambitious script. After a lengthy search (driven by foreign pre-sales, a process I knew nothing about and now quite detest), Kate Bosworth signed on to play Jessie, and Thomas Jane - who I admired greatly from his recent work in The Mist - joined the production as Mark. (Funny story - Tom arrived with hair down his shoulders, and vehemently didn't want to cut it. That disagreement put us off on an awkward foot, and I ultimately conceded the point to him... though I do regret that now.)

The major discovery was 7 year-old Jacob Tremblay as Cody. Jake had only made one movie before this, he had a small role in The Smurfs 2. His self-tape audition came out of nowhere and we knew was a a phenomenal talent. Right after we wrapped, I got a call that he was being considered for a movie called Room, and we shared some footage to help him get the part (that movie would establish him as one of the biggest and most sought after child actors in the world... but we had him first.)

We were committed to practical effects wherever possible, and creating a striking suit for our monster. It all felt like it was going to work. But the shoot would prove to be much more challenging than we anticipated.

The shoot itself was challenging for the typical reasons. There was a little creative tension on set with particular actors, we didn't have enough money to pull off our more ambitious visual moments, and we were forced to remove several production days at the last minute, throwing our schedule into a bit of chaos.

But none of these issues were particularly unusual for a lower budget film, and while it was more challenging and frustrating than Oculus had been, overall the shoot was just fine. I felt that our third act was pretty drastically under budgeted, and what was scripted to be a deep dive into a child's imagination was stripped down to a few vines on the walls and some moths... but other than that, I don't really have much to complain about.

(Fun fact: it was also the first time I would work with Annabeth Gish. We were fast friends, and though she was only with us for a few days, I knew we'd end up working together again.)

We wrapped the movie, I got to editing, and all seemed fine. It was a unique story, much less horror-centric and much more of a fairy-tale. This was, of course, by design. There was a delicate vibe to the whole thing, anchored on Jacob's arresting performance, and a shadowy magic. It felt innocent, wondrous, and ultimately cathartic.

Then, Relativity got their first look at the cut, and the problems started in earnest.

We had been clear (and aligned, I'd thought) about what kind of movie this was. But almost immediately, despite these conversations, the studio began to push the film more and more toward being a traditional horror movie.

We had designed a practical monster in the Canker Man. Our creature was tactile, practical, and - we believed - appropriately simple. After all, it was meant to have come from the mind of a child.

The studio kicked hard, and the directive came down to try to make the monster "much scarier."

There wasn't a lot we could do; we'd shot what we'd shot, after all. The decision was made to take our footage of our practical monster and drastically alter it using visual effects.

The Canker Man would be digitally warped and molded into a skeletal, grinning creature. The visual effects artists would be using footage that wasn't captured with the intention of being altered that way, so a lot of the artifice would be obvious. He'd become a little rough around the edges. We told ourselves that this would be okay... it was a dream, after all.

Early camera tests of our practical Canker Man suit

The final VFX-enhanced monster This began to nudge our monster away from our core concept. While our practical suit would always need some help from VFX, this was now tilting into an area that strayed from the true identity of the creature.

Another major sticking point was the plot itself.

In the movie, Cody's adopted mother Jessie is shocked to find a physical manifestation of her deceased son, Sean, after Cody sees his picture. She then goes about trying to "rebuild" her dead son in the imagination of her new foster child, hoping to see and interact with him more... "I just want to hear his voice."

This morally questionable exploitation of Cody was, to put it mildly, the entire point of the story. Jessie goes too far, and when she finally resorts to drugging Cody to force him to sleep in the hopes of seeing her lost son, he is unable to wake up from a nightmare and her husband is killed.

Jessie spends the rest of the film clawing her way back to redemption, and having to atone for what she's done, all while finally focusing on Cody's past and healing instead of her own.

As a character, Jessie does things we do not agree with, and they have serious, permanent consequences. And the moral murkiness of this was, frankly, the point.

The studio was flinching hard. "It makes her unlikeable," they argued. There was a push to try to back off of this, and to pull the punch... sure, she could exploit him somewhat, but they wanted to pull it back. Kate Bosworth's performance began to be altered in the cutting room, flinching away from some of the more decisive choices in favor of a more watered-down, morally generic heroine.

This middle ground would prove to be ill-advised.

As we were battling over the edit, something else happened. Oculus was released in theaters in April 2014.

If the movie was a huge hit, it would mean I would likely win more of these arguments, and Somnia would be restored to something closer to my vision. If the movie bombed, the studio could (and likely would) run ramshot over Somnia, twisting it into a more generic studio horror story and jettisoning things they didn't quite understand.

Ultimately, the movie performed... moderately. It was kind of right in the middle. It wasn't a failure, but it wasn't a hit either. Both sides dug in. And suddenly, Somnia was being twisted into something between two tones.

Citing the "disappointing" performance of Oculus (which, frankly, did just fine), the studio insisted that we write and shoot some additional "scares". Among them was one of the worst studio notes I'd ever receive (well, at least until I started working for Netflix.)

The entire premise of the film was that, when Cody slept, his dreams would manifest physically. When he woke up, they would vanish. This was, to put it bluntly, our only rule.

The note came in: "We need a scare set piece to occur when he is awake."

Now, I can't understate how nonsensical this is. It defied the entire premise of the movie. Their rationale (such as it was) was that the audience wouldn't ever be frightened when Cody was awake, because they knew the monsters only came when he was asleep.

"Well yeah," I said. "That's why it's important that the movie isn't just about scares."

But they were insistent. If a monster showed up while Cody was awake, that would be "truly thrilling" and "catch the audience off-guard."

It was the equivalent of saying "the shark in Jaws only attacks people if they're in the water. We need an attack to occur on land." I mean, that would really catch the audience off-guard.

I had no idea how to address this note.

It was early in my career, I didn't have a theatrical hit under my belt, and I didn't have the ammunition to fight it. So I had to address it somehow, and it had to satisfy the studio, or else we may not get our theatrical release after all.

So I ended up writing a scene where Cody is wide awake, only to be attacked in his bed by the specter of a deceased bully (a previous victim of one of his dreams).

How the fuck were we going to make this make any sense? Well, we had to write a whole other scene - much earlier in the film - where a therapist explains the concept of "waking dreams." Jay Karnes (who was a lovely person and one hell of a good sport) had to randomly say "you know, some people can dream while they're awake" to Bosworth, desperately trying to set up this moment.

It doesn't quite work, to say the least. Cody looks under his bed, sits up, and is attacked by this eye-less specter. Then, he's dragged screaming under his bed, until the attack just... stops, for some reason.

We filmed it, and I thought it was the stupidest thing I'd ever shot (it wasn't, though - the stupidest thing I've ever shot remains the on-screen stalking and murder of a cat in the pilot of Midnight Mass, a truly braindead scene that Netflix insisted on adding.)

Along with this scene, which would become the crux of Relativity's trailer, we shot several other random scares that were peppered throughout the movie. Now, this wasn't enough to tip the film entirely into being a horror film... just enough to make it exist awkwardly in between two genres.

It got worse. The addition of all this new "horror" material made the film longer (go figure), so the directive came down to begin removing other elements to make room. Those elements were character development and context.

The cut began to get bumpy. The fairy-tale tone of most of our original footage was at odds with the overt horror tone the studio was insisting upon. Every time we tested one of these cuts, the audience was understandably confused... they really loved the concept, they really loved Jacob, and they all loved the ending revelation - but along the way, what was this movie? Was it a horror film? Was it a drama? A fantasy?

Even with this, our test screenings were actually pretty good. We were testing in the high sixties and seventies - which is, infuriatingly, right in that middle zone: not good enough to kill the studio interference, but not bad enough to let them take over.

So we kept fighting. And we kept cutting. And we kept testing. And with each screening, the studio forced it further and further into this no-man's land.

There were a few victories, though. Danny Elfman came on board to collaborate with the Newton Brothers on our score. Some of our non-horror sequences, like a scene involving Christmas-light butterflies, were being called out by our test audiences in the best ways. But the tug-of-war over the basic identity of the film was tipping decidedly toward the more horror-centric approach.

Finally, the studio came after the title. Somnia was too confusing, they said. Nobody knew what it meant. So, we added a scene where Jay Karnes - once again having to naturally sell force-fed exposition - literally defines the world "somnia" during a therapy scene (these therapy scenes were basically being used to spoon-feed material to the audience.)

That wasn't enough, though. The studio began workshopping other titles, and they landed on perhaps my most hated of all of the options: the ultra-generic Before I Wake, a title already used by a handful of low-budget thrillers over decades. We conceded after it was made clear that it wasn't really up to me in this case, and we limped into what I consider to be the worst title of my career.

With our new uneven tone, a new and "improved" monster, and a groan inducing title, they finally agreed to stop messing with the movie and honor their commitment to releasing it wide.

You tell yourself a lot of things in this business, and I told myself that the heart of the story - the revelation about where the concept of the Canker Man came from - was still intact, so all would be well. Viewers would be able to look past some of the bumps because the payoff was worth it.

But we didn't know what else was happening at Relativity.

They announced the release date for the film, posters started showing up in theaters, and we were anxiously awaiting our big wide theatrical release... when suddenly everything stopped.

We didn't know it yet, but Relativity Media was having huge financial problems. They were on the verge of bankruptcy, as a matter of fact, and though they weren't admitting it yet, internally they were in a state of absolute chaos.

Without warning or explanation, the studio moved us off our date. The movie wouldn't be released after all. We immediately knew something was very wrong, despite Ryan Kavanaugh's insistence that our date was "just a bad date," and that he'd moved the movie in order to make it "an even bigger success." No, this whole thing stunk. It stunk bad.

They set another date, and we watched and waited. But no trailers. No marketing. And then... that date was pushed as well. Again, they insisted everything was fine. But we knew. Something was deeply wrong with the company, and they were lying to us.

Some of this played out publicly. Kavanaugh and I got into a spat on Twitter when I suggested that the studio wasn't able to release the movie theatrically after all (I still don't regret saying this, and man oh man, was I proven right).

Meanwhile, our international distributors were scrambling. We'd sold a lot of international territories off the promise of our big theatrical release in North America, and they weren't going to wait forever. By the third time Relativity pushed our release date, the whole house of cards fell down, and various international territories started releasing the film haphazardly on whatever platforms they could.

There was no coordinated release strategy. Suddenly, the film was just available in Argentina, for example. Or it was On Demand in Russia. I remember being shocked when a German Blu-ray appeared on eBay without warning.

There was no rollout to critics, no coordination at all. Within a few weeks, it was pirated and available on torrent sites everywhere. And without a proper press rollout, the only reviews available were trickling in from these international markets, or random blogs in other countries. A slew of reviews - many of which were from obscure blogs in Russia and Turkey, not even written in English - hit Rotten Tomatoes. With no counterpoint from any credible critics, we debuted with a 30% rotten rating.

It would stay this way for years.

Relativity finally admitted the truth, declared bankruptcy, and went to court. Our movie was dragged down into the vortex with it. Our abysmal tomatometer score suggested that the movie wasn't released because it was bad, not because the studio had gone bankrupt. This assumption stuck to us like glue as the film languished in bankruptcy court.

Heartbroken, we turned our attention elsewhere. I would write and direct both Hush and Ouija: Origin of Evil before the whole distribution saga of Before I Wake was finally resolved.

In the years that followed, very little would be said about Before I Wake, and whatever was said was absolutely not positive... how bad must this movie be, after all, to be so unceremoniously pulled from the release? Some theaters just left the poster up, still saying "Coming Soon." I know of one theater in LA that had it up for over a year.

By the time Relativity finally settled their mess, and the film was unceremoniously given back to us with the most lackluster apology imaginable, and our chances of a domestic theatrical distribution were entirely obliterated. The film was already available online through piracy and a tiny handful of foreign blogs had defined our critical reception. No other studio would touch it.

We were able to arrange one screening of the film once it was unencumbered... we had a single showing at Fantastia in Montreal, a festival I adore. Instead of a huge worldwide theatrical release, the movie would play exactly one time, to one audience.

It was sold out, it played wonderfully, and it remains one of my favorite screenings of my career.

With Mitch Davis, Fantasia's artistic director, Kate Bosworth, and my wife Kate Siegel.

In the years that had passed since we shot Before I Wake, Kate Siegel and I had gotten married. At the premiere, and in the picture above, Kate was pregnant with our son.

We named him Cody, after the little boy in Somnia... the little boy whose dreams came true.

In 2016, Netflix acquired the North American rights to Before I Wake, and quietly dumped it on the service. There was no premiere, no rollout, no screeners sent to critics. One day it just appeared on the service without fanfare, as Netflix does to so many titles.

It didn't even appear on the New Releases tab.

A few critics found the movie on their own, and slowly some new reviews started to trickle out. Bloody Disgusting led the charge, discussing how the film had been wrongfully maligned over the years, and correcting identified it as a "haunted fairy tale" that was being handicapped by the expectations that it was a horror film.

Our tomatometer began to slowly rise. After some time, it tipped out of "rotten" into "fresh"... and today stands comfortably at 66%. Those early, malicious reviews are still there, the movie is still scarred by them... but despite Relativity (and eventually Netflix's) efforts to rebrand the movie as a straight horror film, most critics were able to see it for what it truly was.

Our audience was as well, for the most part. Some viewers yawning their way through the Netflix original horror feature section would find it, and get something maybe just a little more thoughtful than they were expecting. A few people reached out to me to talk about losing their own loved ones to cancer, or about how the sweeter elements of the story impacted them. I've always been grateful for that.

But ultimately, the movie was just brutalized by its studio. I've never again had so much damage inflicted on a project by a creative partner and supposed collaborator. And while Netflix did the bare minimum when it came to releasing the movie, I am still very grateful that that they even did that much... if it wasn't for Netflix picking it up, I think there's every chance Before I Wake would have never been made available at all.

I'm proud of the movie. It's not perfect, by any means - it was an ambitious sophomore effort and I had a lot to learn about a lot of things - but it has some beautiful ideas and some moments that really work. I see its flaws clearly, too, and while I tell myself some were out of my control (like the awkward scares forced on us by Relativity), others were most certainly entirely on me. Not everything works, and that's okay.

But man, Jacob Tremblay is phenomenal in this movie. And I absolutely adore the final ten minutes.

My son Cody is almost 7 now, exactly as old as Jacob was when he was cast to play his namesake. I hope Cody's dreams come true; that's why we named him what we named him.

Sometimes, our dreams don't come true quite how we might expect.

Hollywood is just kinda like that, I guess.

[nanowrimo]

How to Avoid Token Representation

What's the difference between token representation and authentic representation? NaNo Participant Nayantara discusses token representation and how to avoid doing it in your own writing! The smart Asian character. The sassy Black character. The Gay Best Friend.

Too many stories written today that supposedly have “diverse” casts fall prey to “token representation”: a symbolic effort towards inclusion that gives the appearance of equality, without actually exploring diverse narratives.

Recently in the publishing industry, readers have been calling for more representation within their novels, whether it is the LGBTQ+ community, racially and ethnically diverse readers, people with disabilities, or other marginalised groups of people, and many authors have responded with this easy-way-out tokenism — leaving readers unsatisfied and indignant.

So, what exactly is the difference between token diversity and real representation?

Essentially, tokenism includes a character that checks boxes titled “diversity” in face and name, but does not acknowledge their lived experience.

For example, Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series and Lane Kim in Gilmore Girlsare reduced to harmful stereotypes of their characters (both their names and characteristics) without acknowledging the diverse experiences that East Asian people have. Their Asianness becomes their entire character, yet at the same time, that same Asianness is entirely misunderstood.

In contrast, the recent Oscar-winning film Everything Everywhere All At Once stars East Asian characters whose lives are affected by their race and background. However, they are fully fleshed out characters regardless of it.

As actor, Anna Leong Brophy, said in an interview, she enjoys it when her “Asianness complements a role, but is not the full role.” Real representation acknowledges how someone’s lived experience as a person of colour, queer person, woman, or member of another marginalised community affects their life — but they have genuine feelings, thoughts, and characteristics far beyond simply their race or identity.

The terms “Black dude dies first” and “Bury your gays” are also commonly associated with token representation. Quite self-explanatory, they are tropes in which the cast’s “diverse” characters are killed early, to save the writer from having to explore or acknowledge their experiences.

Not only is this lazy writing that erases diverse narratives, it also creates the subconscious belief that marginalised groups of people have no place in these stories or in commercialised publishing in general. Everyone deserves representation, whether or not the cis-het (cisgender-heterosexual) white reader can relate to the character’s specific cultural experience.

What counts as good representation, then?

Good representation involves any story that includes a diverse cast and follows each of their story lines fully, allowing them to be well-rounded characters that contain depth and get adequate development.

My personal favourite example of this is Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows duology, where her cast of six main characters includes Black and Brown people, bisexual and gay people, people from different countries and religions, and people recovering from trauma — all of whom have their own, carefully constructed character arcs that acknowledge their identity, but also give them substance and characteristics far beyond that.

However, this is not to say every story has to be as international — The Poppy War trilogy by R.F. Kuang has a solely East Asian coded cast due to its setting. But even within this, her characters are from different ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds, and each have their own, carefully-constructed character arc extending far beyond their identity on paper.

As you begin writing for Camp NaNoWriMo, ask yourself the following three questions:

Is my cast truly representing the diverse types of people who exist in this world (either real or imagined)?

Are each of these characters individuals beyond simply their ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability, etc?

Do each of these characters have a fully fleshed out character arc?

You don’t have to be an author from a marginalised or minority background to write characters with diverse experiences. Just make sure to approach each character with empathy and respect, and devote adequate time to research (or to world building, if you’re a fantasy author!)

Good luck, and I know that you are going to absolutely smash your writing goals next month!

Nayantara is an 18 year old student, green tea connoisseur, bookworm, Spotify-playlist-maker, dancer, and writer hoping to study economics and political science at university next year — and hopefully find some time to work on her many unfinished novels in the meantime! Follow her on Instagram @ moonlitsunflowerbooks.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

[lardguz]

hi!! i love ur work so much aa men do something to my brain chem LOL

i was just wondering what ur hcs might be for the weight hierarchy of ace attorney guys (if u have one)? also i loved the sizes you wrote for your link story; do you think you'd ever write a similar size for anyone in aa?

Oooooh, excellent question! I think of like, main male prosecutors/attorneys, my hierarchy would be, from skinniest to heaviest:

Nahyuta (I just don't think a well-trained monk would gain much weight even after traveling to Japanifornia)

Kla/vier (likes to keep his figure for the stage so he can do slutty dance moves and poses easily)

Kri/stoph (puts on some weight in solitary lbr)

Go/dot (mild dad bod, opens a cafe/bakery post-T&T)

Edg/eworth (Phoenix is a bad influence on him, he's probably like 300 pounds as Chief Prosecutor)

Apo/llo (Tops out at like 650 after AJAA because of Nick's influence, very well-rounded body gains)

Blac/kquill (Starts out super ripped and muscular after being released from prison, descends into hedonism now that he can eat whatever, probably borders on near-immobile but deliberately keeps the ability to move because he likes feeling powerful for having to force people to walk around his mass)

Phoe/nix (Dude is like a ton at least by the end of the second trilogy. Completely immobile, retires from law permanently to be Miles's personal stress toy. Lazy, hungry, total blob.)

If I were to write a story of one of the AA guys reaching a similar size to Link in my most recent story, I think it'd be Nick or Simon. Maybe Apollo if I elaborate more on my "Nick is a terrible influence on him" headcanon, I think a barely mobile feeder taking on a chubby feedee apprentice and turning him into a blob has some good potential actually.... Hmm..... I'm gonna have to write that one down that's actually REALLY GOOD. 😳

[colossal-niamh]

Just a big list of some stuff I think is neat

I haven't been super active on here in a minute so I'm just gonna lighting round a bunch of stuff I've been watching/reading X-Men '97- Fucking incredible. This is probably my favorite piece of non comic superhero media since Spectacular Spider-Man. The animation, the melodrama, the narrative showcasing the struggles of building a better tomorrow and existing in a world where your existence is perceived as a threat. Can't wait for season 2 The Crow (1994)- Wanted to get to this before the remake comes out. This is very much a situation where I procrastinated on watching something I knew I'd like and when I finally got around to it I went "Yeah I was right I liked it a lot!" The Crow is equal parts mournful as it is hopeful for a better tomorrow, a balancing act between the grief of loss and celebration of life. A damn shame we lost Brandon Lee so young because he was enthralling the entire film, an irreplaceable talent. The Venture Bros- I was making my way through the series on my own for a good while now. Showing it to some irl friends gave me the excuse to rewatch it all before I see the final season because I LOVE Venture Bros. it has firmly cemented itself as one of my favorite shows ever. I can't even get into it here or this will just become a Venture Bros gush fest. X-Terminators (2022)- Literally just read this today, what a delightful little book. it's a bit weird dropping in here as the book's smack dab in the middle of the nearly finished Krakoa era of the X-Men books. Luckily this needs little to no context as it's 4 of most fun women in the X-Men cast cracking jokes and kicking Dazzler's shitty ex in the dick. Also said ex is a literal blood sucking vampire Shin Ultraman- The last of Hideaki Anno's Shin trilogy I needed to see. Ultraman is admittedly the one I'm least familiar with out of the tokusatsu big 3, but this film made me far more interested in it than I was before. a great action flick about keeping the flame of hope lit even in dire situations. I liked all of the Shin movies but here's how I'd rank them; 1. Shin Godzilla 2. Shin Ultraman 3. Shin Kamen Rider Steven Universe- Soooo, I was one of those kids that listened to shitty criticism of SU back when it was airing and it ruined my perception of the show for years. It took until recently to realize the critics I listened to were not only bad at media analysis (and just a bad person in general) but also outright lying about the contents of the show. to rectify this mistake I've been rewatching SU and man, I was so wrong about this show. It's exceptional stylistically and narratively, and teaches some genuinely well thought out life lessons to it's target age demographic. It's not garbage, it's great! RRR- Admittedly I watched this further back than anything else on this list but that doesn't matter because YOU NEED TO SEE RRR! This movie is 3 hours of distilling the power of friendship and anti-colonial sentiment into the most Dudes Rock movie ever put to film. by the end I was screaming my head off like a crazy person for 20 minutes straight. what are you even doing here reading this? GO WATCH RRR!

[bracketsoffear]

Simon (Hawaii: Part II/Miracle Musical) "I promise you, this dude is in EVERY Spiral and Distortion playlist ever. The album tells an ambiguous story, but this trilogy of tracks within is the most obviously Spiral fable ever that isn't from TMA itself. He is a liar and he is deluded: he is a perpetrator and a victim. Every single possible Spiral motif imaginable appears in his story, both aesthetically and thematically.

Simon talks about himself in third-person in the song Murders, and describes himself "in the forest looking to see the trees, but none were there" and seeking the "fountain of infinite mirror", presumably some fractalline Spiral artifact. Simon finds a girl and is paranoid of "terrors or none were there" & a "shadow of nobody there".

In the song "The Mind Electric", he finds himself on trial for the murder of this girl, which he may or may not have commited - he's an unreliable narrator. He pleads insanity, which may or may not be true, and the judge who appears as a holy figure sentences him to electroshock treatment. His brain is fried and he deludes himself into thinking all the hospital workers are holy people and "spiraling down thy majesty". The song's climax is a cry from him: "Someone help me understand what's going on inside my mind / Doctor, I can't tell if I'm not me", before spurting out incoherent phrases.

In the song Labyrinth, Simon retreats into a mind palace in the form of an ever-shifting maze of impossible geometry. He imagines a woman's voice calling: "See how I circle / Imaginary mind, imaginary lines / Let the maze of my design carry you on".

And then he gets time-travel powers and causes 9/11 or something? I dunno, it's a very ambiguous album."

Adam Smith (Torchwood) "Adam is an alien that can only exist through the memories of others, so he infiltrates the Torchwood team and makes them all think he’s been their trusted teammate for years when really it hasn’t even been two days. Adam uses this memory power to distract the team from discovering he’s not real by variously invoking memories of one’s long-lost brother, inducing false insecurities in one, making one in a relationship with him with all the non-con vibes that entails, making one forget her fiancé, and making the one who was closest to catching him believe he’d murdered three women and that Adam was his savior and accomplice. He wove himself so deeply into the team that the only way to get rid of him was to take amnesia pills to entirely erase those two days, leaving the team unnerved and uncertain of what they had done that was so bad they couldn’t remember it"

[bloodgulchblog]

1 and 18 :o)

Previous answers to these, but I can do bonus answers!!!

the character everyone gets wrong (BONUS ROUND)

Is it cheating if I say Halsey when my blog has been the Catherine Halsey Characterization Tinhat Truther zone for the last week?

....Actually yeah it probably is.

So let me circle around and talk about Johnson instead. Helpfully, Johnson can also be an answer to 18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Johnson just doesn't really show up in Halo fandom that much?

Part of that is because he's dead by the end of Halo 3 and Halo 3 was 16 years ago, so even though the 343 trilogy has been rocky in reception, it's still the most recent thing and people are kicking that ball around more.

But also, Johnson is a character that people kinda always relegated to Funny Supporting Guy and didn't think about much (unless they also are book-insane like me.)

Johnson is so good at putting up a front.

Johnson is so good at playing Big Dumb Jarhead when he's actually a very smart, resourceful dude. He has been doing this shit forever. He is old. He has so much experience, and when he was a young man he was a volunteer/victim of one of the UNSC's supersoldier projects. He's lucky he made it out in good working order, and he suffered more because he continued to be useful to them afterward.

He met most of the Spartan-IIs when they were teenagers! He knows the Chief! He has lied to cover for the Chief and Cortana before!

I wish we got some in-perspective material with Johnson from later in his life than Contact Harvest. I would love to know where he stood on so much shit re: the UNSC and ONI by the end.

Anyway here, please behold Johnson playing dumb and keeping his goddamn mouth shut re: things he actually does in fact know.

[chocolatebageltje]

I've just finished watching the Fear Street trilogy and I'm. I am living for these movies omg they've been spinning in my head like a hamster in a wheel for the past few days. They're so good, I haven't had a movie that kept me so fully engaged all throughout in a while and especially the sound design is what does it for me. I will be watching them all over again soon just to see if I didn't pick up on some things that were concluded later. Despite being a pretty rounded whole I'd almost wish they'd make more sequels about the individual Shadyside killers just to get more content out of the universe. The series is going into my favorite movie catalog for sure.

Also, I deadass need someone to do a thorough character analysis on Nick Goode specifically lol. @ me if you're that person bc I need to DISCUSS. (Spoilers below)

I found him sus on so many occasions throughout the series but every time I ended up letting my guard down regardless because he was just portrayed as so likable to me?? After he turned his back on Ziggy at the end of part 2 I felt he might've known something and that it was a dick move, but I also kinda felt that there might've been a good reason for it and that he'd get a redemption arc. But BOI that turned out...different. Deadass though, as evil as he ended up being, I kinda felt there had been some shreds of good left in there as well, just heavily overpowered by all of the rest.

Idk if this is supposed to be the actual meaning of it but, to me it seemed that as it was said the Goode's were able to get whatever they wanted through the deal with the devil, Nick desperately wanted Ziggy survive her injuries and so she did. (Like deadass the chick got stabbed big time how tf does one survive that??) And if that was the case, that they could technically wish for whatever they wanted, couldn't he technically also wish for Ziggy to stick with him regardless? But that could blow his cover so... But when they met again at the mall, I found his expression quite hard to read. I felt maybe he had a moment of guilt maybe? Feelings coming back to the surface? But then he deadass tried to human sacrifice her right after so even if so it was pretty meaningless in the end 💀 Maybe his ego was just too big to be fully real with himself? Am I giving this man too much credit?

Also what I found interesting is that it seemed like the dudes could pick the name of the sacrificed person themselves. Did they just pick at random given the killers ended up so random or was it deliberate in some way? Would they know when it'd happen? (Bc if so it'd be kinda stupid of Nick to choose Tommy, the boyfriend of the sister of the girl he crushed on, with a camp coming up where said girls both would be at. 😂)

I'll probably have more to rant about after I get some sleep, but his character was something that I found particularly interesting. Every character honestly was so layered to me with both bad and good perspectives to them and how they behaved. I'm gonna stop so this won't become endless lol, but pls tap in if you too want to gush about these movies!

[zacksfairest]

Top 5 favorite books of 2023 and 5 least favorite books, go!

Oh boy! I was so very kind to myself this year and read mostly bangers. Let's see what we've got.

The Dragon Republic by R.F. Kuang. Now, I love the entire Poppy War trilogy, make no mistake about that. It completely rewired my brain and has firmly taken up the spot of Favorite Series Ever. But The Dragon Republic specifically was just It for me. It gave me everything. A well thought out and executed campaign of war, not sparing us the grizzly details (civilian casualties, civilian displacement, the logistics of moving a large army, how ACTUAL BATTLES work), as well as WAR CRIMES. But in addition to that, I was given Rin and Nezha. The epitome of Show Not Tell where it comes to developing feelings. Hateful schoolmates turned comrades in arms turned almost lovers turned mortal enemies. A tragedy that serves as a mere backdrop to the larger tragedy happening in the country at large due to a lingering invading force and a newly sparked civil war. This was easily my favorite book of the year, and I have been chasing the high from reading it ever since. Outbound Flight by Timothy Zahn. Yeah, I've owned this book since 2006 and never read it. What about it? I am well aware that was a major blunder on my part. Perhaps had I read it sooner, I would have been able to hop on the Thrawn train much sooner than 30 years late. This book truly had me sucked in right from the start. Young soldier Thrawn? Dedicated to his troops and his people? Willing to do anything to keep his people safe from the dangers that lurk in the infinite abyss if the universe? Swoon worthy. And also watching Maris be all heart eyes over Thrawn was a big Same Girl moment. Mr. Zahn knew what he was doing to us all along. Yet another book that understands how battles work! And with characters at the helm that are actual good tacticians and understand how battles work also. Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn. Yes. Another Thrawn book. Shut up. I loved the entirety of the (original) Thrawn trilogy, but this one really stood out. Leia was allowed to do her thing and be a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Also it felt good seeing a pregnant woman not be sidelined just because she was pregnant. Leia Organa-Solo does not stop and will not be stopped. This was yet another book that understood war and tactics, as well as the espionage that goes into ensuring proper battle plans can be laid out. I owe Zahn my life for being so consistent with this content, as I am a drowning lass in a sea of books that do not fucking understand how this shit works. Also, Thrawn won this round, which felt good. Felt organic. Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo. AH, YES. The book that proved I was right to put my faith in Bardugo and her plans for Ninth House. We got hot demons! We got fucked up journeys to hell! We got vampires! We got it all here, folks! I'm still super hoping that we get to see someone fuck Darlington by the third book. I want to see that demon dick in action. I hope it's fucked up. The Stolen Heir by Holly Black. This one went an entirely different route than I thought. I expected your standard YA fare: hot dude and meek girl meet, are at odds for a bit, fall in love, etc., except with fae. I should have known better. It's Holly Black, after all. Instead I got a viscious girl as my main character, a hot fae dude (Oak, baby. You're all gown up!), but they have most definitely not fallen in love by the end of this book. I got to put this on my Problematic Villain Love Interests shelf on goodreads! And not even for the reason I usually do! I still think about that final line: "I can't pretend that I don't like the sound of him screaming my name."

As for our bottom five... well. It's a bottom three. Like I said, I was kind to myself this year (also I read a lot of manga. Don't look at me.)

The Resistance Girl by Jina Bacarr. We don't talk about this one. I technically started reading it at the end of 2022, but I didn't finish it until we were decently into 2023. So it counts. It was awful. Terrible. An affront to the written word. And not for the reasons that everyone was up in arms about it. Writing was terrible. Characters were awful and indistinguishable from each other. Plot was bad. Dialogue was the worst slop I've ever laid eyes on. Descriptions not much better. It was just awful. A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber. This one was a spirit breaker. The Ballad of Neverafter was so goddamned good. The ending specifically was spectacular and left us off on a wonderfully torturous cliffhanger. I was so excited for what the final book had in store. However, I was so caught up in the euphoria of having a delightful fucked up immortal love interest in Jacks, that I forgot that Garber is Not Great at ending her series. The book overall really wasn't fantastic (a tragedy), but there was a Specific Line toward the end that fucking just. Ruined the entire book for me. Lowkey ruined the whole series, but I fight hard to prevent that from being the case. I loved the first two books so much. I refuse to let terrible storytelling and copouts and a single retcon ruin it for me. Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts by Kazushige Nojima. This one was really just a big letdown. It was just a meandering tale of Tifa and Aerith's childhoods. We somehow just completely skipped over how traumatic their respective experiences were at the hands of Shinra. We instead decided to give me boring as fuck stories about their everyday lives. Like. I get it. This is really just a money grab and a way to generate hype for FFVII: Rebirth. But still. Have some pride in your work, Square! Have pride in your characters! Let the writers have fun! I still stand by the idea that the translator might have had a bit to do with why I didn't enjoy it, though. The Kids Are Alright remains one of my favorite books, and the writing for that was fantastic. It was written by the same guy who wrote this book! And it had, what I would say is, the best english translation for a Japanese novel I've ever read. But the translator who worked on the FFXV novel The Dawn of the Future also worked on this Tifa and Aerith centric novel, and I wasn't a giant fan of the writing in the FFXV book either. So while the translator probably played a part in how much this book disappointed me, I don't think much could have saved the meandering plot and redundant experiences contained within.

[ladygwyndolin]

RACHEL RANKS: DARK SOULS TRILOGY BOSSES FROM WORST TO BEST

#20: Aldrich, Devourer of Gods (Dark Souls 3)

“He knew the path would be arduous, but he had no fear. He would devour the gods himself.”

This fucking guy. If I had started this list today instead of starting it two years ago, I would have put him lower on it out of pure spite. Yes, the fight is deeply horrifying with haunting music and brilliantly disgusting visuals, and the gameplay goes beyond what could have been simple whack-a-mole to become a thrilling round of constantly inverting cat and mouse, and the effects look great, and the lore is amazing, etc. etc. etc. The fight is fantastic. Aldrich is built up so well over the course of the game and gives a ton of insight into the nature of linking the flame not as a righteous act but as a demonstration of strength that can easily be manipulated by those with deeper agendas. The surprisingly varied moveset keeps you on your toes and, other than THAT ONE FUCKING ARROW ATTACK, feels the right amount of tough yet fair. It’s a winner all around. There’s just one problem:

HE ATE MY WIFE.

THIS DUDE ATE MY WIFE! I cannot put him any higher than this because he ate my wife. She’s definitely still alive though I promise. But I do still have to dock some points for that one. Get salted, slug boy!

[medievalandfantasymelee]

THE HOT MEDIEVAL & FANTASY MEN MELEE

QUALIFYING ROUND: 104th Tilt

Robin Hood, Robin Hood (1922) VS. Haldir, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)

Propaganda

Robin Hood, Robin Hood (1922) Portrayed by: Douglas Fairbanks

No Text Propaganda Submitted

Haldir, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) Portrayed by: Craig Parker

“Long is the crush I have harboured for Haldir. My man. My dude. Literally as close to "just a guy" as any elf has ever gotten and I love that for him. He doesn't make the rules, he just follows them. He's reliable, solid, good humoured. He's one of the few elves in the movies who achieves the true elf vibe of the books, and I know this because I feel a sense of comfort and happiness any time he's on screen. The kind of guy you want to sit and have a draught with in companionable silence (unless maybe he breaks out into a three hour song, which is also fine and excellent). The way he looks down at you. But also the way he looks up at you. Grade A Husband Material; he deserved so much.”

Additional Propaganda Under the Cut

Additional Propaganda

For Robin Hood:

For Haldir:

[thief-throwdown]

Ok, that was the last ask. Now, I just have to do two more things.

First of all, I told you at the start of this tournament that one Character has been sent in by me personally. That Character was…

The Thief Lord!

And oh boy, you bet I’m gonna talk about this dude for the rest of this post.

First of all, as you could probably guess, the Thief Lord, real name Piscio, is from a book written by the famous German Children and YA writer Cornelia Funke, who quite possibly had the biggest effect on my childhood with her Books. I basically read almost everything she wrote, from the Inkheart Trilogy to the dragonrider series. Her books are what really got me into reading!

But one book from her always stood out to me in particular. The Thief Lord, or as I know it, Der Herr der Diebe.

It was one of my favorite books as a child. The aesthetic, the characters, the story just everything about it spoke to me and fundamentally changed me as a person. It deals with the topic of growing up, but in such an interesting and unique way. If you have the time to spare please give it a read.

The Story revolves around two children who recently lost their parents. Prosper, a 12 year old boy, and Bo, his little 8 year old Brother. They fled to Venice to escape the clutches of their new legal guardians. Here they come across a group of Orphans like them and their leader, the 15 year old boy Piscio who calls himself the Thief Lord. He breaks in the richest houses of Venice to steal their most valuable possessions, just to give them away to the group of orphans. Prosper and Bo are welcomed with open arms and become new members. Soon after, our thief Lord gets his first mission, which is to steal a part of a magical artifact which apparently has the power to spin through time itself…

And that’s all you’re gonna get from me. But if think you might like it, then I can’t recommend this Book enough.

But yeah, I think you see where my love for thief Characters comes from now. Tbh, I didn’t even expect him to make it past round 1 after all no one submitted him and how many people even know that guy? But then there were the first tags with people saying „IS THAT THE THIEF LORD“ and getting really excited. The fact that Piscio made it past Round 1 is a miracle for me, and even though he stood no chance against Carmen it was still nice to see him getting a few more votes.

So anyways, that was it from my character. Now there’s just one more thing.

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

TWO TOWERS THOUGHTS!!!!

there are more of these bc the two towers is probably my favourite of the trilogy, despite the distinct LACK of boromir 😔

BUT i did notice a few things that baby birb totally ignored or forgot about!!! find out what they are........below 😈

one of baby birb's fav shots of aragorn was when he's lying across a rock tracking merry and pippin bc it reminded me of that one episode spongebob squarepants where the lads end up riding a rock to the customer's house 🤣 'it's not a boulder, it's a rock! a big, beautiful ROCK!!' lmao

baby birb ALSO loved all the shots of everyone running. as a smol individual, i had to run EVERYWHERE to keep up with the Tall Folk 😒 sure it was nice seeing THOSE feckers sprinting for a change!!

am still very confused about why anyone listened to grima what's his name, ur man's half the way to gollum u know 👀

tangential to the running scenes: i love aragorn's doofy run where he's flinging his one arm about like a silly. reminds me of my OWN unhinged run 🤣 (it is possible that these films are more deeply imprinted upon me than i thought 😅)

'LOOKS LIKE MEAT'S BACK ON THE MENU, BOYS!!!'

legolas's FACE every time he has an emotion. delightful

knowing that viggo mortensen broke his toe made me laugh at the helmet kicking scene tbh, i know it's meant to be poignant but that EXTREMELY REALISTIC scream of pain got me going like 🤣

shout out to treebeard holding merry and pippin in his tree hands. i kept thinking 'what if he just. smashes them together like barbie dolls 🤣'

ORCSES. HOBBITSES. i actually love gollum-smeagol, he's too pathetic for me to hate. HE'S LITERALLY SAT THERE SINGING HIS LIL SONG AND EATING A RAW FISH. LEAVE HIM GO HE'S NOT BOTHERING ANYONE ;A;

that gifset ruined everything for me. 'this forest is old......very old....' old as balls. that's just the line now. i no longer acknowledge the original. 😔

cheeky gandalf!! 'u wouldn't part an old man from his walking stick!! 🥺��😘🤭🙄' (<- this is how birb thought using emojis worked a scant five years ago. be GRATEFUL i was not on tumblr back then, for the carnage would have been GREAT AND TERRIBLE!!!)

i love love LOVE the scene of the trio beating the shite out of the bg guys while gandalf walked slowly toward the king. u just see legolas punching a dude in the face, aragorn ZOOMING round in front of gandalf and off to the side, it's hilarious 🤣

whEN THEY TOSS GRIMA DOWN THE STAIRS LIKE JGY 👀

so many ICONIC lines!!! 'boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew!!'

'it's the beards 👀'

U DROP ARAGORN OFF A CLIFF???? OH! OH! JAIL FOR ORCS!! JAIL FOR ORCS FOR 1000 YEARS!!!!

rip eowyn, she's so lonely and sad that the slightest validation from a hot guy she's known for five minutes was enough to make her fall stupid in love with him 😔

(i am also stupid in love with him, but it's different when i do it bc. um. uhhhh. 👀😳)

god he IS great tho, isn't he??? he's so dirty and greasy and wet and soggy, i love him and his dirty face and his dirty clothes and his dirty hands i love him i love him i lo

legolas got SO ANGRY about the orc telling them aragorn went over the cliff, he took it SO PERSONALLY. this makes birb want them to kiss each other 😊

they can kiss gimli as well, i don't mind!!

also the king awkwardly patting legolas on the shoulder like he's a slightly homophobic dad trying to comfort his gay son after a break-up, 'i still care about u but im super uncomfortable so im just not gonna say anything ok?? ok. manly head nod. im out 😐'

OPEN MOUTH KISSING??? BEFORE MARRIAGE????!!!!!!! OBSCENE!!!!!! LEAVE ROOM FOR THE HOLY GHOST!!!

side note: poor elrond, here he is trying to make sure his daughter has a good life and all she wants is to marry the dirty ranger like

'u think u know a girl, u raise her for 2000 or whatever years, organise her birthday parties and buy her a pony and teach her how to control the river, and then in the end she leaves u behind and marries a guy with a fraction of her lifespan, dooming herself to future suffering and despair smh 😔'

also arwen's face when aragorn is breaking up with her,,,,,'what did daddy say to u?? this is bc of what he said, isn't it?! i can't believe he's still interfering with my love life!!!!' ;A;

that lil ~half caress~ aragorn does to legolas's hand when he's returning arwen's necklace to him????? it's like??? idk super romantic??? it made my stomach go SWOOP?? if i stare at a gif of this scene i feel a bit dizzy??? is that weird. am i. weird 👀

i want them to make out with each other, sorry lads 😔

the annoying thing in all these medieval fantasy type stories, when there's not enough men for the war, they're always conscripting 10 year old boys, while the teenage girls and young women without any kids are hiding with the elders and children. LIKE. HOW can u justify sending little 8 yo haleth son of hama to the front lines?? LOOK AT HIM!! HE'S TINY!!! surely a 15 - 21 year old young woman would have a better chance of NOT DYING than a wee lad!!! they're peasants, they're used to hard labour!! do directors/writers etc think it's more ~realistic~ or sth?? do ppl think NO WOMAN ever took up a sword in a crisis??? even if certain things are Not Done (and in some places, even under penalty of DEATH), the Rules tend to fly out the feckin window once there's an emergency!!! I THINK 10,000 ORCS MARCHING ON HELM'S DEEP COUNTS FOR AN EMERGENCY???????

all im saying. is if we're all going to die anyway, then EVERYONE should get a sword. even the kids. ESPECIALLY the kids. it went really well in the walking dead when the lil girls each had a pistol. i promise i can be trusted with weapons i p romi s

the best thing in medieval-style warfare is when the two armies stand across from each other and shout insults back and forth for a bit, like 'you're ugly!' or 'you're smelly!' or 'i slept with your sister, and it weren't anything to write home about!!'

please could somebody fetch gimli a ladder, ur mans can't see above the fecking wall like nnO NO NOT THAT KIND OF LADDER

legolas and gimli counting their kills will never NOT be funny to me

MY KING A BEAST!! LOOK AT HIM GO!!! HE RODE A FUCKING LADDER AND CRASHED INTO A BUNCH OF ORCS LIKE A KILLER WHALE GOING AFTER SEALS!!! ;A;

god when he shoves open those doors and ARRIVEs it's so so so fucking hot. god he is sso hot. he's so hot i love him i love him i

lol they sneak out the side door like 'hee hee hoo hoo, no one shall see us~' 🤣

'TOSS ME!!!!!' *yeets the dwarf*

legolas SHIELD SURFING!!! HANG TEN, BRO!!! GNARLY WIPE OUT!!! 🤙

im sorry

imagine being such an asshole that u make the fucking TREES angry??? like, u make the trees hate u SO FUCKING MUCH. that they literally come MARCHING OUT OF THE FOREST to commit mass property damage???? 👀

when i watched the scene i shouted 'TILL BIRNAM WOOD DO COME TO HIGH DUNSINANE!!!!' out loud but nobody laughed ._.

come onnnn it's funny right??? esp since we know that 'no man of woman born' can kill the guy in the next film!!! iT'S FUNNY, RIGHT??? ;A;

sam and frodo tumbling down the stairs also made me laugh but i paid for it immediately after when sam goes 'it's your sam. don't you know your sam?' fucknig KILL MEEEEE PLS

the most iconic, most beautiful, most painful line of the film-----the one that always makes me cry, the one i couldn't forget if i wanted to, the words that stand between me and DEATH------

'That there's some good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it's worth fighting for.'

GOD. IM FUCKING DEAD 😭😭😭😭 beautiful delivery as well, shout out to samwise gamgee for being the best man to walk middle earth, i will now lie in a puddle of my own tears _(:3」∠)

[weirdstuffinthewoods]

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

I'm awful at starting niche blogs, so I'm trying to stick to what I know and love. Something I know very well and love very much is this box set right here that I'm still mad at myself for getting rid of (I bought the 3-book treasury it's just not the SAME)

If you're a millennial of any age, you were probably traumatized by one or more of these bad boys. Alvin Schwartz sat down in the late 70s (book 1 was published in 1981!) and said, "you know what? I'm gonna scare the pants off a bunch of kids and they'll thank me for it later." And you know what? I kinda do.

I've spent a lot of time trying to find the root of my horror obsession, and I thought it was seeing the 1990 made-for-TV version of IT at a sleepover in 3rd grade, which resulted in two traumatic years of night terrors, calmed only by...reading the book it was based on? And then all of Stephen King's other works that were definitely not appropriate for a barely 9-10 year old? (For years, I'd skip the adulthood sections of IT when I read it because I found them so boring, so I had a half-finished story in my mind. Go figure.) But that wasn't it. I thought maybe it was finding the Informania: Ghosts and Informania: Vampires books at the Scholastic Book Fair and poring over them obsessively for years (more on this at a later date) but nope.

It was Scary Stories, Alvin Schwartz, and Stephen Gammell.

If you want some of the story surrounding these books, I recommend the Prime/Freevee documentary "Scary Stories". I remember none of it, but that's the ADHD and I can't help it.

From a quick Wikipedia search (they have never steered me wrong and this is a for-fun blog y'all), it looks like Alvin Schwartz is a folklore dude, which I aspire to be. He published multiple other kids' books of folklore aside from the Scary Stories trilogy, including A Twister of Twists, A Tangler of Tongues, but these were illustrated by a dude named Glen Rounds and I mean look:

A little weird, but not nightmare-inducing by any means. Although the amount of hair is concerning. American folklore gets lost in the shuffle a lot so it's cool for kids to see it. Then, a bit before 1981, he meets this fuckin' guy:

Who yes appears harmless but single-handedly molded me as a person with just some watercolor and pencil. Without his illustrations, Scary Stories wouldn't have the legacy they do today. Proof? The books were rereleased in 2011 with different illustrations. From the guy who illustrated the Series of Unfortunate Events books (Brett Helquist). I'm sure those were fine but like come on.

as compared to

Which one is a kid (ie me) going to cover with one hand while desperately trying to read the other page?

Stephen Gammell has a decades-long career which is briefly highlighted in this Bloody Disgusting article, excitingly enough. Before Scary Stories, he actually did another scary book series for kids which has some unsettling illustrations

and he did some historical illustrations for stuff like Thunder at Gettysburg and Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust which no I will not be looking up because I need to sleep tonight.

The article also goes on to mention how amazing Schwartz's research abilities were considering none of these stories were original- they were just collected from around the US and the world and compiled into a (not kid-friendly, no, but) kid-interesting version. There were also audiobooks (books on cassette? I guess?) for at least one of them so I assume all three, and I distinctly remember (I'll point to the exact stories later):

sitting:

-in broad daylight

-at the reading table in my classroom, probably 3rd grade too

-headphones on, volume up

-sweating absolute buckets because I was listening to this baby which ETSY SOMEHOW HAD

ARE YOU JOKING ETSY??? I'm okay though I don't need the nightmares back.

George S. Irving deserved every penny he got for this work and a whole lot more because that man scared the shit out of me. Also found out as I was reading his Wikipedia article that he played Heat Miser in The Year Without A Santa Claus. Well. The more you know, I guess.

Anyway, going forward, I'm going to go in depth on some of my favorites, and hopefully you come with! Send me questions or suggestions on stuff you want me to talk about or look at :)

Also yes I've seen the movie no I will not talk about it here but maybe later because it's been awhile since I saw it