#the bullies are original characters and totally not named after employers that I have had nope

[kyleknight]

excuse my tantrum

Waterparks Creations Challenge // caimani ➥ Theme: Entertainment // Prompt: TANTRUM

AN: so this is a prequel to The Stigmata / Boys Don’t Cry Blood, and it reveals the reason why Awsten and Otto ended up at the reform school

content warnings: vandalism, arson, bullying, hospitals, vague mentions of major traumatic injuries from a hit and run

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

CRACK!

The impact of the sledgehammer against the windshield of the truck jarred Awsten’s arms. The head of the hammer bounced against the surface more than anything else. There was a clear impact, but barely any damage from all the force he’d put into it. Awsten tightened his grip and swung the hammer back again.

This time, the hammer smashed harder into the glass, creating a huge spiderweb of fractures from the impact site. Awsten’s eyes narrowed and he hefted the sledgehammer up again.

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

“That dent’s just from a deer, dude, fucking chill,” Chris said, shoving Awsten back so hard he fell onto his ass on the ground. “Fucking paranoid.”

Awsten leapt back up. “A deer, huh? So if we test that and it’s got traces of human blood—”

Freddie grabbed Awsten before he could even reach Chris and shoved him away again. “Watch it, you little bitch. No one’s testing anything. He’s got a witness. I was with him, and it was a fucking deer.”

“Where’s the deer now?” Otto said, a short distance behind Awsten. “What road were you on?”

Chris snorted, but his mouth cracked with a smirk. “Oh the deer’s still alive.”

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

Awsten was out of breath when he was finally satisfied with the remains of the windshield. It didn’t shatter like he had been hoping, but there was a gaping hole now, and the insides of the truck were littered with broken glass shards.

Shaking, he jumped down from the roof of the pickup to where Otto was standing beside the car. Otto flipped his knife closed, done with slashing the tires into ribbons. He picked his own sledgehammer off the ground.

“Wanna take out the mirror on the other side?” he said.

Awsten grinned. “Yeah.”

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

They had the fucking counselor sit Otto and Awsten down in the little conference room together. Awsten was barely holding himself together. He was only in school that day so he could find Chris and… and do something.

“In case you haven’t heard it yet—” Mrs. Fleming started.

“Jawn’s in the hospital,” Otto said, his voice cold.

They’d known since— well, since Jawn’s parents called them from the hospital late last night. Awsten hadn’t slept at all afterwards. He and Otto both wanted to stay with Jawn, but Jawn’s parents made him leave. They said they needed to rest. The doctors couldn’t predict when Jawn would wake up.

Instead of resting, Awsten had burned.

“This is going to be a hard time for you two,” Mrs. Fleming said. “I know you three are good friends. If you need to talk to anyone, please—”

“We’ll be okay.”

Mrs. Fleming went still. She folded her hands in front of her. “I know you boys are upset and angry. But it’s not a good idea to keep this all bottled up. If… if you need, you can stay in here for a while, where it’s quiet. Your teachers will understand if you’re not up for going to class—”

“No,” Awsten said, standing up from the conference table. “I think I want to be in class right now. I wanna… see some familiar faces.”

Mrs. Fleming still looked concerned but she let him and Otto go with only a few more reassurances that they could come and talk to her at any time.

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

The side windows came off easily. It was easy to smash dents in the side panels too, but Awsten was desperate for more damage. He tried smashing the windows, but like the windshield, they needed a lot more force to shatter.

Panting, he stepped back. He glanced across the car at Otto. Otto hefted his sledgehammer over his shoulder and nodded towards the front of the car.

“Lights?”

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

“A hit and run,” Jawn’s mom said through choked tears. “Someone… someone hit my baby and… and just—”

Jawn’s dad hugged her close as she broke down into sobs. “We’re lucky someone found him so fast,” he said, swiping at his eyes. “He… god, I can’t believe this.”

Awsten’s vision blurred as he looked at the door of the ICU. He wasn’t going to be allowed inside until the doctors and nurses were done. He was scared of what he would see. His imagination had been running wild ever since he picked up the call from Jawn’s dad.

Awsten looked away from the door and looked at Otto instead. Otto reached out and took Awsten’s hand, grasping it tightly.

“We’ll be here for him,” he promises.

Awsten nodded.

Jawn would make it. He had to. A world without Jawn… just wasn’t right.

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

Awsten looked over the smashed and battered truck. It wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough. Nothing would even come close to making up for the sight of Jawn lying on the hospital bed, wrapped up in bandages and casts and surrounded by machines that were working to keep him alive.

Nothing would make up for the doctor telling them in a gentle tone that, while Jawn might wake up soon, he might also be in a coma for a long time.

Nothing would make up for how Jawn’s parents fell apart while gently holding their son’s hands.

Nothing.

Awsten turned his back on the truck and started walking back towards Otto’s car.

“That’s it?” Otto said, following him after a moment of hesitation.

“No,” Awsten said. He opened the trunk and pulled out a five gallon gasoline can. “Not yet.”

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

Jawn was extremely still as Chris passed. Awsten glared at him and Freddie, but both of them paid him no mind. Chris smacked Jawn’s head from behind, laughing when Jawn reached up to push his hair out of his eyes.

Awsten tensed, not sure whether he should jump out of his seat and stand up for Jawn and definitely get his ass kicked or…

The opportunity to do anything was gone though. Jawn sighed and moved to the other side of the table, sitting between Awsten and Otto.

“It’s not—” he started, right as Otto said “You should—”

“It’s not like they’re actually doing anything,” Jawn muttered, looking down at his tray of food.

“I’m gonna kick their asses one day,” Awsten said. He looked over at where Chris and Freddie had gone, and couldn’t help the flinch when he saw them looking at them.

Otto scoffed. “Yeah, you wouldn’t last a second. We just gotta stay away from them. We’re safer together.”

“And we all have the same classes,” Awsten said, brightening up. He was rewarded by a small smile from Jawn. “It’s gonna be fine. They’re graduating this year—”

“I bet they’re not—” Otto said.

Awsten laughed, and Jawn joined in.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “Just another two months and they’ll be gone.”

“Hopefully far away from here,” Awsten said.

Jawn nodded. “Hopefully.”

. x . x . x . x . x . x .

The flames stretched high into the sky. The clouds of smoke rolling off the carcass of the truck were thick, heavy, and black.

Awsten felt a little shaky watching the pickup burn. They would have to get rid of their clothes— they smelled like fire. Take longass showers. Or use those bath bombs Jawn had given Awsten as a joke gift for his birthday.

Otto’s car was far enough away that it’d be fine. They’d be fine.

If Chris could get away with hitting Jawn with his fucking truck and putting Jawn in the hospital, then Awsten and Otto could get away with burning Chris’s truck to ashes. There wasn’t anyone around; they had checked plenty of times. They could get rid of the evidence. Awsten had gotten away with burning plenty of things before, just nothing so big as a truck.

“We should leave,” Otto said. “Before someone sees the fire.”

“Yeah,” Awsten said. He picked up the empty can and carried it back to Otto’s car.

[echodrops]

Hshshsnansna seeing that ask got me in a HUGE HaaH mood. Like, I went through and read a bunch of asks, and I'd probably go reread the fic itself if I had time. So!! Is there anything about HaaH you've always wanted to share but never had the chance to? Headcanons, worldbuilding, backstory, hidden details- anything at all??

Oh friend… There is so much. I have a Word document that’s like 17k of JUST headcanons and world-building for this fic kghsdkjhdkfg I’m not crazy, I swear.

It took me a while to respond because I had to comb through and find stuff that wasn’t spoilery, but tada, have some Home and a Half Hunk and Shiro (and Matt) headcanons and backstory under the cut!

Also, as for hidden details… Same as the Garrison professors in the show were named for staff members, Neuhahn and Ania are named after IRL contributors to the Voltron animated series–Chris Neuhahn was a producer and Ania O’Hare was the casting director.

And here are some Hunk, Shiro, and sorta Matt headcanons/backstory that shapes their characters in HaaH. (Please note, these headcanons ignore absolutely everything from about season 6 of the actual show and on. I stopped watching Voltron after Season 6 because I just couldn’t handle the writing anymore. T_T)

Hunk:- He’s mixed ethnically, and although his parents are from Samoa, his family tree actually spans many different countries, mostly in Polynesia, including Tonga, but even places as far away as Malaysia.- His parents were converted to the LDS church by Mormon missionaries in Samoa. A few years before Hunk was born, his parents moved to Utah to be closer to the church, so Hunk has only ever been to Samoa once, on a vacation to visit family.- His first name is actually “Hyrum,” and until he met Lance at a Garrison-sponsored summer astro-camp when they were nine, everyone just called him by his real name.- Lance actually meant to call him “Incredible Hulk” at camp, butttt to nine-year-old Lance’s utter mortification, it came out “Incredible Hunk” instead. “Hunk” stuck.- He has a little sister who is even more sensitive than he is.

- Although Hunk’s parents originally agreed on the plan to move to America, after the family arrived, they experienced difficulty fitting in with the very selective Utah culture, and Hunk’s mother grew disenchanted with the church. Employment was difficult to find in their small, rural town, and Hunk’s parents both struggled with being isolated from their extended families. Tensions over whether or not to remain in America, as well as over money, led to some miserable fights that contributed to Hunk’s aversion to conflict when he was younger.

- Hunk sometimes had to play the role of family peacekeeper, working hard to make sure that his youngest sister wouldn’t notice the strain.

- Nevertheless, despite their share of troubles, the family is extremely close-knit. Hunk values his family and their opinions more than anything in any world.

- Which is how he ended up agreeing to go to Garrison, even when he really just wanted to help his parents kickstart the restaurant they were planning to open. His mother felt that working in a family restaurant, even if Hunk is a great cook, would squander his incredible academic and engineering talent (which Hunk thought of as just a hobby), so she begged him to go and continue his schooling instead. Hunk couldn’t say no to his mother, even if the thought of being shipped off into space terrified the living daylights out of him.

- Hunk doesn’t curse and is somewhat uncomfortable with people cursing, at least in front of him. Although Lance used to have a pretty colorful repertoire, when he learned that cursing made Hunk uncomfortable, he immediately adopted all of Hunk’s weird Utah replacements instead. “Holy crow” and “let’s kick some trash” are things they actually say seriously.

- Hunk is always down to cuddle and is never embarrassed by asking for or giving cuddles to anyone. He would 200% cuddle Shiro if he thought Shiro would let him. (Shiro would, in fact, let him.) Hunk’s favorite person on the team to cuddle is actually Keith, because Keith (who was taught to comply by Garrison scientists with all unexpected/unsolicited touch) will just sit obediently for hours letting Hunk hug out all his stress. Hunk knows that something is off about Keith’s behavior, but his leading theory—that Keith allows the hugs because he’s touch-starved—is unfortunately false.

- Hunk knows the lyrics to every Disney song EVER.

- And he’s like a dog with a bone when it comes to secrets. Once he discovers that someone’s keeping something under wraps, he goes a bit crazy with curiosity and cannot stop thinking about what they might be hiding. The rules of privacy go totally out the window when he gets like this, but time and again, Hunk’s adage that it’s always better to tell the truth bears itself out.

  Shiro (and Matt?):

- Shiro is the only member of his immediate family whose first language was not Japanese. His grandparents on both sides immigrated to the US from Japan due to work transfers relatively late in life, when their own children, Shiro’s parents, were already young adults. As the first family child to be born in America, Shiro’s parents strongly emphasized the need to learn English well, which unfortunately resulted in Shiro being pushed away from learning Japanese when he was young. Even though he’s a capable conversationalist now, he’s struggled his whole life with regret over not learning the language when he was young and could have picked it up easier.  

- There’s a running joke in his family that he’s actually an ogre in disguise, given that he is much taller than many of his other family members. Tradition demands that the first photo of every holiday gathering is a joke group shot in which Shiro’s posed so his entire head is outside the top frame of the picture.

- Shiro was mercilessly bullied as a child because of his height. The other children frequently suggested that he didn’t belong in their grade because he was too big and that the school must held him back multiple times for being dumb. (Shiro was never held back. In fact, he had excellent grades from kindergarten to the day he graduated from Garrison—and no, not because his parents forced him to study; in fact, throughout his schooling, they often ended up having to force Shiro to go to bed already instead.)

- On top of being teased for his looks, Shiro was naturally shy. He barely spoke, even to his teachers, and would stumble miserably if he was put on the spot in class, contributing further to the rumor that he was stupid.

- Shiro loved learning, but he hated everything that happened in school and didn’t have a single real friend outside of his cousins until he went off to middle school and met Matt Holt in sixth grade.

- Barely two weeks into their first middle school year, and it was already obvious that Matt was the school’s biggest nerd; he’d been bumped up two grades because of his obvious genius and was the textbook definition of an alien conspiracy theorist (It’s not a conspiracy if they’re REAL, guys!) But the strange thing was that no one bullied Matt—he was just so quick on the sarcastic (and biochemical) comebacks that teasing him wasn’t even worth it. Instead, the school’s resident assholes took it out on targets a little less likely to corrode their homework with miniature magnesium bombs—read as, they picked on polite, well-meaning Takashi Shirogane instead.

- Out of pity more than anything else, Matt finally stood up for Shiro one day and ran off the assholes. (It was not, as Mrs. Shirogane insists, with a home-made taser. It was not.) After something like that, well… You sort of feel obligated to befriend a guy, don’tcha?

- Becoming friends with Matt Holt transformed Shiro’s life. Even if Shiro wouldn’t originally speak up for himself, he was ferociously proud and supportive of his first real friend, and learning to be bold for Matt taught Shiro the value and meaning of standing up for not only others, but also himself. Being friends with someone as off-the-cuff and tricky as Matt helped Shiro grow more spontaneous, less self-conscious, and ultimately much more confident—even if, to this day, most of that confidence is still focused on helping others, rather than on being self-assured.

- It was Shiro admiration for Matt’s father, Sam Holt, that led Shiro to take his childhood obsession with military history a step further by actually joining the military. Shiro and Matt enrolled in Garrison together, although Matt was part of the research rather than the combat division.

- Matt was the one who convinced Shiro to get his hair styled in an undercut. It was originally just a dare, but Shiro ended up loving it afterward. The “Undercut Incident,” as it has come to be known in the Shirogane family, was the official straw that broke the camel’s back and resulted in Mrs. Shirogane declaring Matt Holt a “bad influence,” the only impact of which was that Matt had to sneak in through Shiro’s bedroom window instead of coming to the front door when he wanted to hang out.  

- Shiro has received two separate Medals of Honor for making dangerous supply deliveries to war-torn countries across the globe, delivering the vital food and medicine that helped save hundreds of lives. He has also been part of several missions to save stranded astronauts from failing international space stations.

- Shiro is actually a giant memelord, but his crushing sense of responsibility keeps him from indulging in quality shitposting in front of anyone he actually knows. He had a ridiculously active secret Vine account before leaving on the Kerberos mission. His snaps are legendary. Deep down, Shiro dreads the inevitable day someone connects him with his cringey social media accounts.

- Literally the worst at adulting. His mom still filled out his tax forms for him and booked his dentist appointments. He has no idea what the hell he’s doing leading Team Voltron when he can’t even remember which of his clothes are machine-washable and which aren’t.

- When they were in their third year at Garrison, Matt conned Shiro into volunteering as a camp counselor for Garrison’s summer astrocamp program, even though Shiro had minimal understanding of how to take care of children and mostly just BS’d his way through, hoping that none of his campers had anything close to a serious issue.

- He won “best camp counselor” the very first year he volunteered. Mostly because Lance cheated and voted for him 23 times, but still.

[ghost-mantis]

what if the Piraka would be the next protagonists of g3? like seemingly taken straight out of g1, but there is a new thing: character arcs. but not in the way: "everyone goes through a sad week, everyone cries together and everyone's best friends forevar!" i mean like: NOT all Piraka turn good, and the ones who do, still struggle to work together. at some point, they even drift apart, due conflicts, until they finally can resolve their differences. but which 3-5 of the six would turn good?

Okay, a story pitch for a G3 centered around the Piraka is would be difficult for multiple reasons, but probably the biggest is marketing. Bionicle has always been carried by it’s storyline, but lived by it’s toy sales which rely heavily on capturing the child market share and it’s sweet sweet disposable income. While there are a number of older fans, they often spend less on sets overall and aren’t the target market. Honestly I don’t think you’d have to change the look of the Piraka much though, if Street Sharks can get away with giant toothy protagonists then Bionicle can to, (and I feel so old for typing that, does anyone else actually remember that series?)

The first thing you’d have to retcon is their name, because “Piraka” is in canon a swear word meaning something like “backstabbing murder-pirate-thief”. Not exactly kid friendly! Start by changing the origin to something like pirate-piranha and softening out their personalities a bit. Change their backstories too, protagonists in children’s media aren’t usually allowed to be murderers (I’m looking at you Punisher) but they can be thieves and bullies at the start. In fact, wipe out the hole Voya Nui canon, because holy crap that was dark and you absolutely can’t reboot a series for young kids based on that.

Instead, make the Piraka self-serving jerks and antiheroes, lock them together in a quest to save the world that they really want no part in. (The Riyria Revelations book series by Michael J. Sullivan actually does a fairly good job of this with a thief and a mercenary.) None of them have to be inherently good, and they can all try and bail on the quest at various points. After all, these are a people who grew up on an island on an all-out civil war and only escaped it by joining the Dark Hunters. Mercy and altruism aren’t really in their handbook. 

So give them a quest they can’t abandon, and emphasize along the way that a Toa team would fail because they would willingly make any and every effort to aid others and/or sacrifice themselves along the way, leaving the quest undone and dooming everyone. Make the Piraka clever, and practical, getting the job done with trickery and bribery, and occasionally targeted violence. Give them obstacles that only the powers they can summon through cooperation can allow them to overcome, and force them to come to terms with working together. 

“Good” is so very hard to define, it’s situational, so maybe instead of picking a few to turn good and some to stay bad, focus on giving each of them their own code of morals and lines they wont cross. One won’t steal from those who can’t spare it, another won’t harm Agori/Glatorian children and actively hurts those who do. Make at least one regret past actions in wartime and at least a few want to make amends by the end. They’ll never be totally morally in the right, it’s not who they are, but by the end they’ll actively try to finish the quest together even if they still dislike each other. 

You could recycle saving the Mask of Life or the Mask of Time as the end quest to build the series around. Say that several Toa teams had already died trying to retrieve it and Destiny had somehow named the Piraka as the next group to attempt it. The Piraka don’t find out about this until The Order kidnap them and force them on the quest, which they frequently try to abandon in the first seasons of the storyline. Make them Order pawns against both The Brotherhood and The Dark Hunters (their old employers), while also competing with at least one other group of Toa, all of which are after the mask. The Piraka are pretty much outgunned and underpowered against all of that, so they have to lie, cheat, and steal their way to victory, with a bit of trickery thrown in. 

And as a nod to the marketing in G1, I demand that at least one story arc requires them to kidnap a band as a distraction. 

Some other issues you’d have to address:

You’d do well to have females on the team. Seriously, this has been a continual issue in Bionicle, why not address it this go around?

Vezon is a good character for later seasons, maybe put him in a small story arc? Have him steal the mask right out of their hands and make him the main bad for awhile while the other threats they’ve overcome regroup to come at them later.

You’d have to retcon the Dark Hunters to be a bit less insanely murderey at the start, Bionicle aged with it’s readers and got darker as it went but you can’t start a reboot that way!

Merch is a big part of Bionicle, you’d need to find a way to get a few new sets out of each character, so you’d need to decide how they grow or change in appearance and power.

NO MORE PIRAKA RAP!

[stewystew]

Ok I wrote this all in the tags of another post but I took my adderall for the first time in a week today and yeah sure, it’s worn off by now, but I’m still vibing so here we go!!! (woo this got longer than I thought it was going to be, so I’m putting the read more in)

I’m going to describe a movie to you.

This is a great movie. In one sentence, it’s a super fun found family heist movie with heavy The Devil Wears Prada vibes. which is like. the ideal set of tropes. Are you on board yet?

On top of that, there’s party-crashing, general thievery, fun costume design, an intense rivalry, a fucking choice montage, and it all ends with five friends and their five dogs living happily ever after in the big house that they stole, The End.

This is Cruella (2021). And the rumors are true, it fucking sucked. But because I actually watched it, I can tell you why it sucked, and it’s NOT that her mom got murdered by Dalmatians (at least that’s not the main reason). I can also tell you how it could be fixed.

Cruella is not actually a bad movie. But also, it very much is. (hope this helps <3) Ok. It’s bad because, of course, Capitalism. Literally the movie I described to you? Sounds super fun and great? If Disney didn’t have an obsession with making a quick buck on the back of its classic franchises, that could’ve been what Cruella was. But instead, they slapped an iconic villain on that super fun heist movie, and ruined the whole thing.

You can’t make Cruella De Vil a hero. You can’t. Other villain rewrites work because they swap the hero and the villain, or at least the villain’s atrocities are swapped out for something more understandable. But. A bunch of puppies can’t be evil. And when Cruella’s entire character is about Being Rich and Killing Puppies, you can’t change her motives or her backstory, because then all you have left is her aesthetic. Which isn’t unimportant, but you can’t build a compelling story out of an aesthetic.

But, that’s what Disney chose to do, I guess.

Here’s what happened:

1) Our main character, Estella, is born with the black and white hair (relying on the aesthetic!) (imo this is bad bc either it’s a cartoony Anime Protagonist Hair thing ooh magic. or it’s poliosis, and that’s ehh bc it’s very much framed as like. Symbolic of her ✨inner evil✨. Which is weird for it being a real thing that real people have.)

2) ANYWAY. She’s kind of a mean kid, but mostly very opinionated. We learn this when she calls a shirt ugly (aha, see? She’s into fashion!), and her mother jokes that she should be called “Cruella” instead of “Estella”. So. Now we have the name thrown in. Again, the aesthetic.

3) Blah blah, she adopts a stray dog, she punches bullies, blah blah, she gets kicked out of school, and she and her mother move to the city (she’s like 12 at this point)

4) but *gasp!* before they get there, her mother has to ask a “friend” for help because they’re poor. (So. there goes the Rich part of Cruella’s character. She no longer has anything in common with Cruella De Vil’s villainy!)

5) The “friend”, though, is very rich, and is throwing a party at her mansion (which is on a cliff). The mom goes in, and Cruella follows her. Cruella ends up getting chased by Dalmatians, but they don’t attack Cruella, instead they end up pushing her mom off the cliff. Cruella thinks it’s her fault because the dogs were chasing her.

6) Cruella goes to the city on her own, and meets two other orphaned kids, Jasper and Horace (we’ll call them J&H) (they also have a dog!), and they all live together and get very very good at stealing shit. Then, it’s like ten years later, and she wears a wig to fit in.

7) She catches the attention of a famous fashion designer (The Baroness) because of how good she is at fashion. The Baroness (who owns Dalmatians!) hires her, and now Cruella’s designing clothes for her. Also, the Baroness’s assistant(?) is Mark Strong, so the “Stanley Tucci in The Devil Wears Prada” vibes are very much there.

8) Cruella finds out that the Baroness is actually her mom’s ex-employer and the “friend” she was talking to before she died, because the baroness has her mother’s necklace, which she says her mother stole from her. The Baroness doesn’t know who Cruella is, though.

9) Cruella tries to steal the necklace back (this is the party she crashes!), and finds out that the Baroness trained the Dalmatians to kill her mother. To get revenge, she creates an alter ego where she goes full Cruella De Vil, the iconic black and white hair and everything, and upstages the Baroness by being better at fashion. (Yay double life! Yay rivalries! Yay fun montage!)

10) oof this is getting long. I’ll try to hurry it up.

11) at one point Cruella wears a fur coat and everyone thinks she’s skinned the Baroness’s Dalmatians for it, but she didn’t. Because she would never hurt a dog! *clutches pearls*

12) J&H are mad because her fashion alter ego is mean to them. She says “lol deal with it” but then later she says “oops sorry i love my friends actually” so. she’s not even that mean.

13) The Baroness tries to kill her, she fails. Mark Strong tells Cruella that she’s actually the Baroness’s daughter, and the Baroness had tried to kill her as a baby. Oh, and Cruella has a scene where she’s all “I’m unapologetically evil!” which might have been better if she were actually. You know. Evil.

14) oh, also the gay character is a guy who owns a little clothing store and he and Cruella are friends. He’s not explicitly gay tho, he’s just good at fashion and wears makeup.

15) So Cruella and her friends (J&H, Mark Strong, Gay Character) all go and crash another party for the One Final Score. It’s at the Baroness’s mansion, on the cliff, and they trick the Baroness into pushing Cruella off the cliff in front of a bunch of people and the Baroness goes to jail.

16) Cruella survives because of a parachute in her dress (lmao), and because she’s the Baroness’s daughter she gets all her money and her mansion and her dogs. And then she and J&H and Mark Strong and Gay Character all live in the big house together with their five dogs and are friends forever the end. :)

17) oh, also, Anita Darling, from 101 Dalmatians, is Cruella’s childhood friend and Cruella gives her two Dalmatian puppies at the end as a gift. Which... Would that make the Dalmatian parents in the movie siblings? :(

So now you see. Or maybe you don’t, and that was all completely incomprehensible. Either way, on to the next part!

So, obviously, it would be a much much better movie if it weren’t about Cruella De Vil, Puppy Murderer, and Disney had produced a goddamn original movie for once :)

Now, literally just trimming all the Disney Franchise gunk off the script would work. All that bad cheesy stuff would be gone, we wouldn’t be teased with the slightly-but-not-actually villainous stuff she does, and I wouldn’t have to spend the entire 2 hours desperately trying and failing to separate the movie and it’s dog-loving protagonist from the puppy murderer.

BUT. I will say that the one thing that Cruella was able to properly utilize was Cruella De Vil’s iconicness. Again, the aesthetic isn’t completely unimportant!

So I think it’d be good to maintain that. sue me. My idea is this:

Our Main Character is just some girl. Similar situation to the movie, but she’s named Ann or Sue or something. She reads The One Hundred and One Dalmatians as a child, and because she’s a Weird Little Girl, becomes obsessed with Cruella De Vil and her entire deal. And the movie proceeds in exactly the same way from then on.

Why does this work? Thank you for asking, I’ll tell you!

Disney gets to keep their dumb Classic Franchise money or whatever because we’re keeping the character

All the fun outfits get to stay the same :)

All that stuff I said about why Cruella De Vil can’t be redeemed? Doesn’t matter now that our character isn’t Cruella. We’re still capitalizing on Cruella De Vil’s icon status as an irredeemable puppy killer, but like. Without actually redeeming the puppy killer in question. Yay!

Weird Little Girls are awesome

We get a cute scene where Main Character is trying and failing to dye her hair like Cruella’s (Cruella’s hair is black and white in the book as well!) Her mom comes into the bathroom, sees half empty dye and bleach bottles in the sink, her hair bright orange. Already, I would die for this kid. (ngl this one’s the main reason I’m so attached to this version)

Ooh, this is the fun part. So, the mom gets pushed off a cliff by Dalmatians. I’m keeping this in. Main Character, of course, thinking WWCDVD? (what would Cruella De Vil do?), is like, actively antagonizing these dogs. The dogs chase her, push the mom off the cliff. It’s still not actually her fault, but the fact that she goaded the dogs into chasing her? HAHAHA WE LOVE SOME GUILT!

Oh, you may be thinking, but if she likes to act like Cruella, would Main Character still adopt that stray dog? I give you a quote from Main Character herself, which I’m totally not just now writing on the spot: “Cruella only wants to wear Dalmatians, I can still like other dogs”. Doesn’t that sound exactly like something our Weird Little Girl would say?

Ah, but what about later, when she adopts those Dalmatians? Main Character likes Cruella’s aesthetic and vibes, but she’s also an adult person with her own sense of self and an awareness that killing dogs is bad.

Anyway. Next slide!

I wouldn’t have to think about the Dalmatians at the end being siblings because 101 DALMATIANS DOESNT HAPPEN IN THIS UNIVERSE IT’S JUST A BOOK!!!

I checked, and One Hundred And One Dalmatians came out in 1956 (the movie is set in the 60s and 70s), so the timeline works! Also, hair bleach was safe to use by the 50s, so my scene in number 5 works too!

TL;DR: Cruella (2021) is a found family heist movie, and could be fixed by making the protagonist a normal person who’s favorite character is Cruella De Vil from the book The One Hundred and One Dalmatians

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk it’s 2 am and I’m fucking exhausted

[freakscircus]

thinking about my top 10 stephen king books... because he is my favorite author and it was his birthday recently. i’m putting them under the cut here:

this list is by no means exhaustive, there’s a lot by king i haven’t read. for example, i haven’t read the dark tower which a lot of people consider one of his best. so this is just a top 10 of books i’ve read by him:

10. Misery Plot: a famous author gets into a car accident, and is found and nursed back to health by his biggest fan. however, she quickly becomes controlling and violent as she makes bigger and bigger demands of her favorite author, who is totally dependent on her in his injured state. - i appreciate this book but it is not something i would ever read again. the sympathy i felt for paul was just too great. the themes and mood of this book are just so bizarre, i absolutely love it. 

9. The Mist Plot: an otherworldly mist engulfs a little vacation town after a violent storm. a group of people are trapped in a supermarket and must decide what they can do, as going into the mist almost ensures certain death - i definitely liked the mist, it’s a novella so it is short, but it’s very interesting and quite stressful to read! but i suppose that makes a good book. i can’t really say why i find this book so interesting without spoiling it though, so pick it up for yourself!

8. The Shining plot: jack torrance becomes the winter caretaker of an old and majestic hotel, bringing his family with him. however, this hotel has a horrific past that continues to haunt it into the present. alone and snowed in, jack begins to lose his sanity and becomes obsessed with the overlook hotel, with his family trapped and forced to stay despite the deterioration of jack’s sanity and the violence and horror that ensues - i really enjoyed this one, but i honestly think it fell flat compared to the movie. i would have enjoyed this had i not watched the adaptation, but i think it loses out for sure. i absolutely adore the themes and setting though... isolation, cabin fever, haunting, and a horrific and large empty hotel. it reminds me of the isolation and horror of the hotel in silent hill as well. i really like the motif that king uses of the main character discovering the rotten interior of their surroundings, despite a pristine veneer. however in this case instead of overcoming, the main character rots along with it. i would really push you to read this book first if you’ve never watched the movie so you have nothing to compare it against.

7. The Talisman plot: a young boy has to save his sick mother, who has isolated herself in a desolate seaside hotel and has accepted her impending death. however, he discovers that there is a parallel universe to his own, where each person has a twin whose fate is directly intertwined with their original selves. jack must weave between worlds and travel a great distance to foil an evil plot in order to save his mother’s life - i like this one... it’s not horror fiction at all. if you like king for horror classics like carrie and misery, i don’t know if you’ll like this one. it’s pure fantasy, including magic powers and an otherworldly realm that is similar to medieval england. but i really enjoyed it, it’s a really satisfying adventure book.

6. Christine plot: an awkward and straightlaced teenager is inexplicably drawn to an extremely old and dilapidated red plymouth fury. after becoming the owner of the fury, his personality changes into a combative and obsessive version of himself that is almost unrecognizable to his childhood best friend. strange things begin to happen to anyone who goes against him, as they are inexplicably killed one by one in violent hit and run accidents.  - i really didn’t think i would like this one. anyone i explain the plot to thinks it’s super hokey and probably really campy and bad. however i really liked it! it’s super nuanced even though the antagonist is literally a car. i could not put this book down, the progression of arnie’s transformation is just so fascinating.  5. Dolores Claiborne plot: a woman’s firsthand account of how she did not murder her employer leads to a horrific telling of her life, and the choices that she has made. dolores chose to marry young and her regret and resentment over her husband is paired with a life full of poverty and difficult choices. - this was the book that introduced me to stephen king and i fell in love immediately. it’s a bit hard to get into this one, the narrative style is a bit odd. but once you do, it is incredible. the themes remind me a lot of v.c. andrews, so you get a very gothic horror feel from this one.

4. The Stand plot: a government created superflu virus wipes out almost the entire population of earth. a small percentage of people born with a rare immunity to the superflu survive, but they must decide what to do now that everyone they know has died right in front of them. large cities are full of dead bodies and horror, and options seem slim. two parallel settlements begin to arise, but tensions run high when one plots to destroy the other. - god i love this book. i fell in love with almost every single character, and it felt like i really bonded with each of the protagonists. i read this book over a very leisurely and enjoyable summer full of reading time and finished right in september, so it was very bittersweet to say goodbye to this one. it’s not purely horror, but it’s very stephen king. because of this book one of my potential girls names for a future daughter is nadine, which is funny when you read the book and realize who nadine is. anyway... absolutely love this one and i believe this is king’s most challenging book to read, but the most satisfying.

3. Dead Zone plot: johnny smith, a young man with a very normal life is suddenly involved in an almost lethal car accident. he is in a coma for years, losing over a decade of his life. however when he awakes, he realizes he has psychic powers. this story runs parallel to the story of the american election at the time, where a dangerous wild card candidate has risen to primacy. johnny’s newfound powers allow him to foresee that if this man gets elected, it is possible he will lead the world to nuclear destruction. - i love this one too! it seems so relevant in this political time. john smith is so loveable, and he is such a perfect protagonist. this is an easy read that you can finish in a week if you have the time.

2. Carrie plot: an awkward and socially stunted highschool girl is mercilessly bullied by her peers and isolated from everybody. her mother is overly religious and controlling to the point of abuse. one day, she discovers that she has psychic powers that act up when she becomes enraged. as she is pushed to the brink from the abuse of her peers and mother, her psychic powers begin to turn violent. - i truly cannot believe this is king’s very first novel. it is so perfect. the themes, the imagery, the plot is just incredible. this is a short read, i read it on a flight from rio de janeiro to sao paulo. if you don’t know where to start with king, or you’re not a huge reader, i would recommend carrie. i would say this is on par with the original movie, which does a very good job at adapting the book.

1. It plot: a demon emerges every 27 years to feed on the misery and rot of a seemingly idyllic small town in maine. the facade of a wholesome and beautiful town masks the racism, homophobia, and abusive tendencies of many of its residents. fate brings together a number of troubled or abused children who are the only ones who are able to take on the demon, which manifests itself as a clown. however as the children bond and come of age together, they struggle personally through the misery and abuse that color their lives. their struggles bring them together, cementing their friendship and strength through overcoming their own personal demons to fight the one that is preying on the horror and sickness of derry. - i love it. this book is sick and disturbing at times where i can still remember scenes that i will probably have to skip on a second read. however, there are many themes in this book i do enjoy. if you really loved either it movie, i’d recommend picking this book up. i found neither adaptation really did it justice, but how can they? this book is over a thousand pages of character development, backstories, growth, and coming of age. the horror is not only pennywise, but what these kids have to endure that steals their innocence and bonds them together. this is just artful writing, and i would recommend reading it over a very hot and slow summer. my highest recommended book out of all of them, but it is a tough read. it’s long and complex with multiple parallel stories running all at once. it’s impossible to grasp every detail on just your first read.