#yes the name of the turtle is a reference to stephen king's it

[gellavonhamster]

good people

gen || Montgomery Montgomery & Bertrand Baudelaire || pre-canon 

ao3 link eng  || ao3 link rus

Monty Montgomery learned about the deaths of Count and Countess *** somewhere about two in the afternoon, in the lobby of the Biology Faculty of Gerald Durrell University of Natural Science. He didn’t know them personally, and that day he could not even recall their faces when reading an article about their deaths, just as many years later he could not – unfortunately – recall the face of their son, whom he did know personally back in the day and had met as often as not. At the same time, he could remember in detail the moment he heard they were dead – the hum of voices in the vast corridors of the faculty building, sunlight glistening on glass in the frames of photographs and newspaper clippings hanging on the walls, the sound of his own footsteps. He was descending the stairs, almost hopping like a kid because he had just managed to talk a teacher into letting him submit the report a day later, and consequently was in a splendid mood. Few things can compete with the joy that a student experiences when the deadline for a paper that still exists only as a title page gets postponed for a later date. Immersed in happy thoughts, he went down to the ground floor, and was just heading for the exit when he suddenly saw a crowd of students and teachers huddled together and discussing something animatedly. One of the students was holding a widely unfolded newspaper, and several people at once were reading something over his shoulder.            

“Must be a change of government or something,” Monty thought as he approached them. Frankly, the prospect of writing a paper in two days concerned him much more at that time than a hypothetical coup. 

“Ah, Montgomery!” shouted one of those reading the paper, Professor Stein of the Herpetology Department. Stein was always shouting: he had hearing problems. Now, on the other hand, a raised voice was more than appropriate, for too many people were talking at once.  

“Good afternoon, Professor,” Monty gave him a nod of greeting as he joined the group. Getting closer to the paper was impossible – the crowd was too thick. “What’s the news?”

“A murder, Montgomery! A crime story at its finest; the whole city is going insane! Come read.” At that, Professor grabbed him by the elbow and pushed him into the middle of the crowd, so that Monty found himself right behind the left shoulder of the guy with the newspaper.

He took a look at the page, found the piece everyone was reading, and grew cold.

“Poison darts! With snake venom!” Stein exclaimed. Monty winced as if in pain. The loud noises around him were distracting; he wanted to read carefully, turn each word round in his head, persuade himself it was not what he thought it was. Coincidences do happen sometimes, after all. “And where – at the opera! Right during the performance!”    

“Yeah,” someone to the right of the newspaper chimed in, “straight out of Gaston Leroy.”  

“Leroux,” Monty corrected mechanically. He was suddenly overcome with fierce and helpless anger. He stepped back. “I’m sorry, Professor, I really have to go.”  

Walking quickly, even quicker than back when he was urged on by the unwritten report, he headed for the door.

Well then, La Forza del Destino. Poison darts. Snake venom.  

And his flatmate, who went to the opera yesterday and didn’t come back home.  

 ***

 Bertrand asked him to procure the venom about a week ago.

It might have been Thursday, or maybe Friday. Monty was writing a term paper then, one that he could not set about writing earlier because he was busy doing other things, from the tasks assigned to him by VFD to attending the parties organized by other volunteers, which in some cases seemed as important to him, even vital at times. VFD gave him time to deal with the exam period, relieving him from participation in any missions for the nearest future – the pursuance of science was highly valued among their ranks. Many volunteers flaunted some academic degrees, but not many of them got those degrees officially, even if they deserved them objectively. Some Doctors and Masters among them didn’t even hold a certificate of Bachelor’s Degree. Fighting the fires, both literal and figurative, took up a lot of time and energy, leaving virtually none of it for attending the lectures or even distance education. However, the VFD members had connections – Had Connections even, capitalized – owing to which many of them got the opportunity to call themselves professors or academicians, although all their scientific contributions, sometimes absolutely groundbreaking, remained hidden from the general public.      

At the Biology Faculty, VFD Had some Connections as well, and if Monty wished so, he probably could obtain the Master’s or even Doctor’s Degree without much effort, but he had no such wish. He desired recognition and respect from the people outside the organization, desired to make discoveries that he could tell the whole world about – desired for everything to be fair. That was why he had spent the whole previous week in a kind of a time loop. Every day looked like the day before: writing, writing, writing, leafing through the sources frenziedly after another bookmark gets lost, sorting the materials collected in the expedition, drinking gallons of coffee, and occasionally sleeping. And feeding Maturin, of course. As to Monty himself, it was Bertrand who had been feeding him, which was very kind of him, because Monty couldn’t even afford the time to heat some ready-to-cook foods. Bertrand simply used to come into his room, not even knocking anymore so that not to distract him, put a plate of vegetable couscous or spaghetti bolognese or something in front of him, and leave before Monty noticed that plate. The dirty dishes he used to take away in the same manner, unnoticed. Monty had to yell “Thank you!” for the whole house to hear, to which Bertrand yelled back “You owe me!” from his room or from the kitchen. He was joking, and Monty knew that, but still planned at least to stand treat at the pub after the exams were over.      

That morning, Bertrand knocked on the door again – first came in, then knocked. That meant he needed Monty to pay attention to him.

“Hello, hello, hello!” Monty exclaimed, turning on the chair, immediately knocked one his books off the table, and bent to pick it up. “I am listening to you attentively, o dearest neighbour.”  

“You’re going to the uni tomorrow, aren’t you?” Bertrand asked.

Monty nodded. “Yeah, to submit this Frankenstein’s monster. Only the bibliography left to do.”

“You’re a hero,” Bertrand praised him. Monty thought so too, in all honesty. “Could you do something for me while you’re at it?”

“Buddy, I would’ve wasted away without you here over the last few days. What exactly do you need?”  

“I need,” Bertrand felt for something in the pocket of his trousers, took out some scrap of paper, and gave it to Monty, “a vial of venom of this snake.”  

Monty’s heart lurched. He skimmed the note.

“Oh,” he said. “No problem. There are a couple of excellent specimens of this species at the City Herpetological Centre.”

“I know,” Bertrand replied. “I thought of asking N or S, but I don’t know them well. I wouldn’t like to shoot my mouth off in front of the people I do not trust completely,” he sat down on the edge of Monty’s bed. “Not these days.”  

Monty noticed that Bertrand was trying not to meet his eyes.

“I see. Tomorrow it’ll be done.”  

“Thank you,” Bertrand smiled slightly, still not looking at Monty. Instead, he was looking at Maturin, the turtle, which was chewing on a salad leaf in its terrarium. The turtle was undoubtedly remarkable, but it wasn’t hard to see that Bertrand was rather looking through it than at it. Sooner or later that was bound to happen, Monty thought. Sooner or later, each volunteer had to do something… like that. Not necessarily related to deathly poisons and what very logically results from their use, but still something that made it difficult to look one’s friends in the eye. Like it was now difficult for Bertrand.

“Who?” Monty asked in a hushed voice. “I’m not asking about the name, I’m asking if you know that person. Or were you just given a description?”

“A description,” Bertrand echoed. He smiled again, wider and brighter, but still somewhat stiffly. “Don’t worry about me. I am not a child, I’ll handle this.”  

 ***

 “And so he did,” Monty thought as he was unlocking the door to his flat.

Bertrand was already home; there was no need to call their acquaintances or go to Kit’s place. When Monty entered, his flatmate was sitting at the kitchen table and rubbing his knuckles on one hand with the thumb of the other. His face was calm, without any trace of either tears or smile. It reminded Monty of the kind of “Closed” sign that people put on the shop doors on Sundays.      

“There you are,” Monty said, peeking into the kitchen. Bertrand gave a start and looked at him.

“Hi,” he said, and offered Monty a faint smile. It didn’t look too convincing. “How did the report thing go?”  

“They let me submit it later,” Monty told him. He didn’t know how to ask Bertrand about what was really vexing him, so he asked another question that was, in his opinion, appropriate in any situation. “Would you like some tea?”

“That would be nice, thank you.”

Monty went into the kitchen, took the teapot off the stove, shook it and made sure it was empty, filled it with water, ignited the burner, put the teapot on the stove. Having been in a hurry to check if Bertrand was home, he didn’t have time to take his shoes off, and was now stamping around the kitchen in outdoor shoes. “Gotta sweep the floor later,” he noted to himself. It came with experience – the skill of not forgetting about the dull everyday things like cleaning and cooking while your entire world was in a whirl and threatening to fall apart.    

“I saw the article in the newspaper,” he began as he took teacups from the dish drainer. Bertrand was still sitting at the table in silence, still rubbing his hands absentmindedly. “About the opera.”

“Yeah, I’ve already read it, too.”  

“You lied when you told me you didn’t know who the target was, didn’t you? When you asked me to get you the venom.”

“I did,” Bertrand agreed. He leaned back in his chair. It wasn’t hard to see by his eyes that he hadn’t caught even a minute of sleep last night. “Do we have any lemons for tea?”  

“Um?.. I think there must be some. Check the fridge. Why did you lie?”

“You had enough problems of your own. And you still do. I didn’t want you to worry about me as well,” Bertrand got up from the table, walked up to the fridge, and took out a bowl containing half a lemon. Having taken a knife and a board, he started cutting the lemon into very neat identical pieces. Everything Bertrand did was neat.  

“Yeah, you can want whatever you like,” Monty muttered. The teapot was still taking its time to boil, and just standing empty-handed and discussing the murder committed by his neighbour was unbearable, so he took a cloth and started cleaning the sink aggressively. That was not the first time he procured poisons required by other volunteers. Perhaps he hadn’t killed anyone himself – yet – but he suspected that in a sense he already was partially responsible for a number of deaths. It was scary, it was weighing down on him, it kept him up at night and made him drink and dance and party with a vengeance in the hope of forgetting himself – but that was him, and when it came to Bertrand, it was a hundred times more of a shame. Bertrand was a good person. Bertrand didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer. Monty was hoping he could express that all in such a way as not to make it seem like his heart is aching not so much for his friend as for his own hurt feelings, but the right words just wouldn’t come.        

“You are one of the best people I know,” he finally began. Bertrand made a strange sound, something between a laugh and a sob. Monty turned and saw that he had already cut the leftover lemon and was now standing with an absent look on his face, clutching the knife. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you. Fucking hell, B,” he raised his voice when Bertrand didn’t react. “Don’t hold the knife with the edge toward you, and put it down anyway!”      

The knife fell on the table with a thud. Bertrand closed his eyes, leaned on the tabletop with both hands, and lowered his head so that Monty couldn’t get a good look at his countenance.

“I keep remembering that he hit O several times when boozed up, back when O was a boy,” he spoke quietly. “He used to drink, you know – not every day, but he used to go on drinking sprees from time to time. O’s taking after him in that respect. I keep thinking back on it as if it makes an excuse for me, but it really doesn’t, you see? And she was innocent – I mean, the rational part of me gets that she wasn’t, I know who she and her husband used to finance and what they used to cover up, but all I can remember is that she was usually nice to O, and to B after she moved to the City too.” Now his voice was taut, his face burning with indignation, his former numbness gone without a trace. “How come this task was assigned to B, of all people? After they had basically accepted her as family?”        

Monty knew, personally and by repute, several Bs among their associates, but this time Bertrand didn’t have to specify who he was talking about.  

“I am angry they made you do this, you are angry they made her…”

“Because she didn’t deserve this,” Bertrand interrupted him. “Because she’s a good person.”

Monty realized that Bertrand was basically repeating word for word what he had been reflecting on earlier himself, and smiled sadly.  

“How willing we are to assure the others vehemently that they are good people,” he spoke. He was completely in agreement with Bertrand about Beatrice. She was not just fun, but also reliable, which was much more important. She looked after her own. She was vivid and loud and incredibly brave and incredibly loving, and Bertrand was right: she did not deserve this. “And never as willing to defend ourselves the same way. Perhaps that is where our hope lies? In our inability to turn a blind eye to our own faults?”    

Bertrand took off his glasses, inelegantly wiped off the tears that had broken out after all, and put the glasses on again.

“Monty,” he said gently, “you’re a good person too, you know that?”

Monty blinked, then blinked again, feeling that soon he might have to wipe off the tears too. Bertrand was one of the best people Monty knew, and he didn’t deserve to be turned into a murderer, and didn’t deserve to labour under such grave delusion about other people either – but the fact that someone still considered him a good person gave Monty confidence that despite all his wrongdoings, he still wasn’t a lost cause.  

He reached out and ruffled Bertrand’s hair.

“Sit down,” he told him. “The tea’s about to be ready.”

[voices-of-fazbear-entertainment]

Anonymous asked: “Hey Springtrap, have you happen to hear of another entity by the name of "Pennywise the dancing clown?" Answer: “ If you’re referring to the creature from Stephen King’s “IT”, then yes. I’ve read it before. Nice read, not really sure I understand it all that well. You know, what with the Turtle space god & the kid org-Glitches- I just love the circus. Clowns are my favorite to see. They always make me laugh and bring a smile to my face. Even the really scary ones in Derry- and the Giant spider. Otherwise, good read. Besides, it is not like it exists. Just an old wife’s tale to scare the kids. Hm.. You should probably check with that thing. He pretty much hangs out in Penny’s house.”

[theyearoftheking]

Book Twenty-Three: It

"Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.” 

I’m just going to come right out and say it.

Orgy. 

Pre-teen child orgy.

Weird-ass, icky, questionable judgement that I’m going to chalk up to years of drug and alcohol abuse... orgy. 

Of all the strange and bizarre things Steve has written over the years, the child orgy scene in It might be the strangest one. I’ve read articles back and forth, and I know there was controversy surrounding whether or not to include it in the movie (glad cooler heads prevailed there!), but ick!!! Maybe it’s because my daughter is Beverly’s age, but ick!!! 

I don’t think it belonged in the book. There were hundreds of other way the kids could have cemented their friendship, and shown adult status without sex. I mean, they already had a blood oath: what more do you need?? 

I know. This is such a small scene in the book, but it troubles me as a woman, a feminist, and most importantly, a mother. And as a writer, I’m also troubled that parts of it are written like a bad porn: “Something that will bring us together forever. Something that will show...that I love you all... Who’s first?” 

Gag. I just threw up in my mouth a little. 

I loved reading It. The past and present chapters of the book flowed so fluidly, the character development was excellent, and Pennywise is terrifying. But this one part just keeps me from ever wanting to read it again. And then it had me questioning my own enjoyment of the book. Should I come down hard on this one for Steve’s tone-deaf attitude towards children having sex? Should I just ignore it and move along? Is it callus for me to enjoy the book, and still be bothered by the child orgy scene? 

I think I finally settled on the last option. 

Okay. We tackled the elephant in the room, now let’s move along to my half-assed review of the rest of the book. 

I thought I had read It in the past, but when the book was delivered, I was shocked to see how thick it was. I was expecting a much shorter read. That was clue number one I had never read it. Clue number two was not really remembering the past and present story lines. So I’m going to assume I’m at that fragile, old age where I no longer remember every book I’ve ever read. 

I have seen both of the recent movies, and thought they stayed fairly true to the book, and I liked their casting. I even imagined several movie characters as I was reading along. It was a solid book, and I flew through it in a little over a week. Not bad for normal reading standards, but a little long for Coronavirus reading standards. 

Cue the Cardi... Coronavirus! 

Sorry. I really love this video, and find myself yelling, “Coronavirus! Shit is real!” far too often. 

So, for those of you who have been living under a rock your entire lives, It is the story of Pennywise, a murderous clown who preys on innocent children in Derry, Maine every twenty-seven years or so. Yes, he’s a clown, but he can also take the form of a spider, a werewolf, or whatever you’re most terrified of. “Glamour, he said, was the Gaelic name for the creature which was haunting Derry; other races and other cultures at other times had different words for it, but they all meant the same thing... The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind, and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of.” 

So, It kills little Georgie Denbrough, and his older brother Bill lives with the guilt of Georgie’s death. Bill had been at home with the flu, but had made Georgie a paper boat he could play with outside, and race through the flooding streets. Bill feels if he had been there, Georgie might still be alive, and his parents might be far less vacant and depressed. That’s some serious guilt. 

Bill and his gang of friends: Stan Uris, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon, and Ben Hanscom all band together and form The Losers Club after admitting they’ve seen It in some form or another. In addition to taking out a few psychotic child bullies in a rock fight, they also mortally wound It. They have a group orgy, and a blood oath to celebrate their victory.

The kids grow up, and all go their seperate ways until twenty-seven years later when Mike calls them all to let them know It is killing again. Stanley Uris kills himself in the bathtub, but the rest of the Losers Club all travel back to Derry to see what’s up. Richie is a California-based DJ, Eddie runs a car service and married a woman just like his crazy mother, Beverly is a famous clothing designer, Ben is a world-famous architect, Bill is an acclaimed writer, and Mike is the librarian at the Derry Public Library. 

All of them have vague memories of their time in Derry, and barely remember one another. But once they get back in town, the memories and bad habits start flooding back. Eddie is back to sucking on his aspirator every few minutes (despite his asthma being psychosomatic), Richie can no longer wear contacts and is back to his dorky glasses, and Bill is back to stuttering, something he hasn’t done since childhood. Good times. 

While the Loser’s Club is assembling and eating Chinese food together, Pennywise takes it upon himself to release psycho childhood bully Henry Bowers from Juniper Hill, the mental institution he’s been in for years. Sidenote... one of the meanest counselors at Juniper Hill is Koontz. Coincidence? I’m going with no... 

Mike informs everyone It is back in action again, killing people, and they all made a promise to come back to Derry if It ever went on another murderous rampage. So, they head back into the sewers again to take It out once and for all. They succeed, Eddie dies, Beverly’s abusive asshole husband dies, Audra, Bill’s wife, is catatonic from the shock of the whole thing, and the entire town of Derry literally and metaphorically collapses in on itself. But on the bright side, It is dead, and there wasn’t another orgy. Huzzah! 

The book is chock full of Steve tropes (chambray work shirts! multiple mentions of Shawshank prison! Happy Crappy everywhere!); and also a few mentions of past and future books. Loser’s Club member Ben Hanscom is a chunky kid, and he’s made fun of for his weight. At one point, he recants a traumatic locker room scene where kids are “fat-paddling” him. Yes, it’s as cringy as it sounds. The gym teacher finally breaks it up, and Ben describes, “...what he did was grab one of my tits in each hand and squeeze. Then he took his hands away and rubbed them on his pants like he’d touched something dirty.” This was basically the male version of Carrie: locker room torture and dirty pillows. I laughed way too hard at that. But unlike Carrie White, Ben grows up to be handsome, famous, and he gets the girl without starting anyone on fire. 

Later on in the novel, Beverly is dealing with her abusive, crazy husband, Tom Rogan. After she beats the crap out of him and flees for Derry, he tries to track her down. First, he stops by her best friend’s house, and almost beats her to death before she tells him Beverly left for Derry. Tom Rogan is so evil and terrifying, I couldn’t help but wonder if his character planted a seed in Steve’s mind for Rose Madder. I saw a lot of similarities. 

There were also a few Dark Tower references. The Turtle is mentioned throughout the book, and The Turtle is also known as Maturin, one of the Guardians of the Beam in the Dark Tower universe. #allthingsservethebeam

Later on, Bill is on his way to take on It and, “He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate...”

Could it be Blaine? Blaine is a pain! 

There was also one Wisconsin reference, Beverly takes a flight out of Milwaukee. After several books with no Wisconsin references, it was nice seeing Steve give us the love we deserve. 

Orgy aside, I really loved It (things you never think you’ll say out loud, or type for that matter). If nothing else, you have to give Steve credit for making creepy clowns a thing. At one point in the book, Steve writes, “The fears of children could often be summoned up in a single face... and if bait were needed, why, what child did not love a clown?” 

Um, no children today, thanks to your sick ass! 

Next up is Eyes of the Dragon, which I have never read before, and is slow going. But at least it’s short. 

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 16

Total Dark Tower References: 16

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

The Talisman: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Thinner: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Roadwork: D

Christine: D

Stay healthy and keep social distancing, my friends!

Until next time, Long Days and Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

[indigoire]

It Read-through Chapters One and Two, “After the Flood” and “After the Festival”

Starting off strong with child death! Yaaaay! 

Warning for gore, death, homophobia, hate crimes, sewer clowns, and juvenile humor. 

Explanation of what I’m doing here.

The first chapter is pretty much exactly like the first part of the 2017 movie, with a few very key differences. 

For one, Bill is a few years younger here than he is in the first movie. In the movie the kids are around thirteen or so and they make note of this a couple times. In this Bill is only ten, therefore he’s eleven for the rest of the child half of the novel. Georgie is still only six. 

For another, when Pennywise attacks Georgie he doesn’t drag Georgie into the sewers, and the neighbors respond to his screams almost immediately. It’s outright stated that forty-five seconds after Georgie’s first scream a man named Dave Gardener finds Georgie’s body, already dead, arm torn from its socket. People run outside when they hear the scream, they witness Georgie by the storm drain, they know of the attack. In the movie he’s “gone missing”, largely presumed dead, but here Bill and his family know from the outset that Georgie is dead and died violently at that. There is a mention by King that the town tends to get through terrible events and then pretend they never happened in order to get over them, and I think in the film they made this more overt by having the few neighbors around ignore what happens to Georgie. 

I feel like for the sake of the liveblog I should go over what happens in the book for the unaware, but it almost feels superfluous for this first chapter. Everyone knows Georgie dies at the hands of Pennywise, at the claws of It. Even the book lets it slip very early on that Georgie is slated for death, only a few paragraphs in. 

Let’s rewind and properly explain. The book begins with George Denbrough running after a newspaper boat in the rain. George, or Georgie as he is affectionately called, is the younger brother of Bill Denbrough, one of our main characters, if not the leading man. Bill is sick with the flu, so he can’t go and play with Georgie in the rain, but he builds the kid a paper boat all the same, and seals it with paraffin wax to keep it watertight. A lot of the first chapter is devoted to two things: showing the bond Bill and his brother share, and showing that Georgie is already somewhat aware of It’s presence. 

Bill sends Georgie down to the cellar to get the wax, and Georgie goes, but with extreme trepidation. He pictures monsters waiting to snatch him up in the cellar, and King here goes in depth into the smell of the cellar, a smell of “dirt and wet and long-gone vegetables”, the stink of rot, which is the smell of the monster, “the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but which was especially hungry for boymeat.”

Yep. “Boymeat”. Right up there with “manflesh” in terms of descriptive vocabulary. 

But basically, on some level, Georgie knows there’s something lurking in the dark for him, and he knows it’s a childish fear but he can’t quite shake his instinct. 

Sidenote: there’s a reference to the Turtle fairly early on! Georgie finds a flat can of Turtle wax, and stares at the logo for a good thirty seconds. Which, by the way, probably looked like this: 

Anyways, Georgie finds the paraffin wax and runs up the stairs, fearing that something lurking in the dark will grab him by his shirttail and yank him down, but he escapes and goes to give the wax to Bill. 

Just a personal note here, when I initially tried to read this book some ten years ago I rolled my eyes at the conversation between the two brothers, which I remember distinctly being about buttholes, who was the biggest butthole, etc. I mean, they’re kids, it’s juvenile humor, what ya gonna do. The version I have downloaded here has the kids calling each other “a-holes”. So now I have to wonder if my version got censored somehow. Anyways. Nothing to inspire confidence in the rest of the novel like a conversation about who’s the biggest asshole between kids. 

The brothers do have an oddly tender moment, which they both note is out of character for them, with Georgie kissing Bill’s cheek goodbye and Bill telling him to be careful. It seems like they know instinctively that they’re never going to see each other again. 

Georgie runs out to play with his boat, and he chases it happily through the street until it unfortunately goes down a storm drain. Georgie tries to see if he can get it, but only sees yellow eyes staring back, until said eyes solidify as a clown. Georgie describes the clown as a cross between Bozo the Clown and Clarabell from Howdy Doody (both, for the record, are the most terrifying clowns I’ve ever seen, dear lord), but King notes that if Georgie “had been inhabiting a later year” he would have thought of Ronald McDonald first. 

Just real quick gonna throw these nightmares up on screen for y’all:

Thanks, I hate it. 

Here Pennywise introduces himself as Mr Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, so right off the bat there’s some differences. Georgie asks himself how he could have seen yellow eyes when Pennywise’s eyes are a “bright, dancing blue” like his mother’s or Bill’s eyes. 

Like the 2017 movie, Pennywise says the storm blew him and the circus into the sewer, and asks Georgie if he can smell the circus. Georgie can indeed, but he does notice the cellar smell lurking underneath, the smell of wet and rot. 

But he ignores it. 

Instead the clown offers him a balloon and Georgie asks “do they float?” 

And the second he reaches his hand out to grab a balloon, Pennywise latches on, Georgie screams, and knows no more. 

“They float,” it growled, “they float, Georgie, and when you’re down here with me, you’ll float, too—”

It’s noted that Georgie watches the clown’s face change, and what he sees destroys his sanity “in one clawing stroke”. 

So really it’s a good thing that he dies a few moments later after It wrenches his arm off. 

Again, Georgie’s body is found within the minute by a neighbor, and other neighbors run over to see what’s going on. 

The chapter ends with a description of the paper boat floating through the sewers of Derry, as Bill’s family is delivered the news and his mother is sedated for shock in the ER, and “perhaps it reached the sea, and sails there forever, like a magic boat in a fairytale”. 

Sweet sentiment. I’m getting all choked up over here. 🙄

So I figured I’d read on to the next chapter, seeing as the first chapter is so short and so well known. 

God, I wished I had left it at one chapter. 

The next chapter is told through a series of interviews with the witness and suspects to the case of the murder of Adrian Mellon. 

It’s a fucking shitshow of a chapter.

It is DEEPLY homophobic. Every word of it. 

This is how we’re introduced to Don Hagarty, partner to Adrian and key witness to his murder: “This man—if you want to call him a man—was wearing lipstick and satin pants so tight you could almost read the wrinkles in his cock.”

COME ON, STEPHEN. 

Now. I know very very well that this book was published in 1986 and America was not kind to queer people in the eighties. I know that King was capturing that homophobia, not necessarily homophobic himself, and that his viewpoints have probably changed. 

That said, reading this chapter was like a punch in the stomach every few sentences. The cops who interrogate the men responsible for the hate crime against Adrian make it clear that they are both disgusted by the attackers and deeply homophobic themselves. They all say at some point “I don’t like fairies, I don’t care for queers, they’re hardly men” in varying forms of intensity. 

I honestly think I blacked this chapter out when I was seventeen, I don’t remember it being like this. Or maybe I didn’t care so much a decade ago, closeted and repressed, and that’s a scary realization. That your own internalized homophobia might have been so pervasive that you don’t see it in others. That it sounds reasonable when a supposedly sympathetic character says he hopes the murdering homophobes get locked up, prison raped, and get AIDS. 

Sigh.

To sum up: Adrian Mellon is attacked while out with his boyfriend, Don. A group of young men, having been teased by Adrian at the Canal Days festival (though Adrian here makes a blowjob joke, not a shitty haircut joke--he’s too good for this book really), claim that they attacked out of “civic pride” because Adrian was wearing a “I ❤️ Derry” hat. One of the attackers tells Don to get out of there, and he screams for help. The attackers push Adrian over the side of the Kissing Bridge. The attacker who saves Don, Chris, sees Pennywise, and so does Don a little bit later, and they tell the cops that interrogate them. The cops dismiss the clown, at first ostensibly because the witnesses are hysterical, but then later in the chapter it’s revealed that the police don’t want the attacker’s lawyers jumping on the clown thing to prove their clients’ innocence. So Pennywise, even having been seen by two witnesses, is left off the record entirely. 

King also reveals the deeply, deeply homophobic sentiment in the town, the violent anti-gay graffiti all over public property, at the Kissing Bridge or in the public park, the people in the town outright ignoring the attack as it’s happening, the fact that the one gay bar in town is home to some very fearful people who just want to keep their heads down. 

So yes, you can extrapolate that the homophobic stuff expressed in the book is to show that Derry is a hateful place where fear festers and so forth...

But King also goes out of his way to emasculate Don Hagarty and Adrian Mellon every chance he gets, effusing about the dramatic makeup they wear, the nail polish, the bright outfits, the campy attitudes. Adrian is described as five-foot-five and slight. Don is described as shrill and dramatic (his BOYFRIEND was just BRUTALLY MURDERED). Meanwhile the homophobes are described as looking like Bruce Springsteen. Like. 

I really feel for Don, I do, despite the book’s best attempts to make him a walking caricature, a huge gay joke. He says Derry’s like “a dead strumpet with maggots squirming out of her cooze”. He calls Derry a sewer. He’s right on both counts.

Well. On that cheerful note, time to wrap this read-through up! Tune in next time for our introduction to Stan (and probably the last time we’ll see grown-up Stan :D). 

Bye for now.

[randomslasher]

30 questions

I was tagged by @mollycassmith! Thank you for the tag!!

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better

Nickname(s): LJ (from you guys!! Thank you, I love it so much!) and Seeh-star (the way my brother says ‘sister’ when he’s being silly, which is most of the time). 

Gender: Enby

Sign: Aquarius

Height: 5′10″

Time: 11:42pm CST

Fav band(s): Imagine Dragons, Modest Mouse, System of a Down

Fav solo artist(s): Owl City,Serj Tankian,Phillip Phillips

Song stuck in my head:  On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons

Last movie I saw: Meet the Robinsons

Last show I watched: B99

When did I create my blog: sometime in 2012. I think May?

What do I post: Thomas Sanders and Sanders Sides, plus a few activism things (BLM, Disability awareness, chronic pain awareness, classism awareness, mental health awareness)

Last thing I Googled: How to create formulas in Excel

Do I have any other blogs: LOL!!! Why yes! Yes I do. @catvirgil @random-snippets @randomslasher-art @outside-observations @askcatvirgil @askrandomslasher @randomslasherwingau @ljbindersfundraiser @thecoloringbook @tsanonnsfw @tsanonaboverse 

Do I get asks: Yes

Why did I chose my URL: It’s one from my days at Livejournal. It references the times when same-sex pairings were called ‘slash’ pairings (for the “/” that was found between the character names, eg “Frodo/Sam” indicating the pairing was romantic and/or sexual in nature). The ‘random’ bit was a nod to the fact that I was in many fandoms. 

Following: 234

Followed by: Depends on the blog, but on Randomslasher, the official number is 5779 (I’m certain a good percentage of those are bots and/or deadblogs, but I’m too lazy to sift through them and block the bots/delete the deadblogs).

Average hours of Sleep: About 7 or 8

Lucky number: 4

Instruments: Clarinet, piano, ukulele

What I am wearing: At the moment, a t-shirt from work and undies. 

Dream job: If I were able-bodied, I’d love to work with big cats (tigers, lions, cheetahs, etc.). As I am, I want a trainer position at my current company. 

Dream trip: If I were able-bodied, I’d want to go to the British Isles (specifically Ireland and Scotland) and revisit Belgium. As I am, anywhere tropical where the weather stays consistent and I can sit on the beach and enjoy the waves.

Fav food: Mashed potatoes

Nationality: American

Fav song: Float On by Modest Mouse

Last book I read: I’m currently reading 11-22-63 by Stephen King. Prior to that I was reading a collection of Agatha Christie short stories (Hercule Poirot stories).

Top 3 fictional universes I wanna join: Pandora (if I could ditch this body for an Avatar body--no more back pain? super strong and agile? soul bonds with colorful dragons? Yes please!); Harry Potter (AFTER the books ended), A universe where the ninja turtles were real <3 

Tagging: @milomeepit @justanotherpurplebutterfly @thuriweaver @anxiousoddish @prplzorua @you-can-call-me-monte @artistwave @sidespart @princeyandanxiety @sanders-trash-4ever @sanderstribute @toujours-fidele @erlenmeyertrash @artistictaurean @virgilient @romanssippycup @my-happy-little-bean @chemically-imbalanced-romance @finiteframe3 @cayannamon

[brundleflyforawhiteguy]

I read somewhere that Pennywise the IT entity is connected to The Dark Tower novels and movie?

Yes. But this obviously goes into spoiler territory. 

In  the Dark Tower movie, when Roland and Jake are making their way across Midworld, they set up camp for a night at an abandoned amusement park. There’s a funhouse with the image of a clown painted on it and the word ‘PENNYWISE’ written across the top. 

That same night, while camped there, Jake is led into the forest by a voice and both he and Roland encounter a shapeshifting entity that tries to manipulate them and appears to Roland as his father. That sounds a lot like our boy It.

In the Dark Tower novels there are references to a huge chunk of King novels, they take a detour through the plague-ridden world of The Stand, Father Callahan from Salem’s Lot becomes a major character, but the It mythology runs throughout. You’ll notice in the new It film the repeated imagery of a turtle. That’s because in the novel, It is represented as ultimate evil in the form of a spider, but there’s also an invisible, more spiritual force for good, represented by a turtle. 

There are several references to the turtle in the Dark Tower books. There’s also a character named Dandelo, a giant spider essentially, that is very, very similar to It that appears later on in the series. It’s likely another member of Its race, possibly even a sibling. The Crimson King (the ultimate villain of the Dark Tower series) and his son Mordred are also likely related to It in some way.

There are other references to It in other Stephen King books too. Beverly and Richie both appear in 11/22/63 in a sequence set just a few months after their initial defeat of It in the summer of 1958. 

The events of It are also discussed in Dreamcatcher and Insomnia as both movies are set in and around Derry. There’s even graffiti in Dreamcatcher that reads “PENNYWISE LIVES.” 

Also, Pennywise straightup appears in The Tommyknockers. A character sees him in a sewer drain, noting that his eyes are shining like silver dollars.

In the It novel, there are also references to The Stand and Children of the Corn, when Ben’s in Nebraska and mentions both Hemingford Home and Gatlin. Christine also makes an appearance. Juniper Hills, the mental institution in which Henry Bowers is kept, has also made a few different appearances in King works, including Tommyknockers, Dark Half and Insomnia.  

[mayafish]

Complete (?) list of Stephen King references and connections in The Dark Tower movie

You don’t need another review of The Dark Tower movie (everything you’ve heard is true: it’s not great; Idris Elba is a delight; it’s unclear if this movie was for people new to The Dark Tower or superfans because it fails at both; and YET yes there was something magical about seeing pieces of Stephen King’s epic on the big screen). But what you DO need is a complete list of all the hidden references to Stephen King’s other works, from someone who literally wrote the book (okay, a website) on Stephen King connections.

First off, I feel the need to clarify that pretty much all of these were not actually hidden references. I found myself rolling my eyes at the heavy-handedness with which these things were shoved in everyone’s face, and was disappointed that I wasn’t rewarded for my encyclopedic knowledge of the Stephen King universe. But here’s the thing: these references weren’t in there for me. They were in there for casual fans who have heard of the blockbusters, like Misery and IT. They were there to tell you that there IS a Stephen King universe, not to give me little nods to the subtle ways King weaves his stories together. Anyway. Here’s what I saw.

The Tet Corporation

There’s a fake production company listed at the beginning of the movie: The Tet Corporation, whose logo is, of course, a turtle. (As a sidenote, I tried to avoid noting down connections that are just connections to The Dark Tower as opposed to other works by Stephen King. But I liked this one because it felt like a nod to the feeling of The Dark Tower, where worlds collide and the tower is seeping in everywhere around you. More on this later, as I think they could have done WAY more with this feeling.)

The Shining

There’s multiple references to The Shining:

At the very beginning, a pair of twins are playing a game and saying “Come play with us” - a reference to the famous Grady twins

Jake’s psychiatrist has a framed photo of The Overlook Hotel

About 1,000 times throughout the movie, people reference Jake’s “shine” (which is the thing that gives all supernatural kids in the King universe their powers)

19

Obviously, no one at all in the world missed the bazillion times 19 was written everywhere in Jake’s dreams. (He used the code 19-19 to open the portal to Midworld.) 19 is Stephen King’s magic number, and here’s a fun fact: almost every number in every Stephen King book adds up to 19. Look closely at hotel room numbers, phone numbers, times, dates, and even the number of letters in characters’ names!

Low Men in Yellow Coats

The rat faces in the movie are known as Can-Toi, also sometimes called “low men.” They have a thing for yellow raincoats, as very literally described in the short story “Low men in yellow coats” (go figure) and illustrated by one of the bad guys chasing Jake in the movie (the one who adjusts his face on the street is wearing a yellow coat).

Roses

Roses are another recurring theme in Stephen King books. In general they’ve come to signify happiness and safety (mothers, for example, are often near roses or wearing clothes with roses on them), but in The Dark Tower specifically the rose is sort of the equivalent of the tower in the Keystone world. It’s understood that if the rose were destroyed, the tower would fall. In the movie, Jake has a drawing of a rose among his collection.

Christine

Blatantly, Jake in the movie has a toy 1958 Plymouth Fury that his friend Timmy wheels around in his room. You definitely recognize this car from Christine; what you may not know is it appears in a TON of other King books and stories. (Like the number 19, often when there is an opportunity to notice a car, it ends up being a Plymouth.)

Pennywise

There’s a scene in the movie when Jake is walking through the woods and comes across an amusement park from the old world. I first noticed a handful of balloons and thought that was a nice subtle nod to IT - then I noticed the GIANT SIGN READING PENNYWISE and wished they had left it at the balloons.

There’s some speculation that the spider Roland uses to illustrate the mechanics of the tower (and the evil lurking outside it) to Jake represents IT, as one of the forms it takes is a giant spider.

The little sisters of Eluria

In the scene where the seer of the village is treating Roland’s wounds, there’s a bunch of women wearing white in the sanitized-looking room, which is surely a nod to the little sisters??

1408

Yup, it was just written right on the wall. And if that wasn’t enough, a bunch of characters had to yell out, “NOTE THAT NUMBER! IT’S IMPORTANT!” Obviously, this is a reference to the famous hotel room in the excellent short story (and slightly less impressive movie) 1408. You’ll note that these numbers don’t add up to 19, but that’s okay because literally the entire story is about someone calling the main character on the phone and screaming out “NINE! TEN!” at him to make up for it.

Smiley

Best known for its appearance in the Mr Mercedes trilogy, the smiley is actually an ominous symbol that Stephen King’s been using for a long time (it appears in The Stand, Desperation/The Regulators, and more).

Some things I missed that everyone else saw

Barlow & Straker’s: Mad that I missed this one. When Roland and Jake leave the Dixie Pig, they walk by this store (which is owned by the vampire in Salem’s Lot).

Rita Hayworth: I totally missed Roland seeing/touching the Rita Hayworth poster that Andy Dufresne uses to cover up his escape in Shawshank Redemption.

Misery: Apparently one of the man in black’s minions has Misery’s Child near his control panel? Am I supposed to believe that the bad guys like romance novels??

Cujo: apparently at one point a St Bernard walks past Jake. Not quite the full Cambers family cameo we were teased with in the trailer, which the screenshot above is taken from. I actually can’t find any evidence of the actual movie cameo.

Stand By Me: I noticed the attack dog sign on the Dutch Hill Mansion and thought it was a Cujo reference. Sounds like it was meant to be a reference of the junkyard dog in Stand By Me, maybe?

Some complaints and suggestions for the next Dark Tower movie

This movie should have been DRIPPING with references - not only to other SK books, but to the Dark Tower universe itself. Here are a bunch of missed opportunities I noticed:

Why doesn’t every number add up to 19??? Addresses, times, cab numbers? This would have been such an easy way to reward close viewers and make anyone who noticed feel unsettled.

At one point there’s a bus with an ad for Jersey Boys on it. Why not make it an ad for Misery on Broadway?

There’s a quick pan past what looks like a bookstore towards the end of the movie. Why wasn’t that The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind?

I was really disappointed that in the scenes in NYC they were in the Flatiron district instead of in Midtown East. (If you want a real trip, head over to Google Maps and look at what’s actually at the corner of 2nd & 46th in Manhattan. It’s the fucking TURTLE BAY TOWERS. Also, Hammarskjold Plaza is real.)

Instead of the super obvious Crimson King graffiti, how about some references to classic lines from other books/movies? How about - if you’re not gonna let Jake actually say it - some graffiti that says “There are other worlds than these”?

And while we’re on the topic of things Jake didn’t get to say, a lot of SK fans I know were specifically mad that the Jake death scene didn’t happen in this movie. It’s the whole point of The Gunslinger. What is the relationship between Roland and Jake if it doesn’t have that?

That’s it. What did I miss?