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iczer-ryuga2 · 2 years ago

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How Toei wanted to make their own ver. of Silver Surfer in the early 80′s (Get ready because it’s about to get wild)

All the information I’ve gotten is in this one blog here, documenting about what Toei and Marvel were collabing on at the time: https://spider-man.at.webry.info/200802/article_3.html

From the blog in the link above:

‘As mentioned in this blog several times before, after Spider-Man aired from 1978 to 1979, Toei planned and considered several programs using Marvel characters, including 3-D Man, Moon Knight and Silver Surfer. We introduced 3-D Man (26 May 2007) and Moon Knight (14 January 2008), but Silver Surfer had not yet been introduced, so we thought we would introduce it sooner or later, but the other day we happened to receive a copy of the "New Programme Proposal" that resulted in Silver Surfer's death. I was planning to introduce it sooner or later, but I happened to get a copy of the Silver Surfer's lost 'New Programme Proposal' the other day, so I'll write about it this time, weaving in its contents as I go along.

This is the Silver Surfer proposal. Four colour photos of the main characters are attached.

The show is a colourful and varied action series centered on three Marvel Comics heroes - Silver Surfer, Ms Marvel and The Thing - and features Marvel characters from time to time, plus original characters from Japan.

Title: Silver Surfer Type: SF hero action film Format: TV film with extensive use of VTR synthesis, 30-minute complete episodes, 26 or more episodes. Target audience: Young people and other families in general. Based on the novel by Saburo Hate (from the Marvel Comics version) Planning cooperation: Kikakusha 104 Production: Toei Co.

Planning details The Great Invasion Army, led by the space emperor Galactus, extends its power across the universe. Their next target is our home planet, Earth. At ・・・・・, Ms Marvel and The Thing, who belong to the Japan Branch of the Independent Strategy Office, have a fateful encounter with the superhero Silver Surfer, who has escaped from Galactus' army to Earth, and are told by him of the enemy's true intentions. The three are united by a strong sense of comradeship and rivalry as they face their giant enemy.

Introduction of the characters

Silver Surfer (Koushi Shibuki). A silver-coloured alien who pilots a surfboard named Skyboard and travels through space at the speed of light. He was a resident of the planet Zen Ra, but was captured when an invasion force destroyed the planet and converted into a space combat soldier in the psychic strategic development section. After being converted, he attempted to escape to his late mother's planet.

Fights enemies with Cosmic Power, an ability that allows him to manipulate cosmic energy. Cosmic Blast = Attacks by firing energy blasts from the fingertips. Cosmic Burst = Energy discharge generated from both hands spread wide. Cosmic Attack = The strongest attack method, in which the energy stored in the body is released, the entire body is enveloped in energy and the attacker strikes with the body. However, this technique drains all of Silver Surfer's energy and can only be used once in battle, as he has no attack ability for "one hour" until the Cosmic Energy is charged up in his body again.

Usually a young man who enjoys ocean sports, mainly surfing. When he catches sight of an enemy invasion, he heads for the battlefield as a warrior Silver Surfer. His father is from the planet Zen Ra and his mother is from Earth.

Miz Marvel (Masumi Suzuka). An Earth superheroine with inherently superior precognition and clairvoyant abilities. In everyday life, she is a female university student who works part-time at a coffee shop frequented by Koushi Shibuki. She is actually the daughter of the wealthy Suzuka family.

Thing (Gen Ishihara). A power fighter who punches with great destructive power, defeats his enemies with great monstrous strength, and is an earthling who specialises in ground combat. He is usually a truck driver. He often frequents the coffee shop where Suzuka Masumi works part-time. During the investigation of a previous case, he was involved in an explosion at an enemy hideout, at which time he was exposed to special energy along with a monstrous beam of light, and became a superhuman with immeasurable power.

That's roughly how it went down. The rest of the book contains information about the 'Independent Strategy Office of the Earth Defence Organisation' to which the three belong, an introduction to the 'Galactus Army', a sample story of the first episode, and so on. We will introduce this proposal when we have a chance.

-----------------------------------

By the way, I looked into this lost project to see if it was utilized in any later Toei special effects programs, and found some matching settings in Space Detective Gavan, which was broadcast from March 1982. The Gavan project started in the spring of 1981, around the same time as Silver Surfer. The story is about the defense of peace in space, which is a different dimension from existing heroes. He wears a silver combat suit. He emits rays of light from his fingertips. His father is an alien and his mother is from Earth. He rides in a sidecar (Cyberian), reminiscent of the Silver Surfer.

[Image reference.]

There may be more, but I don't think I'm the only one who feels that this is similar. However, I haven't seen any reference book that states the fact that the 'Silver Surfer' setting was used for 'Gavan', so this is a matter of speculation.’

------------------------------------- End of Translation

So that was my find of this info. All while I’m trying to find info of ‘Tomb of Dracula’ anime animated by Toei so I tried to find info on Google using Dracula’s Japanese title and lo and behold, I found this blog that has quite the info on it.

Next time, info on ‘Tomb of Dracula’ anime movie and how Harmony Gold crammed WAAAY Too much story into a condensed movie that was different in the intended way by Toei.

#toei tokusatsu #toei #Marvel Comics #marvel #silver surfer #jack kirby #1980s #80s #superheroes #tokusatsu #Toei and Marvel Collab #40th anniversary Metal Heroes #Metal Heroes #space sheriff gavan #Metal Heroes 40th #comic book heroes #comic books

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zedecksiew · 4 years ago

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Wang Hansa Bets Against The Sea

WANG HANSA LAUGHS AT THE SEA

Wang Hansa was the son of a falling star. He was very boastful, and thought himself the strongest man born.

“As a babe I ate the demon Sri Sana!” said he. “As a child I raced the eagle and won! As a youth I held my breath for a hundred days, to capture the Lake Fairy’s heart -- capturing also the right to rule Korvu!”

Such words annoyed the sea. She has always disliked upstarts. She visited Wang Hansa’s court one night, saying:

“O king, mighty may you be. But humility is virtue. Some deeds are beyond you. Not even you could touch my love the moon.”

Wang Hansa knew how the sea yearned for the moon. He had seen how she reached for her lover every tide, in vain. So he replied: “I accept this challenge, o sea! I also set a wager! If I should steal from the moon, proving you wrong, you must give me your kingdom, free and forever!”

To which the sea asked: “And if I steal from my love the moon? What then? Will your kingdom be similarly mine to own?”

“A contest! Let’s see who brings back the bigger piece!” said Wang Hansa, already beating his chest, assured in victory, laughing so hard it rattled his throne room. +

WANG HANSA PINCHES THE MOON

With one leap Wang Hansa crossed the sky, a streaming star, landing on the moon. There he plucked meat from the moon’s cheek.

This he threw into the sea. It crashed as a meteor, creating many storms. Nursed in the sea’s womb, the meteor began to grow. Over time it grew as living stone into all the coral reefs we now know. Meanwhile Wang Hansa returned to earth, and said: “I have stolen flesh from the moon’s face! See its cheek? How could you match my feat?”

The sea was silent, but pointed at the waves of her belly, which by now were becalmed. In that mirrored surface a shape appeared: round, luminous, scarred by Wang Hansa’s hand -- the very moon itself.

“I have stolen my love the moon in her entirety,” said the sea.

And the moon spoke from her reflection: “Yes, she has me.”

Because the moon loved the sea in return, and also she dislikes upstarts, and was angry at Wang Hansa for her most recent injury. She would give him no face, despite all his yelling and begging.

Thus did Wang Hansa lose his bet, and learn to stop being so boastful. And ever since the kings of Korvu have been vassals of the sea.

+++ (This is a founding myth by way of a Zen saying, but it also managed to become a love story? Love stories always seem to find a way.)

( Image source: Elizabeth Presa, “Moon Water”, http://elizabethpresa.com/?p=47 )

#writing #fantasies #korvu #a thousand thousand islands #islands #seas

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randomingoftherandomness · 6 years ago

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endgame post

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS BENEATH THIS CUT

[Update] I made a Youtube review (still spoilery though). If you wanna support what I do, please consider buying me Ko-Fi

Firstly, there’s no after credits so don’t bother waiting around for that. Three hours is a long time to be holding your pee. Second, bring tissues. I was crying from the moment the title sequence rolled.

The main thing you need to know is that there was time travel courtesy of Scott Lang and the Pym particles in this film and a tonne of pop culture references in terms of time-travelling and it was all

The gist of the Time Heist was that they were gonna go back into time and get the Infinity Stones before Thanos could get to it and they figured out that if they hit the right year, there were already three stones on Earth (Mind, Space & Time). So our heroes split up into three teams to Pokemon Gotta Catch’em all.

Now, we’ll start with my favourite, the love of my life, Tony Stark. My man. We got them right that Carol Danvers definitely brought Nebula and Tony’s space ship back to Earth. There is a five year time jump in this film that saw Tony and Pepper get married (which regardless of how you may swing on Pepperony, YAY!) and have a child together, Morgan H. Stark who, let me tell you, I would die for because she is the perfect copy of Tony and I would not be surprised if one day they did a Young Avengers roster and she is there. Tony Stark having a child of his own and it is glooooriuuusss.

Steve Rogers got rid of the beard, and honestly I missed it ngl.

Let me just say that I adore, adore, adore them for not letting the Stony reunion be just a push by. They let it breathe and matter and it was every angsty Post-Civil War fanfic brought to life. They allowed Tony to lay it into Cap that this was what happened when you didn’t listen to me when I told you I saw this coming. There was a reference to the suit of armour statement from Age of Ultron and Tony laid it into Steve that look at what we lost because you tore us apart and it hurt so good my friends, so good. But over the course of the movie you could see them slowly relearn to trust and depend and be a team again and it was great. When they said that Endgame was a Stony event, they meant it. I live for this. I love it.

Thor got a beer belly and it’s as if the writers underestimate the powers of our thirst for this man. I would still ride him like no one’s business. He’s let himself go, feeling the survivors guilt weigh on him because he aimed for the head and not the arm. The Valkyrie survived Thanos’ raid on the Asgardian refugee ship and New Asgard is formed, probably, where Odin told Thor to remember the view. Thor, Korg and Miek are running a roommate situation where the Wifi is free, and Thor fights back Online trolls.

I think we all knew going in that Clint Barton was gonna be the Ronin and they certainly didn’t disappoint. They gave us a bit of Hiroyuki Sanada’s character fighting with Clint and that was great. But it honestly made me want to say SO dark you sure you’re not the DC Universe?

Natasha has always been a character I was always a bit miffed with the writing about. There have been many complaints about the inconsistencies of her characterisation and those weren’t unwarranted. That being said, I am at peace with where they took her in this movie.

Hulk and Bruce Banner managed to find some zen where Banner’s consciousness could exist at the same time as Hulk’s body.

I’m so happy about the way they treated Nebula as a character and you could tell that Karen Gillan was given a lot of room to stretch out and breathe here. As one of the effects of travelling into a timeline which had her past self, Future!Nebula shared the same network with Past!Nebula which allowed Thanos to access her memories and to be aware of what the Avengers were planning to do. Which, Oh No.

So what happened: The heroes split up through time and space to get the stones. Steve, Tony, Scott and Bruce all go back to 2012 during the Battle of New York, where Bruce goes to convince Tilda Swinton’s Sorcerer Supreme to give him the Time Stone, Steve goes and intercepts the Mind gem (still in Loki’s glow stick of destiny) by convincing Sitwell and Rumlow that he was all Hail Hydra, which gave me all kinds of Hydra!Cap feels, Tony and Scott get to go for the Tesseract. Shit happens, Bruce succeeds by telling the Sorcerer Supreme that Strange gave it willingly to Thanos which clues her in that there might be more to it, and Steve battles himself for the glow stick of destiny

Also, there is much mention and appreciation of Steve’s ass. America’s Ass. Yes, indeed. That is a nice derriere. Premium grade American Ass right there 🍑💦

(I’ve been waiting hours to use this gif :>>>)

Tony and Scott screwed the pooch and they lose the Tesseract while Loki, who sees an opportunity, snatches and bails. So I guess that’s how they get to slip into the planned Loki series for Disney+. Tony and Steve then jump back to the 1970s where they can get more Pym particles, for more jumps and where the Tesseract will be both at the same place, the secret bunker facility we saw in Cap2. Steve chances upon Peggy’s office there and spends some time looking at her from the shadows, while Tony bumps into his dad who is freaking out about Tony’s impending birth. He manages to give his dad some advice on becoming a dad, and they gave us a nice closure for Tony who hugs and thanks his dad for everything he has done.

Rhodey and Nebula go to Morag to intercept Peter Quill right before he gets the orb with the Power Stone. They both succeed but right before they can jump back, Nebula is paralysed by Ebony Maw hacking into her memories and she figures out that Thanos knows the plan. Rhodey jumps back, but she doesn’t and is captured by Thanos, Past!Nebula and Gamora.

Clint and Natasha travel to Vormir and is soon acting like self-sacrificial idiots who battle it out to throw themselves for the Soul stone. Clint manages to clear the ledge, but Natasha is the one who pulls a switcheroo and tells Clint to “Let me go” which :<<<<<< So she dies and Clint gets the stone.

Thor and Rocket go to Asgard circa Thor The Dark World to get the Reality gem. Soon, Thor bumps into Frigga who immediately tells him that she knows he isn’t her son and that the future must’ve not been kind to him. She gives him some words of comfort and wisdom and tells him, despite his insistence that she knows what is going to happen to her, she doesn’t want to know, and honestly this movie gave Frigga the character fleshing out in five minutes what two movies couldn’t and I fucking love it. They are also successful and right before they leave, Thor calls for Mjölnir, and is pleased to know that he is still worthy when she answers.

Our heroes all come back, plus Nebula but they all soon realise that Nat isn’t coming back. They waste no time with assembling the stones with Tony’s nanotech gauntlet (I was kinda bummed we didn’t get to see more giant Peter Dinklage but I guess season 8 of Game of Thrones was a big thing huh) and Hulk-Banner takes it upon himself to do the snapping because he is the strongest avenger and it damn near kills him (remember this).

It works, but before our heroes can enjoy the sweet taste of success, we figure out that Nebula ain’t our Nebula and is Past!Nebula who has impersonated our Nebula to open up a portal for Thanos to arrive in. Thanos decimates the Avengers facility and we enter the final battle.

Thor, Steve and Tony are the only ones not currently trapped under rubble and they all try to hold Thanos off from Clint who has the gauntlet and the stones.

Thor becomes pinned down under Thanos who is trying to stab him with Stormbreaker when Steve picks up Mjölnir and knocks him a new one and we get Thor saying “I knew it!” and let me just say that by this point I was screaming. Really. This was a comic book payoff and I love it. #SteveIsWorthy

This battle bit made me so anxious, like, holy shit I was worried for the safety of all involved. Then we see that Steve is the only left standing against the legion of Thanos, but wait! We see the Strange’s magic circle portals and it shows the arrival of all the other heroes who were snapped. So we have Black Panther coming in with the Wakandans and Bucky and Sam who goes “On your left” to Steve, the heroes on Thanos’ home planet (PETERRRR) and also, Pepper in her own armour!

We get, fucking finally after all this time, to hear Cap say “Avengers Assemble!”

The ensuing melee sees them all try to get the gauntlet to Scott and Hope who are standing by the Pym van to try and get the stones back in time where Thanos can’t get them, and we get to see Peter finally get his hug from Tony and ngl I was crying.

All through it all our Nebula convinces Gamora that she’s changed, and that they have to stop Thanos, and our Nebula kills Past!Nebula when she tries to kill Gamora.

It becomes a whole monkey in the middle situation with everyone passing the gauntlet off to another teammate and we see Peter activate Instant Kill, which is awesome, and then just when shit was about to get worse, get Carol coming in to get the gauntlet coz she’s the star quarterback here (i honestly feel like she was only here for the beginning and end so if you’re only watching this for her, i’m sorry?) and Peter asks her how's she going to get through all of that, all the women Avengers come up and Okoye says, “Don’t worry, she’ll have help” which just, ❤️

When Stephen Strange came back into the fray, Tony had asked him whether this is the one time they succeed and he says that he can’t say it because then it becomes real. So, when it seems like Thanos was going to get another shot at the snap, he makes eye contact with Tony and lifts up a ☝🏼which.

Tony makes a roll for the gauntlet, but Thanos pushes him back, tries to snap but. Nothing happens. We turn, and see that Tony has the stones melding with his gauntlet, and as he prepares to snap his fingers, looks Thanos in the eyes and says “I am Iron Man”

Tony lays dying on the battlefield as Thanos and his legion are dust in the wind. Rhodey, Pep and Peter all say goodbye and are with him to the end and fuck y’all I thought I did my crying in the cinema but as I’m remembering this scene I’m tearing up again holy shit.

We get a funeral where Pepper and Morgan lay a wreath on a lake which had the Proof That Tony Stark Has A Heart reactor from IM1 laid on it. The funeral is a who’s who of the MCU and we get Harley Keener back, which is, yay, but also :< Happy asks Morgan what she wants to eat and she says cheeseburger. Which. Fuck. Tears Happy up as he promises to get her all the cheeseburgers she wants. And ensures that I won’t be touching a cheeseburger within the next year. So many callbacks to IM1 which was the movie that started it all and I can’t even.

Clint goes back to his family, looking like he’s hanging up the bow for good this time, and Thor hands over Kingship of New Asgard to Valkyrie and boards the Guardian’s ship for a future instalment of GOTG.

Steve is charged with being the one to get the stones back into their own timelines. Right before he goes, we get a callback to Cap1 with “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone” “How can I? You’re bringing all the stupid with you”, they prepare to pull him back but he misses the jump point. Sam, Bucky and Hulk-Banner panic for a moment before Bucky spots a man in the distance. They approach, and Bucky tells Sam to go talk to him, and we now see that it’s an aged Steve Rogers who had decided to stay back in time and is very much at peace and happy with it, Sam tells Steve that he doesn’t know how to live in a world without Captain America, when Steve hands over the shield to Sam and tells him that he’s it now. Now I cannot wait for the Falcon and Winter Soldier series.

The final scene in this movie was of Steve and Peggy dancing in their living room in what looks like the 1940s. Honestly, if I hadn’t already gone through a pack of tissues, I would’ve started then.

Cameos (at least the ones I picked out): Ken Jeong as a security guard in the San Fran warehouse where the Antman van was parked, Yvette Nicole Brown at Camp Lehigh, James D’Arcy as Jarvis (Which I was super stoked by because JARVISSSS), Joe Russo in a therapy circle with Steve (also made me real happy coz they kept a gender drop uncensored in my screening), and finally who could forget Stan Lee’s cameo all bedecked out in ‘70s flower power.

This movie was a lovely bowtie on 22 movies and 10 years of the MCU. Was it everything I wanted? No. It was more. Am I happy with what I got? No, I do wish some things ended differently but I knew they were coming. Nothing good lasts, and everything had to come to an end some time. I’m still unpacking my emotions tbh. The credits had all the OG6 signing their names, and the fact of the matter is, I have been so very changed by the MCU. The past 10 years have been amazing and I’ve been proud, and always will be proud to call myself a Marvel fan.

I honestly don’t know where they’ll be taking the MCU as a whole from this point onwards because it seems like there will be ripple effects from the actions of this film will be felt for at least the next ten years. Far From Home is the next MCU movie and I’m sure they’ll be dealing with the direct effects of this film so I’ll be looking forward to that. I’m elated, I am heartbroken, I am a glass case of emotions.

#gab watches stuff #avengers endgame #endgame #marvel #mcu #tony stark #steve rogers #natasha romanoff #clint barton #bruce banner #thor odinson #iron man #captain america #black widow #hawkeye #hulk #thor #endgame spoilers #avengers endgame spoilers

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whereisvanderwood · 6 years ago

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OMG I just discovered your blog and i'm completely in love with your writing???? You're very talented, i'm serious

omg? t h a nk you

okay i am so sorry that this has taken so long. Let it be established now that I am not a frequent uploader. If you want a request soon, don’t ask me. I’m sorry. You’ll be kept waiting. I’m just not disciplined like that. 3

Btw, I’m making an “OC + Fanfiction writers” discord server, where you can play games, share your working progress on a story, get some beta readers to help you out, share OC’s and play games. Who’s interested?

RFA + Saeran jealous of MC while they are dating.

*:･ﾟ✧

YOOSUNG

He’s a gamer. As a gamer, he’s often in a mindset of competition.

There can only be one winner. There’s no “you tried” reward. It’s all or nothing.

He wants to keep you to himself. He hates it when anyone else looks at you, even his own friends in the RFA.

Sometimes, when you talk to your own friends, whether on the phone or in person, his shoulders suddenly begin to ache as they tense up and stay that way until you’re alone with only him again.

‘What do they have that I don’t?’, he’ll constantly ask himself, or ‘What if they hurt her?’

“MC, who are you talking to?” he’ll ask on occasion if you’re staring at your phone for a long time.

“Just a friend. We wanna hang out so I might see them later if that’s okay.”

He’ll wish this “hang out” somehow gets cancelled. He can’t stand you being with anyone but him.

He wants to watch your every step, but even he knows that’s a pretty immoral thing for a boyfriend to do. He just doesn’t want to lose you like he lost Rika.

You are his Rika.

You know how uneasy he gets about it sometimes. You can just tell. Maybe it’s his yandere eyes. Who knows.

You’ll find yourself often having to reassure him that your heart is reserved for him only.

He loves you and trusts you, so he takes your word for it, of course. But more often than not when you’re finished with your friends, he’ll insist to take you out afterwards, no matter how much you just want to lay on the couch and watch a movie. That’s not good enough for him.

ZEN

He wishes for the extinction of every other existing male on the planet.

“Men are dangerous animals, MC. You have to be careful, even if they are just ‘friends’.”

He starts to understand how you might feel sometimes when he gets a new leading role in a play with a female partner.

His chest will not stop that unpleasant tingling feeling until you’re at his side again.

So instead, he’ll ask you to introduce your friends to him so he knows just what kind of people you’re around.

Really it’s just that he wants to watch you every second and have an excuse for it so he doesn’t look like a creep.

You’re surprised at how nice he is at the first meeting of your friends, since he is pretty open about his jealousy. He refuses to hide anything from you.

He watches the way your guy friend speaks to you– their body language, their tone, he knows the signs. Behind your back, he might send the occasional glare in their direction.

When he starts feeling uneasy, he’ll be as physically close next to you as possible and have his arm around you to assert his dominance.

“MC, I’ll never take a lead role with a female if it means you’ll never talk to your friends again,” he jokes in good fun. You know he’s joking and laugh about it.

No he’s dead serious.

He apologises for any feelings of inadequacy you might feel while being his girlfriend, further exposing his own little spurts self-esteem issues every now and again. You and your friends are great people compared to him, he thinks a lot.

All it takes is a few kisses and he’s okay again :) just to get that inner beast going again.

JAEHEE

It’s a first for both of you being in a girlxgirl relationship. After talking about it for a long time, you both decided to be official even though you both shared your apprehensions about it.

She loves you so much for everything you’ve done for her, and she knew it was a different kind of love she felt when you first met.

I need non-platonic route plz

But she still couldn’t help but feel unconvinced of your feelings. What if your feelings for her were just a phase amongst the confusion of your own personal life?

It was the case of “what if’s” that would haunt her endlessly.

You were well aware of how limited the number of Jaehee’s friends were, hoping that she had any at all besides the RFA.

Heck, even group nights with the other members made Jaehee uncomfortable. You were the only females in the group after all, and she knew all the men had taken a liking to you ever since you joined. Not to mention she was the one who was most resistant in letting a stranger join the RFA.

After the impact you’d had on her life, she could never let you go.

But Yoosung had his adorable nature, Zen was flawless in every sense of the word, Seven never ceased to make you laugh with his other-wordly humour, and Jumin practically had the world at his fingertips with his ridiculous wealth.

What was so special about her that you were drawn to?

“MC… are you sure you want to be with, well, me? I’m really nothing special compared to the others.”

It was your job to prove to her she was worth more than she could know, and that being together was the best decision you’d ever made.

Movie nights with only watching Zen’s musicals was all it really needed to take.

JUMIN

You stuck by his side, no matter how uncomfortable he knew you were in those eleven days, because you knew it was all for your safety. He was constantly paranoid that you would leave the house during that time.

So whenever you leave the house at all, he becomes paranoid all over again.

What is it that you have to do that’s so important that he can’t get it done for you?

You were his Princess. A princess shouldn’t have to leave their castle. They have servants for that.

The one other person he was most wary of was Zen. He didn’t ignore the fact that he was as handsome as the actor would brag he was. He wasn’t so immaturely prideful to not admit that.

“MC, you must know that a man with good looks alone isn’t enough to make a relationship work. Income and wisdom are the most important factors to sustain a well-balanced living.”

He’d remind you this constantly.

“Jumin, I love you. Not Zen.”

“I never said you did. It doesn’t hurt to remind someone of these things.”

He knew, compared to the rest of the RFA, he was lacking in something none of them were – easily and opening expressing emotion. And this isn’t to say his ability to feel were void of existence, no.

On the contrary, his feelings for you was the strongest sensation he’d ever felt. That’s why it was an absolute must that you had to remain in his life. He couldn’t live without you after acquiring a palate for the sweet taste of romantic intimacy.

He knew money didn’t mean everything to everyone, especially you. That’s why he’d try so hard to phsycally demonstrate his feelings as much as he could in front of you.

Smiling as much as possible, giving cuddles, forcing himself to laugh, anything else he could think of.

“Jumin, your smile is a little scary.”

But he should’ve already known that you loved him for him, and accepted him the way he was. Although, you often did get a kick out of his awkwardly forced laughs.

SEVEN

Jealousy? Try envious.

You were together as a couple with your undying love for one another, but how long was it going to last? He didn’t have the liberty to dictate what his life was. Not anymore, since joining the agency.

What kind of life was that for you and him? Kinda crap, he thought.

Watching you how well you go along with the RFA, as well as your own friends that he would see you hang out with through security cameras. As a safety precaution of course– who knows what the agency might do to you at this point.

You looked so happy, freely walking out and about, going wherever you wanted without so much as having to check behind your back every sixty seconds, paranoid that certain danger was stalking you; the very opposite to him.

He couldn’t give that to you when you were together; share such a peaceful lifestyle with you. He loathed himself for it.

He’d wish for one thing every now and then; that the RFA never existed, and everything they had that he didn’t would bless him instead.

Knowing it was selfish to expect you to stay with him through the dangers he was often facing, he couldn’t help but always ask you to keep him company for as long as you were able. Just the two of you. Just for his own peace of mind.

“I’m nowhere near as good enough as what the perfect boyfriend is, but… will you really stay with me, even though I do the things I do?”

No-one was ever “perfect” by a set agenda, you’d tell him, and that there was no reason to be jealous of the others.

“We’re getting married in a space-station. It’s everyone else who should be jealous of us.”

It didn’t matter if he didn’t think he was perfect for you, because all that mattered was that he was perfect to you.

SAERAN

Zen’s not the only one who wishes for mankind’s extinction. No-one deserved you.

No-one knew how much you meant to him. They might think they did, but not really.

You saved his life and freed him from exploitation for heaven’s sake. He’d be crazy enough to not follow you to the ends of the earth.

No matter who you were hanging out with, no matter where you were going, he would always be right there with you. Even though he feels a little socially awkward about it.

You didn’t mind. You loved his company, but of course there were times where space was needed, and it was hard to achieve that with his solidified mindset.

“Saeran… You know I’m not going to leave you, right?”

Deep down he knew. But still, there was that nagging voice in the back of his mind, constantly telling him otherwise.

“I know, but the thought of it scares me sometimes.”

After all, the whole point of you being taken into Mint Eye was to befriend the RFA, and now you were really close with them. You’d spent a lot more time with them than Saeran during your stay.

He couldn’t stand the thought of you spending anymore time with them, especially his own brother. He would never leave you two alone in a room. He had to be around, making sure Saeyoung wouldn’t steal you away with his one-of-a-kind humorous personality.

He cracks a few jokes when Saeyoung is around, just to prove that he can be equally as funny and that there was something he could out-do is brother in.

‘Joke contest: who can make MC laugh the most’ was how every movie night was spent at the bunker.

Vanderwood gets reeled into it a couple of times.

You have to reassure him that not everything is a competition, and that he was always #1 in your heart

*:･ﾟ✧ damn i need a boyfriend.

Masterlist! + Request Box!

#rfa #mystic messenger #saeran #mm #mm hc #mystic messenger hc #mystic messenger headcanon #jumin han #zen #yoosung #seven zero seven #saeyoung choi #choi twins #cheritz

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otto-rocktavius · 8 years ago

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Fat Cat: Black Just Isn’t Your Color (part 1)

@onesentencemusings and @trickster-rikuru writing more stuff for the AU while I was starting a two parter...probably easily made it twice as long now. Ether way I hope all ya’ll enjoy it cause I’ve been dying to start up the Venom arc, and we kinda accidentally started up a turf war arc in the mix too. I’m so sorry. Enjoy, you animals. ================= Otto leaned on the edge of the parapet off the balcony of his high end condo, his arm snug in a sling to protect it from outside forces. Broken, a tragic end to a rather frustrating evening that happened not too long ago. Smoke escaped his mouth as he sighed waiting on the taxi he called to escort him to his normal watering hole. The phone buzzed and he began to collect his needed ware for the outside world: keys, phone, gars, cash. He put on his trade mark white double-breasted jacket as well as he could in his condition and lead out into the snowy darkness.

The ride was silent, oddly enough, Otto wasn’t feeling himself as he recollected on the previous night. Lights flickered as they passed and even though the Cabby was usually good at conversation, especially with the Cat, the tone didn’t feel right. He never really felt this way before, at least not in this sense and he strayed off in thought. His memories flooding before him and the solid glimmer that danced on the passing cars reminded him of how Ma’am was dressed in black as she dropped him off, ultimately leaving him in his current condition. He winced, slightly, at the thought of it. She was mean witted, but he never thought he would be a victim of a physical strike. A loud sigh escaped his barrel chest, ‘what have I done now?’ he thought to himself. He looked outward, he instructed the Cabby to take their time, take the longer route if need be. He would and could easily pay the price. He wasn’t sure what he was doing and much like the giant mechanical monstrosity he was sitting in, he felt just as aimless. The night that seemed to haunt his mind so well was one that mystified his logic, not that there was much there, but he still couldn’t fit pieces together. “How...Why would the Sinister Sisters get in this deep?” he said softly to himself. He knew a few of them as personally as anyone could with a masked persona to another. And the thought just seem to rattle in his skull. Out of all of them, Cat figured that Miss-terio would know better. Cat knew more about Miss-terio than she probably would ever believe, the klepto in him got to her wallet...and the high-schooler in her kept her wallet on her person no matter what. Even as one of New York’s most synonymous names to masked villainy, Stacy seems to need to learn a few basic acts of self preservation under a mask...or her case, a dome. “Glad to see you are alright, Cat” the Cabby attempted to start. After all they’re the one’s that found him at the base of one of many dead end alleys in this town. “Yeah, Thanks…. by the by…” Otto managed to speak, still lost in thought. “You see any…” he paused, “see or hear anything strange?” The Cabby pondered for a second, trying to remember the remains of the man they found that night. Cat was in that damned get-up as usual, they were not very aware of much else when that all occurred. They were more engrossed with the struggle of getting him home, safe, and healthy...especially when looking at his arm. What they did remember was how wet and gruesome the rain became as they lifted Cat into the back of their cab, with an eerie sense of being observed. The rain stuck in their mind pretty heavily, for whatever reason, and the thunder’s crack was loud in their ears as they dove into their memories. “Just a fat man in a get-up that took a fall, sir.” The Cabby tried being quick witted but they knew just as much as their cargo, that it wasn’t taken very lightly. A disgruntled murmur escaped the man, but it didn’t bother him nearly as much as he let on. He continued to think of the rest of the Sister’s roster. Magpie, though not the brightest of the bunch, isn’t stupid ether. Arguably one of his strongest “friendships” Cat had in this underground life, kidnapping isn’t their usual forte. “The Beetle?” he mentioned softly to himself. No, they’re more of a dime and drive criminal, and they’ve been on the map long before this group was formed. What would they get out of this? Shocker and The Hunter were young and dating, and remembering Miss-terio’s age, assumed they too, were young, restless and just wanted a hobby to distract themselves when they didn’t have homework. Despite how damaging it could be. “It’s better than drinking and driving” he stated abruptly without consideration. “What was that, sir?” The cabby asked, looking into the rearview mirror. “Nothing.” Otto stated sharply, he pecked at his cigar holder. “Sir, I really can’t have…” She began, before seeing the sharp stare through their mirror and realizing she wasn’t welcome to continue that statement. With his free hand he grasped the small lighter from the inside breast pocket that hovered lightly over his slinged, casted, arm. Cracking the window slightly, he flicked his thumb and lit the cigar that rested on his bottom teeth. Mimic? He pondered. He never liked her, that’s for sure. Out of anything this man was, it was very vain of his likeness. Her abilities alone, just made his skin crawl and that never sat well with him. “There has to be something with her” he whispered as smoke seeped out of him. Unlike Hunter or Shocker, he didn’t make the correct assumption of Mimic’s age, something that would fog his mind for some time. Miss-terio. Magpie. Mimic. Hunter. Shocker. Beetle. All of them low-time, dare he think, run of the mill villains. Not even A-grade. Now why, in god’s name and earth would they dare kidnap a Ben Parker? Whoever he is? Otto didn’t know anything about Ben Parker. No name came to memory as far as his own private life went, nor did he feel like a political busybody, not even a reporter that he knew of. Who the hell is Ben Parker? That didn’t really matter, all Otto knew was that he was important enough to Ma’am to absolutely lose her mind. Otto finally gave a small kick in the back of the Cabby’s seat. The signal to manage their way to Dillon’s watering hole, as Cat was becoming wary of his contemplating. It began to rain rather lightly as he exited the vehicle, the end of his cigar hung a little and a huff escaped him. He staggered as he went closer to the bar’s double doors, after paying the Cabby, respectfully. Maxwell welcomed Otto with his normal banter, something that didn’t penetrate Otto’s dazed mind. Max even went out of his way to point out that Cat wasn’t even attempting to hide behind a get-up. “It’s a mask-joint! You hear me, Cat?” despite it shattering the zen of the place, it was muttered words to Otto as he grasped a stool, struggled shortly to perch himself upon it, and request his drink. He waited, patiently. He knew that She would have to come by eventually. So he ordered a scotch. Because he wanted something to burn him a little harder than normal, much like many things recently. This threw Fisk off, as he was preparing for a B-52, despite the rules clearly stating ‘no masks, no gloves, no drinks’ above him. But for the rest of the night, as the thoughts ran through his mind: Otto waited. That’s all he could do.

#fat cat #fat cat au #oh no #I wrote some more #otto octavius #may parker #ben parker #sinister sisters #FORE SHADOWING #black just isn't your color #SHITS ABOUT TO GET REAL #fan fiction #fan fiction probably #spider-man #marvel #marvel garbage

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the-master-cylinder · 5 years ago

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SUMMARY Kate (Catherine Hickland) is driving alone down a highway in Riverton, Arizona after having left her fiancé at the altar. While driving, she hears the noise of horses galloping outside her car, but sees no one. After pulling onto the side of the road, she is whisked away in a dust cloud and disappears.

Sheriff Langley (Franc Luz) is dispatched to Kate’s abandoned car, found later that day. While pulled over, a man on a horse rides by and shoots at him. Langley exits the car, and a stray bullet hits the car’s gas tank, causing the vehicle to explode. Langley wanders by foot, stumbling upon a ghost town off the main road. After falling asleep in an empty building, he awakens the next day to various apparitions that appear to be linked to the town’s past. He meets a barmaid, Grace (Penelope Windust) and a blind gambling dealer (Bruce Glover), as well as a blacksmith and his daughter, Etta.

Meanwhile, Kate is being held captive by Devlin (Jimmie Skaggs), a zombie-like outlaw who has control over the town through a pact he made with Satan. Devlin terrorizes the souls of the town’s residents, and kills both the blacksmith and Etta after they confide in Langley. Upon discovering his modern gun to be ineffective, Langley is given an old revolver by Grace, and finds that he is able to kill Devlin’s henchmen with old bullets.

After finding Kate, Langley is hunted by Devlin’s henchmen. The two hide in the abandoned church, which Devlin and his henchmen light on fire. However, Kate and Langley escape. Outside, Langley has a shootout with Devlin, during which Langley effectively destroys him. As he and Kate leave, the souls of the town’s residents look on with approval, and the town disappears behind them.

PRODUCTION Empire’s Ghost Town, by Australian Richard Governor, produced by Tim Tennant, who is dealing here with his first horror movie after involvement with the likes of Gung Ho! and Hot Dog: The Movie. The lead role is essayed by Jimmie F. Skaggs, who has his first-ever starring part in his first-ever horror film as the demonic Devlin, a zombie gunslinger who lives-if that’s the correct word in the titular town and who ends up battling a present day sheriff who wanders in.

Experienced genre hands on the Ghost Town shoot include popular cinematographer Mac Ahlberg, stunt Coordinator Kane Hodder, the MMI makeup FX crew, which comprised Scott Coulter, Greg Johnson and Mike Deak. The FX trio, like the others, went on location in an Arizona ghost town for the five-week shoot. MMI shop foreman John Criswell and lab workers Tom Lauten, Andrew Kenneworthy and Roger McCoin also contributed to the FX workload.

So what did this combination of genre newcomers and seasoned horror vets come up with? Well, for one thing, they didn’t come up with a splatter movie. Oh, sure, we’ve all heard that before, usually from would-be auteurs who want to juke us into believing what they do is real serious art. This time, though, the “not-a-gore-film” line appears to fit.

“It’s more a Gothic horror film than a slasher film,” says producer Tennant. “It’s not what you see in the film, it’s what you don’t see.” Head zombie Skaggs allows that “it’s more like a Twilight Zone episode.” And perhaps the strongest indication of what can be expected from the movie comes from Coulter, the man in charge of Ghost Town’s prosthetics and makeup FX.

“We intentionally stayed away from gore effects in the film,’ Coulter claims. “In fact, when Devlin gets shot in the film, he does not bleed blood, he does not bleed slime. He bleeds dust. When he’s shot, dust hits fly out. We did it with squibs just like regular squibs, but instead of filling them with blood, we packed them with Fuller’s earth.”

Don’t panic. Ghost Town won’t attract Alan Alda fans. The movie contains plenty of sequences designed to raise the gooseflesh, such as a scene in which a prosthetic arm (created by Greg Johnson) gets shot off an actual one-armed man, which Coulter terms a “great” effect, as well as a zombie resurrection.

“When the sheriff comes across the ghost town, the original sheriff from 100 years ago who had been buried alive comes up out of the ground as a rotted zombie and grabs his hands to warn him,” reveals Coulter. “This is the big zombie effect in the movie, and it’s entirely a mechanical puppet. I sculpted it, and John Criswell did the mechanics.

“We shot about 35 miles away from our hotel, out in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity and no water,” he goes on. “They had to get power loaders in there to dig this big hole about six feet deep. There was a big wood platform over it, dirt over that, and a big pit where the actual puppet was. So we had to bury this thing and operate it, and it took all of us. We were grabbing grips and people off the crew to pull cables for it. There were eight or nine of us packed down underneath the thing. and it was about 185 degrees. We were in there for a number of hours, but there was a handy little trap door we could open up between takes, so it was OK. We even had a little video monitor down there so we could see what we were doing.

“The other big spectacular gags are the various things that Devlin does in the movie,” continues Coulter. “He does one really good effect. We were in this barn that was built for another movie. It was old dry wood, full of straw and stuff, and the director insisted upon using a hot iron poker in the scene. Devlin’s a walking zombie at this point in the film, and he takes this hot iron poker and pierces it into a blacksmith, lifts him off the ground, and slams him all across the barn, pinning him to the wall. The special effects guy did this amazing rig; it looked real.

“But what was funny about it was that in the barn, with dried wood and straw all over the place, we were using a 1.500-degree hot iron poker,” Coulter laughs. “I was standing by an exit. If anything happened, I was grabbing my makeup kit and getting out of there. The desert was already quite hot enough.”

Speaking of hot, Kane Hodder and stuntman Alan Marcus pulled off a seldom-seen treat for the film. “Richard Governor wanted to see a guy ignite on camera, and that presented a little problem.” admits Hodder. “If you think about it, when you see someone on fire in the movies, they usually cut from something else to that person already on fire. This was a little tricky. You couldn’t just do the regular thing where I’d come in, wait until the cameras start to roll, light Alan and then run away before the shot begins. Alan was doubling a zombie who had just been shot, and Richard wanted to see a little action of Alan first, then have him burst into flames on camera. What we did was this: Alan stumbled out of a doorway, smoking, and bumped into the door jamb, pausing for a second. I had positioned myself on the other side of the door with a torch, and I ignited him the instant he hit that door jamb. So he continued stumbling for a few steps, and then caught on fire. It worked out real well.”

Hodder echoes the others by stating that Ghost Town is not really a gore exercise. “Of course,” he adds, “there are a lot of excellent makeup effects things, but not so much of the blood-and-guts type. It’s more scary than gory.” He also believes that Skaggs’ performance is one of the brightest things about the entire film, a feeling shared by others.

“Jimmie Skaggs is the sweetest guy in the world playing the meanest guy in the world, and it’s a wonderful contrast,” asserts Tennant. “It’s a very demanding role, because of the makeup. and the hours, and the getting into it and out of it when there isn’t enough time. He’s a real pro and very powerful in the role.”

“Director Richard Governor seemed like a crazy, high energy, highly sexed, charismatic guy with a strong Australian accent… At the time, I was not sure that he had complete control of his set, but I’ve since learned the no one ever has complete control of any set.” – actor Franc Luz

MMI head John Buechler designed the appliance that converts nice guy Skaggs into the hell-on-hooves zombie. The Devlin makeup was sculpted, fabricated and applied on set by Coulter, who likewise praises the actor. “Jimmie is the best actor I ever worked with, as far as using the makeup correctly.” Coulter raves. “He is honestly better than Freddy Krueger, better than any of those guys, about using the foam latex. I watched him when he first got it, and he just sat there, right in front of the mirror, and saw what the foam could do, and then he used it. The man used his entire body, too. He had a walk, a whole attitude. He was very character-oriented. There’s a complete character there on the screen.”

“I had never worn appliances on my face before, and interestingly enough, I got used to them very quickly,” notes Skaggs. “I noticed, though, if I got warm and started to perspire, it would bubble a bit. But Scott Coulter was so experienced at this that he knew how to doctor it up so that no one would ever see. Cut a little hole, drain the sweat, then cover it back up and color it, and no one knew. I didn’t have a real problem wearing it, because once I was in makeup. I was no longer Jimmie Skaggs, and people respected that.”

Prior to the location filming, Skaggs visited the MMI studios for some pre-production work. He says he had no idea what to expect when they sat him down to cast a life mask. “They talked me through it and it all sounded very simple, so I agreed and made a few jokes about how it was like practicing Zen and the art of patience. But then they

started putting this stuff on,” he laughs. “I have never experienced anything like that in my life. It was almost total sensory deprivation. This stuff went in my ears, over my eyelids, covered my mouth. All that was left open were two little nostril holes. I was just fine … for about 15 minutes. Then, all of a sudden, I could feel this flush start to creep up from my chest through my neck up into my face and ears, and I got a little nervous. And I guess about 20 minutes into it, I thought, ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to get out of this! So I started making motions with my hands, and the guys were joking: “What do you want? A glass of water? A cigarette?’ Finally, I stood up in the chair and they got the message. They got it off and, thank God, it had set enough so they could get the mold.”

After one particularly long day in the Arizona sun, Skaggs learned another rather painful truth about the makeup FX business, thanks to some baiting by Coulter and company. As he relates it. “We went back to the trailer to take the makeup off, and everyone was tired. I was tired, Scott was tired, Mike and Greg were tired, and they were taking this stuff off. It took about two hours, and about 45 minutes into it, they were saying, ‘Oh, let’s just get this crap off. Just pull it off, Jim. I pulled that sucker-and my skin came with it! I learned very quickly that we were going to take our time.”

“Yeah,” grins Coulter. After that, he never ever complained about the length of time it took to take the makeup off.”

Stories like that, coupled with a tough shooting schedule and the remoteness of the location, might help explain why a passerby-had anyone passed by-on the last night of filming would have been treated to the bizarre spectacle of a shirtless Jimmie Skaggs, zombie appliance hanging from his face, gleefully shooting up an outhouse in the middle of the Arizona desert as whooping crew members joined in.

“It was after a whole night’s shoot,” recounts Coulter. “And it was the end of the film, you know? You don’t get an opportunity to be out in the desert firing guns very often, so we stopped in the middle of removing the makeup. Jimmie was covered in grease, his makeup half off, out there with a gun. That’s one thing I wish I’d gotten a picture of.”

Besides the performance of Skaggs (and the rest of the cast, which includes the beautiful Catherine Hickland and veteran bad guy Bruce Glover) and the special makeup FX work of the MMI crew. an outstanding facet of Ghost Town may be the film’s overall look. Tennant counts the visual quality as one of the strongest things about the movie.

“Richard Governor brought to Ghost Town a rich visual look,” asserts the producer. “Richard is one of the top commercial directors in the world, and he specializes in documentaries and TV comedies as well. This is his first theatrical picture, but down the line he’s going to be a well-known director because of his tremendous visual sense. He’s a terrific painter of pictures, and the film has a great look because of that. The negative side of it is that he falls in love with everything he sees, in terms of how he stylizes things. He fell so much in love with the images in the picture that when he went into editing, he wanted everything to stay. But everything can’t stay. You’ve got to get away from it, and he couldn’t do it. So he ran into trouble in the editing room.

“Richard is in love with the Gothic horror look, and with European film,” Tennant adds. “Empire, on the other hand, is more bang-bang bang!-get it into a fever pitch and keep it that way to the end. Richard’s cut is more romantic. It has more transition between scenes: it’s not a hard-cut film. There is more of a romantic form after the violence. That’s what he wanted, and that’s what we shot.”

Richard Governor did something very smart in this film,” elaborates Coulter. At the beginning, he shot not the effects, and not the stuff that Empire wants to show in their films. He shot the characters. He spent a great deal of time shooting them and shooting the gravy stuff, the extra stuff, not just the essential storyline. So when it comes time to shoot the stuff that Empire wants to see, that’s when you’re running out of time. But at the same time, he has a strong human story in there now.”

Although Tennant concedes with rancor that Empire knows its market, he also makes it clear that he preferred the director’s original cut, which was paced a bit too leisurely for Empire. “Empire knows their genre better than I do,” he states. “They know their market, and they’re exactly right about that market. But there’s not much you can do to speed up Ghost Town because of the type of film it is.

“A Western is just slower-paced,” Tennant sights. “It’s not modern day cops and robbers, where you have chase scenes with cars. It’s a Western, and you have chase scenes with horses, and a horse doesn’t go as fast as a car. It’s not a car screeching around a corner, it’s a horse turning a corner, and the two are different. You just can’t make things move faster than the period lets them.”

youtube

CAST/CREW Directed Richard McCarthy

Produced Larry Carroll

Written Duke Sandefur

Story David Schmoeller

Franc Luz as Langley Catherine Hickland as Kate Jimmie F. Skaggs as Devlin Penelope Windust as Grace Bruce Glover as Dealer Zitto Kazann as Blacksmith Blake Conway as Harper Laura Schaefer as Etta Michael Alldredge as Bubba

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#75

Ghost Town (1988) Retrospective SUMMARY Kate (Catherine Hickland) is driving alone down a highway in Riverton, Arizona after having left her fiancé at the altar.

#80sFilms #80sHORROR #EMPIRE

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d-and-s-are-bord-blog · 5 years ago

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NIGHTMARE ALLEY [1947]

WATCH ONLINE >> Nightmare Alley [1947] www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F9A4C226B31C2373 ****

Nightmare Alley [1947] @ American Film Institute Production Date: 19 May–late Jul 1947; addl scenes early Oct 1947 Premiere Information: New York opening: 9 Oct 1947 >> DETAILED NOTES SECTION >> EXTENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=… *************************************************************************************

NIGHTMARE ALLEY By WILLIAM LINDSAY GRESHAM New York: Rinehart, 1946 MOVIE Tie-In Edition: Triangle Books, 1947 N.Y.: Signet Books, 1949 #738 – Cover By James Avati N.Y.R.B.: 2110

*ALL* Editions – Including KINDLE www.amazon.com/Nightmare-Alley-William-Lindsay-Gresham/dp… AND www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=Gresham&tn=… AND www.goodreads.com/book/show/548019.Nightmare_Alley *************

MOVIE Tie-In Edition: Triangle Books, 1947 www.amazon.com/Nightmare-alley-William-Lindsay-Gresham/dp… ****

NEW Edition (New York Review Books, 2110): Nightmare Alley By William Lindsay Gresham, introduction by Nick Tosches – *Links* to buy www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/nightmare-alley/ AND www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781590173480 ****

Cult classic ‘Nightmare Alley’ resurfaces more macabre than ever Baltimore-born writer William Lindsay Gresham could be seen as an heir to Edgar Allan Poe By Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun – [email protected] articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-04-16/services/bs-ae-night…

" It’s time for Baltimore to claim William Lindsay Gresham as one of the city’s literary native sons and a proper heir to Edgar Allan Poe — and not just because he was born here in 1909. He fits the funk-art aspect of this town as well as James M. Cain or John Waters…

…"Nightmare Alley" is about a geek — but the word means something vastly different in the carnival of this novel than it does in teen comedies, where it serves as a synonym for "nerd. " For the denizens of Gresham’s not-so-greatest show on earth, the geek is, in Tosches’ words, "a drunkard driven so low that he would bite the heads off chickens and snakes just to get the booze he needed."

Gresham first heard about this kind of geek when he was 29 years old, waiting to return to the U.S. after defending the Republic in the Spanish civil war. The story connected so deeply with Gresham’s internal agony that he said, "to get rid of it, I had to write it out."…

He later described the novel’s gestation as "years of analysis, editorial work, and the strain of children in small rooms." He alleviated anxieties with liquor — and became an alcoholic. In the middle of this chaos, he wrote a fictional chart of the lowest depths of drunkenness that also included, in Tosches’ estimation, "the most viciously evil psychologist in the history of literature." Along the way, Gresham managed to debunk feel-good spiritualism and pseudo-paranormal trickery. But the book isn’t an Upton Sinclair-like expose. It’s a lowdown American tragedy…

Tosches, who has been researching Gresham’s life on and off for ten years, says over the phone from New York that he’s clearer on the novel’s roots than he is on Gresham’s. He hasn’t located a marriage certificate for Gresham’s mother and father, "and the Maryland State Archives has stated categorically there isn’t one for them." He knows Gresham was born on McCulloh Street and that his family moved to Fall River, Mass., when he was 7, and then to New York City. "But even though he left Baltimore at an early age, he claimed that the strongest influence on his life was his mother’s mother, Amanda, whose family, the Lindsays, came from Snow Hill, and who embodied, at least to him, the spirit of the antebellum South," says Tosches. (The Greshams came from the Piney Neck area of Kent County.)..

Everything in the book emerges from observation and authentic obsession. "He had a wonderfully perverse mind," recalls his last agent, the legendary Carl Brandt. "I remember with great fondness and amusement that he took me out to lunch once with the Witch Doctor’s Club, a group of magicians who would meet, as I remember, monthly, in a hardly glamorous restaurant." Brandt’s father had been Gresham’s magazine agent, and Brandt thinks the drying-up of the once-lucrative magazine-fiction market partly contributed to Gresham’s growing despair.

In the end, Gresham shared Stan Carlisle’s nightmare vision of life as a dark alley, "the buildings vacant and menacing on either side," and a light he couldn’t reach at the end of it, with "something behind him, close behind him, getting closer until he woke up trembling." Tosches found "a bizarre letter" Gresham wrote a few years before his suicide. "In it he wrote: ‘Stan is the author.’ "… articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-04-16/services/bs-ae-night… ****

REVIEW By Michael Dirda @ washingtonpost.com www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/…

" While I’ve known for a long time that William Lindsay Gresham’s "Nightmare Alley" (1946) was an established classic of noir fiction, I was utterly unprepared for its raw, Dostoevskian power. Why isn’t this book on reading lists with Nathanael West’s "Miss Lonelyhearts" and Albert Camus’ "The Stranger"? It’s not often that a novel leaves a weathered and jaded reviewer like myself utterly flattened, but this one did…

In the opening pages, set in the dilapidated Ten-in-One "carny," handsome blond Stan Carlisle stares at a geek, a supposed wild man who bites the heads off live chickens and drinks their blood. Stan, we soon learn, has been working as a magician and sleight-of-hand artist, but he’s got dreams about the big time…

Throughout these early pages, the carny atmosphere is redolent of sweat, dust, alcohol and pent-up desire. While sex in "Nightmare Alley" is never graphically described, it is always strikingly perverse or distinctly sadomasochistic…

Like many good artists (and con artists), Gresham isn’t locked into a single style: He can swiftly modulate from the colorfully vulgar conversation of the carnies to their smooth, stage-show patter, from the professional lingo of sheriffs, psychologists and wealthy businessmen to a drunk’s hallucinatory stream of consciousness…

Gresham lived a colorful if troubled life. According to the biographical note to this edition, he "lost himself in a maze of what proved to be dead-ends for him, from Marxism to psychoanalysis to Christianity to Alcoholics Anonymous to Rinzai Zen Buddhism." All these contribute to the earthy richness of "Nightmare Alley." ..

Certainly, Gresham’s book chronicles a truly horrific descent into the abyss. Yet it’s more than just a steamy noir classic. As a portrait of the human condition, "Nightmare Alley" is a creepy, all-too-harrowing masterpiece…" www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/12/…

******************************************************

The Book You Have to Read: “Nightmare Alley,” by William Lindsay Gresham The Rap Sheet

" If noir is the stuff of nightmares–you know what I mean, the kind in which (according to the popular conference definition of the genre) you’re fucked from page one–then a one-off, nearly forgotten classic called Nightmare Alley is surely the biggest freak show of them all…

…Gresham’s book is sumptuous, rich, redolent, and literary. Fused with a classically tragic structure, the plot and characters roil and roll in your head, guests who will never leave. In some ways, it’s a bitter, cynical take on the Horatio Alger myth, a commentary on the Americans America left behind…

…In 1947, Nightmare Alley was fortunate enough to be made into one of the greatest of all film noirs. Starring a terrific Tyrone Power (if you don’t think he could act, you’re in for a surprise) and a strong supporting cast which included the lovely ingénue Colleen Gray, Joan Blondell, and noir stalwarts Mike Mazurki and Helen Walker, the movie is available on DVD. Rent it soon and often, or better yet buy a copy. With a crackling good script by Jules Furthman (The Shanghai Gesture, The Big Sleep), and atmospherically directed by Edmund Goulding (Grand Hotel, The Old Maid–we can only wish he’d been given more crime films), Nightmare Alley is a rare example of a movie almost as good as its source material…" therapsheet.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-you-have-to-read-ni… *************************************************

Carnival of lost souls: Nightmare Alley REVIEW By JB @ thephantomcountry

Nightmare Alley covers a lot of territory, both psychologically and geographically, crossing the US by truck, train, car, and on foot until Stan’s world seems not larger but smaller, shrinking to a blackened point. His carnival experience comes full circle, like the embrace of a family whose door always remains forbiddingly open, and some of Gresham’s finest passages evoke for us this family on the move, seductive and grotesque and leaving only cavities in its wake: “It came like a pillar of fire by night, bringing excitement and new things into the drowsy towns—lights and noise and a chance to win an Indian blanket, to ride on the ferris wheel, to see the wild-man who fondles those rep-tiles as a mother would fondle her babes. Then it vanished in the night, leaving the trodden grass of the field and the debris of popcorn boxes and rusting tin ice-cream spoons to show where it had been.” thephantomcountry.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html

William Lindsay Gresham (August 20, 1909–September 14, 1962) @ Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lindsay_Gresham AND en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_Alley *******************************

Fox Studio Classics – Film Noir – Nightmare Alley – Point Of View williamlindsaygresham.com/

The film Nightmare Alley laid in copyright limbo for over fifty years, a struggle between the estates of producer George Jessel, author W.L. Gresham and the 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. In that time, its cult status continued to grow. Not just from the rarity of its screenings on television and at film festivals, but from the later suicides of the book’s author and the movie’s director, and its remarkably grim, bold, and disturbing look at hucksterism and its milieu.

It was 1946 and Tyrone Power, Fox’s leading male star, had returned from service in World War II. From an acting family and a stage background, he had grown tired of the empty “pretty boy” image that had made him a matinee idol. He wanted a different role. One that would showcase his range and depth and change the public’s (and industry’s) perception of him from a toothpaste ad to a serious actor. He had leaned toward that end with his first post-war duty role by playing Larry Darrell in Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge.

Power leveraged his past success (and the considerable money he made for the studio) to make Nightmare Alley his prestige project. Studio Head Daryl F. Zanuck was against it from the start but he owed Power gratitude and a bit of artistic license so he green-lighted the film. Ultimately, Zanuck’s instincts would prove correct (as they so often did). The film failed miserably at the box office and Power ended up returning to the adventurous, swashbuckling roles that had made him famous. Interestingly, many of 20th Century Fox’s most unique and enduring pictures were made in this vein, by a proven film artist’s passionate plea and Zanuck’s begrudging nod.

War weary audiences of the late ’40s were not ready for it. Although film noir was seeping into the mainstream, an “A” picture starring the dashing and overwhelmingly handsome Tyrone Power as a greedy, manipulative charlatan was too much for them. Adding to this shock was the story, adapted from a novel immersed in the sleazy world of carny, portraying the darker realities of alcoholism, marital infidelity, religion, spiritualism and ambition by an author who was a known communist, drunkard and wife beater. williamlindsaygresham.com/ ******************************

BOOKS INTO FILM: Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham reviewed by Jim Hitt www.booksintofilms.straitjacketsmagazine.com/support-file…

" In the world of noir novels, Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham stands apart as a totally originally and innovative piece of literature. As in most noir works, the protagonist Stan Carlisle is a flawed individual, and the world in which he lives is a dark world where predator and prey become one. But Gresham’s world is not the world of Cornell Woolrich where the events rush relentlessly toward the climax. On the contrary, the events in Nightmare Alley unfold in at a slower, more deliberate pace, and the construction of the novel is closer to William Faulkner than Cornell Woolrich…

…William Lindsay Gresham wrote only one more novel, the equally bleak Limbo Tower (1949) about Asa Kimball and other men slowly dying of fear, depression, and tuberculosis in hospital. He then fought his own battles against alcohol. His second wife Joy divorced him and taking their two sons, moved to England where she later married C. S. Lewis. Their relationship became the basis for the stage play and film Shadowlands . When in 1962 Gresham discovered he had cancer, he checked into the run-down Dixie Hotel, registering as ‘Asa Kimball,’ and took his own life…

…Just before he died, Gresham, reflecting on his life, told a fellow veteran from Spain, "I sometimes think that if I have any real talent it is not literary but is a sheer talent for survival. I have survived three busted marriages, losing my boys, war, tuberculosis, Marxism, alcoholism, neurosis and years of freelance writing. Just too mean and ornery to kill, I guess."…

…Print quality : An absolutely gorgeous print. I doubt it looked this good in the theaters when it was first released.

Sound : Sharp and clear.

Extras : A theatrical trailer that appears spliced together from various scenes rather than a true trailer. Also a commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver. The commentary sounds more like a conversation between two knowledgeable experts rather than a straight commentary, and this casual approach works very well. Their comments are insightful if not exactly spirited…

Summary : A terrific film noir, one of the best. Off beat in the sense that it foregoes crimes and violence, which is at the center of most noir films. The characters are full of life and always interesting. Only the part of Molly rings a bit false, especially considering the ill-advised end, which does little to affect the gritty and honest movie. Time has vindicated Tyrone Power’s faith in this material.

Grade: A- www.booksintofilms.straitjacketsmagazine.com/support-file… *********************************************************************

Nightmare Alley: Faustian Carnival Noir: The rise and fall: From Divinity to Geek REVIEW By monstergirl @ The Last Drive In MANY Dozens of Screencaps monstergirl.wordpress.com/2010/12/14/nightmare-alleyfaust… *****************

Nightmare Alley (film and stage musical) Understanding Screenwriting #46 BY TOM STEMPEL @ slantmagazine.com

The best article on Nightmare Alley is by Clive T. Miller and appears in the 1975 book "Kings of the Bs: Working Within the Hollywood System"… www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/05/understanding-screenw… ************************************************************

Mister, I was made for it A region 2 DVD review of NIGHTMARE ALLEY by Slarek www.dvdoutsider.co.uk/dvd/reviews/n/nightmare_alley.html

SUMMARY Let’s not sod about, Nightmare Alley is a terrific film noir, a joyously dark story of a destructive and ultimately self-destructive ambition in which just about everyone is attempting to manipulate others for their own ends. It’s cult status was built in part on its long term unavailability, but can now continue on the back of the film’s cinematic strengths, which are considerable.

Eureka’s Masters of Cinema label does the film proud, with a superb transfer and some very worthwhile extras. Noir fans should run to get their hands on it. " www.dvdoutsider.co.uk/dvd/reviews/n/nightmare_alley.html ******************************************************

William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley Tarot: Carnival Trumps Tarot Hermeneutics: Exploring How We Create Meaning with Tarot

William Lindsay Gresham, Joy Davidman Gresham (poetry pseudonym: "Joy Brown"), and C.S. Lewis

***UNUSUAL***, Detailed, Worthwhile tarothermeneutics.com/tarotliterature/nightmarealley.html *****************************************************

LISTEN >> Naxos Audiobooks "Nightmare Alley" Read by : Adam Sims ISBN: 1843794829 ISBN-13: 9781843794820 Format: CD – Search for other formats www.audiobooksdirect.com.au/William-Lindsay-Gresham/Night… ***********************************************

GRAPHIC NOVEL [= Comic Books for Literary types] Nightmare Alley: Spain Hernandez’s graphic adaptation of the William Lindsay Gresham novel *Links* to Buy >> www.indiebound.org/book/9781560975113?aff=sfnybal

"…Spain Hernandez’s graphic adaptation of Nightmare Alley is at least as successful as its predecessor versions. The artwork is black and white; sometimes cartoony, sometimes realistic. Close-up character studies alternate with splash pages and occasional landscape shots so well done that they resemble woodcuts. Hernandez’s story-line follows Gresham’s novel closely; I don’t recall any major scenes or sequences being left out. He does not stint on quoting Gresham’s dialogue; his word balloons are as packed as any I have ever seen. The story of Stan Carlyle’s rise and fall is as compelling in graphic novel form as it was in earlier versions.

Nightmare Alley is an important work of American crime fiction; it is perhaps unique in that memorable versions of the story are now available in three different media." www.crimeculture.com/21stC/fried.html **************************************

Gresham, William Lindsay (1909-1962) | Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections archon.wheaton.edu/index.php?p=creators/creator&id=77

Location: Archon Send Email | Wheaton College Archives & Special Collections archon.wheaton.edu/index.php?p=core/contact&f=email&a… ****************************************************

Posted by mhdantholz on 2011-02-20 12:09:24

Tagged: , NIGHTMARE , ALLEY , [1947]

The post NIGHTMARE ALLEY [1947] appeared first on Good Info.

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clarenceomoore · 6 years ago

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Is an AGI Possible?

The following is an excerpt from GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity. You can purchase the book here.

The Fourth Age explores the implications of automation and AI on humanity, and has been described by Ethernet inventor and 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe as framing “the deepest questions of our time in clear language that invites the reader to make their own choices. Using 100,000 years of human history as his guide, he explores the issues around artificial general intelligence, robots, consciousness, automation, the end of work, abundance, and immortality.”

One of those deep questions of our time:

Is an artificial general intelligence, or AGI, even possible? Most people working in the field of AI are convinced that an AGI is possible, though they disagree about when it will happen. In this excerpt from The Fourth Age, Byron Reese considers it an open question and explores both sides of the question—is it possible, and are we on the right track to make it happen?

How would we go about building an artificial general intelligence? Simply put, we don’t know. AGI doesn’t exist; nor does anything close to it. Most people in the industry believe it is possible to build an AGI. Of the seventy or so guests I have hosted on my AI podcast, Voices in AI, I can only recall six or seven who believed that it is impossible to build one. However, predictions as to when we will see it vary widely.

And while we set a pretty low bar for narrow AI, to earn the title of “AGI,” the aspiring technology would have to exhibit the entire range of the various types of intelligence that humans have, such as social and emotional intelligence, the ability to ponder the past and the future, as well as creativity and true originality. The historian Jacques Barzun said we would know we had it “when a computer makes an ironic answer.” He might have added, “or is offended at being called artificial.”

Is an AGI really something different than just better narrow AI? Could we, for instance, get an AGI by just bolting together more and more narrow AIs until we had covered the entire realm of human experience, thus in effect, creating an AI that is at least as smart and versatile as a person? Could we make, in effect, an AGI Frankenstein’s monster? Can we, for instance, make a robot that vacuums rugs and another one that picks stocks and yet another that drives a car and ten thousand more, and then connect them all to solve the entire realm of human problems? Theoretically, you could code such an abomination, but unfortunately, this is not a path to an AGI, or even something like it. Being intelligent is not about being able to do 10,000 different things. Intelligence is about combining those 10,000 things in new configurations, or using the knowledge from one of them to do new task 10,001.

At one level, the very idea of us building an AGI seems a bit preposterous compared with our current experiences with narrow AI. Narrow AI is still at a point where we are pleasantly surprised when it works. It has no volition. It can’t teach itself something that it hasn’t been programmed to do. But an AGI is a completely different thing. It’s like comparing a zombie with Einstein. Yeah, they are both bipeds, but the zombie’s skill set is quite narrow whereas Einstein can learn new things easily. A zombie isn’t going to enroll in night school or learn macramé. It just wanders around moaning “Brains! Brains!” all day. That’s what we have today, AI zombies. The question is whether we can build an AGI Einstein. If we did build one, how would we regard it? What would we think it is?

At this point in our narrative, the AGI isn’t conscious. Because it is not conscious, it cannot experience the world and it cannot suffer. So an AGI in and of itself would not cause an existential crisis, a deep reflection about what makes humans special. But it would prompt us to ask two questions: “Is the AGI alive?” and “What are humans for?”

With regard to the first question, whether an AGI is alive, the answer is not obvious. Consciousness is not a prerequisite for life. In fact, an incredibly low percentage of living things are conscious. A tree is alive, as is a cell in your body, but we don’t generally regard them as conscious.

So what makes something alive? What is life? We don’t have a consensus definition for what life is. Not even close. We don’t even have one for death. And although there isn’t agreement on what constitutes life, a wide range of properties have been offered. An AGI would likely exhibit many of them, including the capacity for growth and the ability to reproduce, pass traits onto offspring, respond to stimuli, maintain homeostasis, and exhibit continual change preceding death. However, two attributes of life the AGI would not have: being made of cells and breathing. One has to ask whether these latter two are simply “things all life on earth share” as opposed to “things definitionally required for life.” I suspect we would have no trouble recognizing a nonbreathing, non-cell-based alien who could converse with us as being alive, so why would we insist on those qualities for the AGI?

Those are just the scientific requirements for life—what about the metaphysical ones? Again, we can find little consensus here. Philosophical thought hasn’t invested an enormous amount of time in examining the edge cases of life, such as viruses, which even scientists can’t agree on. Were the bacteria recently revived after millions of years of stasis always alive? Or were they resurrected from death?

That the definition of life has been a controversial topic for literally thousands of years suggests that we will not arrive at a species-wide consensus any time soon. This being the case, we can safely conclude that there will be a variety of opinions on the question of whether the AGI is alive, and our interactions with the AGI may be made uncomfortable because of this ambiguity. Those who answered our foundational question about what they are as “machine,” as well as those who see themselves as monists, may very well regard the AGI as alive, while others may not make that determination, or waver, in good conscience, uncomfortably on the fence.

The second question, “What are humans for?” is concisely framed by Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired:

We’ll spend the next decade—indeed, perhaps the next century— in a permanent identity crisis, constantly asking ourselves what humans are for. . . . The greatest benefit of the arrival of artificial intelligence is that AIs will help define humanity. We need AIs to tell us who we are.

For the last several thousand years, humans have maintained our preeminent place on this planet for only one reason: we’re the smartest thing around. We aren’t the biggest, fastest, strongest, longest-lived, or just about any other “-est.” But we are the smartest, and we have used those smarts to become the undisputed masters and rulers of the planet. What’s going to happen if we become the second-smartest thing on the planet? And not just second, but second by an embarrassingly large margin? If the machines can think better and the robots can manipulate the physical world better, what is our job? I suspect we will fall back on consciousness. We experience the world, machines can only measure it. We enjoy the world. Combine that with mortality and the preciousness of life, and you get something that is meaningfully human. This idea was captured in Zen story of the tigers and the strawberry. In that story, a man is chased by a tiger, and to save himself, he jumps over a cliff, grabs a vine, and hangs there. Above him, the tiger waits. Below him circles another tiger. At the same time, a mouse comes out and starts chewing on the vine he is holding on to. But at that exact moment, the man spies a strawberry plant, growing on the side of the mountain. He picks the strawberry and eats it, and never had anything tasted so good to him in all of his life. at moment, that combination of consciousness and mortality, might be what we use to define us. We are the tasters of the strawberry, able to appreciate it because we hang at the moment between life and death.

To read more of GigaOm publisher Byron Reese’s new book, The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, you can purchase it here.

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