#i hate this fucking town this fucking country this fucking catholic cult

[awaybacktothen]

... my town just put up a monument dedicated to unborn children

#what the actual fuck #i hate this fucking town this fucking country this fucking catholic cult #poland

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Cabin in the Woods [18+]

Jackson Neill x Female Reader

For @storiesofsvu​’s Fall Bingo! Requested by @resparza​​! 

Summary: You and Jackson take a trip to New England that goes slightly awry.

Warnings: NSFW, nipple play, fingering, praise, slow gentle sex until the end when it gets a lil rough. Fluffy fluff & the tiniest bit of angst (so Jackson can reassure you). Trans male version here

3,350 words

Jackson made a tiny mistake with the timing. He booked your leaf-peeping getaway for mid-October, when the leaves in the city were just beginning to turn.

When you arrived at your cozy Airbnb in the mountains of Vermont, you were greeted by the awe-inspiring sight of… sticks.

“Goddammit. I forgot how geography works,” Jackson griped, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’d been in a sour mood for most of the drive up I-91 when the scenery started to look distinctly more ashen than orange halfway through Massachusetts.

“It’s like we time-traveled two weeks into the future,” you marveled at the bare tree branches rattling in a chilly breeze. Your rustic cedar-shingle cabin was surrounded by forest and at the end of a long dirt driveway. Even without the screen of leaves, you couldn’t see any neighbors.

“So much for leaf-peeping. There are no leaves.”

You picked up a bright red maple leaf from the driveway. “Found one!”

He chuckled at your enthusiasm and shook his head. “If I made our reservation a week earlier, the foliage would be, you know, in trees.”

“Found another!” you pointed at the colorful ground, grinning. “There’s another!” You picked each one up and tossed them at him like confetti.

“Alright!” he groaned, curling his elbow about your neck like a shepherd’s crook to wrangle you in. “I see you refuse to have a miserable time. Won’t even wallow with me for two seconds?”

“I think it’s pretty.” You turned in his arm and kissed him.

The tip of your nose was cold, but your lips were warm as he kissed you back and tried to look on the bright side. Just because things weren’t going to plan didn’t mean he had to relapse into his ingrained Catholic guilt.

***

Since the publication of his book, Meyerism: A New American Religion, Jackson Neill had been receiving threats from the eponymous cult that had him on edge. Not only was he afraid for himself—he wasn’t so macho to pretend otherwise—but he worried about you or his kids getting caught in the crossfire. The deeper he dug into the Meyerist Movement, the more he was convinced they were capable of anything.

This vacation was supposed to be a way to leave all that behind for a weekend, but stress clung to him like spiderwebs.

At least the weather was cooperative. Friday afternoon was clear and sunny—just the right temperature to sit out on the porch with a hot cup of cider. After unpacking, you settled down with Jackson on Adirondack chairs and listened to the sounds of nature as the fading sun slanted orange and red through the forest.

Pops of bright color still stood out amid the dull grey-brown landscape like flames—late trees that had waited for your arrival to change.

“You’re right: it is pretty,” Jackson conceded, your hand nested in his. Your fingertips were getting cold, so he held them to his lips and blew on them.

Tomorrow, you’d go on a nice hike with a beautiful view of the snow-capped Green Mountains. The trip wasn’t a total waste, Jackson thought. He tried to relax.

***

The next morning, you awoke to the pounding of rain on the roof and Jackson pacing downstairs in the living room. The entire cabin creaked and groaned with the force of the wind, and you quickly pulled on a sweater and wool socks before padding down the stairs.

Jackson was tapping at his phone, muttering under his breath, before finally tossing the useless device on the couch with a dry laugh. His apparent crankiness couldn’t have been that bad, though—he’d gotten up early to light about a hundred votive candles, filling the dim living room with flickering golden light. He must have been planning something romantic.

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his stubbly cheek. “What’s wrong?”

“No signal out here in God’s country,” Jackson rolled his eyes at a wooden cross decorating a door frame, which had not been visible in the listing photographs.

“Isn’t there Wi-Fi?”

Jackson stared at you with lips so thin they vanished into a fine line, and eyes that looked ready to shatter like exploding light bulbs at any moment. “Storm knocked out the power.”

Oh. That was why he lit candles.

“And our hike is canceled, unless you want to go out in that.” A freezing mix of rain and sleet rattled the window panes.

It was easy to let another person’s bad mood get you down, but you tried to stay positive. He’d been so tense lately, he needed support. You both needed this vacation to go well. “That’s OK. We can stay in and get cozy with the fireplace.”

“You would think so,” he gave a humorless chuckle, shaking your arm off to sulk into the open-plan kitchen. “The listing said breakfast was included, but the refrigerator is empty. We’ve got… toast.”

“Maybe we can drive into town? Find one of those quaint little bakeries.”

“Out into the cold,” he sighed. “And we don’t have internet to look a place up. No wonder the host thinks they can get away with starving us—I can’t even call to complain!”

The wall of positivity you’d constructed groaned and cracked, and the anxiety it held back began to stream through. You sank down onto the couch.

Oblivious, Jackson hunted through the charmingly rustic (and empty) cabinets with an increasingly frustrated frown. “This trip is a disaster.” The words stung as surely as if he called you a disaster.

“I’m sorry.”

“What?” He turned. Your voice was so quiet he barely heard you say anything.

“I’m sorry,” you repeated so he would hear, lower lip trembling with the effort.

It took him three strides to cross the entire cabin, and he was on top of you, kneeling in front of the couch, stroking your face. “Hey, no, no… What are you talking about?” His green eyes were soft as the hay fields you’d passed yesterday as they searched yours.

“It was my idea to come here,” you sniffed.

“I know.” His head tilted, and frown lines creased his forehead. “I wanted this weekend to be perfect for you, and I can’t get anything right. I don’t know why you’re sorry. This is my fault.”

“But it’s my fault you’re miserable. I thought getting away from the city would be relaxing. I wanted some alone time with you. But you’re not having any fun. I just don’t want you to be upset…”

Something changed in his eyes.

“I… I’m not upset.” His thumb gently stroked your cheek. “I’m not upset at all—not at you. Maybe at myself. Fine, entirely at myself. This was your trip, and I fucked it up. I hate disappointing you.”

A hint of a smile crept back into your face. You covered his hand with your own and turned into it to kiss his palm. “Jax, you could never disappoint me. All I wanted out of this trip was to spend time with you. So long as we’re together, I’m happy.”

“You don’t look happy.” A flicker of a self-deprecating smirk. “Guess I ruined things by being a grouch, huh?”

Your face once again threatened a smile. “No…”

“Yes. I’m a big mean grouch. Come on, you can tell me off,” he grinned, leaning close to your neck and purring his words against your earlobe. “Punish me. Throw a handful of sleet down my shirt. Push me into a pile of wet leaves.”

“Nooo!” you squirmed beneath him, fighting a laugh as he invented tortures for himself and kissed them into your skin.

“Come on, I deserve it.” He pulled back, and a smile broke across his face like dawn to see how your eyes had brightened.

“Alright, alright. Maybe just a little sleet.”

“From now on”—he pressed his lips against your neck again and sucked lightly at the beat of your pulse point—“I promise”—he nibbled his way over your jaw—“to appreciate every moment of our vacation”—his lips ghosted against yours—“and make sure you feel good.”

You pulled him down onto the couch with you, falling back onto the cushions as his lips melted with yours and his tongue hunted for a moan inside your mouth. He found one, long, slow, and tortured as you tasted the raw heat of his apology.

“Mmm,” you hummed as if a chocolate truffle were melting on your tongue. “You want to make me feel good?”

“Yes,” he sighed back, lips moving against your cheek and his hips lazily grinding against your thigh.

“I have a few ideas about how you could do that…”

“So do I.”

His long fingers slid down your stomach and slipped beneath the waistband of your flannel pajama pants. You drew a sharp breath as his pads grazed the top of your slit, and he paused, looking to you with lust-blown eyes for permission to continue. Sucking your lower lip between your teeth, you angled your pelvis to move his fingers onto the aching bud of flesh that sent hot shivers out beneath your skin at the contact.

“Seems we’re on the same page, Dr. Neill,” you whispered, and captured his lips again.

Moaning into the kiss with a dark, gravelly rumble, Jackson let his fingers venture deeper into your folds. You weren’t drenched for him yet. Moments ago, you had been on the verge of crying, and he still had to reassure your body that it was wonderful and loved—but he was a patient man and enjoyed taking his time. Each breath and sigh was a signal he attended like a rapt student in the front row of the classroom, his own pleasure coursing through his veins as he played with your pussylips and brought out your trust and desire.

“Shirt off.”

Nodding, you peeled the hem up over your stomach, and he sat up to help you wriggle it off over your shoulders. While he was at it, he pulled off your pajama bottoms and stripped to his boxers.

“Hey, I’m cold,” you whined, pouting as goosebumps began to prickle over your naked arms.

He pulled the fleece blanket off the back of the couch and covered you both with it. “I’ll keep you warm, querida,” he purred as he lowered himself over you.

A hot flush spread over your skin. You loved when he spoke Spanish—sweetly, with the vocabulary of a 1950s telenovela, and full of diminutives the way his mother used to speak it to him as a child. A well-placed querida or cielito could send shivers up your spine. It was nothing compared to the back-arching jolt a moment later when his tongue teased your nipple.

You cried out, fingers curling sharply into his hair as if his tongue carried an electric charge, unsure if you were trying to push him off or pull him closer and make sure he never stopped. As he gently sucked and your sensitive flesh pebbled into a stiff peak beneath his circling tongue, you were leaning toward the latter. Head thrown back, you gasped out his name, begging for more.

He worshiped your chest, eyes flicking up to meet yours with a playful, attentive expression, but he didn’t give you more, no matter how you clawed at the back of his scalp. His tongue worked in gentle, leisurely circles, tracing one fully before moving on to give attention to the other.

Fingers delving back between your thighs, he found your clit swollen and throbbing. You let out a startled, sobbing moan as he stroked it, your back arching, clinging to his head almost painfully tight to brace against the overwhelming sensation. If he kept touching your two most sensitive areas at the same time, you were going to come fast.

“Easy…” he soothed, sensing your agitated level of arousal. “I want to make this last. Can you be good for me and wait?”

Whimpering, you nodded and loosened your tight grip.

“Yes, Dr. Neill.”

“Good girl.”

As he languidly serviced your nipples, he dragged his fingers lower, through your folds. It still made your skin prickle with wanting, but without direct contact with your clit, you wouldn’t come as fast.

When he found your entrance with the pad of a finger, it was slick enough to press inside without resistance. You let out a delicious, tortured moan as the long digit penetrated your tight walls, opening them a little at a time.

“Fuck, you’re so warm. So wet. That’s my good girl.” He lifted his face from your chest to kiss you in praise.

Your hips writhed to push the finger deeper as you kissed him back. He was hungry to reconnect with you—to go slowly and spend as much time as he could sharing pleasure with your naked body—but you were starving. You might explode if he didn’t fuck you.

He moaned softly as your wetness swallowed more of his finger. “Feels like you’re sucking it. Trying to pull me in. You must want more.”

“Yes… please,” you whined, your hands gripping at his broad shoulders.

A second finger stretched your entrance, and he began slowly fucking you with both.

“Oh, fuck. More! Harder,” you moaned.

“You sound so desperate,” he observed casually. “Like one of my students trying to cram for a test.” Heavy-lidded bedroom eyes betrayed his desire, but he wore a cheeky grin and did not increase his pace.

Wet sounds of flesh filled the cabin, so slow it was torture. “Please, Jackson… please let me come. Please…” you begged, but he just kept watching you studiously, worshipfully, as he fingered you slowly. Enough to keep you begging, but not enough to let you finish.

He was straddling one of your legs, and his cock pressed rock-hard into your thigh. Every so often, you would feel it twitch, usually when his fingers massaged a sensitive spot inside that made you give a satisfying noise, and he could feel your pussy gripping around him. Then he would murmur, “You’re so beautiful. Fuck, you feel so good.”

Only when you were a drooling, trembling mess that could barely string two intelligible words together did he start to actively roll his hips, rubbing his erection against your leg.

“Do you want more?”

“Y-yes,” you sobbed.

He sat back on his haunches, and you wailed as his fingers slipped from your yearning wetness, leaving you so empty. “Do you want me to fuck you?” he asked softly, so tenderly that “fuck” sounded like the most romantic, poetic word in the English language.

“I love you,” you replied, which wasn’t technically a yes, but made Jackson’s breath catch suddenly in his throat.

“I love you, too, mi corazón.” He tugged the elastic waistband of his boxers down over his straining cock, and, taking it in his hand, notched its thick head against your entrance. His forehead rested against yours as he demanded huskily, “Now tell me you want me inside you.”

You gasped. He was so big and blunt against your tight pussy, you almost didn’t think he could fit. But you knew he could—and you knew that was why he always warmed you up so gradually, so agonizingly, so he would never hurt you. With the crown of his cock stretching your opening, the temptation of being filled by him was so close that an unbearable ache drowned out every other thought.

“I want you, Jackson. I need you.”

A thrill rushed through you as his walls came crashing down. His hips canted forward, and a pleasurable burn filled your depths as his cock stretched you open farther than seemed possible—and you watched his mind empty in that moment. All the stress and worry were gone. Nothing was on his mind but you and how good you felt wrapped around him. Nothing existed for you but him between your legs and the ragged sound of his breathing.

As if to seamlessly replace his fingers with his cock, he set the same languid pace. At first, the difference in girth was enough to make it infinitely more intense. Relief cascaded through you as your pleasure finally began to build toward a finale, heat pooling in your lower body with every thrust. Dipping his head, Jackson found a hardened nipple and sucked it until you were babbling incoherently, hips jerking to add to the depth and friction he was giving you.

“H-harder,” you whispered, and this time, he didn’t tease you.

Your pussy coated his cock with so much cream, he knew you could take all of him. Knew you were ready to snap, and so was he—so his hips pounded faster, thighs slapping your skin, heavy balls swinging against your ass.

“Yes… yes… yes…” he breathed rhythmically, chasing his climax as your arousal coated his cock and slicked your thighs.

“More,” you rasped, though your fingernails were already digging red crescents into his back, the stretch almost too much. He needed a stress release, and you wanted to be his outlet. “Let yourself go.”

A final barrier broke inside him, and he took you so quickly, it was more like jerking himself off with your body than making love. Nothing went through his mind but seeking his own release. For a moment, Even you vanished, and there was nothing but his cock surrounded and gripped by unbelievable warmth. You cried out in pleasure at the new depths he struck with reckless abandon.

His hips stuttered. “Fuck!” he gasped, fingers gripping the couch cushion as his hot seed painted your inner walls.

He panted, going still. After a few moments of catching his breath, cock twitching the remainder of its contents into you, he wiped the sheen of sweat off his brow and opened his eyes.

“You didn’t come, did you?” He gave a sheepish sigh.

“It’s OK. Sometimes it takes me too long… It was fun anyway.”

“Stop that. Whoever gave you those excuses is a fucking idiot.”

Keeping himself sheathed inside you, he reached between your bodies to stroke your clit. You gasped out, finding your body responded quickly with waves of molten heat exploding between your thighs. You were still close to finishing.

Jackson circled his hips, using his spent, tender cock while it was still hard. Though each movement was overstimulating and made his body cry out to stop, he savored the way you responded to the pressure: your eyes squeezing closed, your breath growing shallow. He lowered his mouth to your chest again, stroking your clit faster as he flicked his tongue and rocked his hips in shallow thrusts. Your moans built, louder and more strained, back arching beneath him until finally, you came, walls crashing around him, convulsing and releasing, then clenching down again as your whole body shuddered with wave after wave of ecstasy.

Jackson’s mouth popped off the bud of your nipple as a pained moan tore from his throat. His exhausted cock suffered as your pussy involuntarily tried to milk another orgasm from it, but there was a smile on his lips. A breathy laugh.

“Fuck,” he moaned. “You’re perfect.”

You lay together for a while under the blanket. Even after you’d recovered, your shared body heat was incentive enough not to want to get up yet. The storm outside didn’t relent, and despite the warm light of a hundred flickering candles, the air inside the cabin was chilly. Soon, you would start up the fire in the rustic stone hearth, and you could stay cozy inside all day roasting marshmallows and reading books or playing board games. After a brief trip into town for supplies, that is. Besides, you would have to brave the storm to make good on your promise to slip some ice down his shirt.

For now, Jackson’s face was buried contentedly in the curve of your neck, hot puffs of breath tickling your skin. You held him in your arms, combing your fingers through his hair.

“So,” you murmured. “Enjoying our vacation yet?”

You felt him smile. “It’s everything I needed.”

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @madamsnape921 / @astrangegirlsmind / @neely1177 / @onerestein / @dreamlover31 / @isvvc-pvscvl  / @shroomiehomie / @storiesofsvu / @welcometothemxdhouse / @feedthemadness-sweetie / @law-nerd105 / @amelia-song-pond / @michael-rooker / @xecq / @madpanda75 / @alwaysachorusgirl / @bananas-pajamas / @leanor-min / @mad-girl-without-a-box​ / @katierpblogg​ / @worldofvixen​ / @sassyada​ / @detectivebarba​

#Jackson Neill x Reader

[tanadrin]

What are your thoughts on people who just want to be left alone, and not just solitarily - they want to leave modern society and go live in the woods.

They should be permitted to. Modern liberal democracies are mostly OK with making deals with secessionist subcultures: enclaves of Mennonites, the Amish, ultra-orthodox Jews, and so forth are permitted form and mostly self-govern, and are occasionally even granted opt-outs from various forms of government interference, like certain taxes or insurance requirements, on the basis that they make much less use of government services. It's harder to carve out such exceptions for individuals, but we do have things like the concept of the conscientious objector that accommodate deviations from the usually expected set of rights and obligations for people with a commitment to alternate sets of values.

But these things exist on a spectrum; opting in or out of society isn't a binary choice. Also, except in the libertarian fantasy land, it's very hard even in North America these days to find trackless wilderness where you can live totally unconnected to the rest of humanity--and most of it is in Alaska and northern Canada, so bring a nice thick coat. Where I think this consideration, the concept of "atomic communitarianism" to borrow a phrase, is most interesting is in its more complicated real-world instantiations.

Anabaptist religious communities in the US, for instance, aren't really autarkic villages; they're socially segregated, but economically connected with the surrounding area. Ultra-orthodox Jewish groups, while endogamous, have historically always existed within larger urban communities, and could not function without them; many seem happy to rely on social support from the government, which given the emphasis they place on a particular kind of pious lifestyle makes sense.

Where indulging atomicity in society encounters tension, I think one of three things are at play. First, the atomic community is in conflict with the wider community over material interests. The fight over the distribution of public school funding in Ramapo, New York is a great example of this. I don't think these kinds of conflicts ever have easy solutions, especially when the atomic community in question doesn't or can't form a distinct separate unit of local self-government.

Second, an organization wants conditional status as an atomic community. Anabaptists generally refrain from participating in secular government as a fundamental tenet of their religion; contrast the Catholic church, which now that religiosity is declining in many of its former strongholds, often presents itself as merely wanting to govern its own affairs free from governmental interference; but as soon as they are in a position to influence policy and make political noise, they do so, and they have no doctrinal objection to being made the sole official church of a secular state. In other words, Catholics are not naturally an atomic community, and so shouldn't be treated as one. They shouldn't get special consideration in a pluralist society, and Catholic institutions should be subject to normal rule of law. The Catholic church hates this, and it's this loathing of being constrained by the same rules everyone else is, rather than a real ideological motive, that causes them to cover up child abuse and play the victim when their mass graves get dug up in Canada and Ireland.

Thirdly, an atomic community may be genuine in its aspiration to atomicity, and it may be tolerated implicitly or officially by the collective authorities; but there are obligations that the collective authorities have to individual members it is pledged to protect that supersede any deal made with the community as a whole. The most visible example of this in the present day is child abuse by religious authorities. Whether it's the FLDS, ultra-orthodox Jewish communities, or, yes, the Catholics, one of the few things our society absolutely refuses to condone in an atomic community or an aspiring one is the sexual abuse of children, and the obligation of the collective authorities to prevent that is considered so far-reaching that no exceptions for any self-governing community can be permitted. Sometimes these communities can stave off interference temporarily by capturing local authority in elections and flying under the radar of more remote authorities, but this seems to only work in rural areas and only for a limited amount of time. The only imperative to exercise state authority over atomic communities that I can think of that comes even close to this one regards, like, tax evasion, because states also have a strong incentive to make sure people know that independent parallel authorities aren't permitted to compete with the state, and tax collection is one of the very basic functions of government.

Now, all of the above examples are religious communities. That's not entirely a coincidence: religion is a powerful community-building force, and rising standards of living in the developed world have reduced the relevance of purely political or economic utopian projects. In countries like the US, where there is a strong tradition of religious freedom, federalism, and soft libertarianism, society can easily accommodate a large number of atomic communities, even highly insular religious ones. That is strong to America's credit; in almost every case, if people want to go off and do their own thing, they should be permitted to. Even fucked-up cults like the FLDS folks should get a strong benefit of the doubt, because pluralism is important, and state power is a crude bludgeon, and when that bludgeon goes awry you get shit like the Waco massacre. We can quibble on where exactly the line for outside interference should be drawn, but regardless of the criteria we use, sexual abuse of children seems like a reasonable criterion for interference.

Should lone individuals or tiny groups get carte blanche to fuck off into the woods and never contact human society again? Sure; but they effectively already have that, if they can find an empty patch of woods. And simply in terms of sheer numbers, the quantity of hermits and members of eremitical microcommunities will always be dwarfed by larger, more persistent atomic communities like those organized on religious lines. Religion is just a much stronger motivating factor for that kind of secessionism.

If a self-organized community of individualists did form in the wilderness, or on some vast expanse of privately owned land, and wanted to govern themselves free from interference--well, that's called "incorporating a municipality" and you can go through existing legal channels. Your new town won't be free of state or federal authority, depending on where it is; but if you're large enough to need a bona fide local government, I think there's a strong presumption that your community has a big enough impact on the surrounding areas and is populous enough that the collective authority takes a legitimate interest in how your community is run. But local governments are really important, and get a lot of shit done! Don't underrate their power.

If you really want more autonomy, you can always petition your state or national government for status as a separate state/territory/province/autonomous community/department (it worked for the Mormons!). You'd probably have to be fairly big; but I think your community would have to be very large in the first place to really get any benefit from that kind of larger local government. And, of course, there's always the Free State Project. In fact, I want to strongly encourage right-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists of every stripe, no matter where in the world they live, to move to New Hampshire and leave the rest of us alone. I think that's a really terrific idea (and more viable than seasteading).

One thing I didn't discuss is uncontacted peoples or native communities that preexist the communitarian authority. Especially with regard to the former, I don't trust state power to interfere in these communities in a non-destructive way; whatever the conditions the North Sentinelese are living in, the entire population being wiped out by measles carried over from the mainland would not be an improvement. And the excuse of legitimate state interest in protecting individuals has often been used to fuck with communities of racial undesirables--it is after all the reason the residential schools in Canada were built, and the Catholic church empowered to imprison children in them. This is part of the reason why even if you can prove an atomic community is a fucked up cult that treats its members horribly, I don't think it should be forcibly disbanded--the criteria for interference have to be extreme, because they have been so flagrantly abused in the past. Basically, the framework I'm using in the rest of this post doesn't apply here, because these native communities aren't secessionist for any meaningful use of the term. They function differently, they preexisted the authorities imposed on them, and that original imposition was a war of conquest.

#the whole idea of the empty natural trackless wilderness in which it is possible to build an autarkic community #is a fiction born out of american (and canadian and australian etc) self mythologizing #and so i don't think it works very well as part of the premise #even in a thought experiment #but for the purposes of this post i'm just rolling with it

[beholdyaourt]

Top 5 podcasts/moments in podcasts/idk! Top 5 Spooky movies/books/tv shows! Top 5 late night weird article/Wikipedia rabbitholes!

Oh dear!!! This made me take a DIVE. The truth is I really only listen to one podcast (My Favorite Murder) but I do listen to it A Whole Lot so I can name five of my favorite moments from this year.

1. Karen’s description of Jodi Arias breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s home through his doggy door and being discovered hiding behind his Christmas tree:

“But also, the moment after - just think about that, where you’re hiding behind the guy you love’s Christmas tree, because he’s not dating you anymore, so you’re like ‘*sobbing* why doesn’t he love me?’ and then he’s like ‘Jodie?’ and then you’re like... ‘Heyyyyyyyyyy! Hiiiiii! Where’d you get this wrapping paper?’ Back out through the dog door. She only enters and exits his house through the dog door.”

2. Karen’s description of the story of the Lawson Family Murders being passed down through a country song which she and Georgia do a HYSTERICAL bit about. I can’t even do it justice through text, please listen:

“Oh, you want a lullaby? Oh, you can’t sleep, you want Mommy to sing you a song? Okay. ♪ ♪  THEY CAAAAAAAME FROM HEEE HAW HEE HAW HAWWWW  ♪ ♪ ”

3. Karen and Georgia riffing on the creators (and guests) of the old Long Beach Carnival:

“They’re like ‘I like roller coasters, so I’m gonna build one, see! Right over the ocean!’”

“‘Insurance? We don’t need insurance!’”

“‘Don’t be crazy!’ More than a few drunken sailors who had gone down to the pier, because there’s lots of sailors stationed on Long Beach, ignored the ‘Do Not Stand Up’ sign.”

“And why wouldn’t you? It’s your day.”

“If it’s your day, and you wanna have fun your way, stand up on this insane roller coaster with no safety features whatsoever, and ♪ Die Die Die Die Die ♪ .”

4. Karen’s obviously spot-on impersonation of Typhoid Mary, with quotes like this in a thick Irish accent:

“Ach, I just need to stir this soup with my hand real quick.”

“Ach, who cares? Ach, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there’s other things to worry about. There’s people starving in my country.”

5. Karen and Georgia going entirely off-the-rails from a murder, imagining what a town’s July 4th celebration is like, kindly animated below:

Now, spooky things I saw this year!!

1. The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix)

This has actually probably become one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I’m on my third watch now and I keep finding new things. I’m incredibly attached to (and defensive of) almost all of the characters, the actors are fabulous, the frequent monologues really appeal to the playwright in me, the spooks are spooky, the way the story is put together like a puzzle is straight-up inspiring, and some episodes are just plain triumphs of great filmmaking. I REALLY love this one and encourage everyone to watch it. Either alone, with some wine, or with me (and some wine). Give it some time to build and develop, because a lot of it is a BUMMER, and be familiar with the many triggers involved, but I firmly believe it’s worth watching.

2. Happy Death Day

On a VERY different end of the spectrum, here’s a 2017 movie that I don’t believe I actually saw until this year, and I have seen it a LOT this year. It’s absurd and so dumb at points and I love it unashamedly for the concept, the “mystery”, and the montage of deaths set to Demi Lovato’s “Confident”. Also the sequel looks rad.

3. Hereditary

This is a straight-up huge bummer and incredibly depressing but also an astoundingly well-made film with amazing performances and some scares that are a lot of fun to talk about with your friends afterwards. Fuck. This fucked me up and I don’t look forward to watching it again, but I can’t deny it’s really great. Not to mention it has some cult shit I can’t help but love.

4. Cabin in the Woods

I’d seen this movie pre-2018, but a midnight screening this year was my first time seeing it in theaters, so I’m counting it! I have petty beef with this movie’s ending, because I think Sigourney Weaver (all hail) defends her side a little too well - I don’t want the world to end!!! And I have a hard time remembering in the end that it’s not meant to be taken that seriously. But this movie is a joyride from start to almost-finish. It was a BLAST in theaters, and I do love the hell out of almost all of it.

5. Halloween

I haven’t seen the new movie yet! This is about the original John Carpenter film, which I saw for the first time this October and just rewatched tonight with my brother. It’s not all that exciting, but it helped cement a lot of horror tropes that I love-hate, and I LOVE yelling at characters in horror movies who have no idea that they’re doing something I consider unforgivably dumb. A+ to Jamie Lee Curtis, even though she should have stabbed Michael Myers many more times.

As for late night article/Wikipedia rabbit holes...

1. MAGDALENA SOLIS

what the fuck

2. Anne of Cleves

for a refreshing reminder that at least one of Henry VIII’s wives got off with a relatively sweet deal

3. The Plot of Every Final Destination Film

because i spend every evening reading the plots of horror films i tell myself i’ll never watch

4. Douglas Booth’s Instagram

this... does not count by any stretch of the imagination, but i’m making it count because it... did make up a fair portion of my 2018. keep working, douglas!!! please get a better filmography for me!!!!!

5. This Buzzfeed News Story About Horrific Abuse/Murder at Catholic Orphanages

fascinating but incredibly lengthy and depressing, explore at your own risk

Phew!!!! Happy 2019, everyone!!!!!