#we stan lovecraftian horrors

[sator-the-wanderer]

Hello! It's ya girl with another "this thing ruined my life so I must rec it to everyone who I think would enjoy it" recommendation.

Do you still like Lovecraftian horror? Do you want to follow the adventures of the most confused, pathetic and utterly deranged yet still reasonably competent man to ever set foot in Arkham? Do you want him to have a brain co-pilot who most definitely isn't human? Do you want mystery? Do you want scary monsters? Do you want to see two losers pilot one cringefail body and bicker about it all the time? If you do, then golly gee do I have a podcast for you!

It's called Malevolent, it's a horror podcast with transcripts and trigger warnings for every season and ep for easier accessibility, and it ate my life sometime last week so I haven't been anywhere near the vicinity of normal since.

The plot is as follows: a 1930s private detective Arthur Lester wakes up after reading a rather shady book. He can't remember much, can see precisely nothing, and there's a weird voice in his head claiming that it's a friend and that it can see through his eyes. Join their adventures as they try to figure out what the f-, how the f-, why the f-, and how to unf- it up without getting eaten by the newest eldritch nonsense trying to get in their way.

I remember that you were into HPL a while back so I thought I'd send this rec your way. If it's not for you, no worries. Hope you're doing alright and that 2024 is being gentle with you! 💛💚💛💚💛

I was just looking for something interesting to listen to while drawing

Your recs are always excellent! Thank you ♥

#wonderful moots with wonderful taste #we stan lovecraftian horrors #podcast recs

[ifwebefriends]

Gravity Falls Rewatch S2E15 The Last Mabelcorn and S2E16 Roadside Attraction

The Last Mabelcorn

Ford’s middle name is Filbrick

Does Ford’s old room have a bed?

More references to the apocalypse

Speedrunning the intro again

Love Mabel’s sweater this episode

“This should take up the next 21 minutes” meta episode reference

It’s the meme!! The “you know him?” Meme!!

Oooo what does the binary on Ford’s computer say?

Ford has a metal plate in his head

Ford is hiding something between him and Bill

Dipper’s “strengthen your mind” vs Mabel’s “strengthen your heart”

Mabel is not old enough to donate blood

Based Wendy

Oh yeah I love Wendy’s tank top

Bitch wake up new Bill Cipher lore just dropped

Wish I could see the whole unicorn fight, I want to see Mabel smack a bitch

Love it when girls go feral

Bill is just some guy trying to get himself and his friends into the hottest nightclub in town and his friends are Lovecraftian horrors beyond our comprehension and the nightclub is earth

Roadside Attraction

Glad that they’re addressing Dipper’s unrequited crush on Wendy again

More Dipper and Stan bonding yay!

I really want to go to upside down town that place looks fun

Aw man remember when we emailed each other?

“We have to get to Canada before your mother gives birth!” Who wants to bet it’s because of the healthcare?

Aww they left Soos behind :(

Candy is going into the sixth grade

Grenda is so based with “Grenda 2: the sequel”

Man I forgot that Stan pulled a spider lady lmao

I like how Dipper was a bit uncomfortable with Stan’s advice, even advice from really experienced people doesn’t work for everyone

Candy is a genius she’s awesome

#bubbles rewatches gravity falls #aw man we’re coming up on the final stretch #gravity falls #the last Mabelcorn #roadside attraction

[barcodelascl]

Body of lies movie reddit

#BODY OF LIES MOVIE REDDIT MOVIE#

#BODY OF LIES MOVIE REDDIT TV#

Sure, he’s hot, but he’s also way too obsessed with fish.įor the first 80 minutes of this film, it seems like a perfectly normal horror film with a sci-fi, Lovecraftian monster vibe. Originally released on-demand in December 2020, What Lies Below stars Ema Horvath as a teenage girl named Libby, who is growing more and more suspicious of her mom’s weird new boyfriend. 3 on Netflix’s “Top 10 in the U.S.” list. Duemmler, What Lies Below was one of the most popular films on Netflix over Easter weekend, and currently sits at No. The 2020 horror sci-fi thriller What Lies Below recently began streaming on Netflix, and subscribers wasted no time in checking it out. It may be spring, but Netflix knows it’s always a good time to watch a weird horror movie. Warning: This article contains spoilers for the What Lies Below ending. ‘The Weekend Away’ Ending Explained: Leighton Meester’s Thriller Ends With a Major Twist Pamela Anderson Teams Up With Netflix For Upcoming Tell-All Documentary Sebastian Stan Opens Up About the 'Pam & Tommy' Finale 'Pam & Tommy' Ending Explained: What Happened Next to Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee? 'Pam And Tommy' Episode 8 Recap: "Seattle" 'The Ultimatum': New Netflix Dating Show Challenges Couples To Marry - Or Move On 'Love Is Blind's Shake Chatterjee Slams "Impartial Host" Nick Lachey Following Explosive Season 2 Reunion 'Love Is Blind's Shake Is In Damage Control Mode, Finally Apologizes To Deepti 'Love Is Blind' Star Shake Chatterjee Suffers From A Case of Self-Hatred Towards His Own Culture 'Raised by Wolves' Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: Lifeforms 'Raised By Wolves' Just Turned a Major Character into a Tree?!? 'Raised by Wolves' Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: A Tree Grows on Keppler-22b 'Raised By Wolves's Campion and Murder Bot Vrille are the Weirdest, Cutest Couple on HBO Max ‘Outlander’ Season 6 Episode Guide: How Many Episodes in The New Season? When Will 'Outlander' Season 6 Be on Netflix? ‘Outlander’ Season 7: Everything We Know So Far Snag Starz For Only $2.99/Month For Four Months 'The Gilded Age' Episode 6 Recap: "Heads Have Rolled For Less" 'The Gilded Age': Aunt Agnes is Right About Tom Raikes, Peggy Scott, and Literally Everything Else 'The Gilded Age' Season 1 Episode 7 Recap: Turner The Hooch Stream It Or Skip It: 'Theodosia' On HBO Max, About About A 14-Year-Old Archaeologist Fighting The Forces Of Dark Magic Where to Buy a ‘Turning Red’ Plush and Other Toys

#BODY OF LIES MOVIE REDDIT MOVIE#

Where Does the Disney Movie ‘Turning Red’ Take Place? Stream It Or Skip It: 'Turning Red' on Disney+, Pixar's Red Panda Party Stream It Or Skip It: 'Moby Doc' on Hulu, A Whale Of An Autobiographical Tale From The Musician And Activist 'Stone Temple Pilots: Alive in the Windy City' Is Majestic Reminder Of Alt Rock Tragedy Stream It Or Skip It: 'Savage Rhythm' on Netflix, A Reggaeton Dance Drama From Colombia 'Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy' Is The 'Citizen Kane' Of Hip Hop Documentaries Stream It Or Skip It: 'Gaming Wall Street' on HBO Max, A Look At The Parties Involved In The 2021 GameStop Short Squeeze Stream It Or Skip It: 'Surviving Paradise' on Netflix, A Nature Doc Narrated By 'Bridgerton' Star Rege-Jean Page Stream It Or Skip It: 'Lucy and Desi' on Amazon Prime Video, Amy Poehler's Documentary About the Iconic Couple Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Andy Warhol Diaries' On Netflix, A Ryan Murphy-Produced Docuseries Look At The Enigmatic Pop Artist's Life Joaquin Phoenix Fans React to First Photos as Napoleon Bonaparte: "History At Its Finest" Netflix's 'Metal Lords' Movie Trailer Is Here to Bangs Heads at High School

#BODY OF LIES MOVIE REDDIT TV#

Prime Video Scores First Weekly Nielsen TV Ratings Win With ‘Reacher’ Jackson Plays A Dementia-Suffering Man Who Gets All Of His Memories Back Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey' On Apple TV+, Where Samuel L. Stream It Or Skip It: 'Taylor Tomlinson: Look At You' On Netflix, In Which The Comedian Takes A Hard Look At Herself First Stream It Or Skip It: 'India Sweets and Spices' on Hulu, A Warm Comedy About A Well-To-Do Indian Family Stream It Or Skip It: 'Chappelle's Home Team - Earthquake: Legendary' On Netflix, A Comedian More Than Ready For His Close-Up Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Adam Project’ on Netflix, a Sci-fi Comedy in Which Ryan Reynolds Time-Travels to Meet His Younger, Wisecracking Self Stream It Or Skip It: 'UFO' on Netflix, a Turkish Melodrama That Spices Its Youthful Romance With Motorcycle Races Stream It Or Skip It: 'Meskina' On Netflix, A Dutch Comedy Where A Recently Single Thirty-Something Tries To Rebuild Her Life Stream It Or Skip It: 'Redeeming Love' On Peacock, Where A Christian Farmer Falls For a Hooker with a Heart of Gold New Movies On Demand: 'Marry Me,' 'The Exorcism of God,' 'Her Socialist Smile,' + More

#Body of lies movie reddit

[hoodoo12]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

Hold up, hold up there-- Someone’s salty.

(mixing fandoms there, but it’s the indomitable Alex Brightman so it’s okay)

@my-name-is-louise won’t be directed to this post; I can’t tag her because she has me blocked. It did come to my attention, however, that she made a post filled with lies, ‘tagged’ me specifically in it, and insulted a large group in this fandom. 

Here is a screenshot of her post (again, can’t reblog because of the aforementioned blockage):

Let’s break this down, shall we?

1) Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a racist and anti-Semitic. Yes on all counts. Even trying to use the “he was a product of his time” argument doesn’t hold water. His personal views were horrible now and they were horrible then.  I don’t know anyone who stans the man’s personality as an idol, and not only was I reading Lovecraft before you were born, I belong to multiple Lovecraft fanclubs and groups. We admire the Lovecraft’s ability to world-build and create horror (along with others, such Robert Chambers, an author who influenced him) that was beyond the scope of human- or folklore-based terror. His fiction created a legacy that extends to this day. Hell, I just watched a movie last night called Underwater that was one of the most recent films drawing heavy inspiration from his work. 

People that I know don’t stan HP Lovecraft. It’s complex, but we can love what he contributed to the field of horror and dislike the man personally. That’s actually a thing that can happen, unlike you who seems to only see things THIS WAY or THAT WAY. 

Most people in this fandom aren’t Lovecraft fans. They may not even know about him, or Lovecraftian/cosmic/weird horror. Some do, and they created art and stories featuring aspects of it. 

I, however, gave Beetlejuice tentacles based on the fact that the DC run of the musical had his name as “Lawrence Shoggoth Betelgeuse” and Juno was “Juno Shoggoth”. The writers took inspiration from Lovecraft’s creations, and I ran with it because you know what? I like tentacles and other people like tentacles. It’s fun and fits into the musical’s canon. 

2) Some people hc Musical Beetlejuice as Jewish and/or gay. Or bi. Or pan. Or ace. Or trans. Or female. Other people do not. He is a fictional character. He can be anything anyone wants to imagine. Since you’ve got a hate on for me, I’ll state I have never in my own personal works said Musical Beetlejuice was Jewish or gay. That does not mean I try to force other people to accept my hcs as the only ones that are correct. Gatekeeping this fandom is your hill to die on, not mine.

3) Neither Burton or Keaton created Beetlejuice, but Lovecraft did. What the actual fuck are you talking about? Literally no one has ever claimed this. This may make sense in your head, but trust me, it’s dumb as fuck. 

4) My tiny clique of idiots! I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard at anything for a while reading that, till I got to your next couple of libelous insults. I really, really want to tag that “tiny clique of idiots” but Tumblr has a line limit on posts. Don’t worry! I will be putting a link to this in the Beetlejuice discord servers I belong to so everyone can enjoy your unfounded, lying hate. 

5) My ignorance is offensive. I don’t know what ignorance you’re specifically talking about (I’ll assume you think you “schooled” me on the Lovecraft stuff because you’re already an ass). Your random bursts of hate are offensive. Your lack of anything creative or constructive to the fandom is offensive. 

6) I objectify gay people. Uh . . . what? This one I really would like a reply to because . . . what? 

7) I’m a bigot in Woke clothing. Nope. Being “woke” directly counters your libel that I’m a Nazi. You might want to actually look up the definition of bigot, because it’s suspiciously close to your attitude for others in this fandom.

8) Eat shit. Nah. What I am going to do is see Alex Brightman talk about tentacles later today (which he knows is from me) and write more on the rps I’m doing with friends. They all feature Beetlejuice and they all have tentacles in them! Good times. 

In all honesty and all snarkiness aside, this musical and the part of the fandom that came from it seems to make you so angry because it is not what you want and you simply cannot understand that people from all over the world were brought together by it. People have fun together and are creating and for some reason that personally offends you. You can’t “find your tribe” because you’re combative and both cannot see past your own ideas of the character and are too rigid to even accept that other people like something you do not.

I feel sorry for you. 

#discourse #discourse made personal #Beetlejuice #Alex Brightman #HP Lovecraft #lies and hate #libel #Louise discourse

[mintenochian]

what other people want added to Minecraft: g u n s

what I want added to Minecraft

•Birds

-For multiple biomes, but mainly for the forests.

-Songbirds would add SO MUCH life to the otherwise quiet areas of the game

-Ravens and crows would be awesome and could use some of the parrot mimicking AI

-Cardinals in the snow biomes would bring a GORGEOUS pop of colour into the white atmosphere

-Seriously we need something to populate the sky, parrots do NOT fly like they should

-nests in trees, can find eggs in them

-doesn't really add a use but fun new feather types would be cool

•Owls

-technically still a bird but would go really well in covered rooftop forests and snow biomes

-we're already getting larger avians added in the form of vultures so why not more large birds?

•Mice and / or rats

-absolute precious babies

-sadly would go well with owls :(

-with cave update coming we need adorable rodents scurrying around

-lil bastards could make mouseholes inside of blocks

-will they be tameable? idk.

-adds the necessity for cheese

•Deer

-MOJANG this is a MUST, this is a NEED

-You literally have pigs, chickens, cows, and sheep spawning in forests what the fuck

-Deer with spotty baby fawns??? Yes

-Young bucks with different stages of antler growth? Yes

-Fawns frolicking in flower forests bc they feel safe

-Stripped wood appearing on trees where bucks scrape velvet off their antlers

-Being able to collect sets of antlers when they fall off periodically (would NOT be attainable by killing the deer, you have to wait for them to shed)

•Elk and Moose

-Same vein as deer

-Bigger, much bigger, neutral instead of passive, less shy

-Snowy biomes

-Better additions than fucking llamas tyvm

-Sidenote but savannahs could also really use some endangered deer-like species to help raise awareness for their status

•Squirrels

-Mojang plz

-Adds nuts to Minecraft ;)

-Black, grey, red, and mixed colour squirrels and breeding

-Brings life to forests like songbirds and deer

•Bears

-Mojang bby you literally already have a neutral bear in Minecraft why have you not reskinned it for grizzly/brown/black bears?

-Bear caves

-Hibernating mobs

-Brings more use to the beehives and bees, bears could be attracted to any area that has more than one bee hive with honey

•WOLVES AND DOGS

-They NEED the ocelots and cats update

-More wolf types (red, timber, snow, black, etc)

-Actual wolf packs (the AI would be difficult to program but the doges are worth it)

-Please let the howl at the moon, if foxes get to say ringdingding all night long wolves deserve to be allowed to howl

-More dog breeds (I know that there's no reason for domesticated dog breeds in Minecraft but ACTUALLY THERE IS)

-Hunting dogs like springers that can jump and run faster

-Foxhounds :D

-Most Important Goodest Boy: Herding dogs like collies and sheepdogs

-Herding dogs could be found in plains where cows and sheep spawn and create herds

-LET DOGS LAY DOWN FOR FUCKS SAKE

•Herding

-Instead of having to pen up and enclose your livestock you could form herds of cows and sheep

-Your Goodest Boi herding dog would protect them and move around with them when they graze

-Just soft peaceful minecraft tingz

•Salt licks

-Something SO SMALL but would make SO MUCH HAPPINESS

-Drawing new cows into your herd by putting up a salt lick

-I'm soft

-I guess salt would be a new ore???

•Bird feeders

-idk I think it would be cool

-excess seeds used for SOMETHING

•Raccoons

-The coolness of wolves, the chaos of foxes, the cunning of cats

-thumbs

-be gay do crimes

-can open chests (trigger trap chests to catch them?)

-Fantastic little shits

-Not tameable but will trust players like foxes do

•Snakes

-I know it's a lot to ask and it would be hard to make them look good

-But??? Imagine a tiny lil garter snake in your garden

-unlikely but would be so fantastic

•Rope

-climeable

-please Mojang we need this so badly

-imagine the ships? The bridges? The bell towers and everything?

-super easy to add, just reskin vines and add a string crafting recipie

•Butterflies and Moths

-Bflies could be a unique mob to flower forests and friends with bees

-if moobloom is added they would all be BEST BUDS

-get it "buds" ahahaha

-help with flower polination but just gives a TON of life to flower forests

-We literally have lanterns in minecraft why do we NOT have moths? Such a cool aesthetic addition.

-helps fill both the daytime and nighttime sky

•Hummingbirds

-fourth member of BEST BUDS

-just soft baby

-i love birbs okay

-the only avian who does not work for the bourgeoisie

•Fireflies

-10 million of them please

-they give great hugs

-adds so much atmosphere to the night world

•Cheese

-We have milk

-We have, presumably, goat milk

-Quit being cowards and add butter and cheese

-Butter churn job block for villagers

-V funny bc they have no arms to churn with?? Oh well

•Seashells

-Something decorative and beautiful that could 1) liven up beaches and 2) have snails and crabs inside!

-Mojang plz do not add sand dollars to the game people already don't know how to tell if they're still alive before trying to take them home

•Whales

-WHALES.

-Imagine something as massive as the ender dragon but peaceful. Allows you to stand on them (idk how but make it happen Jeb)

-WHALE SONGS.

-Being so deep and far out into the ocean, and when the moon is high in the sky and you're sitting in your boat, you just hear the beautiful melancholy sounds of the whales in the distance

•Jellyfish

-Idk if y'all know this but the glow squid is a bad idea

-Dream buddy you fucked up, please use your influence to get in contact with Mojang and have them redo the vote. People would have so much regained respect for you if you tried to fix your mistake.

-Also why does a speedrunner get to tell millions of people what mob would bring more life to Minecraft? He's only playing the game for 5 minutes smh

-aNYWAYS

-Jellyfish could literally do everything the glow squid is going to and look better for it AND possibly be neutral instead of peaceful

•Orcas

-Not much to say but it would liven up the frozen water biomes a bit

•Penguins

-You already know why

-Imagine giving a new home to all the Club Penguin players? Legendary.

-Gender doesn't exist in Minecraft but we all know penguins would be hella gay

•Lobsters

-I think they would be cute

-You would NOT BE ABLE TO BOIL THEM ALIVE THANK YOU VERY MUCH

•Mermaids

-Never going to happen since passive mobs are generally real life animals but it would be so cool

•Otters

-they can hold hands

-brings life to the rivers

-super cute

•Frogs and possibly toads

-Swamp gods

-Absolute mad lads

-maybe grow from tadpoles

-wouldn't do much but needed

•Fairy Forests

-NOT Twilight Forests. Not a new dimension.

-Just gentle hidden groves in forests

-ADD FAIRY RING GENERATION TO MINECRAFT.

•Big cats

-Tigers, lions, bobcats, panthers

-Literally anything that could finally add a strong predator possibility to savannahs and jungles

•Zebras and Giraffes

-Shy and skittish

-cannot ride (their skeletal structure is NOT MADE FOR CARRYING HUMANS)

-Super cute tho, brings much needed life to savannahs

•Camels

-The better llama

-Can honestly just be a reskin

-brings much needed life to the desert

-spits and wears carpet and forms caravans like llamas

•Lemurs

-Easier to add to "jungles" than monkeys

-it would be really cool if we could just get a Rainforest biome

-King Julian stans awaken

•Red pandas

-we need them

-cuter than normal pandas and you can @ me

-better idea than sloths or koalas

•More Eldritch Horror Hostile Mobs

-Fun fact time

-The enchanting table language already has Lovecraftian references

-"phnglui mglwnafh cthulhu rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn" is literally a quote from the enchanting table

-translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

-Bet you didn't know that fun fact

-aNYWAYS add the Kraken to Minecraft instead of the shitty guardians. Thanks.

-imagine how cool it would be to see lights slowly extinguish as something terrifying and dangerous slowly moves in for the kill

-torches get extinguished and can get relit

-if not relit fast enough Something will be waiting

•Ice statues

-We have giant fossils and ship wrecks and cool stuff like that but please imagine finding a GIANT humanoid ice sculpture in an ice spikes biome

-maybe bones inside to show you that... That wasn't carved or naturally generated.

•Skeletons

-Not a mob but a decoration block

-Found in temples, mineshafts, and caves

-implied to be the remains of miners and explorers

-rare

-also implies that every skeleton you kill has some backstory since they look the same

•Constellations

-Not real world star maps but completely unique to Minecraft

-chance for LOTS of fun references

-The stars are your only companions in an apocalyptic world where you are the last of your kind

-Space is gay minecraft is gay thus minecraft space is gay

•Corn

-we have butter in this list

-we have salt in this list

-popcorn. That is all.

And finally

•Leeks

-mostly a joke but would be a cool crop

-100% a reference to Hatsune Miku the creator of Minecraft

DISCLAIMER: I recognize that mobs are added to Minecraft to serve a purpose within the game and that many of these mobs would be better in mods and such, but I also feel like many of these suggestions would really bring so much more life to parts of the game that really need it. Even if they don't serve a huge purpose, they would still be really amazing additions imo.

I would love to see the ideas and suggestions that other people have for what they want added to Minecraft, please TAG ME if you make a post like this, I wanna hear and read it!

#minecraft #cave update #caves and cliffs #mojang #minecraft update #minecraft ideas #video games #mcpe #mc #minecon #minecraft earth #minecraft dungeons #minecraft live #minecraft design #game design #mineblr

[professionalqueerbookworm]

Queer Reviews: Jordan L. Hawk, "Widdershins" (Whyborne & Griffin #1).

CW: mildly graphic violence, some body horror, period-typical homophobia, explicit sex scenes

Plot: Repressed scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has two skills: reading dead languages and hiding in his office at the Ladysmith Museum. After the tragic death of the friend he secretly loved, he’s ruthlessly suppressed any desire for another man.

So when handsome ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty approaches him to translate a mysterious book, Whyborne wants to finish the job and get rid of the detective as quickly as possible. Griffin left the Pinkertons following the death of his partner, hoping to start a new life. But the powerful cult which murdered Glenn has taken root in Widdershins, and only the spells in the book can stop them. Spells the intellectual Whyborne doesn’t believe are real.

As the investigation draws the two men closer, Griffin’s rakish charm threatens to shatter Whyborne’s iron control. When the cult resurrects an evil sorcerer who commands terrifying monsters, can Whyborne overcome his fear and learn to trust? Will Griffin let go of his past and risk falling in love? Or will Griffin’s secrets cost Whyborne both his heart and his life?

9/10 on the Rainbow Scale™ 🌈: if I had to describe this whole book series in one sentence, it would be something like: "It's Lovecraft, but make it gay!", which sounds pretty awesome to me. This book was such a delightful surprise, between the steamy romance and the Lovecraftian horror, I quickly got addicted. Whyborne is the literal embodiment of "looks like a cinnamon roll, could actually kill you": he's so sweet and unassuming, somehow he doesn't realize he's a complete badass, but I see him and I love him. Bonus points for our queen Christine, smashing the patriarchy and being an ally everyday of her life. We stan.

#lgbtq books #book review #queer reads #book recommendations #jordan l hawk #widdershins #whyborne and griffin #gay #bisexual #mlm #paranormal romance #lovecraftian horror

[starrosefics-archive]

Fic Rec Friday

(My second Fic Rec Friday, so...)

Canon Divergence AUs

Big or small, there are moments where the author decided that the story needs to diverge from the canon path.

Violence in the Library

Star Wars, bit of a crossover with Alien

Completed Work

Content Warnings: Blood, gore, minor character death

Written by @radioactivepeasant, Luke, currently on medical leave after Bespin, visits the library of Mygeeto in order to find manuals to help tune up Artoo and ends up offering a ride to a group of stranded travelers. However, it seems those travelers brought a deadly stowaway along, a situation made more complicated by Vader showing up. It’s one of my top favorites and one of the ones I make sure to have pulled up on long car rides. There is blood and gore of the Alien variety, but most death happens to minor characters and the Xenomorphs. There is also a sequel that’s started to come out that feels Lovecraftian-inspired. (Although that might just be me. We’ll see the Friday before Halloween.)

veracity

Miraculous Ladybug

Completed work

Written by @alexseanchai, this fic considers what would happen if Nathalie didn’t collapse in the episode Ladybug. Adrien, bearing the Ladybug earrings, is interrogated by Verity Queen. It is short but the emotions contained within are like the punch to the heart.

The Art of Being Alive

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Completed work

Content Warnings: PTSD, panic attacks, body horror, mentioned character death

Written by @star-going-supernova, this is another of my favorites for long car rides. Instead of thirty years, Joey calls Henry after seven because only Henry’s drawings work in the Ink Machine. Horrified, Henry goes deeper into the depths of the studio, teaming up with his creations Bendy and Alice to find a way to stop Joey and bring an end to it all. It can be considered a full-on au on its own with the amount of (implied?) canon we have received, but there’s Dad Henry and dealing with the fact that he created the world of Bendy.

Bella Goes to Therapy

Twilight

On hiatus

Content Warnings: Mental health issues

Written by @chrisflemingslegs, Charlie gives Bella a ultimatum during her depression during New Moon- either therapy or moving back to Jacksonville. She chooses therapy, giving her the chance to work through things and giving us healthy character development. The author goes a step further and the fic also corrects Meyer’s racism towards the Native American werewolves, we get to see Charlie and Bella bond, and Edward gets confronted with his behavior.

Hatch

Avatar the Last Airbender

Completed work

Set post Crossroads of Destiny, a servant asks Zuko what his exile was like. Zuko, after thinking over his time at sea and in the Earth Kingdom, realizes the truth.

Already Found

Steven Universe

Not complete

A series, written by @audibleellipsis, where Steven, after the events of Full Disclosure, warps and accidentally stumbles over Spinel in the garden. It’s very sweet and it feels like things that were worked through in the series are on the course of being worked through sooner.

Plan B

Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure

Completed Work

Content Warning: Severe injury, possession

During the song ‘Nothing Left to Lose’, Cassandra hits Varian in the chest with a rock hard enough to send him flying. Due to his injury from this, Varian fails to wake up from Zhan Tiri’s dream, requiring Plan B to be used.

Finding the Right Frequency

Gravity Falls

Completed Work

Written by @impishnature, this is an au where, after figuring out Bill’s manipulation, Ford turns to listening to the radio to stay sane. He flips through different channels until, one night, he stumbles over a familiar voice. I really loved this one, since Ford is the one to start taking steps to fixing things between him and radio host Stan.

let me change the narrative

Hamilton

Completed Work

Alexander Hamilton decides that the people he loves are more important then leaving a legacy.

The Naming of Hobbits

The Hobbit

Completed Work

Written by @andhumanslovestories, this fic goes into the adventures of Thorin, who doesn’t remember Bilbo’s name, to figure out Bilbo’s name with the help of his nephews and Dwalin. There is Bagginshield in this, although you can chose whether you see it as romantic or platonic.

#fic rec friday #fic rec #star wars #ml #bendy and the ink machine #twilight #avatar the last airbender #steven universe #tangled #gravity falls #hamilton #the hobbit

[robbyrobinson]

Villain Review: Bill Cipher From: Gravity Falls Voiced by: Alex Hirsh  Classification: Complete Monster 

Biography

So, from the start, Bill states that he was around for billions of years potentially trillions. He came from another dimension that he claimed was flat. It was maddening. So, Bill "liberated" his dimension by burning it to the ground and killing everyone. From there, Bill escaped his dimension's destruction and took over the Nightmare Realm. From there, he learned of a prophecy of the Nightmare Realm merging with the human realm, thus Bill set into place a millennia-spanning scheme of fulfilling the prophecy. 

Seeking those who were attracted to knowledge, Bill had initially tried to create a portal but they ended up not working due to the lack of technological advancements. Eventually, Bill found Gravity Falls where the six-fingered genius Stanford Pines was looking into the oddities of Gravity Falls. He seeks out more information on the town which would lead to Bill meeting and falsely befriending Stanford and assisting him in creating the portal machine. When his business partner Old Man McGucket ends up getting his head sucked into the portal, Stanford realizes Bill's true intentions and shuts the portal machine off.

From there, we know the rest: Bill is summoned into Gravity Falls by Li'l Gideon as a means of gaining the ownership of the Mystery Shack which Bill agrees to, but he would primarily be doing it in a favor for return. After his defeat, Bill returns in Sock Opera when Dipper was desperate enough to make a deal with him in order to get a password on a laptop belonging to the Author. Bill takes possession of his body only to be set back again until we get to the events of the Weirdmageddon arc where Bill succeeds at his plan and bathes Gravity Falls in madness by turning the populace into stone statues; Stanford a golden backscratcher; unleashing bubbles of pure madness, etc. However, he finds out that he needed an equation to get rid of the barrier to further expand his Weirdpocalypse. Along the way, he murders Time Baby and the Time Police after they warn him that his actions would lead to the destruction of reality itself; and trying to gruesomely kill two kids to get what he wants. 

But Bill ultimately fails by getting tricked into entering Stanley's mind where he gets erased alongside Stanley's mind by the Mind Eraser gun. Of course if you were to play Bill's gibberish backward, he says "A X O L O T L! MY TIME HAS COME TO BURN; I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN!!" before he gets punched out of existence by Stanley. With Bill's physical body being the only remnant of him, it could indicate that he is not completely gone.

Personality

Bill is a delightfully entertaining villain who openly acknowledges that he is insane. He can come off as wickedly hilarious such as when he pulls a deer's teeth out with his powers to give them to Gideon, or creating a screaming head in his second appearance. He comes off as energetic and sometimes annoying which he obviously does to mess with the people he wants to make deals with. This in itself is a facade that hides his true self that being a sociopathic Lovecraftian horror whose one goal is to create a world with no rules or restraints. Even though it is made apparent that making a world of chaos could destroy reality, Bill does not care instead seeing destruction itself as being a game. Alex Hirsh himself said it best that despite being infinitely older than the universe, Bill never grew up during that time. 

Abilities and Powers

Bill has a plethora of powers at his disposal. He can enter people's minds through their dreams and even manipulate them to an extent. However while he is nigh-invincible in the dreamscape, he cannot influence the physical world hence why when he makes deals with people, he uses their bodies as a vessel. Even then, he can be too weak in that form such as when he ends up becoming weak while inhabiting Dipper's body in Sock Opera. Once he merges both realms, however, he is able to use his full power to warp reality and obliterate Time Baby. 

But there are weaknesses. For one, he cannot enter someone when the deal isn't struck and even in the dreamscape, he is subjected to being weakened or outright killed within it as shown when the Mind Eraser gun is used on Grunkle Stan. 

Powers aside, Bill is also a very intelligent schemer and manipulator. He uses people's desires to make the deal sound more sweet to them and even if that fails, Bill os able to adapt to that setback. However like with most villains, he is suffers from being highly arrogant and not taking his enemies as legitimate threats until his defeat.

Appearance

His design befits his nature. As a triangle with a top hat and bow tie, Bill looks cartoonish in opposition to the other characters' styles. In some ways, Bill's appearance reminds me of those 1930s cartoon characters the style being named "Rubber Hose." As such, it compliments Bill's otherworldly nature and adds to his unpredictability. 

Conclusion

Overall, a very entertaining villain who craves destruction and chaos for its own end. I am giving Bill a 9/10.

#villains #bill cipher #gravity falls #gravityfalls #gravity #falls #cipher #cipher wheel #complete monster #pure evil #disney #disney xd #reviews

[grigori77]

Movies of 2020 - My Pre-Summer Favourites (Part 1)

The Runners-Up:

20.  DISAPPEARANCE AT CLIFTON HILL – first up is this sneaky little psychological mystery thriller from writer-director Albert Shin (In Her Place), a semi-autobiographical piece inspired by his own childhood experiences at his family’s motel at Niagara Falls.  Sense8 star Tuppence Middleton delivers magnificently as a troubled young woman whose long-buried memories of witnessing a child-abduction in the area are stirred up following her mother’s death, while Shin weaves a palpable atmosphere of dread and doubt as the twisted narrative confounds our expectations.

19.  BEASTIE BOYS STORY – Spike Jonze, undeniably one of Hollywood’s most outside-the-box directors, is the perfect choice to tell the story of one of music’s most live-wire bands (he did, after all, helm their greatest music video, the incendiary Sabotage).  Unfortunately, MCA died in 2012, but Mike D and Ad-Rock are on-hand to remember their best friend during this endlessly fascinating live-recorded stage-show in which they recount their tale with the aid of Jonze’s quirkily edited montage of archive footage and crappy animations.

18.  THE RHYTHM SECTION – Blake Lively follows in the footsteps of Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman to reinvent herself as a kickass action heroine in this dark and edgy revenge thriller from rising star female director Reed Morano (Meadowland, TV’s The Handmaid’s Tale), but she does things a little differently, portraying an instantly relatable, refreshingly vulnerable amateur warrior who enlists the help of Jude Law’s disgraced MI6 spook to train her to kill after her whole family die in a terrorist attack.

17.  BOMBSHELL – the #MeToo movement gets its strongest cinematic ammunition to date with this challenging true-life drama chronicling the very public fall of media mogul Roger Ailes (portrayed with loathsome brilliance by John Lithgow) and the beleaguered women from Fox News who brought him down (represented here by the spectacular triumvirate of Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie).  It’s hard to watch at times, but that’s the point, and the choice of comedy director Jay Roach (best known for Austin Powers) is not so surprising after thought-provoking films like Trumbo.

16.  JOJO RABBIT – the year certainly got off to suitably eclectic start with this leftfield black comedy from Taika Waititi, following the misadventures of Hitler Youth cadet Jojo Betzler (an incredible debut from Roman Griffin Davis) and his imaginary friend Adolf (Waititi in his wackiest screen role to date) as they negotiate the final days of the Third Reich.  In less assured hands this film could have been an offensive mess, but ultimately proved to be one of the year’s most rewardingly entertaining and surprisingly powerful films.

15.  THE LAST FULL MEASURE – writer-director Todd Robinson delivers a powerful slice of true-life drama with this account of the 32-year struggle to secure a posthumous award of the Medal of Honour for the Vietnam War sacrifice of US Air Force pararescueman William Pitsenbarger.  Sebastian Stan stars as the Pentagon staffer embarking on a frustrating battle against decades of red tape, and there’s first-rate support from William Hurt, Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson and Peter Fonda as the traumatised veterans determined to see their fallen comrade finally get the recognition he deserves.

14.  BLOODSHOT – right now, the 2020 award for my biggest guilty pleasure goes to this gloriously OTT ultra-violent superhero flick, intended to be the opening entry in a big-screen shared-universe based on the Valiant Comics properties.  Vin Diesel is no-brainer casting as brutally murdered US marine Ray Garrison, brought back to life using nanotechnology which grants him superhuman strength and massive regenerative abilities that render him virtually indestructible.  This is big, loud, dumb cinema at its most fun, and I’m DEFINITELY up for more.

13.  THE LIGHTHOUSE – rightly winning awards from all quarters and garnering massive praise and recognition, writer-director Robert Eggers’ second feature EASILY eclipses the low key brilliance of his debut horror flick The Witch, thoroughly outdoing it in terms of sheer nerve-shredding anxiety and mind-scrambling WEIRDNESS.  Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson both deliver career-best performances as the 19th Century wickies suffering increasingly crippling cabin fever in their remote New England lighthouse.

12.  A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD – like many kids of the 1980s, I have strong formative memories of Fred Rogers (I may be Brit, but my dad was in the RAF, so we spent three very key years of my childhood living in St Louis, Missouri), so I was FASCINATED by the prospect of a biopic, especially if the great man was going to be played by one of my very favourite actors, Tom Hanks.  He thoroughly deserved his latest Oscar nomination for effortlessly bringing Mister Rogers to vivid life under the expert guidance of writer-director Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) in this spellbinding emotional extravaganza.

11.  DANIEL ISN’T REAL – undoubtedly destined to become a future cult classic, this quietly unnerving and insidiously disturbing psychological horror from indie writer-director Adam Egypt Mortimer (Some Kind of Hate) is certainly one of my top under-the-radar hits for the year so far.  Patrick (son of Arnie) Schwarzenegger oozes toxic masculinity as Daniel, the decidedly malevolent imaginary friend who’s suddenly resurfaced in the life of emotionally fragile New York student Luke (Blockers and Halloween’s Miles Robbins), knocking his life into a nightmarish spiral of Lovecraftian existential terror.

#movies 2020 #disappearance at clifton hill #beastie boys story #the rhythm section #bombshell #jojo rabbit #the last full measure #bloodshot #the lighthouse #a beautiful day in the neighborhood #daniel isn't real #awesome sauce

[joesbbqandfootmassage]

We need to talk about Jane and Carlos…

So if someone had to ask me what one of the most underrated things in the world was, I would definitely say dcoms. (Disney Channel Original Movies)

They’re cheesy and dumb and not a single one lacks their flaws.

But they are still just so fun to watch and you just get a whole new experience from watching dcoms than you do any other movie.

Now among all those dcoms is a sub genre of musicals, being made popular by the one and only High School Musical trilogy. But we also have the Cheetah Girls, Teen Beach Movie, ZOMBIES, and the Descendants.

Now while all of those movie series are amazing in their own right, I’m gonna zero in on Descendants.

Kenny Ortega’s big return to Disney Channel and oh my gosh was it hyped up.

You couldn’t go two minutes watching Suite Life on Deck reruns without having this shoved in your face.

And you’d be dang right if you thought I was excited to see it. The children of iconic Disney characters all in one shared universe? Sign me the heck up!

Of course we got rid of cable before it came out and it would be maybe two years later until i finally considered watching it with my sister.

Needless to say our reaction could be boiled down to, “Oh. Oh no.”

Love it or hate it, as a movie lover I can say that D1 is a fundamentally broken movie on every level.

Nothing is developed enough and it relies way too heavily on you loving Mal as a character. Spoiler alert, I don’t.

But regardless of that, D1 also introduced me to a guy named Carlos De Vil.

Now i will never be able to comprehend WHY on Earth, puppy-skinning, vampire bat, inhumane beast, Cruella De Vil would EVER do the do with anyone and then still keep the baby after not killing it during pregnancy.

But she did and there he was.

Canonically physically and mentally abused by his mother to such a degree that he wakes up at night screaming.

Something Disney had never really had the guts to do before.

And immediately he charmed the heck out of me because regardless of how awful he had it on the Isle, it didn’t take a genius to see that he was a genuinely a good person at heart.

He was so clearly different and that was shown through maybe a culmination of like five minutes of screen time and Cameron’s incredible acting abilities.

And he deserved so much more in those movies than what was given to him but I won’t complain.

Because we still need to talk about another sweetheart.

Jane gets even less development than Carlos which is to be expected since she isn’t a main character, but you can still figure out and understand her if you read between the lines.

In D1 you not only get the fact that she likes to hide in her own little bubble, but she’s also incredibly insecure. So much so that Mal is quickly able to see it and take advantage of it.

Spending her whole life having to repeat that it’s not the outside that matters, it’s the inside, even though she doesn’t completely believe.

And then someone comes forward and basically validates her in her belief that she isn’t pretty, but she could be if she stopped focusing on the inside.

That’s what leads to her downward spiral throughout the movie as she lets her newfound “beauty” (seriously bobbed hair is cute and Disney needs to calm down) go to her head and she turns on Mal and the rest of the VKs.

Now while I find Mal to be completely irrational, her reversing Jane’s spell makes sense.

It’s Jane’s actions that follow.

Her, so desperate to be beautiful (literally she is so gorgeous how?) deciding to steal her mother’s wand isn’t paced very well and doesn’t make a lot of sense in the plot. But they just wanted to avoid Mal being the cause of the barrier being brought down so her redemption would be easier.

A classic Kylo Ren of avoiding direct contact and having it all be indirect so they can easily be forgiven later.

Now by all means after her actions that day, I’m surprised Jane herself isn’t sent to jail.

But I guess in D3 they show that they have an AK bias so whatever.

Now the important thing about this is that Carlos is there for all of Jane’s worst moments.

The moments where she is not at her best emotionally and it’s manifesting in bad ways. He knows that Mal had planned to use her to get to the wand in the first place before dumping her when that wasn’t going anywhere.

He knows that’s she’s afraid of them by the way she reacts to them in her first scene in Goodness Class.

He knows all of that.

And he still drags her onto a dance floor, refusing to let her be alone.

You could argue that Jay was there too, but her immediately ditched to jump on the Audrey train so…

This small moment, Carlos’ selfless act of kindness, plants a seed that most people laughed at or rolled their eyes - but all the same it was there.

And that little seed began to grow until two years later (six months in the actual movies) we get a beautiful Janelos flower.

Now D2 Janelos is some quality stuff and never have I seen so many people hate a ship that hasn’t done anything wrong.

And I think it’s fitting that Carlos’ arc for D2 is all centered around Jane.

In the first movie, he conquered his fear of dogs.

Now in this movie, he conquers his fear of being rejected by her.

Now if you’re an over analyzer by nature and a Carlos stan by choice, you tend to pick up on subtleties that Disney doesn’t have the guts to cover. Most notably, Carlos being touch/affection starved

You can see it in the ways his mother doesn’t show him love outside of threats and total, emotional reliance. In the way the VKs don’t particularly reciprocate his touches unless absolutely necessary. Or unless you’re Jay and you need to pull and alpha male moment and start wrastling.

And you can definitely see it in the way he thrives off of contact with Dude, and later, Jane.

Now somehow you people don’t think it is absolutely incredible that Carlos De Vil, physically and emotionally abused since birth, grew up on the Isle where love and dating were not a common place thing, fell in love.

And with the girl that was afraid of him in the first movie.

And omg I could talk about Carlos “Heart Eyes” De Vil forever and ever. Amen.

But instead I’m gonna talk about the three most major Janelos scenes in the film.

First one is gonna be the truth gummy scene.

First of all, Carlos’ puppy dog eyes when he’s thinking about Jane restore my life to the full one million years I am supposed to live.

People you are not allowed to overlook what Carlos was going to do in this short and beautiful scene.

Because he’s never really lived a life where he can speak his mind and share his feelings, the whole movie he’s struggling to even figure out how he can open up to Jane.

Not change his personality to get her attention.

Not making a love potion that’ll force her to love him.

No, he decides that the only way to approach it is honesty - by that I mean he agrees to sacrifice lying for the rest of his mortal life. And Mal gives him plenty of reasons to back out, most of them being about her but still, and he simply replies, “I’ll take my chances.”

Ugh.

The world did not do anything good enough to earn Carlos De Vil.

But the thing is, the truth gummy is his only hope to help him spit out how he feels about Jane. Because whenever he’s in her presence all he can do is freeze up and stutter. Simply due to the fact that when he’s faced with the chance, Carlos has no clue how to describe what he feels and what he wants.

But he knows that his heart does.

It’s in there somewhere and dang he’s gonna get it out because he cares about her so much and just wants to TELL her how he feels when he looks at her.

Of course then Dude eats it and all those years Carlos’ heart eyes had given me instantly went away again.

And then the whole Janelos plot line takes a bit of a nap until the third act of the movie when Carlos decides that Mal alienating herself from the Core Four ain’t helping her mental health and their friendship.

That’s when he drops the absolute BARS of knowledge, “Then don’t.”

He tells her that she never should change herself just to make someone else happy, you’ll never know if they really love you that way.

And I just wanna take a moment to wonder where Carlos got all these strong good person energies, because being raised on an Isle where love and dating aren’t even concepts should show in all the VKs.

Yet in D2 and D3 we can see that Carlos and Evie both seem to approach love with an impressive maturity that I can’t even fathom how they figured it out.

His advice is a comfort to Mal as well as Jay’s protective big brother move, and then we get to see the way his own advice affects him.

His Lovecraftian horror paraphrases what he said in the earlier conversation, “If she doesn’t love you for who you are than she isn’t the one.”

But this applies differently than in the Ben/Mal situation.

Carlos doesn’t try to change who he is or how he acts (unless you count the sacrificing lying thing but that wasn’t really used to earn her love so) but he gets the general idea.

And so, Carlos offers himself to her.

Just him, and a date and his love because that’s all he has to give her.

And she can either say yes and accept him and he can finally begin to understand what he’s feeling.

Or, she can turn him away - not wanting anything to do with what he has for her.

Which leads to such a beautiful scene, ugh I could write songs about the Janelos confession scene it’s that good.

First you see Carlos running at the speed of sound just to catch her, and he was definitely running around the whole campus because he absolutely needed to do this before he chickened out like every other time in the movie.

And at first it doesn’t seem to click in Jane’s head, because she’s only ever been just Jane.

Not pretty like Audrey or athletic like Lonnie.

Boys didn’t flirt with her or ask her out on dates, certainly not the boys she liked.

So of course, like the other times he had tried, she just wasn’t getting it. Too preoccupied with party planning and not getting her hopes up to let it sink in.  And that’s when Carlos does something that he didn’t even need a truth gummy to do.

He gives her a list of all that he can give her, looking into her eyes and waiting for her to take or leave it

And not only does she take it, but she fully adds all the things on the list that she’s always wanted to do with him, giving herself right back to him in the process.

Leaving Carlos absolutely shocked and overwhelmed and happy.

He just figured she’d either say yes or no.

Her giving herself to him wasn’t even a consideration in his mind.

And then she throws him for a loop once again, by throwing her arms around him and holding him tight.

And honestly, Carlos’ reaction says it all.

The first time somebody initiated legitimate affection towards him, and it’s from the girl he loves no less.

He’s at a loss for words and can’t even fathom what he’s feeling, but finally, Carlos is the one hugging back. Clinging onto her for dear life because it’s almost like he can’t believe this is real.

The next time we see them, they’re both looking super fine at cotillion; and let me tell you that seeing touch starved Carlos finally getting to hold hands and cuddle with his girlfriend makes me weak every time. You can see that for now, they’re figuring it out, they’ve both been super far away from the whole love thing so now they’ve just gotta go at a healthy pace for them.

Regardless of that, you can really see how much they not only love but need each other.

And then it was gonna be another two years until we’d get to figure what the writers were gonna do with Janelos, if anything at all.

During that time I had gotten well acquainted with the horrifying wall of Janelos hate you had to walk along before getting occasional content. So obviously, I chose to have nothing to do with the fandom and then Janelos fell off my radar again until I found the nerve to watch the third movie.

And oh my goodness remember just a few lines ago when I said that Jane and Carlos needed each other?

That was the key point of their story in D3.

While I think it’s poorly shown, Carlos’ character arc from a quiet abuse victim with a good heart to an honest to goodness hero (I’m talking the kinds they write songs about) is just amazingly beautiful and deserved so much more screen time than it actually got.

In D3, Carlos finally has something to lose.

Or, more accurately, something he needs to protect.

I really wish they had zeroed in on him worrying about Jane more, because while it was still there it wasn’t very focused on.

Not that I can be mad because their reuniting scene was something that made me immediately sit up in my chair and go, “Oh my fluffing gosh they have a thing.”

Like I’m sorry, what?

You’re telling me that whenever they cling to each other like that Carlos has that same look of just, pure happiness.

“She loves me and I love her, I’m never letting her go.”

Carlos De Vil went from someone who had never known or felt love in his life, to loving a girl so much it made me fall out of my chair.

D3 just wanted to remind us that the VKs have come very far, and now they’re happy and loved and we don’t need to worry about them.

All I can say is that Jane and Carlos are just an amazing couple if you step back and just look at what it means for them to be together.

A touch starved abuse victim and an insecure cheerleader fell in love and surrendered their hearts completely. And you don’t see that anywhere near Disney as a franchise, much less dcoms.

Bottom line, I know I went off for a hot minute but if we’re being honest I still have about a trillion things I could say about “Jarlos.”

But I’m pretty sure I’ve elaborated enough  to get my point across.

I just wanna say that Carlos would literally never let his mother come anywhere near the light of his life and that was some total BS.

#descendants #janelos #jane x carlos #jane daughter of fairy godmother #carlos de vil

[poorquentyn]

Why don't the adult versions in IT(the book) not remember what happened to them as kids

Accidental double negative, I’m guessing :) as to why Bill, Bev, Ben, Eddie, Richie, and poor Stan don’t remember the deadlights until Mike, the one who stayed, calls them all to tell them the murders have started again and to ask them to come home like they promised they would, home to Derry, home to the killing floor, to fight It once more…there are several reasons why, which tie into the multiple interwoven narrative layers upon which It is built. 

The first is sheer trauma. As kids, the main characters were hunted by a shapeshifting monster preying on their worst fears. They faced death, again and again; they spent some of the most formative days of their lives mired in horror. As such, after escaping Derry, they shoved what they’d seen to the farthest corners of their brains, where it lay in wait. Part of what makes It work despite the bloated overreach and some truly terrible storytelling choices (the preteen gangbang being only the most infamous) is the focus throughout on traumatic remembering, on skeletons crawling out of closets. Our heroes basically have PTSD; they have repressed their memories of It in order to cope, and Mike’s calls bring them back to the light. All six of them suffer for it, but Stan suffers the most. He was both the most rigid and brittle of the Losers’ Club and the one who understood best the nature of what they were fighting (it’s later revealed that he was the only one of them who realized as a child that It was female and could bear progeny). Remembering that, being called back into that, is more than Stan can bear. It shatters his sense of a proper ordered universe, and he kills himself rather than face that. Throughout It, King emphasizes the primal power of the kind of “children as prey” fairytale on which he’s riffing. In this case, the monster in the basement is so traumatizing that Stan chooses the abyss. “It,” then, comes to signify that thing you’re trying to forget, that part of yourself and your past that you’ve buried, that thing, that it, forever in the back of your thoughts and the corner of your eye. I would go so far as to argue that King built It around drip-by-drip traumatic flashbacks in part to evoke what abuse victims go through: the agony of remembering, bit by bit, what was done to you when you were alone and afraid. 

The second layer is the strong sense that these six made an unconscious deal with the devil–they sold out their memories, and made out like gangbusters. Mike quietly notes that the six who left turned out far more financially and professionally successful than him, the one who stayed in Derry and (thus) held onto his memories. When he calls them, they’re forced to acknowledge how much of their adult lives flow from the childhood they can’t consciously remember. Bill, a popular horror author (and a transparent stand-in for King himself), realizes that all along he’s been writing about Georgie, his little brother who was killed by It in the book’s iconic opening scene. It’s only when Bev and Eddie are called home that they really face down the undeniable truth that they married their father and mother, respectively. (That’s pretty reductive in execution, but it fits the theme well.) Stan’s been riding a spooky wave of luck for years, recalling only deep deep down why that might be (“the turtle couldn’t help us”). Ben’s a hotshot young architect who shed all those pounds, but he also swiped the look of his controversial new communications tower from the design of the Derry Public Library, his refuge as a lonely child. He’s rich and famous and handsome, and yet he keeps flying west because he’s so afraid of the darkness catching up to him, not because he remembers what’s waiting in the shadows but because he doesn’t. After Mike calls Richie, the latter notes in a daze how terrifyingly easy it would be to tear up everything he’s accomplished since leaving Derry. They are so very fragile, these American dreams of ours, and they’re rooted in nightmares. 

Indeed, the third layer goes beyond the personal to the political. As King has a one-off character note early on, It is Derry. “Somehow, It got inside.” The monster has been feeding on and encouraging the town’s worst instincts for years, happily soaking in the violence whether it’s motivated by racism or homophobia or bloodthirsty revenge. This is where Mike, my favorite character in the book (by a notch above Stan the Man), takes center stage. As the town librarian, he devotes himself to unearthing Derry’s singularly ugly history, and it is he who discovers the pattern of It. Every generation, It emerges to take Its toll; Derry is its “private game reserve.” As Mike asks: “can an entire town be haunted?” This is something arguably even more traumatic for our heroes than the memories of It Itself: the terrible revelation that the adults were in on it. In this way, King ties the fall-into-knowledge central to stories about the dark side of small-town Americana (per Blue Velvet: “I’m seeing something that was always hidden”) into his beloved monster-movie pulp. 

Finally, we get to what the titular entity actually is: a cosmic predator from beyond spacetime, thirsting for meat flavored with fear, using glamours to project images of Itself as whatever Its victims fear most. It’s easy to mock such LSD-soaked Lovecraftian lore as overblown, and it definitely is that. But it resonates with all those other layers. Lovecraftian horror drives mortals mad, which dovetails with the trauma and repression our heroes undergo. The idea of an ancient monster that everyone knows is there but no one wants to talk about, even as it inflicts its wounds on the next generation, is an apt metaphor for all variety of social ills, many of which King addresses directly. There are multiple kinds of horror struggling for the spotlight in It, from abuse to bigotry to the Eater of Worlds variety. What makes the book interesting–if also more than a little silly–is the author’s insistence that all these kinds of horror are linked. That’s why our heroes can’t remember It: not only because the movie monster turned out to be real, but because It was far worse than the movies suggested, and It’s wearing your father’s face. 

#it #stephen king

[gutterballgt]

Some thoughts about IT.

Kneejerk first reaction: I loved it. It was nostalgic (both because I'm a child of the 80s and because I've read the book about a hundred times) and tense and filled with the helpless sense of doom, of fate, that so often permeated the book. The visual effects are flawless and enhance every unearthly scene. I left the theater satisfied and with only one complaint.

Spoilers below!

The only major complaint I have with this film is when Beverly, who is a total badass throughout the whole film, suddenly gets taken by Pennywise and used as bait, the helpless damsel, to get the boys to come after her. Even if that was the plot of the book, I would've expected it to be updated for a modern audience, so it being a complete deviation from the book's plot made it even more glaring a miscalculation.

Yes, she proved she wasn't scared of Pennywise and, thus, was sent to the deadlights instead of killed, but seriously. Why her? Why not Eddie, who spent the whole movie complaining about germs and filth and was so scared of everything? Why not Stan, who only believed because he literally had no other choice than to believe his own senses?

But no. Pennywise kidnaps the girl, who just beat the shit out of her own creepy-perv, abusive father and has been a BAMF the whole movie. Because girls.

That was disappointing. It didn't ruin the movie, exactly, but I was definitely disappointed, even in the moment. It was a bad look in an otherwise amazing movie.

ANYWAY.

Now that it's been a couple of days since I saw it (and I've watched the old TV miniseries and picked the book up again), I do see a few things that I missed from a new adaptation: namely, all of their specific talents. Maybe it was too hard to fit them into a responsible running time for a film, but why wasn't Ben an engineering genius? They didn't spend as much time in the Barrens in the film as in either the book or the miniseries, so I get why they didn't build the dam, but... that’s how he becomes rich and famous later in life. It’s what made him successful.

And why wasn't Beverly learning to draw from her father, illustrating the painful, confusing methodology of the abuser, as so glaringly drawn in the book? Her father could be kind and generous and loving... but he could also be the cruel, lecherous abuser, which was why so many women can't leave their abusive husbands. Why, in fact, Beverly always chose men who treated her like a queen until they treated her like a punching bag. Her learning to draw was the promising bud of her becoming a massively successful fashion designer later, so why is it missing?

And Bill and his storytelling. He becomes a hugely popular horror novelist later in life, unconsciously writing about his childhood horrors, but he was always a storyteller, always charismatic even with the stutter. Why was that absent?

Eddie's uncanny sense of direction. It saved their lives in the sewers, how he always knew which tunnel to pick, always knew where Derry's dark and brutal heart lie, always knew the way to go. He became a fantastically wealthy professional driver in one of the most difficult-to-navigate cities in the world with that ability. Completely absent from the film.

They did sort of mention Richie's impressions, but only in the large sense that he's a joker and a smartass. They mostly focused on him being inappropriate and hilarious (often both at the same time, which was priceless), but again, his impressions are what make him a hugely successful entertainer later in life.

Given that their adult successes -- compared to Mike's bare-bones existence and lack of any wealth or fame because he stayed behind in Derry -- were yet another sign that It's mark was still upon them, that their business wasn't through... why were these important character traces absent?

Given that it was their extraordinarily imaginative minds that both drew It to them and allowed them to defeat him, why is that almost completely missing?

I mean, it doesn't RUIN the film. In fact, anyone who hasn't read the book would never know that element was gone. Traci and Kobie (the friends that went with me) certainly didn't, and neither of them had read the book. Both LOVED the movie, and I'm trying to foist the novel off on them for more context for what they saw, but neither of them are big readers.

But for anyone who knows the overarching story -- part of which they're definitely hoping to bring to bear in the almost inevitable sequel -- it's a puzzling omission. Not a story-killer, but definitely a head-scratcher.

Don't get me wrong: some of the changes they made are good ones. Excellent, even. I loved the floating kids in It’s lair, not only because "we all float down here" but because it implies that the vast, extradimensional spiderweb in It's chamber is truly extradimensional and, thus, invisible on this plane.

And I totally get moving the entrance to the sewers from the Barrens to the house on Neibolt Street. It's way easier to make a creepy old house look foreboding and was probably way cheaper than filming out in the boonies. I did miss all the fun and games (and the genius underground clubhouse and the smokehole ceremony) and fear they had out in the Barrens, but I get it.

And it was a BRILLIANT choice to have this new Pennywise actor focus on inflections, twitches, and mannerisms instead of trying to recreate Tim Curry's manic, evil cheer from the miniseries. Bill Skarsgård has such a looming way of standing, and the weirdly over-sized head compared to the normal-sized face was visually disturbing. The contortionist moves... yeah. Creepy as fuck.

The visual effects are glorious. The jumpscares aren't either cheap or hackneyed but always well-planned and well-executed. The sustained tension, that brooding sense of wrong-and-getting-wronger, the interspersed "kids being kids" and "holy shit EXISTENTIAL TERROR" is beautiful.

It's a great horror film. It's nostalgic as fuck. It gets the damn point across, and I hope hope hope there will be a sequel with the adult half of the story and a lot more focus on the Lovecraftian nature of the original book.

Everything else (except the "damsel in sudden and unnecessary distress" thing) is quibbling with details.

Go watch it. You won't regret it.

But you might have nightmares.

#stephen king's IT #definitely a movie to watch #get thee to a cinema! #but seriously SPOILERS guys

[wyblogging]

This is charming enough if you assume Stan is a deranged conspiracy theorist. Except we know that he’s not. And he has a substantial chance of being in a Lovecraftian cult dedicated to raising an eldritch horror. In which case this scene becomes extremely ominous foreshadowing.

#liveblog #gravity falls #gf17