#England's Nightmare Creek

[saurongorthaur9]

If Sauron were a body of water, he'd be the Bolton Strid.

Pretty to look at, seemingly innocent and harmless, but will brutally murder you if you mess with him.

[bellemorte180]

WIP Wednesday

No idea if this is going anywhere or if I have the energy to keep working on it.

The doc is called *Victorian Ghost Story* has I do not have a title as of yet.

London, England

September  1841

When Caroline was a small child, no older than five, her mother had told her a bedtime story. The specifics of the story she could not remember but as she listened to the rain splatter against the glass of her window, she only hoped that it was true. Having it rain on one's wedding day was meant to be a good omen. If she was honest, Caroline needed something good in her life. 

Even if it meant marrying a man she barely knew. 

Peering at herself in the mirror, rust lingering in the upper corner and the small crack just to the side that showed the vanity’s age, Caroline wished that her mother was there to hold her hand. She would do anything to hear the whispered reassurance that she was doing the right thing. That this was more than some act of desperation. The white lace gown, a new fashion among the Ton, was beautiful even if the high neck collar felt choking. Her blonde hair was piled on top of her head with ringlets hanging in her face. She was beautiful, but as she looked deep into her own blue eyes, she could see her own uncertainty peering back at her. 

Life had gone from black and death, to white with possibility in the span of a few weeks. When she had dreamed about her marriage before knowing who her groom would even be, this was not how she envisioned it to begin. Once she had been the envy of the Ton, a debutant to rival royalty only to be pushed from her pedestal and to crash to the ground, broken and injured. Time had moved onward, the rumor mill fresh with something new and Caroline was left to grasp the first hand that was outstretched to her. 

A soft creek of the door hinge echoed loudly and Caroline’s head snapping upward, watching as the door open in the mirror. Her heart skipped for a second only to feel relief to see Elena looking at her as though she was about to shed the silent tears she was known for always having ready. Caroline did not know who was more terrified of this union, Caroline or Elena. It should be Caroline, as she was the bride but something told her that Elena won that particular competition. 

“Stop looking at me as though you’re about to attend my funeral. I’m not wearing the right color.” Caroline told her, trying to keep her own voice from shaking. She watched as Elena’s shoulders tensed, the reply just on the tip of her tongue but Caroline cut her off. “I’m sick of black if I’m honest.”

“This isn’t a joke, Caroline.” Elena snapped, walking across the bedchamber and stood just behind her. She placed a soft hand on Caroline’s shoulder. The last year had been nothing more than a nightmare, forcing Caroline to rely on Damon Salvatore’s kindness. “You do not have to do this. It's not too late..”

“The bans have been read and I made a promise. I can’t break it.” She peered into Elena’s brown eyes that looked at her in the mirror. “And I don’t want to. I don’t want to be a burden anymore. No one is forcing me down the aisle. I chose to accept him and I’m not turning back now.” 

“You’re not a burden! We love having you. Grayson is devastated that you’re leaving and-”

“I’ll miss you and your little boy but I know Damon is ready for me to be gone. You’ve been kind to me this past year, letting me spend my mourning with you-”

“It’s bad enough that Katherine has married into that family but you?” Caroline let out a small sigh and closed her eyes. She hadn’t been in attendance for Katherine’s wedding. It wouldn’t have been acceptable given that she was draped in black and in mourning but it had been the topic of Elena’s fury for months. “You can stay here. We’ll figure something out-”

“For me to be your governess? Or perhaps the maid?” Her tone was bitter and the slight wince on Elena’s face made her feel slightly guilty for her words. Elena had been nothing but kind to her. She reached up and took her friend’s hand into hers and squeezed. “I’m sorry. That was rude but it's true. This is the best chance I have and Katherine has been kind enough to arrange it.”

“But you know what the Ton says about him!” Elena cried, the same argument she has had since Caroline’s engagement was announced three weeks prior came tumbling out again. “Mr. Castle vows that Klaus Mikaelson is a monster and that he-”

“It's nothing more than rumors. The Ton feeds off scandal and gossip. Look what they said about my father in the wake of his death! Almost all of it was untrue. Sure he was drunkard after Mother died, murdered in a back alleyway behind some gaming hell and the entirety of our estate went to pay off his debts, including my dowry but the rest was fiction and Katherine assures me that so are the rumors about Mr. Mikaelson.” 

“But Lucian-”

“Hates him. I don’t know why but he will see Klaus burn if he could.” Caroline was not proud to admit that she once had been as shocked and scandalized at the rumors of torrid Mr. Mikaelson and the horrid acts he may have committed in the north of England. “I don’t want to argue about this anymore.”

“But you don’t even know him!” Elena cried, not willing to give up the fight. She was like a woman possessed, wanting nothing more than to thwart her sister's plans and schemes. “You’ve had what? Four conversations with him? That's it? That is not enough to make a marriage, Caroline.”

“Women have married with much less!” Caroline placed her hand back on the vanity and curled her fingers, gripping the wood tightly as she grew more and more annoyed with Elena’s persistence. “A marriage of convenience is better than not having a place to call home.” She knew that Elena was itching to state that this was her home but Caroline did not allow her to utter the same thing over again. “I have nothing to my name and he wants to marry me anyway. That is enough for me.” She stood, bravery born out of spite and annoyance cursed through her veins. “Now. Enough of this. There seems to be a break in the rain and we need to get to the church.” 

Caroline didn’t look back as she left the chamber that she had slept in for the past year but she felt Elena’s mournful gaze on her. 

The wedding itself was simple. Damon held her arm as he walked her down the aisle, a cousin on her mother’s side and the nearest male relation she had to give her away. Only a few people lingered in the pews as she said her vows, her hand placed in the crook of her new husband’s arm as he guided her back down the aisle.  The faces peering at her as she passed held expressions more suited for a funeral than a wedding. 

Katherine was kind enough to throw the wedding breakfast. Her husband, Elijah Mikaelson’s home was bigger than Damon’s and seeing that Elena was against the marriage all together, she was more than happy to play the hostess. Caroline leaned back in the chair that was still and uncomfortable, the plate of pastries sat uneaten in front of her and watched how smug Katherine appeared in the aftermath of the vows Caroline had just spoken. 

Elijah sat quietly, holding a soft smile as Katherine enjoyed the attention the successful wedding breakfast brought her. One would think she was the bride and not Caroline. It was small and intimate but it was enough for Katherine to beam in pride; a smirk that only grew bigger as Elena glared at her twin sister from across the room. The sound of thunder rolling through the room as the storm continued to rage outside.

“It is strange how they can look identical but have such different personalities.” A whisper echoed from beside her, causing her to turn to gaze into the ice blue eyes of her new husband. Her skin prickled from the warmth of his breath and she froze at the sight of his dimples creasing, his smile appearing to be calculating and cold. His blonde hair was curlier than hers, a few strands hanging down into his eyes while the rest was a purposeful mess. “I get the feeling that your cousin’s wife does not like me very much.”

“That is an understatement, but you knew that when you came to ask Damon for my hand.” Klaus gave a chuckle and not for the first time, Caroline wondered what had occurred in that study between the two men. “You seemed annoyed that particular afternoon despite the fact that Damon agreed.”

“He is a rather unlikable man, no offense as he is your family but it is true.” Caroline couldn’t help but laugh, a small but genuine smile growing on her lips. She noticed, for a second, Klaus’s grin grew slightly warmer. “And I cared little for his permission. It was your acceptance that I wanted. Not his.”

“So, if I would have said no, you never would have asked him?” Caroline remembered the day that Klaus asked for her hand. It had taken her by surprise, as she was not expecting it. They strolled through St. James’s Park as Katherine trailed behind, ensuring that their movements were anything but chaste and innocent. It had been the third time he called upon her, conveniently arriving every time she had gone to pay Katherine a visit. He had taken her hand into his, pulled off her glove and ran his thumb along her knuckles. The small touch was enough to cause her hair to stand on end, an unfamiliar caress that she was not used to. His words were not long or eloquent but simple and to the point. 

Marry me, Caroline. 

“No. I wouldn’t have because the choice was always yours.” She felt her skin flush under his gaze. The shade of his eyes grew darker for a moment, his gaze flickering to her lips but he did not lean in, the memory of their small kiss in the church playing on both of their minds. She had never been kissed before, but a man had never touched her hand either. “I remember the first time I saw you.”

“It was in this very room if I recall correctly.” Katherine had invited her around for tea, only to introduce her to her brother in law mere moments after they sat down. It was painfully obvious what Kahterine’s agenda was and with Klaus appearing both charming and interested in her, it was hard to turn away his advances. Especially when she had so little options. 

“That is when we met but not the first time I saw you.” Caroline turned to look at him in confusion, her body shifting in the chair in order to make gazing at him easier. “I had just returned from my estate in Leeds and Elijah was freshly engaged to Katherine. He wanted to attend a funeral of a man he never met because he knew she would be there.” Klaus reached under the table and took her hand into his, pulling off her glove just as he had done in the park three weeks earlier. “There you were, draped in a black veil with tears streaming down your cheeks. Both Katherine and Elena on either side of you as your father was lowered into the ground. I didn’t know you but I wanted to.”

“I don’t remember you being there. No one had really come-” Words failed her but she continued to look at him. Memories from that day were hazy at best. Her vision was blurred with tears and she wasn’t able to look away from the casket that held her father. His death felt different than when her mother had died. It was brutal and harsh. She remembered how warm the sun had been on her skin and the smell of dirt as it was tossed into the grave.

“It was a hard day Caroline, I didn’t expect you to remember me. That's why I asked Katherine to introduce us.” 

“You waited a year for me to come out of mourning?” The confession was confusing at best and terrifying at worst. Suddenly Katherine’ insistence that Caroline accept Klaus’s advances were so clear. Caroline only knew him for the span of a few weeks but he had been thinking of her for over a year. This was not as sudden for him as it was for her.

“You were not the only one in the midst of grief Caroline. We both had our share of mourning to do.” He lifted her hand to his lips, the kiss felt as though it was burning against her skin. She did not care that there were a series of whispers echoing around them or that that rain had slowed to a drizzle outside. All she could feel was his lips and the heat that coursed through her body. “But I promise you that I will do everything to make you happy.”

Outside, the sun broke through the clouds and a ray of sunlight streamed through the windows.    

[haveyouseenthishorrormovie]

Stats from Movies 301-400

Top 10 Movies - Highest Number of Votes

The Blair Witch Project (1999) had the most votes with 3,139.

The 10 Most Watched Films by Percentage

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) was the most watched film with 62.85% of voters saying they had seen it.

The 10 Least Watched Films by Percentage

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter (2012) was the least watched film with 67.15% of voters saying they hadn't seen it.

The 10 Most Known Films by Percentage

The Blair Witch Project (1999) was the best known film with only 2.07% of voters saying they'd never heard of it. A Quiet Place (2018) was in an incredibly close second with only 2.08% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The 10 Least Known Films by Percentage

Playdurizm (2020) was the least known film with 95.5% of voters saying they'd never heard of it.

The movies part of the statistic count and their polls below the cut.

The Entity (1982) The Lighthouse (2019) Hellbent (2004) Joy Ride (2001) No One Lives (2012) Night of the Creeps (1986) Silent Hill (2006) Society (1989) The Black Phone (2021) Lo (2009)

Pet (2016) Evil Toons (1992) The Innocents (1961) Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) Vacancy (2007) Jeepers Creepers (2001) Dawn of the Dead (2004) Land of the Dead (2005) The Menu (2022) Mandy (2018)

Anna and the Apocalypse (2017) Apostle (2018) The Changeling (1980) Don't Look in the Basement (1973) Goodnight Mommy (2014) House on Haunted Hill (1959) The Invitation (2015) Kwaidan (1964) Last Night in Soho (2021) Marrowbone (2017)

The Old Dark House (1932) The Perfection (2018) Relic (2020) Session 9 (2001) The Similars (2015) Willy's Wonderland (2021) Willard (2003) Mansion of the Doomed (1976) Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984) Cockneys vs Zombies (2012)

Dolls (1986) Holidays (2016) Benny Loves You (2019) Stitches (2012) Afflicted (2013) The Banana Splits Movie (2019) Rare Exports (2010) Hell Fest (2018) 31 (2016) The Devil's Carnival (2012)

Brain Damage (1988) All About Evil (2010) Alice Cooper: The Nightmare (1975) The Craft (1996) The Frighteners (1996) As Above, So Below (2014) 28 Weeks Later (2007) A Quiet Place (2018) A Quiet Place Part II (2020) Night of the Comet (1984)

Tremors (1990) The Sixth Sense (1999) The Others (2001) Wolf Creek (2005) Wolf Creek 2 (2013) Little Monsters (2019) The Girl with All the Gifts (2016) Green Room (2015) Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012) Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

The VelociPastor (2018) Theater of Blood (1973) The Cursed (2021) The Rift (1990) Terror Firmer (1999) Class of Nuke 'Em High (1986) The Man Who Laughs (1928) Vampire Hunter D (1985) Dark Skies (2013) The Twilight People (1972)

Alleluia! The Devil's Carnival (2016) Playdurizm (2020) Swallowed (2022) Exploited (2022) Deadstream (2022) The Brotherhood (2001) The Borderlands (2013) Pan's Labyrinth (2006) Penda’s Fen (1974) A Field in England (2013)

In the Earth (2021) Resolution (2012) Terrifier 2 (2022) The Blair Witch Project (1999) Battle Royale (2000) Hostel (2005) Critters (1986) The Collector (2009) M3GAN (2022)

[anchoragehq]

it’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark — so let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller tonight ! who have you known that’s gone missing in anchorage, alaska ? if you don’t want to end up on one of the posters plastered around town, best keep your wits about you and your head down. seo in-guk, davika hoorne, zoe kravitz, megan pete & taz skylar lookalikes have been claimed. follow our checklist in the source to move forward.

OPTIONAL: consider submitting at least 1 wanted connection along with your account !

please check below the cut for any missing information to send in with your accounts !!

❀ *◦ seo in-guk. nonbinary. they/he. pansexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that kyo ha-sun? i think that the thirty-six year old from elko, nevada works as owner of lightning griffin tattoos  &  hitperson for the order of the scarlet nightmare, but outside of that people describe them as sharp-eyed to the point of comparing their gaze to knives  ;  it feels as though the longer he stares at you,  the more he's piecing you apart.  an uneasy, howling wind wafting through the trees ;  almost calming, but eerie in the dead of night.. i hear they are self-indulgent & cynical , but they are also known to be adaptable & decisive. consider giving them a visit at their home in kingpin trailer park and get to know why they’re called the morningstar. ( pibs, he/they, 26, CST)

ADMIN NOTE : please submit an alias for your hitperson with your account !

❀ *◦ davika hoorne. bigender. they + she. greysexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that blue nataphon maes? i think that the thirty - three year old from portland, oregon works as the bookkeeper for the order of the cardinal serpent / professor of gothic literature & history @ the university of alaska , but outside of that people describe them as the dripping gilded wax of a thin tubed candle as it layers itself across the silver of a holder ; removing glasses, rubbing kohl from eyes, exhausted sigh leaning back in the chair, another sleepless night before them ; strawberries and cream hovering near their hairline from a new perfume. i hear they are neurotic & rigid, but they are also known to be extroverted & focused. consider giving them a visit at their home in delilah's den gated community and get to know why they’re called the raven. ( kau, they / them, 30, est )

ADMIN NOTE : please submit an alias for your bookkeeper with your account + re-review the rules for our password !

❀ *◦ zoe kravitz. nonbinary. they/them. pansexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that aurelia johnson ( nickname: artemis )? i think that the thirty-one year old from manchester, england works as a wedding planner & owner of aurelia's trance & member of the bastards gang, but outside of that, people describe them as burnt cloves, forest bathing, selenite and rose quartz, reading by candlelight. i hear they are distant & untrusting, but they are also known to be loyal & unwavering. consider giving them a visit at their home in rabbit creek and get to know why they’re called the hedge witch. ( monica, she/her, 27, est ) * bailey anderson's older biological sibling WC

❀ *◦ megan pete. cis woman. she/her. lesbian. ⇝ hey, isn’t that alexandria henry? i think that the thirty year old from memphis, tennessee, works as a cosmetic chemist at blood for beauty and twitch streamer, but outside of that people describe them as impeccably applied lipliner and gloss; glitter gel pens sticking out of the pocket of a lab coat; a collection of beanie babies carefully placed in a display cabinet; always having hand sanitizer at the ready; the rattle of a bottle of antacids to help with the guilt-induced nausea; constantly texting your friends silly memes that made you think of them; and full-body laughs because you were born without a tail to wag. i hear they are submissive & clumsy, but they are also known to be cheerful & humble. consider giving them a visit at their home in the marionette and get to know why they’re called the lab diva. (nic) * connections: ava & mindy's roller derby teammate; dustin & sera's twitch streamer network

❀ *◦ taz skylar. cis man. he/him. pansexual panromantic. ⇝ hey, isn’t that naji harper? i think that the twenty-nine year old from anchorage, alaska, works as a firefighter, youth soccer coach, and a retired professional soccer player, but outside of that people describe them as old t-shirts ruined by bleach splatters; working through the excruciating pain to punish yourself for weakness; being the father figure for your younger sibling; a scrapbook full of handmade cards and letters in kids' handwriting; beaten old soccer boots with mud and grass encrusted between the spikes; sticking up for your friends and family without a second thought; and the waves of heat radiating off a winter bonfire, protecting you from the cold. i hear they are hotheaded & gullible, but they are also known to be dedicated & fun-loving. consider giving them a visit at their home in delilah's den gated community and get to know why they’re called the ardent. (nic)

[follyglass]

Follyglass : Dagger

Hark!

The dagger rose in a lovely crescent across the blue spring sky until it dropped and hit its target: a Finch.

A thing you might not know about fairy daggers is that one can direct it with a word. But there are a few New England fairies that don’t care to be specific. And that is how the dagger landed in the temple of Caitlin Finch, instead of the common house finch. The bird would have died. Caitlin did not. Not truly anyway.

There wasn’t any blood or even a scream. Caitlin’s head just flashed bright hurt….and then it didn’t. Another thing about fairy daggers is that they fade away like stars at sunrise, so there wasn’t any proof that a normal dagger would leave, no shining silver blade sticking from her skull that she could point to and say “See? I’m wounded right here! Please fix it.”

Not that the doctors had any way of fixing the wound from a fairy dagger. Even though she could describe how the world’s colors were bright and burning as acid, and sounds louder than a rush of creek water caused her brain twist and tear, and she woke every night at midnight to strange music that even her dearest tried and failed to detect, and she got terribly lost even in the town she had lived in for twelve years; the doctors sighed at her and said it was all in her head (which was a stunningly true diagnosis but in the wrong kind of way). All in her head? As though that made it any less real.

But it wasn’t just the doctors that questioned the reality of Caitlin’s experience.

Sometimes when she spoke, fairy words slid from her mouth. She knew what she meant, but those close to her didn’t understand, and laughed nervously at her new language, unable to deal with or willingly ignoring the truth that found its way beyond her tongue: Fairyland was real. Which meant her injury was also true. She was possibly forever changed.

They didn’t want to think about how she described her memories moving like pigment in oil on stained glass. They didn’t want to acknowledge that she had mentioned a council of bunnies debating clocks and clover. They didn’t mention how she skipped over the violets and the nightmares squirming within them. And when her friends graciously invited her to late suppers, they didn’t think too much of it when she declined knowing that past twilight the world of fairy would burst from her like blackberry brambles after a good summer rain.

But Caitlin had gotten used to nearly all of it, this new life in-between.

And so, when the crescent moon rose, she automatically placed a dried marigold petal on her tongue to keep the fairy words from slipping into the world she grew up in.

[plaguedocboi]

Here it is folks:

My definitive ranking of my least favorite bodies of water! These are ranked from least to most scary (1/10 is okay, 10/10 gives me nightmares). I’m sorry this post is long, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this.

The Great Blue Hole, Belize

I’ve been here! I have snorkeled over this thing! It is terrifying! The water around the hole is so shallow you can’t even swim over the coral without bumping it, and then there’s a little slope down, and then it just fucking drops off into the abyss! When you’re over the hole the water temperature drops like 10 degrees and it’s midnight blue even when you’re right by the surface. Anyway. The Great Blue Hole is a massive underwater cave, and its roughly 410 feet deep. Overall, it’s a relatively safe area to swim. It’s a popular tourist attraction and recreational divers can even go down and explore some of the caves. People do die at the Blue Hole, but it is generally from a lack of diving experience rather than anything sinister going on down in the depths. My rating for this one is 1/10 because I’ve been here and although it’s kinda freaky it’s really not that bad.

Lake Baikal, Russia

When I want to give myself a scare I look at the depth diagram of this lake. It’s so deep because it’s not a regular lake, it’s a Rift Valley, A massive crack in the earth’s crust where the continental plates are pulling apart. It’s over 5,000 feet deep and contains one-fifth of all freshwater on Earth. Luckily, its not any more deadly than a normal lake. It just happens to be very, very, freakishly deep. My rating for this lake is a 2/10 because I really hate looking at the depth charts but just looking at the lake itself isn’t that scary.

Jacob’s Well, Texas

This “well” is actually the opening to an underwater cave system. It’s roughly 120 feet deep, surrounded by very shallow water. This area is safe to swim in, but diving into the well can be deadly. The cave system below has false exits and narrow passages, resulting in multiple divers getting trapped and dying. My rating is a 3/10, because although I hate seeing that drop into the abyss it’s a pretty safe place to swim as long as you don’t go down into the cave (which I sure as shit won’t).

The Devil’s Kettle, Minnesota

This is an area in the Brule River where half the river just disappears. It literally falls into a hole and is never seen again. Scientists have dropped in dye, ping pong balls, and other things to try and figure out where it goes, and the things they drop in never resurface. Rating is 4/10 because Sometimes I worry I’m going to fall into it.

Flathead Lake, Montana

Everyone has probably seen this picture accompanied by a description about how this lake is actually hundreds of feet deep but just looks shallow because the water is so clear. If that were the case, this would definitely rank higher, but that claim is mostly bull. Look at the shadow of the raft. If it were hundreds of feet deep, the shadow would look like a tiny speck. Flathead lake does get very deep, but the spot the picture was taken in is fairly shallow. You can’t see the bottom in the deep parts. However, having freakishly clear water means you can see exactly where the sandy bottom drops off into blackness, so this still ranks a 5/10.

The Lower Congo River, multiple countries

Most of the Congo is a pretty normal, if large, River. In the lower section of it, however, lurks a disturbing surprise: massive underwater canyons that plunge down to 720 feet. The fish that live down there resemble cave fish, having no color, no eyes, and special sensory organs to find their way in the dark. These canyons are so sheer that they create massive rapids, wild currents and vortexes that can very easily kill you if you fall in. A solid 6/10, would not go there.

Little Crater Lake, Oregon

On first glance this lake doesn’t look too scary. It ranks this high because I really don’t like the sheer drop off and how clear it is (because it shows you exactly how deep it goes). This lake is about 100 feet across and 45 feet deep, and I strongly feel that this is too deep for such a small lake. Also, the water is freezing, and if you fall into the lake your muscles will seize up and you’ll sink and drown. I don’t like that either. 7/10.

Grand Turk 7,000 ft drop off

No. 8/10. I hate it.

Gulf of Corryvreckan, Scotland

Due to a quirk in the sea floor, there is a permanent whirlpool here. This isn’t one of those things that looks scary but actually won’t hurt you, either. It absolutely will suck you down if you get too close. Scientists threw a mannequin with a depth gauge into it and when it was recovered the gauge showed it went down to over 600 feet. If you fall into this whirlpool you will die. 9/10 because this seems like something that should only be in movies.

The Bolton Strid, England

This looks like an adorable little creek in the English countryside but it’s not. Its really not. Statistically speaking, this is the most deadly body of water in the world. It has a 100% mortality rate. There is no recorded case of anyone falling into this river and coming out alive. This is because, a little ways upstream, this isn’t a cute little creek. It’s the River Wharfe, a river approximately 30 feet wide. This river is forced through a tiny crack in the earth, essentially turning it on its side. Now, instead of being 30 feet wide and 6 feet deep, it’s 6 feet wide and 30 feet deep (estimated, because no one actually knows how deep the Strid is). The currents are deadly fast. The banks are extremely undercut and the river has created caves, tunnels and holes for things (like bodies) to get trapped in. The innocent appearance of the Strid makes this place a death trap, because people assume it’s only knee-deep and step in to never be seen again. I hate this river. I have nightmares about it. I will never go to England just because I don’t want to be in the same country as this people-swallowing stream. 10/10, I live in constant fear of this place.

Honorable mention: The Quarry, Pennsylvania

I don’t know if that’s it’s actual name. This lake gets an honorable mention not because it’s particularly deep or dangerous, but it’s where I almost drowned during a scuba diving accident.

Edit: I’ve looked up the name of the quarry, it’s called Crusty’s Quarry and is privately owned and only used for training purposes, not recreational diving.

[melancholiania]

Desolate [Part 4]

[Yandere!Ikaris/GN!Reader]

chapters: part one part two part three

Summary: Some truths come out.

[Warning for spoilers. Set after Eternals (2021), although quite a bit of canon is used loosely. Mentions of Mahd Wy’ry.]

Warnings: nightmares, blood, former Ikaris/Sersi, auditory hallucinations, etc.

A/N: slow chapter. sorry for the long wait.

Edited. Replaced picture.

Do NOT interact if you are a minor.

England, somewhere in the 1200s A.D

Ikaris felt the wet crunch of soaked early autumn leaves under his leather shoes, looking down at his glassy reflection in the water of the creek the Eternals had set up camp, nearby a small village, where Ajak pathetic murderer murderer you killed Ajak you are a monster had heard of a possible Deviant location. 13th century England was the last place any of the Eternals had expected to go, with a great many empires and civilisations popping up at every opportunity to protect and guide, but Ajak had insisted on quickly solving this Deviant issue here before moving anywhere else.

After a particularly nasty quarrel with Druig —over, frankly, nothing important in the long run— he had angrily flown out of the Domo to calm himself down. He ended up in the creek nearby, where he was right now, looking at his reflection.

Looking away from the clear water, Ikaris noticed Ajak meditating near the Domo, clearly communicating with Arishem, evident by the clear detachment from her surroundings SHE’S DEAD DEAD DEAD DEAD. He saw Thena and Gilgamesh spar, her golden constructs clashing against his golden armour, and noticed Sprite clearly attempt to trick Kingo, their illusion of a wild hound clearly working as Kingo had no clue that she had stolen his pouch of coins.

Lastly, he eyed Sersi though she didn’t seem right nothing felt right about this wake up sitting peacefully on the other side of the same creek, rustling some leaves with her hand, transmuting the dead, dry leaves into gorgeous wild daisies with a flourish of her hand, golden energy flowing through the flora. His heart fluttered in his chest this is a dream wake up wake up this is a dream dream wake up up wake up as he continued staring, and he swiftly lifted himself from the ground, quietly flying towards her.

“Hello, Ikaris,” Sersi chuckled, feeling his presence next to her as he landed next to her and sat down, tucking his head onto her shoulder wake up she hates you you wake up. Ikaris felt at peace, simmering rage slowly subsiding as he watched deft hands pick at the petals of the daisies and release them into the chilly autumn wind.

“You’re not usually the affectionate type, Ikaris,” Sersi remarked as she set down the remaining blooms and stroked his cheek, which he melted into. “What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing, Sersi.”

She you’re dreaming Ikaris wake up and face reality sighed at Ikaris’ attempt to show a brave face, knowing about his squabble with Druig. News traveled fast among the Eternals (it wasn’t hard when there were only ten of them in a concentrated area.). Trying to avoid the topic, Ikaris nuzzled himself into your? Sersi’s shoulder, arms wrapping around her she’s not you waist.

“Sometimes, I wish I could stay by your side forever, Sersi,” Ikaris purred. Her she isn’t real face was unreadable as she tried to take in Ikaris’ words, mind searching for an answer. Ikaris hears a distant, faint hum.

“You should let me go. We aren’t together anymore...you broke it off with me, remember?”

Ikaris freezes, suddenly aware in the oddness of the conversation. He remembered this day. He remembered Sersi acknowledging his words, at least, that was supposed to happen, right up until Sersi’s YOU I want you you not her you who you her her not her response had slapped him in the face like cold water did to a human. The hum grows into a static buzz. Louder. Louder.

“Wait...what do you mean? N–no, this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.” He spluttered as he let go of Sersi’s WHO ARE YOU waist and stood up abruptly, feeling the wrongness of this entire scenario. “I remember the day. You agreed with me. We’re supposed to be together here...what’s...wha—”

Everything feels too wrong, everything is too loud and Sersi doesn’t want to be with him YOU NOT HER I WANT YOU and what was that noise it’s too loud it reminds him of his guilt and shame reality is reaching him faster and faster the nOISE IS TOO LOUD STOP PLEA—

Ikaris’ eyes flutter open violently and he immediately pushes himself off something soft with an anguished yell, breathing heavy and pained, his face damp with sweat. He heaves loudly, the strange dream still freshly stored in his mind. Stormy blue eyes look around wildly, glancing manically at white walls, a soft tapestry and potted plants here and there, trying to gauge where he is and regain his bearings when he sees you.

You’re sitting on an armchair in the sunlight, clearly startled awake from his sudden outburst, the soft blanket around your shivering shoulders slipping off. He realised, eyes widening, that he was in your bedroom, sleeping on your plush bed, instead of the couch he had been sleeping on for the past two weeks that he had lived in your house. He was still in his clothes from before, dark and inky Deviant blood staining the otherwise pristine bedsheets and blanket.

He was about to reach out to you and speak when he groaned sharply to himself, suddenly feeling waves of pain shock his entire body as he crunched into himself to wait out the agonising sensations, eyeing his bloodstained hands through squinted eyes to ground himself.

You quickly flew from your armchair, anticipating the worst as a blood-curdling scream let out in frustration by Ikaris suddenly froze you in place, unsure and panicking.

Ikaris tried to ignore the way his legs twitched as if they were pierced with pins and needles, his chest aching like it was being stabbed by several of Thena’s golden constructs. His heart also felt like it sank deep, deeper to unreachable depths, realising he needed to offer you some kind of explanation for his harrowing, bloodied appearance and disturbing behaviour from before.

“Ikaris! Please tell me you’re alrig—”

“—how long had I passed out?” He choked out, ignoring your request, pain still flowing through him, gold threads of cosmic energy flickering violently under his pale skin.

“Nine...nineteen hours. It’s like, ten o’clock..in the morning,” you stutter worriedly, still stuck in your spot, eyeing the ticking clock right above your bed. Ikaris groaned once more as he leaned into himself further, trying to ride out the agony he was experiencing.

“R-right. Okay.”

As the pain slowly subsided and the gold threads stopped flashing after an agonising minute or two, Ikaris shivered, slowly returning his broken gaze back to your own skittish one, as you quickly shook yourself out of your frozen stupor and swiftly reached the bed, placing yourself right next to Ikaris as you opened your mouth to speak.

“Ikaris. We...we need to talk.”

He sighed sadly, heart aching and mind turning.

“I know.”

§

Ikaris had to lie.

Well, lying was probably too harsh of a word. Lying to you would feel like stabbing his metaphorical heart over and over again please it hurts to be deceitful to you like this, and you already knew something was up with him. It would be a fruitless endeavour to try otherwise.

So what he confessed was the truth...with a lot of omissions and some half-truths to hide his true involvement. He couldn’t tell you that he—

He couldn’t tell the whole truth. He had already hurt you once in the alleyway. He couldn’t bear to betray your trust in him.

“So...you're telling that you're an Eternal.”

That he was. He nodded, trying to think of an answer to that, as your curious eyes indicated that you clearly wanted to know more.

“We Eternals, we're synthetic beings, created to hunt Deviants, creatures that have roamed this earth and antagonised the human race. I...along with nine others, came to this Earth seven thousand years ago to eradicate them and protect humanity.”

You mulled over his words, clearly trying to process what he told you.

"Does that explain the black stuff on you and the bed? You killed a Deviant?" He nods, confirming your suspicions.

"Several, actually. They've been popping up a lot more frequently." BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU RELEASED THEM FROM THE ICE YOU—

“That also explains how you were able to survive falling from space, I guess,” you try to joke, earning a sombre huff from the bulky man in front of you, who nodded nervously. Your gears were turning, thinking of the statue you saw on TV and how Ikaris had freaked out over it. He seemed to also be connected to that.

“So...you were involved with the gigantic marble statue...thing in the Indian Ocean? What even is that?” You questioned, clearly confused as to how he could be involved with that.

Ikaris froze, trying to quickly spin something in his mind to tell you, pushing away the loud voices yelling at him to stop spilling everything to you, to hide away the events of that cursed day. He couldn’t tell you that he had wanted Tiamut to break through the Earth’s surface, destroying the entire world and you along with it.

(Now that he had met you, his thoughts bubbled with anger at how he could be so foolish to leave you to die along with the rest of humanity. Disembodied voices mock his quickly growing attachment to you.)

“That statue. Th-that’s a corpse of a Celestial.”

You were clearly even more dumbfounded, brows scrunching in complete confusion. Of course you didn’t know what a Celestial was, Ikaris internally screamed at himself. You were never supposed to know. And yet here Ikaris was, telling you about them.

“The Celestials created us. That one, in the ocean, was about to...emerge, but the other Eternals killed it by turning it into marble before it fully surfaced. They’re foolish for what they did...what we did was all for nothing...”

The last sentence was uttered bitterly, with so much poison soaked in those words he spat out that you had to push yourself back from him, clearing some distance between you and Ikaris on the soft bed.

“You talk like what they did was a bad thing!” You suddenly blurted out, shocking Ikaris out of his angered brooding.

“Listen, I might be a little biased as a human, but I think humanity deserves to not be blown up by a huge-ass Celestial growing out the earth's surface, without us being in the know.”

He hung his head, trying not to disagree, if only to placate you before you started arguing. You sighed, noticing Ikaris’ guilty expression. He clearly seemed to regret his resentful words. You reached a shaky hand to his face, stroking his scruffy cheek as a form of comfort. He leaned into it, eyes closed and brows furrowed in pain that seemed to run deeper than a physical injury ever could.

“I’m sorry,” he exclaimed, eyes opening slightly to eye you. “I shouldn’t have been so...callous about my words.” He grabbed your hand that rested on his cheek and lowered it, tightly caressing it as if it was his last tether that connected him to this plane of existence. “I should have considered your feelings about this.”

You eyed him sympathetically, trying to understand his point of view. If what he said was true and he had lived for seven thousand years, possibly more, which was much longer than you had ever existed, seeing humanity for all its good and bad would make him much colder towards you all, you tried to justify in your head. You slowly squirmed your hand out of his surprisingly tight grasp, leaving your hand sore and aching.

“Not just me. Everyone on this planet,” you said with a soft stare. “But...I get it. You’ve probably seen everything about us. All the good, all the bad...I understand if you’re absolutely jaded with us humans.” You massaged your hand to soothe the pain from his tight hold, while Ikaris sighed and nodded, looking rather solemn. You looked back up at him, speaking once more.

“If you’re comfortable later on, you can, you know, tell me about your life here on Earth, tell me about your other Eternal friends, all that. I’d love to talk with you about it. That’s...that’s if you’re ever up for it,” you mumbled quickly, surprising the Eternal, whose eyes lit up slightly, his icy blue gaze melting at your kind words.

“I wouldn’t mind. Thank...thank you for the offer.”

Quiet filled your bedroom as you both sat silently, just enjoying the comfortable silence between you two.

You then suddenly realised—with a mildly disgusted sniff—that there was a rather pungent smell coming from somewhere, and you began sniffing around. Looking back at Ikaris, who was still sitting on the stained bed, you realised he was still covered in blue-black blood from before, the bloodstains absolutely reeking of tar and death. You had to hold back from throwing up as you locked eyes with Ikaris once more.

“Ikaris.”

He hummed in acknowledgement.

“D-do you mind taking a bath? You stink, like real bad.”

§

An hour or so later, you were sitting on your rather uncomfortable couch, flipping through the same four television channels, absolutely bored out of your mind as you continued clicking on your remote controller. You would have loved to use your phone, but after the crash almost three weeks ago, your phone was still busted, and you never had enough time, with you constantly fixing up your parent’s house and dealing with Ikaris, to go get it fixed.

You made a mental note to find a phone repair shop in your hometown as you settled on a children’s cartoon channel. At least you wouldn’t be bored out of your mind with international stock market news on one channel and soap operas on the other two.

While watching the cartoon (A strange movie about the Avengers saving San Francisco from a weird-ass villain who was more of a floating head than an actual body. You wondered whether the Avengers actually authorised this shit to air for kids with how close it was to the actual Avengers’ exploits.), your thoughts wandered and brought you to think about what Ikaris was up to in the bathroom upstairs. Taking a bath shouldn’t take that long...right?

The squeeeaak of the single creaky step on the stairs answered your thoughts. Speak of the devil.

You craned your head from the television to see Ikaris shuffle down the stairs and enter the living room, still drying his damp hair with an old towel you had in the bathroom. He wore one of your old teenage t-shirts, seemingly too small on his bulky torso, wrapping around every bulge and fold of his muscles, along with a pair of your old oversized sweatpants, thankfully looking somewhat normal, if not a little awkward on his frame. He hopped on the couch alongside you, seemingly very close as both your thighs touched, surprising both of you. You both scooted away from each other, you laughing awkwardly while he stared blankly at what just happened.

“A little close there, huh,” you chuckled. He remained silent.

You turned your attention on the screen in front of you both, and a few minutes passed with silence between the both of you, made slightly uncomfortable by the fact that you two seemed to sit a little too close to each other, both pairs of hands awkwardly positioned to deliberately not touch each other.

As the climax of the movie began with the Avengers along with a young girl literally becoming a giant to fight a huge robot, you felt a heavy, oppressive energy breathe close to your neck, giving you the shivers as the hairs on your neck stood to attention. You turned your eyes for the screen to see Ikaris literally breathing down your neck as he grabbed your thigh with a possessive squeeze, the gold energy flashing under his skin as he moved a little closer to you, weirding you out further.

You quickly tapped his shoulder, trying to gently snap him out of his trance with an “Ikaris? You’re...you’re kinda right next to my face.”

That seemed to do the trick, as the gold stopped flashing under his pale skin and icy eyes seemed alive once more. Ikaris quickly scooted away, his hands quickly letting go of your thigh and grabbing his own thigh awkwardly, the whole thing wonderfully accompanied by the grunts and yells of the Avengers characters in the background. You sighed in frustration, grabbing his shoulders.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. I just...I don’t know what’s happening,” Ikaris cursed and looked at you with a worried stare, hands taut with frustration. Your brows furrowed, gently touching his shoulder to soothe his tense words.

“I thought it’d have stopped by now but...no...it can’t be Mahd Wy’ry...” Ikaris whispered to himself, confusing you once more.

“What is Mahd Wy’ry? Some kind of ailment?” You accidentally said out loud as you let go of his shoulders, making Ikaris’ eyes widen slightly as he looked at you once more, realising that he had to explain that too.

“It’s a thing...it’s something that affects the mind. You’re not aware of where you are in time, you remember countless lifetimes before you, you’re lost and you can’t seem to understand that those memories are just that...memories,” he mumbled, clearly worried that he had the same problem.

But it couldn’t be. He knew what Mahd Wy’ry looked like. Images of Thena’s whited-out eyes would haunt him, as he saw her seemingly lost to the memories that existed before she ever came to Earth, the countless lifetimes she had once experienced, ones that she should have never have had in the first place, for her mind couldn’t hold the weight of all those moments lived once and never again.

He knew what Mahd Wy’ry was supposed to be. Did he have it?

He could never be sure. He could never show his face to any of the other Eternals because of what he did, so he would never truly understand what was wrong with him.

All he did remember in those times where he was frozen in a trance was you. Your voice, your face, your scent, your everything.

You.

He longed for his memories of you to be branded into his mind for eternity.

The air was thick with tension between you two, a stark difference from earlier in the day.

§

“Are you sure this would be where the World Forge is?” Makkari signs aggressively, looking at the infinite colours of the universe from the Domo.

Thena shrugs. “This is our only hope to find them. We must try.”

A/N: Thank you for reading. Sporadic updates.

Reblogs appreciated.

[hopeshoodie]

So I’m about to expose myself as a dumb Amercian who knows nothing about Britain (other than that Jonathan Sims is sexy), but here’s my headcanons for where characters from litg would move to if they lived in the US. 

If you don’t care about the US stay for the moodboards :) 

Lottie

I know it’s canon that she moves to New York, but that’s boring. I think she’d end up in San Francisco or LA. There’s more entertainment focused industry there, and I can see her being a makeup artist that works with celebrities and influencers.

Noah

He’s a sensible dude who just wants to find a welcoming community and help others, and I think he’s less invested in living in a city. He’d move to the midwest because the cost of living is low and it’s a safe place to start a family. Anywhere in the midwest would do, but I want him somewhere beautiful so I say western Wisconsin/eastern Minnesota

Gary

He’d need to be in a big city to keep consistent work, but I don’t see him in a MASSIVE city. So he’d end up somewhere like Columbus (Ohio) or Denver (Colorado). He and MC still want a safe and quiet home and a community to contribute to though, so they definitely move to the suburbs.

Priya

Love of my life, the most beautiful girl in the world. She’d move to St. Petersburg, Florida. She loves the heat, the beach scene, it’s close to Tampa (and only a 2 hr drive to Orlando), plus there’s a thriving art scene. She’s absolutely going to meet a dreamy modern artist boy and fall in love. 

Henrik

I shouldn’t even have to say it, but Pacific Northwest FOR SURE. He and MC settle down in Troutdale, Oregon. Henrik can work Broughton Bluff, and they’re basically surrounded by national forests. It’s even close enough to Vancouver and Portland that MC can still have a career. 

Rahim

Obviously he travels a lot for work, but I think when he’s home it’s a condo he rents in Chicago. Jo/MC might have a real apartment that they stay in full time somewhere else, but they always spend time in the condo when Rahim’s home.

Chelsea

I want Chelsea somewhere warm, vibrant, and welcoming. I feel bad that I keep putting everyone in California but that’s what the villa reminds me of and it’s hard to contextualize people who really vibe in the villa going back to normal like in like... Idaho. But I don’t picture Chelsea in a big city, I think she commutes quite a ways to work. So I put her in Walnut Creek, CA. It’s a super cute city with a population of only around 70k and it’s super close to San Francisco, San Jose, and Sacramento. 

Lucas

I actually had to look up where physiotherapists work because I have no idea where Lucas would have to move. Turns out they make the most in Washington state and New York- but I don’t see Lucas there. I think he needs somewhere with a little prestige and a high population of wealthy people, so he’s moving to Massachusetts. I get that New England vibe from him, anyways. He’s going to work with American Football teams because America’s a nightmare and we pay people affiliated with sports triple what we pay normal doctors so uhhhhh.... He and MC would buy a townhouse on the water near the outskirts of a major city. That way they can do the fine arts/galas/entertainment of a bigger city while still being able to own their space.

Bobby

This one was hard because Bobby would genuinely be happy wherever MC wants to be? I don’t think he minds living in the city, but he’d certainly thrive in a smaller community where he could build relationships with everyone and look after people. I think he’d slip into the ‘PTA dad and community support uncle’ role really well. After a lot of searching, he’d thrive in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The population is only around 20 thousand, it’s known for its food and art culture (which means Bobby’s Boops is a go). It’s also right on the golf coast, which means plenty of swimming and beach days alongside the lowkey small town life.

Marisol

Marisol’s super ambitious, wants to be surrounded by other smart and successful people, and wants to actually make a different in the world. As much as it hurts MC and her’s finances, she works in Washington DC. Obviously they can’t live within the city, so they buy a flat about a 45 minutes commute away (on a good day...). Marisol works for a large firm in the corporate district whilst MC stays closer to home and works in PA. 

Carl

This one’s a no brainer- silicon valley. He and MC are vibing in San Francisco, renting out a gentrified loft apartment.

Hope

Forget Lottie being in New York, Hope is the one who lives and thrives in New York. She loves the corporate culture, all the networking opportunities, being surrounded by business people, and the hustle and bustle of the city. 

[finishinglinepress]

FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: Staying The Night by Ilene H. Rudman

TO ORDER GO TO: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/staying-the-night-by-ilene-h-rudman/ Please share/please repost [PROMO] #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry

Ilene H. Rudman is a Boston-area poet, career counselor and psychotherapist. Her poems have appeared in various journals including: the Comstock Review, CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Crab Creek Review, the anthology Kind of Hurricane Press, Apeiron Review, An Anthology of New England Writers and Passengers. An earlier version of Staying the Night was selected as a finalist in the 2019 Comstock Review’s Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest. This is her first book of poetry.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR Staying The Night by Ilene H. Rudman

In Staying the Night, Ilene Rudman’s debut collection of poems, we find an outlook tender and empathic. But also wonderfully capable of fierce anger and irony, often displayed in adventurous experiments in shape and form. In a moving tableau where a “purring cat sits on my sister’s still still chest…” we witness this acute tenderness. Lest this become sentimental–and not only a loving last look–the poet reveals the cat has just alerted family to death, like a quiet night crier.

In turn, she can protest cruelty almost gently, as in her love for an alpaca with a “Modigliani neck,” only to discover the animal may be new meat for connoisseurs. But not at all gently, the “Darfur Diet” uses irony to present starvation in all its horror. In another protest poem, the staccato voice of a witness at The Hague, in tortured inflections, is shocking and believable: we know Rudman has done her research.

And who remembers humor in contemporary poems? In a poem about a Jewish girl trying pork sausage and loving it, in an airplane high above a world with too many prohibitions, Ms. Rudman amuses and instructs too. Further, she weaves a contemporary fairy tale with a ” phantom rabbit” who tackles everything difficult. But if the rabbit’s owner does not obey, the creature will scream her ” terrible rabbit scream.”

In essence, this book shows expansive tonal quality. When there is not the urge to laugh, there are places where tears might come, especially during a pandemic when we all need that rabbit and this writer’s humorous take on our strange world.

–Suzanne E. Berger, author of Horizontal Woman (Houghton Mifflin)

These are poems intimate with the many kinds of nights we live through. Some nights bless us with love, good dreams, rest. Others bring nightmares, worry, and the ruminations in which one wanders through memory, wondering what was right and what went wrong. Then there is also the kind of night one spends with a loved one who is dying. And sometimes the given night can arrive at a literal or metaphorical dawn that reminds us of life and love starting over again.

What light we have might not be all we want or need, but as Ilene Rudmanwrites in these wise, moving, and beautifully crafted poems, it is “enough for me to go by.”

–Fred Marchant, author of Said Not Said (Graywolf Press)

[writingquestionsanswered]

any advice for coming up with a name for a big setting (like a city, town, or country)?

I’ve got a whole post about it, and I’ve actually been wanting to update it. So here goes!

Guide: Naming Locations

1) Genre/Theme/Tone

It’s important to consider the genre, theme, and tone of your story when choosing a town name. Notice how the following place names reflect the genre or theme of the story:King’s Landing (sounds fantastical, from Game of Thrones)Cloud City (sounds futuristic, from Star Wars)Silent Hill (sounds scary, from a horror game)Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat, from a YA series)Bikini Bottom (sounds funny, from Spongebob Squarepants)Radiator Springs (sounds car-related, from Disney’s Cars)Halloween Town (sounds spooky, from The Nightmare Before Christmas)Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related, from Once Upon a Time)

2) Time/Place

It’s also important to consider when and where your story takes place. For example, “Vista Gulch” wouldn’t be a good name for a town in Victorian England because “vista” is a Spanish word commonly found where Spanish is (or was) a common language. And “gulch” is specific to the American Southwest, though it can occasionally be found in other places in North America. If you’re not sure what would be appropriate for your story, look for similar places in similar time periods. For example, if you’re writing a medieval fantasy set in a fictional world but modeled strongly after medieval France, look at maps of medieval France to see what kinds of names the towns, cities, and other places had.

3) Size/Settlement Type (Settlement Hierarchy)

When you’re naming any kind of settlement, it’s important to have some idea of the population/size, as this can sometimes influence naming conventions. These may differ slightly in different time periods/parts of the world, but this is a good general guide:

Homestead - a single dwelling or cluster of dwellings, typically occupied by one family or several related families. In modern times, often referred to as a “compound.” (Example: Fraser’s Ridge in Outlander, at least initially when it’s the cabin and just a few surrounding families.)

Hamlet - a very small community, typically with 100 people or fewer, and little in the services/amenities outside of possibly a church and a post office. When a hamlet has a small train station, they’re often called a “whistle-stop.” (Examples: Blackwater, Missouri. Whitwell-on-the-Hill, England)

Village - a small community of 1,000 people or fewer, likely to have a church or a few, a post office, a market, and possibly a few businesses. (Examples: Highbury in Jane Austen’s Emma. Hogsmeade in Harry Potter)

Town - a larger community of people, typically with the standard services/businesses, as well as schools and parks, often clustered around a town square/downtown/main street area. (Small town: 1,000 - 5,000, Town: 5,000 - 10,000, Large Town: 10,000 to 100,000) Larger towns may have shopping centers, malls, movie theaters, entertainment venues, etc. (Example: Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls) 

City - a sprawling community with a robust center and a wide variety of businesses and services. Ranging in size from 100,000 (small) to just under one-million (huge.) Larger cities often include suburbs and towns. (Examples: Waco, Texas. Miami, Florida. Manchester, England. Okayama, Japan)

Metropolis - a very large city and its suburbs, of between one-million and three-million people, typically made up of several smaller cities and towns that have expanded into one another. (Examples: San Diego, California. Birmingham, England. Chicago, Illinois)

Conurbation - a group of cities, large towns, and other urban areas that have expanded into one another to create an enormous, polycentric urban area, with anywhere from three-million to ten-million people. (Examples: Los Angeles, California. London, England. New York, New York. Tokyo, Japan)

Megalopolis - a group of conurbations clustered together, with a total population of more than ten-million. (Examples: Sao Paulo, Brazil (12 million), Moscow, Russia (13 million), Beijing, China (18 million), Shanghai, China (24 million)

4) Geography

Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island.Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water.

5) History

Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name.

6) Combination of Words

person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek

group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge

descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill

person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville

landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville

Word Lists:

Types of Settlements

Geographical Features

Place Words

Common Suffixes

Other Descriptors

And remember, if all else fails, you can look to real areas/places for inspiration. Often they can help you figure out a believable naming convention for a particular type of area. :)

[softboywriting]

Shifted | A Place To Call Home | Werewolf AU | Shawn Mendes

Summary: You finally escape your former pack and Shawn teaches you to shift. [mention of violence] [dominant alpha shawn] [fluff] Takes Place after Fault

Words: 2k

|Masterlist In Bio|

The feeling of freedom and safety is like no other. It eases the tension in your chest, melts the cold grip of fear around your heart. The realization that you've escaped, truly, once and for all. No longer afraid of who might come in the night. No longer sick with worry for your new found pack. Safe is what you are now and how you swear you'll remain, no matter how hard you have to fight.

Several days following Emmett's attack the alphas of your ex pack came for you, sick of sending betas who only scouted the house. It was a night you cannot forget because never in your life had you felt so terrified, so weak and so god-damned useless. Shawn had locked you in his bedroom, leaving Jeremy to guard you when the wolves began to howl outside and you knew that this would be the turning point in the building tension between the two packs.

The sound of wolves snarling, growling and crying in pain echoed throughout the house. You couldn't block them out, terrified your pack was being slaughtered, but praying it was the other way around. You never wanted this, never wanted bloodshed on your behalf, but the alphas attacked first and Shawn was not going to let his pack die.

Silence fell suddenly. The sound of your heart pounding in your chest must have sounded like a freight train to Jeremy. Your blood was rushing to your head, dizziness threatened to bring you to the floor. You had forgotten to breathe, waiting for an indicator of what was to come next. You looked to Jeremy and he looked to the door, waiting just the same as you were. Just as tense.

The door knob turned and your heart nearly stopped. Shawn walked in, wearing just a pair of sweatpants, chest bruised and scratched. He looked between the two of you and said, “Pack everything up. We're leaving.”

________________

That night everyone packed everything they could fit into their cars and followed Shawn in his Jeep as he headed out of town. You fell asleep against the passenger side window, not knowing where you were headed. Not caring. You had nothing left in that town, anywhere was better than there.

When you woke up, Shawn was parking his Jeep in the driveway of a big brick house. There were no other homes around and the only light was that of the security lamps over the garage doors. Shawn briefly explained this was the house he grew up in, that his parents left it to him when they moved away to England a few years ago.

Everyone unpacked quickly, hauling in bags and boxes of thrown together items. The house was fairly large and still furnished, not even very dusty. You asked how far it was from the old town and Shawn said not to worry, that it was plenty far. You had no choice but to believe him, to trust that he was going to keep you safe.

________________

New. New home. New pack. New beginning.

You never asked Shawn what happened that night. Rosa and Emmett never talk about it. You aren't sure you want to know. All you do know is that you're safe and Shawn is eager to start training you. He wants you to become a wolf, to shift and feel one with the pack, but you know he holds back sometimes. Not letting the other wolves get too rough with you, or keeping you out of some of the pack meetings. He protects you, but only because you're still learning.

“Again!” Shawn yells from the opposite end of the yard. You circle around the tree you've been using as a place marker. He has been having you run and run and run some more, for at least an hour now.

“I need a break!” You huff and puff as you jog toward him.

“That's not running.” He tuts, knocking two fingers under your chin and narrowing his eyes. “Should I chase you?”

“Shawn, I need a break. I'm too tired.”

“You're not getting a break until you shift.”

“I can't!”

“You can and you will.” Shawn unbuttons his dress shirt and peels his tee beneath it off over his head before he starts unbuttoning his slacks. He had just gotten home from work, and wasted no time getting you outside to train. “You're not at a breaking point yet. That's how omegas shift.”

“Pretty sure I am at a breaking point,” you mutter as you turn and get ready to jog again. Behind you Shawn shifts and you hear growling. “Enough Shawn. I'm not shifting today I-”

Shawn lunges at you and you step back, startled by his sudden movement. He's snarling, teeth bared as he stalks towards you. It's definitely terrifying and the fear is very real as you back up.

“You're freaking me out.”

A bark and a growl, he stalks closer, eyes hard set on you.

“This isn't-” You turn and start running as Shawn jumps for you again. Okay he wasn't playing, he was really coming at you.

You take off into the trees, Shawn hot on your heels. It feels like your legs can't carry you fast enough. You're tripping on sticks and other deadfall. Shawn is growling, insistent on his acting, really convincing you that if he catches you, you're dead. One big branch sends you sailing, tumbling down a slope toward a creek. Fear sets in, memories of that cold water soaking you to the bone, a wolf after you, out for blood.

Just as you hit the bank of the creek and tumble to a stop, you feel your body ache, skin seeming to stretch as if it were too tight and something were trying to break through. Your heart races, eyes darting around for an answer to this feeling as Shawn appears before you. You fall limp, arms and legs not able to keep you up any longer. Suddenly you're not so cold, there's a strange stiff feeling as you stand up, not able to get up off your hands and knees.

“You did it,” Shawn says and you stare at him. He's still in wolf form but you can hear him just fine. His mouth isn't moving. “Pup, you're a wolf!”

“I don't like it. It's itchy and I'm stiff. Why can I understand you?”

“The itching and stiffness is normal.” He walks over and bumps his head against yours. “You'll get used to it, and you can hear me because wolves communicate telepathically. You didn't know?”

You shake your head. “I wasn't told anything before becoming a wolf.” You take a shaky step and fall down, legs feelings strange and like jello. “I want to change back. This is weird.”

“That's up to you Pup. But why don't we try at least walking first?”

You stand, legs wobbly and unstable. Trying to walk on all fours felt wrong, hell, being at the height you were at was wrong too. A gust of wind ruffles your fur and it's bizarre, the way it feels familiar as if the wind were blowing through your hair, but foreign because it was all over your body.

“I can't walk? It's too hard. My legs don't work.”

“You're awfully negative today. You also said you can't shift remember? But here we are. Now get yourself moving. Stop thinking about it and just let your body move.”

He's right and you know it and hate it. You are over thinking, caught up in the wrongness of it all. You weren't allowing yourself to relax and just be a wolf, to just move how it felt right. You can do this. It's like riding a bike or learning to ice skate. Just do what feels right.

One step, two, three. You stop and look at Shawn, still much larger than you. He's sitting patiently for you a few feet away. You walk over and sit in front of him. It was odd, you know you look just like him right now, but it still feels like you're a human sitting in front of a wolf.

“I walked. Tell me how to change back.”

“I already told you, that's up to you.” Shawn stands and turns to walk into the woods. His actions are dismissive, like he is refusing to help you. You knew learning from him would be hard, that he won't hold your hand, but guide you enough to find your own way. You know he's not being mean, but firm, and you also know he's doing it for your own good.

You follow after him, quite a bit slower, but nearly at his pace. Just enough to keep his tail a few feet ahead of you. He leads you back to the house and shifts back in the yard, putting his pants back on while he waits for you to catch up. You didn't think about that, your clothes must be in shreds somewhere along the creek, you had been too caught up in the moment to notice. Thank God you had worn some hand me down clothes from Rosa today.

“Tell me how to shift back!”

Shawn reaches down and scratches your head. “I see your determined eyes. I know you want to shift back but it's up to you. There is no big secret.”

“Shawn. Don't leave me like this.” You growl and he just chuckles, heading for the backdoor. He was really going to leave you stuck as a wolf.

An hour passes, still no luck in shifting back. You're laying on your bed, trying everything you can to make yourself human again. You try relaxing, eating, picturing yourself human. Finally you just fall asleep, too exhausted to try anymore.

When you wake, it's from a nightmare. You we're running through the woods, the alphas were after you. Snarling, barking, trying to catch you. You were a wolf, legs still unfamiliar, lower line of sight throwing you off balance. Somehow you are keeping away from the alphas, until you stumble, yelping as you go sailing over a downed tree. Much like today, you went tumbling and landed on the bank of the creek. Warm hands touch your back and that's when you wake up.

Shawn is standing over you with a blanket, seemingly getting ready to cover you up. You look at your arms, your hands. Your human hands. You've shifted back in your sleep.

“Easy, Pup. I'm just covering you up.”

“Thank you,” you mutter as Shawn lays the blanket over your naked form. “When did I shift?”

“Just now, you were dreaming I think.” He grabs a bottle of water off the dresser and hands it to you. “You seemed upset, kicking and yelping, so I came to check on you.”

You sit up and take a long drink and nod. “I was having a nightmare about my old pack.”

Shawn sits beside you, passing you a shirt on the bed that you pull on. It's one of his. The scent is strong, like your sense of smell has heightened from the shift. “How are you feeling since the shift? Fatigue? Hunger? Pain?”

“I'm hungry. Starved actually. Is that normal?”

Shawn chuckles. “Yes, shifting burns a lot of calories. But pain isn't normal. Do you have any? If you do I need to know.”

“No, I'm alright. Just starving and tired.”

He nods. “If you don't mind, I'd like to check you over. I want to make sure your body handled the shift well.”

“Today or...”

“Tomorrow is fine. I'll have you come to the clinic with me in the morning since I have the early shift tomorrow.”

“Alright. Can we get some food now? I think my stomach is chewing on my back bone.”

He chuckles and stands. “Any requests?”

“Pancakes?”

“Alright, pancakes it is.” He leans down and kisses the top of your head, holding your cheeks in his big hands. “I’m proud of you for shifting by the way.”

“Thanks.” You flush and he smiles at you, eyes so soft and warm. So full of love and pride you have to look away. No one had ever looked at you like that, especially not an alpha.

Shawn tilts your head up and you are forced to look back up at him. He still smiling as he says, “Get dressed, Pup, we have pancakes to make.”

____________________________

A/N: Thank you for reading! I know there will be some questions with this part, namely about Shawn, and I promise as I build this series they will be answered. 

For reference though, because I don’t think I had really clarified ages:

You/Reader: 21

Shawn: 25

Rosa: 24

Emmett: 25

Jeremy: 22

[itslaeshorseeh]

To Condorcet

They were all turning left, the cars oncoming       While they in seats were listening to their tunes. The engine sound, amongst the turtles, humming,       Was loudly in their ears, this day of June’s, Which all combined, were coming down to summing       Up for a good one for the gnomic Runes, Which mark their hearts and mind with calendars, Of best and better of those gallant hours. Where the Columbian River flows and cuts,       Gem Of the Mountains, Idaho’s Basalt Formations, their ambitious earth abuts;       The light that had been strongly cast, a fault Would find for one thin ray, and then it puts       Itself out; day’s revolving, too, must halt. Well-wearied travelers their speed did check, As might befit in darkest hours, one’s neck. Of all the things that haunt men with a passion,       The blind discovery like of what was gemmed, Compares with that which later keeps its fashion—       They sensed, that out of vastness, from there stemmed, The answer self-sufficient laying at Ashton       For which they long, and flee from what condemned. They sought out sights and towns that they found rustic, On roadways leading to the russet dust, slick.

For now the cars could be seen in three miles       In each direction, when their eyes were dry From lack of sleep where roads to one point files;       And straight away the thoroughfare did ply One to reach the end; Auriga’s light brought smiles,       Being behind, the light still did not die, But like they bore celestial wings, gave wind, So they could reach Snake River Plain, their Ind. With all these Rocky and Cascade Range Mountains,       The din of suburb or the city stifles; What one could call a rat-race is all’s fountains,       Give or take, gardens ripe with green and trifles; There is so much that paying eyes’ account wins,       Especially what one sees changing by the eyefuls-- The patches grown, and the games over, women Who their expenses gained had as glum win.

They pared their hours with solid witticisms,       Such as, that without water, by it new ones, In the form of shadows, water pipes find schisms       And of the name take on just pipes; that show runs Not being trapped, to source the water’s prisms,       And being caught, would percolate for due fun’s. To bathrooms, would these runs belong; digestion Is how it should end, any solid question.

But those who have the props fill up and clean,       And ‘mong the qualities of bare things, it takes on A clean look when a thing of craft would lean,       And glide there on as crafts on seas wake ‘pon, To show of Memory that they are Dean.       Until the moment when rents come, the air makes gone A rosy hue, which all life girds, from sky To sea, and turmoil round with peace both dye. But beauty being one, a serum’s fast:       Their food they found like Cream of Mushroom: Campbell’s; And flattened what had contents made to last.       They found the curiosity that ambles, Which they saw as the countryside’s late past,       And hoped the stray spark would not light up brambles, When off their touchstone they then ventured answer, That magic made Astolfo a good lancer. Beside the road they could imagine spears:       Since strength was much in favor in a saddle Which gave a view and a good segue steers.       Besides that was the rune’s puissance in battle, Which made with it, endured itself thro’ fears.       These weapons thus inspire Perfection’s prattle, For which gleamed bronze-age gold, and now some truth: From Polydorus to Astolfo, myrtle’s ruth. Friendships that secret counsels lack are like,       One’s instant bowl of noodles without heat, Or, chains that fall again off of one’s bike,       Or, oranges that are not a seedless treat, Or, even worse, a starry student’s spike       Who does not have the chops to be elite: The friends who keep each other at their word, Are like two wings of an ideal bird. At Vantage on, they talked of old loves, still hurt.       They mentioned names that their hard memories tumbled, Such as Charissa who they knew a chill flirt,       For whom the boys like bumble bees oft stumbled. This peaked when young, like time made Curtis Gilbert,       Until suburban Exodus all humbled; Which they attempted now as in a race, To take the Void on as it took plan’s place. It happened when one least expected to,       Which was the facet skies cut out for those, Large clearings that had lake reflections blue,       And if one e’er came back the status quo’s, To Cherry Trees that gave Quad sections hue,       The quad profuse with cherry blossom shows, If not these, then, a call for a visitor For leaving out the Grand Inquisitor.

Tsunamis pummeled Hamadōri’s Sendai       When the Okhotsk plate slipped, in Fukushima— It was a cup of coffee grounds to blend dry.       Pacific plates went under Iwo Jima— They went around what was the river bend high—       And under the Vaughn Hubbard Bridge there gleamed a Nice spot where stopped Snake River’s affluent; Then, gone went particles with sediment. If wandering, one just needs to search life back,       The point? Not the Republic, Plato’s love, I’ll save myself more wondering by a knack,       It may have been the bee’s be-morse, where of The little dots they find their language’s track—       Fourteen, for me has always been the grove Plus Ultra: things that God once put by stream All healed together, Raphael would dream.

What stopped our predecessors from their ruling,       Must have been lack of speaking back to meter, I called upon the Fates, no-one am fooling,       As from a mold, the die cast as repeater, Then always blessed by seven! ‘Tis a cruel thing,       Thirteenth twin legions' lions! But O! how sweeter, ‘Tis that step over stream, that’s ne'er as neat, The Rubicon I crossed, with oaths to meet.

 One stream doth separate the perfect, dusting       Eternal gold, that sacred second seven! A chasm I would venture where it must sing,       Aeolian harps that play, are here in heaven, How long will play our visions we are trusting?       The scroll lights up and some power transferred—leaven, Since what makes these events occur is fourteen, Like Juno’s nurses, hiding what have more seen—

The thing most often missing in equation,       May be the units, fourteen passed three-fifths, That's one percent of one percent's, but weighs in:       Thirty-nine fiftieths by thousandths: myths That greenwood was, the coals to feet a basin.       A hero sees the world by breadths and widths. Imagine, what we leave to actuaries, Being caught in their likelihoods, like faeries. Like those who heard foretold, the thirty sucklings,       By backwards alpha and omega dubbed; As Saturn men gave sickles, and showed time luck brings,       This New Age would have perfect crossbows flubbed, And all have wandered in the sea like ducklings,       If not I with black bile spelled in, or rubbed— My luck began the same way it had ended, With just a spin-the-wheel, which just my friend did.

If Time was given Saturn’s name, and Light       Named Janus, weep the Reaper, Flee the Source! More often not, Perfection will not fight       With half as much this truth as its resource; But as Decay of the Omega’s quite       A problem when, it seems the fire grows hoarse, More increase I am obligated muse, I’ll pay back Death two silver, Time its news. The Rower might as well be down the Charles’,       At least from River Side, since that is far Away closed-off, a well that truth lets borrow this;       The Rower’s coxswain is a self-same star, As all the seven; England lends to war, earls, ‘tis       These apothegms like those not found to jar. The Rower a good coxswain was, for led It then the self-same spirit paths to tread. This Two-faced Janus served their Dionysus.       They paths had crossed beneath the starry Cetus, By Touchet on the road, then Lowden’s crisis,       Namely, the savages the French made weet fuss, A slaughterhouse, amid their guns’ devices;       T’ was four days fighting, signed a treaty sheet was; These plains’ hills roll, pass by around French Corner, Grande Ronde had formed Blue Mountains which adorn her.

From the Snake River flowed Grande Ronde, to there,       Where Mill Creek from the Willow Creek with Shaw creek, Formed many others, Summerville to share,       And from these, Hacker Creek with Coon Creek, all meek In various forms: My Muse departs from air,       And seems to use a logic that I seek; Frenchmen’s Springs Member flowed from Pendleton, And retched from earth, once ruined gentle din.

La Grande they passed, named by a Settler's mind,       His name was Charles Dause; Like him, Payette, Fur-trappers were, and make towns sound refined,       The front and end of their day's trail may fit, Around the tale of Baker City's find,       The senator that found the mess, they hit. The boats were not enough to cross Potomac; He gave his life, for which the town's a throwback. They passed the ghost-town which had tuff from flows,       The open spaces being found past hills, They went where tuff-stone quarries long repose.       Volcanic rock which porous in Italian bills As tufo, which consolidated, froze,       Its fineness prized, was reached by use of drills. At Weatherby, Express Ranch, between Lakes Paddock north, Lowell lower, housed some drakes. And here I take the course, themes to attend,—       If stars hold what we call the storied fates, Then O’! My Muse her song her voice will bend,       A lyric song that all depreciates, And still lives on, a token worn on end.       To prove a point, I ‘liven rabbles’ prates; This next one they will say is a heart-breaker, The left hand Zeus holds thunder, the earth-quaker. If systems hold the processes for casts,       The moral is not difficult to catch; Since fixtures in the skies eke out repasts,       Still, man has in this age, no plan to hatch, But thinking opportunity still lasts       For his best goals, and growing a new patch. I may say more and spin clichés retold, Where boldly gained are fortunes, hopes enfold. An octopus was secret nightmare, sealed—       Sir Marinell had Ocean rear up gold, Whom shores of Cyclades had dropped a shield,       Like Jove his dimmed escutcheon extolled, And by the prophecy no woman’s field       Is, I was given it by all, and I foretold— There I had seen, in seven of their mix, One thing I called six hundred-sixty-six.

The rat-race and its fountains these were not;       The valley pass beneath the town of Lost Blue Bucket held the tale of gold not sought,       Then, Malheur from across He-Devil tossed. The hills as big as canyons here have got,       Changed colors with the season, as with frost. The one regret some have when they are twenty, They finished college--Caldwell had their plenty. The foothills green, were dotted, Basin Big       Sagebrush and Curleaf Mountain Mahogany, The foothills north of Boise, lit a sprig,       Which they saw in the Sagebrush-covered lea. They raced their way through like the Topgear Stig,       Inside their shared Landrover, had to be By Mountain Home when Rocky Bar was haunted, Then passing Cleft, the country curved as wanted.

The mountains being footing for a Hermes,       Had snow untouched that nothing would remove, Until they showed his passing on their firm freeze,       When snow-caps, bent, contained a watery groove. The foothills having snowmelt were one term, keys,       And locked until the spring, which it made move. Once past a field of wheat, the path had taken Scene-hunting to where inclines needed break-in. The road’s Chalk Cut, they ham went through what’s Hammett,       Glen’s Faery King Hight Hill-Bliss said, “Tuttle! A boon abounds abroad, big is its gamut.       Reach for the Craters of the Moon by shuttle, Where there are dreams deferred there where they cram, bit       By bit, the landscape with their dart-ends’ cuttle. The two accepted, filed ‘ere bad behavior, And Hagerman and Buhl passed by, depths wavier.

King Hill-Bliss’ remark they saw as artful:       Since faeries feast on fresh-squeezed honey, famine Was felt by tiny peoples what by part, full       Ravages so that they have less to cram in, Less honey milk on honey cakes’ dessert bowl,       Which for a boon, these heroes sought the shaman, A shady friend who in his hut was suited Beyond Shoshone Falls, and not secluded. The Shaman lived in Murlaugh, on a strand.       From Tuttle did the two then go to parley, The two had plans involving talks that spanned       A windy plain of wild growth: groats from barley Owned by King Hill-Bliss, left by sprites of sand       From Morpheus, were made to rot and gnarly. To fend off ergot, they learned fungicides Were not the answer, but to find fey guides. Scale insects they collected for their Faerie’s mana,       Their sweet saps in glass jars secured, was filled, Once hands that grasped like hands to strip some fauna,       Of course, a looser grip would bugs make chilled. Accretionary shapes smelled like banana,       Plus like a mashed-up serving of it milled, When on the circular rim, sap fell clumped, All thanks to Sage advice, built up what’s dumped.

The honeydew filled up, like cotton white,       And the scale insects seemed disturbed, and shaken; It may have been the sunlight’s cause, the light       In ultraviolet spectrums that they bake-in, But Western Pines have shade, which anchored tight.       From Tuttle then to Burley, pains to slaken, Just as the Murlaugh Seer said, wild food Was gathered off of trees where bugs had poo’d. The honeydew was to their tastes, a sweet.       The faeries there restored what was of blight That made the rye fields like-smells secrete       To cleanliness from honeydew-fed might, And, then, the sickly parts cast off the wheat       Made fungi lesser seen, though once spread quite. Though question one might how the faeries, fed, Had this new problem from a source that spread? The fight had always raged, beneath our noses,       When bees went home and hives retched up and built, ‘Twas with the stolen honey that one goes less       For when the arbors closed their lives, ungilt. They had much better food, from nuts than roses,       And being taught in magic, made pans tilt, Without them having ever left their verdure; But they were summoned by the sound of merger. The mason stamp was honey-bear-like contoured,       And with a customary twist, and toss, Of which friends heard a clatter, it then sauntered       Before it came down after rolling moss. So leaving food, they made like Limbert onward;       It was enough, because as gloss, the sauce, To faeries seemed like stacks, and tribes as tall, And Burley was thus saved, and plumped were all. Cotterel was seen passed in distance: older       And held up kettles, while Acequia held, Its tributaries, and with tears to shoulder       Stood Minidoka, where its fountains swelled. Raft River taken, showed Snake River’s holder:       American Falls Neeley guarded, belled By nearby Bannock ‘round the corner, bubbling Across of highway eighty six, guts doubling. A ship could have a crew with names the likes       Of which the towns had: Chubbuck, Gibson, Blackfoot, And just because the way they saw it strikes       Truer this way, the Indians in tracksuit, Wapello even here, past Gibson hikes       Up to the shore of Firth, by Shelley’s jackboot. From Pocatello anabasis stretched, North, where in Ammon they passed plains far-fetched.

Aquila shines the Altair: Idaho       Falls was where carriers shined like boyhood that Laomedeians raised to fame, did. Though       Hebe was soon replaced, whose pants went splat, The Trojan Prince would goblets tend, that glow.       The Mount Olympus destination that The golden eagle carried him to, twin- Peaked, seconds better, not like “lettuce-win”.

Now finally they came and found potatoes:       In silos they like kernels reached the tops, And filled with earthy bodies at the Date’s close,       Where they would be shipped off to all these stops, From Rexburg which a Morman’s name its fate owes.       Fall River split off Henry's Fork, and drops At Ashton; land like Atargatis eastern. The two Three Tetons gave names which the beasts earn.

Three mountains, they were Ashur, Cadwalladr,       And Maruduk, the Grand, South, and the Middle Tetons. The winged sun, battle leader sure,       And Bull Calf. Instrumental to acquittal, The weapon Maruduk used in the war,       Imhullu countered Tiamat’s sprayed spittle By wind of four, so arrows wind of seven Had decompressed, then Kingu caused skulls riven. Like Cetus are most sea-beasts. Take Poseidon,       Who sent for sacrifice, Troyano’s fairest. Then Laomedon, Cetus quelling, tied on       The cliff his daughter Hesion, when he darest, And kept his horses, not his word, when fight gone.       For his last scion, Priam’s goods were rarest, Kept close in Polydorus’ hands thrusted, Until the greedy Thracians proved mistrusted. The Cliffs at Henry’s Lake not far from Ashton,       Had springs by Naiads blessed, and trumpeter Swans there inhabited, the avian lashed in       The arms of Leda, Queen of Sparta, her, For Zeus unlike Semele who he mashed-thin,       Swan Valley tucked like Crete, a swan’s form pure, That not unlike Pleiades guided feeding, And so was Helen got by unplanned breeding. The rainbow trout caught there at mountain footsteps,       Were pass-times even when the Milky Way Displayed its naval in the autumn, loot depths       That only twenty feet hid by the bay, Which the Black Mountains showed in strokes by mute reps       Of ripples at the borders’ interplay. The nation here went where, as if Great Plains Were like the edges of a world space drains. At Old Ranch Steakhouse were the patrons, Melson,       Who was just shy of twenty, and his sage Father who was at graduation, belts in       A suit and tie, asking why a steak would gauge Better cooked well-done, to the taste buds—melts in       The mouth less if it is not kept off fire’s rage;  The cooking not as important in the steak’s life,  As blood and sauce that gleam around their lake’s knife. The diner’s wooden handrail mostly gleaming,       Drew on new patrons  under lanterns minds had, The waiters basked in screens, and kitchens steaming,       The décor featured pioneers of kinds bad, The clattering in the kitchen that made more absent seeming,       The hanging LED screens that new finds had,  Of advertisements, opportunities,  In flux, of mattress sales, or Moon trip’s fees. The polos on  the waiters had full contrast:       The intermittent light between shrubs, The age displayed, one a dimension fast,       Where vehicles could make tremendous subs, Artificial intelligence unclassed.       The question why we live, to have like Tubbs, The sight was clear, though far away, and hilly, And there were sales to make, by land made still free. For Papa had for just the traveler       Three years before, bought him an old manual land Automobile, that from the grounds made gravel stir,       With foot-wide tyres. With it had Melson planned For every place to host artistic blur,       This owing to time which passes quickly, grand, As well as to traditional senses found, In taking stock poetically of ground. They paid the waiter, passed beneath the corn sheaves,       Which covered door jambs, before they departed, From one another, so this had left the torn sleeves       Of Modern Liberty of limbs full-hearted, The light it bore which being smoothly as morn leaves,       Which made the niche bear out perfection charted; For youth was wasted if you never grew up, And Melson thought he must, for plans he drew up.

The Heritage High roof, a spacious car,       Reliable though at the cost ‘tis said, That owners of this car date less by far;       Was for cross-country travel, which time bred Exclusively for trips shown popular       By travel agents that hid in the head, Of artists and survivalists, as one, Must suffer for their art: times pleasure shun. Art was a job collectivizing surveys,       And like the minnow on a crocodile Had made the task of cleaning points, but verve pays       To the fresh-forming bubble: where folks stayed a while, Not for too long, since the attractions serve days,       Their share of their due fun, paid back each mile That had required their time, first sights ignored: Like when bald eagles knew from eyes that soared.

So Nature needs a spirit to take Notice.       If things are seen apart, they take disguises, So are like newer revelation made to focus,       So are the sites attracting crowds whose sizes, Are thinner like Odysseus’ fed Lotus-       Who back home sent were, but new Trojan prizes, Were left a means of a recovery Pushed for when Melson sought discovery.

Since art is like an inspiration solid,       Not being abstract, it refit its owner, Though more than complimentary, all Id,       Especially these days the algorithms’ tones, sure, Make simple pages less like where a shawl slid,     Less like where sunlight on floors were plants’ honer, Than an artistic muse, like landscape blogging Which was, in general, the calling for his hogging.

[aeneasx]

Here’s Which Notorious Serial Killer You’d Be, Based On Your Zodiac Sign

check rising sign and mars sign

Aries

(March 21st to April 19th)

Paul Knowles (Born April 17th)

Also know as “The Casanova Killer”, Knowles was a serial strangler convicted of killing at least 18 people in 1974, despite his claims to have murdered at least 35 individuals. Impulsive and hotheaded, Knowles committed all of his murders within one year. In typical Aries fashion, Knowles demonstrated a lot of tenacity and drive in the beginning of his killing career, but grew too sloppy and overly emotional to have the ability to carry out his crimes without being caught. He was arrested after attempting to crash his car through a police blockade, was chased on foot, and then was apprehended by a civilian with a shotgun.

Taurus

(April 20th to May 20th)

H. H. Holmes (Born May 7th)

Leave it to a Taurus to go so over the top they create an actual Murder Castle. H. H. Holmes, sometimes referred to as “America’s First Serial Killer”, was a serial killer and con-artist in Chicago around the turn of the 19th Century. Overly ambitious, money hungry, and a bit on the dramatic side, Holmes would lure people into his murder castle (filled with secret passageways and hidden rooms) where they would never be heard from again and Holmes would attempt to collect their life insurance policies. Although he was only pinned to around 5 murders, many people suspect he actually killed closer to 200 people.

Gemini

(May 21st to June 21st)

Jeffrey Dahmer (Born May 21st)

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer who notoriously raped, murdered, and mutilated 17 men and boys from 1978 until his arrest in 1991. Dahmer was also a necrophile and cannibalized some of his victims, as well as preserved body parts and bones from the bodies of the young men who he murdered. Charming and personable, Dahmer was able to lure the young men back to his apartment and often convinced them to pose for photographs before the nightmare began. But the true shift in personality from a Gemini like Dahmer came in prison where he fully committed himself to Christianity and completely atoned for his crimes before being bludgeoned to death by another inmate. Pretty big personality shift from someone who kept an alter of body parts in their home as a shrine to themselves…

Cancer

(June 22nd to July 22nd)

Genene Jones (Born July 13th)

Biography Genene Jones is a suspected serial killer thought to be responsible for the deaths of up to 60 infants while she was a licensed vocational nurse between the 1970s and 1980s. Cancers are known for their big hearts and wanting to take care of people, but Jones’ heroine complex took her to a murderous level. Jones would inject infants with lethal doses of succinylcholine in order to get them close to death with the intention of reviving them for praise and glory. After being convicted for the death of 15-month old Chelsea McClellan, she was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Leo

(July 23rd to August 22nd)

John George Haigh (Born August 10th)

Only a dramatic, attention seeking Leo would end up being someone known as “The Acid Bath Murderer.” John Haigh was a serial killer in England between 1943 and 1949. Haigh would bludgeon or shoot his victims before dousing their bodies in sulfuric acid in order to destroy the evidence. He would then cash in on their belongings by forging papers and selling what he could find for substantial amounts of money. But like Leos typically do, he became so excited about his sinister plan he misunderstood a key detail. Haigh believed that under corpus delicti if there was no body he couldn’t be convicted of a crime. This was not the case and there was enough evidence to sentence him to death by hanging in 1949.

Virgo

(August 23rd to September 22nd)

Rodney Alcala (Born August 23rd)

Known as a “killing machine” by many, it’s no surprise that someone as methodical, careful, and tactical of a killer like Rodney Alcala is a Virgo. Alcala would kidnap victims after luring them by promising to take their photograph and enjoyed “toying” with them before they died. He would strangle them to the brink of death only to revive them and torture them all over again. Alcala was convicted and sentenced to death for 5 murders, but new victims continue to be revealed while he has been on death row. Hundreds of photographs of naked men and women were found in a storage locker in Seattle, and many are believed to be victims of Alcala. Some believe Alcala was responsible for upwards of 130 murders.

Libra

(September 23rd to October 22nd)

Patrick Kearney (Born September 24th)

Patrick Kearney, also known as “The Freeway Killer”, is an American serial killer who hunted young men in gay bars and along freeways in California in the 1970s. Kearney would shoot his victims before dismembering and mutilating their bodies, sometimes even beating the corpses as a way to “release his rage.” Libras often have trouble with saying no and with their self-control, and Kearney took this to the extreme with his inability to satiate or control his murderous and necrophilic urges. However, also like Libras, Kearney was eager to come clean when caught and immediately confessed to all of his crimes in order to avoid the death penalty. He is currently serving 21 life sentences at California State Prison, Mule Creek.

Scorpio

(October 23rd to November 22nd)

Charles Manson (Born November 12th)

Charismatic, captivating, and ultimately completely self-serving and terrifying when crossed, it’s no shock that one of the most notorious cult-leaders, Charles Manson, is a Scorpio. Leader of the infamous Manson Family, Charles Manson lead his “family” around California in the 1960s, and eventually ordered several gruesome murders between July and August of 1969. Manson believed in what he coined “Helter Skelter” which would be an apocalyptic race war. He believed the murders would spark this war. Since 1989, Manson has been single cell-housed in the Protective Housing Unit at California State Prison, Corcoran.

Sagittarius

(November 23rd to December 21st)

Ted Bundy (November 24th)

Arguably one of the most famous serial killers to have ever existed, Ted Bundy was a rapist, necrophile, burglar, and murderer known to have killed at least 20 people during the 1970s. That being said, like most Sagittarians Bundy was prolific and grandiose, so it’s heavily suspected that he murdered far more people than he ever copped to. Sagittarians are also incredibly unpredictable, which is evidenced in the fact that Bundy did not have simply one method of murder. If he wanted to kill someone, he would find a way to do it. After escaping prison twice (again, so Sagittarius of him to not go down without a fight), Bundy was eventually captured and convicted in Florida, where he was eventually executed by lethal injection.

Capricorn

(December 22nd to January 20th)

William Bonin (Born January 8th)

Described as “the most arch-evil person who ever existed”, William Bonin was a serial killer who preyed on and murdered 21 young boys and men between 1979 and 1980 in Southern California. Expertly careful and practical like a true Capricorn, Bonin created a perfect murder/torture venue in the back of his Ford Econoline van. Bonin removed all of the inside handles from all of the doors aside from the driver’s side in order to minimize the chance one of his victims could escape, and would kill them inside of the van before dumping their bodies along various highways in California. The only reason Bonin was caught was because someone heard him raping and strangling a 17-year-old boy in the back of the van, which lead to his arrest. Bonin was the first person to be executed by lethal injection in California in 1996.

Aquarius

(January 21st to February 18th)

Robert Hansen (Born February 15th)

Detached, unpredictable, and incredibly secretive, Aquarians make the perfect serial killers. This is why it’s no surprise that someone who enjoyed literally hunting people was Aquarius Robert Hansen. Hansen would kidnap women and after raping them, set them loose in the Alaskan wilderness where he would hunt them down like animals. He’s known to have murdered 17 women, but is suspected of killing at least 30. As part of his plea bargain Hansen helped locate the bodies of other victims, and was eventually sentenced to 461 years in prison.

Pisces

(February 19th to March 20th)

John Wayne Gacy (Born March 17th)

A Pisces is a natural dreamer and can get caught up in their own imagination, so it’s no surprise that Pogo the Clown aka: John Wayne Gacy ended up being the sinister side to this sign. Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 young men and boys and buried many of them in the crawl space of his Norwood Park home. Like a highly emotional Pisces, when it was evident police were cornering in on him Gacy gave a rambling, drunken confession to his attorneys. Gacy remained on death row for 14 years before being executed in 1994.

[shmosnet2]

Top 10 Mysterious Monsters Around The World

Top 10 Mysterious Monsters Around The World

From the far off snowy mountains of Tibet to the grey and gloomy lochs of Scotland, many different cultures from around the world have reported seeing strange creatures that science just can’t explain. Although evidence is typically scarce and mostly based on hearsay, many hold on to the hope that some of the following mysterious creatures really do exist. 10. The Ropen Papua New Guinea, renowned for its unexplored forests and undiscovered species of both flora and fauna, is home to this mysterious monster. Stories arose from the Umboi Island of a featherless, giant flying creature with a long tail that ends in a flange and a diamond shaped head. Known to the locals as Indava, the Ropen is believed to be a nocturnal Pterosaur, very similar to a Pterodactyl, that glows against the night sky when it flies. The Ropen has become the flying hobby horse of creationists who seek to find living dinosaurs as proof that the earth is far younger than evolutionary scientists would have you believe. Five expeditions between 1994 and 2004 were conducted by said creationists, resulting in only three sightings – but even those were distant, brief views of what has been dubbed the “ropen light”. According to recent investigators over 90% of the sightings on Umboi Island are of this featureless, bright white light. Jonathan Whitcomb went on to write the book ‘Searching for Ropens’ which suggests that most sightings were of one giant creature which sleeps in the island interior during the day and at night it feeds by the reef. The locals interviewed reported that the bright glow of the Ropen lasts for anywhere up to five or six seconds. Even with all this knowledge, no real hard evidence has ever been found. The locals continue to tell stories of the glowing bird and maybe one day scientists will be seeing the same light. 9. The Bunyip

The Bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology which is said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes. The word bunyip is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as “devil” or “evil spirit”. Aboriginal stories tell of a creature about 11 paces long and 4 paces in breadth. Most people who witness the monster claim to have been in such dread that they were unable to take note of its characteristics, but those that did told of a dog-like face, a crocodile like head, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers and walrus-like tusks or horns. Such a creature has never been recorded by European colonists but there has been multiple sightings of mysterious evidence to support such claims. The first sighting of such evidence was by Hamilton Hume and James Meehan in 1818 when they found some large bones of what looked like a hippopotamus or manatee at Lake Bathurst in New South Wales. After this, reports of more fossils came in of “some quadruped much larger than an ox or buffalo” and in 1847 a display at the Australian Museum, Sydney claimed to exhibit a Bunyip skull. Although no real sightings have been documented, the natives still tell stories of the beast screams which can be heard at night. 8. The Dover Demon

Seventeen year old William Bartlett claimed that while driving on April 21, 1977 he saw a large-eyed creature “with tendril-like fingers” and glowing eyes on top of a broken stone wall on Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts. This was the start of the Dover Demon. Though it was only sighted by a few people in a short period of time, it is considered one of the most mysterious creatures of modern times. The second sighting came just 2 hours after the first when John Baxter swore that he saw the same creature while walking home from his girlfriend’s house. The 15-year-old boy saw it with its arms wrapped around the trunk of a tree, and his description of the thing matched Bartlett’s exactly. The final sighting was reported the next day by 15-year-old Abby Brabham who said it appeared briefly in the car’s headlights while she and her friend were driving. Again, the description was consistent with that of Bartlett. Each claimed they saw a four foot tall, hairless creature with rough-textured skin, long spindly peach-coloured limbs and large glowing orange eyes upon a large watermelon-shaped head which was nearly as big as its body. Though investigations into this unusual case turned up no hard evidence for the reality of the creature, there was also no evidence of a hoax nor a motive for perpetrating one. So was the Dover Demon just a story these kids made up, or is it still out there waiting for the right moment to strike? 7. Mongolian Death Worm

painting: Pieter Dirkx In August 2009, two New Zealanders carrying a video camera and a sack of explosives set off to a remote southern corner of Mongolia’s Gobi desert in search of a creature that few believe exist. The Mongolian Death Worm is known locally as the Allghoi Khorkhoi, or the “intestine worm,” because it is believed to resemble the internal tract of a cow. The Kiwi duo intend to lure the monster to the surface with tremors set off by detonating their explosives. Once emerged, they planned to capture it on film. Unfortunately the men came up empty handed like many expeditions before them. The worm is subject of a number of claims by Mongolian locals and according to legend it is described as bright red with a wide body that is 2 to 5 feet (0.6 to 1.5 m) long. It lurks beneath the sand of the desert, pouncing on unsuspecting victims with such abilities as spewing acid (which on contact will corrode anything it touches) and being able to kill at a distance with electric discharge. The Mongolians also believe that touching any part of the worm will cause instant death or tremendous pain. It has been told that the worm frequently preyed on camels and laid eggs in its intestines, eventually acquiring the trait of its red-like skin. They say that the worm lives underground, hibernating most of the year except for when it becomes active in June and July. It is reported that this animal is mostly seen on the surface when it rains and the ground is wet. All in all just another reason to stay out of the desert. 6. The Spring-Heeled Jack

During the 19th Century, inhabitants of London became victim to this curious beast. In October 1837 the first sighting of The Spring-Heeled Jack was reported, appearing out of the shadows of night and attacking his victims with dreadful scratches before bounding away with superhuman ability. The first sighting was reported by Mary Stevens when she was walking to work after visiting her parents. A strange figure leapt at her from a dark alley. After immobilising her with a tight grip of his arms, he began to kiss her face while ripping her clothes and touching her flesh with his claws which were, according to her deposition, “cold and clammy as those of a corpse”. In panic, the girl screamed, making the attacker quickly flee from the scene. The commotion brought several residents who immediately launched a search for the aggressor, who could not be found. Polly Adams, a pub worker, was another of three women accosted by Spring-Heeled Jack in September of that year. He allegedly tore her blouse off and scratched at her stomach with iron-like fingernails or claws. Several witnesses claimed to have seen Jack escape the scene of the crime by jumping over a 9 ft (2.7 m) high wall while babbling with a high-pitched, ringing laughter. Through numerous accounts they were able to get a description of the monster which included a man-like hideous face, sharp iron-like claws and glowing eyes all beneath a black cloak. Spring-Heeled Jack is one of the most baffling tales to come out of Victorian England. 5. Giant Anaconda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo0z3Dyd1J0 The vast, teeming Amazon rain forest can kill you in all sorts of ways, from encounters with ravenous piranhas to suspicious native tribes. But the most lethal terror reported to be lurking in these parts is the giant anaconda; a lightning-quick snake more than 30 ft. (9 m) long which is capable of capsizing and crushing wooden boats floating down the Amazon. Reports of giant anacondas date back as far as the European colonization of South America when sightings of snakes upwards of 50 metres (164 feet) began to circulate amongst colonists. The topic has been a subject of debate among cryptozoologists and zoologists ever since. Scientists believe that such a monstrous version of the anaconda, which in real life rarely grows beyond an already scary 17 ft. (about 5 m), no longer exists. In 2009, the discovery of Titanoboa fossils found in South America revealed that snakes in the past did in fact reach sizes of over 40ft. The Wildlife Conservation Society has, since the early 20th century, offered a large cash reward (currently $50,000) for live delivery of any snake of 9 metres (29.5 ft) or more in length, but the prize has never been claimed – despite numerous sightings of giant anacondas. Regular size snakes are enough to set anyone’s nerves on edge, but something this big is the stuff of nightmares. 4. The El Chupacabra

This impish monster – whose name means “goat sucker” in Spanish – allegedly looks like a giant rodent with palsy. A kind of half-reptile, half-kangaroo mutant. It first drew the world’s attention in 1995 when residents of the Puerto Rican town of Canovanas claimed that chupacabras were behind a spate of attacks that killed more than 150 of their livestock, each drained of its blood. Similar killings were report in Moca a few months later. Sightings have since been reported as far north as Maine and as far south as Chile. They have even been spotted outside the Americas in countries like Russia and The Philippines. The most common description of the chupacabra is that of a reptile-like creature said to have leathery or scaly greenish-grey skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back. It is said to be approximately 3 to 4 feet (1 to 1.2 m) high, and stands and hops in a fashion similar to that of a kangaroo. Some reports have even stated chupacabras were winged like gargoyles and blinked glowing-red eyes in the dark, heightening the sense of supernatural menace surrounding the creatures. 3. The Yeti

illustration: Philippe Semeria This beast is said to be found deep in the Himalayan regions of Nepal and Tibet. The Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, was first reported in 1832 by James Prinsep, one of colonial India’s most venerable scholars. He kept an account of his trip through Nepal where he reportedly saw a tall, hairy, bipedal creature that fled upon being detected. Since then many mountaineers, including Everest conquerors Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, reported footprints far larger than human feet dotting snowy trails. A 1954 expedition commissioned by the British Daily Mail retrieved dark brown hairs from a supposed yeti scalp kept in a secluded Buddhist monastery. It is believed that the Yeti was a part of the pre-Buddhist beliefs of several Himalayan people; the Lepcha people are said to have worshipped a “Glacier Being” as a God of the Hunt. A photographer and member of the Royal Geographical Society, N.A Tombazi wrote that he saw a creature at about 15,000 ft for about a minute, “Unquestionably, the figure in outline was exactly like a human being, walking upright and stopping occasionally to pull at some dwarf rhododendron bushes. It showed up dark against the snow, and as far as I could make out, wore no clothes.” Two hours later Tombazi and his companions descended and reported seeing the creature’s large footprints in the snow. One of the most renowned mysterious monsters, the yeti seems to be a docile creature with no reported attacks. One can only hope it stays this way. 2. Bigfoot

Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch) is the name given to a cryptid ape or hominid-like creature that is said to inhabit forests in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Indigenous folklore of the Pacific Northwest told of cannibalistic hairy men and giants who roamed the great forests and mountains of the region, abducting children in the dead of night and sabotaging the salmon-catching nets of local fishermen. In 1951, Eric Shipton photographed what he described as a Bigfoot’s footprint – named so because of its size (24 inches long and 8 inches wide). This generated considerable attention and led to the story of the creature entering popular consciousness. The craze went into overdrive in 1967 when two Californians screened a short documentary of footage that allegedly filmed the Yeti’s cousin and, in 2001, the first still picture was captured using an automatically triggered camera attached to a tree. Many tried to pass the images off as “a bear with a severe case of mange”. In 2008, two men claimed they had uncovered the body of a Sasquatch. Most of major US news networks sought images of the beast’s corpse – only to find that its head was hollow and its feet were made of rubber. Still, a cult following of researchers have dedicated their life to proving that this monster does exist. 1. The Loch Ness Monster Reports of a large, long-necked serpent loping around the waterways of the Scottish highlands date back as far as the 7th century, but modern interest in the monster was sparked by a sighting on 22 July 1933. George Spicer and his wife claimed to have saw “a most extraordinary form of animal” cross the road in front of their car. They described the creature as having a large body about 1.2 metres high and 7.6 metres long. It also had a long narrow neck slightly thicker than an elephant’s trunk and as long as the 3-4 m width of the road. It lurched across the road towards the loch, leaving only a trail of broken undergrowth in its wake. In August 1933, a motorcyclist named Arthur Grant claimed to have nearly hit the creature on the north-eastern shore. Grant claimed that he saw a small head attached to a long neck and that the creature saw him and crossed the road back into the loch. He dismounted and followed it but only saw ripples. Sightings of the monster increased following the building of a road along the loch in early 1933, bringing both workmen and tourists to the formerly isolated area. In the past century, dozens of scientists have conducted sonar scans and plunged inside submersibles into the lake’s depths, sometimes picking up tantalizing, albeit inconclusive, readings of some mysterious, unusually sized object. However, a 2003 study commissioned by the BBC employed satellite tracking and took sonar readings from around 600 different locations in the lake and yielded nothing. Despite all this, the legend of ‘Nessie’ lives on.

https://ift.tt/2ObWAuq . Foreign Articles November 23, 2019 at 06:43PM

[brokehorrorfan]

DVD Review: Chillers: The Complete Series

Chillers is a little-known thriller anthology television series that was originally produced under the title Mistress of Suspense in France and the UK, where it debuted in 1990. It adapts 12 short stories by Patricia Highsmith, whose works have also been made into Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Carol, among others. Despite the author being American, the show feels quite European in its pacing and dryness.

Psycho star Anthony Perkins, fresh off of Psycho IV: The Beginning, serves as the host in segments that bookend each episode. As pitch-perfect as he is as Norman Bates, the actor lacks the charisma of similar emcees like Hitchcock on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling. The monologues aren't as witty either, but Perkins serves his purpose, setting the tone and occasionally throwing in a pun.

Episodes filled an hour-long TV block, making them around 52 minutes a piece without commercials, but in most cases the show would have greatly benefited from a half-hour format. It's heavy on melodrama, although dry humor is implemented at times. The subject matter explores humanity's dark side, often involving death and centering on middle-aged characters. Given that every episode is based on Highsmith's work, it's pleasing to see that Chillers employed a relatively high ratio of female writers and directors for its time.

"The Cat Brought It In" is a curious choice for a first episode. Director Nessa Hyams (casting director on The Exorcist and Blazing Saddles) does a fine job, but it hinges on extremely dry humor accentuated by deadpan performances from its cast, including Edward Fox (The Day of the Jackal) and Bill Nighy (Underworld). The story kicks off with a cat bringing severed human fingers into an English countryside home. The family debates about how to deal with the situation, wanting to solve the mystery without drawing attention to themselves.

"Sauce for the Goose" is a stronger effort, reminiscent of something you'd find on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Ian McShane (American Gods) stars as a suave lounge singer who stays with a middle-aged couple, only to have the wife be seduced by his charm, leading to an affair. Directed by Clare Peploe (Rough Magic), it's a bit slow moving in the first half, but it picks up in the latter portion when murder is introduced.

"Old Folks at Home," written by Gérard Brach (Repulsion), finds a yuppie couple adopting an underprivileged elderly husband and wife. The octogenarians seem sweet, if a bit eccentric, at first, but they becoming increasingly difficult to live with as they ignorantly take advantage of their hosts' good nature. They're never sinister, but rather irritating.

"The Thrill Seeker" follows an otherwise mundane man (Jean-Pierre Bisson) with a most peculiar hobby: conning women - Marisa Berenson (Barry Lyndon) among them - into believing he's a far more impressive personality, like a film producer, mercenary, or author. He's not in it for particularly nefarious reasons, but he does steal a memento from each "victim." Bisson relishes the opportunity to play such a variety of characters, chewing the scenery as some and going subtle as others. The episode is not an entirely successful drama, as it spreads itself thin between playing the concept for laughs, exploring the tragic reality, and making it a thriller.

"The Day of Reckoning" is the most unconventional and, sadly, weakest entry. Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor) directs this bizarre blend of absurdist comedy and over-the-top melodrama, in which a young man learns the dangers of life on a chicken farm. Many of Chillers episodes feel stretched out to fill the time slot, but this one really struggles, as evidenced with the abundance of chicken B-roll accompanied by on-the-noise music cues implying they're evil.

"Puzzle" follows a man (Stéphane Freiss) who's told that he could receive a big promotion if he's married. The only problem is that he has two girlfriends who do not know abut one another, so he must choose before he gets caught. Like a classic sitcom scenario, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep up the charade. Unfortunately, the episode does little to rise above the familiar trope.

"Slowly, Slowly in the Wind" concerns a rivalry between neighbors; one a traditional family man (Jean-Pierre Cassel, Murder on the Orient Express), the other a shrewd businessman (James Fox, Sherlock Holmes). The conflict comes to a head when their children enter a romantic relationship. The plot is nothing particularly groundbreaking, but it's engaging enough.

"A Curious Suicide" is the most Hitchcockian of the bunch and, it should come as no surprise, one of the best. In it, John (Richard Atkin) goes to visit a college friend (Barry Foster, Frenzy) who stole the love of his life from him decades prior. John commits what appears to be the perfect murder early in the episode, leaving the rest of the runtime to see if he's able to get away with the crime. Robert Bierman (Vampire's Kiss) directs from a script by Evan Jones (Victory).

"A Bird Poised to Fly" stars Paul Rhys (Chaplin) as a jilted lover who becomes increasingly infatuated with his muse. Fantasies spiral into obsession as his love letters go unreturned. The piece shows shades of Fatal Attraction, but writer/director Damian Harris (Deceived) and writer Nick Villiers (Blood and Wine) opt for a more dramatic character study that isn't nearly as exciting.

"The Stuff of Madness" is directed by Mai Zetterling, better known in front of the camera as Helga from The Witches. Ian Holm (The Lord of the Rings) stars as a man whose wife collects her deceased pets as taxidermy. Meanwhile, he has a peculiar idiosyncrasy of his own: he fantasizes about a mannequin that reminds him of a long-gone mistress. It's sort of like a psychosexual take on that Seinfeld episode in which the gang finds a mannequin that looks just like Elaine.

"Under a Dark Angel’s Eye" is perhaps the most horror-leaning episode, which naturally plays to my tastes. Ian Richardson (From Hell) stars as a man who returns to England after a decade away to oversee the sale of his childhood home. While there, he checks up on his old friends - played by Peter Vaughan (Straw Dogs) and Anna Massey (Peeping Tom) - who look after his overbearing, hateful mother who still haunts him. There's no murder in this one, but it's a dark tale of karma and guilt.

"Something You Have to Live With" ends the series on a fairly strong note. Jessica's (Tuesday Weld, Once Upon a Time in America) dream home turns out to be a nightmare when she kills a robber that breaks into her house. Director John Berry (The Bad News Bears Go to Japan) focuses on the aftermath as the unfortunate incident weighs heavily on her conscience.

Chillers, like any anthology, is hit and miss depending on the episode. It warrants a recommendation for fans of European fare, but don't expect it to compare to the more successful anthologies of yesteryear. Mill Creek Entertainment's new DVD set of the complete series crams all 12 episodes onto two discs. (An out-of-print 2005 release by Echo Bridge Entertainment had three DVDs.) Between the old, standard definition transfers and over five hours of content on each disc, the quality isn't great, but it's watchable.

Chillers: The Complete 12-Part Anthology Series is available now on DVD via Mill Creek Entertainment.

[aion-rsa]

Horror Movie Origin Stories: Directors, Actors, and Writers on How They Fell in Love With the Genre

https://ift.tt/2TABiZr

If you’re a horror fan you’ll have one. A memory of a moment, or a series of moments, where you first felt the thrill of the genre. That sparkly feeling of fear and delight, when you want to look away but you feel like you can’t.

It could be a book, a film, a tv show, a snatched glimpse of something you shouldn’t have seen when you were too young to understand it. We all start somewhere.

Den of Geek spoke to a whole range of top people working in horror movies and tv to find out where it all started. 

Horror fans – let us know your origins stories in the comments!

Clive Barker

Playwright, novelist, film director, and visual artist. Author of Books Of Blood, director of Hellraiser.

“At the age of 15, I went with a friend of mine to see a horror movie called Psycho, which was in a double bill with George Pal’s War of the Worlds. And we mistimed the time of going in to see the movie. We walked in at the end of Psycho. Just the moment that Lila Crane is going down the stairs to the apple cellar, where she will soon encounter the dead Norman Bates’ mother.

That was the first scene I ever saw of a horror movie, honestly. Nothing on television, of course. This is England in the ’60s, so there was nothing on the television. And I was bloody terrified. I had the satisfaction of then watching the movie again, and finding three girls sitting in front of my friend and myself. We knew what was going to happen, and they didn’t. I was 15, and that was a lesson, that I enjoyed vicariously watching people get scared. It’s probably something deeply sick about me. “

Harrowing.

Ben Wheatley

Director of Kill List, Sightseers, High Rise, Rebecca

“Well, I mean there’s two answers. One, the first horror shock that I had would’ve been the end of Carrie. And probably walking into it as a kid not even seeing the rest of the film. And the hand coming out of the ground. I never felt so terrified in my life. I can still feel the contraction of my heart now, of how fundamentally afraid I was about that.

Read more

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How The Twilight Zone Influenced Are You Afraid of the Dark?

By Chris Longo

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Rebecca Ending Explained: Netflix Thriller With a Dark Twist

By Rosie Fletcher

And that was a proper introduction to it. But the other real introduction for me for horror, which is not a horror film, is the public information films of the ’70s that were shown to schoolchildren, which were much more violent and terrifying than anything that was in the cinema.

Which is not throwing Frisbees into electricity substations, don’t play on the railway, don’t play at building sites. And they would show these films and they would show children being killed again and again and again. And you were just like, ‘Oh my God.’ And that it’s so graphic. It was weird because it kind of unbalanced horror, I think, in the UK for a whole generation. Especially because it’s kids dying as well. And you were a kid. There’s a whole thing that’s like a sports day that they do on the railway. They do a series of events and one of them is running up the tunnel. And so these kids, all in their sports gear, run up a tunnel and a train comes down and then they’re all dragged out, arms and legs. And it’s just unbelievably horrible. And so that has haunted me my whole life.”

Jason Blum

Producer, head of Blumhouse Productions

“Well, it was a movie that we did. I mean, the experience I had on Paranormal Activity is what made me want to make scary movies. Not just because it was a hit, but because I finally found… I’d always had straddled studio and independent film. I loved making independent films. I hated independent film distribution. I loved studio distribution, but I really didn’t like making studio films. Horror movies, you could have the best of both worlds. Horror movies, still to this day, are independent movies distributed by studios.

Read more

Movies

How Jason Blum Changed Horror Movies

By Rosie Fletcher

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First Look at Halloween Kills Footage Reveals Return Of Legacy Characters

By Don Kaye

“That for me was a way to get to fly my freak flag, or whatever you want to say with that, to be weird, and different, and make things that were subversive and strange, but have people see them. It’s always been important to me that the TV shows and the movies that I do found a broad audience. They don’t always find one, but I intend to make things that find a broad audience. They don’t always, but I’m always going out the door hoping that they do. That’s what I love horror for. You can do crazy stuff, and it can still find a broad audience.”

Katharine Isabelle

Star of Ginger Snaps, American Mary

“I did not watch horror growing up. I grew up on a small island where the convenience store in town had a little wall at the back with VHS tapes, and we hardly went to town so I had the same three movies growing up. I had like Willy Wonka and The Black Stallion.

One of my favorite movies, it isn’t technically a horror, although I think it is because it is fairly horrific is Apocalypse Now. That has such terrific elements in it, but I never really was introduced to the real horror genre. I watched my first Freddy Krueger movie on set at night in my trailer on Freddy vs. Jason. I think my mean, older boy cousins forced me to watch The Thing or something stupid like that when I was a child. And I was like, ‘arrgghhh!’ I screamed and ran out, so I wasn’t really familiar with the whole genre at all. It wasn’t until Ginger Snaps came along, which I didn’t see as being a horror.

Read more

Movies

Katharine Isabelle on How Ginger Snaps Explored the Horror of Womanhood

By Rosie Fletcher

Movies

John Carpenter’s The Thing Had An Icy Critical Reception

By Ryan Lambie

When I thought of horror before, in my ignorance, it was like scary slasher, monster from the deep stuff. I was into The Abyss. And Apocalypse Now, those are my scary movies. With Ginger I was like, “Oh, this is a really cool movie about a fucked up insecure teenager, exactly like me.” So I just connected with it on that level.”

Daniel Myrick

Director of The Blair Witch Project, Skyman

“I remember loving classics like The Exorcist, The Omen and The Shining back in the day, as well as Jacob’s Ladder, but it may have been indie-hit, The Legend of Boggy Creek sitting in a Florida drive-in that hit me with the horror ‘gut punch’ when I was a kid. It was the first film I watched that was a narrative story made to look like a documentary. It was also about ‘Bigfoot’, (in this case the ‘Fouke Monster’ of Arkansas), which was on everybody’s mind back in those days, so that really hit home. I remember one scene where a kid, about my age at the time, is running through the woods and comes across that hairy beast staring at him in the distance. That one made me jump out of my seat.”

Dan Trachtenberg

Director of 10 Cloverfield Lane and Black Mirror “Playtest”

“A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven, I’ve quoted him throughout my entire career for everything I’ve done. I think he’s a genius. A Nightmare on Elm Street deeply affected me. It’s dealing with our personal histories. It’s dealing with the past and what our parents pass on to their children, and you break cycles. That’s in almost everything I’ve done and everything I continue to think about doing is that thematic. A Nightmare on Elm Street was really the gift that keeps on giving. It’s something that could feel on the one hand so deeply, deeply primally un-scary. I think it’s the scariest idea of all horror movie ideas.”

Rose Glass

Director of Saint Maud

Maybe two films I remember really specifically watching quite early, around the same sort of time. I wouldn’t say either of them are definitely horror films, but they’ve hopefully got a foot in that. That would be Pi, by Darren Aronofsky, and Eraserhead by David Lynch. I just kind of remember the two of them particularly, I think maybe I was, I don’t know, thirteen or something when I saw them both. Those were the first films where I remember my mind starting to shift and be like, “Oh. Films can be like this.” Because I was a massive, Lord of the Rings fan until then. Most of the films I would have seen were things I would have maybe seen at the cinema with my family or on TV, and quite mainstream basically. 

That was when I started to work out maybe, what my personal tastes were a bit more like, and I just found it very exciting to think that somebody could actually do that. So I think, Pi was the first film I remember. I discovered IMDb and would spend hours scrolling through that, reading synopses of different weird films and looking at “Hundred weirdest films of all time” kind of thing. And Pi kept popping up, so I ordered a DVD of that off Amazon. 

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Saint Maud and the True Horror of Broken Minds and Bodies

By Rosie Fletcher

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How A Creepshow Animated Special Pays Tribute to Series Legacy

By Matthew Byrd

With Eraserhead, I think maybe my dad even saw me watching a bit of Pi, or maybe not. I don’t know. But I’d started to make noises about being interested in movies and he came back from work one day and was like, “So I got you this film, it’s the only thing I ever walked out of in the cinema. But maybe if you want to make films, it’s something you should watch.” And it was an old fashioned VHS of Eraserhead. In hindsight I’m like, “That’s such a cool bit of parenting that.” And again, I was just like, “What the fuck is this? This is great.” 

Neil Marshall

Director of Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and more

“I saw Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein and things like that on television and was definitely kind of hooked into that. I remember being so scared of Doctor Who and hiding behind the furniture when I was a little kid when Doctor Who was on. I think inherently, I got some kick out of that. Watching scary movies is both you’re scared of them, but there’s an addiction to it as well.  

I think it was an aunt of mine who had A Pictorial History of Horror Movies by Denis Gifford, in the house. And I would just pour over that book and the pictures just sucked me in. Every time I went round there, I used to look at that book and read it and study about horror. I have my own copy of it now. I think it’s all of these elements just got me into that world really. 

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Movies

Dog Soldiers: The Wild History of the Most Action Packed Werewolf Movie Ever Made

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

13 Must-See Werewolf Movies

By Mike Cecchini

It’s also a timing thing as much as anything, but I was in my teens during the ‘80s, during the origins of VHS, the beginning of rental, the beginning of the whole video nasties thing. And I saw a lot of those films before they were banned or tried to track them down after they were banned. But certainly when VHS came into our houses and we were able to watch whatever we wanted to watch from the rental store, so much of that stuff was horror. And that really sunk its teeth into me there, for sure.”

Corin Hardy

Director of The Hallow, The Nun

“Age 6… on my Grandmothers bed watching King Kong (1933) both terrified and moved to weeping tears at the end when the great beast falls. I wasn’t yet aware but I had been ‘bitten by the monster’.

Aged 7 – 9… a combination of Ray Harryhausen’s creature features that always aired over the xmas period on tv, captivated by the wonderful mythical monsters, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (now thats an epic Horror Movie!) at the local cinema and a triple whammy of The Twilight Zone movie, (“Wanna see something reaaaallly scary?…”) Salems Lot (the kid at the window….) and Alien (sheer utter sci-fi terror) on VHS when the babysitter was over, left me traumatised. Yet infatuated.

American Werewolf In London aged 11, whilst on a family camping holiday on the moors…. (Imagine how that went…) followed by my main gateway/highway into the land of horror at the start of secondary school was when I began to fully accept that this was an addiction/obsession/fascination with the dark side of the genre and the Nightmare On Elm Streets, Halloweens, The Thing, Aliens, Predator, Robocop, Fright Night and all Friday The Thirteenths would consume me…. 

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Fright Night: The Enduring Appeal of the ’80s Vampire Classic

By Don Kaye

Movies

An American Werewolf in London Is Still the Best Horror Reimagining

By David Crow

Largely it was the monsters that I loved, Pumpkinhead, The Blob, The Fly… And the idea that someone was actually paid to make them excited me and I decided that I wanted to do that, so I started creating my own home-made monsters and makeups and basic animatronics in my old bike-shed sculpture studio.

But it was at aged 12 when I think the notion of actually wanting to MAKE HORROR MOVIES struck me like a lightweight bolt, and that came like a shock to the system after beholding the greatest movie to touch mine and your eyeballs…”

  Evil Dead 2

“That film blew my mind wide open with its wicked concoction of creative inventiveness and I was never the same again. Raimi coined a phrase that I think is perfect description of what makes Evil Dead 2 and a lot of his movies of that era as well as 2009’s Drag Me To Hell, the riotous rollercoaster experiences combining gore and gags in double measures. He described them as ’Spook-A-Blast’ – one moment you’re screaming terrified and shortly after you’re uncontrollably laughing and then repeat. Spook-a-blast! But it’s a very fine tuned balance and Evil Dead 2 is the perfect example and as a result it caused me and my group of horror and heavy metal loving friends to instantly pick up a Super 8mm camera, pool our collective paper-round money and shoot Evil Dead, Friday The Thirteenth and Thing-style gory zombie horror movies across our weekends. 

It was through this process of enthused experimentation that I gradually became aware of storyboarding and shot composition, camera movements and timing, as well as the need to get actors better than myself and my mates in front of the camera… And that was a challenge.

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Movies

Living with the Cult Legacy of Evil Dead

By Hannah Bonner

Movies

Evil Dead Movies: The Most Soul Sucking Moments

By David Crow

The monster bug never left me and through my teenage years I continued creating many grotesque designs in latex and strove to get work experience and summer jobs in prop and FX houses in the UK whilst doing my own special effects at home and shooting low fi shorts and music videos, until after studying in a degree at Wimbledon School of Art in sculpture and technical design for the stage and screen I made my first proper short film which was stop-motion ode to Ray Harryhausen entitled Butterly. 

Following the premiere at The Edinburgh Film Festival I began a 10 year career as a music video director making 50+ music videos for the likes of Keane, The Horrors, Biffy Clyro and The Prodigy, whilst developing a number of my own horror features, which eventually culminated in getting my own debut ‘creature feature’ The Hallow into Sundance in 2015 followed by my first studio picture for ‘The House That Freddy Built’ – New Line pictures The Nun in 2018. There are plenty more monsters on the horizon….”

Christopher Landon

Director Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, Freaky

“Oh God. Well, I remember the first time I saw something terrifying in a film and it really left its mark on me. My parents were watching Psycho and I was supposed to be in bed. I snuck out of my room, I went into their room and I hid behind a chair in their room and they didn’t know I was there. I was watching it and there’s the scene where Norman Bates, towards the end of the film, comes charging down the stairs dressed as his mother. It scared the living shit out of me. But I remember that charge, and I remember that feeling of wanting to see more, even though I started screaming and I got caught.

That was the bug for me. My parents divorced when I was pretty young and my dad, which is probably not good parenting, but it worked for me, he let my sister and I start watching horror movies at a pretty early age. We were just obsessed with them. We saw everything. It was an interesting childhood.”

Rob Savage

Director of Host

My parents tried to raise me without TV, which backfired horribly. Their protectiveness only made me want to watch as many films as possible, the nastier the better. I hid a portable TV under my bed and spent my Sundays browsing car-boot sales, the only places I could get hold of 18 certificate VHS, which I then hid within a loose wall cavity in my basement. Whenever my parents left the house, I’d stick on a Video Nasty and revel in the sleaze. 

I was all about the gore, but every now and then I’d watch a film that made me pause. Hellraiser, Candyman, The Thing. There was something going on in these movies beyond the viscera. I realised that these movies were actually… good? Until that point, I’d never really considered horror as anything beyond a fuck-you to my parents rules, but slowly I began to tune in to their unique frequency. I still get a kick from trashy gore movies (I have Cannibal Apocalypse on in the background while I write this) but from that point forward I became a horror evangelist – no other genre can reach the heights that the best horror does

David Kerr

Director of Inside No. 9

“It would be The Innocents, because it’s a film that, on the surface, seems reassuringly similar to other black and white films that were shown when I was a kid growing up in Northern Ireland in the 70s, that I just chanced upon on TV. It looked like it could be an Ealing Comedy, because it was black and white and on BBC Two, but it’s a really chilling, terrifying film.

Seeing that was pretty much a wallop, and when you’re forming your taste as a kid or a teenager, that’s what speaks to you. On the one hand, it’s ‘I don’t want to see that again’, but also… ‘I want to see that again!’ That’s really what horror is about. You have a feeling of terror and attraction at the same time. Take it away! Don’t show it to me! Can I see it again?“

James Kniest

Cinematographer of Hush and The Haunting of Bly Manor

“I saw The Exorcist when I was way too young and it still sticks with me. It scared the bejesus out of me as a kid. The next film that really affected me like that was The Ring as an adult. I don’t know why. I’m not particularly afraid of the Freddy Kruegers and the Chuckys and things like that. I’m more afraid of this kind of evil that is harbored in every human to some degree and also the devil really. So those kinds of things scare me, the stuff that’s more psychological.

It’s funny because Cape Fear isn’t really a horror movie, but it sure is scary. Those kinds of things I think that are really possible are the ones that scare me and that I kind of always think about and less the slasher kind of stuff.”

Rachel Talalay

Director of Tank Girl, Doctor Who, and A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting

“There are two types of people. There are the ones who love horror and want to be more scared and are challenging themselves. And then there’s the people who are scared of absolutely everything. And as a kid I was scared of absolutely everything. So the original Star Trek and Twilight Zone, absolutely. And then when I had access to Doctor Who, that got added to that list of just… those images in my head that wouldn’t go away and terrified me. I was even scared of Time Tunnel, which is really cheesy. And of course I was terrified of the monkeys in Wizard of Oz.”

Natalie Erika James

Director of Relic

“I was a real scaredy-cat as a kid, could not handle anything, was scared of E.T. even. I would have really bad nightmares, would crawl into my parents’ bed in the middle of the night until I was seven. Really a scaredy-cat. 

But it was probably when I was about 11, the first film that I went and saw with friends, without parental supervision, was The Others and it scared me shitless. So I was so terrified. And I remember sitting backwards in my seat just so that I didn’t have to look at the screen but feeling such joy at having survived that experience with my friends. And that was quite incredible. Not dissimilar to going on a roller coaster or something like that. The closest you can get to death without dying or something like that. So it kind of started there. 

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How Relic Explores our Most Primal Fears

By Rosie Fletcher

TV

Talalay’s Terrors! The Director Breaks Down Her 5 Scariest Scenes

By Kayti Burt

And then in my early teens, again at sleepovers, we would watch horror films and scare ourselves. So that was probably my way into it. I also was really into darker fairytales. Slowly, I became more interested in Gothic horror literature as well. So probably more from a reading perspective. And then when I went to film school I started making dark psychological drama and then, slippery slope, I just slowly started embracing more extreme horror elements from there.”

Kevin McKidd

Star of Dog Soldiers and Rome

I loved…I mean ‘80s horror movies were my jam. The Nightmare on Elm Streets, all that stuff. Poltergeist was  huge for me. Obviously, The Shining… That movie was huge. Alien, the original Alien movie still has this psychological hold over me.

Roman Coppola

Visual effects and second unit director of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, screenwriter of Moonrise Kingdom

“As a kid, I had one particular friend who really deeply loved horror movies. In fact, his mother was in Dementia 13. His name was Jeffrey Patton, and his mother was Mary Patton, who was one of the actors in Dementia 13 [under the name Mary Mitchel], which of course was my Dad’s horror movie that he made as a young man. And we used to watch horror movies. So when I think of that genre, I think of films, and again, particularly the canon of Universal Movie Monsters.

I became very interested in makeup when I was a kid, theatrical makeup. And so Jack Pierce is sort of a hero to people who love that kind of thing, you know the Famous Monsters of Filmland [magazine]. There’s a lot of fan activity. There’s a guy named Forrest Ackerman, who I had the pleasure of meeting, and he had a wonderful selection of horror memorabilia, and he’s very generous to let me do tours of his home. In fact, I think he has the ring, Dracula’s ring from the film and had a lot of King Kong armatures, a lot of great stuff.

Read more

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

Movies

Michael Myers vs Pinhead: The Hellraiser/Halloween Crossover That Never Was

By Jack Beresford

… I think of the horror movies, and especially this particular friend, Jeff Patton, who introduced me to all that. In terms of literature, reading, it’s not really the same, but the Grimms’ Fairy Tales are something that I had a selection of. I used to read those, and of course, they’re very outrageously kind of gruesome and kind of shocking and horror-esque. So that’s kind of what I think of when I think of horror in reading and films.”

Sean Pertwee

Star of Dog Soldiers, Event Horizon, Doomsday

“I was sort of obsessed with ghosts. With my father being an actor, we stayed many times in lots of different places, wherever he was filming we used to rent and I had a few experiences myself. My mom absolutely doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she has had the most horrendous experiences of anyone being a non-believer. I, on the other hand, do and I had quite a few experiences. Coal thrown at us, bouncing balls, all the cliche’ stuff really.

With my cousin, we used to tune in when we were very little because there were only three channels in this country at the time. We used to tune in to the television and listen to Ingrid Pitt, Christopher Lee, and all these wonderful people. All the Hammer House of Horror movies, we used to tune in and listen to them on the radio to freak ourselves out when we were little. But I always loved it. Village of the Damned, all those kinds of movies, I loved that style of movie making.” 

Brannon Braga

Director Books of Blood

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“I think the first movie I saw in the theater as a kid, which was probably ill-advised, was Tales from the Crypt. The 1972 one. More memorably, seeing John Carpenter’s Halloween at age 12 was very similar to the Psycho experience that Clive [Barker] described, in that the audience was going berserk like I’ve never seen an audience do. In fact, you can go to YouTube. Somebody tape recorded an audience reaction in 1978 to the last three minutes of Halloween. You have to listen to it, because it’s an old movie now. But at the time, people are going crazy from the suspense. It was the filmmaking. I wanted to make movies like this.”

The post Horror Movie Origin Stories: Directors, Actors, and Writers on How They Fell in Love With the Genre appeared first on Den of Geek.

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