#Horror Subversion

[azurelightsmith09]

Idea for a Story #5

Idea for a webcomic/youtube series: one of those analog horror monster stories where the monster looks human but isn't, but, it's from the perspective of the monster.

Premise: protag is part of an unspecified species of monsters that can shapeshift to look like humans and have lived underground for thousands of years. a couple of centuries ago, small groups of these monsters (which I'll call "lookalikes" as their generic analog horror monster name given to them by the humans; doesn't really matter what they're called given the focus of the story) emerged from the underground to begin preparations for what the lookalikes have come to call "The Great Emergence", where millions, possibly tens of millions, of lookalikes from across the world will emerge from the underground to join human society and gradually take over the world by simply eating the humans until they outnumber them.

The plan for The Great Emergence is as follows: 1.) a first generation of lookalikes will study the humans for several years/decades, learning all they can about how to look and act human, including human language, appearances, habits/mannerisms, etc., integrating themselves into human society as completely as possible to sell the illusion. --This will be the part of the plan considered most likely to fail, as the lookalikes haven't mastered how to look and act human, hence why only a small group are doing it to reduce suspicion. 2.) a second, slightly larger generation of lookalikes will emerge to act as the "children" of the first generation, learning everything that their "parents" learned in order to blend in more seamlessly, while the "parents" will eventually return to the underground to teach the rest of the lookalikes how to be human once their "children" are sufficiently integrated. --an example of one of the trickier things they needed to learn is that they have to start out small and gradually grow bigger overtime to normal human size, but only for a couple of decades or they will grow too big and arouse suspicion. another tricky one is "adding more loose skin" after about half a century on the surface, and acting frailer when they've spent almost a full century on the surface 3.) a third, even larger generation of lookalikes will later emerge and integrate themselves into human society on their own, to prove that the first generation's teachings to the underground would work effectively enough that, at the time of The Great Emergence, they'll all be able to integrate effectively, and eventually replace the human race as their numbers dwindle. --this is the generation that our protag is part of, and theirs will be generation that will herald The Great Emergence. And of course throughout all three generations of lookalikes, they've been killing and eating humans, but doing so only on rare occasions to avoid suspicion, and usually only going for people society won't miss. Humans have plenty of other meats that can be consumed in the meantime, but eating them raw with the skins still on is considered abnormal (humans are such picky eaters).

This is the state of the world that our protag is in, living a simple but fulfilling life; at least, they assume humans would consider it fulfilling: living in an apartment, hanging out with friends (both human and fellow lookalikes), even working a job at the local town's meat processing factory (which is also run by a lookalike, so the lookalike employees there get to "sample" the meats they process whenever their hunger would risk them getting exposed). Despite the latter benefit, protag still likes to kill humans, as do many others of her generation of lookalikes, and society is starting to take notice. Despite this, with The Great Emergence on the horizon, protag's generation aren't caring too much about it.

So the story would follow protag's life before, during, and after The Great Emergence occurs, and how their life and the world around them changes as a result.

Not sure about individual details at the moment, but the story could go many different ways, depending on the desired tone of the story: --maybe protag made a human friend that they decide they don't want to see killed during the emergence transition --maybe protag doesn't care about the humans, and we just follow their monstrous life going from place to place as the analog horror scenario goes on around them (and they are actively part of it) --maybe this third generation brought too much attention to the lookalikes, and The Great Emergence either meets resistance or fails entirely, and now the roles are reversed with protag being the victim and the humans being the monsters

Lots of options.

[saintmelangell]

to be fully honest this new trend of remaking and sanitizing not only gothic fiction and its genres (hill house, dorian grey, turn of the screw) and horror movies more generally (carrie, the exorcist) point to much more serious cultural movement than the death of art or the death of horror as a genre in the mainstream. specifically it is gesturing to a sanitizing effect in which cultural authority has now deemed the subversive as worthy of living but only if it is a) commodified and b) divested of all its subversive elements. we can play-act at feminism, trans inclusion, and anti-racism as long as it serves a corporate interest and does not actually challenge cultural authorities. we can adopt its aesthetics as something to be sold without actually inhabiting it ideologically. it is the newest manifestation of cultural authorities anesthetizing effect on anything that threatens it and it is becoming more and more prevalent. anyway i want to beat mike flanagan with hammers

[snowyllama-art]

I think transformers should lean more into the uncanny aspects, especially with their alt modes. As a treat. Like, at a first glance everything looks normal, but there are little things that only mechanics and car nerds pick up on, details that don't line up with the model, and even though it's turned off, something about it feels alive, and there's this lingering feeling that it's watching those who come near.

[sleepynegress]

AKELA COOPER, you brilliant sonuvabitch genre writer.... The fact that HELL FEST, MALIGNANT, and M3GAN are all written from a Black woman's gaze and are mostly dwelling in the "camp" space... IMO, makes the larger sociological niches she's mining (akin to Romero's Dawn of the Dead in sociopolitical prescience) that much more invisible in how apt and *well* she's doing it. But society will eventually catch-up. Her debut, HELL FEST was about a white man, a normal person day-to-day who hides a horrific alter-ego to kill for one night, which gives so many of the Christian family men online calling Rachel Zegler a "cunt"... MALIGNANT was ultimately about women's body autonomy, choice and sisterhood, beneath all the *amazingly* fun bloody campy action scenes. ...And finally, we have M3GAN, who unlike the naive Alita: Battle Angel (written from the male gaze), is snarky, in control, and perfectly aware of how to manipulate the gaze on her girl-child-like visage to her own control and advantage. Also, ...the usage of Britney Spears?! *PER-FECT* People keep sleeping on Akela Cooper and one day, they'll catch-up.

[clockworkreapers]

I was re watching your tftgs vol 3 animation to the song carolina reaper, and like, I was thinking about the beginning and the ending. In the beginning a group stereotypical tropey college kids come in and where they should have gotten a seemingly creepy gas station owner for a failing establishment, they got an almost normal gas station attendant of a normal gas station, and at the end, jack is a creepy gas station owner for a failing establishment, and he's expecting perhaps the final girl that he gave the gun to, but he gets the Ouija board toting jokester as the final person.

YEAH and there is something great about that and its SO very Tales From The Gas Station which parodies and flips known horror tropes on its head at nearly every turn or uses them in ways that are a bit unexpected. Its really interesting seeing it from the other side because Jack is the weird kinda off gas station clerk you see in horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, AHS 1984, Cabin In The Woods I could go on and on. (side note TFTGS is the Cabin In The Woods of creepypasta no one can change my mind, if you have seen it you know why I say this, if you haven't go watch it trust me it makes sense) All of that stuff is very fun cuz in most stories its also like yeah, Jack would be the side character not the main protagonist cuz he really is "just a guy". But fate has it out for that man and the universe said nope you are the main character weather you like it or not thus you will also become the trope. Now that is what I call poetic irony. Also becoming the thing he tried to refuse to become at the start cuz he didn't want to play the universes game. Nah sorry man you have a role and the universe is gonna make you play it either way.

[teashopcrafts]

Love how the red turned out on this one!

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[greenesmyfavcolor]

Ya know, it's cool how they brought back minor characters from the 60's film even if they didn't have a place in the musical. They briefly mentioned Mrs. Shiva who was a proper character that appeared a lot in the 60's movie and then in the 1986 film, they even added the masochist character back as Arthur Denton.

That's nice and all but where is the flower-eating guy?? They couldn't have found somewhere to put him like in the movie as a gag in the background or mention him during something like Call Back in the Morning? Missed opportunity if you ask me.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

we need more feminist horror

[jesncin]

What are your thoughts/takes on General Zod and other Evil Kryptonians of that ilk? Zod's been characterised and backstory'd very differently across the different iterations and I was wondering how you'd approach him (and associated characters like Ursa, Non, Astra, etc), especially in relation to your ideas of Krypton as a socialist utopia struck down by arrogance - where does the mean military man fit into this paradigm?

While I don't have a solidified idea for Zod and evil Kryptonians yet- I personally prefer imagining groups like them as a fringe movement within utopia-Kryptonian society. I'm even tempted to remove the idea of any organized military entirely and just have it so a few Kryptonians believe (because their society is so great) that Krypton should expand- but this is a small group and not something backed by Kryptonian leaders/government.

I was really into what CW Supergirl did with Reign (I'm not familiar with her comics version so the show is all I know), where she's this product of a Kryptonian cult and it's basically the horror version of "ordinary person discovers they have superpowers" in a fascinating way. Basically just because Krypton is a utopia, doesn't mean its beliefs are a monolith followed by all Kryptonians and I think you can get really interesting characters out of that set up.

[ciderjacks]

I made this bc I feel like I actually love horror more than most people it’s just that most horror movies think they need to kill characters off or it’s not scary, which ironically actually usually means the movie is way less scary

[themonkey2025]

cuckoo had a lot of things working against it in terms of audience reception (not least the fact that it was a neon drop immediately following longlegs) but i honestly think it was mostly just. its firm insistence on the sincerity of premises that a 2024 audience doesn't expect or want. like. the cultural obsession right now is a grief/trauma horror subgenre, and has been since babadook. and cuckoo tricks its audience into thinking it's going to be another entry into the trauma horror canon by allowing gretchen to have a dead mother, but then it swerves to be actually about queer feminism, white patriarchy, colonialism, and eugenics. it's a gotcha! they're having fun with genre expectations!!! and so it leaves the audience feeling stupid because they're unable to interpret the film through a trauma horror framework, which is what they went in expecting, and their only option when they feel stupid is to accuse the movie of being messy and nonsensical. but ALSO, even apart from that, cuckoo is. a monster movie!!! cuckoo is straight up just a MONSTER movie and we don't see all that many of those anymore!!! and not only that but its monster is so wacky and zany and bonkers and original that it's even further putting off an audience who ALREADY don't like monster movies. and so again they have to accuse it of being a disaster and its plot not making any sense when actually it's like. the plot makes total sense. everything relevant to the plot is answered by the film itself. there are maybe some worldbuilding or lore things that are left unanswered but they don't impact the viewing experience. it's just that cuckoo is doing something different than what audiences demand from horror in 2024. and i PERSONALLY think that's what makes it the best release of all time

[lollytea]

I was 13 when Gravity Falls came out, which was the perfect age to really get swept up in all the secret codes/theories/general ooky spooky vibes of the fandom. It really was one of the most exciting experiences I've ever had with a TV show. I wouldn't have had this much fun if I wasn't 13. If I had just been a few years older, I would have been significantly smarter. But I WASNT. So I thought I was watching some sinister creepypasta type shit somehow sneak its way onto Disney Channel. I thought it was run by the Illuminati even though I didn't actually know what the illuminati was. I thought the cute silly vibe was all a ruse and it was eventually gonna take a really scary bloody gorey turn. I thought the show was gonna end in the twins getting ritualistically sacrificed or something. I thought Mabel was gonna get betrayed by Lebam.

[khulthuskaotika]

[elliesgaymachete]

the interesting thing about alien: romulus is how the original alien movie was about how one of the most terrifying things for a man would be the loss of bodily autonomy akin to pregnancy with an alien gestating inside of you and eventually being born from you in a way that kills you (which CAN happen with human pregnancy) and then alien: romulus decided to bring it all the way back around and said what if a woman was pregnant and wanted the baby but instead accidentally turned it into a humanoid alien parasite that she had to give birth to and while she survived the birth she was eventually killed by her own alien child when all she wanted was for her baby to see the sun

[wizardyke]

the okay yay ❤️ meme has started to piss me off bc americans & other first worlders really do need to give a fuck about the state of the world. every so often there will be a movement among these so called progressives which boils down to "its okay to never ever give onr about the state of the world and those people who aremt even people in other countries necause they donr matter. treat YOURSLEF ❤️❤️❤️" as if its not incredibly tonedeaf and bullshit. i understand burnout and i understand not spreading yourself thin but i seriously think you guys are beginning to faint at the concept of caring about other people.

[arolesbianism]

Sometimes I just look at Isabeau and just know that if isat came out and I got into it when I was like 16 he would be my favorite character and I would've gone absolutely buck wild over this man and feel like he was laser targeting me. But alas Odile has a grip of steel on me rn due to her virtue of being a middle aged woman