windy-red-lady

[bare1ythere]

-

[la5t-res0rt]

this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone 

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces 

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either 

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara 

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives​ or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic 

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know 

lets squiggle down just a bit further 

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much 

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this 

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit 

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not 

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes 

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah 

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

[curtashiism]

Long rant/vent ahead

It’s hard, because I know I genuinely love biology. I love learning about anatomy and physiology, and I have an affinity for bio as a whole. But I don’t know that it’s really what I want to do, and I feel like I was never given the chance to fully explore what I actually wanted to do because of my mom’s manipulative behavior to me growing up.

When I was younger I wanted to do something with music, but my mom told me I wouldn’t be good enough. I didn’t have the talent my sister did at the cello, which was why they sunk so much money into her cello rental and lessons but wouldn’t get me any lessons.

My mom told me future was in academics and I never really questioned it. Her grandma had a premonition (my mom’s words, not mine) that I would go into the sciences. So my mom never let me consider anything else. She tried her best to shut any other ideas I had down. She never came to a single one of my track meets when I ran in 8th grade. I mean, I finished dead last in every race except the one time I finished second to last, but that’s not the point. I shouldn’t have had to be good to earn her involvement. But that’s how it was with her. She only cared when it was something I was good at- academics. She’d come to the awards ceremonies when I made honor roll, but never cared about my other interests.

So I settled on the medical field at some point- I thought a doctor or vet for a while but I’m not good enough at math, physics, or chem, so now I’m thinking public health.

Before I started college, I wanted to take a break from school, get a job, and figure things out. But my mom didn’t want that. She thought if I did that, I’d never go back to school, and we couldn’t have that now could we? So she did what she does- she manipulated the situation to get what she wanted to my detriment. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want loans. She said “we all go into debt, suck it up” and told me if I didn’t start the next term she would kick me out.

So I did. Then once I had the loans finalized, she told me she was never going to kick me out, she just wanted me to “get my life together.” Because clearly it’s not my right to make those decisions, it’s hers, and if I wasn’t ready to start college at 19 my life must have been falling apart.

So now here I am, entering my senior year of college at 26 years old, panicking because I need to start preparing for a Master’s program but I don’t FEEL ready at all and I’m not sure this is actually what I want to do. I like the arts. I want to learn more about them. I want to learn to play the violin, I want to see if I can act (I’m practicing voice acting and am loving it and my friends say I actually am not bad at it and I have a cute voice perfect for child characters), or maybe even try to write a play (I love theater and I love writing.) Hell, I think I’d be happier joining the Peace Corps or going to the Kalahari Desert to volunteer with the meerkat study project for a year. I’m not ready for grad school- but I feel like I HAVE TO do it.

But that’s the thing. I try so hard to get my mom to approve of my decisions for just ONCE in her life. But even when I do exactly what she wants it doesn’t happen. She wanted me to do the science stuff to begin with- but when I tell her there’s a couple of MPH programs down in NYC, I would just need to finally get my driver’s license and a car, she starts making me defend my decision. She asks all these questions that make it sound like I’m some kind of idiot for wanting to get a Master’s degree. And maybe I fucking am, but not for the reason she thinks.

I told her I was going to learn the violin and her reaction was to get mad that I asked if I could practice it in the apartment during my visit home. When it looked like I was going to get to study abroad in London, before COVID, she made it all about her and her letting go issues.

When I graduated with my Associate’s degree- I’m the only one in the immediate family to do so, by the way- my mom cried before my graduation. Because she was devastated it wasn’t my sister.

And I honestly don’t know why I still even try. I know she has four kids but only cares about one. She will NEVER care about me or actually be proud of me. Not if I get a Master’s degree, not if I become a doctor, not if I became a tapdancing polyglot brain surgeon who cures cancer on the moon. She isn’t capable of it. On top of that, she has no grasp on who I actually am as a person.

She has a twisted and distorted view of me where I am a manifestation of all the things she fears are true of herself. All the things she doesn’t want to be, she projects onto me. She calls me hateful and judgmental and mean because I tell her not to call me when she’s been drinking. One single, solitary boundary I request and that’s too much for her. She was jealous of me as an INFANT because my dad doted on me. You have no idea how many times she’s been in the middle of a bender and accused me and my dad of literal incest because we’re close. “You’re his second wife” “there’s some Mormon shit going on between you two!” She doesn’t know the first thing about me. She told all my relatives that I only was in the orchestra as a teen because I wanted to be like my sister, not because I actually liked to play.

I do not admire a single thing about my fucking sister. This is the same sister who conspired with my first boyfriend and got him to sexually abuse me. The same sister who got high on meth and fucking raped our little brother. The same sister who told me about this while she was blackout drunk, then licked my neck. The same sister whose behavior I told to my mom and got a response of “well to be fair I’ve fantasized about your neck too!” Oh but see, if my mom was to be believed, my fucking sister never did anything to hurt my little brother, no sir. He made it up for attention, and I “planted lies in his head because I wanted to prove an agenda about men being able to be raped by women.” Because she thinks I’m so evil I would use my little brother as a pawn for a social experiment just to hurt my sister.

I don’t admire anything about my sister. I barely even fucking feel sorry that she fell into sex trafficking and had the same thing done to her that she did to my little brother. I should be upset about it, but I just feel apathetic, especially since she got to see her abuser put behind bars while my little brother is still dragged out to visit her every time my folks (who he still lives with as an adult) decide to see her. She’s a shitty person. The world will be a better place when she fucking dies. She convinces everyone she meets that she’s a wonderful person because she tells them what a long journey she’s been on and how she’s working so hard to heal through her faith (conveniently leaving out the part where she victimized others as much as she was a victim herself). Bitch, you don’t get a cookie because you fucking went five years without sexually abusing your younger siblings. Jesus isn’t fucking proud of you. I’m certainly not.

But of course, since she’s the one my mom favors, she can do no wrong. My mom is no better than her in my eyes.

So that brings it back to, why the FUCK do I want her approval?

Why the fuck do I care?

She certainly doesn’t care about me. If all the above shit isn’t proof, the fact that she got drunk when I was 15 and said she wished she could kill me is. The fact that she gave me PTSD from all the shit she put me through is proof. The fact that she made me coming out as a lesbian all about her is proof. The fact that she would go on a hateful rant about trans people- even though she doesn’t know I am, she knows I care deeply about the issues which should be enough but some isn’t- is proof. The fact that she honestly can NOT remember what my birthday is and has to be reminded by my dad is proof. The fact that she once called me a bitch on my birthday, which she forgot was my birthday until my little brother reminded her, is proof. The fact that she tried to tear my dad and I apart because she was too insecure to handle my dad “choosing his kids over her” is proof. The fact that she put me in the position of having to let her scream and throw things at me to protect my younger brother, because the alternative was letting her hurt him instead, is proof. The fact that I self-harmed for nearly a decade because of her and only got clean when I moved 3,000 miles away (what a coincidence!) is proof.

She’s fucking sick and is never going to be anything approaching a good mother to me because she doesn’t see me as me, she just makes me the lightning rod for her anger whenever she gets pissed off. When she’s pissed off, I’m an emotional punching bag, and when she’s hurting I’m a substitute therapist who will do all the emotional heavy lifting for her because she fucking knows how to use my compassion and guilt complex against me.

She has reasons, in her head, for why I’m so awful and deserving of her anger, which it took me years to learn weren’t actually excuses because I was a CHILD and she had no right to hold shit against me. And I know the truth is that she’s never proud of me because she doesn’t actually want my success- especially not when my sister doesn’t have it. She treats me the best, the nicest, when I fail, because that’s what she wants for me, even if she pretends otherwise. She’s sick and she’s so determined to play victim for her whole fucking life that she will never NOT be sick this way.

And I’m even sicker than she is because I still try after all these years. The real definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I just keep getting my hopes up that one day, I will say the magic words that will make her actually be supportive. Like if I get a magical piece of paper to show her she’ll think I’m actually worth something, but she never will and I’m an idiot for hoping. If she hasn’t got it by now, she never will. My dad loves me for me, my brothers loves me for me, my grandma loves me for me, my aunts and uncles and cousins love me for me, my friends love me for me- it’s just my mom who can’t figure out that I’m worth more than what I can do for her.

Fuck her. I’m either going to go to grad school or I’m not, but whatever I do will be awesome. I might act or play the violin or write plays or I might study ethnomusicology, or who knows, maybe I will go through with this public health stuff. Either way I’ll be surrounded with people who actually see me for me and are capable of feeling joy at my accomplishments. Maybe I’ll stupidly keep trying to include her, but I’ll have others around me when she inevitably disappoints me yet again. And she can’t say the same because she drives everyone who might care about her away.

[solunova]

hey uh ib is... como se dice... a Fuck. like as someone who is still trying to recover psychologically after graduating and getting my diploma. like i was Smart Good At School and hung out with Smart Good At School and we were all dying the entire time. you may have some issues but like. shit's fucked man

(Another Anonymous said: Hey don’t stress yourself too much with ib stuff, they suck now and are so freaking stressful but they are definitely steps that will help you down the road (coming from someone who definitely credits all the ia and shit I had to write to helping me rewrite a 10 page college paper 3 days before it’s due and get an a on it) these things have their place in you academic journey (also don’t stress the ioc’s too much you have that knowledge in your brain you can do it!))

i guess before i start: thank you two. person 1 for validation in my pain and 2 for encouragement that ill be okay and that it isnt all for naught. i appreciate both of yall! 

but its my birthday at 1:40 am and im fucking SAD cause im up trying to write my entire bio ia due friday after some Complications came up so this is gonna be a mostly negative retrospective of my last two years and the circumstances that ive lived in due to the ib

i refuse to put this under a cut yall scroll past word walls anyways

so heres my hot and absolutely original take: i recognize that ib is extremely beneficial in certain regards. i know from everyone who took it telling me that its good for college experience and all that kind of stuff, both on a knowledge/content level and on, as person 2 describes, an “i cant get off my ass to write this paper in time” level and being able to compensate for that. i agree with that! I am extremely grateful for an increased class difficulty, especially in the fields where i knew what was happening already and spent classes bored until ib. and like! ib english is the first goddamn time ive EVER talked about the evils of imperialism and colonialism in an academic setting. that shit is vital to our future and yet no normal class talks about it!!! its terrible! and ib history is the first time ive ever enjoyed a history class and gotten even a margin of a good feeling out of it. like there are some really good parts of ib that ive written every damn college entry essay ive gotten on. i Know.

but like okay lets start with the fact that going into this that they (as in all ib teachers) were like “oh itll break you out of procrastination! itll teach you to constantly be studying!!! its what you need for college!!!!!” when it has done all of jack and shit to help us achieve that. its just kind of put us in the lions den and let us scramble at the walls for a foothold to get out or at least survive, maimed and depraved. if it sees us stopping to catch our breath, it shoots at our feet. the ibo extorts our misery to feed their mirth

lets also acknowledge that dumb fucks who take full ib, or even worse, those taking pseudo full ib (ie all classes but no diploma cause their extended essay busted and they gave up ie me) mostly take it due to extreme pressure, be it from their schools, their family, or their own psyche, saying they arent good enough if they dont take the highest offered classes, or even more that if they arent doing well in those classes its a product of their own shortcomings and then spend most of the rest of the time in ib degrading themselves because no matter how much time they put in they cant be the best and all that fun stuff. ib kids are put on a sort of pedestal by the school but then left on their own. 

i, of course, see this as a much greater academic institution integrated mindset that needs to be addressed and challenged, but to force it on kids who have to not only go through with it for the next four years, but also because its targeted at these kids that are higher achieving “gifted and talented” fucking whatever, most likely the rest of their lives?

its straight up psychologically damaging to give such a rigorous course load and no help for the effects and self esteem issues from it, no help for the people who dont know how to give up and instead run themselves in the fucking dirt and strain themselves to the edges of their goddamn sanity, spending what little time is left in their adolescence treating themselves like shit

idealistically, ib is wonderful. i think it carries out some of its best traits (integrating global thinking, allowing a more freeform discussion of many things, etc), but i also recognize how absolutely full of shit it is in many corners (regarding encouraging service, intellectual honesty, whatever else), one, and that a lot of people are just.. not up to the task. they may have the ability intellectually, but not mentally. i firmly believe that anyone can do anything if they set their minds to it but i have become the victim of my own philosophy because that came at the expense of my well-being.

and the fact that when i tried to tell my coordinator this she a) did not let me just NOT do the ee despite how strained i was(which i didnt end up doing, lick my whole dick mrs kurtz) and stole my summer from me because between being depressed as hell at gsp i was a nervous wreck about what they could do to me or how i was going to accomplish anything that i needed to, and that i havent had a proper break from school in three straight years, that im still running on empty essentially and b) that when i told the other ib coordinator, 4 months later, theres not a souls chance in hell that i was gonna fucking do it, that she lectured me and made me cry in class about how “you cant see the forest for the trees” “thisll help you later in life” “youre throwing away jobs” all that fun stuff like

its evil

the lack of care that often goes into it

the extreme magnitude of work that, sure, is feasibly possible for a 16-18 year old to do, but here theyre expected to

the fact that the classes fall in a time where gpa is so absolutely vital to colleges and scholarships (and given that its these ib kids’ personality and intellectual dispositions, even more so - both in esteem and necessity)

the fact that so many of the classes and so much of the coursework is empty, ultimately

its kind of a bad system

not even to MENTION the egotistical complexes, both inwardly as addressed and outwardly as in being the most godawful kind of people that manifests in these people that think theyre gods gift to the world cause they took ib and “if you spend time bitching about ib you deserve to fail because that was time you could have spent working” like you sound like the worst kind of person and i dont fucking care. theres a girl in my classes who is so upset every time someone doesnt listen to her because she thinks everything she has to say is the goddamn gospel and ib really attracts these kinds of people and its the WORST

[introverthufflepuff]

Baggage Boy (Peter Parker x Reader) Part 2

Hey Y'all. So no one asked me to write a part 2 but I did it anyways cause I’m bored. Enjoy :*

You nervously picked at your sleeve as you walked into Midtown School of Technology and Science. The halls were filled with unfamiliar faces, and you pushed down your growing anxiety. Your old school was a fraction of this one, and you knew you would get lost a lot. Especially because of your awful sense of direction.

You really didn��t know how you qualified for the school. You were smart, sure, but not as smart as a lot of the other kids there. You tried not to get lost in a hole of self-doubt as you tried to find your locker.

Successfully finding it, you put in the combination and shoved your lunch and books you didn’t need in the locker. When you shut your locker, you saw Peter walking towards you from the other direction. A smile spread across your face, and you gave him a small, timid wave. He did the same, catching up to you.

“Hey, Y/N.” He said as you two began to walk to your first class.

“Hey, Peter.” You said with a nervous voice.

“What’s your first class?” He asked, looking at the schedule in your hands.

“AP Biology with Mr. Weeks?” You said, looking at Peter to see if he had the same.

“Me too! We have four classes together and lunch.” Peter had the brightest smile you’d ever seen.

“Oh, good. I don’t know how I’m going to survive this day. I’m the worst at making new friends.” You said, nervously twiddling your thumbs.

“I find that hard to believe,” Peter said with a disbelieving look in his dark brown eyes.

“Believe it, Parker. I’m the most antisocial hermit there ever was.”

Peter laughed, bumping your shoulder with his. You found yourself relaxing with him, and thinking that maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad day. Not if Peter was there.

As you two walked into your class, everyone seemed to be staring at you. Becoming nervous again, you walked close to Peter, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone. When you were sat down towards the back of the room, you let out a long sigh.

“Why is everyone staring at me?” You whispered to Peter with panicked eyes.

“Maybe because you’re the prettiest girl in the school,” Peter said with genuine sincerity.

You merely scoffed, hiding your burning cheeks. You wouldn’t believe that for a second.

“That’s definitely not it.” You said, avoiding Peter’s eyes.

“It definitely is.” He said with his charming smile. 

Rolling your eyes in disbelief, focusing on the teacher walking to the center of the room. The old man’s eyes met yours briefly, and he lit up.

“A new student!” He said in excitement.

You just smiled politely, wanting to crawl into a dark hole and stay there forever. You hated having all the attention on you, it was overwhelming.

“What’s your name?” He asked with a kind smile.

“Y/N L/N. I moved here from Michigan.” You said, not looking at anyone but the teacher.

“Michigan, huh? That’s pretty far. Well, welcome, Y/N. We’re all glad to have you.”

“Thanks.” You said in a small voice.

Peter nudged you with his elbow. You looked at him curiously.

“You’re definitely going to be his new favorite. After me, of course.” He said with his blinding smile.

You just rolled your eyes again. At least Peter was there to make you feel better. Otherwise, you’d be in your dark hole of self-deprecation and doubt. And that’s a bad place to be.

~

You made it to lunch with Peter and his friend Ned. Ned was very kind to you, and all three of you shared your love for Star Wars and all things geeky. However, you’d been hassled with questions from random people all day, asking where you came from, and if you had a boyfriend. You blushed when a boy in your French class asked you that.

But you could finally relax at lunch. Sitting next to a girl named MJ with Peter and Ned across from you, you could feel comfortable enough to talk again.

“Why’d you pick these losers to be your friends?” MJ asked with pure curiosity.

“Why’d you pick them to be your friends?” You countered with a sweet smile.

MJ just grinned, and the two of you seemed to have some unspoken bond. You knew she would be a good friend.

“I like you.” She said with a devious smile.

You just gave her a victorious face, feeling utterly satisfied with your progress on making new friends. Peter observed the interaction, overjoyed how everyone seemed to love you. You met his eyes, both of your heart’s speeding up. Your e/c eyes were shining, your silky hair framing your face in the most beautiful way. Peter was totally in love with you. And you couldn’t be more oblivious.

Your lunch was interrupted by someone sitting next to you. It was a pretty girl with dark brown hair and a kind face. She smiled at you and greeted the others.

“Hi, I’m Liz. I’m friends with Peter, Ned, and MJ.” Liz held out her hand for you to shake.

“Hi, I’m Y/N.” You shook it gently.

“I know, silly. You’re like the most popular girl here.” Liz said with a ‘duh’ face.

“Uh... what?” You asked with wide eyes.

“We don’t have new kids here very often. Actually, we never have new kids. So, you’ll be the talk of the school for the whole year, most likely.” Liz said like it was the most obvious thing ever.

You started to panic slightly. You were the most popular girl here? You couldn’t handle that kind of pressure.

“Relax, it’s a good thing! Especially cause you’re so pretty, and if you made it into all AP classes, then you must be really smart.” 

“I g-guess.” You gulped, looking down.

“Hey! You should join the academic decathlon team! I’m the captain, and these three are on the team, too.” Liz suggested excitedly.

“Yeah! Then you’ll get to go on the trip to D.C. with us in a couple of weeks!” Ned smiled.

“Alright. I don’t want to let the team down, though.” You said, unsure if you were smart enough.

“Oh come on, Y/N. You completely flew through everything in Bio and Calculus. You’d be the smartest one on the team.” Peter said with his puppy-dog eyes.

And then you couldn’t say no. You couldn’t say no to Peter. So, you reluctantly turned back to Liz.

“Okay, I’ll join.” 

“Yes! We are so going to win this year!” She jumped up from the table, running to tell everyone the good news.

You took a shaky breath and turned back to the table. Peter and Ned smiled innocently, and MJ ignored you guys. You ran a hand through your hair, trying not to think about anything. It would be fine. If your friends were with you, you would be fine.

~

The school day finally ended, and Peter insisted on walking you home. And, of course, you couldn’t say no to him. He was too adorable to deny anything. So now the two of you were discussing all the homework you already had.

“I can’t believe you’re in all AP classes. Besides gym, of course.” Peter said, and you merely shrugged.

“I’m used to the workload. I took all AP classes at my old school, too. It’s just easy for me, I guess. But you’re a genius in science, and that’s my worst subject.” You pointed out to him.

“I guess. But you totally beat me in World and. English.” He smiled at you.

You shrugged again, hating the attention being on you.

“How’d you enjoy having all the boys fawn over you today?” Peter asked with a knowing smile.

“It was awful!” You wailed in misery. “I just want someone else to transfer to the school so people will stop looking at me.”

“That’s hard to do when you look like that.” Peter smiled, gesturing to your doll-like face.

You blushed again, looking away. It was right then that you arrived at your apartment. Walking up the first step to your front door, you looked back at Peter.

“Bye, Peter.” You smiled gently.

“Bye, Y/N.” He said with glazed eyes.

You walked into your apartment complex with burning cheeks. Riding the elevator up to your floor, you couldn’t stop thinking about Peter. God, he was like an addiction. You couldn’t get him out of your head. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Walking into your apartment, you looked for your mom to no avail. She must’ve taken a late shift. Walking to your room, you took off your jacket and flopped on your bed. Not realizing how tired you were, you started drifting to sleep, not realizing that you had left the front door unlocked.

Hey, guys so I hope you liked this chapter! I’m addicted to Peter Parker fanfiction, so I LOVE writing it. Haha, anyways I hope you all have a good day!

[allfcrncthcniel]

waddup my dudes, it’s lilac here ( mother of blue, and many succulents ). i tried as long as i could to not take up a second character and,,, well, you can see how well that went. so if you wanna literally meet human garbage, click the readmore below !! ( note : this beautiful boy isn’t actual human garbage. he’s just a bit of a knob. but not like, a bad knob. he’s not the worst. if you twist him, the door still opens after all ). 

nathaniel ballantyne.

is that JOE KEERY i see sitting in the quad? no, it’s just NATHANIEL BALLANTYNE, the EIGHTEEN year old CISMALE. they’re a SENIOR, and i usually see them doing ACADEMIC DECATHLON and DEBATE. everyone around here calls them the SAVANT which makes sense because they’re so PERSPICACIOUS and FORTHRIGHT but also BEGUILING and PERNICIOUS. guess we’ll have to see if mpexposed digs up any dirt about them.

fun facts !!

nathaniel, known as nate, known as a douche nozzle, is the #1 NERD

he’s a fucking genius

this kid has an eidetic memory, an iq of over 160 and can reads at speeds that should not be possible

he is interested in a lot of things, but his talent is really in the sciences. he can read equations and understand them more than anything else in the world. he treats them as a game, as a puzzle, as something to beat. and he always beats them. 

nate = if sherlock holmes and iron man had a baby

HE IS ALSO AN A NIHILIST

he’s so goddamn cynical and negative about every little thing skrgjhdkfjgd

he’s basically emo HE HONESTLY NEVER SMILES

you: the sky is so beautiful today ! nate: the sky is a representation of light that is always due to disappear. it’s not beauty, it’s the failure of your eyes to perceive what’s really out there. you: you’re the worst nate: i don’t agree with people often, but if worst means intelligent and hot, then yes, i agree.

he’s also great at roasting people

he’s a sarcastic little shit with a bit of a superiority complex

although his realism is kind of jarring to some, especially with his somewhat bleak outlook on things, he will always be honest. no bullshit. if you ever have a question that you need answered honestly, nate is your guy

he also doesn’t get wrapped up into popularity affairs. he spends so much time studying ( for his own gratification ), that social gatherings just don’t appeal to him whatsoever. he doesn’t feel like he’s missing out, because he knows his future is bright no matter what he decides to do. 

surprisingly, nate is also a bit of a lothario dfkgjdhkgdf. he’s surprisingly charming when he wants to be ( if he’s smooth-talking you, it’s a LINE he is never joyful if given the choice ). in saying that, he’s the perfect fwb type bc he is trained enough at blocking Feelings(tm) for nothing to ever develop. He understands the release and catharsis sex has. However, he’s not weird about those sort of things, which in itself is weird. It’s almost impossible to make Nate embarrassed

( unless you somehow correct him and he will DIE )

not many people like nate bc he’s just not easy to get along with but !!! he doesn’t care. he would avoid people altogether if he could tbh

nate is one of, if not the brightest kid on campus and he walks around knowing it. all he cares about is making sure his future is set and that everything goes according to the plan !! a plan, for the perfect life, that he’s had since he was 6 years old. 

basically,,, nate won’t care about you. however, he will be honest and a good enough guy if he respects you enough. if he’s nice to you, HE’S PLAYING YOU. 

but deep down, he’s a good guy that’s just looking for the validation he never received growing up, being more brains than brawn than his family would have liked. 

possible plots !! ( this is not a definitive list and im always up for more !! )

tutor ; nate would not help people if he didn’t have to. and for all his gruffness and prickly exterior, he honestly does have a lust of learning. this person seems like they just really want to learn things, and nate is willing to give them a chance ( one chance, and then nate is OUT )

good influence ; nate has the emotional intelligence of a turnip. this person would make nate realise that he doesn’t have to be an asshole to people 100% of the time

bad influence ; “here nate is a drug now do it it’s fun i promise, you do know what fun is right ?”

EX-FWBS/ONE NIGHT STANDS (there is probably a LIST and my boy is pan af so,,, SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES HERE

current fwb/one night stand >:)

unrequited crush ; you want to change nate. you see the good in him, the intentional, how deep inside there’s less an abrasive genius but a warm and loving soul. too bad nate doesn’t feel the same. 

childhood friend ; nate is very much an acquired taste BUT this person has firsthand experience in what nate is, and knows the best and worst of him. probably one of the only people nate truly trusts. ( nate grew up in los angeles, in a large manor compound with his 2 other brothers and his parents his entire life so !!! 

that’s it from me for now !! i could literally write forever, so i’ll stop myself here. i don’t have nate’s bios or wanted plots pages up yet, but they will be up soon if anyone is curious. and as always, please let me know if you want to plot !! nate is a sideblog to my main (fcreverblue - blue, my dear mess of a boy). you can also catch me on discord at lilacnarwhals #8500 !!

thank you so much for reading this lovelies, and please let me know if you’d like to plot !! 

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Dr. Jennifer Pailey brings her sister Lisa to the resort town of Snowfield, Colorado, a small ski resort village nestled in the Rocky Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor. Once in town, the sisters find no one around but a few corpses. At first their suspicions are that of a serial killer on the loose in town. The sisters stumble upon the severed heads of the town baker and his wife in an oven when they are found by Sheriff Bryce Hammond, a former FBI agent, and his deputies Stu Wargle and Steve Shanning. Hammond and his deputies are investigating the killings.

The group arrives at a nearby hotel and find the writing of a victim on the mirror reading “Timothy Flyte”. Shanning leaves to investigate a sound outside but doesn’t return. The others find only his gun, hat and shoes while the rest of him is gone. They return to the sheriff’s office to request aid and create roadblocks around Snowfield. The group gets a strange phone call but are interrupted by an attack by a bizarre moth-like creature that rips Wargle’s face off before Hammond is able to kill it. Lisa later encounters Wargle while in the bathroom. They quickly return to the morgue and find his body missing.

Hammond’s FBI associates find Flyte, a British academic who theorizes the town has fallen victim to the Ancient Enemy, an entity he generalizes as “chaos in the flesh”. It periodically wipes out civilizations including that of the Mayans and the Roanoke Island colonists.

They are soon joined by an Army commando unit and a group of scientists led by General Copperfield who has come to Snowfield. They, along with Flyte, investigate the town. The creature kills soldiers investigating the sewers, while a dog approaches Flyte and the scientists and transforms into a gruesome monster that converts the group, except for Flyte. Flyte regroups with Hammond, Jenny, Lisa, and Copperfield. The creature attacks Copperfield through a manhole, converting him. Copperfield vomits a sample before melting into a puddle of black liquid. Through it, Flyte and the group learn the nature of the Ancient Enemy.

Revealed to actually be an Earth-based amoebic life form that mimics its absorbed victims while gaining their knowledge, the Enemy creates Phantoms as temporary detachments for it to act through before absorbing them back into it. Furthermore, the Enemy absorbs all of the thoughts of its victims, making it extremely intelligent, and because of the previous civilizations’ perception of it, it believes itself to be a god. It had arranged all of the prior events so Flyte can assist the creature in revealing its existence to the world. Flyte also learns that the creature’s body is physiologically almost identical to crude oil, and could be killed by bacteria bio-engineered to ingest fossil fuels. They deduce that with the limited amount of the bacteria they have, they need to get the bacteria into the nucleus that is within the main body of the Enemy.

They form a plan to use the Ancient Enemy’s extreme arrogance and god complex against itself. To do so, Flyte acts as if he is turning against the group by revealing their entire plan to the Enemy. In anger (and believing itself indestructible due to being a god), it reabsorbs all the Phantoms and then emerges from the sewers to assume a Mother Mass form. Hammond and the Pailey sisters fire the bacteria into the Ancient Enemy before it retreats underground with Hammond in pursuit.

While the Pailey sisters find themselves dealing with Wargle’s Phantom, Jenny seemingly kills it with a gun containing the bacteria. Hammond finds the Ancient Enemy as it has assumed the form of the boy he accidentally killed during an FBI drug raid. When the boy grabs the last vial from him, Hammond shoots at it to expose the creature to its contents. It dies from the bacteria.

Though Hammond reassures Lisa and Jenny that it is gone, with the former stating the townsfolk are at peace, Flyte admits the Ancient Enemy did achieve its victory as he has decided to tell the world what happened with a book based on what occurred in Snowfield. Sometime later, watching Flyte being interviewed about his book, The Ancient Enemy, two bar patrons argue about the existence of alien life. Hearing laughter nearby, the patrons turn to see Wargle as he asks them if they want to see something interesting.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION The majority of PHANTOMS’ principal photography was shot in Colorado. Georgetown, with a population of just 900, stood in for Snowfield, and interiors were filmed in a huge warehouse in south Denver, formerly host of PERRY MASON and FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES.

Co-producer Michael Leahy, who was made an Honorary Mayor of Georgetown, found the tiny mountain hamlet to be an ideal location for shooting the exterior Snowfield scenes. “We had all the production services that we need in Denver, just 35 minutes away. We had 75% to 80% local crews, which was important to us to try to do, not only as a cost-effective issue but also to try to spend some money here.”

“If you read the book,” Chappelle said, “then drive through Georgetown, you have to think that Dean Koontz was here—he saw this and wrote it.” But shooting a film at 8500 feet in October and November was a grueling endurance test. “It’s a night movie for the most part,” Chappelle said, “and we had three weeks in a row of hard nights. Shooting in twenty degree weather night after night, you’re out for twelve hours in the cold. It kind of beats you up a bit.” But Chappelle felt the production would be great enhanced by the look of the location, with the mountains looming over this Victorian town. One night we had real snow falling, and we were able to incorporate it. You can’t pay for that.”

Interiors filmed in Denver included an authentic mountain town sheriff’s office, sewer tunnels where the Ancient Enemy lurks, and the interior of a government Chemical Biological Warfare Vehicle, or CBW, headquarters of an elite team brought in to investigate the Snowfield disappearances when the town is blockaded by the military. It was in Denver that O’Toole finished his scenes and returned to England in early December, while the rest of the cast and crew headed back to Hollywood for more effects shooting.  

As for Executive Producer Koontz, he declined to visit the Colorado locations to watch the filming of his tale. “I heard he doesn’t like to fly,” Chappelle said. “But he’s seen some of the dailies, some of the cut footage, and as I understand it he’s very happy with what we’re doing so far. I know he’s had some bad experiences in the past. He’s not been happy with those, so hopefully this will be different.”

It was Koontz’ clever idea of joining actual historical mysteries to a fictional solution that grabbed Soisson a decade ago, and his enthusiasm for the project endured through the years of trying to get the project off the ground, right up to the final days of location shooting. “To me, this is the most fascinating critter I’ve ever been around,” he said of Koontz’ Ancient Enemy. “And that’s why, after pushing this uphill as long as we have, I’m still totally jazzed about PHANTOMS.”

Chappelle is enthusiastic about his cast, whom he believes brought a great deal to their roles and have elevated Phantoms above B-movie status-especially the always welcome O’Toole. “There is a section in this film where Flyte is describing all these actual historical mass disappearances, and it could have been read like a phone book,” the director says. “When Peter O’Toole is giving you this backstory, though, it’s fascinating. It’s like Edgar Allan Poe reading Shakespeare. Hearing him say those lines, you really want to know about the disappearance at Roanoke or what happened in China in 1939, when a whole army vanished overnight.”   Another surprise for Chappelle was the absence of attitude from the cast-something he was convinced would happen once he moved up to bigger-budgeted films like this. “They were all into it,” the director says. “The interesting part was to watch the different styles of acting. You have Peter O’Toole coming out of that British Shakespearean background. His training is to come in prepared and know exactly what he’s doing. However, some of the younger actors have been taught that it’s a process of discovery. Ben Affleck is like that, and he and Peter had a couple of scenes together. So here you had O’Toole, who does two or three takes, nails it and wants to move on, while Ben wanted more time to explore the scene. But Peter was great and such a pro. He would do the takes with Ben and work it out. I loved the energy of all that.”

O’Toole plays Timothy Flyte, a rumpled Englishman bounced from Oxford because of his seemingly outlandish theories explaining mass disappearances throughout history. He’s slumming as a tabloid journalist when the startling news comes that his theory of man’s Ancient Enemy may hold more water than his detractors had thought.

Among the last scenes O’Toole was to complete before returning to England were those filmed on the Chemical Biological Warfare Vehicle set. It’s in the CBW that Flyte first communicates with the Ancient Enemy via computer. The creature ends the conversation by rocking the large van and everyone in it. O’Toole endured being shaken up for a whole afternoon.

The set was entirely enclosed, the action inside viewable only on the sound man’s monitor. More so than any of the other cast members, O’Toole’s famous voice burst forcefully through the walls of the CBW set to the listeners outside.

With every take of the scene where Flyte speculates on how the Ancient Enemy can interact and communicate through the computer, O’Toole gave meticulously identical line readings. There was no variation in the way he played it. Obviously, he’d long ago studied and decided how Flyte would utter his pronouncements. His delivery seemed consummately right-exactly the way you’d imagine Peter O’Toole would say his lines; indeed, should say them: with the careful, song-like inflection that has mesmerized audiences for decades.

After filming wrapped for the day, an obviously weary O’Toole graciously provided a few minutes to talk about PHANTOMS. “Forgive me if I’m not coherent,” he warned, “but it’s been a very long day. I’ve been muttering lots and lots of things about flatworms and biological substances and chemical warfare and on and on!” He made a face, as though tongue-tied. “And I’ve been shaken quite a lot today, too!”

Asked how he viewed his character, he responded, “That’s a matter which I could no more discuss than I could fly in the air. I understand it’s quite fashionable now to do this. But for me to do it would be to spit into vapor.”

O’Toole said he was amused by his character’s predicament. “He’s made wild claims no one buys into, and so he’s reduced-poor fellow-to working for the tabloids. Just to earn a shilling!” Flyte has ruined his academic career for a theory that’s unproven-until now. “He believes he has this knowledge,” O’Toole said. “The Ancient Enemy has never manifested itself before. And it’s the manifestation that really makes the film. This creature is responsible for these mass disappearances. It’s a fascinating historical phenomenon, and was completely new to me before I read the script.”   The Colorado weather, which brought an additional level of creepiness to some of the outdoor scenes. As Soisson jokes, “Everyone was miserable, but it made the film look beautiful.” “We were fighting the snow continuity throughout the shoot,” adds Chappelle. “If it snowed earlier, we were screwed and had to fake it for the rest of the movie. So we dodged the snow bullet the whole time. There was this sequence where O’Toole had to deliver this challenge to the ‘ancient enemy.’ At that time, an incredible light snow fell through the whole sequence, and it was beautiful and eerie. This was his big monologue, and he was backlit with real snow falling. It was one of those things you could not plan. It sort of made the other three weeks of hell worth it. And in the dailies, it cut together rather well. It was one of those rare occasions where nature and the filmmaking process came together.”

Novelist Dean Koontz knows the adaptation drill all too well. You get a call from Hollywood, they want to buy the rights to your book, they give you loads of cash, you walk away and then something like Watchers gets made that doesn’t resemble a single word you’ve written.

“You always know when they buy the film rights that they’re going to change things radically, partly because few books can translate to film exactly as they’re written,” says Koontz. “Generally, if it can, it means that the book was too simplistic, because film is a much easier medium to fill two hours with.” ! This, of course, hasn’t stopped people from trying to adapt Koontz (whose books, ironically, have concepts that are more cinematic and translatable than even his direct competitor Stephen King). The result has been a mixed bag at best. “I have a theory,” says producer Joel (The Prophecy) Soisson regarding the failure of Koontz-based movies like Hideaway to live up to the promise of their premises. “I believe we all like to think we’re more clever than the novelist. So we change it and think we can make it a better movie than it was a book. And nothing I’ve ever seen as a movie has come close to what this guy has done in his novels. So it’s incredibly arrogant for me or anyone else to think we can actually make it better.”

Still, Koontz and his legion of faithful followers have had to witness some of his best work get butchered, while the author had very little say in the process. “You get used to the fact that when you make films, it’s not going to be the book,” the author sighs. “But you at least hope it’s going to be the spirit of the book.”

Which bring us to Phantoms, the cream of Koontz’s literary oeuvre. Anyone who has ever become a fan of the author usually cites it as the book that first got them hooked. It has also been the one Koontz novel that has floated around Hollywood circles for nearly 10 years, always seeming two seconds away from being committed to celluloid.

Now the wait is over and Phantoms will soon be hitting theaters, with Koontz on board as screenwriter and bearing a contract allowing him final approval of any changes the filmmakers wanted to make during principal photography. “That made it harder at first to get clearances if we wanted to change things,” admits director Joe Chappelle. “Then, when he saw the dailies and realized we weren’t going to destroy his script, he gave us carte blanche. He said, ‘If Joe and the actors want to work out something on set and revise it, it’s OK.’ So he gave us a lot of latitude. Still, I was very cognizant of not wanting Dean to think I was the second coming of Brett Leonard (the director of Hideaway). I know he hates Hideaway, and he went on record saying these horrible things about Brett. So I knew Dean had this very healthy fear of filmmakers coming in and twisting his material for their own demands. We made it clear to him from the beginning that we wanted to make his movie. We weren’t going to twist it and make it something different. We wanted to make Phantoms the movie a faithful adaptation of the book.

That was a top priority for producer Soisson as well, especially since he was aware of the novel’s loyal fan base and wasn’t about to have it gutted once the movie was greenlit. In fact, when the movie finally got its financing, an early-’90s draft of Phantoms by Soisson and a more recent script by Koontz were essentially intertwined into the final shooting script.

“If you’re adapting The English Patient, you’re going to have some cinematic license because there’s a lot that’s interior about that book,” Soisson notes. “There’s hardly anything interior about Phantoms, except some of the things I would love to capture about the whole philosophical nature of the creature that we can’t touch upon. So what you really have to do when you turn a book into a movie is be an editor. You have to know that you have two hours to tell a story that takes you 40 hours to read. Dean has been excluded from many of the films he’s been involved with, but Miramax let Dean and I make Dean’s novel. Who else has done that?”   While no one has at this point, many people will still no doubt cast a very critical eye on the final product. What’s more, since the publication of Phantoms in 1983, other filmmakers have already liberally cannibalized moments from the novel for their own cinematic visions. According to Chappelle, this posed something of a challenge. “We really wanted the stuff to be fresh and not do the kind of things that have been overdone in movies over the last 10 years,” he says. “The book was written in 1983, and a lot of it has been done consciously and unconsciously in other films. The remake of The Blob, for instance, has sequences that are directly out of the book. But horror films and books all fold upon themselves and reference each other anyway. The best we could do was take this 1983 book and make a 1997 kind of movie out of it.”

Naturally, a few minor changes occurred from book to screen. These include condensing the book’s three day time span down to one night, reducing the number of characters and resolving the story in a more cinematically cost-effective way. “The book is huge, and the question is, how do you pare it down into something you can do into a movie?” Chappelle says. “The ending is a little different in the way they trick the creature, because in the book it was just too easy to destroy the monster.”

Of course, one of the book and film’s best qualities is the way the creature is not only a threatening adversary (it shapeshifts, becomes its victims, etc.), but has something extra to make it even more omnipotent: a philosophy. “This is the most incredible, unique and fearsome entity ever, because it is not only the root of all evil, but also the symbol of what humankind later forged as the notion of Satan,” Soisson explains. “This creature predates man and the dinosaurs, and has come to think that it is what humans call it, and has absorbed the concept of being Satan.”

Much like the John W. Campbell short story “Who Goes There?” (the inspiration for both versions of The Thing), Phantoms presents its monster as a shapeshifter and a body-snatcher, but Chappelle cautions that it’s more “What is it?” than “Who is it?” “Those who have read the book know that whatever the creature eats, it can become,” the director says. “There is this notion that it has trapped the souls of people it has eaten, which is kind of a scary thought, going back to the devil literally holding souls in his hand. And there is a visual equivalent to that when the creature manifests itself at the end of the movie. There’s even a sequence where it tries to communicate with Flyte, telling him to study it and revere it and write its gospel. Basically, it says, ‘I want to show the wonder of myself.’ This is a creature with a God complex and a huge ego.”

  Although principal photography began late last year in Colorado for a 36-day shoot, production had to shut down for the holidays, and due to actor availability had to resume nearly a month later for 15 days of pickups and special makeup FX shots. “One thing I learned on these bigger-budgeted movies is that an actor’s time and availability are more precious than anything else, and sometimes you have to work around their schedule,” Chappelle admits.

The fairly complicated sequence being prepped today requires the stuntman (standing in for actor Liev Schreiber, with the creature attached to his face) to fly through the window of the sheriff’s office set on cables as pyrotechnics erupt around him. On the first take, it’s like the Fourth of July as the stuntman flails around with KNB EFX’s prehistoric moth firmly attached to his kisser. Pictures also fly off the wall as the stuntman slams up against it. Once “cut” is called, another take is prepared, requiring another extensive setup.  

SPECIAL EFFECTS K.N.B. EFX Group To create the Ancient Enemy in all its frightening incarnations, director Joe Chappelle and visual effects supervisor Tom Rainone tapped both the KNB and XFX special effects houses to create a combination of practical animatronic effects and computer generated images. KNB was assigned several sequences during the first two acts, while XFX was given the task of creating the final incarnation of the Ancient Enemy at the film’s climax. Said visual effects supervisor Thomas Rainone, “The script at times was a little vague about the creature, so I started out by sitting down with Greg Nicotero and with their storyboard artist John Bisson.” Together, the trio fleshed out the film’s effects sequences.

The KNB EFX Group, founded by Robert Kurtzman, Howard Berger, and Nicotero, was hired just three weeks before the start of principal photography, and some of their work, in the form of three mangled corpses, was required during the first week of shooting. “The script was specific about what (the bodies) looked like: purple, bruised and bloated-almost as though compressed by a tremendous weight,” said Nicotero. “We took it literally and did head castings, then re-sculpted them to cave in their heads and flatten their features to make them look crushed. We did a bunch of different bodies. There is a scene where a character walks into a hotel room and you see this beautiful woman from the back, lying in bed. A beautiful body and legs, and then you walk around and see that she is completely crushed in front.”

The next challenge was the prehistoric moths. “That sequence, for me, was one of the most interesting things,” said Nicotero. “The idea of a moth attacking you doesn’t sound very threatening, so we added elements to make it look more like a dragon-fly, with a big tail, two pincers, and long, spindly finger-nails. We wanted you to get the idea that it could do some damage.”

As sculpted by Evan Campbell, the dachshund-sized moths were given menacing demon heads and extended scorpion-like stingers. The mechanical armature supporting the foam latex outer skin was engineered and built by Larry Odien. Three moths were built. The first, not articulated, was used for shots in which the moth attaches itself to one character’s face. Moving wings were later added using computer animation. The second, a rod puppet with a cable-articulated head and stinger-pincers, was used for close ups. The third was a flying version, equipped with a tiny motor that moved the creature’s silken wings. The puppet was suspended by wires that also served to bring the electrical current to the motor, preventing the need to mount a large, heavy battery within the creature.

“The wings were airbrushed flesh-color spandex to make them look moth-like,” said Nicotero. “We could only get the wings to move so fast before it shook the entire mechanism, so we shot it at 12 frames-per-second to double the speed of the wings. It looked really neat. We even did a test at four frames-per-second, and the wings were just a blur.” The flying moth was shot before a blue screen and latter composited into background footage, making the different frame rate possible.

In the scene, the characters, trapped inside a small chapel, are shocked to learn the creature is in their midst, in the form of a friendly dog. In a sequence that combines practical and CGI effects, a stinger erupts from the dog’s back, flies through the air, and imbeds itself in a character’s head.

The sequence required three different artificial dogs (a Labrador was ultimately chosen), each used for a different stage in its transformation from dog to liquid. “We did a shot where one character is petting the dog, and you see the back of the dog wiggle a little bit and then this tentacle rips out. That dog matched the real dog, and then the stinger shoots through the air and the dog is wriggling and shriveling as this genetic material is pumped into the character and out of the dog. So stages two and three were two different sculptures by a Norman Cabrera. Each has air bladders and goo-tubes to pump the black goo.”

To create the artificial dogs, the artificial body was fabricated around the mechanics of the stinger. To cover the sculptures with fur, fur-like fabric was covered with masking tape; then the hair was shaved from the fabric backing. The hair was then glued directly onto the sculpted canines. When the glue had set, the masking tape was removed, with the hair trimmed and styled.

The appearance of the Ancient Enemy went through several incarnations. “The director and producer’s concept of the creature changed,” said Nicotero. “Initially it was described as an undersea crustacean-like creature. Then it was more of an ethereal being, so we did a bunch of different designs for the last stage of the creature. The creature shape shifts throughout the movie—one minute a human being, another a prehistoric moth but none of them are apparent in its final form.”

KNB was also required to create a couple of sequences where “black ooze goes against gravity and trails up someone’s body,” one of the more ingenious moments ended up being abandoned early on, according to Nicotero. “Tom Rainone devised this idea from an early draft that after people are absorbed by the creature and reformed, they would be slightly off,” the artist explains. “Perhaps a jaw would be sideways or something like that. So we went for this Lucio Fulci zombie look. Once we started shooting, though, the concept for the creature was constantly changing and a couple of people said, ‘If this creature has been around for so long and it’s so intelligent, why wouldn’t it be able to just form them completely normally?’ So that idea got scrapped. This project was constantly evolving, and many of the conceptual ideas hadn’t been completely fleshed out; we were doing that as we were shooting. Some ideas we came up with remained, and others got dropped and we came up with better ones.”

Steve Johnson’s X.F.X In conceptualizing the ultimate incarnation of the Ancient Enemy, Steve Johnson pushed for something even beyond the expectations of the writer or director. “No matter how skilled the writer and director are, they don’t conceive of never before-seen effects. If they are willing to leave their minds open to a number of notions, then I can take that, twist it around, look at it from different angles, and come back with techniques that haven’t been seen before, that are do-able within time and budget restraints.”

Steve Johnson’s XFX contributed the climactic sequence that begins with a phantom of the Ancient Enemy having his legs shot off. From the severed torso, tentacles extend to drag the still living character across the floor. Cornered, the heroes blast through the ceiling to the attic. When the head of their pursuer appears in the opening, they shove the barrel of their shotgun into its mouth and blow the head apart. From there, the Ancient Enemy morphs into its final incarnation.

To create the appearance of a character being dragged forward by tentacles, Johnson, working with Chappelle, utilized a raised set with a slot cut in the floor. The actor could stand in this slot and, fitted with a false severed torso and motorized tentacles, move along it. To cover the opening behind and in front of the actor, moving slats of material identical to the floor were inserted and moved along with the actor. With the floor painted a dark color to disguise the slot, the result is a moving “hole” along which the actor can walk. To lend a bizarre look to the creature’s movements, the entire sequence was shot in reverse-action with the camera upside down. Thus, the filmed action of the actor moving backwards dragging the tentacles will appear as the character moving forward being dragged by the tentacles.

Several artificial heads were used to create the illusion of the character’s head being shot and then regenerating itself. Filmed in several different shots, each using a different head, the Ancient Enemy’s black tendrils seem to reach out from the blasted skull. To create the expanding element, one false torso was equipped with several empty bladders. This time both the set and the camera were inverted, and the pull of gravity used to fill each bladder with liquid in sequence. The result is a bloom of petals expanding from the character’s brain cavity, and additional growths sprouting from the petals. “It’s very effective,” said Johnson. “Any time you tilt the camera as well as the set you screw the audience up. They have no point of reference. You’re playing with gravity, one of the most fundamental principles on earth.”

As the Ancient Enemy leaves the phantom-character it created, the remaining human shell melts away. To create this effect, Johnson’s team used a Styrofoam bust of the actor’s torso and sprayed it with acetone to liquefy it. According to Johnson, there was just one problem: “What do you do with the shirt? If the clothes are as much an illusion as the flesh, they have to deteriorate with the flesh. We racked our brains. Finally, we spun up some cotton candy made with brown sugar to achieve a khaki color. We were able to create flat sheets of cotton candy fabric and, on the set, cut it out in the pattern of a shirt, complete with wrinkles and buttons.” The candy-fabric, made primarily of sugar, dissolved as handily as the Styrofoam.

The sequence culminates in the final incarnation of the Ancient Enemy. The producers and effects artists involved debated the look of the creature, as well as the potential use of computer imaging to create it. Ultimately, more conventional techniques were employed. “We’re tired of CGI that doesn’t fit the usage,” said Johnson. “We brain-stormed on what would blow the audience away better than CGI. We did some sketches and came up with a very multi-layered translucent creature.”

Taking a page from Italian Renaissance painting, in which some characters were comprised of the accumulated parts of others, the Ancient Enemy will appear to be composed of the twisted bodies of the townsfolk it has killed. The coalescing effect, when the townsfolk merge together, was executed with computer animation, but the final creature itself was realized by a rod puppet, filmed against a green screen, and then matted into the background plates. To give the creature a weightless, ethereal look, the puppet was filmed inverted in a large water tank. By filming the action upside-down, the many wispy elements of the puppet appear to float gracefully. “Water lends an otherworldly quality to the movement,” said Johnson. “The tendrils coming off it will flow like a sea anemone or sea grass. The (body) of the monster will be filled with water and different liquids so they will create swirling colors inside it.”

The unused air-bag puppet of the final creature

SOUNDTRACK/SCORE Phantoms (1998) David Williams

CAST/CREW Directed Joe Chappelle

Produced Dean Koontz Bob Weinstein Harvey Weinstein

Screenplay Dean Koontz

Based Phantoms by Dean Koontz

Peter O’Toole as Dr. Timothy Flyte Rose McGowan as Lisa Pailey Joanna Going as Jennifer Pailey, M.D. Liev Schreiber as Deputy Stuart ‘Stu’ Wargle Ben Affleck as Sheriff Bryce Hammond Nicky Katt as Deputy Steve Shanning Clifton Powell as Gen. Leland Copperfield Rick Otto as Scientist Lockland Valerie Chow as Scientist Yamaguchi Adam Nelson as Scientist Burke John Hammil as Scientist Talbot John Scott Clough as Scientist Shane

K.N.B. EFX Group Steve Johnson’s X.F.X

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique-v29n04 Fangoria#168

Phantoms (1998) Retrospective SUMMARY Dr. Jennifer Pailey brings her sister Lisa to the resort town of Snowfield, Colorado, a small ski resort village nestled in the Rocky Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor.