#dead men tell no tales review

[third-doctor]

Sometimes growing up extremely sheltered and in a cult means your grasp of pop culture is really fucking weird and spotty. Toxic was just that song from Doctor Who. My only reference for the Beastie Boys is the Star Trek reboot. I routinely break or confuse the fuck out of people by not knowing shows or celebrities. To this day I have not seen an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

[thedetectivesteve]

Detective Reviews #48 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Review (with BigOEntertainment)

Bloopers

[reviewsclown]

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell no Tales 2017

Immediately this movie too loses some points for being named after a one off line in the second or third movie, perhaps this is a theme of all post-trilogy movies. Callbacks might just be the theme for the entire movie honestly. The main villain is entirely CGI like Davey Jones. He walks through some jail bars, like Davey Jones. He has a crew of evil fucked up CGI guys that're maybe dead, just like Davey Jones. He has personal beef with Jack Sparrow, just like Davey Jones. A bunch of immortals are made mortal near the climax of the movie, just like the first movie. The British are looking for a magic object to control the seas, just like the second and third movie.

Also it's been like 20 years in-universe since the last movie and it feels like nothings changed? Barbosa is richer now and still has that magic sword but doesn't have the magic ship, Jack Sparrow is, basically the same. Will Turner is still captain of the Flying Dutchman but now he has some barnacles on him, Elizabeth is basically a non-player in this movie, only showing up right at the very end. Also also it turns out that secretly Jack's plot-pointing compass was secretly holding back a bunch of ghosts unless he gives it up, somehow? they don't really explain or show this. But they do show why the main villain hates him in a flashback with weird looking CGI young-Jack, and they do a rhyming thing with a previous scene but it doesn't really work and it's just stupid? Whole flashback was pretty stupid. The more important reason this movie wants to be poetry that rhymes is the entire plot, it centers on a young man with the last name Turner who wants to free his dad from the curse binding him to the Flying Dutchman, sound familiar so far? But get this, in his journeys through circumstances he winds up on a ship with Jack Sparrow, and a girl he fancies, though this one has no relation and is named Carina. One of these 2 characters that isn't Jack has issues with the fact revealed that maybe their father wasn't a good person, and may have in fact been a pirate. Sound familiar?

Somehow despite being the most recent movie in the franchise it's got the worst looking CGI at times, also they use slo-mo twice because I guess they figured out how to do that recently? It turns out most of the budget probably went to the star island and the underwater scenes where they part the sea. Also the ship battles, much like Mad Max the vehicle combat is where it's at.

Final Review: Yeah this one is bad too, it's still not worth watching beyond the original trilogy, and even for this movie the 4th one is basically optional unless you want to understand some minor elements. They put a sequel bait scene at the end of the credits with Davey Jones so there's potential a 6th movie can be the secret hero of this, but I really doubt it.

[mik-youtube]

Go Behind the Scenes of Pirates of the Caribbean: How the film was shot

[slayerkitty]

The DFF Experience: A Dead Friend Forever Fandom Round Up (Part 1*)

I had the wild idea of compiling links to all the various metas, theories, and other resources for DFF for everyone to use so that links and information were kind of all in one place. I dragged @shannankle along for the ride, and we combed through the tag to find all the things we could.

We most likely have missed something even though we tried to be as thorough as possible - if you think there is something we over looked that should be added let us know in the replies or the tags; if you write meta or other resource posts in the future, please tag us and we can add it to the post.

With that, please enjoy The DFF Experience!

Media: 

Official Trailer

Pre-Release/Pilot Trailer

Behind The Scenes

No More Dream - Barcode

Without Me - Bump

Por's RIP? Pic by @having-conniptions

Reviews: 

Dead Friend Forever is More Than Just A 90s Slasher Film Imitation by @syrena-del-mar

Dead Friend Forever is a Marvel of Mystery Writing by @lurkingshan

Phee, Jin, And A Masterful Misdirect by @lurkingshan

Fun Facts to Know and Tell: 

Non refers to his brother New as “P’New” during his argument with his parents in episode 8, confirming that New is the older of the two. 

White refers to Por as P’Por when he’s alone confirming he is younger and not lying about his age

Character Profiles by @raelle-writing

Based on screenshots, White and Phee do not go to the same school as the embroidery is different. 

Fuaiz says White’s parents are rich and engineers

What the Characters Know and Don't Know (As of Episode 9) by @raelle-writing

Actor Reveals About The Characters by @raelle-writing

Theories (Episodes 1-8):

Not Jin’s Video Theory by @raelle-writing

Not Jin’s Laptop Theory by @raelle-writing

Hints at the timeline/dates things happen by @yellingaboutkp

Why Uncle Dang Was Killed by @befuddledcinnamonroll

Is Jin final girl? by @blismytherapy

Non is dead (dead men tell no tales) by @mikuni14

Why So Many Maskys? by @slayerkitty

Tan is New by @tbhimnoteasyonmyself

Are The Boys Being Drugged (Are you High, Top?) by @italianpersonwithashippersheart

Non isn’t dead (alive men tell tales) by @respectthepetty

Theories (Episode 9-10):

Why Jin Sees Keng by @raelle-writing

Is Phee Still Playing Jin (Play On, Player?) by @yellingaboutkp

What's Up With White's Hallucinations? by @jeffsatyr with contributions by @italianpersonwithashippersheart

Tan is Going to Turn on Phee (and other upcoming episode theories) by @slayerkitty

Non Isn’t Dead (alive men tell tales, but they don’t change their clothes) by @subtextsays

Phi is on Tan's Hitlist by @respectthepetty

Non is Alive (Only Alive Men Tell Tales in Telenovelas) by @babyangelsky

Non is the Hidden Character And In This Essay I Will - by @babyangelsky

On The Episode 10 Preview by @crysta1ized

Non is Alive (Alive Men Tell Tales When They Paint in Grayscale) by @yellingaboutkp

Gas Mask for Masky? by @biochemjess

On What Tan Sees by @raelle-writing

Will Phee Tell Jin the Truth? by @mikuni14

How Much is a Hallucination and How Much is Real by @babyangelsky with contributions by @respectthepetty and @shannankle

White is the Mastermind by @sniggerwarning

Top's Scar and Masky on Crutches by @subtextsays

DFF Theory Time by @squishysquadstuff

Theories About White by @crysta1ized

Ninth Person Theory by @raelle-writing

Hallucination or Real? by @raelle-writing

Non is Alive for Now (Alive men tell tales if they're about to kick the bucket) by @harurio

A Scream/DFF Parallel Theory on Who's Behind the Mask by @crysta1ized

Tree Mark Theory by @babyangelsky

Episode 11 Preview Theory by @crysta1ized

New and the Antidote by @respectthepetty

White-Non Theory by @crysta1ized

*Due to the number links and mentions the round up is now four(!) posts. Please see Part 2 here, Part 3 here and Part 4 here.

[writtenonreceipts]

Rowaelin Month Day Ten: Co-Stars With Chemistry @rowaelinscourt

Find Part One Here Rowaelin Month Masterlist

Thanks for all the kind words on part one! I hope part two lives up to your expectations! Part three, and the conclusion, will come later this month. Bonus points if you spot the "against the tide" reference ;)

Warnings: None, right around 4k words

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

The Words We Share-Part Two

<<Welcome to Terrasen!  I’m your host Aelin Galathynius and this week we’ve got a special episode coming your way.  We’ll be live with none other than Rowan Whitethorn to discuss his new book.  Dead Man’s Game is his first step into fantasy and a twisted tale of pirates, curses, and of course a dive into Scottish history.  Join us next week in a special LIVE episode.  Until next time, readers.>>

It wasn’t the worst promotional Aelin had ever done in her life.  But it also wasn’t the best.  She’d written and scrapped over a dozen and so far, that was the one that hadn’t sucked the most.  Somehow.

Aelin stared at the blinking square on her computer that asked if she wanted to publish the message or not.  Technically she could still turn down the interview.  She could tell Dorian off and ignore Whitethorn for the rest of his existence and move on with her life.  And then she’d probably lose her job and end up homeless.

Wincing, she clicked the button and immediately spun away from her computer.

Her office, big and bright and vibrant, had a large window that overlooked downtown.  In the distance the mountains were shrouded in a thick layer of clouds, not surprising but a little disappointing.  She much preferred her summer months warm and clear.  Still, she let herself admire the view and took a moment to appreciate the stillness of the day.

Until her gaze landed on her phone.

There were a handful of messages from Sam that she’d left unread.  He’d tried calling her after she’d returned home, but she didn’t pick up.  Rowan was still on her mind.  Rowan and his stupid accent and his stupidly large hands.  How was it that someone she hated (and who hated her in return) could treat her to the best date she’d been on in months?  Years?

She didn’t know.  And she didn’t want to call Elide to talk to her about it because Elide was a meddlesome little minx.

Now as Aelin stared at her phone, she found herself wondering if there was anything Sam could say that would have her forgive him.

Whoever stood you up is an idiot, Rowan had said.

And…maybe he was right.

A knock at the door was the only thing that snagged her attention.  She looked over to see Dorian leaning against her doorway.

“Aelin,” he greeted.  He had his usual grin in place, black hair in an easy disarray.  His blue eyes shone with too much placating humor.

“I hate you.”  It wasn’t an exaggeration either.  He was really good at being annoying.

“Oh, c’mon, I’m doing you a favor,” Dorian insisted.  He didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “I guarantee this’ll get your viewership up.”

“Not even Chaol is this mean,” Aelin said.  She slumped down in her seat, tilting her head back against the chair rest.

“You only like him because he brings in chocolate cake,” Dorian said.

“Yeah and he isn’t an ass like you.” Aelin continued glaring at her boss and friend, picking up her pen to scratch at the pad of paper beside her desk, just for something to do.

“Aelin, Rowan’s our best-selling author, not to mention the demand of getting more events from him like this.” Dorian picked an invisible piece of lint from his shirt and shrugged. “Hate him all you want, but our readers and your listeners have been begging for this.”

Aelin had seen requests forms on their website, she’d been to plenty of conventions and heard the reviews—she knew that Dorian was right.  But…

“I like Whitethorn even less than you,” Aelin said.  Though, the words sounded hollow in her own ears.

Dorian didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, yeah.  I’ll take you out to dinner to make up.”

Aelin had had enough of men propositioning her for dinner.  She waved Dorian off.

“Go be the big CEO man, I’ve gotta write this script and get the general outline to Whitethorn,” she said.

Dorian left with a wave of his hand.

Aelin rolled her eyes and pulled up a new document on her computer.  A small notification bar in the corner of the screen indicated views on the recent upload.  In the span of three minutes there were already over two hundred views and the number was rapidly rising.

She glanced at the large stack of paper still sitting in the corner of her desk.  She’d gotten it just last week—the tell-tale mysterious new novel Rowan had written.  Even Dorian said it was remarkable.  Aelin had yet to view it since it was no longer a part of her job description to edit and critique manuscripts.  But since she’d be interviewing Rowan, she got early access to the novel.

In truth, she’d enjoyed Rowan’s work.  There was always something about it, even if she did mark up every page with as much red as she could manage.  But, really?  Most of the comments weren’t negative.  Often, she even found herself praising the way a sentence worked or the callbacks he gave to earlier chapters. 

Now, having the manuscript before her, Aelin couldn’t help but feel a little excited at having the book before her.

At least this would be enough of a distraction for her.

It wasn’t until the sun began to set and shadows crawled across the walls of her office, that Aelin finally looked up from the manuscript.

And to her phone that lit up with another message.

Cursing, Aelin opened the chat with Sam.

>>Sam: you can’t keep ignoring me.

<<Aelin: I told you I needed time.

>>Sam: It was one night. we’ll have dozens more.

Aelin scoffed at the surety in his words.  Shaking her head Aelin sent one last message.

<<Aelin: I’m done.  This is over.  I can’t keep playing games and being a placeholder.

>>Sam: We’ll talk in the morning.

He could try calling her, but would find it difficult considering she was blocking his number that very moment.

It felt good to set that boundary, to tell him no, to feel like she was in control. 

In all honesty, she was still caught up on spending time with Rowan Whitethorn and not tossing her wine on him.  He’d been a gentleman, an ass, but respectful all the same.  She would have to thank him for helping her that night despite how much she didn’t want to.  He didn’t need to step in and give her an excuse to use against Kaltain.  And he certainly didn’t need to pay for dinner and make sure she got into a cab safely.  He hadn’t needed to do any of it and she hadn’t expected him to.  But he had.

She wanted to be irritated at him for it.  She wasn’t a damsel in distress for him to take care of or who needed help to begin with.  She would have dealt with Kaltain on her own just fine.  

Still, it was nice to have someone looking out for her.

Shaking her head, Aelin flipped through the manuscript to the first page once again.

She had a dream, once, years ago, where she would stand out on a rocky shoreline and stare into the ocean as she wondered just how far she could sail before the world swallowed her whole.

…

Between screaming Fall Out Boy lyrics, two impromptu dance parties, and chugging half an energy drink in the parking garage of the publishing building—Aelin finally found herself ready to face the inevitability of the day.

“It’s going to be fine,” she told herself one more time as she fixed her lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Everything is going to be fine.”

It had been her mantra that she prepared for the live podcast she would be filming that day.  For the first time in a very long time, Aelin found herself nervous for the day.  And she did not get nervous.  No, Aelin prided herself on being confident, capable, and being able to keep her head on straight.

That was before she’d read Rowan’s book, though.  

She got out of her car, energy drink and manuscript in hand, and headed up to her office to prepare for the interview.

She hadn’t had any issue in reading Rowan's book.  In fact, she’d stayed up the entire night just to finish it.  Everything about the book had captured her attention.  From the magic to the world building to the romance—it had all been just what she loved most in a book.  Even if the book wasn’t as spicy as Aelin preferred to get in her books, there had been something real about the way Rowan chose the write this novel.

And now she’d have to tell him.

She was not looking forward to it if she were being honest.  For as much as she loved gushing about novels and diving into different worlds and characters…she’d never done so about one of Rowan’s books. And this book was so different from his other books.

Aelin felt far too jittery as she waited for the elevator.  The usual crowds all milled about her, all too concerned with their own issues to give her much credence.  She didn’t know if that was better or worse.  

She hadn’t felt this way about an interview in ages.  Only her first real podcast session had been as bad and that was only because she’d gone into in on no sleep and four shots of espresso.  

The elevator slowly lumbered up to the proper floor while Aelin paced the small space.  Thankfully no one else was in here with her.  That would have just been icing on the cake.  

“It’s going to be a great day and everything is going to be fine,” she told herself as the doors slid open to the proper floor.  Dorian of course was standing right there, leaning against the far wall.

His black hair was styled perfectly out of his face, his smirk ever present. He gave one last twist to the new wedding band on his finger as Aelin stepped out of the elevator and began walking to her studio.

“You ready for today?” he asked, keeping stride with her easily.

“Of course, I am,” she replied.  Her confidence was deceiving, but it was something she’d practiced ever since she was a child who wanted to get out of trouble. “It’s just like any other podcast.”

Dorian made a noise in the back of his throat. “This is potentially the biggest release our company—”

“I know, Dorian.” Aelin stopped outside her studio and handed Dorian the mess of energy drink and notes she was carrying so she could unlock the door. “I’m not an idiot.”

Dorian followed her inside and she caught a sheepish smile on his face. “Sorry.  I know you know.  And I know you’ll take this seriously.  Just…try not to hate on him too much, yeah?”

It was no secret really that Aelin and Rowan had a slight rivalry going on.  At least, Dorian was the only one really aware of it.  And Elide.  But Elide was the best at keeping secrets herself.

“Can I tease him about the fated mates trope?” she asked.

“No.”

“Boo.”  Aelin took her things back from him and rolled her eyes. “Do you want to read through my notes?  Give me your approval, oh great one?”

He was already walking back out of the studio, waving a hand overhead. “Behave!”

Aelin snorted a laugh; she’d been granted honorary approval to go to his bachelor party three months ago; if anyone needed to behave it was him.  She wondered partially if his wife actually realized what she’d gotten into.

No matter.

Aelin settled into her usual routine upon arriving at the office in the morning.  If she kept things as normal as possible, they were bound to work out, right?

So she bounced between her actual office and the studio for the next hour, running through her questions and side comments she could make about various points and ideas she’d highlighted from Rowan’s book.

Elide stopped by a few times to give her a countdown to when the podcast would air.  The other woman was technically an acquisitions editor, but Aelin was going to try and steal her to be her assistant.  That would piss Kaltain off.

When there was ten minutes left until they were slated to begin.  Aelin went to the studio to make sure everything was ready.  She usually made sure the couch and chair were angled properly first with microphones at the ready before ensuring a blanket and a few pillows were easy to reach.  Not that she thought Rowan would want to snuggle up with a puppy studded fleece blanket—it was the thought that counted.

She was just organizing her desk with her notes and her copy of Rowan’s manuscript when she heard Elide’s voice down the hall.

“She’s just down this way.”  

Aelin gave everything one final look in the studio before deciding that was just as good as it was going to get.  After all, everything was neat and organized.  Except the bookshelves.  Those were pure chaos.  But in Aelins opinion, keeping bookshelves looking perfect was a useless task.  

Elide rounded the open door, looking far too amused by what was about to unfold.

“Hey Aelin,” she said, leaning against the jam.  Her black hair hung in loose waves and her expression was carefully impassive—though that gleam in her eyes was hard to miss. “I found your next interview in the halls.”

Sure enough, standing behind her was Rowan.  He was dressed casually, far more casual than she’d ever seen him before.  No dress shirt or tie, no slacks, no fancy shoes worth more than her car.  It was a startling contrast to when he’d saved her at the restaurant.  Even his hair was different.  Not that it was bad.  The man had good hair.

“Thanks, Elide,” Aelin said with a smile.  She hadn’t been staring too much, had she?

“Let me know if you need anything,” Elide said.  There was no mistaking her brow raise as she departed.

Oh, Aelin was certainly going to be interrogated later this afternoon.  She stuffed that away far in the back of her mind.

“Come on in, Mr. Whitethorn.”  Aelin gestured him into the room and swung the door shut behind him. “Have a seat on the couch, we’ve got a few minutes.”

She was going to keep this professional and dignified.  All she had to do was get through the next forty-five minutes and then this would be over.  Fifty if she took in time for ads and brief intermission in the middle.

“You can call me Rowan, you know,” he said as he took up an easy position on the couch.  His silver hair was, as usual, perfectly styled and left his handsome face on display.  “After the restaurant and everything.”

Aelin had to fight to keep from glaring too much at him.  Though she did end up pursing her lips tightly enough that her lipstick was definitely going to smudge.

“I think we should agree to never talk about that night.  Ever.”  True nothing that embarrassing had come of it, other than a hit to Aelin’s pride, but talking about it would only lead to more people hearing about it.  And she really didn’t trust Whitethorn not to tease her about it.  Besides, talking about getting stood up by a guy she’d wasted too much time on, to Whitethorn of all people, was not something she wanted to do.

Especially considering she’d spent a great deal of time in the last week thinking about how handsome Rowan actually was.

Rowan only smiled as he watched her shuffle her notes and papers.  Aelin knew if she met his gaze that she would let something slip so she avoided eye contact.  She'd gotten good at that. 

"If you need water, there's a mini fridge under that end table,” Aelin told him.  “Or I can get you a coffee real quick?”

“Water’s fine,” Rowan said.  He reached for the fridge and pulled out one of the plastic bottles chilling. “I'm curious though, did you forgive the man who stood you up?  Or did he have a reasonable explanation?"

"It's none of your business," Aelin replied stiffly.  This was a mistake.  Maybe she could call Elide in here to act as a buffer.  "Do you want a look at some of the questions I have planned or are you okay going in blind?"

Rowan shrugged. "I'm always up for a bit of fun."

Aelin didn't have a response for that so she spent the last few minutes until airing explaining to Rowan how the microphone worked.  He could mute himself if he needed to cough or anything like that, but ultimately, she had control over sounds volume and everything along those lines.

"Do your worst," he told her as she opened the podcast.

"Welcome to Terrasen, listeners and readers alike," Aelin said, still glaring at Rowan. "As you know, today's session is going to be extra fun and special as we have Rowan Whitethorn with us for the first time.  I know many of you have asked about having him on the show as well as have been interested in what he's been working on recently, so here we are."

She paused for a brief moment in preparation. "Rowan, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today."

"Thanks, Aelin," he said, leaning into the mic just a little.  His accent lilted in that familiar way and he looked far too at ease sitting across from her.  His watch clicked happily along on his wrist catching the light as he clasped his hands together. "It's good to be here.  I've been a long-time listener."

Liar.  "Really?  What have been some of your favorite episodes?"  She'd catch him out and not feel the least bit sorry for it either.

"Well, the series about what makes a romance book was rather interesting, I have to say.  Especially your comments on smut," he grinned at her and Aelin flipped him of.  At least this wasn't a video session too.

"I like a bit of fun," she dryly, throwing his own words back at him. "Good to know what keeps you entertained."

"Oh, I like hiking too."

"Right," Aelin snatched on to that with the sole goal of getting out of the current conversation. "Which is something you grew up doing a lot of right?  You grew up in Scottland?"

"Aye, just outside of Edinburgh," Rowan said. "Moved to America when I was seventeen, but most of my summers I went back to stay with my cousins."

"Do you miss it?" Aelin asked. "From what I've read in your books the landscape the history, the people, it's all so beautiful and wonderful and rich."

"Aye," Rowan ran a hand over his chin. "It'll always be a part of me.  My da taught me everything about the outdoors and nature and adventuring as he could before he passed, that's why I moved to America.  So my mum could be near family.  And growing up without him just left a hole in my heart, y'know?  So writing and research just turned into a way for me to remember him.”

Aelin tried to ignore the effect of his words.  She knew what that was like exactly.

“Right,” she agreed, “sometimes telling stories is the best way to remember someone, or something.”

Rowan met her gaze again and something flashed in his eyes as he nodded his agreement.

“Plus, it’s an easy way to relieve stress,” he added. “With all the research I’ve done, y’know I spent every day for three months training with a group of tae kwon do specialists just to learn how to describe one fight scene properly?”

From there, it was easy for Aelin to continue asking him about writing and research and why he’d chosen non-fiction to begin with.  Just like the night at the restaurant—it was far to easy to talk to him.  Far too easy to have this simple, easy-going conversation with him.

In fact, it had been a long time since she’d been able to talk like this to anyone.  Which, maybe wasn’t a good thing.  Most of this was scripted anyways not to mention Rowan had done plenty of other interviews and certainly had many of these responses memorized.

Hell.

She’d started reading too much into this.

“So,” Aelin said as they were nearing the end of the segment. “I’m still surprised you actually made the leap in to fiction—fantasy no less.  And with a lead character like Celaena Sardothien.”

“You’re surprised I can write a female main character?”  Rowan chuckled.  He’d rolled up the sleeves to his shirt a while ago, one of his arms in a full tattoo sleeve.  She couldn’t understand whatever language the majority of the tattoos were in but she did recognize a few Gaelin words and symbols in the mix.

“Well, yes.”

“C’mon, Galathynius,” he said, “even you have to admit you liked my book.  I did a good job.  Especially with Celaena.”

“Do I though?  You should see all the marks I made on the manuscript.”  In truth there weren’t very many, at least not as many as she had given in the past.  But she would add some if it would shut him up.

“The book hits all your favorite tropes,” Rowan said.  He wore that all knowing smirk of his that had been infuriating (and fine, fascinating) her for the last forty-five minutes.

“How do you even know what I like?”

Rowan chuckled, a sound that hit Aelin like a shot to the heart. “We’ve been friends for five years.”

“We’re not friends,” Aelin corrected, but there was no malice in her words.

“Please Galathynius,” he insisted, “you like me.”

“Shut up Whitethorn.”  Aelin muted him as burst into laughter and she had to fight to keep her own voice even as she addressed her listeners. “We’ve just had a great conversation with novelist, Rowan Whitethorn about his upcoming high fantast adventure Dead Man’s Game which will be released on November fifteenth.  Thanks for listening friends, we’ll see you next time.”

She made all the necessary clicks and flicks to shut the mics down properly and just like that the segment was over.  Looking up, Aelin scowled at Rowan.  She’d been doing that a lot hadn’t she?

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Are we really not friends?”  Rowan finally leaned back in his seat.  Even that small bit of distance was enough that Aelin felt she could finally take a breath of air.

The table between them wasn’t even that big but being close to him had put her heart in overdrive and made her mind feel like a pile of mush.

“Whitethorn,” she said, ignoring his small eyeroll at the use of his last name, “we both know the extent of our “relationship” has been insulting each other.”

That made him pause and another look flashed across his features, one Aelin couldn’t identify.  But it made her squirm all the same.  So, she launched herself out of her seat.  She didn’t want to think about anything beyond being done with this segment and maybe having some peace of mind.

“It was a live session,” she told him, “so you can listen to it whenever.  I think Dorian had a few extra things he needed to get you relating to your edits.”

Aelin needed to shut down whatever emotions were cutting through her.  It wouldn’t do good to dwell on them or Rowan longer than necessary.  This was just a passing occurrence.  Eventually he would leave their publishing house—or get so big as a name that he couldn’t be bothered with her silly little podcast.

Not that she cared.  Or that it mattered.

Slowly, Rowan stood from his seat, his eyes trained on her. “Do I get your edits?”

Aelin blinked. “What?”

“Your edits?  All the notes and thoughts you had on the manuscript?” He didn’t move to leave like she expected him to.  He just kept waiting for her answer.

“I—” she paused. “You really want them?”

“Of course,” he said, “your thoughts have always been invaluable to me.”

She’d never really understand that word: invaluable.  Oh she knew what it meant and that Rowan said it as a compliment, but it had always struck her as an asinine and bland way of describing somethings true worth.  Rowan regarded her with such sincerity that Aelin was already reaching for the giant stack of papers from where she’d left it on the edge of her desk.

For some reason, she was hesitant on giving him the pages.  It wasn’t like she’d struggled with this before.  As she held the manuscript out for him, however, she felt shy.  And Aelin damned Galathynius was not shy.  Mala above.

“Ignore what you don’t like,” she said, just as she always did.

“Thank-you,” Rowan said.  He tucked the papers into his arm and, finally, retreated for the door.

“Wh—” Aelin paused mentally cursing herself, “Rowan?”

He turned, hand on the doorknob.

“Where did Celaena’s character come from?” she asked, it was the one question they didn’t get into during the interview, but the one that intrigued her most. “She’s brilliant, strong, and has to be inspired by someone.  Who?”

A small smile quirked one side of his lips as he pushed the door open. “I thought it was obvious.”

And then he was out the door, swallowed up by a shout from Dorian calling him into his office.

Aelin could only stare after him.  And just like the night of that insufferable date—she was left confused and uncertain about what his words actually meant.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

Tumblr is not allowing me to tag anyone right now, so if you could reblog to increase exposure, I would so very much appreciate it! <3

[poppletonink]

BOOK REVIEW: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

★★★★★ - 5 stars

"If violet-eyed men are a gift from God, violet-eyed women are an unfortunate side effect."

Andrew Joseph White's sophomore novel, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a Victorian-based, queer, fantasy-horror piece that divulges details about real-world issues, and tells a powerful tale of gore, ghosts and friendship. In a world where the veil between the living and the dead has thinned, we meet Silas Bell. We follow him as he attempts to escape an arranged marriage; is diagnosed with the mysterious 'Veil sickness' (that only effects people of violet eyes) and is shipped off to Braxton's Boarding School, where the ghosts of missing students plea for his help. All the while, Silas undergoes a powerful journey about identity, the power we weild and the importance of finding friendships with those who are of a similar mind to us. Throughout, White uses beautifully poetic writing to express profound ideas about the world we live in, such as Silas' feelings about his identity and the fear of death many are akin to. Even so, it remains a painfully sorrowful tale, and its depictions of medical gore are graphic, detailed and horrifying; it is certainly not for the faint of heart. The diversity in this book is outstanding with an autistic, transgender (female to male), bisexual main character and a transhet (t4t) relationship at its heart. The characters are authentic, multifaceted constructs that express feelings that many will relate to, and open your eyes to a completely new world-view. As this is a historically accurate Victorian novel, sexism, abelism and transphobia runs rife within the society we are presented with, and yet, Silas questions and denies these ideas perfectly and in a way that we can all learn from. Ghosts, boarding schools and missing girls in a terribly twisted society - The Spirit Bares Its Teeth has it all. An exceptional and spellbeing piece of literature: this is the perfect book for every horror lover out there to pick up from their local bookshop and to spiral down a rabbithole of reading.

[kamreadsandrecs]

Title: Between Two Fires

Author: Christopher Buehlman

Genre/s: horror, historical

Content/Trigger Warning/s: body horror, depictions of the Black Plague and its effects on people and society

Summary (from author's website): The year is 1348. The Black Death ravages France, leaving fields and rivers choked with unburied dead and causing whole towns to disappear. Thomas, a disgraced knight, roams the land with a band of thieves, living by the sword; when they encounter an orphaned girl in a dying village, Thomas has just enough humanity in him to save her from his colleagues. No ordinary child, this girl sees angels and talks to the dead. She tells Thomas that Lucifer and the fallen angels have risen in a new war on Heaven, that the kingdoms of men have fallen behind the lines of battle, and that he must now shepherd her on a holy quest to tip the scales in favor of good. Between Two Fires invites you on a journey that is at once a fool’s errand into great danger, and a violent man’s first, uncertain steps toward redemption.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/between-two-fires-christopher-buehlman/15286104

Spoiler-Free Review: GodsDAMN this was good! Strange in parts but GOOD!

This is really interesting to read given the way the world is right now - not least because we’re still not quite out from under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic (not that it really ended). While the portrayal of the Black Death in this book might read a bit more grotesque than might seem realistically possible, I think the exaggeration is meant to capture how it felt to be caught in the moment of the plague. It’s easy to forget how far we’ve come in terms of our understanding of science and medicine, compared to the medieval period. (This just makes it even MORE annoying that anti-vaxxers exist; all that advancement, and for what?)

It’s also interesting how the novel doesn’t start out as supernatural at all, or at least doesn’t give that impression. Initially I thought the hints of supernatural activity were more a representation of the worldview of people from that specific historical period, but it soon became VERY clear that the supernatural was indeed at work, and it is very definitely nightmarish. The author certainly knows how to create truly horrific monsters, setting up encounters in an episodic manner as the characters travel towards Avignon. Two in particular stand out: the first monster in the river, and the monsters in Paris.

Speaking of the characters, I think they are the heart of this novel, moving it forward as much as they themselves are moved by the plot. They share echoes with other, similar characters from the Canterbury Tales and the Decameron, but especially the latter, since the Decameron’s frame story is about a group of people fleeing the Black Death in Italy. But they’re also well-drawn characters in their own right, as opposed to roughly-drawn sketches; Thomas of Givras, in particular, is a standout, and the young girl who accompanies him will quickly bring Joan of Arc to mind, while also being entirely unique in her own way.

As for the overall structure of the plot, it shares some parallels with the Arthurian questing tales, and even to literature from later periods like Paradise Lost, the Divine Comedy, and Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s clear the author’s drawing from a deep literary well here, and those who’ve read those works will be rewarded by finding their dark shadows in this novel. Readers who are expecting something more straightforward might find this novel a bit slow, but readers who enjoy a slower burn will not find this a problem.

One of the most visible themes a reader might be able to uncover in this novel is how difficult it is to do the right thing, especially when one’s own survival is at stake. The world got (continues to get) a glimpse of how this works in real time during the recent (ongoing) pandemic, and this book, published in 2012, makes it clear just what people are willing to do - and what they’re willing to ignore - when survival, or personal comfort, for that matter, is at stake. But this book makes clear that, even when conditions are harsh, it is still possible to be good, to be kind, to be generous. It won’t be EASY, but being good and kind and generous when the world is harsh and deadly is not just possible, it is absolutely necessary.

But what if one can’t do any of that? We are all only human, after all; when crisis hits, survival is top of mind. Surely one can be forgiven for not being as good and kind and generous as one would normally be in times of safety and plenty? Surely one can be forgiven for not having the strength of will to continue to be good in the midst of extraordinary hardship? And this book says: yes, yes one can be forgiven for such things, and maybe even worse besides (there’s a scene towards the end of the book that, in my opinion, drives this point home). Forgiveness is a vital theme in this novel: both being a giver of, and recipient thereof. It’s hard forgiving others, of course, and the way this book goes, that forgiveness definitely has to be earned. But it’s just as hard accepting forgiveness too - especially when one is convinced that one does not deserve it. Forgiving is hard, but accepting it can be just as hard.

Overall, this is a horror novel that definitely has many scary moments, but those moments hide a core of gentleness that shines through via the characters and their interactions with each other and the world they inhabit. Some readers might not take well to the story’s slower pace compared to other novels in the same genre, but the pace enhances both the horror and the characters’ development in very good way.

Rating: five sorrel leaves

[meowww-ffxiv]

When Krile was trying to expose Alphinaud learning how to draw to impress girls, Mordred said, "It's good to hear he had a normal, lighthearted childhood."

He said it with a sense of relief. In the 3 minute conversation leading to that revelation, it was the first time this miqo'te, dressed in mostly black robes and looking like he hadn't had cause to smile in years, showed Krile a glimpse of himself.

She'd done a little research into the Warriors of Light. She'd received a firsthand report from Alisaie, who gave them such a glowing "review" and spoke the most well of Mordred, who she claimed was strong and clever and all the positive adjectives a teenage girl could ascribe to someone she admired. Alphinaud's remark had been that Mordred did not like him, and for good reasons, and Theodore was sharp and devoted and all the adjectives a teenage boy would describe someone who was an afterthought when standing next to his peer, who was Estinien.

The two Warriors of Light Krile met that day was a miqo'te who looked like he'd lost so much that he'd passed through anger and arrived at the realization that he was glad others needn't have lost as he had, and his tall, dragoon shadow who talked because he didn't, who smiled where he could not, and who was still -- to this very day, years later -- an enigma to Krile.

Mordred had always been the most honest, open person between himself and Theodore. It was why, Krile supposed, he was so visibly, deeply unhappy when they first met.

Theodore had helped her with an innumerable amount of things, and the gifts and souvenirs he brought back told her well enough that he was in fact sharp and devoted. But he evaded hers and Tataru's soft prods into talking about personal things, about himself.

In this way, he was exactly like Thancred.

"Does your future remember Theodore?" she asked G'raha once.

"Only as a story," G'raha replied. "He passed before-- before Mordred did. The first of the major Black Rose casualties. And it was...perhaps the final straw for the pyre."

What G'raha had no heart to tell Mordred was that in the anguished, broken future, Theodore had told him to stay away from the frontlines. As he had done here in this reality, where he had asked Mordred to return to Eorzea after the Ghimlyt Dark. Mordred had been safe in the Ala Mhigan quarters, rebuilding with the people and developing ideas to counter rumors of this Black Rose.

And then the Garleans had unleashed it on Ghimlyt alongside their warmachina, and a broken spear and helmet were returned to the Quarters thereafter. Theodore's silver-gilded, icy armor that had shielded him from countless other dangers and immortalized him in songs and books, could not shield him from the deadly gas and the machinations of Ascians.

Then the books burned in the flames of war and those who wrote and sang those songs died among so many others. And none remained at all about this other Warrior of Light aside from his friend's handwritten letter to G'raha, among the last, that said, "Theodore is dead. There is nothing left for me."

So, nowadays, whenever Theodore came by the Baldesion Annex -- which he did, because he did guildship commissions and because Mordred told him to help with their Baldesion commissions as well -- Krile asked him about his day. She asked him where he had been, what he had eaten.

Theodore said he was a knight-in-training in Ishgard, once upon a time. He told her about his sympathies for Alphinaud having learned how to draw to impress girls because before he had the words to describe his attraction to men, he'd thrown his own lazy bum into lessons of arms and instruments to impress his handsome schoolmates. He told her he liked fairy tales and stories of romance. He told her he felt like he'd managed to marry off the friend he was most worried about never finding happiness when G'raha returned with Mordred.

He spoke about that part with the same sense of relief Mordred had when he told her he was glad Alphinaud had a normal, lighthearted childhood.

Krile's grandfather used to say a very wise thing about people, and that was: very few were as good a liar as they believed. If there was malevolence in you, it'd bleed through to others no matter what. The same went for benevolence.

"I'm glad," Krile replied to Theodore then. "I'm sure you could tell, but...Raha is always worried that you would resent him. For what happened on the First, as well as, um."

"How besotted my dear best friend is with him?" Theodore replied wryly.

And because she was Raha's adopted sister, Krile had a duty to ask. "Well? Do you?"

"People often speak of moments that appall the conscience and ruin their worldly optimism." Theodore said this very steadily, at once, not in the way a lie was too easy but like it was a thought he'd been nursing for some time. "Not many admit to moments -- no, weeks and months -- of things which elevate their conscience, which inspires and enlightens them. Emboldens them. This, Mordred had given to me. In the months and years I have been at his side. How can I resent the person who had done for him as he had for me? How can I, indeed, treat G'raha with anything but gratitude and friendship?"

[vynpop]

First Read of 2024!

Where The Crawdads Sing

By Delia Owens

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis:

"For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life-until the unthinkable happens."

Review:

This book was my first read for the year 2024 and I loved every bit of this book. I read this back in January so I am doing a bit of backlogging here for you guys. Anyway, I prevented myself from watching the movie on Netflix when it was trending so that I could enjoy the book first. I have always felt that the books were better than the movies, but that is just me.

Kya has become my sister, a fellow firefly if you will. She was everything I could've imagined. Beautiful, wild, and full of a strength I wish I could possess. She went through so much at such a young age and still, she overcame it all. She was the untameable. She was a force of nature.

I applaud Delia Owens and the amount of detail that went into describing the marsh that Kya had grown up in. Her work inspired me to be outside more and listen to the birds, feel the grass and soil beneath my feet, and wonder at the life around me. I even found myself listening to a nature soundtrack of the marsh just to fully immerse myself into Kya's world.

It was this sad and beautiful tale of a girl who longed for love, but at the same time could handle herself. Her community had failed her in so many different ways, but in the long run, Kya was the one who proved them all wrong. By the end of the book I found myself screaming, in the best way of course, because only great books make a person behave in such a way.

It was a great way to start off 2024.

Favorite Parts/Quotes:

"Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother."

"...she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp, Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp, She paddles her white canoe. And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I'll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footstep of death is near."

(Sorry for the format of the above quote, it's a poem within the book).

"Looky here, hon, Ah got us a big un, big as Alabamee!"...He had called her "hon." --When I tell you I was on the brink of tears reading this part! My heart and emotions were all over the place.

[whatthecrowtold]

#unhallowedarts - "I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side" - Bram Stoker's Dracula

“You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.“

(Bram Stoker “Dracula”)

It was a indeed a dark and stormy night, the one in the year without Summer back in 1816, when the Shelleys, Byron and his physician John Polidori sat down to make pop culture history. Cut off from the world, bored witless and full to the brim with laudanum, his lordship challenged the gathered Romantic enfants perdu to lift the burden of ennui with telling ghost stories in the German fashion. And while both Byron and Shelley brought off rather nothing except consuming more narcotics that night, Mary famously began to write “Frankenstein” and Polidori engendered the other treasured dread, the aristocratic, suave, blood sucking king of the undead, the vampire. The myth itself was, of course, centuries old and only two generations before, a downright mass hysteria ran through Europe when repeated cases of vampirism were reported in the Balkans along the Austro-Turkish military border.

Polidori though took the revenant peasant prowling around his former home and sucking the blood of his family, clad him in evening attire and modelled him after the pattern of his employer into a Byronic hero. Polidori’s Lord Ruthven became the ancestor of the 19th and 20th century’s vampires that haunted the imaginations of countless readers and the pages of Gothic literature from the likes of Gogol and Merimee to the infamous penny dreadfuls. One of these featured a creature called “Varney the Vampire” who brought in the fangs and the tell-tale bite marks and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” from 1872 gave the myth the structure of a long dead noble á la Coleridge’s “Christabel” haunting a damsel in distress and a group of heroes bringing the creature to bay with the help of ancient lore and occult paraphernalia. The groundwork was laid and along came Bram Stoker.

As a child, Stoker was bedridden until the age of seven, rose as from the dead after his mysterious illness all of a sudden ceased, became a football star at college, graduated in mathematics and ended up a pen-pusher in Dublin Castle. Not satisfied with his lot, naturally, Stoker changed his career to theatre critic at the Dublin Evening Mail, owned by Sheridan Le Fanu, and attracted the attention of the famous actor Sir Henry Irving with a favourable review, the two became friends and Stoker followed Irving to become his manager. Meanwhile he had won the hand of Florence Balcombe, a celebrated beauty, courted by Stoker’s acquaintance form Trinity College Oscar Wilde as well as a host of other suitors. Stoker would bring these experiences into a literary form in his opus magnum “Dracula” with Sir Henry Irving acting as model for the undead count as Byron did for Polidori 80 years before.

Stoker had never been to Romania, during the 1890s a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but he did a thorough research on his subjects that he would add with iconic effects to the imagery of the literary Gothic, from local legends of the 1750s, the late 15th century Wallachian Prince Vlad III. Drăculea who was famed in western European sources for his cruelty and other inspirations from Central Europe like Princess Eleonore von Schwarzenberg, rumoured to be a vampire during her lifetime at the beginning of the 18th century and already an inspiration for German poet Gottfried August Bürger to his poem “Leonore”. Well-known enough known to Stoker and everyone else who read and wrote Gothic literature.

Pitting his research-wise well founded mythical Count and his ancient evil that bears strong resemblances to the feared syphilis as well as despicable moral liberties against the forces of the modern age, trains, the telegraph, typewriters, repeating rifles and established processes and organised teamwork, based on thorough research. Published in 1897, “Dracula” became an instant success and the standard followed to this day, even if Stoker and “Dracula” act only as powers behind the throne of “Urban Fantasy”.

All artwork above is by John Coulthart from his 2018 take on "Dracula" and nicked from his blog linked below

[popculturebuffet]

Hatchetfield Retrospective: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals: I Mean What The Fuck?

SPOILER WARNING FOR ALL HATCHEFIELD PRODUCTIONS PRE-NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE

CONTENT WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE

Hello all you happy people and tonight we're gonna chronicle a story so astronomical, though thankfully not the last remaining story to tell as I celebrate spooky season by kicking off a look at one of the best new horror franchises to pop up. While I took a brief look at this series back in 2020 with the first episode of nightmare time, I think it's time I booked an extended stay in the tiny town of Hatchetfield for a full on retrospective. So get your cups of roasted coffee, pre-order that Tickle Me Wiggly, book your tickets to Watcher World and roll a fatty bowl of Perky's Buds as I take a look at this weird, wonderful world of horror, comedy, showstopping numbers and telling Clivesdale to rightly go fuck itself with the first stop on our tour, the musical that started it all by ironically being about a guy who doesn't much care for them. A Brief History of Starkid and Hatchetifield

So before we get to the horrifying tale of life becoming a musical, we need to look at the weirdos behind the curtain of this wonderful series of plays, zoomcasts and I assume tales Nick Lang shouts to his brother over zoom at 3 in the morning we might see someday, Starkid Productions Aka Team StarKid aka "Aren't those the guys who made that weird harry potter musical?". Most of you are well aware of who they are and their rough history, most of you also likely better than I but since I like to keep these reviews accessible and since some of my audience read whatever I put out regardless of if they gave one pigfart about it going in

It all began at the University of Michigan, GO BLUE! I don't have a connection to it myself but after watching about 80 hours of dead meat you start doing that on reflex. It was here while reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a nerd by the name of Nick Lang wondered "hey woudln't it be funny if Draco bullied hermione because he liked her" This lead to this group writing the song granger danger, and deciding "Hey this could make a fun musical". Hence a Very Potter Musical was born. Nick asked his buddy Darren Criss to use some of his songs (One from a previous project Little White Lie), which snowballed into Darren both doing a lot of the music and playing Harry Freaking Potter himself.

What was supposed to be a fun goofy side project by a bunch of dedicated nerds became an internet sensation and thus Team StarKid was born, deciding they could keep this going: staging musicals at school then throwing them up online for other nerds. Naturally another Harry Potter musical followed and finding out abotu these and devouring the soundtracks, a twelve years younger and less sad but far more unteitonally creepy towards women me found thees musicals, laughed his ass off and was a fan from that day forward. While I wouldn't watch the next few shows I would listen to the soundtracks and followed starkid for a bit.

While the team would face the setback of Darren moving on to Glee, which I was watched at the time so at least I got to hang on to him even as he hung ont o a show slowly falling off the earth and into it's molten core where the lava men tore ita part piece by piece, it still held firm, moving on to musicals about Sentient Genitals, space bugs wanting to break the status quo, the goddamn batman wanting to be somebody's buddy, Achmed the tiger fucking man, an interquel for star wars that's also an inspiring 80's movie, waking up with mud on your dick and not wanting to do the work today. All were anchored by goofy alternate takes on the characters they were parodying, suprising amoutns of heart, a talented if sometimes shifting crew, and of course Nick Lang, who along with his rarely seen because he shy and now he in kanas brother matt, wrote the musicals and Nick directed a few himself.

So naturally when Nick decided to relocate to LA, in part because some of the troupe like longtime member and certified Chad Joey Richter were already there and likely to shake things up, half the troupe went with him and the other stayed behind, amicably parting ways and with Merdith Stephin, who'd been a big part of things returning with their partner for VHS Christmas Carol later and the upcoming Jangle Ball tour. Sadly they soon lost another member as long time Starkid and sex machine Joe Walker retired from acting. So in a tight spot with half the troupe gone, Nick decided to swing for the fences and thus decided to shift genres slightly: from goofy parody comedy's with heart (and the occasional original), to an intrictatley built shared horror comedy multiverse. After spitballing a lot of ideas for the setting, Hatchetfield was born and three ideas for musicals came out of it mostly formed: Nerdy Prudes Must Die, Black Friday.. and this very one. Despite coming third in ideas, TGWDLM was decided to be the first of the series, to test to see if audiences would take to it with it's accessible premise.

The result.. was a massive hit, ushering in a new era of starkid, fresh fans, and a return to prominence after it dimmed somewhat. Hatchetfield gave the group new life, and over time they've picked up even more members and came out swinging stronger than ever, having done Black Friday the year after, spun the franchise off into the webcast series nightmare time during the height of the pandemic, and now going into it's third musical next year with Nerdy Prudes Must Die. As I write this it's kickstarter is still going and has reached it's goal, but to help the Lang Shang A Langs reach their stretch goal i'm offering you a deal: For every three of you starkids who sends me a screenshot of you either pledging or upping your pledge (I myself can't go over 5) I promise to review another starkid musical at some point beyond the Hatchetfield Series, starting at the back with A Very Potter Musical and going up, and to sweeten the pot if you hit them all i'll also cover the tin can bros productions too. So if you want a lot of nostalgia, cringing and jokes at a Transphobes expense while supporting a work that is very much everything she isn't, my ask box is open.

Hatchetfield means a lot to me: I ran into it in 2020 just as my love of horror was really ramping up, having really loved the trailer for Black Friday and watching TGWDLM first in case I needed to see it. Which you can watch either on their own, their both standalone works but it works better in order given the crowd pops any time something from TGWDLM gets referenced. It got me back into starkid and while I still need to crawl through the massive backlog of shows i've missed, what i've found is wonderful and i've found these wonderful PEIPS have kept going and kept an honest to god comradery and love for one another that's commendable. And it was thanks to that I got to feel that love again. See how these people had grown and gotten even awesome with time as we talk about the man whose name is in the title whose destined to go viral and the waking nightmare he finds himself in. A Story So Astronomical

Before we can open this musical's tummy and get into it's blue guts, we have to get down to brass tacks nad break down what exactly happened here.

TGWDLM is the story of Paul Matthews, an average man living an average life as an office drone in Hatchetfield. He spends his days with Bill, his struggling single dad best friend whose desperate to reconnect with his daughter, Ted, the office walking erection who dosen't seem to get Paul wants nothing to do with him , and Charlotte, a meek and saddeningly frazzled woman whose in a loveless failing marriage to her cop husband , having an affair with Ted to try the fill the void. Working hard for the mildly obnoxious Bill Lumberg impersonator Mr. Davidson, Pauls' only real refuge is Beanies, a local cafe that makes a nice carmel frappe and more importantly to Paul, employs his crush Emma, a cynical barista who hates the place's musical gimmick understandably as while unlike Paul I LOVEEEEEEEEEEE musicals, minimum wage food service jobs are already draining and obnoxious, adding being forced to sing to it no matter how tired you are or obnoxious the customer sounds like my own personal hell.

Also around are a green piece girl who in trying to brush her off Paul pisses off instead, a man in a hurry, and Peter who badly needs his hot chocolate for his low blood sugar. I can relate to peter. Can't wait to properly meet him when I get around to watching Abstinance Camp. Yes folks I'm that behind on Nightmare Time Season 2, you may boo. Soundtrack's dope though.

Things quickly change though when a meteor crash lands on the starlight theater, and the next day in excellent horror fashion Paul slowly notices something… just isn't right, starting with a whole ass group musical number. We'll get to the songs in their own sectoin much like Starkids closest spirtual cousin the muppets, and it soon esclates to being forced to sit there while his boss grins like ti's the ending credits of pearl and tells Paul how he wants his wife to choke him out at night while Paul slowly dies inside in real time.

Paul starts to grasp the implications of everything having turned into a musical and infected everyone, but it takes Emma a moment… till she finds her boss and coworker, now also part of the extradimensional hive mind, poisoning their customers mid-musical number and planning to infect her too. Our heroes barely escape through some human shaped bushes and Emma finally grasps the implications.

They thankfully find other survivors in Bill, Ted and Charlotte, though that's all the good news they have: Downtown's been swarmed and when Charlotte calls her husband for help.. and instead gets a musical number about how their cops and they make sense

Our heroes, like most citzens barely survive their encounter with the cops, scarring them off after Ted brains Sam's brains out of his head with a trash can lid. Needing help and with the hospital being downtown at the heart of the swarm, our heroes instead go to Emma's kooky college instructor Professor Hidgens, the star of the show and a survivalist fringe scientist who foresaw this exact sort of apocalypse and thus built up his estate on the edge of town to be ready for it, including booze. I mean what's an apocalypse if you can't get hammered right? I don't drink but I feel the apocalypse is one of those "code red" situation where even if you don't, you need to get blazed anyway. Liked if Keith David dies. I'm still convinced he's immortal but in a year that's been constantly punching me in the dick via Warner Bros Discovery, i've learned not to take anything for granted.

So Paul and Emma get closer and get all snuglay, Bill threatens to kick Ted in the head, and soon Charlotte makes things far worse after Sam singing the only bad song in the musical at her somehow dosen't make her run screaming but gets her to free him. We then get one of the best as the Hive gets fed up with the soft touch and just plans to murder them all, but in horror rock paper scissors "guy with the gun" beats monster anytime, and Hidgens saves them. Our party ends up having to split as stupid as that sounds as Bill finds out Alice is still in town and in downtown, so he and Paul go to save her, Emma stays behind at Hidge's instince to disect the corpses and Ted stays because wellll

Though he DOES point out there likely isn't an Alice left and this is a suicide mission

And I do mean sad as they find Alice already infected and proceding to sing a whole song about how her dad sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms, how it's his fault she ended up here, and pressing every parental parent button and insecurity bill has. The poor guy reaches for a gun as a result and luckily, Paul, in an incredibly heartbreaking scene, talks his friend out of such.

Unfortunately neither of them in the state they were in thought to WATCH said gun so Bill dies seconds later and it's only the military showing up that prevents Paul from sharing the same fate. While Paul gets a gun butt to the head, Emma gets some MMMMM Drugs and wakes up tied to a chair, with Ted likewise. I mean he's into it but he's gotta be asked first. It's just common courtsey. Turns out Hidgens is on the creatures side.. he's not hived but the idea of a musical seeming utopia where everyone is happy, ther'es no traffic accidents, the trains run on time , is wonderful and plans to lure the aliens here. How he does it is with one of the best piecs in musical theater. We'll again get to that later, but thankfully our heroes manage to escape while the hive is distracted with Hidgens and opens his tummy.

Paul might have a way out though as the Miltary Man he meets is the gruff but loveable and resonable John Macnamara, who works for PEIP, your standard issue extranormal government organization that covers weird shit like this. HIs orders are to murder anyone he sees and let god sort out the corpses, but

And gives Paul an out, especailly after hearing how sweet he is on emma: he has a few hours to grab her, GET TO THE CHOPPA, and escape before they nuke the place as god intented. Well the Judeo-Christian god. The god with a thumb in this pie wants a musical apocalypse.

Paul gets back to the others with the news and allows Ted to come. This goes as badly as you'd expect as Ted tries betraying them and taking the chopper himself

Naturally given this is a horror work, this gets Ted killed by the hive who already have McNamara and a few of his PEIPS by the time he gets there. They sing a very unsbtle and unsettling song while our heroes barely escape.. only to get further proof that Pokey isn't the only god who hates Paul as it turns out the pilot is Hive!Zoey who crashes, leaving Paul as the only thing that MIGHT be able to stop this: Hidge , as reinfieldy as he was, theroized the meteor, the source of the Blue Shit and thus the hive, must be the hive queen. Blowing it up real good might be a good shot

What follows is more soul destruction… seriously when I first watched this only being familiar with the earlier starkid works, I had no idea the emotoinal punch in the scrotum I was in for, as Paul gets infected and has to fight his inner depressiona nd the hive and seemingly wins, blowing up the theater and seemingly the hive.

Emma survives, and is reunited with Paul and is happy.. for about 5 seconds. In a tragic and horrifying twist ending Paul survived, everyone else apparently did too… and Emma is left to scream futilely in horror for help as her fate is left uncertain and the world… is left to be united by a singular voice, who in a deep void far away laughs musically having finally gotten his leading man.

Scary If You Think of the Implications

So you might of noticed with the synopsis the tone of the musical: Nick was very clever here as he likely knew both people coming in from other starkid works and people who came in fresh, like my friend @jess-the-vampire who I got to join the hive here and at least interested in checking out more of Hatchetfield and starkid, Twisted in particular since we're both big into disney and the idea there was an entire number about the guy who showed up all of once to have a tiger bite his ass made her laugh, would expect this to be way goofier than it was. Even I despite spoiling myself on how it ended before I watched it, wasn't prepared.

TGWDLM is still a comedy to it's bones, with both great jokes I remembered vividly from the first time like the ENTIRETY of what do you want paul (I struggled not to loose my damn shit the first time I heard Davidson say he wanted his wife to choke him while he jerked off while Paul prayed for death but death won't come in the background), "Kick your head" (With Corey and Joey absolutely killing me, especially Joey as Ted hams it up to high heaven),Ted's love of workin boys, Working Boys itself, "I'm professor hidgens!' and more, as well as a few I forgot like "I don't want to die in your filthy presbeterian church", Jon's impecable background acting, and "He didn't want to go like this. He wanted to do what he loved: getting choked by his wife while he masturbates!". It's also delightfully meta with every song being some form of standard brand of Musical song, something i'll break down more when we get to the songs themselves.

It strikes a good tone for a horror comedy: the situation is rediculous enough to generate tons of laughs, but also still GENUINELY horrifying and heartwrenching. It dosen't forget it's either. It's not the depth either as character depth is something that dates back to Very Potter which somehow turned Voldermort from pure unrelnting horrifying evil to a guy whose still evil but also struggles with his sexuality and missing his partner. No what catches you off guard, is the horror. With Horror Comedy you can vary a lot. Take the Chucky Franchise for instance. 2 is a horror comedy, but still leans heavier on the horror aspect, with Chucky still taken dead seriously despite now cracking one liners, Bride leans more into the camp and gore, and Seed just went full on insanity and camp with no real horror to be found apart from Chucky's treatment of his own family. You can vary in just how much you have. TGWDLM strikes me as where the franchise is now: it takes itself seriously, but isn't afraid to still throw jokes in there for contrast or just for fun, being dead serious when it needs to be and hilarious when it doesn't, and sometimes mixing the two.

The premise on paper sounds goofy but like Paul says it's when you think of the implications it gets bad and the show does a great job of doing this: When the Hive first shows up in "La Dee Da Day", it's goofy and played for laughs: it' is mildy creepy everyone's acting like it's a musical, but it's mostly funny for Paul's utter confusion, the homeless man talking about how he "used to want to kill them all while high on bath salt zombie drugs snacking on a dead mans face" and even as dark as THAT gets Paul's horrified flat what brings it right back around.

It's only when Charlotte gives a monologue about how sam not sounding like himself in the shower really underved her that it starts to get serious, but the next scene shifts back to comedy.. while uppping the discomfort. Now the Hive is directly trying to convert paul, and while it's done in the most hilarious manner possible, the grin splattered on Davidsons face, the fact he can't remember what he wanted once he stops singing, and the clear instiance of him joining them are unsettling And then.. we get the coffee shop scene. This is why I say it' sby design: the langs knew audience expectations.. .probably figured the horror part woudln't be a true factor here.

Instead what starts being only mildly unsettling (Emma unknowingly singing with what the audeince can tell are hive infected co workers).. only for it to slowly ramp up: they perform complicated manuvers she wasn't ready for and when she tries to quit.. they tel lher she can't.. and then in a cheery monotone explain they POISONED everyone else and gladly sing while several people die aorund them are are reborn with a singular voice. The terror on Emma's face combined with the various patrons going from choking to death to slowly JOINING IN one by one on the how do you do.. it's truly impressive and not being a sfamiliar with the fandom if we haven't talked about how great this scene is before we damn well should.

We get one last respite with show me your hands but from then on the comedy almost never comes from the hive again, something that didn't hit me till just now: the rest of the comedy comes from Sensei Bill, show stopping numbers and other things with only the "All your friends are here" bit in the climax being a hive involved joke. It shows the Hive's slow evolution horrifically as it goes from bumblingly comedic if still horrifying, From here on it WEAPONZIES our heroes despairs hopes and needs: it prays on Charlotte's desperate desire both for her husband to live and for him to actually love her again, turning her. It prays on Bill's love of his daughter to lure him and his difficulties as a parent to utterly destroy him, it uses PEIP and the helicopter to nearly kill emma, uses Paul's last ditch plan to infect him.. and uses him to twist the knife one last time fo rour ending. Every time our heroes have hope the Hive uses it against them, which gets more ingenious when you think about how most horror works, including a lot of the other hatchetfield stories, go: Even if our heroes may loose eventually the ones who survive or at least make it to the end don't give up, keeping going, and use hope, determination and grit to survive. Here the Hive uses that AGAINST them. It's again where the balance is effective: when you stop to think about it, this work is ENTIRELY bleak, but thanks to the comedy you don't. It only hits you later when you have no escape from it, just as our heroes have no escape from The Hive, Pokey.. or themselves.

Production wise TGWDLM is stripped down, and by design: with a new tone, new cast members and a new venue, the StarKids had a lot to work out with this one, so the costumes are the simple kinds they could rent or make cheapley, the effects are minimal, the blue shit very clearly being homeade slime, sam's brain apparently falling out repdatedly during one performance and most other things being pantomimed, and the set is even more so, simply some colored lights on cube.

It works perfectly though: the lack of props in places like typewriters in the helicopter and elsewhere is played ENTIRELY for laughs, and the lack of detail in places like the cups of poisoned coffee or hidgens getting his stomach torn to pieces leaves it to the audeince to imagine just how horrific those things are. Sometimes what you can make a persons mind do can surpass what your budget can, a staple of horror. It's no shock one of Hatchetfields primary influences is the similarly cheap for it's first two instalments evil dead franchise, with Rami's tenants of horror not only guiding the stories here but ending up as part of the cannon later. While StarKid is FAR from strangers of stretching a budget, TGWDLM is easily the second most impressive example of that with only nightmare time, operating on nothing for it's first season as far as I could tell surpassing it. That leaves us with the acting and music, which naturally given Starkid is both a very actorcentric group and a very musical one, need their own sections. The Stars of the Show

Starting with the man whose name is in the title whose destined to go viral , we have Paul Matthews, played by Starkid Newcomer Jon Mattenson. While a fresh face to the StarKid verse Jon to my lack of surprise was a long time stage actor before this, doing a series of one man shows including one I hope someone has video of Shark Tank: The Musical. Given he was performing in Chicago at the time it didn't take long for him to meet future fellow starkids Lauren and Jeff, with Jeff even doing the music for Jon's one man show, which i'm also adding to the "stuff I will do if you help up those backer numbers." So naturally when Starkid needed new members, he was a perfect fit.

Jon instantly feels like he belongs too: it takes a LOT to come into an experienced group and play lead on your first show, even more when your in a musical but do not get to sing until the final act. But by god Jon not only pulls it off but easily commands the entire play. And it's not that everyone else is bad. Far from it, as usual the rest of the StarKids bring it and we'll get to their performances. But as Paul, Jon utterly brings it: Paul is a layered guy being entirely boring and sedate in the office and while a tad awkward with Emma he also manages to be utterly charming, with Jon and Lauren having wonderful chemistry. You get why despite his very thin excuse for coming here and her seeing right through it she likes the guy who doesn't like musicals, and why Paul has friends and quickly becomes the group's surrogate leader: while he's an utterly normal guy, he's a likeable one, one who clearly cares for his friends.. and Ted because he kinda has to. He can be awkward but usually only when really freaked out. It's remarkable just HOW layered this character came off on second watch: first time around I liked Paul but second I fucking loved this guy.

A big part of this is background acting. While it's a common and valuable skill, especially in a comedy, Jon takes it to another level: As Jess pointed out to me every scene with him, every background movement is paul and whether hte's terrified of what's going on around him and worried for his crush's safety or DEEPLY uncomfortable because his boss is talking about jerking off, there's something to dissect and pull from. Jon is just that terrific and actor and I feel despite how talented this troupe is NO ONE else could've played paul like Jon. This is one of those performances only the actor who gave it could give.

And of course his peak is with Let It Out, where Jon effortlessly bounces between the real paul, terrified of both what he's becoming and what it's awakening, and his smiley nightmarish body invader. The effortless switching between the two in face is just mesmerising: you can't look away even if you badly want to as Paul struggles desperatley to defeat himself.. and is loosing. You have to wait the whole musical to hear Jon sing but once he does it's clear he wasn't cast as paul because he wasn't a great singer.. but because he was such a great actor.

Paul as a character is surprisingly deep: as part of the musicals meta commentary on musicals themselves Paul seems to be your typical lead stuck in a dead end situation he needs to dream his way out of. The probelm for the hive and paul himself is he really DOSEN'T know what he wants ,Paul. What he wants to actually DO with his life beyond work in an office job he dosen't seem especially happy at and maybe marry someone. IT's also realistic as Paul as most people struggle with what they really want and most who end up in an office drone job like Paul simply needed a job. And while he seems content working the job and hating musicals, as seen by the fact he still works it in every other relality after this with the only change being actually getting to connect with Emma before the apocalypse hits, one line in "Let It Out" makes it PAINFULLY clear:

"I've Never Been Happy, Wouldn't That Be Nice?

It's easy to see Paul trying to use having a steady job or finding a partner as a patch for the fact he feels deeply unhappy and alone and needs something to help him along. Yet a partner can't fix that for you ,as i've had to learn and said job isn't exactly plesant. Sometimes having depression, and in my case (and possibly pauls as there are signs), autisim, means you try to stave off the encroaching darkness with something, anything to make it better. It dosen't mean Paul CAN'T find enjoyment in his job, he met his best friend and niece there, is clearly on great terms with charlotte and Ted… well okay he has to deal with the constant smells of axe bodyspray and jizz coming from his office but 2/3 ain't bad. And he and Emma do have genuine chemistry. There's a reason their together in the next timeline and all. These aren't bad things and in fact probably hlep, but their a patch to a larger problem. It's telling a planned nightmare time story for him had him fantasies via dream machine that he was an 8 foot antrophormic squirrel living out howard the duck because the only person everyone loved without any strings attached was Peanuts the Hatchetfield Pocket Squirrel

It shows someone with depression can function but that paul probably needs counseling. It also does show his grit though: despite his depression and anxiety, he keeps going, keeps trying and despite hating the genre dosen't stop actually watching Musicals if you look closely. He knows the lyrics to "There You Are" as seen when hidgens makes everyone sing it and has seen Mamma Mia. It's something you fine folks pointed otu and Jon clearly agrees with: while he may not like musicals he dosen't stop trying. Paul is a wonderful character and I hope he gets a happy ending eventually.. or at least that if Nightmare Time ever returns he gets a happy ending for a change.

Next up is EMMMMA! Emma is played by Lauren Lopez, one of the three longtime starkids and has been in every play except one, and that one's a technicality I throw out of her flawless record as Starkid experimented with doing two smaller shows at once, and even as amazingtastic as Lauren is.. she can't clone herself. YET. While she's spent the bulk of Starkid history playing either crossdressing rolls or just plain weird ones, from best boy Draco Malfoy, to a verison of Apu from aladdin that needs to be put down due to clearly having contracted the Motiva virus, to Comissioner Gordon, she had quite the career with her roll in Starship being the only acception I can think of once the shows got started proper.

This would change after Firebringer, her first starring role in a starkid show and since sh'es played usually adult or teenage women. Why?

Maybe Nick and Matt wanted to let her stretch creatively, maybe they just got tired of that bit and wanted to let Lauren try different things. Maybe there's no real reason to it and it's just a thing that happened. I dunno. Maybe i'll be lucky enough to get to ask Lauren herself someday, i'd be honored to interview any starkid past or present.

Point is the transition didn't loosen her timing nor her talent one iota. While I can't speak on her role in firebringer as I haven't seen it yet, I can say Emma is one of her best rolls and they only reason I can't say for certain it's the best is that she somehow equaled herself with the next play and I have no idea wether Emma or Linda is better.

Emma is a complex character at first seemingly like just a jaded minimum wage worker who only seems to like exactly two people in the world: Paul because he's likely the only person she serves all day that seems to treat her like a human being, and Hidgens because he's charming, nice and probably is a fantastic guy to get high with. Like seriously, I bet Hidgens let's her test growing weed in the back of his fancy ass bunker mansion. HFPD is'nt going to come up there, their stretched as is covering Sam's midlife crisis.

She's guarded as hell but yet charming: anyone whose worked minimum wage can tell you it blows and the Langs amazingly perfectly captured what it's like to work that kind of job in your late 20's, working for those who don't respect you and those way younger than you. Throw in your depressoin, anxiety and autisim all swirling to make the frantic pace of food service near impossible and forcing me to get disablity, and it'd basically me be just without spitting in the food or slacking off.

Emma's mostly there to get them to hidgens, have wonderful chemistry with paul and make one liners, but she's still utterly endearing, with Lauren having tons of great deliveries and it being clear this situation is a LOT to pack in, that sure it's funny to watch.. but the sheer stress of it would break anyone.

And while her goal of leaving this town isn't exactly new, her REASON for it and wantin ga weed farm (since it'll be local nation wide soon as she put it and with Biden outright saying he's going after criminal charges for it recently, likely readying to do just that, she fucking called it), are heartbreaking: She was always cynical and not wanting to be caught in her older more succesful family minded sister Jane's shadow, she left… and then refused to come back. And kept doing so…. till FLASH, BANG, Jane…. was in a box and emma came back to mourn her. It sums up death painfully well: that you think you have all the time with a person in the world but sometimes.. it just… it comes up short. Thankfully of the two people i've lost neither were estranged from me but it still hurts not getting to say goodbye and it's clear emma carries a LOT of guilt and thus decided to make something of her life before it was gone.

Jane's death is also a masterful example of stealth setup. It's what i'm now calling when something is setup for later in a franchise or series, but it's not obvious at the time. It's something you likely want expanded but don't realize the creators not only plan to but always did. When watching this even KNOWING Black Friday was a coming I just didn't think that Emma's brother in law would end up not only being a main character but someone who'd help really solidify hatchetfield as a setting. Nor that he'd be played by Dumbledore but that was just pure luck. Nor that he'd end up fucking his wife's ghost possessing a car via the cupholders.

Strange times. Emma is perfectly played, being snarky and standofish as usual at times, utterly sweet with paul, and naturally terrified with any. And while Jon is clearly the background acting mvp here, Lauren deserves props for Emma's combination of horror and "what the fuck am i watching" during Workin boys"

Next up we have Ted.

Ted is played by my boy Joey Richter, another Starkid long timer and while he's missed a few more shows than his fiance, he's still one of their MVP's, starting as a headbanded Ron Weasley broing it out with harry and becoming over time a starship ranger, a kid who talks to his sentient penis, and of course his finest hour, about TWENTY diffrent rolls in the Trail To Oregon. That's not hyperbole: due to the play's stripped down cast, there were only 6 actors (The others being Lauren, Merdeith stephin whose not in this play nor a full time member of the group, though they did come back for A VHS Christmas Carol, Jeff Blim,Jamie Lynn Beatty and Corey Dorris in his best roll to date), and the other 5 were all mains with Jamie having a very small second part and Corey having a sizeable one. In contrast Joey had to play EVERY. OTHER. PART. Which included one song, independence, that was him taking on about 15 diffrent rolls, and had a rapid fire bit, and the role of main villian mcdoon, getting one of his best songs in Wagon on Fire as Result. The man is a fucking god and I hope he and Lauren are very happy together, having been together for years but only gone public with it two years ago to announce their engagment. Given the fandom had been shipping them, not their characters THEM, since AVPM the squee could be heard from the red planet mars.

So i'ts no shock Joey kills it as the office's walking erection, wearing his now trademark mustache, something he's worn in most roles since to the point many assumed he wouldn't be taking over as Peter in NPMD apparently.. forgetting you know.. shaving's a thing. Jeff Blim's shaved and that likely took 80 razors and the will of mighty thor himself to get done.

Joey just has the perfect smarmy accent for ted, one I can't place but juts fits him so well and while being the standard "survivior who no one really likes and is waiting for to die" Joey's charm and charisma make him tolerable and enjoyable. It helps he's not USELESS. While he does betray our heroes for his own selfish needs later, bastard and all, he doe smake some good if dickish points, trying to get Charlotte to see that her husband is well and truly gone (even if it's to sleep with her) and pointing out that Alice is likely already dead and saving her is a suicide mission, which it sadly was. His putting it in the most dickish way possible means it never really takes, but it's nice to show that as much of a bastard as he is, ted isn't entirley useless. His utter glee when watching Workin Boys is also one of the funniest things i've seen in a StarKid production or really in general. He's as into it as we are.

Next up is poor Charlotte, played by Jamie Lynn Beatty. Jamie has played a nice variety of rolls for the team, as shown with her rolls after this playing a basement dweller and the oliva newton john style Ghost of Christmas Past, but has a niche at times playing sad eyed woobies. Jamie's utterly expressive eyes really help. Charlotte is a throughly sad, throughly tragic character, a woman whose clearly still only with her hubsand due to a combination of badly trying to make it work when it's clear Sam, whose cheating on her with Zoey and god knows who else, has long since checked out and stays married to her because

And because she's throughly religious, being presbetarian, and thus refuses a divorce despite cheating on Sam to fill the void, said void only being filled by bastards like Ted. It's part of why I badly want a nightmare time focusing on Charlotte, as the poor woman needs a hug, not to have her zombie husband gaslight her into letting him go then make her one of them. That said the Hive charlotte is fucking awesome, and the high note Jamie hits on "Join Us and Die" is one for the ages. It was hard seeing Charlotte's pain again and knowing it does not nor it never will end well for her.

That said there is an elephant in the room with Jamie and i'm jsut going to adress it now: she's weirdly NEVER gotten a lead roll in any of the hatchefield musicals, and her only nightmare time focusing on her was as the villians. Given how the rest of the main cast of TGDWLM has all gotten an episode a piece (most within season one no less), and that even Melissa recently got one in a fundraising livestream (that I haven't seen but is apparently bonkers), it feels weird though I don't doubt that they've TRIED to do a charlotte story, even announcing one was planned for season 2. It just might not have worked out yet. Hopefully in the future we'll get to see Jamie in the front.

Next up to bat Corey Dorris, my guy. Corey isn't from the very FIRST starkid show, but he's still a UM graduate, GO BLUE!, see I told you it was automatic and showed up as early as Me and My Dick, which again I have to reassure some of you does in fact exist. Fun Fact: it was written about Joey's friendship wth Darren Criss. So yes had we gotten luckier on of Darren Criss' earliest credits would've been a walking talking penis. Your welcome for now knowing that. Point is Corey has been there a long time and the hatchetfield era has seen a thankful up in his promience, going from primarly playing side roles iwth the exception of his great run as Grandpa in trail to oregon even if he had to wake up with blood on his dick and he didn't even know where it came from, to getting either main cast rolls or outright starring turns, as seen with Nightmare Time's "Watcher World" and "Daddy". He's also the troupes longest standing black member, and this era has seen the Langs try to diversify more, with longtime Coregrapher James Tolbert getting bumped up to the cast and hiring Bryce Charles as for Nightmare Time 2, as well as adding the Bisexual Mariah Rose Faith with this musical, the gay Tolbert, and the non-binary Jae Hughes in their respective works. Not a fact I really needed to go out of my way for but I appricate even a small operation like this taking steps to actually open up.

Corey is unsuprsingly fantastic as bill, playing a hilaroiusly awkward dopey dad, but a realistic one: he's not say homer simpson…

He genuinely clearly loves Alice, tries to look out for her and is supportive of her sexuality, which I know is a low bar to clear but I do think it's nice that Alice's sexuality is just a casual thing rather than a source of drama both here and in a spirtual sequel to the duo's plotline here in Watcher World. The issue is a combination of Bill's currently unamed and unseen ex coming off like this (Gem homer)

When it comes to her budget for trying to win their daughters love, and Bill not knowing how to handle Alice clearly putting some distance between them. The fact Bill really dosen't like Alice's girlfriend Deb and thought it was REMOTELY a good idea to admit it and try to prop up Grace Chastity, another great bit of setup for later musicals, as the ideal instead. One of the few weaknesses of these two is that we don't really get to dive into who they are or why their like this or see Alice as more than just a mildly rebelious teen before she's infected. We get SOME insight with Not Your Seed but it's left deliberately ambiguous what's a lie to get bill to break and what's a painful truth. For the record I think her wanting to live with him and the why does it hurt to love you monologues have some kernel of truth, with the latter being amplified to really harm bill, while "Your right about deb she's a hardcore stoner" is a very obvious lie. IT's part of how brilliant the number and the hives tactics there are: you don't know what it's making up to feed on bill's pain and insecurity, and what's actually true feelings alice had simply amped up to do the screen. Bill gets plenty, but we only see their conflict with each other from his side.

While it is mildly weak though.. I do think it dosen't harm the show as it feels intentional: we only see bill's side.. and that makes Not Your Seed more troubling as we genuinely DIDN'T know till watcher world how the conflict actually worked and never get to thanks to Alice being taken by the hive. We don't know how much Bill blaming himself for the fight that lead to Alice not going back to clivesdale and seeing Deb instead was or if Deb really did do more drugs despite stopping Alice from getting in with the smoke club, aka Joey and Lauren miming three cigarettes at once because their the best. We don't know what's true and what's not or if they coudl've fixed things and thanks to this tragedy we never will. All we know is Bill feels guitly for letting the divorcce happen, for letting his wife take her and for failing to be the dad he wants to be, and that's all the hive needs to seal his doom. It's the point I made: bill can be a dumbass, but any parent can fuck up or simply have problems with thir kid that aren't their fault and the tragedy here is what woul dbe an easily reconcilable fight turned into the death of two people who deserved a happier ending. Thankfully the Langs clearly saw the potetial in the two and thus we get Watcher World with nightmare time. So it's hard to be mad at this for not fleshing them out when it happened later and even in context it's kind of the point.

Finally for our core characters we have Professor Hidgens. Hidgens is played by Robert Manion, aka the elephant in the room. Robert joined starkid breifly for twisted but fully joined and was embraced by the community with this show and it's easy to see why. I will have plenty of praise for his performances here and in Black Friday and Nightmare Time Season 1. It can't be avoided. But neither can the truth: Robert was suspended from the group a year ago, as he'd harassed a member of the band via text and to the langs credit once again, they took it dead seriously, not only bringing in an HR Rep to have an outside perspective and a professoinal to handle this, but suspended Robert… with only WEEKS till Nightmare Time 2, forcing Nick to play Professor Hidgens, and Peter aka Hot Chocolate Boy, while Joey took over as ethan and will be taking over as Peter for Nerdy Prudes Must die. Nick has said he will be allowed to come back both after a resonable time period and taking proper undisclosed steps and so far that period has stretched over a year and into next given the NPMD recasting. If he'll return I do not know and the most I can give RObert for his jackassery.. is that he genuinely apologized, didn't get defensive and is taking his fully deserved supsension with grace and humility instead of whining like a baby that his actions have consequences. Again VERY low bar to clear but given how most harassers and abusers seen in media refuse to admit they did anything wrong or pull a louis ck and do do that but then show up not a year later and act like they still deserve a career. I'll take that.

So very ugly actions aside.. Robert is phenomial as hidgens, giving hi ma rex harrison voice, and somehow making you feel he's an old man depsite being the youngest of the team at the time. He's hammy, hilarious and goofy, being every old man who saw this coming cliche rolled into one turtleneck and neat coat and he's already a faviorite from the start from "Nice try but i'm professor hidgens" to his attempt to get laughs at his charoltte-tan pun, to "You bet your ass we got booze'

But of course where Hidgens/Manion really shines.. is Show Stoppin Number. Good god. I'll gush about the number later but the reveal that Hidgens is actually on the hive's side, a fan of musicals and has his own terrible musical about his 6 boyfriends , Workin Boys: A New Musical that turns out is a transparent parody of a failed broadway musical with basically the same premise from a guy the langs went to school with at UM, Go Blue. Again gotta save this for the music portion as much as it hurts, but god he's brilliant in that moment. The only real flaw is that Hidge's heel turn comes out of goddamn nowhere with no foreshadowing and even then like with Bill, it's pivoted by the fact that it coming out of nowhere makes it more funny and suprising. It's no wonder the fandom took to robert.. and I sincerly hope he's GENUINE in taking the steps to atone for his actions.

Before we can get to our final two cast members, both playing multiple parts, we have to talk about our antagonist: the Hive. The Hive has no main host, thus no actor to break down, being played by EVERYONE in the company at at least one ponit. Even Lauren, who plays the only speaking character who never gets infected, still has a role in the background of la de da day as one of the infected.

The Hive is a masterful antagonist and thankfully unlike some horror villians like Micheal Meyers, finding out more about it later via Nightmare Time 2 didn't diminish it much. It works on it's own as this mysterious force that slowly but surely infects people and goes through a clear evolution in tactics and method. It's first phase of attempts don't exactly come off forceful, but still have some logic: singing as a group in La Dee Da Day is to attempt to get people to follow along, which clearly worked for a lot of people, while they manage to take all but three of CCRP's employees simply by having Davidson work on them one at a time with ONLY paul resisting. They lack finesse, as seen by the fact neither works on paul and their as subtle as Mr. Davidson's need for his wife to choke him out at night, but they clearly worked on a LOT of people.

The next step is force, but even then they don't go full on slasher YET, instead simply using cunning, poisoning a few cups of coffee, then spreading to the police. THey don't know HOW to use this autority, it's hilarious in hindsight knowing that a centuries old entity REALLY dosen't know how cops work at all, but it's clear their starting to learn. It's almost as if this is the first time Pokey has done this, or that the distance between this reality and the black and white mean that he has to relearn stuff he knows. or he's just such a self obessed diva that he forgets this kind of stuff out of habit, with his scheme in "Yellow Jacket" only being so streamlined because he had one target in mind and someone so important to hatchtefield as a whole that he CAN'T forget them no matter how self absorbed he is.

As for who Pokey is for the untiated as i've put it off long enough, Pokey IS the hive. He is Pokotho, The Singular Voice, one of the lords of the black and white, five eldrich abominations each represented by a cuddly toy and cutsey nickname, likely inspired by what seems to be their leader, Wiggly. The Lords are the cause of the weirdness in hatchefield and thus each timeline, and often the world's end, either directly via their machenations and various servants, or indirectly as it's implied there presence is why the local witchwood is so bizzare and why the various bits of messed up shit that happen in each timeline happen. They largely operate on their own and have their own goals, but can be invoked as a group as part of various bargins with some in hatchetfield.

As you can probably gather this all comes from later in the timeline: The Black and White gets introduced next play as does the first Lord we meet face to face, Wiggly, and Nightmare Time would introduce the rest, all 5 getting a cameo in the final story, and each brother getting a story to themselves with Blinky and Tinky getting introduced in season 1, Nibbly in season 2 and Pokey getting properly reintroduced and fully confirmed as the Hive in the same seasons finale.

From what I can tell Pokey isn't all that diffrent between incarnations, and uses the Meteor as a medium, having it crash here and scientest extracting the blue shit from it in "yellow jacket" leading to him getting an avatar they created there. It also offers some insight that isn't suprising as we're told by a figure I won't introduce JUST yet for those juts tuning in that "he hates every voice but his own. And you can tell: while he tries to be nice to Pokey ANYTHING but his voice , his version of a person is anthemea. It explains why he's so ungodly cruel when he really gets going, gleefully using Charlotte's dead husband and bill's dead daughter to manipulate them and instead of just jumping emma as soon as he got the chance since he clearly had a number of hosts ready, teasing her with the idea Paul's alive. To him defying his will, his voice is worse: the only happiness is in the hive, wtih him. He'll give you what you want sure.. but at the cost of who you are because to him that's all that matters. It's likely why his medium's more limited than his brothers, who seem to have an easier time reaching otu: it's likely none of them want to give him the faintest chance of enough power to take them on and given he's the only lord to have outright taken a world, their fear isn't unujustified.

It's what makes Pokey so terrifying: They seem to want what's best for humanity.. but see a complete lack of will from anything but itself as best. Nothing will stop it, there's no depths it won't sink to torture you, and you WILL be part of the hive. I've always felt the best horror villians are one with a bit of personality and Pokey hits that itch like a bullseye. He's operatic, selfish and nightmarish, being a primadonna director with the goey face of an elder god who you can't bargin with. Just give up your choice. He dosen't feel overpowered becfause while abbsurdly powerful, the horror comes from the fact that they MIGHT have been able to stop him at a few hosts.. but by the time they realize it he's won and the rest of the musical comes off as him just playing with his food. A clever unstoppable meance that chills you to the bone and is remarkably well written given half a dozen people play him, yet all play him consitent, with the same chilling instance on being the singular voice. One being, dozens of bodies, no escape.

So speaking of dozens of bodies we're on to our other ingenue, our newest addition and one who like the other remaning cast members plays a bunch of extra rolls, Mariah Rose Faith Castiles, just the first three at the time of this as she's since married. She's a wonderful, kind person and a clear talent that fit right in. She's also like Jon heavily tied to this franchise having only missed one show, Black Friday due to getting a part in Mean Girls, something that was sad but also good for her. The Pandemic meant she was avaliable for Nightmare Time and after quitting the tour due to her anxiety she's back for NPD and we're glad to have her.

Mariah plays four roles in this one: Melissa, CCRP's receptionist who has a crush on Paul and dosen't show up much, Zoey, Emma's bratty coworker whose having an affair with sam, Alice, Bill's Daughter and Greenpeace girl, a GP volunteer who paul pisses off by trying to brush off. Since 3/4 of these characters show up hived on screen she spends most of her screentime as the Hive and does a terrific job, being jolly yet clearly off in La Dee Da Day, creepily monotone in cup of poison coffee nad finally heartbreakingly nightmarish as Alice, as she uses every insecurity bill has to tear the poor guy apart. She gets a truly great scene as Hive!Zoey to oas our heroes almost escape only to reveal nope, hive's flying the plane. It's no wonder Nick wanted her to play the lead as Lex next time, and she got her chance with Nerdy Prudes Must Die as Stephanie… and as fate would have it Grace Chasity , her co-lead is played by Angela Giratina, her replacement as Lex and as has become clear via streams and the Yellow Jacket music vidoew, a now good friend in real life which I find as strange as I do sweet.

Finally for cast introductions we have Jeff Motherfucking Blim, my boy. who with this muiscla finally got to use his now iconic unshaven coked out jesus look on screen. This is how I met Jeff but he'd been around a while: When Joey coudln't do Holy Musical Batman!, Jeff stepped in as Sweet Tooth, and hammed it up so hard he earned a permeannt spot with the group, going on to play the best version of ALaddin. What would lead to his rise here though was the Trail To Oregon, an orgen trail spoff he wrote and wrote the music for. So with former music makers Talk Fine moving on to do their own stuff, Jeff was the natural choice to step in as Starkid's prime music meister, with Talk Fine head Clark Backstresser only stepping back in for a VHS chrismtas Carol. Hatchetfield feels almost as much Jeff's baby as it does Nick and Matt's, and he really gets to flex his musical muscles with this franchise getting even better with each production.

We'll talk more about his music in a moment but as an actor, Jeff is fucking hinged, having a great habbit for ham, hilarity and looking abosltuely nuts in the best way possible. Case in point while he does a good Bill Lundberg as Mr. Davidson before he gets infected, post infectoin Davidson is one of the best things i've ever seen, a perpetual creepy yet hilarious smile, an inablity to show a woman's curves without having 8 of them, and jolliy telling Paul to stay whlie he tells his wife he wants her to choke him while he jerks off. The musical plays to his strengths, with Sam being likewise unhinged if not as smily , getting to ham it up with terrible love song you tied up my heart, and while he's more calm as Col John Mcnamar of PEIP, a secret orignation against the parnormal, he's still hammy, gladly throwing jon's phone before iconicallyt elling him to wear a watch instead of just… you know.. not destroying his property and only means of calling his friends. I get something as important as time deserves it's own device but still man. He's had a hell of a day. He also does a chilling job with the very heavy "America is Great Again", proving the guy can be chilling when needed.. something we'll see all too well when we get to Nightmare Time.

So with that we're down to the various other roles played by the rest of the cast. Manion's other major roll is Hot Chcolate Boy, aka Peter. He's a delight, Emma's Boss, she's really fogerattble other than, since the Langs likely realized "Shit charlotte is dead", the "All your best friends are here" gag in the starlight showdown, A Homeless man who will be vastly important, utterly steals la de da day, and freaks paul out expertly and of course future star of Hatchetfield Man in a Hurry. He was written to just say "i'm in a hurry" in the script but Jeff eventually just kept brushing past so much that he was brought back for black friday and flanderized from just some uncaring jackass with a scarf and a trench coat who keeps showing up places you REALLY shoudln't go to when your in a hurry. We are truly blessed for that. So that leads us to one of the most important and vital parts of Starkid and this show, the Music. Show Stoppin Numbers

The soundtrack for TGWDLM is postively packed. As i've made clear there's only one song I really DON'T like on the whole soundtrack and we'll get to it. The gimmick of it all being the hive gives things a unique vibe with the music not being our heroes inner yearnings but a sign shits about to get bad. While this isn't Jeff's first kickass starkid score it's the one that really showed what he can do, trapsing all around genres and theater standard types of songs to make this catchy earwormy soundtrack.

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals is our title track and gets us going out of the gate. It's omnious as it goes on much like the musical, with the Hive going from talking up how great musicals are and how great.. to asking "should we kill him? Should we kill him?" for paul not wanting to sing and dance with them all, and calling him a bitch, an ass and a cuck (not a cock like I thoguht for some time), for not joining in their singing season. The part where paul dosen't show up on queue is also fucking gold. Music wise it's lively a true all timer of an opening number Faviorite Part: Joey's "But tonight we're gonna chroncile a story so astronomical!" just the way he says it is so perfectly hammy.

La Dee Da Day is a great parody of those big showy crowd numbers musicals have, being a great one in it's own right…j while parodying the usual cheerfulness of that sort of thing with how unnerving it comes off for poor paul and of course the homeless man… who "used to want to kill them all while high on bathsalt zombie drugs snacking on a dead mans face", with small horrible implicatoins hidden from the GPG throwing "my old skin away" to how "a song takes all the pain away" for the old homeless man meaning evne if the hive puppets can FEEL the pain it uses them anyway. ti's nicely done Best Part: Gave a clue but as you can probably guess the Homeless Man's horrifying yet hilarous rant. The only downgrade for the soundtrack version is Paul's confused "What" is missing, which I fell really completes the joke. as does Joey getting entirely up in his face as he gets more intense.

THen of course we get one of my faviorite numbers and performances: What Do You Want Paul? This is where I fell in love with Jeff Blim folks, as his giant horrifying smile during the whole thing is one of the funniest goddamn things mankind has ever created. Making an I want song into a song about how someone wants the main protagnist to want like an I want song is fucking brilliant and is every bit as hilaroius as it sounds. Pauls utter confusion and horror the whole time, especially once we get to "I want you to choke me out at night" is hilarious. Speaking of which that is one of the funniest things Team StarKid has EVER done. I mean it. The sudden pivot to that, Jon's perfectly timed discomfort and just how beautifully and straightlaced Jeff holds it, as well as his offhand "if you leave your fired" to paul… i'm tearing up laughing NOW just thinking about it. It's one of only two songs that I went back to. Best Part: "I want you to choke me while I jerk off", both for Paul's reaction of who is this for and just for being one of the most excellent comedic swerves starkid has ever done.

Cup of Roasted/Poison Coffee is fine. It's mildly annoying but it feels like the point, that it's SUPPOSED to be the annoying half assed kind of jingle Beanies would have.. and makes it that much more horrifying when we get the Poisoned version, and the hey mr buisness how do you do as the newley hived corpses join in. Chilling. Best Part: Again the hey mr buisness part after all those people what get murdered.

Show Me Your Hands is another comedic goldmine. It not only feels like subtle commentary on the police ("WE make sense") but is packed with great ham from jeff, great deadpan from mariah and robert frigging breakdancing. It comes off like a bunch of 12 year olds playing cops in the bodies of actual cops.. which might be a good nightmare time story down the line Langs. You can have it for free. Best Part: "Your cat is dead". Just the delivery alone is enough. Thank you so much Mariah.

You Tied Up My heart

Yeah as i've made no secret of I hate this fucking thing. In concept it's not bad, a cheesy love ballad that's the hive tricking charlotte and look, Jeff's music and vocals are fine. But with the both obvious solution, the seriousness of what he's doing, and just the sheer length this thing wears on you. What should be horrifying, the hive gaslighting charlotte becomes an endurance test. It's also baffling as Jeff did an absolute banger of a ballad "When the World's At Stake" for Trail to Oregon so I don't know what happened here. I'm more baffled because he can do better. It's not even god awful, it's just.. not good. Best Part: That shriek of "Charlotte!". It's the one thing about the song I can compliment

Join Us and Die is thankfully 800 times better, giving Jamie a chance to fucking belt it and being an acting ending powerhouse. Like the songs before that thing that happened, ti's comedy packed, the last bit about beating up Ted styled like "Bop It" is fucking magical. A truly electric villian song Best Part: "it is time to dieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" I love that woman, how she did that I don't know but holy shit.

Not Your Seed is fucking incredible. While Mariah got to sing before and got a bit of a showcase with La De Da Day, here she REALLY gets to show how impressive her voice and acting are. Not Your Seed is just 2 and a half brilliant minutes of Mariah absolutely killing it on the stage, and utterly shredding poor bill to pieces. The slow pacing only drags out the pain for bill and feels delebrate, like Pokey WANTED this to fucking hurt him for as long as possible for surviving this long, to make Paul WATCH for his defiance as Pokey broke his best friend. Especially "you let me out of your sight for one second" just the rapid delivery of that and "didn't you know I wanted to live with you" hit like a fucking truck. She's the top. Look What Happens Nightmare Time would also give us the series definitive cords and the title for it's anthology show. Nicely done Best Part: Very fucking hard. Mariah does not make this easy. But Why Does It Hurt To Love you gets me as it's this sudden, painful, and probably HONEST, taking Alice's real emotions break that REALLY guts you and sadly poor bill. Thankfully not literally. As tragic as that headshot was at least it was quick.

Show Stopping Number has the thankfless task of following up one of the shows best numbers.. so naturally it's also one of the shows best and what's become it's signature piece. Robert fucking owns the stage as hidgens, first with the slower tunes leading in..a nd then with the falsetto switch when he decides to intro Workin Boys. Just the shift from the old man voice which is still BEAUTIFULLY sung in a crooner bing crosbyish style to Robert's more natural register… how are this man's lungs human? I shoudlnt' have to tell you returning starkids that Workin Boys is one of the best jokes ever crafted, from being a clear pisstake on Glory Days (something I didn't know but somehow makes it funnier once you do, as Glory Days is every bit as prentious, stupid and nostalgia baity as WOrkin Boys from the looks of it), to Roberts great dance moves (coregraphed by lauren) to the great hook of "five o clock can't come soon enough". IT's fucking magic. i may have.. complicated feeligns about robert I already talked about at lenght, btu I can't deny workin boys is great nor that i'm excited for the short film, which I hope gets released publicly in some form. The first song already has me hyped. And yes there's a short film: MANY people wanted Workin Boys to be a full musical which while understandable wasn't something that would really work given it was deisgnd to be a parody, hence instead compromising with a short ABOUT Hidgens actually getting to make it as part of Black Friday's backer goals. Best Part: BUISNESS CALLS I'M UP TO MY ASS IN SHIT, WHAT IS THIS BUISNESS. I mean that entire part, including the phone call desreves it but i'm calling out the sudden shift and hte hilaroity of that first line itself. I'm not entirley convinced that this was salvaged from them TRYING to make a full on parody of glory days at some point.

America is Great Again gets a bad wrap as i've seen it shockingly low on several hatchetfield ranking lists on youtube and along with John's other song, which we'll get to I feel is underrated. It's a chilling song and while it's politics are welded to it's sleeves, given the Langs had a friend outright quit to become a lawyer over the election , it's clear it REALLY hit them hard. And frankly as MANY bros tend to forget, Poltics and political satire are baked into horror. So while it's in your face about it's critques of trumpisim (The loud has become the strong).. it's not exactly wrong. The you can't run and easily disposed parts espcially given the kind of legslation put on women's bodies and LBGTQ+ peoples lately and general hostility to anyone diffrent period. The fact this hasn't gone away with the election really just makes this song hold up that much more. Best Part: The Final Solution onward. Just how horrifying it is mixed with Jeff's ham.. perfect.

So we've come to my faviorite song, Let It Out. This song is pure brilliance as is the staging, with the hive all on the fringes urging paul to let it out because they know their victory isn't not a matter of how but a matter of when. Of course the man treat and the thing tha tbrings this is Jon Mattensons' performance, effortlessly switching between paul and the hive, going from pained horror to having a smile painted on his soul like it was nothing. It shows in the voice, with paul's panicked speech constrated with the hvie's plastic singing and when Paul does sing he's barely there. it's one of the best horror freakouts i've ever seen, and trust me that threeshold is vast and expansive. The ending shout of "I don't like musicals' is badass.. and sadly futile as his fate

Is "Ineveitble", our final soong and a nice cruel twist on big splashy finales. Most musical finales , those that end happy anyway are about lifting you up, really reving you up as you get out of the theater and giving you hope for tommorow. Even pretty grim works like "Spring Awakening" can end on a nope of hope. This one? Nah. This one takes your heart and smashes to bit, forcing you, much like emma to watch as a puppeteered paul sings several even more warped version osf the score at her while trying to convince her that the horrible monster she's been fighting is a good thing and that the world became "peaceful and just". It's truly haunting and sadly catchy as hell so we're pretty much fucked i'd say. Watching emma run around desperate to escape as it's clear ther eisn't, i'ts at ruly chilling way to end a truly excellent musical.

So thus we close a curtain on one Hatchetfield. If all goes well I'll be covering Black Friday next month , then possibly taking a break for december before getting into nightmare time next year. This could change as when push comes to shove to feed the hive that is my bank account I HAVE to proritze the reviews I do on comission, but i intend to try my damdenst to get the review out around the actual black friday. I hope you all enjoyed this as it was a LOT to get done, but it was a true labor of love. This is one of my faviorite musicals and I was glad to dig through it with a fine toothed comb and I can only hope a few years after it's release my analysis isn't too played out. Stick around if you enjoyed this for more reviews, don't be afraid to reblog it or join my patreon to help keep this blog going, and thank you once again so much for reading. I'll see you in line for a Tickle Me Wiggly.

[raving-raven-writing]

I Met A Girl--Movie Review (Spoiler Free)

I recently watched the movie "I Met a Girl" '(2020) and I really enjoyed it. I thought they did a good job on how mental illness (in this case, schizophrenia) is portrayed. The storyline is good, as is the acting, and I liked that it had a happy ending, since they could have chosen to end it on a sad note. The main actor, Brenton Thwaites, who plays Devon, was also in the movie Occulus (which is one of my favorite horror movies, idk why) and also in Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (I can't remember if this is the fourth or the fifth one, but I remember his character) did a really good job on playing an individual with schizophrenia. The character of Devon itself is good was so colorful and fun to watch. This movie has a lot of what I like to watch on screen, that being anything psychological/in relation to psychology or mental illness, good brother relations (protective big brother, I love so much), and men being vulnerable and open. Definitely would recommend you watch, I honestly think it is underrated as I haven't heard of the film up until a couple days ago. 9/10. I am probably going to buy this on DVD, just to have in my physical collection since it might not be on Amazon Prime forever.

[paulinedorchester]

Last summer, I put quite a bit of time and effort into reviewing two novels that I’d recently read. Those posts didn’t get the reaction that I’d imagined they would, so I’m not going to do that with Good Night, Irene, by Luis Alberto Urrea, which I’ve just finished reading. I would, however, like to throw out some discussion questions to the Tumblr winds. Be warned that there are some spoilers ahead.

Let me begin with a philosophical question: This is a story written by a man, but told almost entirely from the viewpoint of two women. Given the evil times in which we live, I can imagine that plenty of readers will be offended by this. What do you think about it?

The book tells the tale of two women, Irene Woodward (a fictionalized stand-in for the author’s mother) and Dorothy Dunford, who serve together in the American Red Cross’ Clubmobile Service during the last two years of World War II. I enjoyed it very much indeed, but can find a few nits to pick, particularly as someone for whom the historical in historical fiction is of paramount importance.

The women’s first assignment after they’re shipped overseas is at the Grosvenor House Hotel, which has been requisitioned as a club for U.S. Officers. Among the people they encounter there are four black drivers from the Red Ball Express. Granted, these men eat together at a table by themselves, but:

How likely would they be to be able to patronize this establishment?

How likely would a white sergeant be to admonish a white Red Cross volunteer (not Irene or Dorothy) who questions both their presence there and their status as officers, and how likely would the sergeant be to express irritation with the fact that they’re not allowed to actually stay at the hotel?

How likely is it that a white fighter pilot would befriend them and visa-versa?

Unlike any of the women’s branches of the armed forces, the Red Cross was perfectly happy to send women directly to the front lines. As a result, Irene and Dorothy survive the Battle for Brest (August-September 1944) and the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944-January 1945), and are directly involved in the liberation of Buchenwald (April 1945). This last is telegraphed loud and clear a couple of chapters in advance. That may be Urrea’s way of supplying a trigger warning, but it’s not done with much subtlety — unlike the description of the liberation itself, which he handles quite admirably. But:

When General George S. Patton (a minor character in the novel, presented sympathetically) tells the Clubmobile personnel in Weimar that they’re going to be needed the following day at the site of “something bad,” he seems entirely unprepared for the reality what he and his troops have stumbled across. The same proves true of Irene and all of the other Americans.

The problem with this is that the liberation of the camps had begun some eight months earlier, when Soviet troops arrived at Majdanek and, as any Foyle’s War fan knows, this had been public knowledge since at least the following October.

So why does no-one go in with any sense of what they are about to encounter?

This just didn’t strike me as plausible.

There are some bits of characterization, as well, that didn’t quite ring true. We are told that Dorothy has been a student at Indiana University for three years before a family emergency forces her to drop out, but it’s Irene, who doesn’t seem to have gone to college at all, who quotes George Santayana, compares the French countryside to André Derain landscape paintings, and wants to visit Goethe’s house in Weimar. Dorothy has never heard of any of these people. Is Urrea, who teaches at a public university, making a comment about public higher education? I’m not buying it.

The book’s copyright page contains the standard legal formula:

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

But many of the events portrayed are not fictitious, and neither is Patton, so shouldn’t the first sentence be, “The characters and events in this book are either fictitious or portrayed fictitiously”?

With the current WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes it seems impertinent to discuss possible filmed adaptations of Good Night, Irene, so I won't.

Actually, though, I’d really like to see it as an opera.

[sol1056]

still dead, though

so this is potentially an unpopular opinion, given the love I’ve seen across my dashboard. but I finally (it took like four months, y’all) got to the top of the wait list at my local library to read Gideon the Ninth.

which was a great book (for the most part), don’t get me wrong. Gideon’s voice just sparkles, and even the assorted memes littering scattered through the story didn’t detract (too much). and yes, a baby dyke who glories in attractive women and never once feels compelled to either a) justify her attraction or b) put men down or even c) put other women down (at least not without reason), yeah. totally deserves the kudos. and after starting solidly and undeniably enemies, it’s a believable shift to almost-lovers.

although technically all you actually get is an i-love-you exchange.

that’s it. a paragraph later (not even a whole page!) we get hit with Bury Your Gays (plus some Vasquez Always Dies if we’re counting). 

it somehow just does not help my reaction that the second book is “all about a [queer] character grieving painfully to the point of disassociation.” I’ve read this book, seen this movie, got the t-shirt, lost it all in the lawsuit, and somehow lived to tell the tale. A now-solo lesbian character whose mental state is now so shredded by grief that they’ve effectively gone insane? fuck, you could not write to the letter of the trope harder if you goddamn tried.

I went digging anywhere I could think, to find spoilers. does the dead lesbian come back? was it all a fake-out? she does come back, right? far as I can tell, there are vague-slash-ambiguous comments from the author that the character “is still around!” or words to that effect. and from reader reviews, it appears the character’s “still around” is that her ghost lives on in the survivor’s mind. she apparently makes a ghostly cameo in the 2nd book, and the third book is about a completely different character? idk. I saw no “she’s back!” celebration. what I saw read a lot like when fans are clinging to a few passages and hoping that means eventually it’ll all pay off for them, if they just keep believing.

so. great story, still dead.

oh yes, I’m sure you want to tell me that it works this way for the story! my sweet summer child, it has always “worked this way for the story.” the defense has never been “the author killed off yet another queer”. it’s always been “that’s what the story required” as if the story is some sentient creature that eats dictionaries and spits out cruelty.

don’t waste my time hiding behind passive voice. when an author takes it all the way to the i-love-you then kills the queer, and follows by making the surviving queer go insane, they’re not avoiding the trope, they’ve actively hunted it down and forced it to go to prom with them.

at least have the fucking decency to be honest about that.

and I understand that in a world where there’s just uncounted multitudes of stories with queer characters and the happy endings far outweigh the grieving/insane lesbians mourning their dead, we could possibly, eventually, have a story that honestly explores grief and loss and not have it slam down hard on the big red button of sixty-plus years of literary trauma.

but we don’t yet live in that world, and I am sick to death of authors playing the trope word-for-word but batting their eyelashes like they’re special enough to be exempt. how could anyone be mad at them, their intentions are good, they’re friends with their fans, y’know, now you’re just overreacting.

look, I get you didn’t wake up this morning planning to run over a pedestrian, but you still hit me, and all your good intentions don’t make it not hurt.

le sigh.

I really wish I’d been spoiled before I’d started, so I would’ve known to skip. these stories are never enough to offset the suckerpunch at the end.

[hummingbirdsaltimolockia]

read more for breeze-by reviews of the books films and shows I read/watched in 2022

books

a tree grows in brooklyn (reread) - 5/5 cemented as one of my favorite books. reading it at 25 was very different from reading it at 18

lord of the flies - oof 5/5 v chilling

the neverending story - 2/5 the whole movie is in the first seven chapters and it just drags on from there and bastian was annoying

an absolutely remarkable thing - 3/5 interesting story that I wouldn’t usually read and it ended kinda ambiguously. the main character was a little annoying but it was good for the story

the curious incident of the dog in the night time - 2/5 kinda overrated in my opinion and was kinda a bummer overall

their eyes were watching god - 4/5 kinda a bummer too but v beautiful

walk two moons - 3/5 a little overly Solemn in my opinion

shadow of a bull - 2/5 a little boring and anti climatic

hooked - 5/5 sutton foster has been one of my favorite performers for years and I really enjoyed getting a closer look at her life

the women in the castle - 5/5 a very chewy read. not a book you can dismiss easily

the hearts of horses - 4/5 v unfortunately titled and covered, but v enjoyable slice of life read. actually related to the main character, and the horses were written realistically.

jack and jill - 3/5 very slice of life w Moral Lessons, and I didn’t really agree with the moral lesson

the boy who harnessed the wind -4/5 more memoir-y then I thought it would be but I liked it like that

wink: - 3/5 finished on 1/1/23 but I’m counting it. definitely worth the read but could’ve been better

films

red riding hood - 2/5 pretty silly plot but gary oldman was acting his pants off

the prestige - 3/5 v captivating but left me feeling ick

a monster calls - 4/5 almost as good as the book

atonement - 2/5 v pretty but. betrayled

gladiator - 5/5 v refreshing to see this type of movie, 2000s style

encanto - 3/5 not enough recovery time

moulin rouge - 3/5 wild but it could be deep

the caddy - 3/5 jerry lewis is the basis of my sense of humor

logan - 5/5 really liked seeing such a grounded superhero film

hanna - 3/5 underdeveloped as whole. woulda worked better as a mini series

last christmas - 3/5 liked the characters, well acted and written, didn’t like the twist

school of rock - 5/5 there is nothing wrong with this movie

to all the boys p.s i still love you - 3/5 silly conflict. girl just go to school

if I stay - 4/5 much deeper than I thought it was gonna be

sing - 3/5 loved the littel chameleon creature

the fantastic mr fox - 4/5 v strange but a little long

the exception - 1/5 left me feeling v ick

winter’s bone - 4/5 different from what I expected. v grounded and unsensational

beastly - 2/5 lol v v 2011 black cover ya book feeling. v silly

the giver - 3/5 better than I thought it would be. rushed through in favor of a more dramatic ending

the addams family - 5/5 enjoyed everything about this

the addams family values - 4/5 not as sharp as the first one but joan cusack is in it

nope - 5/5 sooo good. loved the concept of an animal like alien and everything was set up so well. does rely on the “don’t look a horse in the eye or it will go berserk” thing which is just. not true. (literally just be chill and the horse will be chill. it’s more about approaching them from the side than directly in front). but on the whole the horse portrayal was pretty good

vengeance - 3/5 got v tense after the twist. went some places. left me feeling hmm

good will hunting - 4/5 literally heard of this movie my whole life. it’s good

rampage - 2/5 I love big scary animal monsters but this got too big and silly

potc: on stranger tides - 3/5 the story was better than I thought it would be, but overall it wasn’t made with the same care as the og trilogy

potc: dead men tell no tales - 2/5 almost just stupid

spiderman: no way home - 4/5 everyone was acting their pants off and it was great

black panther: wakanda forever - 4/5 ran a little long but loved all the choices and visuals

weird - 3/5 what it says on the can. bizarre and funny

the princess switch 2 - 2/5

the princess switch 3 - 3/5 unexpected pathos???

hildago - 3/5 honestly think I would’ve liked it better if he shot the horse at the end :/ which is a horrible thing to say but

falling for christmas - 2/5 I did it for you miss lohan

disenchanted - 2/5 and one of those is solely for idina menzel singing

jojo rabbit - 5/5 tonally brilliant and surprisingly full despite being under two hours

glass onion - 5/5 v fun and v engaging from beginning to end

tv shows

attack on titan s4 pt 2 - 3/5 not enough levi. also can we just finish this dam story

stranger things s4 - 4/5 a lot of crunchy plot stuff happened, v curious to see how it will end

only murders in the building s2 - 4/5 not as strong as s1 but still v enjoyable

derry girls s3 - 5/5 no notes

kenobi - 3/5 not bad but also pretty unnecessary

this is us s6 - 3/5 pretty likely end to the series but the more I thought about it the more I didn’t like it

abbott elementary - 5/5 no notes. most enjoyable mockumentary I’ve seen

rutherford falls - haven’t finished the first season yet so reserving final judgement but so far so good