#like I want to be the Horror movie Antagonist Monster and they are the Protagonist that survives until just the very end when I GET THEM

[reliccipher]

It is sooo much easier to explain to people that you love a character for no reason than it is to explain that you hate a character for no reason, worse if that character is a villain

Yeah I know he's a terrible person in canon but that's not why I hate him, yeah it adds on to the hatred and it makes him a terrible person and no, I don't hate how he's written/designed or his role/importance to the plot, I hate him for Some Other Third Reason that can't be explained. Hope this helps <33

[homestuckrichard]

"The Last Voyage of Demeter" (2023) worries me

"The Last Voyage of Demeter" (who allowed the Poles to translate this to pl. "Demeter: Przebudzenie Zła", ang. "Demeter: The Awakening of Evil". The literal translation of this title in Polish sounds even better than in English, "Ostatnia podróż Demeter", mhm, lovely.)(2023) worries me.

The story about the ship "Demeter" in Bram Stocker's "Dracula," I can call the only part of the book still gripping (at least for me). And honestly, it deserves a good film adaptation. The problem is that with every look at the posters and trailers, I dislike more and more the direction this film is going. Which makes me sad, because the convention of horror in the sea is one of my favorites along with those that take place in cold places. But what's really bothering me about the movie's announcements? There are a few of them.

The main yellow and even red flag I see is how much they want to show us Dracula. Yeah, the model is not the worst, although with current technology we could make a much better looking Dracula with practical effects, but that is not a big problem. However, focusing so much on Dracula is the problem. The part of the book in which we learn a bit about what happened on that board is the press' presentation of the captain's diary, which, compared to the diaries of other characters, gives us very little specifics. Which gives a lot of opportunity to play with convention, there is no clear plan of events, few specific situations actually happen there so you don't have to stick firmly to the original. But there's one thing we know that makes this story still interesting, and that the movie forgets, which is that by the very end, the protagonist of this story doesn't know what he's really fighting with and does he really fight anything. In the trailer and posters, however, our antagonist is shown in great detail, which is lame. Horror movies on the sea (and in general where we are separated from other people) are cool due to the fact that we are separated from civilization by water, and the years of action of the film are even more interesting due to the fact that there is no communication, but not only that. The problem is that the best stories of this type are not limited to the monster, boogieman, and expand this to include the fight against nature and the other man and unsure of what is really going on. "The Last Voyage of Demeter" looks like it doesn't use any of these possibilities, except maybe rain and water, but in this story there will probably be neither uncertainty nor fighting between people. What it shows is that everyone is aware that something strange is going on on the ship, some even know what kills which is the worst part of it and everyone believes in this monster because it's been in plain sight so many times which cancels out the most interesting parts of the story.

The next interesting thing is that it seems that this time the main character will not be a captain… but some child and a doctor and woman, which worries me again. Why in a story about a man who experiences a very strange situation with his own eyes, where the reader has only his point of view (of course not talking about the rest of the book), why more points of view? Of course, many points of view can work in a story like this, my favorite movie proves it. The problem is that I don't understand this change and I don't like it to such an extent that I wonder if it won't spoil the tension and change the ending of the story that was very good in the original to a more gentle one, maybe? I'm afraid that the creators will leave some protagonists alive, e.g. a child. It's possible they'll defeat the antagonists, if they do it, I'll shoot myself.

And minor flaws. I don't like that knocking in the trailer, it seems cheap to me. I imagined that Demeter would be a bigger ship due to the fact that from what I remember (not sure) there were also boxes with earth on board. I'm not sure about the casting. Plus the styling looks "meh".

I want to be wrong in this case, because I would like it to be a good movie, in the end I want to go see it, but my hope is dwindling.

[giulliadella]

My thoughts about Hellraiser 2022

So I decided to watch this movie since most people told me that it's good. And they were right - it was indeed a good movie! And also, it was filmed in my home city!

I really liked the further exploration of the lore behind the Puzzlebox and the mechanisms by which it functions in this movie were super cool. The main antagonist was again a rich fucker lead by desire, but I believe that part was executed very poorly.

The effects were quite good and I was very glad that they used both the practical effects and the CGI. I loved the way they used that old smexy Hellraiser theme in a modern light. The acting was good as well!

Now, as much as I loved the new Cenobite designs, it should be clear that the Cenobites in this movie lack the kinky aspect. Like, sure, they are all for pain and they love to torture people and they are all sexy and strange, but they absolutely lack the perverse desire part that they had in the original. Maybe I'm the stupid one, but to me, Cenobites have always represented some kind of perverse forbidden pleasure. To me at least, they are sex demons, or, more precisely, demons of desire. And in 2022. remake we don't really have that much of it.

We have two very lame, very basic straight sex scenes, we have a dude who likes to throw orgy parties, but we never see his desires and the Cenobites just don't play pleasure and pain indivisible card, they just cause immense suffering. I don't know why all that feels so wrong to me lol.

Spoilers for the ending here:

The ending of this movie confirmed to me a theory I had for a while now: "We have such sights to show you" means "We're going to turn you into a Cenobite". Seriously, hear me out. Julia says that to dr Channard and then he gets thrown in the transformation chamber and becomes a Cenobite. The Hell Priestess says the same thing to asshole rich guy and he gets turned into a Cenobite. And I 100% believe that when Pinhead said that to Kirsty in the OG Hellraiser that he meant that. I mean, let's be real, Kirsty would be a great Cenobite.

Oh, yes, I really disliked the way the main girl, Riley, was able to escape the Cenobites. I honestly expected much more lol, but she just told them like "Nah, I don't want to do anything with you" and Hell Priestess was like "Ok, cool, sorry that we were chasing you for weeks and killed 5 people to get you lol". I would have honestly preferred if Riley became a Cenobite, not the rich fucker, but oh well.

Honestly, it's hilarious to me that this movie expanded the lore so much and yet it took so much charm away from the Cenobites. Like, those new designs were so elaborate and beautiful, but WHERE IS THE LEATHER!? Where is the kinky shit!? They all acted more or less just like generic horror monsters and idk, it just didn't feel like they were Cenobites. I mean, the rich asshole's villa had a protective cage and they couldn't enter, like wtf is that? And Chatterer and one other Cenobite were literally just used as monsters to chase our protagonists and get killed in kind of dumb ways. And, like, even the torture scenes weren't that creative. Idk, I'm mad because this movie had so much potential and creativity and I liked it a lot, but idk, there was definitely something missing and to me, that was the kinky desire aspect of the Cenobites.

Anyways it's 2:21 AM and I need sleep, so take this review with a pinch of salt lol. The movie gets a solid 7/10 from me.

[silverspleen]

🔮🩸🐺🦇🔪

🔮= coolest concept for a horror film you've seen?

Honestly, even though I still haven't seen It Follows (2014) the concept scares the absolute piss out of me and it's rad af. (But like. The obvious and personal answer is Annihilation (2018), even though I don't think "cool" is how I would describe it. More like deeply impactful.)

🩸= least favourite horror trope/cliche in your opinion?

I mean. Jumpscares lol? Mm. It's very situational. I guess I really don't care for the "OR IS IT????" type of ending very much. Very easy to make that either a cheap jumpscare or easy sequel-bait, and it often devalues the sacrifice of the protagonists. Like if you're gonna devalue it in that way, make it a plot point. Go hard like the ending of The Mist (2007) and be like "they did it all for nothing" but at least like, resolve it naturally in some way instead of being cheeky.

🐺= favourite type of horror movie monster?

Vampires. Because I'm horny. The Thing style meatflesh shapeshifters. Also because I'm horny.

🦇= favourite horror movie?

This is difficult since I rank movie favorites by hyperspecific genre (so like, favorite vampire horror movie, favorite slasher horror movie, favorite scifi horror movie). But I'm gonna go with The Thing (1982)? Probably a perfect movie. Every time I watch it I'm shocked at how smooth of a watch it is, how well the body horror and creeping paranoia is played, how it pulls you in a sticks you there the whole film. It has wet practical effects meat and Keith David. Can do no wrong.

🔪= who is your favourite horror villain/antagonist?

Tie between - Pinhead, because he's amazing. Sexy even. He's so calm and collected and well spoken and that really does something for the horror to me. And - Freddy, because heehee funnee toasted man do a goofy murder to the teenagers! He do a goofy murder so good! Look at the little creep go his arms are long and he's making a pizza! He's so awful I want to set him loose in a mall.

[clarke23]

Blog Post #3

For our class, one of our assignments was to watch both Candyman (1992 version) and Candyman (2021 version) in order to see the differences between them even though they both are based on the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker. Even though in the original short story, Candyman was not Black he was made into a Black character in the 1992 movie. The reasons for this change are not entirely confirmed, but some believe that he was turned into a Black character due to the racial connotation/implication in American housing projects which is the start of the many ways that the 1992 Candyman was racially problematic. Another way that the 1992 Candyman was problematic was due to its usage of Black characters as tools for the white protagonist or as the antagonist/monster. Helens Black friend, Bernadette was basically used as a filter for Helen to say the things that would be too offensive for Helen to say as a white woman.

The living situation of those in the housing project (Cabrini Green) is terrible to say the least. The movie makes it seem like the people living in Cabrini Green live in such a degenerate and animalistic manner that they would write words on the bathroom walls in fecal matter (and that no one bothered to ever clean it up either). It’s frankly dehumanizing for these people, and the location was based on a real life housing project which makes it even more offensive. Finally, the Black male characters are often portrayed as trying to hurt the white female protagonist (the thugs in the bathroom and of course Candyman himself). Also, Candyman’s obsessive and dangerous lust for Helen brings back very disturbing imagery from the early 20th century (Birth of a Nation).

I would say that all of these racially problematic aspects of the 1992 film can be attributed to the fact that it portrays Black trauma through a white lens. However, the 2021 version of Candyman sought to change this and shift the lens towards a Black lens that understood how to portray Black trauma to a (primarily) Black audience. A very notable example of this is when the newer movie portrayed the backstory of Candyman it used puppets instead of real actors to avoid re-traumatizing the Black audience with all too familiar themes of violence against Black bodies throughout history and to the present day. The 2021 film shows respect not just to Black audience members but also other marginalized groups that are frequently killed in horror as a trope (LGBT people). It is refreshing to have a film that can still be scary but does not re-traumatize Black people like me who just want to enjoy a movie.

[sparrowsabre7]

Godzilla (2014) thoughts

I know I'm way late to the party on this but I just saw it on Netflix and I have some Thoughts.

I like what they did with the film conceptually, treating it more like a disaster movie than a monster movie, focusing on the human response rather than the monster threat. The palpable tension works well here in a way it's not really portrayed in a lot of current films that end up destroying cities and while trite, tying a human, family story into the tragedy helps ground it and feel more personal (Elizabeth Olden selling the hell out of her rather meagre role but doing much more with it than Aaron Taylor-Johnsons bland protagonist).

I also dug that Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) had ties with the Hiroshima bombing, given the zeitgeist that inspire the creation of "Gojira".

In terms of spectacle there are plenty of visually impressive setpieces (despite the now cliché post-2000s pitch black darkness of night time action scenes being on full display to try and spoil it), the HALO jump from the teaser being one and the finale battle was impressive given the slow burn of Godzilla's appearances, the first use of his Atomic Breath (tm) in particular was a treat.

That being said.... why is this called "Godzilla"?

I knew going in from all the complaints at the time that the big G got very little screentime, that's fine. I expect that in the first film, you want to do the horror thing, less is more, I don't necessarily like or agree with it but I respect it. However... Godzilla isn't the antagonist of this movie, the MUTOs have far more screentime, occupy far more of the humans' storyline. Godzilla appears in the opening credits as something that's already established in the world. I know that the kaiju fans will be saying how Godzilla isn't really a villain and takes a more heroic role in most of the Japanese films, however, it's not like he's the protagonist here, he takes up far too little screen time to be classed as such and his conflict is not central to the actual protagonists stories. He feels very much like an after thought thrown in to get the brand out there. It feels like if they called "Captain America: Civil War" "Spider-man" instead. Like, yeah he's there and he's awesome, but he also doesn't really change the narrative if you swap him out.

It's just a bit odd for his first major reboot in modern times for Godzilla to not only not be the focus, but not even be that important to the narrative besides as a weapon to throw at the MUTO.

[apencilandpen]

MAC Movie Reviews Part 8? - John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)

So I like horror. I like monster movies. John Carpenter and vampires? Sounds pretty cool! Wrong!

Nothing I’m gonna say here is new, I’m sure of it, but I just watched this movie and can’t stop thinking about it. John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998) does a handful of pretty cool things, and a few Really Bad ones.

Cool Things:

The opening gambit. I liked how it was all so mundane and run of the mill. Just another day of vampire hunting. I liked the big truck full of gear and how each member of the team had a different personality that showed through his outfit and weapon. I liked the practical effects.

The Vatican bankrolling bands of vampire hunters. That was some interesting worldbuilding that would do cool things in a better movie.

The first vampire being a disgraced Catholic priest who was turned into a vampire during a botched exorcism from the church. Another interesting thing that would be really cool in a better movie. 

The second priest and his arc was actually pretty interesting.

Maybe that’s not enough, but I don’t actually know what counts as a handful. Vampires does four (4) kind of cool things.

This movie is a case study in how vampirism is about power. Like, yeah, vampires can be about whatever you want them to be: religion, the aristocracy, imperial/colonialism, fear of the Other, and of course sex and sexuality. But in this movie, vampirism is just about power and violence, specifically over the disenfranchised, weak, and especially towards women. 

But it’s not just about the vampires holding this power; it’s about the slayers, Jack Crow and Montoya, holding this power of life and death over those listed above. The vampires in this movie are little more than nameless, faceless bodies for our protagonists to slice, dice, spear, and burn. And that’s fine! Not every movie villain needs to be nuanced and three dimensional. It’s a creature-feature bloodbath, and those movies have their place. The issues arise when one of those vampires gets a name. Now, I was expecting some girls and casual misogyny from this movie; I wasn’t kidding myself and I did know what I was getting into. But I didn’t expect exactly how bad it would be.

Katrina is introduced as one of many, many prostitutes the slayer team has at a party after their successful hunt at the beginning of the movie. We don’t learn her name until about halfway through the movie, but since I know it, I’m going to use it. She propositions Jack Crow, he accepts, and she goes to wait in his room, where she is then attacked by the main antagonist, the first ever vampire, Valek. This attack is designed to be seen as at best (? I don’t like that phrasing but for lack of a better term) sexual and at worst sexual assault. Then basically all of the slayer team is killed, along with all of the other prostitutes. She survives, and is taken by Jack and Montoya as they flee the scene and Valek.

Jack and Montoya don’t know or use her name for most of the movie, calling her “bitch” and “whore” before they know it and “baby” and “sweetheart” afterwards. She is already introduced as one of many prostitutes, she could have easily been any of the other women in the party scene. They don’t treat her with respect at the beginning of the movie, but once they know she’s been bitten, all bets are off. They immediately begin treating her as less than human, dragging her around, tying her up, undressing her while she’s unconscious to “clean her up” (to be fair, she is covered in blood at that point, and this is more of a point of camerawork and direction that informs character), and in one instance hitting her when she fights back. Katrina’s turning comes with a psychic link to Valek, and she becomes useful to Jack and Montoya because of it. But as a tool, not a person. It’s a bit of a parallel to how she was treated by the men at the beginning of the movie. The men don’t see her as human, and she isn’t, she’s becoming a vampire, so the motivations do make a bit of sense, but it’s the violence and hatred that it comes with that sets it apart. Jack Crow’s father was bitten by a vampire, he then turned Jack’s mother, and Jack had to kill at least his father. I would usually expect that instance to make a character like Jack overly protective of women; he couldn’t save his mother and now sees her death in every woman victimized by vampires. That’s what I would expect, but that is NOT what the movie gives us. He sees the vampirism first, then how powerful the vampire is, then decides if it’s useful or not. His hatred of vampires outweighs any kind of compassion he could have towards women. And it is just women. Montoya is turned by Katrina at the end of the movie, and Jack shows him mercy, even when another character says they should kill him. But he was waiting and willing to kill Katrina the minute she became useless to them.

Katrina’s story is actually the most interesting one of the movie. She’s a sex worker attacked and forcibly turned by a powerful man who is then used and mistreated by others, even those claiming to “help” her. She is permanently connected to her attacker and left with a permanent reminder of him through her new vampirism. She can’t escape what happened to her, and is treated as if it’s her fault, as if she’s tainted, and like I’ve said, less than a person. Her fate is decided by the men more powerful in her life: Jack, Montoya, Valek, and even the Cardinal who sends Jack and his team out on missions. Because Jack’s power is derived from the Catholic church, in case that wasn’t clear. I would love to watch another vampire movie that handles vampirism as male dominance and violence against women intentionally and compare the two. Maybe I’ll finally watch A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.

This is a very strange movie. On one level, it’s a fine creature-feature, gory slasher from the late 90s that doesn’t need to be anything else. But watching it with even like one degree of critical thinking goggles makes it a very different experience. There’s the 90′s mega-machismo, some strange homoerotic homophobia from Jack Crow, there’s for sure a commentary to be made about Catholic imperialism and power, and I’m sure you could read it through a race studies lens. And as I said to one of my friends after watching it, there is something deeply, deeply wrong with Jack Crow.

4/10 vampire making black crosses. Thanks for the chance to stretch my analysis muscles, but next time I wanna watch Lost Boys and can’t find it, I’ll try a little harder

[fasterthanmydemons]

🎃+13 you write all your muses so well, I love marvel and it's great to have you in this fandom, you really care about your muses and it shows! you are such a lovely mun as well, so friendly and nice to everyone. I hope you're having a good spooky season!

{ Send [🎃 + a number] to ask the mun about their favorite… (#13) horror movie monster or antagonist. }

First of all, thank you so much, you're so kind! I'm always amazed whenever I get a nice piece of unprompted positivity. It's always a joy to receive. =) I am having a good spooky season so far! I hit some Halloween pop-up stores by me recently and I bought a bunch of pumpkins and gourds for the house and yard, so I'm really starting to get into my mental happy place, haha. Halloween is my favorite holiday, season, aesthetic, and lifestyle, because yes it is all four. XD

My answer to the meme is below the cut! =)

Now... as for a favorite horror movie monster or antagonist... omg there are so many. I adore horror movies so I've seen probably thousands of them at this point. I could give you a list of a hundred creatures, monsters, supernatural beings, or general antagonists in horror movies that I love. So okay... I'll pick one from a movie I just watched for the umpteenth time last night, Killer Klowns From Outer Space. It's an 80s B-movie that's just great fun. It's so imaginative and doesn't take itself seriously. It will always have a special place in my heart. I first watched it as a young child and I have the entire thing memorized line by line, haha.

Anyway, the basic premise is that carnivorous aliens that for some unexplained reason resemble clowns landed on earth and are hungry for people. That's it. That's the movie. You follow a small group of main characters as they battle these clowns. What makes the movie awesome is that they went to great lengths to capitalize on the clown theme. Everything about these creatures is clownlike. Their faces, their clothes, but so much more than that. They have wacky guns that shoot cotton candy that wraps people up in cocoons that slowly dissolves them into a liquid that the clowns then drink up through crazy straws. They have giant balloons to store people for later. Acidic pies that dissolve everything but the bones when thrown at you. Clown cars to get around in. Footprints that go everywhere, even on walls and ceilings. Bottomless pizza boxes that can hold an entire clown or person. Balloon and shadow animals that come to life. Murderous puppets. The list goes on and on. It's just a really fun movie, seriously.

My favorite "monsters" from this movie are the baby clowns. In keeping with the whole clown theme, the baby alien clowns come from popcorn. The adult clowns have popcorn guns that shoot sprays of popcorn at you. The popcorn then gets stuck to your clothing and is hatched by moisture and body heat, and they very rapidly grow into baby clowns, which are actually these pods out of which grows a long neck with a closed-eyed baby clown head on it. The idea is to deposit the popcorn like seeds onto the "food" the babies need to grow. I have a replica of one, I adore them, I think they're so cute hahaha. (I have a weird idea of cute.)

The most prominent scene with the baby popcorn clowns is when Debbie, one of the movie's protagonists, gets sent home to be safe by her boyfriend (it's the 80s... just roll your eyes and keep reading heh) and takes a shower. Beforehand, she had gotten some popcorn stuck to her sweater, so one ended up in the toilet, another couple in her medicine cabinet, and another couple in her hamper in her bathroom. After she's all done in the shower, they attack! Mayhem ensues. Here's a clip if you'd like to watch them in action. And if you watch the entire clip to the end, you'll see some of the adult clowns as well. Enjoy!

So yeah, the baby popcorn clowns have been some of my favorite horror movie monsters since I was very tiny. They're just so cute, I kinda want one as a pet, lol. XD

[lilitblaukatz]

I have to write about it.

When I was watching season two, specifically that scene outside the arcade where Will sees the Mindflayer for the first time, I paused, filled with two not necessarily different emotional thoughts (it is never something singular in ST, it always has an upside down which is more similar to a right side up than it may seem, layers under layers with wormholes spearing through):

2) wow this hits my horror-loving lesbian being at all the right spots as it is bold and cool and professional execution and

1)) That is mighty big and satisfyingly evil mostrosity of projection for a little guy like you, young sweet sugar Candyman William Byers I haven't seen the list of movies for ST inspiration. Haven't seen people talking about the next two I'm going to either. I guess they are not on the list, but you can imply only so much. I see similarities between Will and Carrie White. Superpowers triggered by abuse and repression. But Carrie didn't have any love in her life whatsoever. Will has and aplenty I believe. That is one trope I don't want ST to subvert. Love conquers all. As in Dracula. As in Candyman... not. But it is a chilling breathtaking love story. And damn good devastatingly underestimated movie with rare black protagonist antagonist (1992, but 2021 version is even better, just doesn't have the love aspect so irrelevant to this post, though I strongly recommend it). About abused man creating his own upside-down and becoming the villain.

I don't know if Will created all of the Upside Down, or only 1983 version like an impression of a stencil on a base that was there all along and was accessed by Eleven in a moment of higher rage. But I do believe that all the monsters as much as superheroes are all his. Yes, Eleven too. Shadow monster reminded me of an image in the Stephen King's novel "The Mist" (I saw only first half of the movie so I don't know whether it was similar in appearance on the screen)

That's what repression and abuse can do to powerful imaginative mind. It expands the only way left for it. And there. There is no repression that way, dark way. There are no borders.

And monsters will hit reality full force. They toed the line earlier. But they are coming. They are coming to Hawkins. Also Stephen King loves himself a nice massacre, so not only supernatural monsters

If the door is closed, there is open window then.

Pity, closets don't have windows :)

So Will will have to open the door. They both do.

As for now... And the company jumps when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B

[thesolferino]

⤷ note: apologies for losing your request, anon, but thank you for requesting! this is my first time writing a full fic in second person, so bear with me, and i hope this is what you were looking for <3

The Great American Bake Off

pairing: corpse husband x gn!reader

word count: 3.6k

genre: fluff

summary: you’ve been jealous of rae and her closeness with your boyfriend since the dawn of time, but things change and friendships are made once she comes over for one hell of a cooking video.

Corpse, among many other things, was a man many wished to have.

It’s the truth; even if he didn’t have a YouTube channel through which millions kept up with everything from horror stories to Among Us gameplays, people would still turn heads and whisper whenever he spoke - that attention more than multiplied when he started blowing up and his social media presence grew.

With growth come numbers, and there are always people behind said numbers. Through them, Corpse makes wonderful friends - through them, you had met him, too. All the way back, during his horror narration days, you had grown to like him - really, who wouldn’t?

A DM you once sent after a few drinks, when you claimed to your friends you’d get the “deep-voiced man of your dreams” you often talked about and they, in turn, challenged you to message him, was nothing short of a joke and the idea of him responding was merely a pipe dream. What you hadn’t expected, however, was a response, which wrecked your brain at noon the next day, where your head throbbed with embarrassment, guilt, pride, happiness, a melt of hatred and gratefulness for your friends, panic and the remains of alcohol that tugged at every part of your skull.

It had turned out to be more than a great idea, though, because for the next few weeks you were constantly talking. You learned so much more than he let on in videos, and during late night calls you found out everything from his favorite clothing brand to his favorite color to his thoughts about his own mortality and then back to his favorite cereal. Audio calls and short voice messages turned into hours long FaceTimes that led you from friends to something more. And after a year or so of dating, you packed your bags and made it to sunny San Diego, ready to lay in his arms and sweat bullets.

Safe to say Corpse’s social media presence had its good sides. However, with all good things come bad things too, and you weren’t sure if the bad things were bad at all or you were simply too jealous.

Corpse made wonderful friends thanks to his YouTube channel. He met people he could confide in, meet, people he could talk to about his worst problems, people who would listen - he met people he could have fun with, with who he could forget all about the real world and his own issues, and simply laugh his heart away, play games until the late hours of the night.

If he had to name his closest ones, they would have to be Dave, Loey, maybe Mykie, possibly Jack, and Rae. And that is exactly where the root of the problem stood.

Rae is beautiful, and everyone who denies it must be either dumb or blind. She’s drop dead gorgeous, and funny, and kind, and smart, in a way that made you want to rip your hair out. You wanted to hate her so bad, because the jealousy ate away at you like a damn disease, but you couldn’t, because she was perfect Rae, and as much as you hated the fact she seemed to be perfect inside out, you just couldn’t hate her as her. It was impossible, you concluded.

You convinced yourself you weren’t jealous every time you heard him yelling or laughing at her from his office room - or at least you attempted to do so. Your lunch would turn sour and end up forgotten because you’d be way too focused on listening in on what he was doing and trying to make out what she was saying to even eat at the same pace you previously were. Jealousy ate away at you, no matter if you admitted it to yourself or not.

It didn’t go unnoticed by Corpse, of course. On one late night when you couldn’t sleep and neither could he, as per usual, you turned on a random comedy that you half-heartedly paid attention to, his fingers combing through the knots in your hair peacefully and the slow pace of the movie lulling you to sleep slowly. That is, before his phone rang and lit the mostly dark room. You managed to sneak a glance at the notification before he had, and the familiar bitterness seeped between your ribs as always upon seeing the name displayed at the top of the message, more than awake now.

You visibly stiffened when he laughed at the message and typed something back, shifting your head in his lap as some subconscious attempt at getting him to pay attention to you instead. He put his phone down and you huffed, eyes locked on the TV screen as you pretended to be extremely absorbed in the movie even though you weren’t quite sure of the difference between the protagonist and antagonist anymore. His hands didn’t return to your hair, and that somehow made you even more annoyed.

“What’s up?” Corpse quietly spoke up, barely over the volume over the already quiet movie.

“Nothing.” You said, quicker than you wanted to, and you bit your tongue in cringe when you realised it was an awful lie. Corpse seemed to think the same.

“That’s bullshit. Seriously, what’s wrong?” He asked, and was met with pure silence. In reality, you were hoping he’d simply never realise you were somewhat jealous, because you knew you were being stupid and unreasonable, but you couldn’t help wanting him all to yourself. Admitting it out loud made it so much more real, and so much more embarrassing that you would rather bury yourself alive than admit to being jealous of Rae, of all people.

After a few seconds of silence, save the laughter of characters on screen, he spoke again.

“Are you jealous?” The hint of a teasing tone in his voice made you want to rip your hair out of your skull. Was it really that damn hard to believe that yes, you were jealous of an extremely close friend of his? Was it a crime?

The clenching of your jaw seemed to give Corpse enough of a response, and his hands returned to running themselves through your hair as he giggled to himself. 

“What’s so damn funny?” You borderline spat, causing his movements to halt for a second before continuing with even louder laughter.

“I don’t know, just the idea of you being jealous of Rae is so funny. I’ve noticed the way you roll your eyes whenever I text her in front of you. You’re not exactly sneaky, you know?” His words made blood rush straight to your face, cheeks heating up in embarrassment. How long has he known this for?

“Sorry. I don’t…” you exhaled and attempted to smile. “I don’t know what’s up with me. I’m so jealous nowadays. I don’t even know why.”

“There’s enough of me to share with everyone, no worries baby.” he replied, teasing tone still yet to dissipate as you slap his knee in mock offense and he starts wheezing.

“Absolutely not! Fucking excuse you, I’m not sharing with anyone!” you gaped at him as he kept laughing.

That was the end of it - or at least Corpse thought so. Needless to say, he was wrong.

Your mood would instantly turn sour whenever he’d laugh at one of her messages, and you attempted to push down every eye roll whenever he’d sit on his phone, between your legs, back turned to you so you could see everything, and open Rae’s DMs again. Sometimes you managed, sometimes you couldn’t help it, but you did your best to do it whenever he wasn’t looking. Because you truly knew you were being unreasonable, especially whenever you have to relay situations like how he had to postpone a date one time because Rae asked him to play Rust for a bit longer and you almost ripped all your hair out of your skull in frustration back to your best friend who just turned Rae and Corpse into the villains in the situation because that’s what best friends are supposed to do.

Not like he was going out of his way to talk to her a concerning amount, they mostly talked in groupchats and on streams and that was only a few times weekly, but it did absolutely nothing to calm the green monster growing stronger in you every day, fed by every laugh she got out of him.

The green monster fucking loved it when Corpse excitedly announced to you that he’s finally meeting his friends for the first time, and by friends meaning Rae, Sykkuno and Karl. You, however… were far from impressed.

He paced around the room in excitement, a mix of obvious anxiety and joy evident on his face, and he fiddled with the strings of his hoodie with shaky hands as he very proudly announced that he would be the second tallest person in the room through a blinding, pearly grin, and seeing him so electrified couldn’t help but make you shut your jealous thoughts up, even if just for a little bit, and mirror his grin back to him.

What did, however, make you as anxious as him was when he announced they’d a) be coming to your shared apartment and b) making a cooking video - it sent you into a panicked mom mode as you dusted every corner of every room and vacuumed everything from the kitchen to the balcony and Corpse did nothing but record you as you anxiously rambled and laugh at you from his place on your bed.

When the dreaded Saturday finally came, and the first person to arrive, Sykkuno, rang your doorbell, you squeezed Corpse’s hand to stop him from nervously toying with his rings and opened the door, and you greeted the man like he was your own brother and not a person you’d seen probably a total of three times through the computer screen and someone who’s seen you maybe two times, from the pictures Corpse sent him, in your best attempt to make both of them more comfortable. It actually kind of worked - turns out Sykkuno is a pretty affectionate guy, too, and a conversation started as soon as he stepped in. Corpse gave you a look when you pulled away from Sykkuno’s half-hug, and you almost laughed out loud at the irony when his phone lit up with a notification from Rae announcing she was almost there at that exact moment.

She had kept true to her word; ten minutes or so later, another ring was heard and you gestured to Corpse to open it this time as you gave Sykkuno his cup of water and resisted any and every urge to roll your eyes or do something otherwise bitchy and stupid. Corpse did as told, and you watched them hug and listened to Rae squeal in excitement through the open door of the living room and decided to plaster a smile on your face for as long as you could muster before you remove yourself from the situation when they start filming.

Unfortunately for you, the first person she locked eyes with was exactly you, and they lit up an even prettier brown (if that was even possible) as she beelined to you and you barely got a greeting out before she engulfed you in a large hug, arms wrapping around your neck as she swayed both of you side to side.

“Oh my God, you must be Y/N! I’ve heard so much about you, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” Rae cheered into your ear before she finally pulled back, before shooting an infectious grin at you that you couldn’t help but return back.

“All good things, I hope.” you chuckled as she moved to greeting Sykkuno, and nodded her head with an enthusiastic giggle of her own. You eyed Corpse for a second who simply leaned against the door frame, watching the whole thing unfold with somewhat of a proud smile on his face, before Rae turned back to you and your attention was on her again.

“Of course! Corpse is very much a simp for you, you know that?” She said and both you and Corpse laughed, especially him, who nodded his head in agreement as she sat back down, still beaming at you.

“Well, I’m happy to hear that.” you respond before turning back to Corpse. “Where’s Karl at?”

“He’ll be here in half an hour or so, he only landed recently.” he said. You nodded and moved to sit on a nearby chair to leave space for the guests on the couch.

Karl ended up arriving in twenty minutes and apprised everyone of the information that “his taxi driver is a psycho that, apparently, doesn’t fear stop signs or the police” before setting up the camera in your kitchen and tried his best to attach lapel mics on everybody (admittedly, it took way longer than it should’ve, but he eventually managed and that counted as a win in his book). You reluctantly agreed to be the judge of the finished product when they’re done cooking, and Karl was there for the purposes of being a cameraman and making jokes off screen so he agreed too, albeit way more enthusiastically than you.

The two of you sat behind the camera as the three of them lined up, Corpse wearing a mask and his signature eyepatch (that he didn’t really need, but those two did their job in preserving his privacy) and introduced what they were doing. Corpse was obviously very anxious, hands fidgeting constantly and shivering like a dog after a bath despite the hoodie he was wearing in 100 degree weather because of the shower of sweat that was now drying on his body, and that was partly why you were there, supportive smiles, encouraging cheers and all.

They were making Mexican ground beef tacos, and despite knowing Corpse can barely make a sandwich without setting at least two dishes on fire, you still cheered him on proudly and repeated he was part Mexican himself roughly 5 times a minute, claiming he was going to kill it.

“Kill it? More like kill one of us- CORPSE watch what you’re doing with that fucking knife! You’re proving my point!” Rae yelled at him as he giggled in delight, watching the woman gape at him in pure horror and Sykkuno watch his movements completely entranced as he played with the knife in his hands.

“You’re just mad that he’s going to make tacos fifty times better than you.” you said to Rae, chewing down on some M&Ms that Karl and you shared (both of you decided on a genius plan - you’re going to eat the whole bag before they’re done with cooking so you can claim you’re full and therefore can’t eat the atrocity that will most likely be the tacos).

“Don’t gas me up like that, Y/N, you are well aware I’m shit at cooking. Expect absolutely nothing from me.” he replied over the sizzling of the meat on the pan, throwing a whole spoonful of chili powder into it, earning loud yelling and scolding from your side and loud laughter from Rae.

“HALF A TEASPOON! Half a teaspoon, how have you not remembered this already?! We’ve made tacos a million times now, oh my God, you’re actually stupid.” you yelled at him, arms flailing in the direction of the seasoning to emphasise your ‘half a teaspoon’ point as Rae doubled over in laughter and Sykkuno looked into the pan with a concerned and somewhat afraid look. Just as he peeked in, the overwhelming smell of chili powder started biting away at his eyes, and he jumped away with a yelp.

“Jesus, Corpse!” he exclaimed, rubbing his eyes with his forearm as the whole room burst into laughter and Corpse suspiciously inspected his beef.

“What were you saying about your ‘Mexican king’, Y/N?” Rae asked, pulling out a few tortillas and putting them on the table. You huffed, grabbing another handful of M&Ms.

“Giving him up to God. He’s the only one who can help, at this point.” you said. She giggled in response and Corpse let out some sort of protesting sound and waved his knife around in complaint. “I don’t know who this man is. He broke into my kitchen and now I’m here.”

“Hey, I pay half of your rent!” he said, and you were about to reply but Rae dropped her meat into a pan full of overheated oil, and a loud hiss and some sort of a scream overtook the room as a cloud of steam shot into the air and she frantically looked around for the wooden spoon so the meat wouldn’t stick to the pan. You simply sat and laughed, eating the candy like it was popcorn and you were watching a shitty cooking show - it wasn’t that far from reality, really.

“Um, I just realised I don’t make many tacos, actually.” she said as she helplessly stirred the meat, turning to you with pleading eyes. “What seasoning even goes into this? Y/N, will you help me? Let’s team up against Corpse!”

You tilted your head in thought, but before you could even speak, Corpse spoke up.

“That’s not fucking fair, that’s-that’s against the rules.” he turned to you. “You won’t betray me, right?”

You laughed at him, adjusting in your seat. “I gave up on you ever since you added, like, 3 kilos of seasoning into the meat for no reason.” then you turned to Rae. “Sure, let’s do it, babe.”

Their loud yelling immediately started mixing, Rae’s cheers contrasting Corpse’s protesting. She stuck her tongue out at him meanwhile Corpse shot her the middle finger, and she turned back to you with a grin.

“Alright, what do I put in?”

Roughly twenty unnecessary and extremely long minutes later, the tacos were done, two each for each of them. Rae’s looked the best - probably because you guided her through the whole thing - next to Sykkuno’s, whose you were genuinely intrigued to try. While Corpse was arguing with Rae, he burned roughly half of his already ruined beef, and Karl made the very nice observation that it looked like a bird shat in a tortilla, which you proclaimed as the highlight of the video.

Since you and Karl claimed you were full, the three of them simply swapped tacos between each other as to be unbiased, and the two of you watched in amused suspense. You were actually quite interested to see what the end results were - you were first anxious and quite annoyed you even had to participate in the first place, because it meant losing your mind from jealousy, watching Corpse and Rae giggle and act all domestic while cooking, but jealousy simply dissipated somewhere half through the video as you watched the three argue if cheddar cheese belonged on tacos or not and Rae laugh at every stupid joke you cracked. Now, you sat, fully immersed as you stared at Sykkuno’s face; the poor guy ended up with the misfortune of having to try Corpse’s taco first.

“Zoom in, zoom in!” you whispered into Karl’s ear who complied and zoomed into Sykkuno’s face. He bit into the taco, chewing for a second before his face twisted in disgust and you began wheezing when he grabbed a tissue and spit it out, immediately grabbing his glass of water. Rae laughed at him as well, mouth full of his one, which she claimed she actually liked but it wasn’t as good as the “Y/NRae-co” as she proudly called it. Corpse silently ate Rae’s taco and refused to give a review on it because he was upset he got defeated, but the fact that he scarfed down the whole thing in a minute or so was enough of a review.

“Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad.” Corpse exclaimed when he saw Sykkuno’s bite in the tissue, grabbing the second taco he made and biting down on it. The whole room burst into laughter when he roughly swallowed, tears obvious in the one eye that showed, because of the overly spicy beef.

“What are you motherfuckers laughing at? It’s not that bad, I stand by tacorpse.”

“Tacorpse is actually genius. The one good thing you came up with during the entirety of this video.” Rae said and Corpse mumbled a fuck you in response.

“Well, I think we can all agree that me and Y/N’s taco was clearly the best.” she said, clasping her hands together.

“I actually think mine was better.” Sykkuno said, to which she pushed his plate out of the frame.

“Nobody asked you anything.”

“Don’t bully Sykkuno, I’ll fucking kick you out.”

“Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure Y/N would kick you out before they’d let you kick me!” Rae said, accusingly pointing her taco in Corpse’s direction.

“Alright, let’s wrap up the video.” Karl laughed behind the camera, and the three of them all turned to properly face it and end the video.

“Thank you all so much for watching, this has been an… interesting video, to say the least. Uh, thank you to Karl for filming this whole disaster, thank you to Corpse,” Rae gestured in his direction, “for lending us his kitchen, thank you to Sykkuno for probably getting us more views on this video, and also a big thank you to Y/N, Corpse’s better half for making this video way more interesting and helping me make probably, like, the best taco I’ve ever made.” she grinned and you shoved a peace sign in front of the camera.

“If you liked this video, check out Sykkuno and Corpse’s channels, they will be linked down below, and please click like and subscribe to support the channel! Again, thank you all for watching, see you later, bye!” she finished, and with that, Karl turned the camera off.

Silence engulfed the room. You sighed.

“Alright, who’s gonna clean this shit up?”

[itsclydebitches]

I am sincerely so confused as to why the Gods are not portrayed as the absolute hypocritical monsters they are? Light God punishes Salem for wanting Ozma back, yet bring him back anyway to unite humanity - which is exactly what Salem did, she just united humanity against them. And what's worse is that we know the Light God is coded as good because his power is the same as our main protagonist.

While I absolutely agree that the Gods'... well, everything should be acknowledged by the show, I think the current problem is that they're not portrayed as anything at all post-"The Lost Fable." It's not really a case of the show providing a depiction of the Gods I'm not inclined to agree with given what we saw in the flashback, there is no depiction, period. They don't exist as something that's driving the story right now which, at this point, amounts to near three whole volumes of lost content. The only time I can recall them coming up is during Maria's talk with Ruby, which is really just re-stating facts to lead Ruby to her epiphany: one Brother created the grimm, the other Brother destroyed the grimm, he did so with a magical light... and then Ruby has her aha! moment — "The God of Light... His eyes! Okay, where do we start?" Has the group mentioned them at all outside of this? Have they mentioned the vision? Nora brings up the possibility that someone other than Ozpin could defeat Salem, but that's it (and that was less a discussion and more a theory spoken half to herself that an angry Ren ignored). The characters, along with the audience, were given 20 minutes of non-stop backstory and none of it has had a single bit of impact on the group, outside of breaking their relationship with Ozpin, that is. It has provided no new insight into how to fight this war. No reflection on their lives or deaths. Not even a change in regards to whether they'll fight at all because despite the dejected atmosphere post-vision, no one actually grappled with walking away. The closest they got was at the farm and that negativity was, canonically, due to the Apathy, not any knowledge outside of the Salem immortality secret. That vision was treated like filler, despite nothing in those 20 minutes being insignificant. Where's Weiss' sympathy for Ozpin as a family abuse survivor? Where's Blake's horror at the Gods' oppression and genocide? Where's Jaune's hope at seeing Pyrrha again in some afterlife? Where's Ren's fear that they're fighting a hopeless battle? Even when he does express some of those views in Volume 8, none of it is explicitly connected to the supernatural movie they watched. He's concerned with Jaune's transcript from Volume 1, not the revelation that bringing these Relics together will summon beings who wiped out the first version of humanity. There's not even an acknowledgement that the Gods' choices are what led to Salem's creation, the current antagonist they're concerned with. (When they're not, of course, concerned with Ironwood instead — which just highlights the issue here.) It's not that RWBY is taking clearly horrible entities and trying to pass them off as good guys... it's that RWBY isn't engaging with those entities at all. The Gods showed up for one episode, Maria referenced them for a pep talk, and they've had no impact on the story since.

As for the God of Light yeah, that coding is there, but in another series I would expect that to be the point. Meaning, you set up this binary view of the world for your protagonists — there are Good Guys, there are Bad Guys, and we know who is who because one is all scary black and summons grimm whereas the other is pretty white and bestows gifts! — only to slowly, over the course of the series, have them realize that real life doesn't work that way. That this binary doesn't exist. That Ruby's eyes are important because of how she chooses to use them, not because a being of seeming benevolence gave them to her. Problem is, that revelation should have started in Volume 6, with the characters realizing that Ozpin really is cursed and the nice looking God isn't actually any better than his brother. Now what do they do? Is Ruby comfortable using that power? Are they out to try and lift Ozpin's curse the way Light intended? Are the Gods their new enemies? A tool they'll use to stop Salem? Someone they're willing to forgive? There's the foundation here for a story about heroes not just getting the shock that Gods created them and their enemy, but that they're not necessarily a good thing to embrace either. They thought they were fighting a war where a Purely Evil Creature was attacking humanity. Now they realize it's a war where Salem was, in part, driven to this by creators who abandoned them and might, if the fancy strikes them, enslave or eradicate humanity 2.0 if they ever return. Well shit. How do we tackle that war? But, of course, that kind of story would require them thinking about, discussing, and planning around the Gods. Not ignoring their existence for three seasons.

Given RWBY's anime inspirations and the common theme of, "This being appears benevolent and I fight on their behalf but whoops they're actually awful haha now what?" in other stories, I don't think aligning Ruby's power with the God of Light is intrinsically a bad thing. It is, in fact, good setup for a later conflict. Problem is, absolutely nothing came of that revelation and now it's far too late. After focusing on Ozpin's secret instead, spending an undetermined amount of time doing basic Huntsmen stuff in Atlas, and now being fully immersed in a battle with Salem, having them suddenly go, "Oh yeah. There are Gods. What do we think about that?" is going to be... well, not great. Even if this island is precisely the God world that most fans expect, the group will only be tackling their existence because the plot is forcing them to, literally by "killing" them and trapping them so there's nothing else for them to focus on. The fandom has discussed at length the problem with making the cast almost purely reactive and this is just one more example. We established across Volumes 6-8 that they didn't actively care about the Gods. At all. Not what happened in the past, not what they might do in the future, not how they might impact this war. They were dismissed along with the rest of the vision, taking with it any opportunity to explore that revelation, or try to (mistakenly imo) paint the Gods as better than they were. It's just a non-starter atm. Trying to tackle that story now might still lead to some interesting ideas, but it can't patch the three Volume hole where that story should have started.

[couldyouspeakmyname]

How do you headcanon the ratio of herbivores and carnivores cast in horror movie roles? Like, which one of them is more frequently cast as the protagonists/victims versus the antagonists (like serial killers, vanilla monsters, ghosts/spirits/demons)?

Herbivores are mostly the hero's. Unfortunately, most carnivores are so scary to society, that casting them as a hero vanquishing an herbivore is probably seen in bad taste. It's much easier for Herbivores to paint carnivores as monsters, that the idea of an herbivore villain doesn't even cross their minds. I do think it's likely that movies come out with carnivores vs carnivores, but the survivor is either a 'harmless' carnivore like a dog, or none survive at all.

Usually the 'final girl' in films is an herbivore

Another idea is that the above used to be the norm, but then a series of horror films came out and and herbivore was the main, smart, fiendish, villain. In this particular scenario I'm thinking of the SAW franchise. If you have an herbivore villain that wins over a long period of movies, and both carnivores and herbivores are equal victims, it'd be much easier for society to hope that this villain, that kills no matter the species, gets taken down.

It'd be much easier to have an herbivore villain after a super villain herbivore that's hard to beat/kill comes out. That would open the door for more diverse casting and story lines.

I also think modern/younger horror lovers/writers/directors want to do something different, flip the genre by free casting, but I think the older animals that fund projects are the ones who really put the projects down.

This is probably one of the big reasons that soon 'found footage' genres start emerging. It's easier to do at home, require a smaller budget, and when published online, they gain quicker notoriety. The cast and creators then have more freedom and give the middle finger to those who shit on their creativity.

[jackcinephile]

LO Fans: "I love Lore Olympus because it deals with serious themes, like sexual assault, abuse, gaslighting, trauma, and mental health issues!"

Me, who spent my life discovering and obsessing over masterpieces like this:

"You're gonna have to try a lot harder than that to impress me."

Yeah, I never understood that kind of praise. For one thing, people act like LO is groundbreaking for that reason, despite there being countless movies, books, tv shows, comics, and video games that also deal with the same themes. That isn't to say there can't be more stories like this, however. I, for one, am begging for another video game that comes close to the emotional resonance of Silent Hill 2, or for a faithful adaptation of Dracula and/or Phantom of the Opera, or for a horror movie as unsettling as The Howling! But to say any new story that deals with these themes is unique for doing so, is just simply not true. Lore Olympus is no more unique than any of these stories. Also, I don't understand the praise that Lore Olympus is great just by virtue of having these themes in the first place. Just because a story has serious themes, doesn't automatically make it good. Far too often does LO use its themes as a crutch for a plot that is standard issue among romances, as opposed to stories like The Howling, which has a very intriguing, outlandish plot that serves as a catalyst to explore themes of very real and relatable horror. Lore Olympus, without its intense themes, is just another story about the CEO falling in love with his intern. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE those kinds of stories, but Lore Olympus just doesn't really do it for me. And the poorly executed themes just hamper it even further for me.

If it wasn't already apparent, has anyone noticed a pattern between these titles? All but one are horror stories. In my opinion, that is one of the key differences between them and LO: Horror! The themes within, are ones that illicit terror, and the stories reflect that (even Phantom of the Opera--don't listen to anyone who says it's a romance). Starting with Dracula, one of the scenes that horrified me the most in the book was the one where Count Dracula sneaks into Mina's bedroom. The book describes him slitting open his own vein and forcing her to drink his blood. Mina then expresses feelings of violation, much akin to what rape survivors feel. It doesn't pull any punches in its shocking, horrific portrayal, but it never comes off as exploitative. That's because the best horror stories rely on the audience's empathy. In this case, nobody wants to feel violated, so we feel as horrified as the characters do when we read about this grotesque event. And because it is about illiciting fear through empathy, Dracula succeeds where Lore Olympus fails. Lore Olympus, before all else, is a romance. And rape should not be in a romantic story. Especially not when the narrative of LO uses this trauma to validate the relationship between the two leads. I'm not a fan of stories that use trauma to validate a relationship between romantic interests, and I think that partly stems from reading the Phantom of the Opera.

If you ask me, Phantom of the Opera is one if the best books to discuss abuse and gaslighting ever written! Despite misconceptions generated by the popularity of the musical, PotO is very much a horror story with hardly any romance at all. And it's one of the best examples about why using trauma to validate a romance is a very bad idea! You see, all the conflict of the story begins with The Phantom and his trauma. He was born with multiple physical deformities that cause him to look like a living corpse. Because of this, he is despised and rejected by the world in order to escape the hatred of the world, he commissions the construction of the Paris Opera House, complete with intricate catacombs where he can live out the rest of his miserable days. Then one day, a woman named Christine comes to work at the Opera as a chorus girl. She is sad and alone due to her being orphaned, without a friend in the world. She too is emotionally damaged and the Phantom thinks this means she'll understand him. The trouble begins instantly when he claims to be a character from a folktale that Christine's father used to tell her. This is when the manipulation and gaslighting begins. Part of what makes this so effective is how we see it from an outside perspective. The protagonist, Raoul, is in love with Christine and we get to see his confusion and growing concern when he starts realizing Christine is showing signs of an abusive relationship. What makes the relationship even worse is the fact that Christine actually does understand The Phantom. So she doesn't run away not only out of fear, but also compassion. She knows what it's like to feel isolated and dead to the world and The Phantom uses that against her. The more I describe this, the more parallels I begin to see to Hades' and Minthe's relationship. Yes, Minthe abused Hades in much of the same way as The Phantom abused Christine. Notice how Minthe keeps convincing Hades that they're the only people who understand each other, even going so far as to say, "We're the same." The funny thing is, that's exactly what the narrative uses to validate Hades' and Persephone's relationship! It tries to establish that Hades and Persephone relate to each other and they say, several times, "We're the same," to each other. But this is exactly how Hades got stuck in a toxic relationship with Minthe, so why is it suddenly okay now? Relationships that use shared trauma to validate themselves are almost always doomed to become toxic, in one way or another.

So what about the healthy relationship in Phantom of the Opera? Well, it's kinda interesting actually. You see, Christine eventually comes to realize that she needs help, so she turns to the protagonist, Raoul, to get her away from the Phantom. Raoul has an interesting character arc because he starts the novel being pretty immature and kinda selfish. He doesn't really take Christine's feelings into consideration. It's more like a boy chasing his childhood crush (actually that's exactly what happens). However, over the course of the story, as he becomes increasingly concerned with her well-being, he learns to care more about her feelings and her needs. This culminates in the climax, when he's willing to crawl through hell itself for her sake. I bring all this up because I wanted to compare Raoul with Hades as well. Hades is a very consistent character. He doesn't need an arc like Raoul because, from the very beginning, he's willing to put all of Persephone's needs before his, to a fault! That is his entire purpose within the narrative of LO. He exists to serve Persephone. Raoul didn't exist to serve Christine. He had his own journey of growing and maturing. And Christine didn't exist to serve Raoul either. It bothers me that a novel from 1910 has a more well-rounded relationship than a modern comic! Actually, now that I think about it, isn't Persephone's entire character arc supposed to be her learning that she shouldn't exist to serve others? Well, that totally contradicts Hades' role in the story, doesn't it? He exists to serve her! I guess, in the eyes of LO, it's only okay if men serve women, but not for women to serve men. Newsflash: neither is okay.

Now Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) remains, to this day, one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen! That's all thanks to its brutal depictions of domestic abuse. So Dr. Henry Jekyll believes the solution to enlightening the human race is to separate the good and evil in our souls. He solves this problem by creating a drug to do just that, which transforms him into Edward Hyde, but he becomes addicted and starts terrorizing a woman who was once a former patient of his. I think what makes this so effective, when compared to LO, is one simple factor: Fear. I am terrified of Edward Hyde, but whenever Apollo shows up, I'm just annoyed. That's because Hyde isn't being used to sell an agenda, while Apoll is. Apollo is all about making a statement about toxic masculinity, which always bothered me from the very beginning! Being an abusive cunt who rapes women has nothing to do with masculinity! It doesn't matter if you're masculine or feminine, anyone can be a cunting abusive rapist. If you are a rapist, it's because you're a monster who lacks empathy, not because of masculinity. And if you think masculinity has something to do with a lack of empathy, fuck off! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not about toxic masculinity. It's about how drug addiction can often hurt other people around us just as much, if not moreso, than ourselves. It also doesn't use rape to validate a relationship between characters. I'm sorry, but that is just the laziest storytelling technique. When the antagonist is a rapist OF COURSE the male love interest is going to look better by comparison! But when you take Apollo out of the equation, Hades stops looking like a desirable love interest real fucking quick.

So yeah, I think Hades makes for a bad love interest. That's mostly because he's so much like Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Yeah, the one title from the list above that's not a horror, but is no less relevant. The thing is, both Hades and Shinji have a lot in common, such as hating themselves, having a bad relationship with their father, and not caring at all about their own wants and needs. Oh, also Asuka's a better written character than Minthe, but that's a whole other topic. What makes Evangelion work, in my opinion, is that Shinji's whole journey is about learning to love himself, while Hades is portrayed as being perfect the way he is. Hades in LO is like a flawless beacon of virtue, solely because he worships the ground Persephone walks on. But the guy just doesn't care about himself at all! Like I said earlier, Hades guilty of the same self-destructive behaviors as Persephone but he's praised for it, while Persephone is encouraged to look after herself more often. Compare this to Shinji, whose life only gets worse the more he neglects himself. The only time Hades does something beneficial for himself is when he breaks up with Minthe, but immediately after that, he starts devoting every ounce of energy to Persephone! All that matters is her! He doesn't give a single fuck about himself. Sorry, but that's not good qualities in a male love interest. In all fairness, this is a problem with the romance genre as a whole. Most romances give priority to the protagonist (in this case Persephone) while neglecting the love interest (Hades). It's why I have a serious problem with the entire genre.

Now what could Silent Hill 2 have that is in any way relevant to Lore Olympus? Two words: Nightmare Fuel. Personifying trauma as literal demons is one of the smartest ideas anyone's ever had, because speaking from personal experience, that's how it feels. I just don't feel like the trauma experienced by the characters in LO is a waking nightmare like it is in real life. For one, the characters' trauma only pops up when it's convenient for the plot. Like whenever Persephone starts experiencing ptsd, it happens when she's with Hades so we can get a scene with Hades cuddling her. After that, it shows up in a scene to make her look badass by confronting Apollo. No, just no. The Howling did it better too, by making the protagonist's trauma such an inconvenience in her life! I never felt that way in LO. When you uss traumatic encounters to make your character look like a badass, kindly fuck off.

[winterhawk-olympic-bang]

Emotive Writing

Guest Poster: @thepartyresponsible​

Emotive writing is about making people Feel Things. People use this all the time to sell you stuff, but we’re out here giving emotions away for free. Here are a few tips and tricks I’ve found to make people feel the most emotions.

Word choice:

This is the most straightforward part of emotive writing. Your word choices add an extra layer of complexity to your message. You aren’t just telling readers what happened; you’re signaling to them how they should feel. Most writers do this unconsciously, but being deliberate can make it especially effective.

Here’s a non-emotive, just-the-facts sentence: The soldier lifted his weapon and turned toward the enemy.

Here’s the same sentence reworked to make you care a bit more: The exhausted soldier raised his broken shield and faced the invading army.

The actions here are fundamentally the same, but exhausted and broken invoke sympathy while invading skews negative.

The words you choose are sign posts for the reader. They indicate how to interpret the story and help your readers orient themselves and form expectations. Subtly building expectation is important because, while surprise can be effective, shock is generally numbing and confusion tends to be irritating, so word choice helps you frame things and guide your reader along.

One of the keys here is to attempt some subtlety. If every sentence about your protagonist reads like an ad campaign (effervescent, brilliant, impervious) and every sentence about your antagonist reads like a political diatribe (cruel, spineless, malicious), you’re probably overusing your sign posts. People want to know who to root for, but too much emotive language can make them feel manipulated.

Think of word choice like adding spices to food. If you put oats in boiling water, you’re making oatmeal, and the spices you use won’t change that. But if you throw in some honey and cinnamon, I know we’re headed somewhere wholesome. If you sprinkle in little discordant notes of garlic powder and cayenne, what we’re cooking is a tragedy. And if you upend an entire bottle of cinnamon, a quarter cup of nutmeg, and toss in seventeen whole cloves, I am not staying for breakfast.

Narrative distance:

Narrative or psychic distance is the space between the reader and the character, usually navigated by the intermediary figure of the narrator. Your narrator can be an omniscient figure that knows the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of every character in the world. Or your narrator could be sitting on the shoulder of your main character, close enough to hear their thoughts and know their story but not so close that they speak with the character’s voice. Or your narrator could be your character.

If you want to ramp up emotion, you usually want a narrator who is very close to one character (or, alternatively, to separate characters in turn). But you don’t have to stay at one distance for the whole story, and, just like word choice, shifts in narrative distance can be helpful indicators to your reader about the story and the characters.

A sudden, dramatic shift in narrative distance is quite jarring, like a sudden zoom-in during a movie. It can be effective, but it’ll lose its punch if it’s overused. Generally, if you want to shift narrative distance, you should build to it slowly. Here’s an example of shifting from a distant third person to a closer third person:

They wake the Soldier because the archer is missing. He has a habit of slipping his lead, disappearing post-mission. The chase grew tedious years ago, but the Soldier runs it just the same. He’ll do as he’s told. But it bothers him, when he lets it. The why.

Why does he do this? the Soldier wonders, when he shouldn’t, when it isn’t his place. Where is he going? he thinks, when he can’t stop himself. Who is he running to? But he tries to think nothing at all.

Another trick of narrative distance is to suddenly pull back to show a character who’s been compromised, shocked, or deeply hurt by something. Imagine spending a long time in a close Bucky perspective, hearing his thoughts, and then being abruptly walloped across the face with: The machine went quiet, and the Soldier opened his eyes. Zooming out can emphasize what’s been lost. Because you aren’t just taking the soul of Bucky Barnes right out of him, you’re also taking that closeness away from the reader. You’re silencing the voice they’ve been listening to.

Whether you zoom in or out during highly emotional moments depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and also on who’s involved.  Some characters have loud, messy emotions that will get louder when they’re hurt. Some characters will freeze over and push a narrator further away. You can use narrative distance to show a character slowly opening up or suddenly slamming a door. But you need the reader to have a solid understanding of the character in order to follow what the shift means, which leads to the next component.

Know your characters:

So, here’s the thing. You gotta Velveteen Rabbit this. Every character is Tinker Bell. If you stop believing, they die.

If you want people to care about these characters, you have to treat them like living, breathing, fully feeling people. They have favorite colors. They have phobias. They have Friday night plans and blisters from new shoes and sesame seeds stuck in their teeth. They have superstitions and secrets. You don’t need to know all of these facts, but you should try to give the impression that someone could know them. The more real your characters are, the more we’re going to care about them.

Since this is fanfiction, you start with a receptive audience. Your readers are fond of these characters. Figure out why. Figure out which parts of the character you can relate to and dig in until you feel like you can understand the parts of them you can’t relate to.

Try to collect things that make you feel close to that character. I always have music playing when I’m writing, so I make playlists for characters and playlists for stories. If I feel like I’m losing a character, I’ll go back to their playlist. But you could also use Pinterest boards, reread favorite fics or comics, rewatch movies or fanvids, or spend an unreasonable amount of time researching bows and tactical knives. Whatever works!

Also, remember, your characters don’t know what story they’re in. They don’t know it’s going to end well (or terribly). Maintain that tension, because that’s where the emotions are. When you watch a good horror movie, you’re not really scared of the monster. You’re scared for the characters, because they don’t know if they’re going to survive.

Emotions come from the characters. That’s why it’s still sad that Tony Stark dies, no matter how many times you watch it happen. Tony Stark was brave and flawed and usually right and often sarcastic, and it hurts to watch him die because that’s a full, unique human we’re losing. We know him well enough to know he’s choosing to sacrifice himself and why he made that choice and who will mourn him.

Know your characters, and let them be messy and weird and wrong and hopeful and cantankerous and unique. Fear is relatable, flaws are relatable, and awkward, ungainly, stubborn progress is relatable. Just remember what it is that makes their progress their progress because, if you can swap Dominic Toretto in for Ted Lasso and have the exact same story, you’ve probably lost your characters.

Plan your emotional trajectory:

Okay, time to get a bit technical. This is for people who like to plan. For those terrifying, godlike writers who just sit down and write, this might not be helpful. For my fellow planners:

There’s a theory (which you can get a general overview about here or, if you’re very into data, right here) that there are six core emotional trajectories in narratives:

1)      Rags to riches (rise)

2)      Riches to rags (fall)

3)      Man in a hole (fall then rise)

4)      Icarus (rise then fall)

5)      Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)

6)      Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

Since rise and fall can mean different things, I find it helpful to combine these building blocks with emotional axes, which you can find some examples of here.

So, basically, for my winterhawk baseball au Got a Heart in Me, I Swear, I planned to follow the “man in a hole” trajectory (fall then rise) along the anxiety-confidence emotional axis with some bleedover from the humiliation-pride axis. Which basically means Clint started comfortable enough, nosedived deep into anxiety and humiliation, and then slowly built his way to confidence over the rest of the fic.

If the listed axes don’t appeal to you, you can very easily create your own. Just think of an emotion, identify what links it to its inverse, and then list the related emotions between the two opposites. Disgust and adoration are opposites, but they’re linked by attention, right? You can’t ignore something you find disgusting or adorable. So, here’s an example emotional axis you could follow: Disgust – Resentment – Obsession – Fascination – Reverence – Adoration. Enemies to lovers, anyone?

Emotional axes help provide a natural framework for your character’s emotional trajectory. They can be subtle; you don’t have to start on one end of the spectrum and go all the way to the other. A story that moves just a step or two on an emotional axis can be incredibly compelling. That small progress from discomfort to hope can hit really hard if the progress feels fought-for and earned and real.

Tips for writing emotions:

·         Get physical: If you want to show an emotion instead of telling it, describe its impacts on the body. Most characters won’t think I’m embarrassed. They’ll feel a drop in their stomach like someone cut the elevator cables and a hot stinging in their face like they’ve been slapped by some disappointed version of themselves. The more visceral your descriptions, the more the reader will feel them. If you want your reader to feast on feelings, you have to set the table.

·         Dramatic zoom: When something very intense happens, shift the narrative distance. In or out is fine, but a sudden, dramatic event should result in a sudden, dramatic change in focus. Characters might hyperfocus on their physical bodies (the mechanics of breathing, the ringing in their ears, the mad animal urge toward flight) or they might be kicked so far out of their own heads that they feel like they’re dreaming or watching the scene play out from overhead. This distance is useful for two reasons: it feels real, and it allows readers to absorb the situation in pieces, without being overwhelmed by it.

·         Unreliable narrator: Some emotions can be so charged that people don’t want to own them, like grief, shame, jealousy, rage, lust, and guilt. Characters might unconsciously misrepresent these to themselves as something else. A grieving mother might insist she’s tired. A rehabilitated assassin who’s fallen in love with an absolute dork might tell himself he’s just tracking a target. Everyone knows what it’s like to lie to themselves, so this makes characters relatable. And, also, everyone likes being in on a secret, so, sometimes, this is just fun.

·         Face the monsters: We’re often conditioned not to dwell on unpleasant things, which is part of why it can be powerful to examine them in stories. From small things like inglorious emotional states (envy, cowardice, resentment) to character flaws (recklessness, withdrawal, arrogance) to personal tragedies (loss, betrayal, abandonment), the negative parts of human emotional life pack quite a punch. Acknowledge them. Not only are they relatable experiences, but redemption and recovery arcs are some of the most compelling stories we have.

[cybernaght]

Lost Tomb Reboot aka Reunion: The Sound of Providence Season 2

I swear I wasn’t actually planning to write this thing, instead just opting for random picture spams of the season, starting with every time this show got Zhu Yilong’s Wu Xie wet, because that was a trend I had not expected and kind of lived for.

All that will still happen eventually, but here’s also my five cents on the season, because it is very very important for you to know just how worthy of love it is. 

You see, Season 1 was silly and fun, and definitely, undeniably, enjoyable. 

Then Season 2 swooped in, and completely won my heart. I cannot even express how much I adored it. Everything about this show is extremely extra in the best possible way; it is likely to have been the most charmingly over the top thing I have ever seen.

(Vague spoilers for : specific monsters, narratively significant moments, fate of the certain characters, including the protagonist.)

Some of it comes from the pace, which speeds up dramatically early in the season, and only slows down marginally to allow characters some breathing room. It’s not just gripping because it makes you want to hit play on the next episode, it also keeps you engaged because you can’t wait to see how the next wild set of events may be resolved and then topped. At about episode ten I was questioning how they could possibly produce a sense of further escalation. At episode twenty, I was wondering if anything can top dramatic impact of whatever was occurring only two thirds of the way through the season. 

I need not have worried: every single incredible character moment, every mind-boggling turn of the plot, every single bizarre threat would be blown out of water by the next one. 

Partly, this seemingly has to do with the writers attempts to ground the material. I am not sure what the novel contained, but I can discern that it was something along the lines of ghosts, ghouls and various supernatural circumstance. But when you are told  “this is a curse”, your reaction is naturally to go, “ah okay, so curses are a thing, and this is one of them, gotcha”. When you are told, “this is a heavy metal poisoning combined with a neurotoxin affecting the victim’s central nervous system and making them violently hallucinate”, your reaction is to question whether this is how metals, toxins, poisons, or, indeed, central nervous systems work in any version of reality. 

The show does this a lot. From human shaped swarms of killer moths, to flying brain-penetrating eels, to probably my favourite monster of the moment: the murder clams.

Seriously, I cannot stress enough that this show has murder clams. They move with their clam mussels. They jump with their clam shells. They will murder you in cold blood. 

There are ancient “laser corridor” style set-ups, there are shapes made out of fog recording its memory, there are group hallucinations generated by the sound of thunder, there are Mission Impossible style full face masks. There is a character who walked off a gun wound and sarin gas poisoning in order to die in the arms of his lover who looks like his dead sister. And by “looks like” I mean, “played by the same actress”. 

There is a whole character of Doctor Churros, who saves our hero from imminent death by washing his lungs with oil. 

This, I suppose, ultimately, is how The Lost Tomb Reboot (Season 2 in particular) lures you in. It turns what I saw as the show’s fault in season 1 into its biggest strength by establishing the world in which nothing is too outlandish and everything is possible. It so thoroughly breaks your expectations barometer, you grow to willingly accept whatever is thrown at you. 

The most beautiful thing about all of it, is that the fun and games and moments of barely controlled hysteria do not lower the stakes whatsoever. Moreover, somehow this show makes me believe that it could just about do something as irrevocable as, perhaps, killing off the protagonist 

You know how you can watch, say, a super hero film, and then the “all is lost” moment happens, and you kind of have to struggle to care because you know that they will pull through. It’s curious to see how that happens, but you don’t doubt for even second that it will. Well, when that moment arrived here, I found myself between ugly sobbing, and going into speculation overdrive to try and figure out how the Reboot would deal with that. By then I have seen that show be an high octave action movie, a supernatural mystery, a horror thriller, a buddy comedy and a spy flick: it was not a massive stretch to imagine it turning into a revenge tragedy.

Wu Xie dying had been building up since episode one, so you had hours and hours and oh-so-many hours to brace for it, and when the tragedy does not strike, the relief is visceral. 

Despite all the moments of hilarity (whether intended or otherwise), despite the chaotic turns of the plot, despite how utterly off the charts this show is tonally, when it matters, the narrative is pulled together in a way which not only makes complete sense within the world of the series, but is meticulously set-up, satisfying resolved, and delivers lovely emotional impact. Considering that the moral of the story is a very common “live in the moment”, paired up with “greed is bad”, it was surprising how much resonance its delivery actually created. 

Ultimately, however, this show is about found family, and, more specifically, about Wu Xie’s ability to create this family for himself and for every single member of it. He starts as one of the trio, and ends as one of a large group of old allies, new friends, and people he has graced with so much kindness that they follow him until the bitter end. 

Lost Tomb Reboot ensures that you get to know them all, and it’s pretty damn hard to not love this misfit group of adventurers in its entirety. 

(The only thing I could say is that I wish the series spent more time making sure the viewer knows and likes Zhang Qiling, but it seemingly had little purpose for him apart form sweeping in as an avenging angel every now and then. I get that he is a well established character in the series, and that his whole thing is being deadly and enigmatic, but considering that you got to know the other two legs of the famous Triangle so well, it’s a shame that this one was reserved to mostly being Xiao Ge Ex Machina. It would have been nice to know what he was about apart from “really damn cool”.)

Bai Haotian remained my favourite character. She is cute, sweet, romantic, and, for the lack of a better word, “girly”. She is not shy about her crush on Wu Xie, and is prepared to do a lot of reckless, dangerous things for him. None of the above undermine her intelligence, cunningness and authority. Xiao Bai is a young woman in a position of power, and she absolutely knows how to handle herself; for every time she is a damsel in distress, she gets to be the rescuer. For every time she puts herself in needless danger, she learns to collect herself and plan ahead. For every time she is bossed around, she turns and takes charge. Her journey is not the centred around getting the guy, but around discovering her self-assertion; she finds her place within his team not by being a romantic interest, but through her personal strengths. 

My absolutely favourite moment for her came when an antagonist used her affection for Wu Xie to get an upper hand on her, and she gets restrained, knife to her throat. Xiao Bai swivels away, knocks the attacker out and goes to town kicking him, to a great astonishment of this team, as she states that liking someone does not make her weak. 

And it doesn’t. Being in love has nothing to do with weakness or strength. Being a young, and excitable, and a woman does not equate to weakness either.

I’m not saying that this show is a feminist manifesto, because it is definitely not that. Every other prominent female character suffers a pitiful fate in service of creating motivation for the men of the story. But it does spend a lot of time making sure you, the viewer, know its heroes well enough to mentally befriend them. And if this means giving the female lead complexity, I cannot possibly be mad at that. 

So, this was it. This was the Lost Tomb Reboot. It brought me a ridiculous amount of joy and I will miss it a lot. 

And yes, the picture spams will be 100% an excuse to rewatch at least some of it. 

PS. Said spams miiiiight be gif based if I figure out a way to colour correct the damn things. 

[princeescaluswords]

For all they go on and on about "nothing is black and white!!!!" stans sure do have the overwhelming tendency to portray the dynamic between the two noble white families as "Hales Good, Argents Bad!!!" which utterly erases the nuances of the show. They want it both ways in where the rich white werewolves are unfairly persecuted, yet also Peter and Derek kill as casually as breathing, whether you be human or an unfortunate omega passing through.

One of the things I have learned from engaging in the Teen Wolf fandom is that the phenomenon of fandom itself has evolved to a point where they believe they  don’t actually need the shows they follow anymore.  “Fans” don’t have to attempt to understand the theme, the characters, the plot or any -- as you put it -- nuance of these works whatsoever.  I had one person tell me that they only paid attention to the scenes with Stiles in them and then turn around in the same conversation and complain to me that the writing didn’t make any sense.  They’ve been taught that it is completely acceptable to only consume the parts of the show they feel they want, like a vulture picking over a corpse for the juiciest bits.  

You might ask what’s wrong with that?  Unfortunately, the behavior allows the audience to project their own fantasies onto show narratives and to bring their own prejudices into the fandom community.  This turns fandom into a frustrating and unwelcoming place when these fantasies and prejudices involve racism, misogyny, heteronormativity and other behaviors that perpetuate cultural exclusion.

And fandom is beginning to influence more and more the way shows are made.  In the recent televised hit Wandavision, the production knew that casting Evan Peters as “Fietro” would create an amazing amount of buzz in the fandom community, which helped generate viewership, even though the character could have been played by anyone else.  Shows didn’t use to include facets that required the audience to have watched a different movie by a different studio.  That’s what fandom has done.

In Teen Wolf’s case, fandom decided who the good guys were and who the bad guys were and what their primary ship would be 16 minutes into the first episode.  Sarcastic, nerdy white boy ignored by his crush -- check.   Good-looking broody white man with a tragic past -- check.  After that, nothing else mattered to them.  Thus, the parallels between the Argents and the Hales -- families who believe they had the right to determine the course of Scott McCall’s life, families with power and wealth and privilege, families betrayed from within -- went completely over their head.  That Scott developed a relationship with Derek as a brother and as Allison as a lover -- parallel, what parallel?  The Hales and the Argents are the villains and the antagonists of the seasons of the show, because for all the tragedy of the Hale Fire and the tradition of the Argent Code, they tried to continue their battle on the backs of innocent teenagers.

Recently I asked a BNF, Athena Dark, what she thought the theme of Teen Wolf was.  Her reply was, to paraphrase, that does a television show have to have a theme?  Can’t it just be enjoyed? And this is a fan who developed a primer on color theory for the show.  This is a fan who argued that the genre of a show which scores its fight scenes with dubstep is cosmic horror.  This is a fan who suspected benevolent characters of trying to summon a demon and artificially engineering the main characters rise to be the ... main character.   This is a fan who argued the putative and often-described hero of the piece is actually a cautionary tale in the same vein as Anakin Skywalker.  This is a fan who argued, based on the main character telling someone that this was his story in the last episode, that the entire series was unreliable narration, the point of which was ... I still have no idea what the point of it would be, since it was never used for any effect by the production.

I choose to believe that Athena Dark didn’t really confuse ‘theme’ with ‘moral,’ but I still have to point out that her conclusion supports the premise of this post.  She is an exemplar of the fandom.  They, too, can work out elaborate theories and headcanons which ignore parts of the show for which they didn’t care or to which they didn’t pay attention.  They don’t need a theme because a theme encompasses the entire show and not just the depth of Peter’s v-necks.  It’s all for their enjoyment, so if they create an alternate reading of the production where Scott is a bad friend and Stiles and Derek were destined to be an eternal love, what’s the harm?  

But there is harm.  I could point you to Stitch’s articles in Teen Vogue about the harm fandom does with its misogynoir all the time.  I could ask you think about the hijinks endemic in the Supernatural fandom.  Or to think about the damage done to the Star Wars franchise when the fandom got obsessed with a patricidal Space Nazi.   Teen Wolf’s been finished for three-and-a-half years, and we’re still arguing if Scott McCall was Latino and, if so, if he was a hero or just a monster in disguise.

Anyone who watched the show for the show would have seen that both the Hales and the Argents were antagonists to Scott and helped forge him into the protagonist as he helped reclaim both of the families from evil and tragedy.  It wasn’t Stiles that brought Derek to the point he was in the series finale.  Derek didn’t come back for Stiles, he came back for Scott.  It wasn’t Peter who brought Chris Argent to the point he was in the series finale.  He got a new family because he came back to help Scott.   

And the only way for Fandom to deny it is to pretend they were watching something else.