#maybe he found the cult stuff in the attic? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-spooky-children · 2 years

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Little theory ramble here idk lol:

There are quite a lot of theorising videos and posts for SM floating around and I feel that some of them are so close but are looking in the wrong places. Like, lots focus on Pump's eyes being blue but the actual thing going on is that, after witnessing Eyes, everyone reacts in the same way that he did except for Skid. Skid is the outlier here, not Pump. Some people dismiss this as "oh there's netting on his mask which blocks it" but I feel that's a lazy excuse and the real reason is much more interesting and reveals what the cult's intentions are (at least a little bit).

Obviously I can't claim that I know everything because I am not one of the people working on the show, but quite a lot of the things I've thought have already been confirmed (Skid's dad is dead or at least was dead at one point, the giant spider will be a villain in the future, the cult is sacrificing children to Eyes, Skid's dad will come back in the future, etc) and I feel like things are really starting to come together.

So, the cult are probably paying Frank large sums of money to kidnap children so he can give them to them to feed to Eyes. This could be so that they get powers, oute of fear and desperation so that Eyes doesn't kill them, both (most likely), or something else. I also don't think that Skid's dad is a normal human, and whatever makes him different was probably passed on to Skid. I think that something that the dad was born with, was cursed with, that he did to himself, whatever, made it so that he was immune to Eyes' influence and maybe also gained powers(idk), and that Skid was born also having this ability.

(The next thing is a MatPat-level dive with almost no paragraph breaks I'm just getting my ideas down quick now ok lol)

I think that what happened, at least right now, is that Lila and the Dad met as both being members of the cult, and that after falling in love and having a child, they tried to escape but were followed by the cult and were forced to move (Lila and toddler Skid are shown with moving boxes in one of the pictures on the wall in SM 4, picture taken by Jaune showing they've known eachother for a long time). They lived in the town for a few years (some people think they haven't been there for that long, but the amount of stuff, dust and cobwebs in the attic makes this unlikely) before the cult found them and murdered the Dad in his own home, leaving his corpse to decompose in the attic stairway. This led to Lila having an emotional meltdown about it, which made her rip up or scribble over all photos that reminded her of her husband, which may also be the reason for why his body was not moved. A little side theory that I have is that the Dad's ghost haunts the mannequin in the attic, which would make sense if he died right outside of it, but that isn't that important right now.

The cult were unable to get to Lila and Skid for some reason, but set up camp in the town in the house on the hill. This house is one that happened to have been build on top of the burrow of some sort of Lovecraftian god-like creature called The Eyes of The Universe. This is a creature that they had been worshipping for decades, and now that it is within their reach (its home being revealed after it creates a hole in the floor to rescue Skid and Pump from Roy's creepy uncle, who was probably apart of the cult too), they can begin to get to business again. Mr Clown was probably the leader before he was killed by Jack shooting him, and Skid is probably who they want to be their leader eventually. (Also, you know they said "we will take all and get everything, everything will give us more than is all"? I think that, in this situation, Skid is Everything and Pump is All).

Eyes hypnotised Pump, the Hatzgang, maybe Kevin and some random people on the street, with Skid seemingly immune to this. After this, Eyes is visible in the sky from now on, which makes me think Skid and Pump may have woke it from a very long hibernation and it is now on watch of the town. Skid and Pump are threatened by a demonically possed Dexter the Exterminator, which alerts Eyes. It takes over Pump's body to help them get out of the situation, which is lucky because Skid would be so dead if Pump wasn't there. Dexter's ghost immediately possesses a Happy Fella doll which seems to have been designed to capture the souls of children like some FNAF animatronic shit (sorry for bringing that up I'm listening to the new Living Tombstone FNAF SB song on loop while writing this) and Moloch is seemingly dead. When Lila, Skid and Pump are hiding from Dexter in the attic the mannequin falls on Dexter, stunning him (which is what led to my haunted mannequin theory), as a massive spider is seen on the ceiling as an explanation for the ridiculous amount of webs covering the room. The Happy Fellas are destroyed (incoudisng the one Jaune brought), which probably means that Dexter is hanging around their house now. Bob Velseb, who is obviously the demon guy from the first episode, is then revealed to have escaped from prison and is running around, beginning to kill and eat people, which will likely be the plot of SM 5. The photo Pelo posted on Twitter of the next episode hints that a game of hide and seek will be played and that we will get a very disturbingly detailed look at the murderous and cannibalistic tendencies of this killer.

Also, side note, something I really hope happens in SM 5 that probably won't is that Bob tries to chop down a door with an axe with Lila on the other side screaming with some sort of reference to The Shining

We get lime, Sans Undertale, anime girls (Touhou maybe?), some actors that I don't know and blue e-boy, also rainbow beads which I hope to got aren't anal beads

And, I know what you're thinking, yes I do think that Jack and John are gay lovers and I really hope they kiss after tracking down Bob and apprehending him at the end of the episode

This ended up being so long I'm so sorry lmao

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brainrotslushie · 3 years

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boss baby family business thots

what you are about to read is a collection of not-so-sober notes i wrote down while watching Boss Baby: Family Business

content warning: reference to drug use, nsfw (i guess??? just,,, please don’t show this to my future employers), there’s also some thirst notes in here

bro oh my god time is a malewife and his wife is a girlboss

7-8 is a really weird choice for a character that thinks shes grown outta kid stuff. this kid’s got a road of gifted child burnout, crippling depression, and heavy fringking ahead of her

THEY”SE TAKING SHOTS AT THE FORST MOVIE HOLY GOD. “[the story\ didn’t really make a l;otta sense” “the jokes were good, right?” “mm.”

thsi is the best thing since lion king,,,,,,,,,, or fat albert live action apaption

since ;the girl ( i forgot her name) has a portasit of her uncle just sitting at her nightstand i wanna see if she whas an enitre shrine dedicated to him in her closet or something

actually you know what fuck her and her permanent bella poarch smirl

oh my god i forgt tim’s brain ‘s still on acid trip mode in regard to his imagination so when i saw the wixzard toy come to life and talk to him i got scared and thought this was gonna turn into toys story but the apolcalypse of the toys

maybe tim’s been huffing something in the attic idk i’m not a mindreadre

why is he telling wisard to be quiet like he’s actually being loud? even though this is his imaginatoing right? mans hallucinations are gettin a little too real

YAYYY KID MOVIE SAID HELL

OWWHAWH FOGS KIDS MOVIE SCSARY

wait a just realizedif babycorp is actual thing then that means tim and his wife didn’t conveice him. *gasp* she cheated with jesus

yo why is grownup ted kinda,,,, sexy

WAIT RTED DOESN”T REMEMBRER BABY CORP NOOOOO

“i have a beautiful voice’ bithch you’re va is fucking alec balwdin

yo wait bro dude tee just jrememberaed life beofore death

wait the gilrl is cursed b;y that school cult>>> het her ouuta there!!!

there is someing very wrong with the writers for making me look at child nipples

NO OOOOOO TABITHA”S IN THE BABAY JAIL

i’m fucking sibbing rn

BOSS BABY FRIVE HELIPCIOPRTRE>>><????

THEY ARE SISSIFIED

how did the mom not ;not;ive the hagning babies in her ceinging

HE PUT HIM IN A DRAWER

HE MADE OUT WITH A HORSE

SPIRIRT THE HORSE

if tims’ not the bloc that means he’s a beta cuckl

“don’t look at me” bitvh i wasn’t planning on it. you’re terrifying

why is the armstrong gouy’s smikle kinda,, sexy (sober edit: this note aged like milk, considering what happens later in the movie)

orgy

opra i meant (sober edit: i,, really don’t know why i wrote either of these)

guys guys guys the girl found the cure to cancer

OLD MAN BAY NO TEWHAT THE FUCK

old man baby dowsnint’ even look like a baby he looks like a very short 40 year old

why does every child have bella poarch face

yeah get him steel his fucking nosd

these are white epople . why does their bootm lip dusappear when they smile

do why’s tim’s dad so hot

ARMSTRO:NG BABBY IS JECC BEZOS

who the fuck spread religion in tehis unvierse

children of the con moment

tabitha no one cares about yourrecital or whatever the fyck i forgot the plot

wait swhere did this music number vome froom

oh my god they’re drowning the boys

“it’s lonely at the top” - bossy baby. aka sigma male chad daddy

im fadin in and outta this movie

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

HE”S KILLING THEM

HE SAID BIOMERS

it was at this point that i passed out. thanks for reading all the way through! hope you didn’t lose any brain cells along the way. i certainly had fun losing mine

#boss baby #dreamworks #live blogging #not sober

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bubble-tae · 4 years

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Cult: Part 2

Genre: Thriller, Yandere Themes, Cult AU

Pairing: Jungkook x OC, BTS x OC (sorta?)

Warning: angst, cult themes, kidnapping, probably other sacrilegious stuff, Stockholm Syndrome

WordCount: 3.6k

preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | tbc...

Authors Note: thank you so much to @mikroparadise for beta-ing this part for me! you really helped me out so much! (literally helping me all the way up until posting!)

reposted from old account

It had been two weeks since he had last seen her in the basement, two weeks since he gave her the single lily from Taehyung’s garden. The flower had probably rotten by now and been swept away with the rest of the garbage. Jungkook had no idea that he would have to be away from her this long, each day an onslaught of housework while his one and only was under the same roof, locked away like a prisoner. He didn’t think of her that way. How could her, he had saved her. His hands felt the area next to him on the bed he lay on, wondering how many more nights would it be until she was ready to join him. Impure thoughts tingled in his mind, things only Hoseok as her nurse had seen. Jealousy burned in his throat before he swallowed it and let out a deep breath. They all had their jobs here, and besides, it was wrong to think of her that way. He hadn’t touched himself in days, afraid that impure thoughts of her would slip into his head. The idea of using her without permission made him feel dirty, but most importantly, he felt that if he did think of her like that, she would know.

Jungkook got up from his bed and made his way towards his window. He could see the backyard from up here in that attic bedroom; a small garden followed by fields of grass, a line of trees from the forest barely visible in the distance. When he was younger he would play in the fields almost everyday, venturing closer and closer to the woods, but never once setting foot in them. The woods itself didn’t scare him, it was the thought of getting lost in them forever that did. Namjoon told him they went on for miles, the town on the other side would take days to reach by foot. Not to mention the poisonous snakes that called those trees home. Jungkook thought of what it would feel like to have his blood turn to sludge and shuddered the thought away.

His hands methodically reached over into his night stand where he pulled out an old leather bound book. On the front printed in an old english style font were faded gold words that read “The Good Book”. Jungkook traced his finger over the cover and felt the grooves in between the letters before flipping through the pages. Though the book was old the pages were in great condition, the printed text only a little faded and the pencil markings of Jungkook’s father still legible. He flipped the pages until he came to the page marked with “Sola” at the top. A drawing of a woman with golden rays around her head like a crown was in the middle, her naked body wrapped in a thin sheet that barely clung to her body. Jungkook admired her beauty before dropping to his knees, looking out the window at the sun. His eyes burned but he did not look away as he repeated the same mantra he had said since he first saw Naomi. Jungkook felt the sun open up to him, light spreading over his kneeling figure, her electricity making the hair on his arms stand up.

“Mother Sola, I give my soul to her. She shall hold my life in both hands and do as she will with it, all I ask is that I am forever hers. Let her teach me the ways. Let her be the one. I have faith in her, Mother. I have faith.” He sat there for some time, letting the sunlight embrace the curves of his face until he felt that she was gone. He closed the book and returned it to its original place before making his way over to his wardrobe that was filled with plain clothes that more or less all looked the same. Jungkook didn’t go many places, and at home he tried to disappear into the background. He avoided trouble this way, and was ultimately seen as a good boy that did as he was told. He joked, only to himself, of course, that his job was to be invisible.

Once dressed Jungkook made his way to the door and grabbed the handle, surprised to find it locked upon turning it. He wringed it about to see if it was only stuck, but it didn’t budge. Namjoon always unlocked the bedroom doors at 7 am, and he never once had forgotten. Jungkook pressed his ear up to the door. There was a distant chatter coming from the kitchen that he couldn’t quite make out. Maybe all that time playing invisible had got him forgotten. When there was a lull in the conversation Jungkook knocked three times on the door, hard. The house had fallen silent and Jungkook knew he had been heard. He contemplated knocking again, harder this time, but was afraid to get punished further, if his locked door was Namjoon’s form of punishment for something. He plopped himself back down on his bed. There was nothing to do now but wait.

His room wasn’t particularly interesting, it was designed to be that way with nothing but the necessities. The only thing that made it identifiable were the carvings above his bed he had done one night after being punished for not sharing his dessert with Yoongi. He had felt sick with the chocolate cake in his belly, so he stood on his bed to carve a picture in hopes that it would distract him. The carving was of the solar system, planets surrounded by stars and swirls that not even Jungkook knew what they were supposed to be. When Namjoon saw it he was furious for a moment, but not even he could deny the beauty and wonder one has looking up at the sky, so he offered to buy him paint to bring color to his creation. Jungkook had joked that he could do it next time he got in trouble, but Namjoon didn’t laugh. He never did get him the paint like he said he would. Just as Jungkook’s eyes were beginning to drift closed, he heard footsteps coming up towards his room.

The pair of heavy boots made it to the upper landing of the attic and Jungkook could hear keys being rattled around, a gentle click as the deadbolt sprung back, then a smaller one as a second key was slipped into the door handle. Jungkook sat upright, finally fully conscious from his almost sleep, just as Namjoon pulled the door open. His face looked older than someone of 24, as if he hadn’t slept that night. It was the face of a troubled man, Jungkook knew that, but he also knew better than to ask. Yoongi stood behind him with an empty duffle bag, waiting for Namjoon to move out of the way, but his eyes were glazed over, as if he were still processing whatever was going on inside his head. Yoongi cleared his throat and Namjoon snapped back to himself, a more stern face taking place over his features.

“There’s been a hiccup in our plans,” Namjoon said as he made room for Yoongi to step through the doorway, throwing the bag on Jungkook’s bed as he did so. Jungkook looked at the bag, worried thoughts of Naomi running through his head, wondering if his prayers had not been enough. Namjoon stood silently, pretending not to notice the confusion and hurt on Jungkook’s face of being left in the dark once again.

“Cops. Pack for a week, be down in 5 minutes,” Namjoon offered before turning to leave, taking Yoongi by the shoulder and hurrying out the door, leaving the air silent save from a heavy sigh from Jungkook.

* * *

It was 4:27 earlier that same morning when Naomi found herself sitting somewhere with her eyes closed. She didn’t know where she was, but she felt no fear, just the undeniable stillness that surrounded her. Her age was undefinable, feelings of past selves and selves yet to come filling her up, which was how she at least knew she was herself. There were memories that she hadn’t made yet stuck in her mind that made her head hot when she tried to focus on them. Upon opening her eyes she found herself cross legged in a field of bright white lilies, so open and full as if they just bloomed. It was easy to breath here, so much so that she questioned if she had ever really breathed before in her life. Naomi got up and danced to the sound of nothing but the wind, letting the sun explore her body with hot fingers as she hummed a tune she didn’t recognize. That’s when she heard it: the sound of a gun going off.

Her eyes snapped open to see she was no longer surrounded by lilies, but by the charred branches of a burnt forest, embers still floating around while the heat from the dead trees continued to pulse. She looked down at her own hands, both gripped to a gun pointing out in front of her, still vibrating from the shot she must have took. She was scared, not of the burning mess around her, not of the smoke clawing into her mouth and lungs, but of the unknown thing she shot at. The only thing she saw, a curious thing at that, was a leftover lily from her previous surroundings. There was a compelling force that drove her to this lily, so much so that she didn’t feel the hot ground burn through her jeans as she knelt in front of this flower, this flower that somehow, despite the odds, was still alive. Naomi dropped the gun, reached one hand out to the flower, inches away from touching it before the shots rang out again, this time not from her.

Time slowed down so much so that Naomi could count each shot as they went off. She counted six, but only felt three. The last one, the lucky bullet to the hunter, tore into the back side of her neck. There was no time to question how she was still alive or who had shot her, in fact the only thing Naomi could focus on was the damned white flower, now covered in spatters of her own blood. A loud scream erupted from somewhere, and it was only after she was shaken awake she became aware that the scream was from her own throat, still in tact as she felt around for a bullet hole.

“Naomi” Hoseok finally shouted out, hands on either side of her body, his eyes full of terror. Her screams subsided as the real world began to swim around her: the dimness of the basement, her tattered pair of men’s pajamas, her ankle cuffed to the cot she had called her bed for the last few weeks. Her eyes focused back on Hoseok’s, still full of concern,

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” she muttered out, mostly to herself.

Yoongi cocked his head to the side before physically shaking it out of his mind. “Forget your dream,” he began, “we gotta go.” He pulled rope and a black rag out from his hip sack and made his way closer to the cot, Naomi recoiled in defense. She had been mostly free to roam the basement this last week, with someone on guard of course, and had gotten used to her hands not being tied around her back, and had not been blindfolded since her first night (only gagged once on one of her restless nights). The thought of going back, even though it was only for a scrap of freedom, could have made her cry if not for Hoseok’s hand on hers.

“It will only be for a little bit, I promise.” Hoseok tried to comfort her. She gripped his hand back, and though it was a silly thing to think of someone who was literally keeping you chained up in their basement, she trusted him. Hoseok was, in fact, the one she had gotten the closest with. Though she told herself it was just for means of survival and she’d slit his throat given the opportunity to escape, she couldn’t help but wonder if they would have been some sort of friends given any other circumstance. Was it weird to be thankful for having a captor that at least made being down there more bearable? Sure he recited strange scriptures and prayed to gods Naomi was unfamiliar with, but he also brought her cosmic brownies after dark and picked up random books for her at thrift stores. I mean, if she was going to be kidnapped at least she got some Hostess and Orwell out of it, not to mention someone she could get the daily news from.

Naomi let out a shaky breath before turning her back to both of the men. She didn’t really have any reason to trust them completely, they could be taking her to her grave for all she knew, but she was beginning to learn that some things were worse than death.

Hoseok tied the ropes around her wrists tightly, so much so that she knew she would lose circulation soon. She surveyed the room she had grown familiar with before Yoongi covered her eyes with the black cloth. Without word, Naomi was listed to her feet, both boys holding onto either side of her as they guided her towards the stairs, warning her before she tripped. The climb was slow as Noami fumbled her way up the steps, she would have fallen if not for either of the boys.

“Stand here” Yoongi said when they eventually made it to the top of the stairs, a part of the house Naomi wasn’t familiar with. Namjoon was there, angirly whispering to someone before he realized she was there. He informed her that they would be relocating her, but she was hardly paying attention. There was a smell of meat and vegetables, a home-like feeling, and when she slowly grazed her feet on the floor and felt the grooves in between the tiles, she realized that she was standing in their kitchen. Someone pushed her down onto a stool by her shoulders, causing her to almost falling over onto the floor.

“All the doors and windows are locked. Stay put, it’s for the better.” Hoseok whispered in her ear, the procession of feet leaving the room, their footsteps fading into a quiet cold. There was dripping from a faucet nearby, her breath and heart following it in its natural rhythm as she began to think. It wasn’t even moments after the men had left that Naomi started to feel around behind her, her fingertips grazing over the edges of a cabinet drawer. She twisted her fingers up in an unnatural way, desperate to get the drawer open. She didn’t know what she would find, but any weapon was better than none. She managed to open the drawer a few inches and sneak her fingers inside before a loud bump from the other room caused her to lean back and slam her fingers in the lip of the drawer. Naomi stifled her scream into a whimper, a cry threatening to break from her throat. When the house quieted again her fingers worked the drawer back open, feeling the top of its contents for something, anything. There were papers and pamphlets, cold bits of metal she presumed were screws, but nothing lethal, nothing that could injure any one of them. When footsteps began to draw closer she grasped at the first thing she could before shutting the drawer.

“Time to go.” This time it was Namjoon, his words cutting swiftly through the air.

Naomi’s heart leapt up in her chest, her skin prickling with anticipation. Maybe it was because of the way he spoke, maybe it was the fear of the unknown, or maybe it was because in her bruised fingers she held a small box. A small box full of matches.

* * *

Yoongi’s hands tapped the steering wheel in time with the music. The radio in the van was stuck on the oldies station, but he didn’t mind as much as the other boys did, it let him slip into a world of simple pleasures, one where he wasn’t driving around tied up girls in the backs of vans. Yoongi did his best to follow all the rules though he disagreed with almost all of them, like the one about stealing girls and making them some sort of weird prison wives. If he were to be honest, which he surely should always be according to The Good Book, Yoongi thought most of this was “a bunch of bullshit”. Of course there were no gods, no woman on the moon or sun that could possibly tell him what to do, but there was food, and a place to sleep, and he guess at one point it started feeling like family too. What was he to do? Leave his family when they started some sort of pagan ritual?

His eyes drifted to the rear view mirror where he could see a black outline slumped up on the side of the van. Naomi bound, gagged, and blinded, not to mention given a fun little blue pill that made her drool on the rag over her mouth as she dazed in and out of consciousness. Though it definitely was far from the worst thing Yoongi had done, taking girls always made him feel queasy. There was the chance of getting caught, sure, but every time he got away with it, he realized how much easier and easier it got. That’s what maybe scared him the most, the thought of doing this forever. Was this the price to get into heaven? Surely some of those amongst him thought that way. With every day that passed, Yoongi felt closer and closer to hell, unaware that hell, in fact, might be in the same van he was driving.

It was in fact that same tapping Yoongi had always done that rose Naomi into consciousness, before regaining some of her more important senses. It was no use trying to do anything this groggily so she waited, waiting still in the backseat for over an hour before opening the pack of matches behind her back. She took a match from the box and struck it against the box, lighting it quite easily. She held the flame up to part of the rope, but it wasn’t strong enough to light the ropes. Naomi’s heart began to beat faster, her plan crumbling in front of her. Yoongi turned a corner fast, causing Naomi and the van’s other contents to skid around. She skated against the rough metal bottom of the van, biting her gag to stop herself from yelling out in pain. Her fingers felt around for the box, but only felt a few loose matches that had been thrown around the cabin. She grabbed four of them and struck them against the side of the van, hoping to at least light one of them. One of them must have lit, because she felt the heat on one of her fingertips, causing her to drop the matches. She cursed herself in her head, feeling defeat wash over. Naomi was barely able to fight back the medicine anymore, sleep desperate to pull her back under. When she was sure she would pass out, she felt heat next to her. She stuck her hand out to see what it was, only to stick her hands directly into a fire that started in the back of the van. She pulled her hands back in a snap. There was no time for rational thinking anymore, Naomi shoved her hands back into the fire and bit back a scream. She held her hands inside the flame as Yoongi continued to drive.

Tears spilled from her eyes as she felt the flame against her fingers and wrist, a pain so hot it was cold, but still she held it. It took all she had left in her to pull her arms apart to break the burning ropes, her flesh flush up against it. They broke in a snap, causing Yoongi to turn around and witness Naomi’s hands free by her sides. He saw it now, the news reports if he got caught. He was alone. They’d call him a creep, that he liked to take girls. It couldn’t end for him like this, not if he could help it.

He slammed on the brakes, causing Naomi to slide forward as she started to untie the rest of herself. She saw now a stack of magazines in a small fire in the back of the van, and hurried to work on the ropes on her legs. Yoongi ran out of the driver’s seat and to the back of the van, flinging the doors open, but Naomi was already there. She kicked him in the face and he fell to the ground as she fell out of the van. Yoongi grabbed her leg as she scrambled over him and he pulled her down before throwing himself on top of her. They wrestled around on the side of the road for a few moments before Yoongi yelled out a barking “Wait!”

She hit her arms against his chest before he pinned them down.

“I said wait!” he yelled again.

“Why would I fucking wait?!” she said back, arms still straining against his.

“Let’s make a deal,” he offered.

“This isn’t a fucking game.”

“No, but I know a way you can make good from all this.”

Naomi stopped pushing against him and looked up at his twisted grin and pleading eyes.

“You just have to wait a little longer,” he continued.

“You want me to go back to being kidnapped?”

Yoongi let go of her arms and sat over her. “Yes,” he said unblinkingly.

Naomi squinted her eyes up at him before asking, “What’s in it for me?”.

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moonlightserenadeeznutz · 3 years

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Warlocks Are Attacking: Full muggle timeline.

(Hello internet, welllllcome to film theory!)

This is a detailed timeline of the headcanon I made about James Sirius Potter being in a band, specifically the tl during which the band pretended to be a lost 80s band in the muggle world, explained in this post (which I recommend reading first otherwise you may be quite confused).

This is honestly a super random thing I wrote when I was bored, but I ended up getting super invested in it so guess what, you guys are subjected to it as well now!

Written in the style of a YouTube video, I’ve heavily based the discography of Warlocks are Attacking on the band I Don’t Know How But They Found Me.

Enjoy!

~ On April 17th 2025, a piano cover of The Scientist by Coldplay was released on the YouTube channel JSHarkness04. A completely ordinary- if not low quality- video where the person behind the camera is neither seen nor heard.

More covers are uploaded over the coming months in the same style, and really the channel gains no special interest or notoriety. A few edit videos are uploaded, the usual crack stuff, and a few more covers.

On January 23rd 2026, a vlog is released showing the YouTuber moving into his new house. We finally hear and see the person behind the camera, a British dude around early twenties whose name is revealed to be Alex, and his girlfriend. Again, there’s nothing out of the ordinary in this video, and it’s only a few minutes long.

A few more piano covers are uploaded, as well as another edit video, and then...

This is where it starts.

On May 3rd 2026, a video is uploaded entitled “Warlocks are Attacking”. In it, Alex talks about how he was clearing out the attic of his new home when he came across some old cassette tapes. All the tapes had writing on them, all different, except for the phrase “Warlocks are Attacking”. Judging by the labels, it appeared to be the name of a band, while the rest of the writing could be taken as song titles: Bleed Magic, Do It All The Time, Nobody Likes the Opening Band, etc. Alex said he had listened to some of the tapes, and confirmed that they were songs correlating with the titles. Alex said he’d never heard of the songs before, nor could he find any trace of the band’s existence online, but that some of the tapes had been dated 1986.

This video didn’t really have a conclusion, but only two days after it was uploaded, another video- only a minute long- was uploaded entitled “New Channel”, where Alex explains that he would be setting up a new YouTube channel to showcase the songs he’d found on the tapes, and hopefully be able to find out who the band was.

On May 25th, two videos on Alex’s new channel, given the name “Warlocks are Attacking” were uploaded. The first one was 30 seconds long entitled “Introduction”, which was nothing more than a man’s voice introducing the band. It didn’t cause much suspicion, especially since the record label that the band was apparently signed to was called “None You Jerk”, obviously a fake label. So the introduction could most likely just be a joke made by the band and recorded.

The second video was a simple lyric video for the song “Nobody Likes the Opening Band”. And in the description he explained the story again of how he found the tapes, and asked if anyone knew the song, or the band.

More songs were uploaded, Choke, Bleed Magic, Absinthe etc. And soon the channel started to grow, both from people who genuinely enjoyed the music, and people who were intrigued as to whether or not this really was a lost 80s band, or whether the entire thing was fake.

Theories started circulating, and people started to try and find hidden messages. They started with the username of the original channel JSHarkness04 but search J Harkness, or even JS Harkness, and the only real result you get is Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who. So it seemed that the only thing that the username implied was that the YouTuber was perhaps a Doctor Who fan.

People searched for hidden meanings in the piano covers, the moving house vlog, even the random edits. But no one came up with anything. So eventually people started to give up and accepted the fact that the whole thing was real, and the songs really were from old cassette tapes found in some guy’s attic.

That being said, there were a select few people who just weren’t convinced. Mainly because of the fact that the songs were good. They weren’t experimental pieces from a band trying to find its sound. They had their sound. They knew what they were doing. So how come no one had ever heard of them? Did they really never play these songs to anyone? Not even for an underground gig?

Well, that’s the thing. There’s no saying they didn’t. If you heard a song forty years ago at some random gig, would you remember? And even so, a number of things could have happened that would have stopped the band from ever having their songs released. Maybe they broke up, maybe they couldn’t find anyone who wanted to pick up their songs, maybe they died was one theory someone had.

Point is, the quality and consistency of the songs was really the only evidence that this whole thing was fake, and even that evidence was sketchy.

But then, on November 7th 2026, an altogether different video was uploaded titled “Comfortably Numb- Pink Floyd (cover by Warlocks are Attacking) (found footage!)”

In the description of this video, Alex claims that he found some video tapes in the attic that had been hidden away. A few had been recorded over, but he was able to find a few complete videos of the band.

In this video, we see three band members in what looks like a garage jamming out a cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. And people went crazy. Not only did we finally see what the band members looked like, but we also found out their names. The video, which was dated 1983, had credits edited to the beginning, easily done in the 80s so there was no implication that it wasn’t legit.

Anyway, the credits show that the singer in the video is called Noah Mori, the keyboardist is called Lyra Thomas, and the drummer is called James Potter.

People took apart this video piece by piece, trying to find evidence of either the band being new, or some connection to the YouTuber. Maybe something in the garage was from a time after 1983, maybe the 70s Doctor Who poster in the corner had something to do with JSHarkness04. But all in all, once again, there really was nothing to suggest that it wasn’t real.

However, one thing that was noticed was that, when comparing the singing voice of Noah to the singing voice in the other songs released, they sound completely different.

So despite everything, no one could say for sure who the band members were. We didn’t know if the drummer and the keyboardist were the same, nor did we know who the new singer was. We didn’t even know if they had more than three band members by the time 1986 rolled around, or even if some of the original members had left. All we knew was that the singer had been switched, either with a new singer who wasn’t in the video, or with James Potter, since he was the only other guy in the video.

After the video was released, not much else happened, except the occasional release of another song, which were combed by theorisers looking for evidence that the songs couldn’t have been written and recorded in the 80s but once again came up short.

By this point, the band had grown a real cult following, increased even further when the songs were put on Spotify by Alex.

On March 18th 2027, another video was released, titled “Choke- Live Performance” and showed footage of an actual gig where the band was playing their song, filmed on an old camcorder by someone in the audience, completely unprofessionally as the camera would bob down every so often. Once again no evidence was found of it being faked. However, it did open new possibilities: the band had played gigs. Which means that someone must have seen them play. Not only that but it confirmed that the singer had been switched to James Potter, while the drummer was now Noah, and Lyra was still the keyboardist.

People went onto various sites trying to find anyone who may have been present at a gig in the 80s to see the band live, but no one came forward.

Well, a few people did. But the only evidence they could give was their word, so no one knew whether or not to believe them, which means no one could for definite write off the gig as being fake.

The next stir in the band’s fanbase came with a video simply entitled “???”, a one minute video, with the same voice as the introduction, talking about indoctrination:

Indoctrination program, designation "CVM51-D". Congratulations, you have been selected. You are special. Only the very best and brightest are considered for placement in our patented Temporal Arts program. We invite you to follow along, as we work together to decode and exploit the secrets of time and space for our benefit. Each volunteer pairing will be assigned a chaperone. Our white shadows will oversee your progress. Be sure that our company's interests maintain the highest priority throughout your journey. Please enjoy your experience, and remember: Time is on our side.

Predictably, people were very excited to analyse the text, and while it could still be taken as just a joke by the band, and therefore still no evidence of the band being new, it was an odd thing for the band to do if their songs were never released. A waste of time in a way, especially after already doing it once with the introduction. The voice also wasn’t familiar, though some say that it sounded a little like Noah when compared with the Pink Floyd cover, but putting on an American accent and edited to sound like something out of a PSA.

Another song was released entitled “Need You Here” and then came an actual music video. Or at least, an attempt at a music video.

It was for the song: “Nobody Likes the Opening Band” and in the video we see James singing on a stage, with Lyra playing the piano in a corner and Noah entering onto the stage to play the accompanying tambourine. It’s clearly a music video rather than footage from a show, considering the rather humorous moments that it involves, but executed with complete seriousness.

It also cuts out at the end and shows footage from some kids show which, according to Alex in the description, was called Bagpuss, and was aired in the UK from February 12th 1974 to May 7th of the same year, indicating that the music video had perhaps accidentally been taped over.

(Badly edited example I made of the end of the mv).

While the music video itself didn’t cause too much of a stir, the kids show at the end did, as people claimed that if the show had aired in 1974, and the band hadn’t established itself until at least 1983, how had they managed to accidentally tape over the video with the tv show? People thought it was deliberate, and therefore a sign that the band wasn’t real. Others claimed Alex had done it himself as a joke.

Looking back in the coming months, people saw this video as the start of the band slowly revealing itself to be not what it first seemed. But more evidence didn’t come for a while.

After the release of the song “Mad IQs”, another music video was released, and this one seemed much more professional, as if the band was really trying to make a proper video. It was still filmed in the 80s camcorder style, and it was still very simplistic, and possibly low-budget, again implying that this was a band doing everything themselves.

Released on the 23rd December 2027, the video was a cover of “Merry Christmas Everybody” and once again had the rather quirky vibe of the Opening Band video, where James is unsmilingly singing the song while Noah sits next to him... playing dead? And Lyra comes in halfway through and begins decorating the lifeless Noah with Christmas lights. So at least, if nothing, we know the band has a sense of humour.

An acoustic cover was released of Choke, then a few more songs. And then another music video which so far was the most professional out of all of the ones released. The song was called “Social Climb” and for the video, they actually had a set: a very fancy mansion. We don’t know whether they rented the mansion out, if they borrowed it from a friend, or if one of them even lived there, but by this point they had seemingly become determined to be a real band, which is why the whole idea of them having no recognition whatsoever was odd.

But it was the next video that caused much more of stir, and was the real proper beginning of the band revealing their true identity.

On the 12th September 2027, another cover video was released of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, though was much more in the same style as the Comfortably Numb cover, suggesting that this video was made quite soon after. It was still filmed in the same garage, though with a little more editing, and James was now the singer, and Noah the drummer.

Once again it had credits, but this time they were a little different:

Songwriter/drummer: N. H. Mori Keyboardist: L. A. Thomas Singer/guitarist: J. S. Potter

Doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, right? Well, that’s what most people thought too, but others were adamant that the initials were a sign, because if you notice, James Potter: J S Potter.

People were convinced that the initials JS were linked to the username JSHarkness04, and even brought up the 70s poster of Doctor Who seen in the first footage video as evidence that the username was something to do with James, and therefore showing that the entire thing was contrived.

Some people accepted this, but a lot of people were still sceptical. After all, it could easily just be a coincidence.

Another song was released, and then one more music video on November 16th.

This one was the most different- and the most professional of all the music videos on the channel, for the song “Do It All The Time”.

According to the description, it was sent to Alex by “an anonymous donor” saying that it had once been aired as an educational video in their school, around the year 1987/88.

And while the video could have been created in the 80s, it’s format is much more satirical than anything. The description could easily have said that it was another- and much better- attempt from the band at creating a music video, but instead the description gave an explanation that seemed... off. Not because the uploader had grown cocky, but because the band was finally making its transition from being surrounded in theory to being simply aesthetically satirical.

That being said, it still wasn’t concrete evidence.

There wasn’t another video until December 23rd. Another Christmas one, this time for a song called “Oh Noel” with James sitting alone in front of a decorated fireplace and singing.

Another subtle reference to the band’s identity was revealed with the lyric “I met you in December ’93”, obviously quite a few years after the band was supposedly around.

The next music video was for “Modern Day Cain”, and this is where the band’s identity properly moved away from the convincing 80s set up. The music video had a similar vibe to “Do It All The Time”, though the content was different. In this case, the video was mock footage from a TV show, which, according to the description was called ‘Superstar Showcase’, aired in 1989.

No such TV show ever existed, which was rather obvious by the footage, as once again it was very satirical.

So by now, only the most stubborn of fans were still convinced that the band was really from the 80s.

But no one was really disappointed. The band had executed their persona well. They had maintained the belief that they were a lost band for over two years, and revealed themselves so subtly that people hardly noticed.

The entire act was wrapped up on April 17th 2028, exactly three years after the first video was uploaded on JSHarkness04′s channel, with the release of a cover of “Debra” by Beck. A song released in 1999.

I should mention by this point that the channel JSHarkness04 had been uploading relatively consistently the entire time, most likely for the extra realism to the act. But once the act had been dropped, the channel went dormant.

Since then, the band has been releasing new songs here and there, and they still keep up the 80s persona, but now that they don’t have to be so careful, they’ve been able to have more freedom over what they post. An official music video for “Choke” was released, with the description:

“Pop Time Live was a short-lived music television program that aired briefly in Eastern Europe in the early 1980s. The show, and its producers, had hoped to capitalize on the then popular ‘Italo Disco’ movement, but audiences found its lack of authenticity objectionable. Labeled ‘NOT FOR BROADCAST,’ it is believed that this particular Warlocks performance never made it to air due to the band’s refusal to properly pantomime to their own song.”

Again, no such show existed. So now it was clear that the band was now a fully satirical 80s persona, and eventually they made live appearances, and even interviews, where people were finally able to find out exactly who they were, and that the band had actually been formed in 2021, and their plan to pretend to be an 80s band had first been made up by Noah who filmed one of their performances when they were first starting out (and James was still the drummer, Noah the lead singer) with the idea already in mind. And Alex was a friend of the group who had agreed to play along, but that the Warlocks’ YouTube channel wasn’t run by him, but by all three members of the group.

And as of now, that really covers the entire timeline of Warlocks are Attacking.

~ But heeey. That’s juust a theory. A film theory. Aaand cut.

#only on tumblr could I post something like this and people wouldn’t think it was weird #or at least I hope people don’t think it’s weird #im so fucking invested in this as well though #harry potter #james sirius #Harry Potter next gen #Harry Potter next gen hc #james sirius potter #james sirius hc #Harry Potter oc

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Mission Hill Review: Plan 9 From Mission Hill or I Married a Gay Man From Outer Space!

Commission for @weirdkev27. Hallowen Havoc marches on! For my first commission ever, I take a look at the cult classic mission hill’s final produced episode and one of it’s most loved. Kevin’s visit to an x rated movie pays off less with boobs and more with a friendship with his elderly gay neighbor and film buff wally and a new appreciation for cinema, only for this new friendship to nearly end over Kevin’s good natured attempt to spotlight Wally’s only film, the man from pluto. Gay spaceman, a touching gay love story, and a surprisingly likeable guy with a neckbeard insue. Spoilers and full recap FROM PLUTO, under the cut.

Well this was a nice suprise. After the utterly draining process of my review of “Let’s Get Dangerous”, it was a nice suprise to find out one of my handful of fans had tried to comission me a while back and I hadn’t realized it, and I was happy to oblige him. I was even happier when I found out what his commission was: Plan 9 From Mission HIll, an episode i’d planned to cover for pride but got squeezed out due to how little i’d planned the month out in advance, a lesson I still REALLY need to learn. Regardless not only was it a nice, funny, and heartwarming ep to cover after the sheer amount of analysis and recapping the last one took, I realized it ended up fitting the spooky season, as there’s just as much fun to be had in truly fantastic horror movies like “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Get Out”, “Child’s Play”, “Tales from the Hood” and “The Thing” as there is from so bad it’s great horror films like “House (The Japanese one), C.H.U.D. II: Bud The Chud, Terror Toons and House Shark. Seriously watch House Shark i’ts hilarious. Hell I fully plan on watching the Gary Busey film Hider in the House tomorrow. I mean it’s a film about hollywood’s favorite nutball living in the walls and attic of someone’s house. What’s not to love? Maybe it might be entirely boring but that’s the risk you sometimes take to find so bad it’s gold filmaking. Plus cheeestastic films like these are the reason we have the classsic and incomprable mystery science theater 3000 and it’s succesor rifftrax. So while I need to watch more of them, I have a spot in my likely overtaxed heart for this kind of film, and as a result this episode resonated with me on rewatch in a way it didn’t the first time around, even if it was still my faviorite.

Backing up a bit as usual I like to give my history with a show first time covering it: Mission HIll was one of a handful of shows picked up by Adult Swim in it’s early days. Since most of Adult Swim’s early originals were 11 minutes at a time when this was still a new and radical thing they were doing having 11 minute shows that weren’t sold as half hour pairs of 11 minute episodes, they likely needed more shows to fill up the air and clevelry simply bought the rights to several shows that had only had one season, along with Family Guy and Futurama which as history would bear out both made the shows into huge names in the animation industry but brought both back.. though in Family Guy’s case sometimes dead is better. Point is, several shows got a second life thanks to Cartoon Network if sadly not more seasons, with the sole exception of the utter classic Home Movies which I really need to talk about at some point, and thus are really more associated with Adult Swim than their original networks. Hell before doing this review I genuinely didn’t know what Mission HIll’s original networks. But now you know the framework this show came out in what IS Mission Hill anyway?

MIssion Hill was a cartoon from the wonderful brains of Bill Oakely and Josh Weinstein, no relation to the MST3K one who due to this confusion now goes by J. Elvis Weinstein instead, who showran the simpsons and did some great episodes, my faviorte of there’s being $pringfield, aka the casino one.

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The show was about Andy, a 24 year old slacker whose happily lazing about after college in his loft with his friends Jim, a stoic but friendly stoner played by Brian Posehn, and Posey, a sensitive hippie. However when he goes to pickup his childhood dog he ends up with an unexpected roomate: His nerdy, sheltered and neurotic brother Kevin, who has a love of sci fi, a type a personality and a habit of going bling blong to focus when studying or just whenever. He’s also voiced by future robin and future psychopath claming to be robin Scott Mellinville. Also in the building are Carlos and Natalie, an unemployed artist and college professor and their baby Nameless. I forgot they existed. And of course saving the best for last we have the brother’s neighbors, and a very early gay couple for animated television Wally and Gus, played by the legendary Tom Kenny and Nick Jameson who hasn’t done much of note but does a great job anyway. Wally is a fastudious, Gus is angry and very brooklyn, but the two genuinely love each other, makeout frequently, with their first showing off the two as a gay couple, and are an adorable but very beliviable couple. It’s part of WHY I wanted to spotlight them. The late 90′s/early 2000′s, the show originally aired in 99 and into 2000 and aired on adult swim in the early 2000 for the curious, were not a great time to be gay in animation with most gay characters used as punchlines and hardly any queer stories. Not only that but just a year earlier will and grace had to have one overly camp chracter and one “regular” gay character in order to get made. Granted that show has it’s issues but still, the point stands having a gay couple that plays fairly realistically, is shown to both be sexually active and love each other and who’ve been together for decades was a hell of a step for a medium where Family Guy around the same time had a joke with the punchline “Whoa transvestite back off!” Granted Family Guy would do far worse to both the gay and trans communities, but we’ll get to that someday. Or sooner if you commission me, but I swear if you do I will pull a gary busey on your house. Point is not only is it INCREIDBLY forward for it’s time but it holds up even now. There’s a reason the creators are working on a spinoff/revivial focused on the two and a reason these two tend to be one of the most talked about elements of the show. That and frankly their hilarious having realistic banter.. and also having one episode where Gus has a knife in his head for a whole episode. It helps that this episode, their spotlight one and the last one produced, is also one fo the series best. So with all that build up let’s take a look shall we?

We open with Kevin passing a theater showing x rated movies and are shown, over a bunch of times of him passing it him condeming it publicly but his tone clearly telegraphing the classic battle between a teenage boy and his dick. Dick wins and Kevin heads inside and gives us... this.

.... If you will excuse me, please enjoy the musical stylings of the late great Zorak while I go shower the “EeEEEEEEUUUUGGggggggHHHhhuuuuuuggghhhhhhhhewwwwuuuuugggghhhhggooooodddddddwwwyyyyyy” off me.

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God rest his soul. Okay i’m good now. Thankfully this isn’t an episode about Kevin getting addicted to x-rated theater, and they already did an episode about him masturbating. No really it actually had a good message as Kevin was so embarassed about the incident, he nearly let two other guys, granted not remotley good people who were stealing from there anyway, take the fall. Andy even ends up giving a great speech coming to his defense

“People, you mock this boy, but it's your fault he's here today. Your hypocrisy has made this boy a prisoner, terrified of his own sexuality. So much so that he'd rather send two relatively-innocent men to prison than admit he looks at pornography! He thinks his natural urges are filthy and perverted, and why? Because of your conspiracy of silence! Nobody dares admit the truth - that you're all just like him!”

IT’s a damn good moment and a good message. That sadly is still relevant as America still views sex as worse than violence for some weird reason. At least he has the internet now. Anywho when Kevin goes to see what’s up he runs into Wally who explains the confusion: He’s just showing old “X-Rated films”. Now some of you are probably wondering “Wait non-porn films used to use that?” Or “Wait what’s an x-rating?” Well while I knew some films did used to do that I was honestly curious myself as to why it was retired and why porn films got to use it and took a quick hop to google to find out reading both the wikipedia article for the rating and this vulture article on the subject to get a slightly deeper look at it.

It’s actually quite intresting as I genuinelly also didn’t know when the MPAA ratings started for films: When the rating’s board started in 1968 there were four raitings: G, GP (Later flipped to PG), R and X. X was the modern equivlent of today’s R really, and films like Last Tango in Paris, Midnight Cowboy and a Clockwork Orange, with Orange even having a poster up at the cinema in this episode and Midnight Cowboy being part of the plot very soon. We’ll get to that in the moment. Point is it allowed filmakers to push the envelope break barriers all that good stuff and makes me curious about those very films, which is a good thing as i’ll admit to not being exactly a film buff. But as Kevin’s confusion here shows, eventually the porn industry took a hold of it, using the X as a way to get sex movies into regular cinemas and have an air of legitimacy, hence why Debbie Does Dallas was a mainstream hit.. and yes that’s an actual film that I only know about thanks to I Love the 70′s. If your wondering why the MPAA just couldn’t you know, tell them to know or why they didn’t take over other ratings it turns out for some weird reason why the G and R ratings were owned by them, and later PG , they forgot to trademark X and by the time they even thought of it it was too late. Hence terms like XXX rated and what not or the ungodly stupid XXX porn parodies. Just.. just give them actual names and slap “A porn parody” ont he end if you want to avoid a lawsuit. Naturally the film industry struck back and X soon went from a way to have daring, interesting films.. to basically a threat by the MPAA that your film wouldn’t be carried by any major distributors if it had one, with Dawn of the Dead having to just go unrated just to get distributed. The 80′s brought the killing stroke: With the rise of big theater chains, mall theaters with restrictions I wasn’t aware of, and big home video outlets like blockbuster that didn’t carry porn, the x rating was well and truly dead and the MPAA lukewarmly added NC-17 which serves the same bullshit purpose as theaters still refuse to carry them and the MPAA still uses it for essenitally the same reason. Nothing changed! If your wondering why people sometimes have problems with the MPAA, yeah there’s your answer, as they could’ve campaigned harder for NC-17 but clearly enjoyed having a raiting to hold over films heads.

So yeah if you don’t know, know you know bud, let’s move on. So yeah Wally explains the confusion and decides to educate Kevin on film by showing him Midnight Cowboy, with John Voight “Before his head looked like a radish” and Dustin Hoffman. Also Andy brings up Sphere.. a film I also know nothing about. Hang on... checking Letterboxd and okay. It’s a Dustin Hoffman starring Sci-Fi film about a research team investigating a mysterious sphere at the bottom of the sea. Huh.. I prefer Cube myself but to each his own. But once Kevin clams up he really enjoys it. Will grant the episode lays it on a tad thick, with Kevin comparing the film to , of all things, Armageddon. I mean I get MIcheal Bay is a good metric for crowd pleasing schlock but still, even nerds have standards. My standards aren’t very high at times mind as I still want to watch this sometime today.

But I still think even awkward teens have better standards. Then again one of my faviorite films at the time was Saving Silverman which while I can’t hate it due to nostalgia , having watched it from 5th grade well into my teens, I can see was not very good. Though it did have R. Lee Ermy being both really funny and turning out to be gay so that was awesome.

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And he does make a good point that heroes like Ratzzo Rizzo don’t go well on Taco Bell cups.. though it also feels weird to me in 2020 where while not big sellers films with deep stories and unlikeable heroes are some of the biggest on tv and one of them was one of the greatest animated series of the last decade, so things must’ve been pretty damn bleak in 1999. The two also run into Gus who wants dinner and a fight ensues between the couple about the fact Gus owns a restraunt, could just bring his lunch etc. It’s hilarious and as I said I like how they feel like a couple you’d meet in real life. Sadly I don’t have an elderly gay couple in my neighborhood but here’s hoping. Or maybe i’ll be the neighborhoods wally when I grow up who knows. Also Tom Kenny’s delivery is great.

Kevin later relays his fun day to his loftmates, with Andy expressing genuine suprise at Wally’s job and love of art house cinema, as none of them knew what he actually did. Andy’s genuinely shocked and mildly appalled they’ve lived near Wally for so long but having no idea what he does.. but really I had a sweet old lady, Delores who lived next to me for almost my entire life before she moved to be closer to her family, visited her house frequently pet her cats, went to her house after school at one point.. and I cannot tell you what he did, so it’s incredibly relatable. However in a scene that’s both hilarious but also really, really sweet, the three relate that they do know him well and due to being neighbors after all and know Gus and Wally’s morning routine: They wake up at 8, Wally brews the Coffee, Gus reads him the funnies, then they shower together while singing college fight songs, and then, with Jim saying this part so picture it in Brian Posehn’s voice please you won’t regret it, argue or have gay sex and then it’s off to work. It’s really sweet, both in showing off their well worn dynamic with each other, and the fact that the loftmates really DO know these two even if they dont’ know everything and they are close in their own way. Kevin can only give out a “Hm” in response... which is probably the closest he can get to saying touche without breaking into nerdy giggles.

Cue the good times montage as Wally introduces Kevin to Ingmar Bergman, who I have heard of even if i’ve never seen any of them, and some director I never heard of who made old timey comedies apparently. IT’s a really nice sequence. Kevin also shows 2001: A Space Oddesy to his friends, who are bored to tears by it while Kevin’s enraptured. Which I would say was another heavy-handed swipe at late 90′s cinema but being a teen myself who had mostly watched things like Star Wars, I did not gel with 2001 and need to rematch it at some point, so I totally relate to his friends utter boredom and confusion with it given it’s rep. It’s a visually stunning film. I will however stand by not liking Star Trek: The Motion Picture, as that film TRIES to be 2001 but is instead just really, REALLY boring.

But naturally things can be entirely good natured bonding between an elderly gay man and , as Wally puts it in the best line of the episode “The son god never wanted me to have”, as Kevin notices a film coming up that Wally apparently made, and looks to star gus. Wally panics and shoos his young protégé away... which yeah he could’ve just you know told him he doesn’t like the film or anything else and prevented this episode but then we wouldn’t of seen the gay equilvent of plan 9 from outer space so fair enough.

At the Gus’ Diner, the loftmates and their neighbors I mentioned earlier look over the poster, and we find out from Gus that that is him, and he starred in a movie.. and naturally Wally explained never showing it to his husband in the simplest way possible: By claming a shark ate it. You know while I watched the show I didn’t quite get it when I was younger and it’s probably why it took me decades to revisit it.. but I wish I had sooner this show is REALLY damn funny and i’m really looking forward to that spinoff with Wally and Gus.

Wally continues to dodge Kevin, so Kevin, trying to find info about the film and it being lost, goes to the video store.. back when those existed. Something I have to give the show is honestly the use of vhs, visits to video stores, and the movies Kevin mentions are the only things that really date this film. While swapping another Dustin Hoffman film in proved impossible, it is plausible Kevin would see it streaming somewhere. and it’s easy enough to swap Armageddon for Rise of Skywalker given that film’s just as good.. Last Jedi was excellent though. Point is this story REALLY holds up, which is the sign of a good story: where even if some elements are stamped to the time, the story itself could easily be told again with few changes. It’s also why i’m not AGAINST Reboots, as my coverage of ducktales makes obvious: As long as stories can still be told or you can retell a story in a unique and intresting way, it’s fine to reuse something. I do think hollywood overdoes it, but I’ve never thought there was genuine harm in it or reviving old franchises. It’s all in how you do it. But yeah while the local video store dosen’t help at all, Andy happens to know just the man for the job, though Jim and Posey nope out of going with them. Also something to note is the series animation: It’s animated like an old 30′s cartoon or a comic strip, modernized a bit in color and realisim, but still having comic strip stuff like shaking head lines, heat lines coming off coffee that sort of thing. I really love it.

Anyways the brothers head off to a funky out of the way video store, I wish there were more hole in the wall used media stores where I lived. We mostly have chains like Vintage Stock and Half-Priced Books, though I genuinely love both of those stores and VIntage Stock is the modern equilvent of places like blockbuster honestly. Anyway after Beardo confuses Kevin for an Employee kevin asks him about the man from pluto which Beardo reveals he knows about but is very rare and has few prints. I like Beardo.. he’s a neckbeard who seems more liable to complain abotu some reboot on the fact their rebooting it again rather than “gasp” women are involved. I prefer my neckbeards just a tad pretentious rather than you know, sexist, homophobic, deranged assholes with nothing better to do. I mean i’m still living at home and didn’t get out much before the pandemic either but you dont’ see me bitching every time a franchise gets a female lead.

Anyway, Kevin is inspired by that and with help from everyone gets the word out about the film. As you’d expect though this can’t end well, as Wally tries avoiding the premire entirely (And we get a great bit where Jim happens to see him trying to flee down the fire escape and Wally’s expression is priceless)

Huh.. I bet that’s what Rob Reiner when North had it’s premire. As you can probably guess the showing dosen’t go well: The film itself is a hilarious combination of the day the earth stood still (the general plot as we’ll find out more in a second) and Plan 9 From Outer Space (A cheestatic no budget film with a hulking man brute who can’t act as the lead), and in catching the feel of a b-movie it’s utterly perfectly done. This film would go perfect on MST3K and the audience’s howls of laughter agrees with me.

Wally however is utterly humiliated and doesn’t want to speak to Kevin which.. yeah is about the only issue I have with an otherwise marvelous episode. While I get Wally’s humiliation was Kevin’s fault.. Kevin GENUINELY meant well. While Kevin is book smart at his core he’s a dumb kid who didn’t know any better and didn’t realize Wally hated his film and it’s Wally’s own damn fault for not telling him. Sure Kevin should’ve picked up the hint, but given the kid is oblivious and didn’t even know what an x raiting is it’s clear he’s not the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to life experince. Wally had every opportunity to just explain his story but didn’t. And I put most of the blame on Wally when he’s you know, the adult. He’s a 60 or so year old man. He should know better. But it really doesn’t take away from the episode entirely. But the loftmates clearly love the film and are quoting bits from it, with jim having a fishbowl on his head, when they run into Wally, though Wally is fine with them admitting it’s crap and he knows it is. We then get what REALLY makes the episode and really makes me primed for a spinoff: Wally and Gus’ backstory, which also makes it obvious the crew was probably going to use the two more had the series got another season.

Anyways it was the 50′s, Archie Andrews was an average teen and not shredded both in muscle and by a bear that one time, Fonzie was out and about and eyying, and Wally was a first unit director given a shot as the studio asked him for a script having utter faith in him. HIs script was a day the earth stood still esque parable on the Cold War.. until he met Gus who, naturally for Gus, was outrunning a ton of police having stumbled on set and likely defeated them all bare handed because Gus is as incredible as the hulk and likely also comes back through a glowing green door when he dies. So Wally made the tragic mistake of mixing his love life with his career, and lost both Kurt Douglas, who he bumped down from lead for Gus, and Charleton Hesston who just walked off and they got a dinkier stage and worse actors as a result. The resulting film ended Wally’s career but he was able to sell the rights to cinemas to make enough for them to start over in mission hill and buy the diner.. and at least they had each other. It’s a really great story that explains why it upsets Wally so much: This was his baby and while he dosen’t even for one second regret meeting gus or the life they’ve had, he regrets that his one film was a total trainwreck and goes off to the theater to mope as he plays his film for laughing crowds, as it was naturally held over. I mean when you get the next plan 9 from outer space, this was a bit before the room mind you, you hold onto that shit.

Kevin, who heard the whole thing, goes to mope by watching what is likely a MIcheal Bay film, who was a target even then folks. Oh you poor poor fools you knew not how much worse it could get... i.e. robot testicles. Just.. robot testicles. And their MAKING A DELUXE MOVIE DEVISTATOR. Why. Just.. why who wanted this after that scene. He’s sworn off good movies as he feels he no longer deserves them. Andy however bluntly tells him to cut the pity party, while he’s moping his friend really needs him and when you love somebody, you put your pants on for them. When you love somebody you see it to the end, when you love somebody the conclusions forgone when you love somebody you put your big boy pants right onnnnn! ... I’ll put the song at the end. Point is Kevin goes to help his friend, and as Wally is moping in the projection booth and wonders what he was thinking Kevin tells him the obvious truth: He was thinking of how far he’d go. “You taught me the best films are personal stories.. and this film is your valentine to Gus” While Wally starts to break a little, he does point out it doesn’t make it good.. but Kevin rightly counters that he’s not so sure of it. Wally sees the audience enjoying the film and goes down, with all of them carrying red light bulbs like the one gus has to show when he’s mad in the film. And Wally finally realizes waht I got to in the beginning: It doesn’t matter if a film’s good or bad, what matters is someone enjoys it. A film can be utterly terrible, and still be good. It can be a mess and still have merit. And Wally finally realizes it doesn’t matter if it’s the film he wanted, it’s the film he made for his future husband, it’s a film that brings laughter and sticks in people’s heads and really brings them a godo time. It’s a film worth remembering and Wally finally accepts that and his film as his own. Later that night Kevin and Wally exit the theater, with Wally no longer mad at him and the two still friends or as Wally puts it in the second best line of the episode “As close as an elderly gay man and a straight boy can be” Awwww. The two depart and we get a touching final scene as Wally comes home and finds a bottle of wine and a note from gus saying he has a suprise for him> Turns out Gus put on his old space helmet.. but fell asleep in it. So we get a really nice tender moment as Gus takes the helmet off, smooches his husband on his bald head and smiles brightly as the episode ends.

Final Thoughts on The Man From Pluto or I Married a Gay Man From Outer Space: Before you ask each episode had two titles for funzies, the first one to get past the censors and the second for fun and likely what they would’ve gone with if they could. As for this episode.. it’s spectacular. It holds up well even 20 years later, it’s touching, sweet and really damn funny and makes me want to rewatch the show as a whole again. I highly recommend seeking it out and hope mission hill is eventually made officially available somewhere. Till then you can find the whole series including this episode on YouTube and despite being the last one you could easily watch this one first if you want and it’s a decent enough intro to the show as a whole. I highly recommend it, an utter pleasure to watch. If you liked this review, you can comission your own by PMing me on this very blog, just mention you want to do a comission and we can talk it out. As this review proves, it dosen’t have to be a show i’ve done before or even one that’s remotely recent. Hell i’d gladly do Fonz and The Happy Days gang, the animated happy days spinoff that’s like dr. who but with the Fonz. Yes really. Whatever you want i’ll do it as long as it’s not porn for just 5 bucks an episode and 10 for a movie. YOu can also join my patreon, and for 2 dollars a month get acess to my discord (that i’ll start once I get patreons) and once I get enough patreons exclusive polls or 10 bucks for all of that and a review of your choice each month. You can find said patreon right here. And even 1 buck a month would be apricated if you can spare it and if not simply reblog this and share it around. You can also follow this blog for weekly ducktales, loud house and amphibia coverage as they come out. I’d also personally thank WeirdKev27 for both being a long time fan of this blog and for the comission.

Until we meet again say safe, wear a mask, check your atttic for Gary Busey and happy Halloween! Play us out Mr Heere!

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#mission hill #reviews #plan 9 from mission hill #commission #bill oakley #john weinstein #lbgtq #adult swim #kevin french #Gus Duncz #Wally Langford #andy french #jim kubach #posey tyler #brian posehn #scott menville

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ad0xa · 3 years

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Shot story / dream.

Before I went to bed I had watched "Enola Holmes" on netflix and also a documentary about triplets separated at birth. And my brain did a really cool mashup. So I dreamt about this sort of... big complicated spy plot? Where one girl (it was me and not me at the same time) were investigating where her twin sister had gone. And she met a boy at the way of her investigating. And they fell in love while doing this search, they talked to and met up with professors and teachers and stuff. Also running from the "bad guys" who were trying to capture her. The thing was, that she and her sister had "special powers". She could like slow time? for short amounts? Or more like having super good reflexes so she could fight really well. Do these amazing jumps and balancing acts. And her sister was much weaker than her physically she had a power to "dream" about real life places and she and her sister could explore these places like they were real. (She could bring other people in to the dream) and when you woke up you would be back in your bed. This had made the two of them the "best spies ever" And they were working for the government or something similar. But now that her sister had disappeared she was suspicious about this government or organization or whatever. Some clues pointed to it being an inside job. And eventually she found this big place like a prison. But it labeled itself as a school? All of the girls were being trained in disguise, social shit and logical puzzles and stuff. And the boys were being trained just to be strong and fit. And I think all of them had some sort of small power of sorts? No power were like "I shoot fireballs!" it was more like things that were hard to explain but might be natural or... something? And so she found her sister there, but she was so weak she were just staying in this room in bed. It was like she had gotten weaker being away from her sister. Then, PLOT TWIST. The guy she had been with this whole time who she thought was just this random cool dude, was actually working for this organization. Not only that. But he had a twin too. I don't remember why this was clever tho. But something about them switching places and being able to be at two places at the same time and stuff like that. I had flashbacks where she would realize it was one or the other of them.

This whole time the clues and things she found out had made her think that this organization had formed their “school” out of the dynamic she and her sister had. One really smart and clever one and one who was more fitted for fighting and action. (tho she obvs was clever too just not AS clever.) But it turned out that they had plans bigger than this. The twin boys were actually the "golden pair" they were PERFECT. Both could do action and had skills and cleverness. They had tried to kidnap the girls to train them to be as good as the boys and then have them couple up as a four-man operation. They had just realized that it was too hard to capture her bc of her powers, without it being a big scene somewhere. So they decided to just take one sister and basically hope that she would find her way to the location , but without actually knowing what was going on being mislead by the boys. The school and how they trained the girls and the boys were just due to sexist stereotypes. The twin girls dynamic had nothing much to do with it. They might've inspired the scientist who came up with the plan but... it wasn't the reason they had wanted to kidnap them.

Now with this betrayal from the boys and everything a big fight ensued. One of the twin boys were actually in love with her and switched when he realized he couldn’t go through with this. He got hurt but retreated to where her sister was sleeping to help her escape. She was stuck in this epic fight with the other twin. Who were much more cold and psychopathic for some reason. Typical “evil twin” plot haha.

She managed to flee or subdue the guy, and joined up with the "good" twin brother and her sister. And they fled. They found some place to hide out and her sister did her dream thing for them to find out more. The twin brother twin sister project was a side project. The real big thing was this training school they had going. Were they were trying to "make" super spies. Making them pair up eventually. Not like romantic couples. But you got the feeling that they might've planned for people to actually fall in love and maybe have children.... so they could take those children eventually. But if this was a real plan it wasn't mentioned to anyone. Just that it was almost encouraged to date people from the "other" training camp. (Boys / Girls ) I remember a small sideplot about this big muscular dude who was gay and felt pressured to date a girl “just because” and how sad it was for both of them. They clearly didn’t care about anything other than straight. It was very cult-ish and strict in the school other than they were allowed to date.

But it went even deeper than that. They were also trying to "enhance" the natural powers of people. And sometimes it went wrong... They had this theory of everyone having a "true nature" and that it was from there the powers came. Like someone being a supernatural good swimmer had a "true nature" of being a fish or something. More of a soul / feelings thing I think. Not like otherkin but like... a natural aptitude? But this feeling and state of being could take over and and change people.... horribly. So we found out about this one scandinavian girl (this all took place in the uk) that they had kidnapped bc she had powers. And she had turned in to this mermaid creature thing that needed blood to survive. She wasn't like, a conscious human anymore. But she could understand humans somewhat. She also laid a lot of eggs and it was super nasty bc they had unborn babies in them. (dunnu how the fuck that happened but..... ) And they had to keep killing off these creatures before they hatched. But they also wanted to study them. So she was mostly just laying in this pool of blood with weird wines coming out from under her, like she was this mix of different sea-creatures. Half of this information was found out by the dream snooping and half was talking to one of the doctors / scientists that were just like "I'm trying my best to treat these kids. Obvs I can’t expose the organization I work here, I think my time is best spent on trying to help these kids. " I was like... mmm I'm not sure but ok. And then he told me the bad news. He said "You know how your sister has been being weaker and weaker? Well... She's actually turning in to one of these beings. Her "true nature" is a sort of moth. She will be sleepier and sleepier until she becomes her "true nature" and then she will be lost forever. " Obviously this wasn't very nice to hear. But he promised to take care of her best he could if I brought her there, without the organization knowing. Bc her powers were sought after. So I / we did. Cause we didn’t know any other option. Also, I would totally kill the guy if I found out he was lying. Then I set out to "destroy" this organization. Now I was working with the "good twin" like before but I didn't really trust him so he was mostly in the background doing small work. The organization was trying stuff with hypnotics and mind control. On the kids and on the public. They for one thing had this ad out for a big event they were going to have at disneyland? "Become a real princess"??-kind of thing. It was marketed as this event and club submission were they would choose "the best" out of all the people to take in to the club. It was really just a way to get as many people gathered at one spot so they could mind control them to be ok if their children were ever taken by the organization in the future. The princess stuff was like a plus for them, getting to maybe find some more subjects for the "school" they had since they had a shortage of girls. And I was working against the clock. I had infiltrated the "school" and had gathered some of the more critical students in a small club of sorts. The mind control was very prevalent in the school. They didn't want people to question why they were learning or doing these things. They certainly didn't want their full grown super-spies to think too much about what they were doing eventually either. But this small group of students wasn't effected by the hypnotic mind control shit, and they were questioning things. So I made some sort of plan (I think I drifted out and in of sleep some here, or I just wasn't interested in that part) and it was about to be carried out. But surprise surprise! The evil twin brother found out about it and epic fight scene ensued! I remember how weird it felt fighting someone I loved, and how alien it was like... he looked like him... but he wasn't him. And he almost defeated me but ofc.... his brother came to my rescue. And so they fought while I was trying to continue with the plan. (Pretty beaten up) I just remember going up and down these cold stone stairs in the castle (school/prison) and seeing in the distance the lightshow that was being done at the "princess" event. (I guess it was really close to disneyland haha) We shot something at the place like a laser or something? To shut down the tv-screen central thing that was doing the hypnotic stuff. And the event continued like planned but without the hypnotic thing happening to the public. Which they "the bad guys" didn't know about until it was over. We couldn't save the people who willingly had entered in to the "club" however. But we planned on rescuing everyone eventually. Shutting down the school. So it was a good win anyways. I returned to my sister to tell her the good news. But the doctor warned me that it wasn't looking good. He showed me to a barn outside of the sciency-building. And a small ladder lead up to a small attic space. It was light and the small dust particles made everything look weirdly glowy and fuzzy. My sister sat in the far end corner of the small space surrounded by big moths flying everywhere. It was creepy and beautiful at the same time. She had this cocoon like thing around her, looking very sleepy. But smiling at me. There were silk threads all over the place. She was soon going to cocoon herself in this silk thread completely. What she would turn in to... no one knew.

After that the dream basically ended. Or rather, it flowed in to another dream that had nothing to do with this plot.

#dream journal

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lilithsgayadoptednephew · 4 years

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To Be Daumerling

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me! Not Rated Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings M/M Complete Work

Master List

Chapter 8

Mammon had thought MC was small before, but now he was usefully small.

MC stood behind the demon across from Mammon. The tiny human scanned the cards in the demon's hand, then signaled to Mammon his best move. He'd made half a fortune already.

It was surprisingly easy to get MC to agree to the scheme, he had a surprisingly lax moral compass. Mammon knew there was something he liked about the little nuisance. Though sometimes he would purposely signal the wrong plays, probably so his colleagues wouldn't get suspicious.

Little shit.

After an evening of robbing petty demons blind, he and MC head back to the house of Lamentation. Mammon loved the Devildom at night, crazy people out sinning, scamming, fighting. It was like his favorite club but you didn't have to pay to get in and no one could kick you out when you puked on the ground.

MC sat on the arm of Mammon's shades, he remained close enough to speak in the demon's ear so he didn't have to use their pact.

"Did you see the look on his face?" Mammon barked. "He knew somethin' was up but he couldn't prove nothin!" He laughed heartily and MC rolled his eyes.

"Maybe now you can pay off some of your debts" MC suggested, Mammon hissed a breath.

"No...it would take a thousand years profit like this to pay off that mess. Best to just avoid it until it blows up in my face" he laughed nervously. MC pulled on his ear. "Ow hey!"

"Get your shit together man!" He scolded. Mammon rubbed his ear and grumbled.

"Yeah, sure, I'll get right on that."

0Levi stole MC while Lucifer wasn't looking. He'd been heartbroken when MC supposedly went back to the human world, so now that he was miraculously still around Levi was going to hang out with him dangit.

He was showing MC a new game he'd gotten when he realized just how different it was when MC was tiny. He was too small to use a controller and he kept wandering out of Levi's field of vision. After the fiasco with the drain he was terrified of letting the little human out of his sight. There was a lot of water in his room.

After pausing his game for the eighth time to find the little pest he switched things up, putting the human on top of his head.

"You stay up there so I know where you are," he commanded. MC sat cross-legged in the purple locks and pouted. How could he stay still when he was so bored? Watching Levi game was fun at first, but it had long since lost its appeal.

Stretching his legs out in front of him he felt the straight hairs curl around his feet and legs. Levi twitched a bit at the sensation, but he said nothing. MC got a wicked idea. Crawling to his hands and knees he started scratching the otaku's scalp with his little finger nails. Levi shuddered at the unexpected contact and almost dropped his controller.

"H–hey! What are you doing up there?" He tried to sound casual.

"Just scratching your head, you don't mind do you?" MC responded innocently.

"I guess not…" Levi muttered, then he mumbled to himself under his breath, "scritches for Levi" before returning his attention to his game.

MC continued diligently itching the demon's scalp, sinking deep into the lilac hair. He must've showered recently because it wasn't greasy, and it smelled good.

Levi found the sensation soothing. Too soothing. His eyelids became heavy and it was hard to focus on his game. Eventually he couldn't fight sleep any longer and resigned to pause his game and rest his eyes. Just for a few minutes.

MC watched Levi slump over, controller lightly falling from his hand. With a satisfied grin he hopped down from the demons hair and moved to continue exploring his room.

0Satan knew about MC's knack for getting into things, he'd found Belphie in the attic after all. But one would think he'd be tired by now. He'd climbed stack after stack of books, Satan chuckled at the antics as he set up more complex obstacles for MC to conquer.

Sometimes Satan would get nervous when MC climbed particularly high or jumped particularly far, but he comforted himself knowing he'd be nearby if anything happened. Far be it from him to say MC shouldn't be exploring his new stature.

Eventually MC did tire of the obstacles. His legs were too tired and he signalled to Satan he was done by crossing his forearms in an x shape in front of him. Satan picked the little figure up and set him on his lap.

"Finally out of steam?" He asked. MC shook his head vigorously. "What now then?" MC looked around, he was sore but he still had energy. He surveyed the room and it's clutter, it would be the perfect place to get lost for a while. The perfect place for a little hide and seek.

Motioning for Satan to lean down he spoke his idea in the demon's ear. Before Satan even had a chance to respond MC hopped down onto Satan's bed, then slid down the bed frame to the floor. He scurried off at full speed to hide in the mess.

Great, Satan thought to himself, find the human in the book-stack.

He started searching, moving each tome carefully so not to accidentally hurt MC. The human snickered from his place under the tall bookshelf, it would take Satan forever to find him.

Satan searched consistently until he'd cleared a portion of his room, it took him an hour. Stepping back he realized the portion he'd cleared was probably two foot square. He sighed and kept working.

This human was gonna keep him there all day.

0Asmo was more than ecstatic when Satan gave the little human to him. He'd had so many tiny outfit ideas and because they were so small it took basically no fabric and he could make them really quickly.

Grabbing his new doll he ran back to his room to get started, tiny MC waving his arms in protest.

It wasn't nearly as bad as MC thought it would be. Asmo made a little dressing room for him out of a tissue box so he could change in private, which was surprisingly thoughtful given Asmo's scandalous nature.

MC was never wealthy enough to afford his own wardrobe. All his clothes were thrifted or hand me downs. He liked those clothes, but the ones Asmo made were tailored specifically for him. Every measurement was to a T, everything was cut for his body type. MC quickly found himself looking forward to trying on each outfit the demon laid out for him.

Asmo had to take thousands of pictures, that's how cute MC was. He just had to document every angle for every outfit. In the end he made a whole devilgram just for MCs tiny fashion line. MC didn't like having photos of himself online but what he didn't know couldn't hurt him.

The account completely blew up.

Asmo was already pretty popular on devilgram but his following paled in comparison to the cult MC accumulated. He'd get lots of feedback as well. People saying things like "Wow Asmodeus this is your cutest line yet!" Or "I want to eat him with cheese and red wine".

In the end Asmo couldn't resist showing the page to MC, earning him a whole silent lecture. Asmo just watched MC pace and yell in obvious adoration.

0Evening was settling on the house of Lamentation when Beel got his time with MC. He was so happy to hear the human wasn't gone that he'd almost cried. MC had reunited his family, rescued his Belphie. He was one of Beels very best friends, practically another brother. He was so happy he decided to celebrate it with a snack.

Sitting in the kitchen he devoured slices of cake and whole loaves of bread and peanut butter.

Burp

"Oh...sorry" Beel apologized to MC. Finally coming up for air from his food he realized MC had barely anything to eat. His cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. "I guess I should've shared…"

With a crinkle MC surfaced from the bag of shredded mozzarella he was sitting in, face and arms covered in cheese powder.

"Trust me B I'm more than ok." He laughed, nibbling the shred of cheese in his hand. It was the size of his head. "I could use something to drink though"

Beel nodded at the human with a smile and got up to get him some soda. "We only have cans" he mumbled. MC thought for a moment.

"What about straws?" He asked. Beel nodded and put a straw in the cola can, placing it on the table next to MCs cheese bag. While he was up he grabbed two entire boxes of cereal and brought them to the rest of his pile.

MC tripped slightly getting out of the bag and brushed himself off, walking over to the can of soda. The can was significantly larger than he was and he circled it analytically. Standing on a box of mac and cheese he still had to balance on his toes to reach the straw.

"I wish I was small" Beel rested his head on his hand while he shoved fistfulls of cereal in his mouth.

"Why?"

"So I don't have to eat all my brother's food." He paused his cereal eating and cast his eyes downward. MC leaned on the soda can and immediately regretted it as he was covered in condensation.

"Yeah but you also couldn't do a lot of stuff" MC reasoned, Beel looked at him. "Like working out or carrying Belphie around... protecting your family." Beel smiled a little, he did like doing all those things.

"I guess"

"You've got a lot going for you and you're a great work in progress, don't mess with it." The human waved his hand dismissively as he got back in his cheese bag.

Beel laughed a little and continued scarfing down cereal.

0MC must really be exhausted to fall asleep in his hand like this.

Belphie looked down to the vulnerable little creature in his palm. Surely his brothers wore the human out through the day, that's why he'd passed out here. MC would never willingly sleep in his hand like this.

But as the human curled around himself, nuzzling into Belphies skin, he couldn't help but feel his breath catch.

These hands had once murdered this human.

Didn't MC understand how dangerous he was? Didn't he see Belphie wasn't fit for normal demon society, much less a humans company? How could one be so stupid, so naive, so disgustingly trusting to be so calm in his presence. To bear his most vulnerable state to a cold hearted monster.

The rise and fall of MCs tiny chest reminded him that MC was alive. He was alive. Belphie almost didn't get to know this crazy wonderful human who'd done so much for his family. He'd almost snuffed him out for no crime other than his own life. Now he was alive, though Belphie had almost lost him the day before.

He was small, so impossibly small he couldn't protect himself. He was in danger from everything, even a short fall or a shallow puddle. Belphie could crush him like a bug in his hand if the desire struck.

Who would protect him?

Belphie looked to Beel sleeping on the other side of the room. His better half had never hurt MC. He'd never hurt a soul unless they deserved it. Belphie could understand if MC wanted to let his guard down around his gentle brother. But who would protect MC from Belphie now that Beel was asleep?

MC rapped his arms around Belphies thumb and the demon looked down quickly. MC's hair was shrunk so fine it felt like feathers. His little fingers gripped his hand and his skin was so soft...he weighed about as much as a sponge.

Belphies heart beat faster and it rushed in his ears. It was like holding a baby bird in his hand. So breakable and innocent and trusting.

He would protect him.

Belphie felt his resolve harden like concrete. He was dangerous and broken and unstable...but if he vowed not to harm MC then that was the biggest threat out of the way right?

He put his free hand over the first, bringing both of them close to his chest. Nothing would dare touch the human in his hands. He was the Lord of the Gap dammit, and nothing could take a family member from him again.

#obey me!#obey me fanfic #To Be Daumerling

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skvaderarts · 4 years

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Apocrypha Chapter Thirty: Interloper

Masterlist can be found Here! Thanks!

Chapter Thirty: Interloper

Note: Thanks for all the amazing feedback, everyone! This has been a super stressful week. I just built my first pc, and I have to take it to Geeksquad today (10/26) to have them test it for a power issue that causes my system to randomly shut down without notice. I’m not scared to death at all! Nope! Hahahahahaha! *Cries*.

(-~-)

Light shined through thick cracks in the roof of the cavern as excess moisture dripped from above, colliding with the ground below. The area didn’t look entirely dissimilar to that of the underworld, thick layers of luminescent stone coating multiple surfaces around the conduit, and a similar stone forming the monument itself, albeit without the otherworldly glow. The black sludge remained, but no longer seemed to bubble and boil as it once had. How a cold fluid could seemingly boil was beyond Dante, but then again, the many fascinating facets of the underworld were more his brother’s thing.

“Think of it as a kind of scab, the tear itself being an open wound that never heals.” Trish said as she watched Dante examine the area immediately around the conduit, the youngest of Sparda’s twin sons clearly trying to comprehend the cult’s goals in this place.” And try not to spend too long in that sludge. I’ve heard that it can have strange effects on those who spend extended amounts of time near it.”

Dante perked up slightly at her statement, formerly lost in thought. “Do you think that it’s going to affect V? He was soaked in this stuff, and he wasn’t exactly in one piece when we found him.”

As her face migrated towards her hands, she shrugged, not so much aloof as she was indecisive. “I can’t really say. There are very few conduits, so this fluid is very uncommon. It might be worth bringing some back for Magnolia to study, but I’m not sure she could come up with much. She’s a botanist after all, and this isn’t exactly a plant.”

He responded with a nod, agreeing with her sentiment. Trish was correct, Magnolia wasn’t that kind of scientist. But perhaps she knew someone that could help them identify the core components of the otherworldly substance. It was best to have some sort of idea what they might be going up against if this stuff had actually made it into his bloodstream. And if all else failed, maybe Nico could give it a look. It was a long-shot, but Nero had told Dante that the young mechanism had managed to cobble together an actual time control device from a shard of Geryon’s horn that V had brought back, so anything was possible. Between the two of them, it seemed that nothing was entirely out of the question when it came to dubious acts of scientific research and even more dubious applications of… magic? Was it magic? How the hell did Magnolia do half of the things that she did.

Dante was very tempted to ask his older twin how they’d met in the first place.

I mean, it was rather unlikely that he’d asked her on a date or something once upon a time.

He had a hard time imagining Vergil taking to a woman at all, but then again he did have two sons. But in all fairness, that wasn’t an activity that required much conversation. It was more of an “actions speak louder than words” sort of affair, except in the instances where those actions caused a large quantity of words. Regardless, Dante was somewhat positive that Vergil and Magnolia had never had that sort of relationship. She was several times out of his league, though he liked to imagine that Vergil would pretend to not be interested in her just for the hell of it.

The younger of the two twins wasn’t going to pretend that he knew much of anything about his brother’s love life, especially since he quite literally knew nothing about the mother’s of either of his nephews, but he was willing to believe that Vergil was probably the mutually exclusive sort. Deep down, he had to have feelings for at least one of them. And considering the ease in which Magnolia toyed with the devil slayer in blue, he got the impression that they were comfortable around on another. But there was a large gap between conversation and… well that.

He didn’t really want to imagine anything having to do with his brother’s love life in that regard at all.

Dante ran his finger against a deposit of Luminite, silently surprised to see it here again. It had been ages since he’d found any of the demonic mineral anywhere, yet here it was, practically oozing from every available surface, and glowing brightly in the dim cavern. What an unusual sight to behold. “Haven’t seen this stuff since I met you. Seems like a lifetime ago now. Any idea why it might be here?” The blond devil jumped down from the spot she was perched on, no longer content with simply observing. Despite the fact that she’d made short work of the place before Dante had arrived, he’d insisted on taking a look for himself before they departed and returned home. While he possessed the utmost respect and confidence in Trish’s judgment and investigative skills, he also felt that coming all this way only to long use his own eyes to give the area a once over would be a foolish mistake, and the last thing he felt like doing was making more of those. So on the off chance that Trish had actually managed to miss something, Dante decided to take the opportunity to check things out for himself, and this rare but all too familiar form of sedimentary stone was far too strange to pass over.

“If I was willing to make a guess, I’d say that the influence of the conduit is doing this. Things tend to become more demonic immediately around one of these things, and the presence of naturally occurring Luminite in the human world just means that we're close to a huge deposit of demonic power. Malet island isn't unique in that regard.” She took a moment to look at the stone closer, considering something to herself.” That being said, I still can’t imagine what a cult would need V’s blood and an arcana for. It’s not like this is…”

She froze suddenly, something occurring to her. Dante gave her a curious look, alarm bells sounding in his head as he considered what she might be thinking.” What is it?”

She shook her head slowly, seemingly understanding their intentions for the first time. And what occurred to her was disturbing to say the least.” … Why didn’t I see it before? This is very bad.” She said, turning in the direction of the now dilapidated exit.” V is a descendant of Sparda like you and your brother. Your father sealed off the human and demon worlds, which is why nothing can really come through a conduit like this in the first place. But with the help of an Arcana that your father helped create, and V’s blood…”

Dante stopped dead in his tracks.

Oh. OH. Oh, shit.

(-~-)

The fog was noticeably thicker than it had been, a light rain joining it as it blanketed the area in a chilly haze. After coming to the conclusion that hovering over V like he’d developed the bubonic plague wasn’t going to help matters in the slightest, the Darkslayer had allowed Magnolia to talk him into leaving the room. The two had ventured into Magnolia’s attic, the space housing the majority of her plants. The closure of her shop meant literally nothing to her botanical studies, and as such, she still needed to water the specimens in order to keep them in good condition. Well, that went for the majority of her plants, at least. Some were actually allergic to moisture, an aspect of their biology that she was never going to stop finding inconvenient. How on earth did a plant of any kind, be it from the underworld or not, manage to function without the presence of water? One could only imagine that things worked a little differently down there.

Vergil browsed the wide selection of academic texts that she kept on the bookcases in her workspace, keen to find something to help keep his mind occupied. He couldn’t make V wake up any faster, and she had been kind enough to allow him to stay as long as he liked until such an opportunity presented itself, but there was only one guest room in the house, and it was occupied. If Vergil couldn’t stretch out and make himself comfortable, then he would have to settle for entertaining himself in other ways.

“Do you have any books in this house that aren’t incredibly boring?” Vergil asked offhandedly, looking at the books but not really paying attention to them.

Magnolia shook her head slightly as she pruned one of her plants, her back to him. “Terribly sorry, darling. I thought you liked your books the way you like your personality.”

Vergil wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or entertained by her witty remarks. She was truly the queen of sarcastic comebacks. In all the years that he’d known her, Vergil had never been able to go toe to toe with her in regards to witty comebacks. Not that he had been trying to in the first place. Being the eldest son of Sparda, Vergil liked to think he was above such things, but depending on who you asked, they might say that that was a load of bullshit and that deep down he did actually possess a sense of humor.

After coming to the conclusion that simply opting to ignore her statement was probably the best thing he could do from a self preservation standpoint, he grabbed the first reasonably interesting book he could find and firmly planted himself into one of the nearby chairs. Magnolia continued to prune her strange looking plants, clearly focused on her craft. While he knew a passable amount about the flora and fauna that was native to the Underworld, the vast majority of what grew in her indoor greenhouse was totally unfamiliar to him.

“Dante nearly touched a cluster of Daturademonica while we were down in the underworld a little while ago. It’s a wonder that he’s still alive.” Vergil said casually as he leafed through the pages of one of her botanical encyclopedias. While the vast majority of the plants in the book would be foreign to even the most experienced botanists, they were average everyday specimens to those who were more supernaturally inclined. It couldn’t hurt to outfit himself with more knowledge on the subject. Such information might have been useful to him during his extended stay in the underworld. More than once he’d nearly consumed (or actually consumed) less than edible flora and fauna in an attempt to provide sustenance for himself. Not being poisoned would have been a nice to have in an environment so hellbent on ending his miserable existence.

Suddenly, Vergil didn’t miss his time in the underworld at all.

“I take it that what happened to Redgrave City was your doing, then? I thought as much. Either that, or your return was the most unfortunate case of fortuitous timing that I’ve ever seen.” She stepped away from the table she was working at and gave Vergil a serious yet solemn look as if she were mourning the loss of something dear to her.” But regardless, I’m glad that you both made it back safely. I won’t ask or even pretend to understand why you do anything that you do, Vergil. All I can do is try to help when things go awry.”

Vergil shifted slightly, crossing his legs in relative discomfort as she walked past him and towards the stairs. She sat her tools down and gestured for Vergil to follow her before descending the stairs. He watched her go for a moment before opting to follow her, taking a moment to return the book to its proper place on the shelf where he’d found it. He then started down the stairs after her, catching up rather quickly as she stopped to open the door to the room that V was located in. Much to his surprise, she stopped for a moment and did a noticeable doubletake before practically skipping back into the room, clearly excited about something.

Curiosity piqued, Vergil ventured into the room and was nearly as surprised as Magnolia was to see that V was no longer asleep. The young summoner in question was now seated with his back against the wall, looking practically as tired as he had when he’d fallen asleep a few days prior. Vergil was curious to know why he seemingly hadn’t improved much in the time he’d spent unconscious, but the fact that he had finally woken up and was no longer bleeding profusely was enough for him. At least for the time being. Vergil knew that the time for answers wasn’t far off, and as such, he was willing to wait just a little bit longer for that time to arrive.

As the two baffled onlookers made their way into the room, V eyed them quietly. He hadn’t felt as weak as he did in that moment since he’d been resurrected a short while ago. His head was foggy and the temptation to simply go back to sleep was strong, but he knew that doing so wasn’t advisable. If the looks on Vergil and Magnolias faces were anything to go by, he’d been asleep for a while longer than he’d originally intended.

“I suppose it’s reasonable to guess that I’ve been asleep for sometime now.” Vergil said horsley, taking a moment to clear his throat. It was almost as if his throat and lungs were glued together.” How long have I been unconscious? The last thing I remember was talking to Nero in the bathroom while you were tending to my injuries. After that, there’s nothing.”

Magnolia nodded. “That makes sense considering the fact that you passed out shortly after. Well, you sort of just collapsed. It’s still unclear what happened exactly.” She gestured towards the room they were in, firmly planting her hand on her hip.” I asked Nero to bring you in here after that. Keep the change of clothes. The ones you had on are definitely not going to do you any good anymore. There isn’t enough bleach in existence to get demonic residue, blood, and dirt out of something like that. It’s a wonder your hair stays so white.”

For a moment, V wondered if this was what it was like to be scolded by an angry mother. He had no experience with such matters, but hearing her describe how hard it would be to get stains out of his clothing brought to mind the stereotypical ads he so often saw on billboards, magazines, and television ads. It made him wonder for a moment if the kindly woman that stood before him had any immediate family of her own; any children that came to visit from time to time. Perhaps asking her in the future would be a worthwhile use of his free time.

“I couldn’t tell you. It just sort of stays the way it is.” V said with a quiet shrug, his gaze turning towards the large window his bed was positioned in front of. Although the fog had yet to dissipate, white light pierced the glass and filled the room with much needed light.” ...I attempted to dye it once when I was younger. The results were… unsatisfactory to say the least. Apparently my hair is somewhat hydrophobic, at least as far as artificial pigment is concerned.” Vergil resisted the urge to shake his head in a mixture of amusement and bewilderment. The idea of altering his hair color had never crossed his mind in the many years that he had been alive, even if that might have caused him significantly less trouble. Apparently the white hair that ran in their family was quite the dead giveaway to any demon that had ever met their father. So just the entire underworld.

“Why did you attempt to do so in the first place?” Vergil inquired, his back against the wall nearest to the door. At this point, he was genuinely curious. Had V been going through some sort of rebellious faze and decided that he needed to change things up? That was the only reason he could think of off the top of his head. Perhaps it was simply beyond him to understand why his oldest son did most of the things that he did. They had lived different lives and gone down different paths. All he could do now was hope for the best.

Much to his surprise, V looked somewhat taken aback by the question. The younger white haired man looked away from both of them for a moment, seemingly contemplating something that he found unpleasant. Magnolia glanced at Vergil for a moment, a questioning look on her face. She got the distinct feeling that whatever he was about to say wasn’t good.

“There were several aspects of who I was when I was growing up that didn’t sit right with the people around me. I had the misfortune of being a relatively low energy child who was both left handed and seemingly cursed with an unusual hair color.” V paused for a moment, repressing some of the memories that that statement had caused to surface.” At one point when I was at the precipice of becoming a teenager… I ran away from the place I was forced to call home. Changing my most noticeable feature seemed like a good idea at the time. Thankfully, the need to do so never arose. I don’t believe they ever bothered looking for me. I get the impression they would have been glad that I was gone. And I’ve never gone back to prove myself wrong.”

A strange mixture of emotions hit Vergil as he contemplated the concept of experiencing such a fundamental level of rejection. Although Dante drove him crazy at times when they were children, the idea of running away from home had never occurred to him. For V, someone he considered to be quite level headed and wary of his surroundings to do something so extreme… he must have faced an unprecedented amount of adversity.

In that moment, a look of heartbroken sympathy crossed Magnolia’s face as she tried to grasp the gravity of what V had just said. What terrible things had he experienced in his youth that had led him to such despair? Had she known that V was in such a state, she would have happily helped him without a moment’s notice. It would have been her pleasure to give him somewhere safe to go. This was awful.

Suddenly as if to break the tension in the room, the front door opened and two sets of footsteps could be heard coming towards them. Before anyone could react, Dante appeared in the doorway with Trish at his side, the two seemingly eager to share something with them. And whatever that something was, everyone present was willing to believe that it wasn’t good.

“Vergil... we might have a problem.”

(-~-)

I Have a headcanon that V is a lefty because of how he does some of the things in the game. Also, the idea that both he and Nero are lefties is really interesting to me due to the odds of something like that happening. As for his childhood… all in good time. Slowly but surely we shall see more of it. The curse of Sparda family childhoods is alive and well! See you all on Friday. This next part is going to be a doozy!

#Apocrypha #DMC #DMC5 #DMCV #Devil May Cry 5 #Devil May Cry #V #Vitale #Vergil #Magnolia #Trish #Lady #Devil May Cry V #Post DMC5 #A03

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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

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Watching Movies In Self-Isolation, Part Two

L’Assassin Habite Au Rue 21 (1942), dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Clouzot is better known for directing The Wages Of Fear (the movie William Friedkin remade as Sorcerer) and Diabolique, but this is the first movie he directed. It’s a pretty effective comedy, as well as an Agatha Christie style murder-mystery thriller. It’s really cool to watch these things that feel like they are just “movies,” before a bunch of genre conventions got built up and put in place. This one’s also eighty minutes long, super-short. The premise of the movie is there’s a serial killer on the loose, leaving a business card on every dead body. A dude passes along to the police that he found a stash of the business cards in the attic of a boarding house, so the killer must live there. A police officer goes undercover as a priest moving into the boarding house to investigate the residents. His wife, an aspiring singer, has made a bet with him she can solve the crime first, and in doing so become a celebrity that will be hired to perform places, so she also moves into the boarding house, partly to annoy him. The stuff at the boarding house is basically the film’s second act, while the first and third act are more typical murder-mystery stuff, although the tone of comedy is maintained throughout, despite all the cold-blooded murders.

All These Women (1964), dir. Ingmar Bergman. Kind of dumb sex comedy directed by Ingmar Bergman, but with gorgeous Sven Nykvist cinematography, bright jewel-toned pastels, and sort of theatrical staging in spots seeming to foreshadow Parajanov’s The Color Of Pomegranates or eighties Greenaway stuff. About a critic who visits the palatial estate of a famous cellist to write a biography of him only to find a harem of women; the whole thing unfolding from the cellist’s funeral a few days later. The winking humor is both music-hall bawdy but in a way that feels self-aware or “meta” in the context of a sixties film.

The Touch (1971), dir. Ingmar Bergman. Bergman’s one of my favorites, many of his canonized classics resonate deeply with me, but he was also astonishingly prolific, with a bunch of movies of his blurring together in my mind, and even more that I didn’t know existed, like this English-language one, starring Elliott Gould. Gould’s another favorite of mine, being in a bunch of great movies in the sixties and seventies, but damn, he’s unlikable here. Unlikable characters “hit different” in older material because I’m not sure if you’re supposed to sympathize with them according to the sexist cultural attitudes of the day. Here he’s “the other man” Liv Ullman is cheating on Max Von Sydow (RIP) with, but he’s pretty emotionally abusive, just a shit to her, extremely demanding of her in a relationship he did nothing to earn, though it does feel like the movie is kind of treating him as a romantic lead.

The Anderson Tapes (1971), dir. Sidney Lumet. This is heist movie, starring Sean Connery as a dude fresh out of prison, planning to rob his girlfriend’s apartment building, costarring Christopher Walken in his first film role. It contains all the plot beats of a typical heist thing, all the satisfying “getting the gang together, planning things out in advance, chaotic elements interfere” stuff but also a totally superfluous bit of framing about like constant surveillance, video monitoring and audio tape. All this dystopian police-state stuff seems, implicitly, like it would make a crime impossible to execute, the criminals are monitored every step of the way, by assorted agencies. But then the punchline, after everyone’s arrested for reasons having nothing to do with that, is that all this recording is illegal and all the tapes should be erased as the high-profile nature of the case makes it likely the monitoring agencies will get caught. Sidney Lumet directs a good thriller, even though I don’t find Connery (or Dyan Cannon, who plays the girlfriend) particularly compelling.

The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (1933), dir. Fritz Lang. I watched this years ago, after reading Matt Fraction praise it, particularly how skillful the transitions between scenes were, and I really enjoyed it, but didn’t remember much about it and was excited to rewatch it. It’s got a lot going for it: An exceedingly elaborate criminal plot whose only goal is to wreak chaos, low-level criminals caught up in something they’re morally unprepared to reckon with, a charismatic police detective interviewing a bunch of weirdos, Fritz Lang following up M by continuing to be a master of film and sound editing very early stitching it all together. The Mabuse character was previously the star of a silent film I haven’t watched, and here he’s mute, which is a clever choice I didn’t register until writing it out just now. He’s gone completely insane, but is nonetheless writing a journal filled with elaborate crime plots, and his psychologist is completely insane and following these directions, in a commentary on the rise of Nazism in Germany at the time.

House By The River (1950), dir. Fritz Lang. I watched this in the pre-Quarantine days, but it totally rules. Again, it feels sordid in part because of how old it is and my assumption you’re meant to identify on some level with the completely loathsome protagonist’s sexual desire and anger at getting turned down. It’s so creepy, he’s listening to the sound of his maid showering at one point. All the characters seem very fun to play, they’re all pretty cartoonish. This guy murder his maid, and then gets the idea that he should write a book about the murder when someone explains the idea of “writing what you know” to him, and he is then surprised when his wife reads the book and puts together that it’s a murder confession, saying something like “Really? I thought I disguised it pretty well.” The film functions as a dark comedy because every character is completely mortifying. Lang’s work becoming less ambitious and more reduced in budget during his time working in America is pretty sad but this movie feels legit deranged.

Midsommar (2019), Ari Aster. Heard good things about Hereditary, but haven’t watched it yet, having been put off by the plot summary of Aster’s preceding short film, about a kid who rapes his dad. This is like a longer version of The Wicker Man, basically, starring Florence Pugh, who I had heard was like the new actress everyone’s enamored with, but didn’t think was that compelling in this. A bunch of Americans go to a Swedish village, one of them (played by Chidi from The Good Place) has studied their anthropology extensively, but all are unprepared for the fact that their whole culture seems to revolve around human sacrifice and having sex with outsiders so they don’t become totally inbred. There’s a monstrously deformed, cognitively impaired child who’s been bred specifically so his abstract splashings of paint can be interpreted as culture-defining profound lore, which I took away as being comparable to the role Joe Biden plays within the death cult of the DNC.

Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2019), dir. Bi Gan. This got a lot of acclaim, but I am almost certain the main reason I watched it is because the director made a list of his favorite movies and included Masaaki Yuasa’s anime series Kemonozume on it. Does a sort of bisected narrative thing, where half of the movie is this sort of fragmented crime thing, a little hard to follow, and then you get the title card, and then the second half is this pretty dreamlike atmospheric piece done in a single shot, with a moving camera. I’m not the sort to jerk off over long shots, although I appreciate the large amount of technical pre-planning that goes into pulling them off. The second part is pretty compelling though, enveloping, I guess it was in 3-D at certain theatrical screenings? I’m a little unclear on how my fucked-up eyes can deal with 3-D these days and I was never that into it. The first half is easy to turn off and walk away from, the second half isn’t but I’m unsure on how much it amounts to beyond its atmosphere.

Black Sun (1964), dir. Koreyoshi Kurahara. This one’s about a Japanese Jazz fan and dirtbag squatter who meets a black American soldier who’s gone crazy and AWOL. He loves him because he loves Jazz and all Black people, but the soldier is pretty crazy and can’t understand him anyway. Jazz is, or was, huge in Japan and this is a cooler depiction of that fandom than you get in Murakami novels but it’s a fairly uncomfortable watch, I guess because the black dude seems so crazy it feels a little racist to an American audience? Maybe he wasn’t being directed that well because there would be a language barrier but it’s weird.

Honestly the thing to watch from sixties Japan on The Criterion Channel is Black Lizard (1962), dir. Umetsugu Inoue, which I watched shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, when all the Criterion stuff was still on Hulu, and it cheered me up considerably in those dark days. It feels a little like The Abominable Dr. Phibes, but with a couple musical numbers, and is about a master detective who thinks crime is super-cool and wishes there was a criminal who would challenge his intellect. Then the Black Lizard kidnaps someone. It’s a lot of fun, with a tone that feels close to camp but is so knowing and smart it feels more genuinely strange and precise. One of those things you get fairly often where the Japanese outsider’s take on American genre stuff gets what it’s about more deeply and so feels like it’s operating on a higher level. I really love this movie.

I had this larger point I wanted to make about just feeling repulsed by genre stuff that self-consciously attempts to mimic its canonical influences and that might not be all the way present in this post. Still, something that really should be implicit when talking about movies from the past is that they are not superhero movies, and how repulsed I am by that particular genre’s domination of cinema right now, and how much of cinema has a history of something far looser and more freewheeling in its ideas of how to make work that appealed to a broad audience, and how much weird formal playfulness can be understood intuitively by an audience without being offputting, and the sort of spirit of formal interrogation connects the films I like to the comics I like (as well as the books I like, and the visual art I like), this sense of doing something that can only be done within that medium even as certain other aspects translate.

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ocsideblog · 5 years

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massive liminal infodump

november knows basically nothing about her mom's family. she won't talk about it, determined to avoid or change the subect when it's mentioned. all november knows is that her mom left home when she was about 18 and hasn't spoken to her family since. the only information november has to go off is an old polaroid of what she can only assume is her mom's family, and an even older book. she found these items in the attic when she was about six. her mom wouldn't talk about the photo, and had no explanation for the book - probably an old halloween decoration or something, it's not in any real language. november gets the book to play with if she wants it.

november, now a 20 year old photography student, and her 14 year old brother noel, are on a train to the town of Limbo to finally meet and stay with their mom's family - their aunt, uncle, and cousins. she is determined to know about them and to find out what caused her mother to become estranged.

upon arriving in the small town, november learns that one of her cousins, julie, had gone missing at the beginning of the year. another girl named cassidy schaerer, daughter of the editor of the town's weekly newspaper, had also gone missing around the same time. the two girls were best friends, and julie's car had gone missing as well, so people just thought they ran away. her father thinks this is most likely, complaining that julie has always been rebellious. her sister, adelaide, doesn't think it's that simple - she keeps these thoughts to herself, however, because she needs to be the 'perfect daughter' and not disappoint her dad. cassidy's father thinks something is up as well, but he isn't so quiet about it.

over the year november learns from mr. schaerer, who becomes like a father figure, that people have gone missing before. it's simply covered up, he says, because the town does not want to seem unsafe, and they have enough problems as it is. the town is dying out - young people often move away, there aren't that many jobs around, and the future doesn't look promising for small town life here.

as the year goes on, november's grip on reality is also tested. while on the train, november had a nightmare - driving down some back road, a deer in the middle of the road, swerving to avoid hitting it, crashing - which becomes recurring, getting more frequent and more vivid as the year goes on. along with the nightmares, she begins hallucinating - mildly and rarely at first, but getting worse as time goes on. images of decay haunt her. she also feels a strange connection with her cousin julie, although she doesn't know why - maybe it's because some people said they're alike in some ways.

- - - - -

ok so november and noel are siblings, and they arrive in the town of limbo to stay with some family members theyve never met before - their aunt, uncle, and cousins. when they get there, they find out one of their cousins - julie - has gone missing, along with her best friend whos a girl named cassidy. cassidy is the daughter of the man who runs the town's weekly newspaper. people view him as sort of paranoid and determined to think the worst when CLEARLY the girls just ran away. he doesn't get along well with the mayor of the town, john brennan.

john brennan really wants the town to get big someday, have a mall and eventually expand and put the town on the map. he wants to feel important. he has a wife named mary and a six year old son named charlie.

november's super curious to a fault, so like. kinda really nosy. she NEEDS to know everything and WILL investigate. and she feels a weird attachment to her missing cousin so she becomes like... determined to figure out what happened. her cousin adelaide - the Perfect Daughter whos secretly gay and dating another girl named jane - confides that she also doesnt think julie ran away, but cant say so to her father who'd get mad at her for being a conspiracy theorist.

november also becomes close with mr. schaerer, the town's newspaper guy, who becomes like a father figure to november and comments about how shes got some stuff in common with julie, who had also been like a daughter to him because she was best friends with his daughter and because julie's dad is this strict conservative type and thought she was a disappointment so he wasn't all that nice to her.

the town's in trouble - a lot of older conservative types frightened by progress, a lot of industry and stuff that'd die out with modernization, crops aren't doing as well, young people moving away, etc.

there's a priest named father alonso brennan - he's the mayor's half brother - who seems kinda guilty, like he's hiding something.

november gets these recurring nightmares of a car crash, and sometimes hallucinates that things are old and decaying or hallucinates people looking deadish and stuff. when she tries to talk about this to most people, they think shes crazy, and since its 1983 and her aunt and uncle - mostly her uncle - are conservative types, theres a lot of stigma surrounding mental illness.

mary brennan kinda tries to bond with her, try to get her involved with the town and stuff, at the suggestion of november's aunt, hoping that'll distract her from being like this.

also november works at an antique and curiosity shop for antioch, whos this sort of eccentric weird guy who supposedly moved to town after retiring early because he had money so now he's chilling. she doesn't get paid because she's working off a debt - noel accidentally broke a skull while goofing around when they were just checking out the different stores, and november offered to work off the debt so noel wouldn't have to, since neither of them had money.

it turns out father brennan DID know something. he had seen john and mary brennan burying a body out in the woods on january first sometime between midnight and 3am - cassidy's body. they had told him they hit her in a car accident, because they'd been driving drunk, and were trying to cover it up because they were scared and still drunk and afraid it'd hurt their lives and careers and stuff since john brennan's the mayor. alonso kept the secret because he was always close with his brother, and didnt want to ruin his life, but the guilt is eating him alive because he's generally an honest person but his honesty and his loyalty are in conflict. sometime around october he arranges to meet up with mr schaerer and tell him the truth about his daughter.

the next day, schaerer is found dead in the woods. the local police say it was a suicide. november doesn't believe this. she confronts the priest, knowing he was one of the last people to talk to her, thinking maybe he found something out somehow - priests hear a lot in confession after all. he tells her about knowing cassidy was buried in the woods, and how she was killed in a drunk driving accident, near where schaerer died - he also genuinely thinks it was a suicide, out of grief for his daughter. he won't mention who did it, using the confession thing as an excuse, his values are still in conflict.

november sneaks out in the middle of the night to go to that place in the woods and search for her body, see how much of this is true. after digging, she finds remains that are decayed WAY past what they should be. there's also nothing to indicate a car accident, the skeleton isn't broken as far as she can see, and there's a weird rusted ritualistic dagger in the grave, and some weird symbols that look kinda familiar but she can't place them at the moment (hint its the book from the attic)

shes not sure if shes hallucinating or not, and she doesnt know who to trust at this point. she comes back to the grave later that day with someone (i havent 100% decided who yet) but they like. don't find anything, like the grave never existed. this doesn't make november look any more mentally stable.

as new years eve approaches, the moon family - including november - are invited to the brennans' new years party. mary offers november an old dress to borrow since she doesn't really have any, and her cousins dont have the same size as her, the dress doesn't fit mary brennan anymore anyway, she owned it when she was younger, wore it on her wedding years ago. at some point during the party, after eating or drinking something which was handed to her, november doesn't feel so great. she passes out.

she wakes up, hands tied behind her back to like. a pillar or tree trunk or something. there are six others also tied up the same way, in a circle. to her horror, she realizes noel is one of them. next to each of them stands someone from town - 7 people in total, including john brennan and her own uncle. mary brennan stands beside her. they're doing some sort of ritual. november thinks this must be another hallucination or nightmare. it has to be, right? there's no way this is happening. she's forced to watch as one by one the other people are sacrificed - including noel. this can't be happening. this can't be real. she can't do anything to save noel.

november was saved for last as a special offering. mary brennan tells her that she is a Special sacrifice, that she believes Death has grown fond of her, so mary is offering this girl as a special sacrifice in an attempt to earn his favor in apology for having lost the book, which her ancestor stole a long time ago. she's the only one in the cult who has actually seen and been in communication with Death, and is also the only one to know this year has been repeating. she's hoping for the loop to end, and the town and everyone in it to be allowed to exist forever immortally.

she finishes the ritual, calling forth Death to claim this sacrifice. november can't see properly, between tears and it being dark outside and - this feeling like she's slipping out of reality, dying? falling asleep? about to hallucinate again? or emerge from the hallucination? she isn't sure and it terrifies her. the figure approaching out of the woods looks somewhat familiar,but different. antioch, from the curiosity shop. his hair's down though, and something about him isnt..... right. the vibe in the area has changed dramatically, feelings of dread that are hard to describe. she calls out to him for help anyway, but receives no response. he ignores her, approaching mary brennan. says something to mary brennan about not being forgiven, better luck next year, and mary brennan begins throwing up blood and slumps to the ground. he - whatever sort of entity he is - moves closer to november. says something to her. she feels a sharp pain in her chest. he's carving something with his nail, which is like a claw. he's also telling her to give in and let go already, that she should have done so long ago, shes far too stubborn and foolish, shes still resisting whatever this weird sensation of slipping away is. she vaguely notices, between the pain and the weird feeling, that her surroundings and the people in the area seem to be decaying. this has to be a hallucination. it has to. she lets go, thinks shes closing her eyes........

but is actually opening them. weak sunlight filters through a smashed window through the trees overhead. a dream. it wasn't real. she looks around. it turns out that what was real was the car crash, and all that had been some sort of coma dream. she begins to get up, to become aware of her surroundings, her injuries, noel.

she looks over and he's there, he's worse than her injury wise. he isn't breathing. she tries to wake him. he won't wake up. he's gone. it's too late. she feels horrible. this is her fault. if she hadn't been so curious. she digs through her bag, looking for her phone. her stupid book from the attic is there. she feels stupid. her curiosity about some stupid halloween prop and about her mom's past, which was probably mundane and some sort of argument, got her brother killed. she finds her phone at the bottom of the bag. a little cracked but it turns on. no signal though. she starts walking toward the road and follows it, searching for a signal. she has to call her mom. she has to let her know what happened, to confess that it's her fault.

as she's walking, she realizes her chest stings worse than her other wounds. she looks under her shirt at it. the sigil thing from her nightmare. it can't be. it has to be some sort of coincidence. it doesn't look like a normal wound, somewhere between a scar and a tattoo, turning black, but also bleeding a bit still, she brushes this off as being not all there and being shaken up. she just found out her brother died, of course she's not going to be all that mentally stable. she keeps walking. she gets a signal, weak. she calls her mom. keeps trying. finally gets an answer.

she tells her mom everything - they'd set out to go on a road trip and find out about their mom's family. it was her fault noel died, if she refused to take him. she swerved to hit a deer. her fault. her mom blamed herself, for not telling them about her past and for being so dodgy about it. november comes to the outskirts of an overgrown ghost town as she's walking to get a better signal. completely abandoned, decaying, familiar. she fears what her mom's going to tell her. that her sister overheard her father's plans to sacrifice her, as a part of a cult thing, and she promised her sister she'd leave and never look back, so she did, late 1982. something in november's mind clicks. it's 2015. her mother's name is julie.

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distractedhistotech · 5 years

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MSA +1: Ghost Aftermath

“The house is disappearing,” announced Sydney, staring out the back window. “I guess the ghost made it out of ghost energy. Or something.” That was a powerful ghost. “We should be safe for now.”

“I’m not stopping until we get to town,” said Arthur. That was too close. They were almost killed!

Vivi frowned. “Will the van be all right? He might’ve fried a component or something.”

“Um…” Arthur thought a moment. “Well, it started fine. It’s not making any troubling sounds. Might have messed with some of the electrical components, but this is an older van, so they won’t have much impact on its function once it’s up and running. So, yeah, we should get home all right, and I’ll run diagnostics on it tomorrow when I have some free time.”

Mystery let out a whine. He knew that Lewis had not been in a right state of mind and had been dangerous to be around, but it hurt to leave him behind again.

Vivi misunderstood and pulled him into her lap. “It’s okay Mystery. We’ll be home and away from any spooks soon.”

Mystery laid his head on her shoulder, wishing he could tell her what was wrong, but she was still suffering from whatever Lewis had done to her memory…

Maybe he could go back later, try to talk to Lewis on his own, get him to see reason.

Sydney leaned over the chairs. “Any idea what that was about? I’m kind of confused about the whole thing. Guy put me in the attic which was full of boxes that just had more boxes in them. And what I swear was a copy of the bride from the Haunted Mansion from Disney World. I looked in a few rooms while I was looking for you, but they were empty except for one that had a bed in it, but it didn’t feel like a bedroom if that makes sense.”

“He wouldn’t have needed a bedroom,” muttered Vivi. “He wouldn’t have needed actual food either, but he had some in the kitchen.” She frowned. “Did he plan this? Or maybe keep some food for if someone came by?”

“Why would he feed someone he was going to kill?” asked Arthur.

“Maybe it was poisoned!” suggested Sydney.

Vivi felt nauseous for a moment. “That’s certainly a possibility…”

“Oh, geez, you didn’t eat any, did you?” asked Sydney.

Arthur spun towards Vivi, nearly driving off the road. “Vivi!”

“I didn’t eat anything!” insisted Vivi, deciding not to mention she almost had. “Why would he need poison though? He had really powerful fire abilities and clearly wasn’t afraid to use them.”

Arthur shuddered and Sydney scowled at the memory. “He said it was me he hated the most,” said Arthur.

“Seriously?” Sydney asked in exasperation. “What could you have possibly done?”

“I…” He glanced towards Vivi. “Maybe he was one of the guys from when I escaped the cult? Except that wouldn’t make sense. It’s been over 10 years, and they wouldn’t have announced themselves like that. They would have just given me a fatal injury before I realized they were there.”

“That does make sense,” agreed Vivi. She’d seen how Arthur fought. She hadn’t been at all surprised when her father had taken him on as an apprentice. “Plus aren’t they supposed to eschew material things, like fancy suits?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, simple clothes, preferably homemade. Nothing like…that.”

Sydney snorted. “He was like Ghost Rider’s better dressed cousin. Hey, you think that was the suit he was buried in?”

“If it is, then that kills the cult theory,” said Arthur. “They used shrouds. Always. No exceptions.”

Vivi hummed in thought for a moment. “Maybe he’s someone we’ve run across before who died later on?”

“We have pissed off a lot of people,” commented Sydney. She winced. “Wow, there could be a lot of potential angry ghosts out there. Heck, considering what some of ‘em were like, they’d probably kill themselves to try and become a vengeful ghost.”

“That’s so stupid!” exclaimed Arthur.

“It might not seem so stupid to them,” pointed out Vivi. “And if they could pull off a ritual…”

“Where would they get that sort of stuff in jail?” muttered Sydney. “I know there’s a black market for like cigarettes and period pads, but where would they get something like aconite or yew bark? I mean some of that stuff’s dangerous even outside of magic. It’d be easier to break out of prison, but then they wouldn’t have to kill themselves to get back at us! Or maybe they would. Arthur kind of leaves an impression. I wouldn’t wanna fight him. I’d try to find some other way around him,” rambled Sydney. “But that would be hard cause supernatural stuff would be attracted to him, but I guess that’s not bad because he can’t actually see that stuff or do anything about that.” She frowned. “Hey, why didn’t that ghost back there stay invisible then? He could’ve snuck up on Arthur and set him on fire and that would be that.”

“And now I’m going to see that in my nightmares tonight,” drawled Arthur. “Thanks.”

Sydney’s eye widened. “Oh geez, I didn’t mean-Ignore everything I just said!”

Vivi shook her head. “No, you bring up some good points. I’m starting to think the second theory is pretty unlikely. I’ll still look up if anyone we’ve helped arrest has passed away recently, but I’d like to consider other possibilities as well.” She frowned in thought as she considered a new train of thought. “Arthur, what if he’s someone you knew but who died when you were so young you can’t remember him?”

“That…I guess it could be possible,” admitted Arthur. “But I still don’t know why he would want me dead. And what could a three-year-old have done to convince someone they need to die?”

“Pooped on his books,” suggested Sydney.

“Ew…No.”

“Ate his pudding?”

“That seems a bit much.”

“Stole his cat?”

“We never had any pets.”

“Spilled spaghetti sauce on his favorite white shirt?”

“Where are you getting these things?” questioned Arthur.

Vivi chuckled at them as she tapped her leg in thought. Something occurred to her. “Did he ever actually say your name?” Arthur shook his head. “Lance says you look a lot like your dad…”

Arthur winced. “Ah. That would make sense. Uncle Lance and Dad come from old money so a fancy suit and tie would not be out of place.” Arthur considered the options for a moment. “Maybe he was someone with a relative in the cult.”

“Huh, I didn’t think the suit looked that old,” commented Sydney. She frowned. “But have suits changed that much? And who wears a cravat nowadays anyway?”

“What’s a cravat?” asked Arthur.

“It’s like a fancy tie, bunch of cloth,” Sydney tried to explain. “Some characters I know wear ‘em, usually guys with money or class or both.”

“That fits,” said Vivi. “We can ask Lance if your dad ever pissed off someone enough for them to want him dead.”

“He wouldn’t know if it had something to do with the cult, but it’s a good place to start,” agreed Arthur.

Sydney made a considering sound. “You know…This makes a lot more sense. That ghost was pretty powerful. He would have had to have been dead for a while, right?”

Vivi nodded. “Generally speaking, it takes a while for a ghost to become that powerful, and we’ve only been doing this for a few years. He must have died before that if he’s at that power level, unless he used some sort of ritual.”

Mystery sighed. That was the case with most ghosts, but Lewis was a huge exception. He suspected a combination of a sudden and violent death, Lewis’ own powers, and the location. It was steeped in spiritual energy that he suspected had belonged to the demon. Energy the demon had been cut off from when Mystery sealed it in Arthur’s arm. He had noticed that the coloration of the cave had been darkening when they’d left, but had thought the energy was simply dispersing.

Lewis must have instinctively absorbed the energy and sped up his formation and development without realizing it.

And he’d come back as a vengeful wraith. Clearly, he thought Arthur had been fully responsible for his death. An understandable mistake, but Mystery couldn’t help but feel annoyed at Lewis. He had been a medium in life. He’d seen possessions. He knew Arthur attracted nasty entities. He still thought Arthur killed him even knowing all those facts. The only explanation Mystery could come up with was that Lewis was not able to think straight due to becoming so powerful so quickly after losing his brain.

Mystery wasn’t sure this could be fixed. There were purification rituals…No, that would require Lewis being willing to let go of his anger. Mystery would just have to make sure Sydney and Arthur stayed close to each other for the foreseeable future. At least until he found a way to calm Lewis which didn’t require Arthur being killed.

Mystery was brought out of his thoughts by Sydney picking him up. He let out a yelp. “Don’t worry Mystery. We won’t let that big, mean ghost hurt you.”

He was the last person Sydney needed to worry about.

#Mystery Skulls animated #Grrlpowercomic #au #+1 AU #Immediately after Ghost #Vivi Yukino #Arthur Kingsman #Sydney Scoville #Mystery

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aikainkauna · 6 years

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Movie meeeehm

Thanks to @nitrateglow for these!

1: A movie you enjoyed as a kid that you don't now

-Probs some comedy I'd find awfully sexist/racist/homophobic etc. now. But of course, I can't recall a specific one, probs because the experience is so deeply squicky and traumatic. Oh, wait, I know. I adored The Great Mouse Detective as a kid, but have heard so many "bleh" comments about it later that I don't want to ruin it by rewatching it as an adult. Why take a happy, cherished, pure and joyous memory away, especially as there are so few of those in my life anyway in proportion to the bad memories?

2: A movie you disliked as a kid that you like/love now

-Not a movie, but I was literally too fucking terrified to watch Doctor Who as a kid on cable, because the Tom Baker repeats they were showing terrified me with the title sequence alone. That empty stare and howling, diddly-duming music were enough to give me nightmares. So I only got into Who in my late teens!

3: Your favorite movie as a kid

-Define "kid." I went through several. I loved the Disney Robin Hood, of course, and at puberty, Wayne's World (yes) and The Princess Bride were my own cult movies, before I had anyone to fangirl them with. Ah, the pre-Internet era.

4: An actor/actress it took you time to warm up to

I remember being weirdly terrified and disturbed by Jeremy Brett as a kid, but then I felt the same about Bowie, and... well. Clearly it was my baby self not knowing WTF to do with all this stirring, restless energy that later turned out to be my skinnyandrogynousbisexualguy orientation thingy. And while I'd first seen Caligari and Casablanca as a teen in the early 90s, I wasn't ready for Connie until he pounced me in 2012. I would not have "got" him the same way and as hard until I was a grown-up, with a wide variety of experiences from many areas of life and a boatload of books/learning behind me. Just... no way.

5: A director it took you time to warm up to

-If anything, I've cooled off various directors I was impressed by when younger. So much of the auteur stuff gets wanky and self-imposing, in this Arrogant Artist Guy "look at my GENIUS big VISION and also insecurity about my penis size" kind of way. I like directors who can be warm and have fun and who show some real humanity (not wanky anvilly/kitchen sink-y sort of "humanity" either). Maybe Branagh? I found him a bit annoying as a kid, but now fap all over his stuff because now I'm old enough to Get It. He is the best kind of fanboy director; his geekiness is catching. Listening to his Thor commentary was a real eye-opener into my realising just how massive a nerd he is, and in a good, "one of us" kind of way.

6: Top five favorite soundtracks of your favorite movie composer

-There isn't just one! But Clint Mansell and Debbie Wiseman turn to gold everything they touch. Debbie especially is hugely unknown still, but she has this most amazing, swellingly Romantic music full of sweeping emotion that I just can't rec her enough. Do check her out; she'll give you goosebumps.

7: Three movies that defined your teen/childhood years

-I think I mentioned those already! But as a teenager, Bram Stoker's Dracula, La Reine Margot and Heavenly Creatures were formative. There were others I obsessed about way more than those, but they weren't as influential--it's more like they were massaging buttons I already had.

8: Sci-fi or westerns?

-Blake's 7! AKA "The Dirty Dozen in Space."

9: Are there any movies you own more than one copy of?

-Ahhahaha. AAAHHAHAHAHA! Of The Thief of Bagdad, I own: The Criterion clusterfuck with the awful clumsy cover someone had their 5-year-old draw, the Nordic DVD, the German Blu-Ray because I live on the edge (what with those Veidt Eye Closeups in HD being a hazard to any uterus) and at least three different digital copies. Because I'm me. I also own two digital copies and one DVD of Casablanca, three digital and one DVD of A Woman's Face and don't get me started on the British telefantasy I have on both DVD and VHS. I have spare copies of both the Caligari Masters of Cinema release and the ITV DVD of The Spy In Black, so I guess I should throw them at somebody.

10: Physical media or streaming?

-Neither. Video files firmly saved onto and run from my hard drive. Fuck streaming with its choppiness (ruins the viewing experience for me) and physical media are usually beyond my budget (unless I save up for a Connie DVD). Besides, I rip my favourite movie discs onto my HD anyway. I want to be able to gif that shit, dammit!

11: Are there any movies you watch on special occasions every year (Christmas, Halloween, birthdays, your mother's aunt's wedding anniversary, etc.)

-Used to do Nightmare Before Christmas on Halloween, but not any more. I still attempt ToB every Christmas. And I used to do All Through The Night with wine on my birthday, but as I can't tolerate alcohol anymore, the experience of Watching ATTN Drunk is no more. Someone start a Halloween tradition with me where we watch either The Student of Prague or Eerie Tales (or both) every year?

12: What movie do you most associate with your best friend(s)?

-Gosh, so few have stayed, so it's more like "movie that reminds you of a broken friendship," yay...?! I've learned to try and not associate movies with people that way any more, because it's more painful than it's worth. Connie is my best friend. He's like Krishna that way.

13: Name a movie adaptation you thought was better than or equal to its source material.

-LOTR put in more facial features and characterisation than Tolkien ever did, and did the tales far less fucking tediously. Imagine if you'd had to sit and watch hobbits walking through the countryside for 6 hours with barely anything happening?! Yeah...

14: What genres do your favorite movies tend to be?

-Historical, fantasy, Gothic Romantic, just Romantic stuff on the whole. More old than new movies these days. Why watch shitty modern chick flicks when I have far better characterisation and far less narrowly defined female lives in old-timey "women's pictures?" And guys who actually fucking shaved, dressed in clothes that were tailored for them instead of rented and saggy, whose bodily expressions weren't frozen for fear of "fagginess," and who weren't pumped full of 'roids.

15: Are you a fan of period dramas and if so, what era do you enjoy best?

-Yes. I love me some costume dramas, but I am seriously picky about them--most post-90s ones have been fucking awful and tend to feature shitty costumes and unkempt hair that would've sent real historical people to Bedlam, wobblycam from hell, vomit-inducingly excessive modernisation to be "edgy", and that one painfully skeletal bint they shove into every period drama ever these days, so it's... slim pickings for a history nerd, these days. There aren't many good ones set in the 17th century/Baroque era, which I love the most: the two Baroque dramas I wholeheartedly love are both series. (The Devil's Whore and By The Sword Divided.) The Angeliques and Musketeer adaptations are riddled with flaws, but there are some glowing bits within. As for The Golden Age of Islam... bloody hell, there really aren't that many good ones out there, are there?! ToB and Jodhaa Akbar and Disney's Aladdin, obviously. La Reine Margot isn't "my" period but it's great, as is Dangerous Liaisons (also not my period)--those are so fucking perfect. And the Connie period dramas, well... I think of them as primarily "silent movies" or "old movies," actually. Of those, The Student of Prague, ToB and The Wandering Jew are the best "costume" ones, IMHO. (I'd probs enjoy Lucrezia Borgia and Carlos and Elisabeth way more, were the copies we have not so smudgy.)

16: Name a movie you love that you would recommend to just about everyone.

-Ah, but we know there are always cynical cunts out there who'd give even Casablanca two stars, so what's the point? I'd still recommend it, though. And The Lion King, I guess.

17: Name a movie you love that you consider an acquired taste.

-Honestly, I'm thinking of telly rather than movies again. You will pry my cherished copy of The Time Monster from my cold, dead hands. Does The Devil of Winterborne count as a movie or TV? That's how far back my love for Mark Gatiss goes. Um... Don't Be A Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood makes me fucking cry with laughter (the comedic timing is what does it. *beat* "Ain't dat some shit!"). Of Connie's oeuvre, yes, I know Bella Donna is rubbish, but Connie and Mary are SIZZLING and horny and juicy and it's Valid as a BDSM porn movie. And the novel is actually good.

18: Name a film you like directed by/starring a filmmaker/actor you normally don't care for.

-Not so much actor/director, but I did *not* expect to love Thor as much as I did, because I expected a dumb popcorn movie but got great adventure cinema with a touch of Shakespeare instead. I really am not the right audience for regular Marvel features at all, before or after. Fuck Marvel up its dumb macho Republican ass. But Thor is fucking beautiful and operatic and poetic and majestic and Pagan and shit. Branagh knows what I like.

19: Name a movie that blew your mind.

-A Woman's Face (1941). Because. Holy. Fuck. How can I keep on finding yet more details in it six years after first watching it, having watched it countless times by now?! And obvs all the other stuff, like the shockingly good female POV, amazing and complex woman protagonist, amazing writing, amazing ensemble cast, amazing direction, amazing lighting, amazing evil Torsten Slinkypussy Barring and The. Goddamn. Attic. Scene.

20: What genre mash-up would you most love to see that either hasn't been done yet or hasn't been done enough?

-Feminist-savvy historical romance with fantasy elements and hot explicit sex that's not shit. Basically, like the stuff you see in my fics, but better paced and woven into coherent adventure movies.

21: The coolest movie you've ever seen

-Too, too many. But Bogie was the coolest. And Claude Rains had the best acting skills. And Conrad Veidt was Conrad motherfucking Veidt. So what with those three mountains of coolness all converging under the Moroccan sky, I'm sure it's safe to say "Casablanca."

#movies #personal #meme #i am leaving out tons i know #but i must attempt sleep nao #i was quoting don't be a menace to myself just yesterday ffs #every time there's an anvilly Point in a movie #i keep screaming 'mmESSAGE!'

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jackblankhsh · 6 years

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“Intercom” Every restoration job has its own unique challenges. Working on this 50s ranch house I stumbled on an attic full of angry squirrels. However, that doesn’t compare to this Chicago job I had. It seemed simple enough. Granted that’s a relative term, but it was nothing I never did before. I actually looked forward to it. Scraping and painting walls is definitely tedious, however, it’s a chance to turn off your brain. And I needed that. The job involved turning an old funeral home into a theater. I remember telling my boss, “This looks like the kind of place they buried people alive.” He remarked, “I wouldn’t be surprised if a cult did weird shit here.” “Isn’t weird shit part of being in a cult?” He laughed, “It’s good to see you joking.” “Indeed.” For weeks my mood could be described as gloomy. Having to wait for your girlfriend to stop being drooling high on cocaine so she understands it’s over — it’s not a recipe for rosy outlooks. Rebuilding rotted out homes just kept reminding me of her. I didn’t want to walk away, but fixing a home isn’t like repairing a person. Sure a hammer will get rid of a drug dealer, but it does nothing for personal cracks. Getting to work I soon noticed one detail about the building. In halls, and various rooms I found an old intercom system. A handheld earpiece, a gaping silver grate to speak into, and two bulbous mounds containing ringers — I always find old technology interesting. It’s familiar yet alien. I asked my boss, “Should we leave these? They might make like a sort of weird decoration.” He replied, “I actually said the same thing. The new owners want them out.” “Okay. I’ll do that next.” So I soon started going through the building removing the antique intercoms. They came out of the wall easy enough, and I left Paulie, a coworker, to deal with the wiring and holes. However, getting set to remove one from what used to be an embalming room, I heard a faint staticky hiss. Shaking my head — “Can’t be.” — I reached for the device. It rang. Doubting what I clearly heard, another shrill ring came from the intercom. Unsure what to do I plucked the earpiece off the hook. Holding it to my ear I spoke into the machine, “Hello?” “He’s coming,” a woman’s voice answered. “Who is this?” “You have to hide.” “Paulie, you fucking with me?” “Run.” An audible click. Hanging the headset on the hook I started hearing footsteps in the hall. Expecting to find Paulie, or my boss, creeping down the hall, I stepped out quickly, hoping to jump out and scare them. I saw a man approaching from the end of the hall. He reminded me of a withered tree — gaunt, bent, and crooked. Each footstep, though smooth, seemed like it should’ve caused him to stumble; his legs tossing his feet ahead flop-thudding on the floor. His weathered face looked like a pen sketch, dark lines in pale white. I said, “Who are you?” He stopped. His bloodshot eyes examined me a moment. Slowly a grin spread across his face revealing too many teeth. He said, “You’re not here yet,” and started forward. Pulling a hammer out of my tool belt I said, “Stay back.” He turned, and went into a nearby bathroom. I followed only to find nothing. The space allowed for a toilet, and a sink. It offered nowhere to hide. Yet he was gone. I told my boss. He thought I was screwing with him. “I’m telling the truth.” “Come on. This is a spooky place, but no way I’m believing that.” Maybe the look on my face made him add, “How about you get that last box then call it a day? I’ll meet ya at Mr. G’s later. We’ll have a beer, and chill.” “Fine,” I said storming off, “But I saw what I saw.” Right outside the room I heard the intercom ring. I thought about running to get someone. But something about the ringing felt like someone screaming. I ran to it, “Hello?” A woman’s voice again, “He’s killing us.” “Where are you?” She answered, “The embalming room.” I frowned. Looking around I didn’t see anybody. So I said, “I’m in there now. There’s nobody here.” She screamed, “He’s here! Help me! Hel...” Silence save for the hiss of static. “Hello?” I said, “Can you hear me?” More static until faint screams came over the intercom. Wet sounds like meat being tenderized. I stared at the box in mute horror. Then a voice, his voice, I recognized it from earlier, whispered thru the earpiece, “Soon.” “What?” He chuckled, “When we’re there on the same day, I’ll show you what happened to her.” Then I heard his voice behind me, “And that day is today.” I spun around. He stood two feet away, grinning that impossibly wide smile. I could hear him thru the earpiece, laughing from the past, even as he stood silent in the present. He reached for me. I didn’t think. I just grabbed my hammer, and swung. I can’t say how many times I hit him. The blows didn’t even make him blink. He just kept grinning until finally I hit him so hard the hammer imbedded itself in his head. He staggered back. He looked confused. Nodding he said, “I forgot this feeling.” Then he collapsed. I got my boss. We called the cops. They sent him to the hospital. One cop said, “Places like this, abandoned for years, homeless get in, and that’s all this was. He’s probably just a little nuts.” But I didn’t believe that, though I can’t say what I believe. I read some stuff online, only it’s hard to tell what facts, if any, are in an urban legend. Maybe I just don’t want to know the truth, what he was doing to people. It’s too grim.

#honestyisnotcontagious #writer #writing #horror #shortstory #short story #flashfiction #flash fiction #microfiction #weird #creepy #ghost story

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betelguwuse · 4 years

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So I just finished VHS and I absolutely loved it. One of the shorts was a bit lacking to me, but even that one was enjoyable to watch. The only big criticism I have is that like at least half the shorts showed a lot of unnecessary tiddy (the only one that didn’t feel totally unnecessary was the one where the whole plot is dudes tryin to make porn) but I mean it’s found footage and I get that irl people do show off to each other on video calls and yknow,, porn. So I can let it slide but I’m not gonna enjoy it lol. Also this goes for most found footage I’ve seen, but sometimes it’s really hard to make out who’s who and what’s going on. But overall it was really good.

There were a few comments (I watched it on shudder lol) calling the movie misogynistic, which I don’t get? I mean unless they were talking about the tiddy issue, but even that I don’t think was meant to be framed as a good thing.

Like the movie is 5 shorts in between breaks of an ongoing story of some dudes breaking into a house. They’re trying to steal some tapes, and what’s on them is the bunch of shorts we’re shown. So the overarching story of the guys in the house has nothing to do with women, except one scene where they gang up on and try to strip a woman in a parking lot, which I’m pretty sure is clearly meant to be a bad thing? I mean throughout the movie we’re shown that these guys are assholes (filming harassment of women for money, excessively saying slurs, breaking into a house for more tapes that could get them money). Yeah the characters are misogynistic from what we can tell, but that doesn’t mean the movie or director is condoning their actions.

Ok onto the actual shorts (I don’t know what any were called but I’m pretty sure theyre all in order in my head lol). I want to pick out whether the individual shorts were misogynistic at all (because I have literally nothing else to do) so for that I might have to spoil. Any spoilers will be crossed out so they’re at least a bit harder to read. And like, I’m no expert in feminism (I don’t consider myself one, but I’m not exactly anti either) but being a person with a brain and opinions I’m going to talk about it.

1: This was the only one I had any previous knowledge of going in, and I was absolutely terrified of watching this whole movie because of the jumpscare and bits of creepiness I’d seen lol. So it’s about this group of guys who are trying to make some porn, so they pick up some girls, take them clubbing, and then go to a hotel to smash. Without spoilers, one of the girls acts really really friccin creepy and I think this one scared me the most overall, even knowing the basics of what would happen. Honestly I’m surprised the internet hasn’t turned her into a meme or waifu like some people did with Momo lol. I for one really want to draw her now (but also I’m terrified of looking up reference photos 👊😔). I think I read that they made a full movie-length version of this story but I could be wrong.

Spoilers: So what happens is this creepy girl is some kind of monster who lures men in to have sex with her, so she can eat them and rip their dicks off and all that fun shit. So like a siren, but on land? Honestly I don’t even know if it’s accurate to say she lures them in, because she really didn’t do anything, the guys kinda just found her and decided to use her? Also I think she had wings?? But again, handheld camera, hard to see everything. I think that what makes this one is that while she is creepy, she doesn’t really seem dangerous, or even like she wants to be there at all. Like when the guys give her and another girl drugs, the other girl seems ok with it, but it seemed to bother the creepy girl a bit. She had this innocent vibe to her that just makes her even more creepy. And then it’s even more shocking when she starts eating these bois. So yeah I don’t think this one was misogynistic at all. The male characters just wanted to exploit her and profit from her body, and she didn’t say no but she didn’t say yes either, which is pretty interesting to see. It’s not like she tricked the guys because she never actually consented to sex. All I remember her saying was “I like you” a few times. 10/10 we love a lady who eats her attempted rapists.

2: This is the one I wasn’t entirely satisfied with, but it was very good and enjoyable nonetheless. It’s about this couple on a road trip in,, I wanna say Arizona? I’m Canadian, I’ve never heard of a state in my life. So anyway they’re at a hotel in the middle of the desert, there are a few parts that were pretty creepy but didn’t actually mean anything in the story, like there was this fortune telling machine that I thought would be something supernatural, and a scene where they’re climbing around a canyon which was just generally anxiety inducing lol. But what the story is actually about is that someone is stalking them. This one I can discuss the misogyny levels without spoilers. There’s one bit where the guy is trying to get the girl to take off her shirt, and she says only if you turn the camera off. Which he doesn’t, and after a little argument he finally accepts the no. So like, dick move, but only a tiny part of the story.

Spoilers: there are some creepy scenes of the stalker recording them both while they sleep, and stealing their money and stuff, and then later stabs the guy in the neck. But then it’s revealed that the stalker is actually two people and they film themselves making out in the bathroom mirror. I couldn’t tell if it was a guy/girl or two girls, and since it was that hard to see their faces it just occurred to me that one of them might’ve actually been the gf? Like we didn’t see what happens to her after, and it’d definitely be a more satisfying ending for her to have betrayed her bf and not just some rando stalkers. Hm. Still unclear but good.

3: This one was really fun, it’s these 4 college aged friends who take a trip to the woods, it’s pretty tropey like cabin in the woods, there’s the final girl, the slut, the nerd, and the popular jockish dude. Which I’m pretty sure was on purpose since it’s kind of a slasher. Otherwise I’d be a bit more critical of the ‘slut’ character who Literally Never Shuts Up About Sex in this short lol. But I think that was meant to be a comedic choice. Idk. Other than that, no issue. So basically final girl has kinda organized this whole trip but she starts acting weird and saying creepy stuff about things that had happened in the forest. This one really felt like a creepypasta, but like the best kind. I really love what they did with the bad guy. I really don’t want to spoil this one, so don’t read the spoilers unless you’re sure you’ll never watch it. It’s great.

Spoilers: So the twist is that final girl had been here before with her friends and was the only survivor of a massacre by some monster in the woods. So now by taking these new people on the trip she’s trying to lure the monster out using them as bait, because nobody believed her after the last trip when she told people it wasn’t human. So we get a bunch of cool deaths, and that sweet sweet betrayal. I was kinda surprised by how much they lingered on some of the gore but that’s not really an issue for me. It did suck to see the main girl die, but I mean it’s found footage not ‘I killed a monster and totally got away, here watch’ footage.

4: This one was actually really cool in terms of like ~feminism~ or whatever. I mean it doesn’t even have to be read as some kind of feminist theme, but that was just the vibe I got. I really don’t think I can go into detail on those themes without spoilers, but the basic premise is that this girl is video chatting her bf (who’s away for school or something) and she’s worried that there are ghosts in her apartment. There’s a neat backstory about something similar happening to her when the guy was away during her childhood, like weird bruises and other injuries she doesn’t remember, so it definitely keeps you interested. Also another one I reeeally don’t want to spoil because the twist is so cool.

Spoilers: So the truth is the guy actually was nearby the whole time (possibly in her place because he rushes in the room pretty quickly when she’s attacked), and it turns out that it’s not ghosts, but aliens, and the bf is using the gf to put trackers and alien babies in her, and tricking her into thinking she just got in some weird accident and forgot, which leads her to get misdiagnosed with something like schizophrenia. I mean it’s a perfect metaphor for gaslighting (he’s not hurting me, I’m just crazy), and while that’s not an exclusively feminist theme by any means (both genders are capable of abuse, and both genders are capable of being victims!) it being a theme here shows that this short is absolutely not misogynistic at all. Honestly I’m surprised I haven’t seen more people talk about this one. It’s really really great in terms of the plot, twists, and underlying themes my dumb brain came up with.

5: This one is really really cool, at first I was a little bored with it, but then you’re kinda like hm what’s going on, and then you’re like oh okay that’s going on. Coolcoolcool. So basically these 4 dudes are going to a Halloween party and they’re kinda lost, and they end up at this huge house, so they go in and it’s empty but really big and creepy so they’re like ‘maybe we’re early, or it’s more of a haunted house than a party’ stuff like that, so a bit of it is just the guys exploring the house and vaguely creepy stuff happening in the background. I’m just gonna leave it at that because like, it’s not exactly a twist but it is really unexpected.

Spoilers: So they hear people talking upstairs in the attic and they’re like ‘o nice we found the party’ but no it’s a literal cult chanting and beating up this girl they have tied up. The cult leader is like ‘wtf get outta here’ and the guys kinda get chased away, but one dumbass just had to be like ‘no man we gotta save her’ (king tbh. ur sacrifice will be remembered) so they all go back up there, beat up the cult guys, and get the girl out of there. But that’s when the really creepy stuff happens in the house, like dishes throw themselves at the guys and arms reach out of the walls (I’d actually seen this bit before in a try not to be scared compilation, but I didn’t know what it was from lol) but they do get out and into their car. But then the girl just disappears and the car stops working, and then they see her out the window and she looks kinda demony, and oop their car is stopped on a train track aaa. This one I’m kinda torn on, like about the misogyny thing, because yeah having the only female in the cast being a demon and justifying the cult’s treatment of her is iffy, but at the same time...dude she’s literally a demon, I’d be chaining her up too lol. So yeah I’m definitely leaning toward the not misogynistic side.

Overall I don’t see this movie as that misogynistic at all, and it’s otherwise just a really really good time. Definitely recommend.

#movie review #v/h/s #horror #vhs #feminism

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