#what to do in jekyll island

[jeonginsleftcheek]

Stray Kids with an S/O who is a huge horror movie fan

pairing: ot8 x gn!reader

genre: fluff

disclaimer: this is as always just my opinion :)

a/n: as a huge horror movie fan myself, I had to write this! enjoy!🩷

Chan:

As he said before, it's not like he's scared of horror movies, he just doesn't think they're interesting to watch. But, you're interesting to him and he loves you so he will definitely try for you. He also thinks he won't get scared cause 'nothing scares him' but oh boy was he wrong. You have to promise him extra cuddles because he's not gonna be able to fall asleep that night. Will also try to dissect the plot with you after the movie, and try to find meaning in the story just so it's less scary to him.

If he was never really invested into the horror genre, you could show him the classics like The Shining(1980), The Omen(1976), The Amityville Horror (1979), Psycho(1960) and then also some newer iconic movies like Get Out(2017), The Ring(2002), Sinister(2012), Hereditary(2018) and The Conjuring(2013).

Minho:

Loves it. Loves to try and scare you while you're watching a movie together. At first, you're so happy that you can share your love for horror with your significant other. And you know he really doesn't like jumpscares, so you try to find movies that don't have many of those. But if they do and Minho predicts a jumpscare, he'll grab you at the same time it's happening, making you jump out of your skin even though you saw the movie already. You kinda start regretting watching horror movies with him because he annoys you on purpose. He thinks you're so adorable when you're mad at him, but he wont push too far and he'll always make it up with cuddles and kisses later. Overall, 10/10 experience.

I feel like he'd watch almost any horror movie cause he's a curious cat (hehe) and you'd both share your favorites.

I don't know why, but I also feel like Minho would appreciate good old silent horror movies. I just think if he's a horror fan he may enjoy seeing the roots of horror. Like The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari(1920), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde(1920), The Phantom Carriage(1921), Nosferatu(1922) and Häxan(1922).

Changbin:

I don't think he's too scared of them but I think he doesn't really care for them too much? Though, if you have some interesting thriller or detective movies to recommend he will definitely wanna watch them with you. I think Changbin likes a movie that has an intelligent story with a plot twist. He likes to guess what's gonna happen next and when he's actually right he'll be so happy and proud. He'll keep talking about how he guessed the plot and how smart he is and how you have to give him extra cuddles now. Either way, you're cuddling and snacking the whole time while watching and it's just nice and cozy.

I think he'd enjoy thrillers like The Game(1997), Fracture(2007), The Machinist(2004), The Double(2013), Shutter Island(2010), Zodiac(2007) and 1408(2007).

Hyunjin:

Miss him with that shit cause he ain't watching it unless you manage to coax him into it. It's gonna take a lot of persuading until he finally gives in but you have to be careful in choosing the right movie for Hyunjin. He doesn't like loud noises and he doesn't really like to feel scared. He'd rather watch something for the story, especially if it's an emotional one, and he also likes character driven stories.

I think he could watch artsy or slow creepy movies that are more drama-like but have elements of horror like Pan's Labyrinth(2006), Dark Water(2005), Windchill(2007), It Follows(2014), The Eyes Of My Mother(2016), I'm Thinking Of Ending Things(2020) and Case 39(2009).

Jisung:

Okay, with this one you can go crazy. Any weird horror movie, anything kinda disturbing, deranged or unhinged will be right up his ally. As a horror and anime fan himself, he's seen some pretty weird stuff so experiment, I guess. I also feel like he'd like fun horror movies, idk how to explain but ones that are disturbing but fun at the same time, like you can't look away even though you're looking at a train wreck.

Movies like Funny Games(2007), The Ruins(2008), Suspiria(1977), The Perfection(2018), Perfect Blue(1997), May(2002), Audition(2000), Saw franchise and Terrifier series would be fun for him. Also, since he mentioned Paranormal Activity, found footage horror movies would be fun to watch with Jisung too like Creep(2014), REC(2007), Unfriended(2015) and Cloverfield(2008).

Felix:

This is just not happening unless you can bribe him with cookies, gummies or any other sweets and ofcourse many cuddles and kisses, even more than you share usually. You'll have to practically beg him to watch a horror movie with you or make some kind of compromise that you'll participate in some activity he likes more than you later. He's not gonna sleep all night if you make him watch anything too scary, actually he wouldn't even be watching that. He'd probably be hidden in your neck the whole time and even the creepy sounds coming from the tv will give him nightmares.

The only way to make him watch horror movies is if they're mixed with comedy or they're so bad that they're funny. Like the Scream franchise, The Cabin In The Woods(2011), What We Do In The Shadows(2014), The Happening(2008), Tucker & Dale vs. Evil(2010), Housebound(2014) and ofcourse zombie comedies like One Cut Of The Dead(2017) and Shaun Of The Dead(2004).

Seungmin:

Kind of indifferent towards the scares but I think he gets annoyed with plot holes and characters acting stupid. Rolls his eyes at every over used trope or cliche sentence. You actually end up laughing while watching horror movies with him because he's too cute when he's annoyed.

"How is this killer still alive? He's been run over by a truck ten times, this is stupid!" or "Okay but why is he going towards the sound? Is he that dumb, he's gonna die!"

He does like dry humor though so he'd like some black comedy movies with horror elements like American Psycho(2000), Parasite(2019), The Lobster(2015), The Menu(2022) but also if you want to annoy him on purpose (because he's cute when he gets worked up) show him slashers like the Halloween franchise, Friday the 13th franchise and Black Christmas(2019).

Jeongin:

With Jeongin, I feel like it can go either way and it definitely depends on the theme of the movie. Also, he will probably try to act brave in front of you (until he jumps at a loud sound and then gets embarassed). For some reason I don't have an exact subgenre of horror for him but for some reason I feel like he'd like newer horror movies like Us(2019), Nope(2022), Last Night In Soho(2021), His House(2020), Host(2020), The Invisible Man(2020) and Fear Street film series.

[malfoyfarms]

She Wanted You

JJ Maybank x Routledge!Reader

Word Count:1.4k

Warnings:none

A/n: angst bc im boycotting watching season three LOL, not my gif

“What do you mean she left?” JJ questioned, dumbfounded. He didn’t realize it, but he was walking into a war zone. The Chateau no longer had the same feel. It was like someone sucked the air out, and pumped smog in. 

With tears in his eyes, John B pointed towards his sister’s room. Sarah and Pope were lingering in there, but JJ had no idea why. The room was oddly neat, incredibly out of character of the girl who resided there. Her closet was emptier than usual, the three picture frames that once had pictures of her with her family and friends were empty. What caught JJ’s eyes next, made his mouth go dry. His breath was no longer there. The navy sweatshirt he had given her years ago was folded, on the bed, next to the pillow he always claimed during their relationship. Atop the sweatshirt was a ring from a gumball machine, an orange and green friendship bracelet made of paracord, and a pile of notes written on scraps of random papers. Every other personal belonging was missing from its spot. 

JJ tore through the girl’s nightstand, and when he realized the box of her life savings was gone, he let out a string of colorful words and kicked the stand.

“Here, you should read this.” Sarah handed him a neatly written note. By the tear stains on Pope’s face, the somber tone from the kook, and JB’s raging anger, it was a farewell. 

He took a deep breath, and swiped the letter from Sarah. The familiar handwriting was already pulling at his heart.

J,

I’ve rewritten this letter four times already, and I still don’t know how to put my thoughts into actual words. Firstly, I love you. I love you until the waves stop coming in. I love you so much that I knew I needed to leave. I’ve known since you wandered home with John B in third grade, and gave me all the answers (even though they were wrong) to my math homework that if there was going to be another boy in my life, he was going to have to fight you for that spot. From 7 years old, I only ever wanted you. But over the last two years, I can see that I’m not the one for you. And that is why I’m leaving. One of the only things that got me through my day was seeing you smile, but I understand that there is someone else who causes those crinkles by your eyes.

I have to leave because it’s too painful. I need time to have all your kisses leave my body, I need to leave because I can’t smell the ocean, listen to Akon and Konvict, or even wash my fucking clothes without thinking of you. I see you in body language, in the waves, in every damn aspect of my life. Not only are we ingrained on this island, but you are ingrained in me. If I’m ever going to come home I need to remove every trace. 

I told you last week, I’d always be on your team, even from a distance. I need you to pursue Kiara because there is nothing more I want for you than happiness. Deep down, I know it will always be her. While that sentence feels like a shot, I’m coming to terms with it. 

Don’t try to come find me, either. I won’t be going to any of the places we’ve ever talked about, I do have my secrets still. Not Yucatan, not Tybee, and certainly not Jekyll. Take care of my brother.

All my love, 

Y/N

“When did you and Y/N break up?” Sarah asked. JJ couldn’t even think straight. Y/N and the boy broke up about a week ago, for that specific reason, JJ thought there was something there with Kiara. He didn’t think the girl would pick up her stuff and bolt. Leave her brother, her best friends, and the life she claimed to love. 

“I, uh, initiated it last week or so,” he stuttered, “it wasn’t definite or anything, but it was insinuated I guess. We had a conversation about it, but I don’t think I ever could have said it out loud.”

“Oh,” she thought. “You know she really loved you with every bone in her body.”

He sucked in a deep breath to try to keep his tears at bay. How could he walk out to the front room and face John B. He was the reason the youngest Routledge had left. With Big John gone, she was all he had left. Hell, with Luke gone, she was all JJ had too. In some form he robbed his friends of a family member. 

JJ laid down on the neatly made bed and latched onto the sweatshirt that smelled just like her. His memory flooded with images of Y/n in that sweatshirt. From it covering her bikini when they went night swimming, it being the one sweatshirt that was specifically for after she came home from school, the one thing that grounded her when she was having a rough day. JJ felt his chest start to tighten, and his hands were clammy and shaking. 

“I thought you said you’d never break her heart!” JB screamed. Impeccable timing. 

“John B don’t–” Sarah tried to interject.

“No Sarah, he promised. He promised me almost three years ago that if I gave him permission to date Y/n, he wouldn’t hurt her. He knew he’d be breaking more than just her heart. And now I can’t even help her pick up the pieces. I can’t fix my baby sister, the way she fixed each and every one of us!” 

“Bro, you think this is what I wanted? I had a conversation with her. Nothing was definitive. It’s not my fault she took her shit and ran!”

“When has Y/n ever not taken her feelings and ran? Name one time!”

JJ sat there in thought, and there had been one time she didn’t run, and he had promised that he wouldn’t tell. He was going to anyway.

“When you disappeared. I held her while she cried herself to sleep for nights on end. So don’t act like I never treated her right. You know I did.” JB ran his hands through his hair and left the room. 

“Until you decided you may have feelings for the girl who is like her big sister.” That stung. 

“What’s going on?” Kie asked.

“She’s gone.” John B said. “‘Cuz JJ’s in love with you.”

~~

JJ sat in the hammock, wearing the navy sweatshirt he hadn’t worn in years. It smelled just like her. He could even feel the marks of where she rolled the sleeves and dug her thumbs into the side. 

He barely remembered last week’s conversation about Kie, but never did he think that it would cause you to disappear. Y/n was so incredibly loyal. She wanted him. Every. Damn. Day. She wanted him when the clouds were out, and the usually blue sky was gray. She wanted him when he was bruised and beat up, she wanted him when he was crabby after a 14 hour shift, she wanted him at every hour of the day in any way she could have him. 

It was just a conversation, he thought. He never flat out said that he was leaving her for the tanned, wealthy kook. 

He felt so fucking stupid. He felt so much self-hatred. He remembered when they were 12 and 14, and Y/n wanted to walk to the gas station a few streets over, but John B wouldn’t go with her. He remembered what she usually bought. Peach iced tea, sour straws and a bag of munchie mix. Every single time. 

He remembered when the girl got drunk for the first time and dialed him to come get her. God, she was so inebriated. She clung to the boy, giggling profusely. That was the first night she ever told the boy she loved him. Y/n never knew it, but JJ kept that memory locked in his head. 

He pondered the time she was ready to give him her virginity. He remembered how nervous she was, but how much she trusted him. 

It had grown dark by the time he wandered back into the Chateau. He was surprised JB didn’t kick him out, he fully expected to be out on the streets by now. As he stumbled towards the bedrooms, he went past his own, and fully dove into the light purple sheets he had come to love. She’ll come back, he thought. She has to.

[systempolling]

[watchmorecinema]

Sometimes an adaptation is so strong that it eclipses the source material, so any deviations are assumed to be canonical to the original. This is also true for anything that just happened to filter through pop culture, like King Kong or Godzilla. Some examples that I found:

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a mystery! It's from the point of view of a different character who tries to uncover the relationship between the two characters. Every single adaptation is about how they're both the same person affected by a crazy experiment.

King Kong references just focus on the climax where he climbs the Empire State Building, but most of the movie is about going to the island and what they find there. Natives that revere him as a god, dinosaurs and giant snakes are all present.

Moby Dick is maybe 10% about a guy trying to hunt a white whale and the rest of it is a lot of history and philosophy.

Blade Runner feels like it was based on a dream someone had after reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but without remembering all the details. In the book Deckard is married, owns a machine that helps him experience specific intense emotions, is part of a new age religion based around taking care of animals, has dreams with other people, gets arrested for being a replicant, etc. Every character basically just shares a name, and any events that actually occur in both still end completely differently. There's a scene where Deckard gives a test to someone and finds out they're a replicant. In the movie the creator is pleased because she's a replicant that isn't aware she's a replicant, and she's been passing their tests without being able to pass the police test. In the book they claim she's a human as a way of forcing Deckard to drop the case. It's the exact opposite conclusion.

Blade Runner in particular is the really odd one because it's the only one where the film didn't ruin the book for me. I already know the broad strokes or the important scenes in King Kong, Jekyll and Hyde, Dracula, etc. so there's nothing much there for me to get. Androids is so different from Blade Runner that I had no idea where the story was going to go next and it ended up being a really exciting read for me.

Any piece of media that is adapted and referenced endlessly is probably very, very good and definitely better than the references are so they're worth searching out. If all you know about the Twilight Zone are the Futurama parodies then you are missing out on some prime television.

[vamptember]

VAMPIRE PARTY VAMPIRE PARTY!!!!!! 

For the month of September please join us in MAKING VAMPIRE STUFF!! Do some of them, do all of them, combine them, rearrange them! As much or as little as you need! Fic, art, headcanons, playlists, fic recs, meta, anything you can think of!, all welcome! Base it on the book, or the show, or the musical, or the movie, (or even that other movie ) ! Canon or AU! Bring your OCs! 

 RULES 1. There are no rules. Please have fun! 2. Each day has 3 options, in case one doesn’t speak to you! Pick one or combine, up to you! 3. Tag your posts #vamptember so that we can reblog! If your post isn’t showing in the tag please don’t hesitate to DM it to us!

Daily prompts (3/day) under the cut! 

1. Double Date / The devil’s in the details  / Road trip  2. Reverse AU / “Tell me a story” / Ring 3. Protection / Dream / Sacrament 4. Messy Eater / Forgiveness / Danger 5. Fire / “I love that I hate you” / Prayer 6. 1960s / Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde / Motel Room 7. Free Day 8. Funeral / Movie / Unanswerable Questions 9. Genderswap / “Look what you made me do” / Brow Kiss 10. Confession / Desert Island / Monsters 11. Sin / Letter / Cooking 12. Pets / “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it” / Humor 13. Car Ride / Mirror / Photograph 14. Free Day 15. Stargazing / Alarm  / Dead Dove Do Not Eat 16. Modern AU / “I need you to lie to me.” / Phone Call 17. Family / The Opera / First Kill 18. Caretaking / Party Favor  / Garden 19. Music / “It should’ve been you” / Postcards 20. Self Discovery / Interrogate  / POV switch 21. Free Day 22. “Come get me.” / Doll  / Social Media Influencer 23. College AU / Patient / Group Chat 24. Shelter / Therapy / Cold Skin 25. “I found you.”  / Fairy Tale / Gift 26. Kill Gone Wrong / Time Travel / The Queen 27. “Why are you like this?” / Folklore /  Child 28. Free Day 29. Burlesque/Vaudeville / Keys / “They won’t find your body.” 30. Alternate Universe / Ghost / Museum

[ohtobeleah]

How does Fanboy react after he kicks Hyde out after they first sleep together? Because we all know he isn’t a bad guy. He’s just traumatized.

Tomorrow we get the prologue for Jekyll & Hyde so buckle up for that one. But as for your question I think it goes something like this.

***~***~***~***~

“So, I've just checked in with Hyde.” Jake explained as he came down to sit next to Mickey on the back deck of his humble abode. “She said she's pretty messed up.” Jake was still trying to figure out what the hell happened. “But she's okay–she's home, safe.” What went wrong. Things seemed good between you and Fanboy. So what the hell happened that had him sending you out his front door before you could even get your clothes on.

All Mickey did was nod in response as little Logan played on his mat with some of his toys right at Mickey's feet. He had a blanket around his shoulders, Jake thought it was kinda ugly but he wasn't going to mention it. 

“This was my wifes blanket.” Mickey started as he stared off into the backyard. His mind was racing a million miles an hour through a rolodex of memories he had with her. “I always hated this stupid thing, it's not soft, it's not warm, it's not a great colour.” Well, at least Jake wasn't the only one who thought it was ugly. “She had it since college, since before we moved in together, but she brought it with her when we did.” Jake didn't say anything as he let Mickey speak, perhaps this would explain a little bit about what happened the morning just gone. 

“She made a bed in front of our old fireplace for us a few times, before Logan was born.” It felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago all at once. “And now she's gone, and I've still got this stupid blanket.” Mickey didn't have the heart to leave it behind in Maine. He brought it with him to North Island with a box full of his wifes things he couldn't part with or give to her family. “I freaked out this morning–” 

“So I heard.” Jake didn't think he’d ever be able to forget what you sounded like over the phone, so distraught and out of sorts. “Are you okay?” It wasn't a question Mickey actually expected Jake Seresin to ask, he knew you and him were closer than he and Jake would ever be, so it felt odd that Jake was sitting by his side right now and not yours. “So, you brought Hyde home and it was terrible? Big deal.” Jake tried to lighten the mood a little, but when Mickey didn't say anything Jake pressed a little further. “It wasn't terrible then?” Mickey again didn't say anything, but Jake knew deep down you weren't terrible at anything you did–so that logic surely had to translate over to the bedroom, right? “So why did you freak out?” 

“That's the problem, it was kind of incredible.” Mickey sighed as Logan giggled to himself at the music box he was playing with. “She was going to leave–” He added as he ran his hands down his face to try to stop himself from crying. “But then we just fell asleep, and then when we woke up and I–she was just there and I–” Mickey didn't know how to explain it. “Everyone said I was ready, you said I was ready,” Mickey pointed out to Jake that he played a part in this. He had a problem of getting in the middle of people's relationships at the moment. “You said I would be okay so I thought I should just do it and get it over with.” Being with someone for the first time after losing the love of your life wasn't easy. Everyone had warned Fanboy that it would be different. “But I wasn't ready for it, to be–” 

“Good?” Jake asked as he tried to fill in the gaps. 

“Amazing–” Mickey corrected Jake as quickly as he could. “I don't think I was ready for Hyde to be as amazing as she is, just as a person in general and I don’t think I’m gonna ever be prepared to move on.” It hadn’t been all that long since Mickey lost his wife which mar this so much harder—he liked you a lot, but he hated himself for liking you the way he did. He felt he was moving on too quickly.

“Have you considered maybe just talking to Hyde about all this?” Jake asked as he watched Logan crawl a little, he was just starting out, so the occasional face plant was to be expected. “She's like you said man, amazing, and I'm sure if you just sat down with her and explained that you aren't ready she'd accept it, because that's gonna hurt a hell of a lot less than being kicked out of bed before you can even get dressed.” 

“That's the problem too.” Mickey sighed in utter defeat, he didn't know what to do or how to even begin to explain his emotions right now. “I'm falling in love with her, I can feel it, but I don't know if that's fair on her.” 

[starseedpatriot]

Edward Griffin:

"When I did my research on this topic I came to the conclusion that the Federal Reserve system does not need to be audited, it needs to be abolished. The reason I say that is because if they audit the Federal Reserve system they would find out that it is doing exactly what it's supposed to do.. It's all out in the open...It's one of the greatest scams of all history. Out on the surface.."

7 reasons to abolish the FED:

-It is incapable of accomplishing its stated objectives

-It is a cartel operating against the public interests

-It is the supreme instrument of usury

-It generates our most unfair tax

-It encourages war

-It destabilizes the economy

-It is an instrument of totalitarian control

Rumble Link:

https://rumble.com/v2d0ywq-do-not-audit-the-fed-abolish-it.-edward-griffin.html

https://pepelivesmatter.substack.com/p/the-creature-from-jekyll-island

[ptseti]

Congo Ben is an extremely obscure figure in history, with nothing but a brief mention of him in 1909 in a newspaper article called Voodooism in the South. He sounded like an interesting character, so I decided to honour him as an ancestor from the Congo using what information we could glean from the one paragraph written about him in history. As it turns out, there is so much to learn from him, his life, and his history.

In Voodooism in the South, written in 1909, Congo Ben was described like this: "Congo Ben, who only recently died on Bayou Teche, was one of the Africans imported on the Wanderer. He had all the marks of a Congo warrior on his left cheek, the scars made by deep knife cuts parallel with each other about two and a half inches long. Ben was the possessor of much mysterious knowledge. He could make Voudou fetiches, charm snakes, and do many other things. Besides this, he was an excellent gardener and was always docile, industrious, and faithful.

He was very often affected with "misery" in his back and the only remedy which could be applied successfully was liberal doses of whiskey taken internally. This always brought him "around all right." Congo Ben was also a famous hand at curing snake bites, but he would never disclose what he used in the remedies he applied."

From the 1909 newspaper article, we learn Congo Ben arrived in the United States on November 28, 1858, at Jekyll Island, Georgia on the Wanderer, a notorious slave ship engaged in illegal human trafficking of Africans from the Congo. Its crew smuggled ashore an estimated 409 enslaved people - most of them teenage boys. The 19th-century ship was built as an "opulent pleasure yacht with a sinister underside: a hidden deck where hundreds of enslaved Africans were held captive and illegally trafficked into the United States."

The Wanderer was the last ship to illegally transport enslaved people from Africa to Georgia and one of the final vessels involved in the smuggling of enslaved individuals onto American soil. Congo Ben fell victim to this criminal conspiracy for human trafficking, and his story is the story of all 409 kidnapped Africans taken from the African Congo to Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1858. Congo Ben died on Bayou Teche sometime around 1909. #Africa

[burningvelvet]

to cope with my post-binge blues from watching black sails, i just finished the treasure island audiobook. it's my first time with any treasure island media - now i have to watch the muppets movie. any way here are my thoughts:

- i knew the character of trelawney had to be based on the romantic era edward john trelawny of byron/shelley fame and I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sources: WONG, AMY R. “The Poetics of Talk in Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island.’" A Sandison Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism

- i know that black sails isn't fully intended to be a perfect prequel or meant to be taken as filling in all of the gaps to treasure island but i'm still going to compare & contrast the two lol

- billy spending his whole life obsessed with flint and having alcohol withdrawal induced hallucinations about him. OMG. and i'm shocked that they just casually dropped that he visited flint in georgia to get the map like did flint request to see him before he died, was it just about the map, or did he want closure about the whole thing, did billy seek flint out, why didn't they kill each other, how the fuck did that whole thing go? i need more information dammit

- saw another post on here talking about how in black sails flint has that speech about the drunk guy named flint asking his grandpa for rum before disappearing into the sea and then in treasure island we find out flints last words were asking a "darby mcgraw" for rum before he died SO IN THE BLACK SAILS UNIVERSE DARBY IS HIS GRANDPA and so im wondering DID FLINT 1.0 EVER EXIST AT ALL OR WAS IT SIMPLY FORESHADOWING ALL ALONG but at the same time it doesnt matter because the black sails creators said the ending is intentionally canonically up to interpretation and black sails canon and treasure island canon dont match up any way but still it gives us so much to think about bc we never canonically find out who the fuck darby is

- the doctor is the funniest character ever and him giving zero shits about billy or silver is hilarious LMAO

- rly enjoy the descriptions of the contents of billy's pockets and chest. i love old shit and that whole nautical aesthetic ugh. im currently wondering about the significance of the five sea shells billy had (jim wonders abt them too) if they were souvenirs from the island or what... but we never find out!!

- and what the fuck was up with those black spots I NEED ANSWERS! It worked on Billy but not Silver?

- having grown up on PotC i'm very enthused at the references (the song, the rum, "dead mens chest," etc)

- wish we saw more of jims mom, she was lowkey a badass for a moment there telling everyone off and willing to face the wrath of the pirates with her son lol

- love how the men just take jim on for his valour and then decide to make him a cabinboy and the mom just gets a replacement son to help her around the house lmaoooo i wonder if that was a common thing for single women to do though?

- long john silver has a sort of jekyll/hyde personality (btw the author stevenson also wrote jekyll/hyde for those of you who dont know!) - also why the fuck did they leave him to his own devices toward the end and not have a gun on him 24/7 like? i was also shocked that he didnt run off with all the gold only some of it. most chaotic character ever

- my biggest questions are why did black sails take out the alcoholism and the sea shanties? but importantly the alcholism - if they were going for gritty, as they were? flint and billy's alcoholism is integral to their characters (defines their characters actually) in the book as contrasted by silvers moderation & thats rly interesting. and the lack of singing is just boring - pirates rly did have sea shanties - however i can understand for time constraints per episode and whatnot them taking out the singing for practicality - but the alcoholism again is integral to those characters as well as being historically accurate and realistic & would have added a lot imo

EDIT: immediately after posting this i realized that since there are a few years between the treasure burial and flint's supposed death in georgia, he could have become a drunk in that time if we're creating a black sails to treasure island timeline, and billy wouldn't have become a drunk til later on since black sails is set roughly 20 yrs before treasure island.

HOWEVER - by the talks of it in treasure island, and all the pirates referring to flint as a drunk etc., it would still seem that flint was always that way when they knew him, prone to drinking... but at the same time i guess you could say all the characters are jollier than in black sails as indicated by their singing and their more stereotypical piratey ways.

however i still think the alcoholism & addiction theme would have added an extra layer to everything especially after flints sad drunk scene with eleanor. also in toby stephens deep fathoms interview he said flint is essentially like an addict when it comes to his delusion & desires. anyway i digress

transcript here, audio is on youtube: https://www.justsaypodcast.com/blog/2018/12/18/transcript-interview-with-toby-stephens-of-black-sails

[xox000xox]

“It’s a CARTEL! It’s certainly NOT a government agency, it just has the appearance of a government agency, and they went through great lengths to give it that FACADE.”

“It does have the power of GOVERNMENT, because CONGRESS gave them that power.”

“It’s nothing different than a banana cartel or a oil cartel, these guys are just a BANKING CARTEL.”

“They got together and drew up the rules and regulations for their own industry. They self-regulate the industry, it’s EXACTLY what CARTELS do.”

“If you don’t OBEY the BANKING CARTEL’S rules that they set for their own industry, then you go to prison - That is the ONLY reason that ordinary people think about, The Federal Reserve as a government agency.”

-George Edward Griffin, Author of ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’

[daywalkers-fic]

12. why the 1880s?

something about this decade really sings to me. I find in particular, nearing the end of the nineteenth century, so much was happening on around the world in terms of arts, politics, technology, colonization. world events and global news don’t personally reach the day-to-day lives of the everyday folk, but they are an important part in gauging what life, thought, and society was about—what things were important then and now?

basically for myself, reminding me of notable things that occured during the 1880s—some thematic, some of relevance to context and characters, and the rest just ?? interesting and/or wild?

cocaine is a hot new cure for everything and anything. perscribed, sold in foods and more. heroine introduced as a lesser-addictive substitute for morphine…

lots of developments in fields of psychology; many experiments and happenings; Freud starts his work 1886.

1880-1914 had +twenty million immigrants to the United States: Germany, Ireland, England, China had the most arrivals.

William Dorsey Swann, the first self-proclaimed drag queen, organizes a series of drag balls in Washington, D.C. 1880-1890s.

Jack the Ripper claims his “first” victim in 1888 White Chapel, London. big scare.

Sherlock Holmes first appears in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study In Scarlet as part of the British magazine’s Beeton’s Christmas Annual in 1887.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is published in 1886. Gothic fiction, drawing from emerging fields of science and psychology. & Treasure Island was published earlier in 1883 by him too!

Mark Twain drops The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889).

Bel-Ami, Guy de Maupassant’s second novel is published in 1885. about a man who seduces and manipulates high society French women in the French colonies for power and wealth. MOVIE WAS ADAPTED IN 2012 STARTING ROBERT PATTINSON LOL

western European art movements very romantic and swirly and pretty: Monet, Debussy xoxo.

meanwhile, African American ragtime music becomes the “pop” music across the pond here.

North Dakota (1889), South Dakota (1889), Montana (1889), Washington (1889) become states.

train segregation laws flag beginning of Jim Crow; Civil Rights Movement of 1875 voided, making discrimination in private is not illegal, and prohibiting state intervention to personal or commercial segregation. l*nching continues throughout the south. slavery may be over on paper, but indentured labour is legal.

1882 infamous O.K Corral gunfight.

Gold Rush continues, all over the world—South Africa, to British Columbia, to California, to Argentina, to Russia-China borders.

centuries of American “Indian” wars continue.

American Dawes Act of 1887 granted American government authorization to regulate indigenous lands, including creating and assigning and enforcing reservations.

Sitting Bull’s 1883 speech of the atrocities experienced at the hands of white American settler colonists.

Canadian Pacific Railway 1881-1885. foreign labourers were hired to do a lot of heavy, dangerous, unwanted work. in America, more than 100,000km of tracks were laid by majority Chinese, Irish, Scandinavian workers.

America’s Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 was officiated, enforcing law of a Head Tax to be paid for every Chinese person entering North America. over the course of the next couple of decades, the fee of $1,500 was doubled to $5,000 was increased 500% to $25,000 in today’s currency—per person. this had devastating and lasting impacts on generations and societies of Chinese living both overseas and already in North America. propaganda at this time created many racist myths that persist today: there are too many Asians, they are taking our jobs, (the men) are gross and effeminate and a threat to (white) women, they shady and scheming people. these were the first and only major federal legislation to explicitly suspend immigration for a specific nationality in American and Canadian history. (I study Asian Canadian history, I can go on about this all day)

Tong Wars (1883-1913) had Chinatown gangs and factions in violent street wars across America, San Fransisco to New York.

large, targeted, and repeated anti-Jewish rioting (pogorm) and antisemitism rampant throughout Imperial Russia, 1881-1882 had more than two hundred anti-Jewish events alone. Jews continue to be racialized and othered.

fuck ton of colonization happening in Africa and the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Berlin conference 1884-1885 literally chopped up Africa to distribute to European powers.

Irish nationalist efforts to push forth Home Rule bill of sovereignty is defeated in British Parliament. Irish are not “white”, they are “othered” in Europe and in Americas.

use of photographic film pioneered by George Eastman, who started manufacturing film. his first camera (Kodak) was ready for sale in 1888.

Thomas Edison gets lit in New York 1883 with first electrical power station. next several year sees major cities being lit up with street lamps and public lighting with the science and works of a Nikolas Tesla (1886-1893).

hell of a lot more inventions in the works and patents being claimed. Hertz and radiowaves, Bell for telephone services.

“Between the years of 1850–1900, women were placed in mental institutions for behaving in ways the male society did not agree with”

way too much history to cram, obviously. here are some keywords for further research oki

prison industry / spiritualism / opium epidemic / irregular and uneven “modernizations” in rural vs. urban areas / class and poverty gaps / morality scares, checks, comparisons, gaps / new businesses and gadgets, products, tech to help with anything / fascination of the (colonial) Other; side shows, “freak shows” and other human zoos

[lucabite]

Finally finished up some outfits and names for the other half of the New Orphidian Wrestling Federation. They might be the biggest wrestling org in the country, but damn if it's not a small country.

General plotline thoughts and gimmicks under the cut

NOWF (not the best acronym) is the national wrestling federation for New Orphidian, which is a tiny little island nation. A tax-haven of an island nation, mind you, so it does have some stars, but it's nowhere near the biggest league around. It's got a decent budget, but is sufficiently gimmick-heavy.

The current major storyline features relative newcomer, Chromium Mono, styled as The False Idol. He was a massive get, and is effectively playing a fictionalised version of himself. It'd be hard not to, given his prior celebrity.

He came in swinging as a heel, doing a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde style bit, where he is a malevolence overtaking the sweet and corporate pop musician he was previously known as. What helps supremely with this, is that his real-life husband, Tabitha Boss has been folded into the story too, being quite literally his old manager-- And, a relative of the skeevy owner of NOWF, Casper Jr.

(Guys who didn't make it onto the picture vvv. Lightning strike is long retired after a... legal scandal.)

Playing the part of an evil corporate overlord, Tabitha mostly just stands there and looks scary. In Kayfabe, Chrome was literally manufactured as part of their schemes, and his lab-grown nature is what has lead to his eeeevil side.

He is presently involved in the 'brainwashing' of several other wrestlers, and must be stopped before the whole establishment loses their free will...

Next up, an even more recent newcomer (who is not long for the business), is Weapon M. Scouted out by Chrome himself, they were quickly snapped up by the establishment after demonstrating honest-to-god super-strength. Kid can bend a steel pipe without breaking a sweat.

They're a bit of a clumsy liability, being rather untrained, but they fit in perfectly with the whole supersolider narrative they're starting to build, so a rather generic costume was quickly altered to fit them and into the ring they were tossed.

Now, as for more established wrestlers...

Baron Prince, a guy who is so averse to breaking Kayfabe, it's honestly unclear if they are even doing it. This might just be the way they act for real.

Speaking and acting like 18th century nobility, Baron is not really a Heel, moreso just the kind of coward who always tries to pick the winning side. Obviously, this means they get their comeuppance for their treacherous nature quite frequently, and is a great guy to love to hate, even if sometimes. they're on the 'good' side.

Now, poor Bunnyhop is just a regular ol' face. They just also happen to be a jobber, given their skittish demeanor and lanky frame. You always feel bad watching them get thrown around-- and quite often, betrayed by Baron-- but they do a really good job selling it.

The Fence was once a heel, being as imposing as they are-- but sometimes a guy is so lovable outside the ring, it bleeds into their image. They, along with Miracle, are the most prolific in terms of charitable acts and appearances.

In the ring, their actual moveset hasn't changed much since their heel days, still acting as an immovable slab of raw muscle and fat. They aren't all too much taller than their opponents-- in fact, being shorter than bunnyhop and several others-- but their presence is overwhelming. Much like their name would imply, they act as a barrier, stopping anyone from getting past.

Miracle Okami, however, is The Big One. He's the face of the company, and if he didn't have such upstanding moral fibre, would've been snapped up by bigger and better circuits long ago.

Beloved by children across the nation, Miracle too never drops kayfabe-- Since he's just that cool in real life too. The only thing that really changes are his soft jelly-plastic shades being swapped out for real ones.

He is practically a superhero, and has obviously won many a major tournament, only ever tapping out to give someone else a well-deserved win. He even has superpowers, often being allowed to "control electricity" and "create sparks from his hands" via use of light pyrotechnics and lights shows.

He's just impossible to hate (unless you're an edgy teenager, of course, but that's more on them than him).

5-tonne and Bug-squasher are, traditionally, a tag team, albeit one with slightly unaligned goals. 5-tonne is a rude little man, who isn't opposed to fighting dirty, where Bugsquasher is a brute with a heart of gold.

She is, however, often allowed to bring the severed plane tail fin into the ring to use as a weapon.

Allegedly, 5-tonne is similarly a pain backstage, too, and is thus not super good friends with the rest of the performers-- a spot that would otherwise be taken by Baron Prince. Even Bug-squasher, who has been partners with him since the local leagues, has started to take umbridge with him, though she's keeping it civil.

Harley "Heartstopper" Sorell is yet another face, though she's very much the scary kind. A bringer of justice, she's probably best described as being a cop. It helps that she hangs out with them in real-life too, which is, uhhhhh. She rides motorcycles okay.

She's obviously a bit of a fan favourite, as people love cops who Take Justice Into Their Own Hands, but backstage she's seen as a major narc, and will be the first one to tattle on you to management if you start badmouthing them. She's a suckup, but unfortunately she's also one of the few in the federation who comes from an MMA background, rather than theatre, making her a force to be reckoned with.

Diamond-eye Jack is presently here on loan from halfway across the world. A bit of a peace offering between corporations, y'know.

He's the butchest woman in a 500 mile radius, and plays a traditional western cowboy. Very exotic for New Orphidian-- They don't have those here. He can even use a lasso! How exciting.

He is however, acting as an excellent foil for Chrome right now. Pop music vs Country is a classic little culture war, and Jack's cool, calm and suave demeanor plays great against Chrome's ruthless posturing.

They've also got a kind of, cowboy-ninja thing going on with Miracle. A beautiful alliance between cultures. Love wins.

Selene Dulcibel is not yet in the ring, but will be soon. One of Chrome's genuine ex-girlfriends from back in his 20s, the two had a viciously public breakup that was the talk of tabloids for months.

They were also, however, both deeply traumatised people. While Chrome has gotten over it by becoming numb to the whole ordeal, Selene is still very, very hurt. She knows, logically, now, that none of it was his fault-- But-- Well--

A good friend of The Fence outside the ring, when she found out Chrome was back in the country and had become her bestie's co-worker, she kind of, maybe, suggested the storyline.

The Fence thought it was a bad idea (it is), since Selene isn't in a great place mentally, but Casper Jr. LOVED the idea. You can't manufacture bitterness this real and true. She'll be making her debut soon, and it's probably not going to go well for anybody.

The Mad Doctor is not really a wrestler, but is allowed to be gently picked up and thrown around by Chrome. It's all in good fun.

They aren't really canon, being, under the mask, Ali Alighieri. A character who only exists in Purrgatorio. In this continuity however, they are basically Chrome and Tabitha's weird adopted teenager that they found, and so they play a supplementary character to their acts-- The Mad Scientist who 'created' Chrome in the first place.

(The Mad Doctor and Weapon M are effectively mutually exclusive, Chrome only has the capacity to mentor one nonbinary teenager per timeline, oops.)

... Mostly though, Casper's writing quality tends to come out a bit like a guy smacking action figures together, so the circuit isn't held in much high regard by international fans. Everybody loves Miracle, though.

[wizardiest-wizard-of-oz]

if anyone wants I have a musicals playlist that's over 200 hours that has I think around 205 musicals here's an alphabetized list let me know if I'm missing any I should add (I don't like Andrew lloyd Webber musicals and I'm also not a huge fan of jukebox musicals more specifically mamma Mia) and if anyone wants a link please ask me

13

21 Chump Street

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

35MM

36 Questions

42nd Street

The Addams Family

Aida

Aladdin

Alice by Heart

Allegro

Amelie

Anastasia

Ani

Annie Get Your Gun

Annie

Anything Goes

Avenue Q

Back to the Future

Bat Boy

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Be More Chill

The Big One-Oh

Billy Elliot

Black Friday

Bombshell

Bonnie and Clyde

Book of Mormon

Brigadoon

Bring it On

Once More With Feeling (Buffy musical)

Bugsy Malone

Bye Bye Birdie

Cabaret

Camelot

Carousel

Carrie

Catch Me if You Can

A Catered Affair

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chess

Chicago

A Chorus Line

Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

The Colour Purple

Come From Away

Company

Crybaby

Curtains

Damn Yankees

Days of Wine and Roses

Dear Evan Hansen

Desperate Measures

Dog Man

Dreamgirls

Dreamland

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Drowsy Chaperone

Duolingo on Ice

Elegies

Epic (all released sagas)

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Falsettoland

Falsettos Revival

Firebringer

Flora the Red Menace

Follies

Fosse

Frankenstein

Frozen

Fun Home

Funny Girl

A Funny Thing Happened

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Grand Hotel

Grease

The Great American Trailer Park

Grey Gardens

Gutenberg

Guys and Dolls

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

G*psy

Hadestown (broadway)

Hadestown (off broadway)

Hairspray

Hair

Hamilton

Harmony

Heathers

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hello Dolly

Honk

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (this one is just for Patrick page)

How to Dance in Ohio

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the Green

In the Heights

Into the Woods

In Trousers

It Shoulda Been You

Jekyll and Hyde

Kimberly Akimo

The King and I

Kinky Boots

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Legally Blonde

Lempicka

Les Miserables (english and french)

The Lightning Thief

The Lion King

Little Do They Know

The Little Mermaid

A Little Night Music

Little Shop of Horrors (english and german)

Little Women

Lizard Boy

Love in Hate Nation

Love's Labours Lost

Mad Ones

Make Me a Song

Mame

A Man of No Importance

March of the Falsettos

Marguerite

Martin Guerre

Mary Poppins

Matilda

Mean Girls

Merrily We Roll Along

Miss Saigon

Monty Python's Spamalot

The Music Man

My Fair Lady

My Heart Says Go

My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (I only have one song because I'm waiting to watch it with my friend before adding more)

A New Brain

Newsies

New York, New York

Next to Normal

Nightmare Time

Nine

Octet

Oklahoma

Oliver

Once On This Island

Once Upon a Mattress

Only Murders in the Building (Death Rattle Dazzle)

The Pyjama Game

Parade

Pippin

The Prince of Egypt

Prodigal

The Producers

The Prom

Ragtime

Ride the Cyclone

The Rink

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Schmigadoon

Schmicago

Scottsburo Boys

Seussical

She Loves Me

Sherlock

Shrek

Shucked

Six

Smash

Some Like it Hot

Something Rotten

The Sound of Music

South Pacific

Spiderman Turn off the Dark

The Spitfire Grill

Spongebob

Spring Awakening

Starship

State Fair

Sunday in the Park with George

Superhero

Sweeney Todd

Sweet Charity

The Theory of Relativity

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Tick Tick Boom

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Trail to Oregon

Twisted

Urinetown

A VHS Christmas Carol

The Visit

Waitress

Wait Wait Don't Kill Me

West Side Story

Wicked

Water for Elephants

Wizard of Oz

The Wiz

Zombie Prom

Zorba

[bluecatwriter]

Writer asks

O ho HO heck yeah I love surveys! (Thanks for the tag, @mrpinniped!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

109 and counting! 

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

356,656

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Dracula, but I have racked up a fair number of Dorian Gray and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fics, plus some Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, and Moby Dick.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Doors Everywhere

I Too Can Love

In Every Sense

Angels Unawares

For Safety Reasons

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I always try to respond— comments always make my day, so I want to let people know that I appreciate them (plus it's fun to chat about plot points or characterization details with readers!).

6. What's the fic you wrote that has the angstiest ending?

Probably The Breaking Point, where Jonathan dies before he even reaches Dracula's castle.

7. What's the fic you wrote that has the happiest ending?

A lot of my fics have very happy/sappy endings, but probably the most unabashedly happy one is Love Multiplying. 

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Fortunately I have gotten only a few snarky comments here and there; the comments are overwhelmingly positive.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Ugh, so much smut. One moment I'm minding my own business, the next moment I'm tearing my hair out trying to write yet another threesome without making it turn out confusing and/or incredibly goofy. My favorite smut is the kind that's the site for dealing with a lot of Big Feelings (even though those are the hardest to write), but I also write fluffy, not-very-serious scenes too.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've written a few Dracula/Dorian Gray crossovers, which have been a lot of fun!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not yet.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not for fanfiction, though I've done a fair amount of cowriting in the past on other kinds of writing projects.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

I have a lot of favorites, but Jonathan/Mina has got to be the top! I absolutely adore them as a couple, and more than that, their relationship is a non-negotiable backdrop of every Dracula fic I write. I just can't imagine splitting them up!

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but don't think you ever will?

I haven't officially given up hope on any of the many (many) fics sitting in my drafts folder, but time will tell. ;)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I feel like I'm pretty good at characterization, especially expanding on what we can glean from a character in canon.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot! Plot is so hard for me— every time I write an even remotely plotty fic, I drive myself batty doing it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I'll occasionally put in a word or phrase in a different language, but since I only speak one language, if there's an extended sequence in a different language I'll just italicize the words.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

On Ao3, Dracula, but my very first fic I ever wrote down was a Steven Universe fanfiction (that will never see the light of day). (If you count stories I made up but never wrote down, my first fandom was Disney's 1940 film Pinocchio— when I was a tiny child I remember making up a story about a girl who helped rescue all the boys-turned-donkeys from Pleasure Island. My first fix-it fic!)

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I think my favorite overall is Love Multiplying, just because writing it was such a journey and I poured so much love and care into it.

Tagging @yallemagne, @see-arcane and @0nelittlebirdtoldme in the lowest-possible-pressure sort of way.  (You can also post it as an askbox meme if you don't want to answer all 20 questions.)

[nitrateglow]

Halloween 2023 marathon: 19-21

The Hands of Orlac (dir. Robert Wiene, 1924)

Concert pianist Orlac (Conrad Veidt) is excited to return from touring to the arms of his loving wife Yvonne (Alexandra Sorina) right before he suffers injuries in a train crash. While the accident does not kill him, it destroys his hands. His hands being key to his livelihood, Orlac despairs, but the doctors are able to graft new ones onto his wrists. All well and good, with one problem: the hands were taken from the corpse of a guillotined murderer, Orlac is uncomfortable with them from the outset, and once he learns of their origins, Orlac is becoming paranoid that the hands will influence him to kill. Driven to madness by his fears, will Orlac resort to violence?

The Hands of Orlac has a great premise and a great lead actor in the compelling, expressive Conrad Veidt. The atmosphere, though not as surreal as Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is decidedly nightmarish and suffocating as the protagonist's paranoia consumes him.

If only the pacing wasn't the worst.

Like, there's slow pacing and then there's submerging your movie in molasses. Orlac runs almost two hours long and much of it is just dedicated to Veidt's very deliberated mannerisms and reactions. I love Veidt-- he was one of the greatest actors of the silent era-- but the scenes of him staring in horror at his hands and whatnot just go on forever and to no real benefit to the story.

And that's unfortunate because this is a very mature, subdued psychological horror film, more about inner conflict than external monsters or psychopaths (though the movie does ultimately have a villain). In some ways, it's ahead of its time: the urban gloom on display here foreshadows the film noir movies of the 1940s and 1950s. However, it's so slow that I had a hard time getting into it.

The Island of Lost Souls (dir. Erle C. Kenton, 1932)

Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is having a bad week: his ship sank, the captain of the ship that rescued him doesn't like him, and now because of that he's been marooned on the Island of Dr. Moreau, a small bit of land not present on any sea chart. Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) seems an amiable, jovial fellow, but what is to be made of the tortured screams in the night or the cowering, abused "natives" who seem to view Moreau as a god? Turns out, Moreau is trying to speed up evolution with his experiments on animals and he hopes to prove his creations can mate with humans by offering Parker his sole female subject, Lota (Kathleen Burke).

The Island of Lost Souls is quintessential pre-code horror, right there with The Most Dangerous Game and the 1932 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's gruesome for 1932, dealing with vivisection, inter-species sex, and animal cruelty. Imagine any of THAT flying come the enforcement of the Code.

This is one of very few older horror movies I find genuinely unpleasant even if it doesn't outright show Dr. Moreau cutting up his experiments while they're still very much conscious. Screams are ever present on the soundtrack and they aren't cheesy horror movie yelps. The moans and screaming in this thing are chilling. The humid jungle atmosphere is also palpable, creating a sense of suffocating entrapment. As much as I love many of the classic Universal horror movies, they don't have that same sense of dread and evil this one still possesses.

The Penthouse (dir. Peter Collinson, 1967)

Crooked businessman Bruce (Terence Morgan) and his shopgirl mistress Barbara (Suzy Kendall) find themselves at the mercy of two thugs who break into the penthouse apartment they use for their adulterous liaisons. Tom (Tony Beckley) and Dick (Norman Rodway) are childlike yet ruthless, getting Barbara intoxicated while they tie Bruce up and make him watch. Or rather listen, because boy do these fellas love monologuing.... lots and lots and lots of monologuing.

Yes, the guy who directed The Italian Job made a home invasion movie. It also sucks. Like, oh my GOD, this was designed to torture me, I swear, and not in the way the filmmakers intended. It feels like a college assignment turned into a movie.

Okay, let me be nice first. Visually, this is of interest. Not the quality of the image-- the YouTube upload looks like it was dragged up from VHS hell-- but from what I can see of the compositions and the camerawork, this is a visually dynamic movie doing its hardest to make you forget the script is based on a stage play.

But that's impossible because this is one of those movies where the characters never shut the hell up. They monologue endlessly about Societal Ills and Important Class Themes, occasionally breaking up the lecturing with oddball criminal antics, pot smoking, and violence. It's like an attempt at a "hipper" (for 1967) and more intellectual version of The Desperate Hours, where an ordinary middle-class family is held hostage by criminals as motivated by class-based bitterness as they are by money or freedom. But holy crap, does. It. Drag. 100 minutes of dragging.

Admittedly, the dynamic between Tom and Dick is a little interesting. They're the types who finish each other's sentences and genuinely seem to relish each other's company as they bond over doing these terrible things. They were fascinating to watch when not burdened with pretentious monologues about how baby alligators being flushed down toilets represent society's outliers.

Martine Beswick shows up in the last section as the third accomplice "Harry." Other reviewers claim she brightens up the film, but her appearance is so brief and much ado about nothing at all that she didn't make watching this any more entertaining for me.

The Penthouse feels like a parody of the worst kind of "elevated horror," boring nonsense masquerading as a social statement. Parts of it are memorably bizarre, but there's not enough of that for me to recommend it.

[bindi-the-skunk]

New fic idea

Sleep evaded Nemo

Now this was far from a rare occurrence, as both the captain's past and just insomnia in general often caused rest to be a bit difficult to find some nights.

Throwing the covers aside, Nemo got to his feet, grunting a bit as the feeling of unrest seemed to intensify in him, something was not as it should be.

With all the quietness of a stalking cat, Nemo checked in on all those he knew would be sleeping, the members of his crew who worked the day shift all slept peacefully, the captain hoping they all were having enjoyable dreams that would follow them when awake.

Sawyer did not even budge from his sleep, not even when his door betrayed Nemo with a groan, how had that gone unfixed? Irritating, but all their youngest did was offer a contented hum and snuggle deeper into the sheets, completely unbothered and affording Nemo a long-lost pleasantry, even if the agent was far older than his children had been, and more experienced in the world than many would give him credit.

Skinner, as predicted, was a bit more of an…interesting sleeper, talking random nonsense in his sleep, mouth unable to stop working even in dreams, but also unbothered by being looked in on, only giving Nemo the amusing mental image of a talking banana with glasses, the eye cover he wore as he slept being the only indicator of where he was in the lump of sheets and blankets.

Jekyll also proved an interesting sleeper, his blankets and pillows had been shoved to one half of the bed, his left arm and leg lost under the pile, well his other limbs had thrown themselves over it in a rather odd bear-hug and mild snores signaled that he also was undisturbed.

Nemo did not bother with any attempt at silence when he approached Ms. Harker's room, knocking on the door, a soft voice gave him permission to come in, which he did, Mina's unique condition meant she did not require the sleep that a regular person did, so snoring or other signs of deep sleep would have been what raised an alarm.

"Sleep evading you, captain? Should I bring out the chess set? I was just finishing up with my project" Mina offered kindly, setting down some papers on her desk.

"No, thank you, I am going to keep on with my current project, I was just making sure nothing was amiss"

"Well, I am fine, I do hope you can get some rest tonight, I hear we will be stopping at a nearby island for supplies tomorrow, I'm sure someone will see fit to drag you along shopping" Mina chuckled a bit though Nemo seemed to have missed the joke.

Both Sawyer and Jekyll seemed to take great stock in dragging Nemo along with them for shore trips, and well the doctor usually took a bit more of a careful step in finding something that their captain might also enjoy, such as a play or rare book, young Thomas seemed more interested in just making sure the stubborn Indian tortoise was pulled out of his shell as much as he could stand before biting.

Suppose he could not blame them, Jekyll used to be an active member of high society, and would be used to attending parties and ostentatious operas en-masse, Sawyer also was a social man, openly flirting with young ladies and talking to recent aquantences like he had known them for years, opposed to Nemo's more isolated nature that held very few close, and those that he did were prized more than any rare pearl or overflowing shipwreck he might come across on his travels.

Mina was of course quiet and always open to a chess game, she also enjoyed shopping, as most people did, and was never short on a possible escort, with several men proving a desire to have her approval or have an afternoon on the town with a woman of her great beauty on their arm.

Nemo himself was of course, not blind to her lovliness, but he held no more of an inclination towards it than he might a nice painting upon the wall, beautiful to lay eyes on, but not something you touched.

"Yes, of course, I should not be long before I return to my quarters, have a good night" Nemo said before turning and leaving to continue on his quest, wondering all the while what his instincts seemed to be pulling him towards.