#inspired by maybe: salem on youtube | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

honourablejester · 5 months

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Okay, normally this wouldn’t be something I’d go near at all, but I saw some things fly past my dash on the new James Somerton youtube controversy, and I vaguely remembered watching one of the guy’s videos a while back (I can’t actually remember which one, I just remember he was talking about growing up in a poor town where people were paid under the table as a regular fact of life? I can’t remember the topic, which maybe says something about the dude’s presentation style). So I got curious and watched first hbomberguy’s plagiarism video and then Todd in the Shadow’s misinformation video on the guy. The basic takeaway of which appears to be that 90% of his output is stolen, and the parts that aren’t are often wildly incorrect instead. Anyway. I realise this is a weird thing to get hung up on given the much more serious issues of, you know, plagiarism and theft and misogyny and frankly astonishing opinions on queer history, but …

There’s a section in Todd’s video (around 1.25.00) about Somerton’s interpretations of various vampire media from his video on ‘Vampires and the Gays that love them’, and I got to ‘Gary Oldman was the first fuckable Dracula’, and … what?

It’s around 38.10 in Somerton’s video, and the full quote is as follows:

“Again, the significant element here is how readily Coppola depicts a vampire who fucks, whereas Dracula is more prominently depicted as a reclusive humanoid monster. From Nosferatu, Plan Nine from Outer Space, Salem’s Lot, the Last Voyage of the Demeter, this figure has almost exclusively been painted white, and shown with clownishly monstrous features. But Coppola creates a monster for whom the audience looks at and completely understands what Mina is so horny about.”

I’m going to leave out everything else he says about Coppola’s Dracula, because … wow, there’s a lot of interesting opinions in there, but …

Christopher Lee. And Bela fucking Lugosi.

The man cannot be unaware of the two single most famous depictions of Dracula ever put on film, right? Dracula has been ‘more prominently depicted’ as the Nosferatu-inspired Count Orlok type monstrosities, and Coppola’s is the first ‘sexy Dracula’ on film? Like. What?

As Todd says, anyone even passingly aware of Dracula films is gonna go … Hammer? Universal? Bela Lugosi. The single portrayal that has been shaping Dracula’s iconography for nearly a literal century? THE film Dracula? The one literally everyone is going to think of?

Like. It’s such a weird choice. If he was going to say something about what you could get away with onscreen now vs in the 60s or 30s, or about the evolving tension between the sexier Draculas vs the more monstrous, which Chris Lee’s Dracula was an element of, a more visceral, animalistic portrayal vs Lugosi’s suave charm, arriving to what Coppola’s could actually explicitly put on the screen, but … This is framed like Universal and Hammer just didn’t exist. At all. It cherry-picks such a weird selection of examples of the Nosferatu style portrayals (and not even of Dracula, just vampires in general), and just flat never mentions the two single most famous Dracula film franchises ever made.

I’m curious what the comment section for this video was like. It’s been locked down now because of the controversy, so I can’t tell, but I’m assuming … I mean, that can’t have flown, right? As Todd says, literally anyone could have picked up on that one.

It’s just such a strange thing to choose to say. There maybe is a fair bit to say about ideas of sexiness in film across different decades, or if he meant that Coppola’s Dracula was the first to literally fuck on screen because of what could be shown in different eras, or even which Dracula he personally found most sexy, but …

Why would you choose to say, with a straight face, that Dracula has most prominently been depicted Nosferatu-style when literally anyone with the remotest knowledge of Dracula is going to point directly at Bela Lugosi and his ninety years worth of imitations and rejections and parodies and rebuttals? Nosferatu is a silent era classic and a periodic cult revival for vampire depictions, but THE movie vampire in popular consciousness is still Lugosi’s suave, sinister European nobleman in classy eveningwear. Any random Joe Soap off the street is gonna know that. Saying the Nosferatu depiction is the most prominent is just flat not true and everyone knows it.

Sorry. Again, I know this is a weird thing to get hung up on, but it’s such a weird choice. I get selective cherry picking of evidence to make your chosen point, but you can’t just ignore the one depiction that literally everyone knows and expect them to just nod along. Right?

Anyway. Weirdness aside. Carry on.

#random #i don't go here #james somerton #dracula #baffled over here #such a weird choice

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ffffawn · 11 months

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FFFFAWN.

I have no clue how to introduce this new project I’m working on nor how to feel but hello! My name is Puff and I want to introduce a project that I’m in very early progress with: FFFFAWN!

“What is FFFFAWN?”

- FFFFAWN is a visual novel project that has three routes that leads you into a side of Cervus, a cult permanent residence for the chosen, and how the routed characters and MC end up saving or embracing the cult life themselves from Cervus’ grasp!

- FFFFAWN has dark and mature topics, influenced by the games that inspired FFFFAWN into creation. Age rating is 18+ so minors, do not interact.

“Why the name FFFFAWN?”

- As someone who adores psychology and is a psych student, I named FFFFAWN over the instinctive trauma responses; fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. I’ve always found it interesting, especially when I realized a certain character does use the fawning response a lot.

- I love psychology.

“What can we expect from this blog?”

- I want to track my progress and let some people see it! This is my first time ever doing this things and as someone who is very inexperienced and doing this all solo. The writing, the art, the UI, I’m not sure about the programming/sound design (maybe?) as of now, but..! I’m doing my best as a solo developer (for now! I know it’ll be difficult doing this solo!) until I can determine what I want without being super ambitious about it.

- I also forget a ton, keeping this blog helps me not forget the things I want to remember.

- I also want to do silly little Q&A things! Little silly memes before landing the finished product.

“What medias inspired the development of FFFFAWN?”

- Definitely a lot of games/visual novels. Mystic Messenger and Boyfriend to Death (Two sides of the same spectrum of dark topics, haha!) being the primary inspirations.

- Crywolf’s music as well! Been listening to his amazing music since I was in middle school.

“Who are the characters?”

- I’ll introduce them trying to not reveal their backstory and how they know each other.

Hyejin

To those into typology, she is an INTX, 2w3.

A very, very nice maid to Cervus!

Also a pushover…

A fine specimen to look under a microscope!

Salem

He’s… interesting! (ENTJ, 3w2)

Something feels off about him though.

Is it the fact that he’s ginger or is it the fact that he’s self-proclaiming himself as an “entrepreneur”?

(It’s the fact that he’s ginger.)

Paris

The stench of 2019 TikTok e-boys reeks from this guy!

He is definitely… something.

“I’m not other guys!” He says, telling everyone his typography (INTJ, 8w7) and his astrology big three.

He smells like a red flag, but does he act like one? (You’ll see.)

As of now, I’m keeping their designs a little hushed secret!

Alrighty. I think that’s enough for an information post, is it? Hopefully it is.

Oh! Almost forgot!

If you want to keep track of what I’m doing (Besides having silly hyperfixations over a sickly Victorian puppet and a feral fox-boy, and doing this project.), I have socials where I draw silly those and sometimes these characters.

@starsbirb on Tumblr and Twitter

starsbird on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok

#visual novel #vn #vn development #FFFFAWN

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this-summertimes-sadness · 2 years

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a study on writing women

@/eternitys.firelight on instagram <3 derived from " How ARCANE Writes Women - @/schnee on youtube " + my own little notes

a collection of notes on how to write female characters right, hot and empowered :D

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agency - the ability to make choices that change the course of events + the exercise of that ability

(occasionally) taken away by plot or by the decision of the male presence within the story

many start out with high power/authority —> the same power gets dethroned when:

relationships where a man removes the woman’s initial agency

developing conflicts in the weakness of a character

taken away by a competing strong women

salem's little corner of questionable advice: to maintain the same agency in the character shows growth; it shows how they still have their authority and power to make their own choices when faced with conventional scenarios that tend to bring them down and take that agency away and therefore shows their strength, which draws admiration from fellow readers.

beauty v.s. shallowness of character

salem's little corner of questionable advice: give it a use, but use wisely — the empowerment of femininity using looks and beauty (by women) is still somewhat demonised and seen as negative in this society — connect to intention, make it special to them (how they utilise the advantages of their born traits to accomplish their goals)

tropes

a trope itself isn’t bad, they are only bad if written incorrectly

to fix a character with a conventionally problematic trope:

find a non-(trope oriented) trait, relationship or aspect of character to build on

character wasn’t always like this — maybe they had always been, but maybe there was a turning point in her past

give depth and nuance through organic backstory

salem's little corner of questionable advice: put them in a situation where there is struggle, where there is the need to wrestle and fight and have it get as ugly as it can — the audience believe what they see, and only after characters are given their moment to shine (in a way that shows raw strength, knowledge, durability, quick and critical thinking, or what they’re made of, and not gifted power) is when the audience truly begins to admire, believe and respect them for their positive traits → ‘outer strength that comes from an inner strength’

an example of a problem trope -- action girl

‘man + boobs’

masculine persona + surface-level femininity

‘one of the bros’ ←→ toxic to other women ←→ easy access to awkward romance

female in name only

no actual character/personality (i.e. when ‘man+ boobs’ is the whole character)

cannot be taken for a story’s token woman (usually takes 2nd token woman, the 1st being traditionally more feminine)

‘defined by my gender’

is feminine, but personality is still heavily tied to the men of her life (not accepted by men)

feels defined by the men in her life + one dimensional

gender sometimes become synonymous with the characteristics of that character

salem's little corner of questionable advice: instead of going for ‘i am the only girl in a man’s world’, try to gun for ‘i am in co-existence with the men of the world but i do not need the acceptance of those men around me’ — to have a woman in a world that is pitted against her and can still display her own form of power in her own way is the definition of inspiring

‘auto-overpowered’

stronger, more skilled than all males without any training, without trying, without earning anything a character is required to earn to reach the same place

salem's little corner of questionable advice: shallow strength + does not authentically show the character’s power — they win through pure implanted knowledge, luck, strength or otherwise naturally-provided powers, which does not garner much respect from audience because they are ‘born gifted’ and didn’t understand nor need labour to reach a certain point in a situation that others who are attempting to achieve the same goal needs

femininity + roles of society

gendered stereotypes and tropes can be levelled out / neutralised by being applied to both men and women -> salem's little corner of questionable advice: have a female character being compassionate, kind and caring? show a male character who runs on the same morales. have a male character who is forthcoming with opinions and ideas? have a female character who does the same. no matter how small the detail, it goes into the overall effect of the story and its statement on the perception of male and female within societal bounds.

inherently feminine traits or situations that happen to them don’t have to be necessarily gendered -> salem's little corner of questionable advice: they can be taught to the character by a combination of circumstance and characters of the opposite sex, which evens out the gender playing field, removes gender from the equation and shows the character for simply being themselves instead of their gender

women in traditionally masculine roles → they double as contrasts / oppositions of other characters that are their opposites / compliments and thus showcase their own form of femininity

all characters should demonstrate their own element of femininity -> salem's little corner of questionable advice: other than the traditional feminine of makeup, dresses, expressions of art, domestic roles, there are other (more subtle) ways of expressing femininity: offering parental advice to someone with a daughter, the step-down from competition and the grace of letting others win because they truly deserve it, etc.

submission

salem's little corner of questionable advice: try to avoid overt submission in relationships where the women are the ones backing down from a fight / have an (extreme) emotional dependence — utilising this too much would just feed into the gendered, stereotyped roles of social norms (which could cause some unwanted controversy given the modern ages)

if submission is utilised, do not base it on the gender of the characters and instead base it on their characters — define moments without the gender element: show a similar scene with the same gender to show that this wasn’t a matter of sex

dependence ≠ agency

if the dynamic is to be used, pick a character who is extremely independent + could break the mould in every way possible — character first !

salem's little corner of questionable advice: the ‘male fixing female’ trope is not recommended — this downplays a female character’s power by attributing the successes of them to another male character + again plays into the stereotypes of societal expectations (which we are currently trying to break out of)

men: adventurous action heroes v.s. women: meek + afraid of the action — salem's little corner of questionable advice: this power dynamic is used in films and literature for centuries and is one trope, if wanting to write good female characters, should avoid falling back to

emotion

emotion ≠ hysteria or weakness — comes off as superficial, degrading, uninteresting and unrealistic

two ways emotions and women clash in literature and film:

mocked + played for weakness and fragility → undignified creatures of hysteria

taboo → stoic unemotional robots who are strong because they are devoid of emotion

display dynamic emotional range that are dignified and empathetic — coming in moments of vulnerability or empowerment

empowerment of women, but not at the expense of men

salem's little corner of questionable advice: when a female character accomplishes a goal, succeeds or wins something, it doesn’t mean that it is an opportunity to put down the opposite gender — losing is of course viable, if it’s not a win, it’s a loss, that is the way of the world; however, it does not mean that the man has to be kicked down a level just so that women could succeed on the back of their loss

background > characteristics — make each detail (physical + thinking pattern + habit) authentic + make sense to the character’s past, present and future

salem's little corner of questionable advice: this is how a character becomes realistic and relatable to their audience: what they have been through. all forms of characters are built on fragments of events in their own lives that make up who they are now, just like humans are as well. it is much better to base a character on a solid story of their past rather than their physical traits to avoid writing characters that have no substance and are bland

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womenofwonder · 3 years

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RWBY characters races for AUs set in our world.

How I’m going to do this: three things. The first, the city they live in Remnant. This is the least important because that leaves us with only five…maybe six places compared to our world’s hundreds of countries.

The second will be the original of their names, which they’ll have to keep in the AUs, meaning that they need some culture background for them.

The third will be their fairy tale origins.

So to start, Ruby Rose:

She lives in Vale, which is similar to France (I’ll explain why in another post maybe), but technically grew up in patch, a small island off the coast of Vale. I have no idea about Patch’s culture as we hardly ever see it, so I’m going to skip this one. We also don’t know if either Summer or Taiyang was originally from Vale.

We know Taiyang is Chinese from his name, so I’m going to say she’s half Chinese. I also wrote a western au once and really love the idea of Taiyang being an Asian Redneck…so I think I’m going to say Ruby is very, very southern just because that would be adorable.

But if you don’t want that idea I generally see Taiyang being either Asian-American or Asian-French, or Asian-British if your doing a HP AU. Summer is harder to pin down, but Red Riding Hood was originally an Italian fable, so I’m going to have her be Italian or Italian-American.

Weiss:

Weiss is German, although making her simply white America/British would work. I could see her being Russian too in some AU because Atlas fits well as Russia. For American works, Pennsylvania has quite the German population and coal mines, so that works pretty well for her.

Blake is really complicated. From Remment Australia which is culturally SEA (south East Asian), has an English name but parents with a Hindu-inspired names, but neither looking vaguely Indian. I’m going to assume her family are immigrants (as they are in cannon I think) to Australia, maybe even changed their name to help them fit in. Immigrants from where? Well, India is an option, but I like to think Malaysia. They have a large Indian and Chinese population, and I like to think Blake is a mixture of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnicities, from Malaysia and immigrated to Australia. And if you think this is crazy or unrealistic, you haven’t seen anything yet. The sheer mix of cultures I’ve seen growing up as an ex-pat is insane. This isn’t too crazy.

For Yang, we already have Taiyang as an Asian red-neck. Or at least I do. Raven and Qrow are going to be a little harder to pin down, but I’m think bandits getting replaced by mafia. Which mafia? I don’t know, take you’re pick. Branwen is Welsh, but I can’t think of a Welsh mafia. Coming from Mistral I would see them as being Triad, not Yakuza because Raven’s gang is famous for being less than coordinated.

If you need a logical reason for Yang having blonde hair, Taiyang could be only half Chinese, half blonde (blonde is race right?).

Either way I see Raven operating in an American city like New York or Detroit.

This would mean Yang is fully Chinese ethnically.

JNPR:

Jaune’s name and inspiration are all French. However his mother does come from Mistral (I think), so I do see him being half Chinese, but nationally French. It’s also funny to imagine him with a French accent.

Pyrrha: she’s Greek or maybe Greek-American with her parents being recent immigrants. Argus seems to Remnent-Greece and her name and fairy tale are greek.

Nora: she should be Scandinavian. I feel like in a MCU AU she’s Thor’s daughter. But she also grew up as a street rat in Mistral, which is hard to fit in our world. Therefore I’m going to have her in America, the great melting pot (and also America seems to be more like Mistral than any other Remnent king with our state system), and she going to ethically Scandinavian but knowing nothing of her culture due to her upbringing.

Ren: obviously Chinese, but I might have him be American-Chinese to fit his story nicely in with Nora’s.

Others:

Coco: we’re all ignoring that she’s based off Coco Channel, so let’s make her a LA girl

Velvet: Australia, because of the accent. Or maybe English because that is her story origin

Fox: he’s difficult, because tribes are pretty rare in modern AUs. But his story could work for various things. He’s one of the few black characters so he could come from practically any African tribe (I’m currently going with Hausa because it’s one of the few I know anything about). His name is based off ‘the fox and the hound’ which is a rare American story, so he could also be from a Native American tribe if you want the AU to be more American-based.

Yatsuhashi: Japanese, this one is thankfully easy.

Sun: Chinese. He comes from a tribe as well, but I can’t think of any nomadic Chinese tribes except the Uyghurs. Making Sun a Uyghur doesn’t make much sense but it will serve to piss off certain people on the internet. And now this is going to be taken down, isn’t it? Oh wait, this is tumbrl. This is anarchy. It won’t. Forgot why I liked this place for a second.

Scarlet: sorry for the rambling there. Anyway, Scarlet is definitely English. “I hope I don’t get sand in my shoes.”

Sage: well, he’s black, but other then that we have nothing to go one. He’s also from Mistral but that doesn’t really work? If Mistral is America as well as China I guess we can make him African American. Or whatever else works best for the AU. He might be Indian too now that I think of it. Or even Maori. Really options are limitless here.

Neptune: Yeah, so probably just American, but does have both a French last name and an Italian first name. So probably ethically American (aka white mutt). Also he lives near a port, I think I’m gonna gone with him being from Tacoma Washington because I am.

Flynt: African American

Neon: Japanese-American because of her meme (it started as part of Japanese pop song on YouTube, the latter of which is America summed up in one invention)

Oscar: Hispanic-American, he just looks it. And I’m guessing he lives in Kansas for obvious reasons. His last name isn’t Hispanic but their could be a lot of reasons for that. Or he could be Native American (Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Osage are all Native American tribes in Kansas).

Penny: well if she’s still a robot she probably stays white, but if you want her human in this AU she might end up being half black as Pietro is, although she also could just be adopted. I guess the later makes more sense, huh? I figure she’s American, with her dad working with a ‘well meaning’ but ultimately corrupt government. Probably living in DC, as that has both the government and the poverty issues.

Emerald: oohh, boy. This is hard. Sustrai is Basque, and Aladdin is a French addition to an Arabian story, she herself is dark skinned with anime features that are super unhelpful for this sorta thing.

I have three ideas. Brazilian, mostly as there’s no South American themed RWBY characters I can think of, and it’s diverse enough that someone looking like Emerald would fit. Secondly, for American centered stories she’s just an orphan with no idea of her ethnicity. Or she could be African, Indian, Pacific Islander, or Hispanic or some mixture between those four. It’s honestly really hard to tell. In my fanfic she’s from Suriname and ethnically 1/4 Indian, 1/2 Creole, and 1/4 Javanese.

Ilia: Sioux (Native American). Ilia means a lot of things in a lot of different languages, and Amitola mean rainbow in Sioux, so I decided to just stick with that.

Mercury: American, white mutt American. I’m guessing New York or Philli for where he grew up, it seems like a place where he’d be comfortable

Neo: the new novel reveals her father lived in vale (btw I haven’t read it, I’m just getting this off the internet) and her mother was a assassin who’s origins aren’t known. She doesn’t really have a fairy tale. So I’m going to go with British or French (thank RWBY thoughts for the first one) although in an American AU she works as just a white American.

Robyn: depends on what Atlas is in this AU, but probably German or American.

Qrow: I already mentioned he’s probably Chinese due to being from Mistral. It’s a bit weird to think of him as Asian, but not as weird as it to think of Raven as white, so I’ll take it. Although I do like the idea of him being American Irish, that’s fun.

Winter: whatever Atlas is in this AU, German or American, although British and Russian would work well too.

Maria: Mexican

Salem: If you want a AU where she’s just a normal person then New England or Italian for her story origin

Watts: British

Tyrian: uh…I have no idea, but he looks white. And he kinda has a British accent? I want him to be southern for the accent tho. Probably just another crazy American

Cinder: her fairy tale is French but her origin is Chinese. Also, Cinderella doesn’t really have an origin, it’s an ancient story with every culture having at least one Cinderella story. So I’m going to say Chinese.

Hazel: American, from the Midwest. He’s darkish so maybe he’s a POC? Part Native American or Hispanic? Idk or really care I can’t stand Hazel

Roman Torchwick: American-Italian, he runs/works for the mafia

Ozpin: American because of the whole wizard-of-Oz-thing or French, because he seems to have come from Vale.

Glynda: American or French for the same reasons Ozpin is

Oobleck: Jewish American (because Dr. Seuss was)

Professor Port: Russian, due to his fairy tale, or English, due to his style

Taiyang: already said he’s a red-neck Asian.

Raven: depending on whether you want her to be white or not, either Chinese or Irish American, like I already said.

Cordovin: Karen

Ironwood: again, depends on Atlas in the AU. Either American or German…maybe Russian

Clover: Irish-American (or German, obviously the ace-ops depend on where Atlas is. I’m just going to do the rest of them assuming Atlas is American because Germany isn’t that diverse)

Harriet: African-American, I guess. It kinda messes with the story because Harriet is supposed to be privileged, which doesn’t really work in this AU, but she’s also obviously black.

Elm: Just normal American, maybe greek-American because of the Aesop fable themes

Vine: Tibetan based on his design

Marrow: either African-American or Pakistani/Indian-American. (I’m personally going for Pakistani)

Klein: english. All butlers are English. It’s a rule.

Pietro: African-American

Johanna: Pakistani or Indian American

Fiona: Jewish-American (kinda random but while she’s obviously white she also needs to be a minority for the Faunus thing to work)

May: normal upper glass American/German

Ghira: Half Malay, Half Indian, from Malaysia but immigrated to Australia later in life

Kali: half Chinese, half Indian, but also from Malaysia

Adam: much like Fiona I’m going to assume he’s Jewish due to him being white but still needing to be a minority. German or American, again, depending on where Atlas is. Or he could be Chinese, even though it doesn’t work with his name, due to the theory that he was trafficked much like Cinder. I’m going with ethically Jewish though

Sienna Khan: Indian

Huh, I actually finished that. I’m pretty sure I was accidentally racist multiple times and apologize in advance,

I’m exhausted and starving and not thinking straight. But anyway, here it is. Your very messy guide to modern RWBY AUs. I swear this was insane to sort out.

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aspiringwarriorlibrarian · 3 years

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Do you think this has ever been an issue? Specifically in terms of story information: youtube. com/ watch?v=qKdynbZleKY (It's not bad of a video but has a few... things about it)

I checked out the moment he said that of "The Lost Fable", only the twist at the end where they said that Ozpin can't destroy Salem was actually "relevant" to the ongoing story, and thus the rest of the information is just "noise" because Volume 6 focuses primarily on that.

A) You really need to reassert your priorities if you think that developing the character of the Big Bad and the Big Good is "noise". (Also, didn't the content of the story give Ruby some direct inspiration for her Silver Eyes? Did you forget that?)

B) This is a fairy tale. In a show about fairy tales. If you were asking for a direct infodump of Strategically Important Information, then you came to the wrong neighborhood.

C) Do the words "foreshadowing" mean anything to you? Or "worldbuilding"? Or "answering lots of audience questions we had for so long"? Or "goddamn this is just a cool and engaging story to listen to and maybe that has some merit in and of itself?". Like goddamn how lost are you in the point A point B plot juice that the idea of storytelling itself to you is anathema?

And for a very petty and not actually relevant D) that lecture you showed as an example of how lectures are boring actually sounded fascinating.

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whumpingcrow · 3 years

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Ink Poisoning - Chapter 1

Introduction

Surprise! A new story, new characters, inspired by all the lovely authors of tumblr who do BBU or WRU writing :) enjoy!!

CW: BBU and everything in relation to that, drugs/alcohol, party themes/setting, plane mention, college setting, breakup mention, tattooing/tattoo shop mentions (let me know if I missed anything!)

Nicko and Salem had never really been too close. They lived a few houses away from each other in high school, had some of the same classes, and were tied in with the same friend groups. They were friends, as much as you could be friends with someone you only hang out with cause they’re close by, but not close by any means. Salem felt a certain way about Nicko, he always had, a way that told him to keep himself a safe distance from him. Maybe it was his recklessness, the way he did awful, often mean, things seemingly on impulse, just because it popped into his head and he wanted to follow through. He was unreasonably harsh and manipulative and just attractive and charismatic enough to not suffer the repercussions.

Because of this, Salem wasn’t really entirely sure how he had ended up living with the kid in his last two years of college. Both him and Nicko had gotten into the state college and were both art majors (Nicko was in visual arts and Salem in music), so they had been around each other since they both moved into the dorms as smooth faced freshmen. Nicko was on the football team for the first year and a half, then he got kicked from the team. At that point he hadn’t spoken to Salem for a while, so he never figured out the real reason why. He heard gossip, that Nicko was caught doing drugs, that he had slept with the coach’s daughter, that he’d been fighting, but it was impossible to know if it was the truth. On one hand, Salem wouldn’t exactly be surprised if it was something like that, but on the other hand he didn’t want to believe that he was that bad. After that, he focused on his studies. Salem saw him around campus working in sketch books or on a canvas, sometimes he would show up to a class covered in paint and tired, like he’d been working on something all night. He was also doing an internship at a tattoo shop, he got paid a lot to stab people with needles, and he genuinely enjoyed it. Plus, Salem had seen some of the stuff he’d made, and he certainly had talent, even though he was sort of a dick.

During that time, freshman and sophomore year, Salem was pretty preoccupied in his own respects, so these were the only things he really knew about Nicko. Those two years had been difficult, looking back on it he was surprised he was able to pass all of his classes with what he had going on. There was a messy relationship, horrible breakup, and he used it mostly to put into his music. He wrote some of his best pieces about it, so in a way he was thankful. He was better off now, anyway.

Now, he and Nicko lived together off-campus, along with three other art majors who neither of them knew too well, but rent was cheaper with more people and they were easy enough to get along with. School was almost over, it was their last stretch of their senior year, and things were good. Salem’s future was looking promising, he’d already been speaking to different producers and composers who he’d been set up with by his teachers, as soon as he graduated he would have enough saved up to buy his own place, closer to where he would work, on his own. Life was so simple, Salem was happy and hopeful and for once, things made sense. He just had to get through winter break, then the last few grueling months would crawl by, and then he would be free.

But then winter break came and went, Salem went back north to visit his parents, and when he got back things suddenly got...complicated.

Nicko would insist over and over again to Salem that they had “talked about this!” and he tried to persuade him by saying “you said it could be cool!” every time they talked about it afterwards. Salem told him that bringing it up as a concept while they were getting drunk after midterms was not talking about it.

What happened was someone had read an article somewhere, maybe it was from a click bait thing on Instagram or a frightening news article on facebook, and had brought it up while they were all throwing back beers before they went out to their own respective parties. It was about something Salem had only heard hushed whispers about online, he wasn’t even sure how legit it was because of how rarely he heard about it: boxies. The word made him cringe every time one of them threw it out drunkenly, like it was something cute. If what Salem had heard about it was true, they were essentially criminals who were brainwashed (or trained, as they liked to call it to sound more appealing) instead of taking another sentence. Box Boys, Box Babes, they had more gross marketing names, all involving a box. Supposedly it was because they were notoriously shipped to you conveniently in a box right to your front porch, as if they were an Amazon package. Yes, living human beings stuffed inside of a box and left on your porch, just waiting to be let out so they can start doing whatever it is they’ve been retrained to do. And somehow it was all completely legal, if you did it through certain companies.

So, that’s what they’d been talking about, when Salem looked back on it, all he remembered from the conversation was something like:

“Dude, how the fuck is owning a boxie legal at all? I was just reading this article and-”

"Those are like, those servant things you order online or whatever? I've heard about those, I think."

“That’s not the point, Nicko. I’m talking about how it’s fucking crazy this is allowed.”

“I think it’s cool. I mean if it were me I’d rather get to live in a house as like...a maid or whatever than go to jail. Jail sucks. I dunno, I think it’s cool. What about you, Cobain?”

Salem hated when Nicko called him that, he’d been doing it since freshman year, when one of Salem’s songs was suddenly being passed around the school in a youtube video he’d forgotten he’d posted. Nicko told him that it was edgy, that he sounded like Kurt Cobain. That would have been fine, Salem really wouldn’t have cared, if Nicko hadn’t personally told him before how much he hated Nirvana, how the music sucked. So every time he used the nickname it was patronizing, a little stab at him.

Still, Salem merely looked up from his laptop, he was probably checking back on his flight information for going back home, maybe checking to see if his test scores were posted yet, and scowled at him. “Yeah, Picasso, I think that owning a person is super cool.” He’d been sarcastic, obviously so, and Nicko knew that.

And still, here he was, telling Salem that he’d “agreed” to getting this boxie. Salem would disagree every time, and Nicko would just roll his eyes and shrug his shoulders and he would get away with it. He was always getting away with shit, it was really starting to piss Salem off.

The day Salem got back from break it had been snowing. The drive back from the airport was stressful, it was late, Salem just wanted to go home and sleep. Going back to the town he grew up in was draining, sometimes. It reminded him of complicated times and hopelessness. He wanted to forget all about those feelings, things were going good, he could be hopeful now, and going back home made those feelings a little...muted, for a while. So he figured he’d go home, get into bed, sleep it off, and get back to being hopeful in the morning.

Only he couldn’t do that, because of course Nicko was having a party. He usually called it “having people over”, because he was trying to be an adult now and that’s what adults usually said, but when it consisted of beer pong and body shots that didn’t seem like the right term. The lawn was covered in cars, so was the driveway, so were both sides of the street directly outside. Salem had to park halfway down the block, get his suitcase and guitar, and walk down the street. To his own house. He wanted to break Nicko’s face.

When he walked into the house, the air was thick with smoke and reeked of pot and sweat and booze. The living room was mostly empty, Salem could see from the front door that almost everyone was in the kitchen playing some sort of drinking game or outside. The house was a mess, almost all the lights were off so Salem couldn’t see the full damage yet, but he could tell that he wasn’t going to like it when he did. He shuffled into the house, kicking away cups and bottles as he walked past them. Part of him wanted to just turn around and get back in his car and drive far away, never come back and never see Nicko or this shitty house again. But he had to stick to his plan, he had to play it safe here.

“Salem!” He snapped his head up, in the direction of the voice, sighing when he saw it was Nicko’s girlfriend, Aurora. Or Rory, as most people called her. She had dyed her hair a bright, shocking blue since Salem had last seen her, if he remembered correctly she had it a pale pink before. Her makeup was dark and heavy, like it usually was, making her eyes look all that more intense and striking. Except for right then, because she was very obviously high, her eyes hooded and lazy. She was sitting on the couch, a boy who looked a lot younger than her on his knees right in between her legs. He looked even more fucked up than she did, glaring hard at the floor and swaying slightly as she raked her fingers through his messy, dark hair. As Salem approached them, the kid flinched away from him and snapped his eyes up to look at him. He didn’t pay too much attention to him, too distracted by his anger. Rory had to shout over the music just a little when she started talking again. “I was wondering when you were gonna be back! How was your tri-”

“Where the fuck is Nicko?” He interrupted. His hand was tight around the handle to his guitar case, he could feel his heartbeat in his closed fist.

Rory gawked at him, then her crimson painted lips turned up into a lazy smile and she laughed. “Wow, someone’s in a mood,” she teased, “why don’t you have a drink? Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Rory. Tell me where he fucking is!”

Rory turned her attention downwards, toward the rough looking boy on the floor in front of her. Salem followed her gaze, realizing that he was now shaking, pressing his thin frame against Rory’s leg like he couldn’t get close enough. He was looking at Salem’s shoes, his face twisted up in a nervous frown. Rory instantly leaned close to him, hands on his cheeks and lips against his jaw, saying something in a real low, soft voice. She was calming him down, soothing him, Salem noticed, because he had frightened him.

Salem realized, then, how angry he sounded, shouting and cursing, and he sighed to himself. He decided he’d be better off just going to bed, putting in earplugs and waiting until the morning to deal with the problem. It’s not like he’d really be able to fight Nicko anyway, he was so much taller and he’d been on the football team and honestly Salem just wasn’t equipped for fighting. So he turned away from both of them and made his way down the hallway, to his room. He locked his door and set his things down, then he promptly stripped down to his boxers and got into bed.

The next morning, Salem was surprised to wake up to a clean, quiet house. He walked down the hallway, expecting at any second to see all of the trash pushed into a corner somewhere, he didn’t think Nicko would have cleaned up himself, unprompted. But it was clean all the way through, and he was impressed when he walked into the living room and saw Nicko, decked out in all black clothes and black boots, relaxing on the couch with his keys clutched readily in his hands, like he was leaving. He was speechless, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he approached him.

“Morning, sleepy head,” Nicko teased, tilting his head back and looking him up and down, “how was your trip?”

“Uh...good.” Salem answered, voice still gruff from sleep.

“Morning, Salem!”

He turned to see Rory standing there in fishnets and an oversized hoodie, dramatically tall heels wrapped around her ankles, making Salem wonder how she was standing straight. One time, when Nicko was busy doing an art piece or working on school work, he couldn’t remember now, she and Salem had been in the kitchen alone and Rory told him that she liked to wear tall heels because Nicko likes when she’s short and it entertains her to bother him. She said the best part of her day sometimes is irritating Nicko.

Behind Rory, standing with his head dipped downwards and his shoulders slightly hunched, was the same scared looking kid from the night before. He was allowing Rory to pull him along by his wrist, focusing on his shiny black boots, ones that he looked rather unsteady in, like he wasn’t used to tall shoes. His thin, oversized black tee shirt hung off of one boney shoulder, showcasing a few tattoos up on his collar bone and neck. They looked fresh, like they were healing. After Salem scanned the rest of his body (why was he wearing shorts and a tee shirt!? It was snowing outside!), he had healing tattoos all over, scattered every few inches. Were they all new? Salem didn’t know much about tattooing, but he didn’t think that was safe.

Salem didn’t realize he’d been staring at him, silent, until Rory cleared her throat, redirecting his attention to her. “He’s cute, huh?” She smiled, smacking her gum at him. “Nicko picked out a good one.”

“I...What?” Salem muttered.

“Our boxie,” she explained, holding his limp arm up in the air and waving it a little, making the kid flinch hard, “You were looking at him. Isn’t he precious?”

Now, he was shrinking in on himself more, looking rather embarrassed and ashamed, his face hidden mostly by his floppy hair. Salem frowned at him, then at Rory, then at Nicko, who was smiling smugly.

“You didn’t.”

Nicko laughed at him, and thus began the famous “You said it would be cool” argument. Salem was so shocked in the moment he wasn’t able to form a proper argument, so Nicko took both Rory and the boxie out the door and into the snow with him.

So that’s when things got complicated. Well, not necessarily right away, but that was the thing that kickstarted it all. It was a total snowball effect, where one bad thing happens and it just gets worse and collects more velocity and severity the longer it goes on, until it’s huge and it can’t be stopped and it flattens a poor snowboarder or a small city. Salem had to finish school, he had to start living his life and building his career, he didn’t have time to worry about huge snowball problems. That could ruin everything, all of his hard work and pain would have been pointless. All because Nicko decided to get a fucking boxie.

11 notes · View notes

bylolarai · 3 years

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CHARACTER INFORMATION

CHARACTER NAME: Lola Ophelia Rai GENDER/PRONOUNS: Girl-Flux / She/They DATE OF BIRTH: July 21, 1989 PLACE OF BIRTH: Salem, MA SPECIES/POWER: Witch, Oneirokinesis ELEMENT: Water COVEN POSITION: Member CURRENT RESIDENCE: Brooklyn, New York City OCCUPATION: Creative Director at Kaplan Cosmetics FACECLAIM: Summer Bishil

CHARACTER QUOTE:

❝ The heart is the toughest part of the body. Tenderness is in the hands.❞

PLAYLIST ( under co )

There was no feeling like the autumn crunch of leaves under your boot in Salem, Massachusetts. Lola knew nothing in her life but golden moments, the way the world around her looked as the seasons changed was always fascinating. Some would say as a child she had her head in the clouds and while this wasn’t inaccurate it wasn’t completely true. A young Lola saw the world as infinite, vast, amazing, soaking up every moment she could. On rainy days, she’d watch the rain water trickle down her window for hours and when those same rain drops produced flowers in the spring -- Lola was outside admiring them. Life was beautiful, the witches that raised her were a coven in every sense of the word. The Circle of the Reaping Star. At a young age a strong sense of right and wrong, justice, the opposite of desensitization to the world's injustices was imbued in Lola. Learning and listening to those around her, she idolized her mother Lavanya, amazed that she had come from someone so powerful. Could she be as powerful? Maybe. But her mother would tuck her in every night telling her that she could be anything she wanted to be, power was something that could grow, but her humanity? What tied her to every living thing, every person, the world? That was not something she could ever let go of. So Lola felt everything. Knowing how precious it was, to have the permission to just be and the love and acceptance that came with that brand of freedom? Lola was. It was as simple as that.

Admittedly, Lola was an emotional child. Despite being older than Lysander (she would lord it over them every chance she got, despite the fact that they weren’t that far apart in age), she had moments where many would think it was the opposite. He was everything that she wanted to be, so self assured, so confident once his abilities came in. They studied for hours together, she watched them excel in ways she could never dream of. Many would feel jealousy, envy even, but all Lola felt was the poignant need to protect. To learn. Admire. Love. Oh, how she loved them. She imagined a world in which once their mother stepped down, Lysander would replace her as the Supreme. Lola would be there by their side to advise, to listen, to help guide. But she believed in everything her sibling did and everything they were -- their power was something to learn from. The Sam to their Frodo. If Lola’s purpose was hers and hers alone -- it was to be by Lysander’s side. He was worried that the ancestors would choose him? Lola would do everything in her power to make sure that they did. It may not have been in her control but when it came to Lysander -- they always inspired her to do the impossible. To push herself past what she thought even she was capable of. To be by their side in this journey, to grow on her own congruent with them? That was a life she was content with.

Her own powers were something she became excited to explore. She’d always felt close to the water, always felt at peace with the waves and so when her ability was centered around water? It made complete sense. While she watched Lysander excel and even begin to tap into their ability of astral projection, Lola was still working on figuring out what her secondary ability could even be. Patience was a virtue that Lola did possess then, practicing with Lysander while trying to force them to eat, sleep, and drink some water. She’d tell them that they couldn’t lead their coven one day if they died from dehydration. Don’t you want something much more heroic to take you out than your inability to drink water? Lola would tease as she made sure they had snacks at every now scheduled practice. To redirect them at times, she’d ask them for advice on how to hone her own abilities. Water and fire, she’d say they went hand in hand -- sometimes she’d joke that their abilities would be useless without the other. Fire was untamable without water and water would never know to be still without the presence of fire. To stop moving, bending and become something more than just a source. To be still.

When Lysander was bitten during the summer of solstice of 2004, an almost 15 year old Lola grew up and was faced with questions that she never thought she would ever have to answer.

Are you still a sister if your sibling is nowhere to be found? Are you still a sister if you haven’t hugged them in years, talked to them, laughed, cried? Are you still a sister if they’re more of a ghost than a person in your life?

Lola always believed the answer was yes. It didn’t matter that he would never answer, she could understand why. The anger was directed to their mother, Lola deeply believed in their cause, their coven, but how could she let this happen? Lysander had begged to die rather than leave -- didn’t their mother see how horrible of a decision to make that was? Why should they -- or anyone -- have to be faced with making a decision like that? Her younger sibling. It was a moment like then that Lola was reminded of the fact that she was older than him, while she had technically lived a life without him -- she never remembered it. There was not a time without them in her life.

Until there was.

As Lola grew up, she stopped being all heart on her sleeve and developed her abilities in charm work quite quickly ( some would say as a coping mechanism ) while neglecting her secondary ability of oneirokinesis. There were nefarious things she could do with something that powerful and she didn’t want it. Astral projection, the mind, that was all Lysander’s speciality not hers. So she repressed it much to her detriment, showing up in dreams when she didn’t want to and further trying to ignore it through her use of illicit substances. To cope, Lola chose a creative route -- makeup. Jewelry. Creation. Adorning herself, tailoring her image to something so curated that the girl that was all heart on her sleeve was delicately hidden beneath layers of a foundation that wasn’t just cosmetic. Lola became anew, the girl she was only saved for herself and a select few. Within her Coven, if people wanted their makeup done? Their jewelry enchanted with spells of protection, self love, sometimes luck if she could spare it? Rings that didn’t just tell current moods but made you believe in whatever mood you wanted to be in? The most important things Lola could contribute were her abilities and her voice. The latter came out most venomously in private with their mother as the years went on.

How could I trust you after what happened with Lysander? It wasn’t fair, Lola knew. To blame her mother for every wrong thing that had happened since Lysander was sent away. It wasn’t fair but it wasn’t fair that he was gone either, was it? Lola knew she didn’t have the power herself to think she was even capable of making a cure -- but Lavanya? It had been a decade and there was little progress. Lola had bided her time playing pretend, playing with makeup and charms. More importantly she had gone to protests, helped forge documents when needed to avoid the authorities watchful eyes. While first born, she’d always been second -- contently so. Lysander would come back, she would dream. He would be chosen. Her place was never at the top where their mother was but why wasn’t Lavanya doing more with the power & prestige? The woman she believed to be all powerful, all knowing, all graceful, couldn’t do the one thing a mother was supposed to do -- protect her children. Lola didn’t talk about how she missed Lysander every day they were apart, how she had to cope through parties, drinking and other various forms of escape to subdue the question that always popped up?

Where was he?

Keeping her distance was hard (especially when your subconscious didn’t control where or when you would pop up in someone’s dreams) but she had gotten the message that they didn’t want to talk. Lola empathized but yearned. She respected but deeply felt his absence like a phantom limb. She did everything in her power to not resent her younger sibling but understand where they were coming from -- if anything it hurt more feeling compassion rather than resentment. It was worth it, the pain, she learned that at a young age. But she couldn’t stay in it -- she had to make something of her life, find a purpose that wasn’t just tied to being someone’s right hand. It was easier that way, to live your own life tied to another, to be on her own was a scary but worth it new adventure. First, she had an ETSY shop of her creations to branch out for fun and next she made a Youtube channel doing makeup looks. Her non magical subscribers were amazed by Lola’s special effects and the magical folk knew better -- as the years went by and Lola amassed a small following -- she reveled in her little corner of the internet. However, she wanted more as she found herself straying away from actually finding her purpose and falling into the world of illusions and charms through makeup, videos, her own skills. Hearing about a coven in New York that had similar ideals to her mothers became a goal of hers. While the idea of a cure to lycanthropy fell to the background of Lola’s mind, it was because she thought of a purpose greater than curing something seen as monstrous. She strived for acceptance. A cure would be helpful to those who wanted it but her thinking shifted from it being a necessity to it being a tool, a medicine for some and a balm of knowledge just by potentially being a reality to others. The day would come when she would see Lysander again, she didn’t want him to think that after all these years she only sought to fix him. If that’s what they wanted, she would abide, but she wished for so much more.

As Lola gained more traction in the online makeup world, job offers from companies started to roll in. A few brand deals and Lola started to become uncomfortable with how large her following started to become. Did she enjoy charm & illusion work? Yes, but only when it came to her work. Not her life. The world of social media itself started to feel like its own non-magical illusion, when it started out as fun. None of this was fun, her own hobby became exhausting and she needed a change. Some called her a sell out for taking the job at Kaplan Cosmetic so easily, going from brand coordinator to Creative director within a year. But Lola had seen it as the perfect opportunity to start a new life and more importantly -- align with what she actually wanted. With who she actually wanted to be. Saying goodbye to the Salem leaves, the waterfront walks, her coven, her mother was hard to come to terms with. Had Ly felt an ounce of this pain? Knowing that they had had no choice in the matter made it worse, Lola imagined. If they could survive doing so, their life ripped away from them without looking back, Lola could do this. Besides -- not many makeup & cosmetic brands sought her out because of her charm work. They either had no knowledge of the supernatural world or simply didn’t exist. Kaplan did. So Kaplan cosmetics it was.

While she still maintains her Etsy store, Lola focused her creative endeavors on Kaplan. The makeup she helps create and name are all enchanted based on emotions, experiences, places, even some smells. Her spellwork was also used to help her new coven in any way possible as she navigated her new life in New York. The transition was hard -- leaving behind everything she knew was one of the hardest decisions she has had to make but she knew it was the right one. Her place was not in that coven, not anymore. Maybe one day she’d come back with Lysander, if they could ever reunite and if they could ever gain their full power back, but until then her life in New York, her place in Brooklyn was what was slowly becoming her new home.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu

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You thought movies were the only place to get your daily dose of horror? Oh you fool! You absolute FOOL! There are plenty of bingeworthy and scary horror TV shows out there and Hulu just happens to be a great place to find them.

Hulu is home to recent hits like The Terror and Castle Rock but there are still more scares to be found for the horror enthusiast willing to dig deep. Gathered here are some of the best and scariest horror TV shows that Hulu has to offer.

Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the additions to the best horror TV shows on Hulu.

Updated for October 2020

The Terror

Based on a 2007 book of the same name by Dan Simmons, The Terror season 1 tells a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to the arctic in 1845. In real life, the doomed men likely got lost and succumbed to the cold but the show asks “what if there was something more sinister than low temperatures lurking about?”

The Terror features a cast impressively full of “hey it’s that guy” guys like Jared Harris, Ciarán Hindis, and Tobias Menzes. It deftly turned itself into an anthology with the second season The Terror: Infamy that tells a ghost story within the setting of a Japanese interment camp in World War II.

American Horror Story

Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story is revolutionary in quite a few ways. Not only did it help usher in a renewed era of anthology storytelling on television, it also was arguably the first successful network television horror show since The X-Files.

Like all anthologies, American Horror Story has its better seasons (season 1 a.k.a. Murder House, season 2 a.k.a. Asylum, season 6 a.k.a. Roanoke) and its worse (season 3 a.k.a. Coven and season 8 a.k.a. Apocalypse). Still, for nine years and counting, American Horror Story has been one of the go-to options for TV horror fans.

Castle Rock

Stephen King properties have made their way to television before. There have been miniseries for classic King texts like The Stand and ‘Salem’s Lot and even full series for works like Rose Red and Under the Dome. Still, none of those series has had the audacity to adapt multiple aspects of the Stephen King universe itself…until Castle Rock.

Castle Rock takes multiple characters, storylines, and concepts from the vast works of Stephen King and puts them all in King’s own Castle Rock, Maine. The first season featured inmates from Shawshank prison, extended family of Jack Torrance, and maybe even a touch of the shine. The show opened itself up for more storytelling possibilities in season 2, adopting an anthology format and bringing Annie Wilkes into the fold.

The Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone is an all-time television classic for good reason. Join Rod Serling each episode for a new tale of mystery, horror and woe.

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The Strain

The most novel thing about FX’s vampire horror thriller The Strain is how it equates the ancient fear of vampirism with the more modern, global fear of pandemic. The Strain, produced by Guillermo del Toro Chuck Hogan and based on their novel series opens with a flight landing with all of its passengers mysteriously dead.

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As CDC director Ephraim Goodweather (Corey Stoll) steps in to investigate, he discovers that there might be something more sinister…and ancient afoot than a simple virus. The Strain lasted for four mostly decent seasons on FX and if nothing else helped re-embrace the vampire as a monster and not some sort of noble antihero.

Stan Against Evil

To parody horror, one needs to love horror. And Stan Against Evil creator Dana Gould really, really, really loves horror. The longtime standup comedian and comedy writer brings his unique humor sensibilities and lifelong appreciation of horror to tell the story of a quaint New Hampshire town that just happens to be built on the cursed site of a massive witch burning.

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John C. McGinley stars as the titular Stan, a disgraced former sheriff who opts to pick up the battle against evil after a close call. He teams up with new sheriff Evie Barret (Janet Varney) to defend the town (and sometimes world) from supernatural threats.

The X-Files

The X-Files is quite simply the gold standard for horror on television. Chris Carter’s conspiracy-tinged supernatural masterpiece not only inspired every horror TV show that came after it, but just about every other TV show in general.

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By Chris Longo

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The X-Files follows FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigate the unusual cases that traditional law enforcement won’t touch. For 11 seasons (and a handful of movies), the show expertly balanced a massive series-long story along with what came to be called “monster of the week” self-contained tales.

Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural

When it first premiered on YouTube back in 2016, Buzzfeed Unsolved became a huge hit by appealing to one of the Internet’s favorite subjects: true crime. Still Buzzfeed saw all of that success and realzied there was still another audience to serve. Thus Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural was born.

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In this spinoff hosts Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej examine some of the supernatural world’s biggest mysteries. With the right balance of skepticism and belief, Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural is a welcome entry into the paranormal investigation TV canon.

The Outer Limits

When The Twilight Zone premiered in 1959, it set off a brief little renaissance of anthology horror storytelling on television. The best of these contenders to the Zone‘s throne was probably the sci-fi centric The Outer Limits.

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Outer Limits aired from 1963 to 1965 on ABC. In that span it generated 49 spooky episodes, several of which made an impact on pop culture. Alan Moore infamously borrowed the plot of the episode “The Architects of Fear” for the ending of Watchmen. The Outer Limits received a Sci-Fi Channel revival in the ’90s and is currently poised for another bite at the apple.

Freakish

Freakish stars several high profile (at the time at least) social media stars as students at Kent High School. The kids are gathered together at school on Saturday for detention, Breakfast Club-style, when a nearby chemical plant explodes, turning the local population into mutated zombies. The group must band together to survive.

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Debuting in 2016, Freakish ran for two seasons on Hulu. The show embraces its teenage soapiness and isn’t necessarily the most heavyweight horror option. But it’s a quick, fun watch for any zombie horror fan nonetheless.

The Exorcist

The Exorcist is one of the greatest horror films ever made. The Fox series that bears its name and premise isn’t quite as good (few things could ever be) but it’s still an excellent horror story in its own right.

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The Exorcist is a two-season long anthology series that follows two different cases of demonic possession. In the first installment, two Catholic priests assist a woman with a possession in her home. In the second, two new priests help a young girl battle evil.

Ghost Adventures

Since the turn of the millennium, television has not been lacking for shows involving paranormal investigations. But even within the crowded spooky market, Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures stands out.

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First premiering in 2008, Ghost Adventures follows paranormal researchers Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley as they travel the world looking for ghoulish occurrences to investigate. Over its 200-some episodes (not including specials), Ghost Adventures has proven itself to be the gold standard for people who just want to watch some dudes stumble around old properties in night vision.

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Monsterland

Since Netflix acquired the rights to Black Mirror back in 2015, the streaming world has been a veritable arms race of sci-fi and horror anthology series. Hulu has already tried its hand at horror anthology with the Blumhouse-produced Into the Dark, and Monsterland represents the latest effort.

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The WNUF Halloween Special: The Making of the Most Fun Found Footage Horror Movie Ever

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How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Monsterland is based on the short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud. It consists of eight spooky, unconnected tales and features the acting talents of Kaitlyn Dever, Bill Camp, Kelly Marie Tran, and more. The twist here is that each episode focuses on an urban legend from a different city within the United States. And given how weird this country is, the series won’t be running out of of stories anytime soon.

The post Best Horror TV Shows on Hulu appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3lSIDzp

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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fatheroffdensen · 5 years

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thanks for the tag @okietokiee ya nerd

Name: Ethan, some people call me Ezra (middle name)

Birthday: Jan 14th

Zodiac: Capricorn (clown rights baby)

Height: 5′2.5′’ but i say 5′4′’ because I wear combat boots sometimes

Hobbies: Ooh boy. Uh i draw i guess. A little bit of writing sometimes. Various hands-on things I can do at my desk (sewing, stupid little crafts, model making). Ghost hunting. Exploring. Ya know.

Favorite Colors: Green, black, orange, and cyan in that order.

Favorite Book: Don’t really have one? Currently reading Stephen King’s Salems’ Lot and it’s good. My childhood fav was the Leviathan trilogy.

Last song I listened to: Come on, Come on by Smash Mouth. Don’t shame me.

Last film I saw: Shittttt. I don’t remember. Probably 28 days later, again. Seen it like 400 times. But as for last one I saw that i’d never seen before: Hostel. Would not recommend.

Inspiration or Muse: This is gonna sound stupid but I find a lot of inspiration in a music/youtube series combination. Right now my biggest inspiration is achievement hunter’s various minecraft series’ & Brendon Small’s music. (See: @haunted-haywood)

Dream Job: GOD this terrifies me because both shame and my very noncommittal personality make me dislike the idea of a ‘dream job’ or long term goal, but I think being a psychologist would be cool. Not a therapist lol fuck that. And maybe ideally working for Roosterteeth but uh who knows.

Meaning behind your url: The ongoing ‘that’s my bread and butter you’re fucking with’ thing and the ‘no! drink the bleach!’ joke both from metalocalypse. I think they’re both great lol

I can’t remember your URLs right now so sophie and vi, assuming youll both see this, I tag you.

#eee #im very tired this isn't super coherent sorry

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suitsofarmor · 6 years

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TAGGED BY: @fiercerebekah TAGGING ( EIGHT PEOPLE ): @hismyth , @badasshybridqueen , @onefinaltruthremains , @camillethebrave , @hisbeautyindarkness , @allroundlostcause , @moonoverbourbon , @wclfgirl

ONE ( name / alias ): marie TWO ( birthday ): march 5 THREE ( zodiac sign ): pisces FOUR ( height ): 5′6″ FIVE ( hobbies ): writing, reading, youtube, cats, photoshop, feeding on the souls of the weak (am i kidding? maybe) SIX ( favourite colour(s) ): blue SEVEN ( favourite books ): salems lot by stephen king EIGHT ( last song listened to: ): cut the cord, shinedown NINE ( last film watched ): love, simon TEN ( inspiration for muse ): the originals, tvd, ELEVEN ( dream job ): profesh writer TWELVE ( meaning behind your url ): elijah wears his suits like armor

#oυт oғ cнαrαcтer | just call me marievil™

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myscalesofjustice · 7 years

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Nora and the Nuckelavee

Serious spoilers for RWBY episode Kuroyuri. I’m assuming everyone has seen it now, since it’s on YouTube.

I read this theory on TvTropes that says the Nuckelavee, the giant, ungodly freaky, half-corpse half-demon horse Grimm that attacked Ren’s hometown and left him an orphan, came to Kuroyuri because it was chasing Nora. Interesting, right? So, curious me dedicated some brain power and research to finding a potential explanation as to why Nora would be such a prize.

First off, any mildly savvy partaker of fiction knows that orphans have endless potential for fabulous and tragic origins. Anything could have led to Nora ending up lost and alone before Ren showed up. Second, the authentic Nuckelavee comes from the legends of Orkney, those islands north most of Scotland, but was inspired by Norse legends brought by Vikings. Hey, Nora’s inspired by the Norse Thor! This only furthers a connection. Finally, we have only ever seen Grimm with animal features in the past. The sheer level of abomination-ness the Nuckelavee possesses, never mind that it can think, makes me wonder if it is a poorly planned biology experiment instead of a naturally occurring monster.

Perhaps I’m jumping the gun, but those findings have led me to one heart wrenching conclusion: The Nuckelavee is Nora’s parent bonded to a Grimm!

Which parent? Father in the likeness of Odin came to mind first, but now I think Mother, after considering three points: A) We’ve seen single fathers raising daughters already. We need a single mother. B) The Valkyries for which Nora is named were warrior women who served under the royal family of Asgard, and chose which of those who died in battle were worthy of Valhalla. Tell me that it’s farfetched for Nora to be descended from a warrior clan. C) Shock factor! It is a common plot where the threatening animal or monster is actually a mother looking for her baby, but nobody would expect that of mindless Grimm.

Even after constructing this insane theory, I have no clue about the who, what and why which turned Nora’s mother into a monster. Maybe a nutso scientist studying Grimm like in the video game. Or a really stupid cult. Or Salem herself. More importantly, as for what this means for Team RNJR, take a moment to imagine the angst. Not just because the person Nora desperately needed was so close yet so far all this time, but because Ren would learn that the person he loves most in the world (Man, you ain’t fooling nobody) was the homing beacon that brought death to his childhood home. If there is ever a time for Ren to lose his cool, it’s being torn between the powerful emotions of love, grief and anger.

As for Nora’s hypothetical “Father in the likeness of Odin,” if other theory that Qrow and Raven represent Odin’s raven familiars, Huginn and Muninn, is true, maybe Nora’s father is the former chief of the bandit tribe who raised the Branwen twins. And Nora was born out of wedlock. Maybe?

Yes, I always think this much. It’s a blessing and a curse.

#RWBY #Kuroyuri #Nuckelavee Grimm #Nora Valkyrie #Lie Ren

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