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onesunofagun · 3 years

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Undeath in the Era of the Hero of Time : 1

aka Seeing the Hero’s Shade in this TP replay shook up all my feelings of agony again and now I’m working backwards from there because I like to hurt myself.

Part One: An Overview of How Fucked Things Are ™

aka The Blood Soaked Hyrule of OoT’s time

Take it as you will, in the Zeldaverse, the colour green has an overwhelming association with undeath.

Sure, sure, life too, I hear you. Farore came down and produced all the living beings that would uphold the law, apparently (specifically not claiming monsters and demons, but that’s another thing). On the surface, that make sense. Forests, lush green fields, prosperity, all of those good things. Green the colour of the most common rupee, green the colour of the Hero’s tunic. Green the colour of magic, and potions that revitalise the body and spirit.

The thing is, revitalising the body and spirit is a flexible idea. To imbue something with new life and vitality can have a lot of implications, especially when you stop talking about the strictly living.

I feel vitality is certainly the best word, not only because of it’s association with life and potency ala the Goddess origin stories, but in the ways that the game uses green itself, such as a measure of both magic and stamina. Green is the colour chosen to represent the unlocked potential within young Heroes.

Vitality specifically refers to a state of being strong and active, and it also refers to the continuance of something to exist. That’s a great thing for plants, or economies, or a potion taken by a young Link who’s swung their sword around or fired off a spell one too many times and feels a little low.

But the dead, though?

As it happens, Hyrule is absolutely littered with human remains, in no small part due to the very recently ended civil wars.

The Civil War, if you need the reminder, is described as a time when the many races of Hyrule were divided and each focused on establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm (because Triforce). I touched on this in my last meta post, but basically, its no holds barred to stop that from happening because if the wrong person gets into the Sacred Realm and makes a wish, it immediately malfunctions.

The criteria for getting into the Sacred Realm and touching the Triforce without royally fucking everything, is basically impossible for anybody not chosen by Hylia.

If you are neither of Hylia’s Bloodline (The Hyrulean Royal Family) or one of her Chosen Avatars (The current incarnation of the Hero), you are not supposed to touch the Triforce. Ever. You WILL be found wanting, it WILL shatter, the Sacred Realm WILL be corrupted by your selfish desires, it WILL unleash and onslaught of mystical influence (reflecting your heart) onto the country.

Now, if it’s Zelda or Link who touches it, that’s fine. Good vibes will pour out. An age of prosperity will ensue. The Sacred Realm is in its default state, a blank and neutral wellspring of magical force.

The game has been rigged from the get go because Hylia still had a job to do. She had to get creative because Demise almost captured the flag, so to speak, leading to the snafu of the Cycle and all that because she cheated at the game, but ultimately Hylia’s task was to guard the Triforce. And that still remains true, for the most part. The Hyrulian Royal Family (and the Shiekah by extension) had to stop at absolutely nothing to win the wars and unify the country, and retain the stasis of the Realm and Triforce, because that’s what their divine orders are.

That’s what they’re supposed to do, ‘the very reason that they’re born’, to lend a quote from King Daphnes. With Hylia on their side by default, they’re willing to do a lot of fucked up things to make sure that happens, ‘for the greater good’.

These dark times are a result of our deeds... -- TP Zelda

In OoT The Sheikah are known as the Shadow Folk. They are heavily associated with death, whether that is caring for the dead’s rest in the graveyard, or working as spies and assassins on behalf of the Royals, or dabbling in various forms of necromancy. Red eyes are an established trait of their people. I will note that, at least from a Japanese point of view, red is often used with the intention of intimidating evil spirits. But it is also a color identified with power and vitality.

So, one could suppose, the Sheikah red eye also symbolises power/control over evil and darkness (spiritually).

That’s a little something that plays nicely with things like the OoT Manga’s explanation of the tear on the eye (and the previous betrayal of the Royal family) and the high probability of a Shiekah faction defaulting during the wars and being banished with other traitors to become the Twili. I know the manga isn’t canon and also SS Impa has a tear, but if you squint, that might be because of her own feelings of personal failure to the Goddess after Hylia’s shedding of her Divinity. You could headcanon that. The existence of the Yiga later in BoTW as a similar happening of division and betrayal lend some more weight to things.

Also, Sheikah who defaulted during the civil war might have even been the ones who actually utilised the Shadow Temple.

Headline: Necromancer ninjas in the process of torturing enough info out of the enemies of the Royal family, who were reportedly seeking the Sacred Realm, decide ‘hey fuck it, let’s take it ourselves’.

That certainly fits into the description of, ‘interloper skilled with dark magic started to appear, seeking dominion of the Sacred Realm’, for me.

Anyway, to the point.

In ostensibly one of the most haunted areas of the game, Kakariko village, we’re treated to the Graveyard and the Royal Family’s Tomb, the Shadow Temple, and the Bottom of the Well. All of these showcase the obvious death and torture that went on, as well as the creepy byproducts of places so saturated with blood, pain, regret, and hatred.

There are skulls in little alcoves on the walls of the catacombs, literally built of bones, who deliver messages to Link. The ones that whisper these messages are all marked by the glowing green eye sockets. Here, the green is used to make the presence of a ghostly sentience inhabiting the skull.

Unsettling. Musty. 4/10 heebie-jeebies.

The Deadhand, giver of childhood trauma that it is, really does its job to hammer home the fact that there has been so many deaths, so much anguish and horror, that those remains can seemingly form into entirely new monstrosities. An amalgamate of undead flesh and nightmare fuel, made up of the body parts of torture victims and the grudges of lingering spirits, seeking to consume the living vitality of whatever comes near-- Link wearing green around the thing might as well be red to a bull.

When defeated in game, it typically drops a small green pot that refuels Link’s magic.

This is a common theme with undead enemies, specifically the ones that are of the zombie flavour. Redeads, Gibdos, Deadhands. All of them generally give up, effectively, distilled magic as a drop item.

Terrifying. Probably smells even worse. 11/10 heebie-jeebies.

Literal torture device. So many people died here, the room has a green tinge to it. It is soaked in the spiritual imprint of the pain and anguish that took place here. Blood sits here looking freshly spilled, despite the civil war ending many years prior and the Shiekah having ‘died out’, save Impa.

Elsewhere in the temple and under the well, blood splatters are darker red and at least have the decency to pretend to be old. This means one of two things:

Impa still has to make sacrifices to the Seal that contains Bongo Bongo, or feeds people to the undead creatures who lurk down in the dark so they don’t wander up. (Cue the gasp of ‘so that’s why she let the Hylians into Kakariko! Every so often one of them goes missing!’)

Which is a fun dark headcanon to play with, but probably not the case.

Or more likely, the residual spiritual energy that the green haze suggests manifests fresh blood in a manner typical of extreme hauntings. For the victims, their hatred and pain persists so strongly, that their blood seeps up from the cracks no matter how long it has been.

Poltergeist shit. Slip hazard. 8/10 heebie-jeebies.

Then there is this. Some people say its just another torture thing, it could have been intended to convey some sort of acid dip. If not torture, maybe bodily disposal. And sure, that’s a reasonable guess.

But it is at the very bottom most cavern of the Well of Three Features, and if it were acid-- for how long the bodies have just been marinating in it-- you can assume nothing would be left of them to stick out. And the fact that all the bodies are neatly spaced, with the arms oddly preserved. They’re presumably like that from lowering bodies in from the wooden beams, the victims may have been tied up with their arms straight upwards.

But, given the Redeads wandering around nearby, I’m pretty sure that’s what this thing does. Make Redeads.

The liquid itself hurts Link, but Link is also alive, and this pool seems to be lacking much of a glow. It’s green, sure, but it’s not exactly teeming with energy. And I think that might be part of its designated purpose-- extracting that green vital energy from living prisoners, draining them until they’re dead. I’m talking juicing people and scooping out the good stuff like the pulp from a really disturbing OJ.

But still steeped in the juice as a corpse, you’re basically pickled in magic brine, so then those gross husks crawl out as Redeads. (Hey, you know what’s handy in wartime? Scaring the shit out of enemy forces by sending some zombies at them. And if they kill them, you’ve lost nothing. If the Sheikah could actually control them? Undead soldiers. Excellent stuff.)

But all the pulpy good stuff is gone, and has been for a while, so most of the bodies in there haven’t pickled in enough magic to reanimate, I suppose.

Human juicer that churns out zombies. Out of juice currently. 6/10 heebie-jeebies.

Now, THIS is active zombie juice, if I’ve ever seen it.

This is the Royal Family’s Tomb, by the way. Note the skeletons, picked clean, missing a lot of bones. And that’s a choice they made, because there are also full skeletons around to find.

There are plenty of Redeads down there, for good measure, so I’m going to assume the skeletons are potential graverobbers who were eaten. If Sheikah can presumably command the dead, then the Redeads down there might actually be a counter measure against thieves. If a thief freaks out in the dark when he realises there’s undead down there trying to eat their face, there is also a good likelihood they’ll trip and splash into this green death. A few seconds of exposure is probably enough to kill the average person, and then if their corpse stews for a bit, you have another Redead.

Their living energy revitalises the goop. Their body becomes bolstered security measures. It’s a self sustaining system.

Horrific but effective. 5/10 heebie-jeebies.

Also, there’s a chance that a couple of the skeletons or one or two Redeads down there are the remains of the Composer Brothers. But they will get their own special part in this series, covering Poes in particular.

But for the moment, let it be noted: their eyes are also that ghostly green.

Poes are spirits that are unable to move on and who have the unfortunate fate, if left unattended, of turning into phantom monsters who forget their human selves and prey on the living. They tend to pop up the most in two places. One, the Kakariko Graveyard, is obvious and somewhat expected. Dead people, lots of lingering spirits, most of them probably Sheikah and Knights of renown who died in the line of duty. Understandable.

So when you apply the same thought to the fact that Hyrule field is the second most common place to find them, you may as well be concluding that it’s an enormous mass grave of war casualties.

We have established that mass quantities of concentrated death, especially earth that is saturated by the spilled blood of strong soldiers and highly skilled warriors (full of life and magic, as it were), can result in creepy shit made from human remains reanimating over time.

Poes share their haunting of the field with these bumpkins:

These hauntings are not the result of Ganondorf, or the corruption of the Sacred realm. They are not a particular curse placed by anybody.

The Poes and Stalfolk are present in the game from the very beginning, and quite normal fare for Hyrulean life. Lon Lon ranch and castle town are walled off for good reason, and the drawbridge raises at night specifically in response to the literal skeleton monsters who roam around at night.

Stalchildren, specifically, seem akin to the Deadhand in that they are not a direct reanimation of any one particular set of remains. Rather, they seem to be mutated amalgamations of various parts. In the case of the Stalchildren, they rise up under the dark of night, a not-quite-human formation of bone and magic. They seem to possess an aimless drive to attack, perhaps possessed still by the orders of the soldiers who died there.

Interestingly, in a somewhat similar fashion to BotW’s blood moon reanimating the fallen monsters (due to the potency of Malice in the land peaking at those times), Stalchildren only seem to be active under the moonlight. They disintegrate when the sunlight touches them, which promotes the idea that they are the bones of the fallen possessed by the ghostly memory of the war.

They also appear to wear raggy leather kilts, which is a feature they share with the related monster, the Stalfos, who are often acting out the part of a soldier as well. Even better, those bastards are actually WEARING GREEN, to boot, which given the history of Hyrulean Knights prior and their uniforms (SS and Minish cap) is pretty self evident.

Stalfos, however, are also confirmed as humans who have died under certain unique circumstance (such as the magical influences of the Lost Woods) and reanimated as a consequence of what I assume is basically magic poisoning.

It could be a bit like an overdose, succumbing under the intense mystical forces at play within proximity to the Deku Tree (which the strong of spirit can resist). It could be a draining effect, maybe even just a gaseous version of what’s happening when people come into contact with the green goo, except extracted by the forest spirits and plants (also possible that the strong of spirit might resist). That could go either way.

The forest absolutely does eat people’s spiritual energy, though. RIP to Grog and Link’s mother. They’re Stalfos now.

"Anybody who comes into the forest will be lost. Everybody will become a Stalfos. Everybody, Stalfos."

Upon killing both kind of Stal, however, the bones rapidly deteriorate into flames.

You guessed it: green.

I’ve already pointed out a BoTW reference already, but to add more context back into this thing about the tie between green and things in Hyrule that refuse to die properly:

That last one is cheap of me I’m sorry but we’ll get to him too

So we have established that green has an overwhelming association with not only life, but states of undeath.

The overview is, things were already pretty fucked in OoT Era before Ganondorf got the Triforce.

On to part 2!

#tloz #legend of zelda ocarina #Ocarina of time #link #zelda lore #zelda meta #zelda theory #zelda theories #zelda discussion #death tw #blood tw #shadow temple #shiekah #stalfos #poes #undead tw #long post #hero of time #hyrulean history

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Past Memories.”

This idea came to me this morning and I just couldn’t resist getting a start on it.

Darkness seeped in through the viewing window. Little pinpricks of light seemed cold and distant in the darkness, as stars glowed billions of lightyears away, like fireflies trapped in ink. Admiral Vir sat at the helm of his ship bleary eyed and exhausted. At his feet, Waffles yawned dramatically all 42 of her shiny bone-white teeth.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” he muttered, rubbing the side of his head with one hand.

He turned to look towards the communications officer who had made the decision to wake him up at two in the morning with cryptic words about some sort of signal. He learned forward in his seat, “Please tell me you woke me up for nothing and I can go back to bed.”

The Comms officer shook her head sadly, “Sorry sir, but that isn’t going to be an option.” She pressed a button, and before him, his screen lit up with an eerie blue light to wash over his face.

A weak signal pinged just outside their range of detection, a range that was rather far thanks to the Finnari reverse engineering Gnar’lak technology and adding it to the ship.

“It’s a distress signal, sir.”

A cold shiver ran up his spine as he remembered the last time the crew had answered a distress signal.

“Alright.”

He turned to look down at the ship controls, and tweaked their course just slightly to head in the direction of the signal.

“Tell me if you get anything else.

“Do you want me to hail them, sir.”

“Yes.”

She turned back to her console, “Unknown vessel this is the UNSC Omen, please respond.”

When she let off, there was only static over the line. A distant rushing that made the shiver return to him. A cold hand seemed to grip him from behind, and he couldn't help but turn only to find nothing.

She continued t try.

“Sorry sir, they aren’t answering.”

He cursed under his breath. He had seen this before. He remembered how it ended and it wasn’t good.

It took thirty minutes before they made visual contact with the vessel. Looking out the window he could see that it was dark, foreboding. None of it’s engines were running, but it continued to spin slowly through space suggesting that it’s stabilizers were shot.

“Get Alpha team up and prepare a boarding shuttle.”

“Yes sir.”

He stood from his seat, ordering one of the night lieutenants to take command for him as he moved down towards the cargo bay. He didn’t like this at all

A distress signal out in the middle of space, a seemingly derelict ship.

He didn’t like to think about what that could mean.

He reached the docking bay about the same time as a couple of bleary marines. None of these men were new to the ship, as the Alpha team consisted of some of his oldest and most trusted soldiers, Ramirez, Maverick, Jackie, CJ - to name a few.

Ramirez -- team leader -- jogged forward boots clattering over the floor, “What’s going on. We heard something about a distress signal.”

Admiral Vir nodded, reaching into his designated gear locker and pulling on the black and grey ACUs over his thin nightclothes, “Distress signal, derelict ship, and no response over comms.”

Ramirez and Maverick both frowned,

“Does that sound familiar to anyone, or is that just me.” Jackie muttered from behind.

Admiral Vir sighed and retrieved a rifle from the locker. The weapon looked the same as it might in any other human equipment locker except for at some point the Celzex had gotten a hold of them and now they were gravity stabilized, locked with the targeting systems on the helmets, and could potentially vaporize someone if you moved them to the right setting.

Off on the deck, the docking crew was readying a shuttle for them.

He switched his comms channel over to the Bridge network and asked if they heard anything from the distress signal. Of course they hadn’t which didn’t exactly bode well.

“What kind of ship is it?” Ramirez asked.

“Looks like a Kree model to me.”

“Are we authorized to work with the Kree after the debacle with the burg war?”

He sighed, “Technically we are authorized to help Satan if he decided to show up and ask for help fixing his engines.”

“Anyone want to take a bet on what we are going to find on the ship.” Ramirez said dryly, “Ghosts, cannibals, zombies.”

“My bet is on vampires.” Maverick interjected, “Because that is exactly what we need in our lives right now.”

Admiral Vir Rested the rifle against the Tac sling as he walked towards the shuttle, “Let's get this over with.”

Ramirez chuckled as the marines followed him onto the ship, “You know, you are the Admiral, which technically means that you are above these sort of missions.”

“The day I give up field work is the day I shoot myself out the airlock.”

The group of marines laughed, though it was a rather forced laugh as the admiral took his seat in the pilot’s chair. A few of them tried to take up another line of conversation, but the attempts soon died out, and the shuttle went quiet except for the rattling of metal and the vibration of the engines.

Admiral Vir slowly approached the derelict as it spun through space. There was no sign of life as far as he could see, and so he continued forward, using sensors to scan the hull. It showed no activity in the engines though the life support was still running. Or at least there was still some sort of atmosphere inside the ship.

IT only took him one try to dock their little shuttle against the Kree ship, and they connected to the airlock with a soft cachunk.

Still silence.

He tried to shake off the feeling of being watched, though the darkness outside the shuttle seemed to deapen. He took a deep breath.

He was over that part of his life, there was no reason for it to come back to haunt him again, though as he turned around to look at the others, he noted the expressions on their faces seemed to suggest that they too were reliving the last time something like this had happened.

He motioned towards the door, and with the practiced ease of a group of people who had done this one too many times, they moved over towards the airlock door. He moved with them keeping to the back of the group as Ramirez pulled on his gas mask.

The scans told them that there was atmosphere and pressure inside the ship, but whether the air was breathable or not was another question. The masks should filter the air they needed for long enough to figure that out and get back to safety if they had to.

With his position at the back of the group, he kept an eye on the life support readout as the door opened. The change in pressure hit them as a great gust of air, though there was only a slight change in atmospheric reading on his implants. The interior of the ship was dark, like he was staring into the bowls of some long forgotten cave.

“Any lifesign readouts?” Ramirez whispered

“Not that I’m getting.” Adam said glancing down at his implant as flashlights flicked on around him. They swept their beams of light over the interior of the ship, but found nothing.

They had done this before.

From where he was at the back of the group, he could see the hair raising on the back of the marine’s necks as they moved forward into darkness. Despite knowing that the only thing behind him was his own shuttle, he couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder towards the receding darkness at his back.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t good.

A distant buzzing began in the back of his head as he moved forward.

His heart hammered in his chest inching him ever closer to panic. None of the other marines seemed to feel it.

“Clear.”

They kept moving forward, and it didn’t take them long to clear the small Kree ship.

He remained in the hall with Maverick as the others cleared the second to last room.

He stood watching the doorway, but something caught him out of the corner of his eyes. His head flicked sideways assuming that he had seen a figure pass by him in the darkness, but as he did the figure was gone.

He glanced over at Maverick who was looking at him with concern.

“Did you, see that?” He wondered

Out of all the people on the ship, he knew Maverick would be able to tell.

She inched across the hall to stand next to him and leaned over in his ear, “I felt something.” She whispered, “But… not like…. You know… that other time.”

She was right of course, this was nothing in comparison to that day on the civilian transport, but still there was something familiar about it.

The rest of the marines filed out of the room and they began their journey up the hall.

Light rolled over the steel doorways until, “Admiral, we have a body.” Ramirez said from the front

“Shit.” He muttered, ‘What kind.”

“It’s kree, I think.” HE stepped forward to let their team medic take a look. He knelt on the floor as Ramirez shone his light forward, “I've got a couple more bodies over here, sir.”

The medic looked up from where he was working, “It’s Kree sir, but not one of the voiced or the voiceless.”

Admiral Vir moved forward slightly to get a look himself, and looking down at the cold, unmoving body he could see the marine was right. This creature was a Kree, though it had no wings like it’s other counterparts. They had met this type of Kree once before in conflict, though they had not met since then.

“Is it dead?”

The marine shook his head and then nodded, “I don’t know much about Kree anatomy sir, but it, well it isn’t breathing, and I am feeling no vascular movement below the skin, so I would say yes.”

“Someone stay back beside the door.” he ordered motioning Ramirez to continue further onto the ship.

The hair on the back of his neck stood up again. The feeling that rose inside him was the kind you get when seeing a snake hissing through the grass, or hearing a noise in your house at night when you know you are alone.

Every nerve in his body was buzzing.

“More dead over here, sir. Looks like the whole crew.”

That may have been what it looked like, but he was very wary about assuming someone was dead without actual proof. He may have gotten over the last incident, but that didn’t mean he was stupid.

“Any idea what they died from?” he wondered

“No idea, sir.”

“Well, call back to the ship, and get a hazmat team and a DECOM station ready. If this was some sort of alien virus, I want to make sure that we aren’t going to spread it to the rest of the ship. Have one of the docking bay prepared to have her brought on board, and call in to get the morgue ready.”

“You want to bring them on the ship, Sir.”

“We have to figure out what happened here, it’s our job. But we will be taking every precaution.”

THey nodded in agreement, yes sir.”

They turned to leave towards the shuttle, him still in the back, paranoid more than ever.

He glanced over his shoulder.

And thought he saw a familiar pair of blue eyes wink at him from the darkness before vanishing.

***

He stared out the observation window frowning, arms wrapped around his chest. He had spent the last few hours overseeing the kree ship as it was brought into the docking bay and secured. The entire docking bay had been sealed and sterilized before the ship was brought in, anyone who had come in contact was immediately sterilized and tested for any contaminants before being released. The bodies were sealed in HAZMAT bags and they sprayed down before being brought to the morgue which was also sealed and decontaminated.

Until they determined the cause of death it was going to stay that way.

He continued to stare into the window looking at his reflection in the glass. A single green eye staring back at him.

Adam.

He nearly leaped out of his skin jerking violently to the side as he thought he saw a face appear in the reflection beside him. He turned but saw nothing there.

A cool breeze washed over his skin.

Hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He took a deep breath in and counted to seven before slowly releasing it.

At his feet Waffles had her head lifted and was staring off into the center of the room with an intense expression that only German Shepherds tend to have.

“See something, girl?” He wondered

But she only groaned and rested her head back on the floor.

He turned back to the window rubbing his hands over his arms. The soft hiss of the door opening nearly scared him out of his skin and he turned around to See sunny step into the room. He took another dep breath, and she eyed him.

“You look pale.”

He turned his head back to the viewing window, “You heard what happened?”

“Yeah, kind of strange.”

He nodded his head, arms still folded over his chest.

A hand gently slipped around his waist and he felt a tiny bit better as he was pulled up against Sunny’s side.

“You alright?”

He sighed, “Sunny…. Am I, Crazy?”

“Yeah.”

He looked up at her.

“Super crazy, like absolutely insane.”

He frowned, “I mean it sunny.”

Seeing the look on his face she stopped her teasing suddenly looking concerned, “Why do you think that.”

HE sighed and pressed a hand against his temples, “I…. Its nothing, I just… ever since I… ever since the incident with that civilian transport I…. sometimes I swear I see things, and every time I think its gone, it starts up again.”

She was silent for a moment. He rubbed his temples harder with one hand.

Gently she reached over and took that hand lacing her fingers through his, stopping his nervous rubbing, “I see, and what exactly do you see?”

He shrugged, “I…. well for the first little while I was seeing him everywhere.”

“Him?’

“The captain from the civilian transport. I would look in the mirror and see his face, see him in reflections, in the windows.”

She was quiet, listening.

“And then one night…. It was that night you came in and I…. I had just seen him again, but that time it felt, so real. He, it was like he was actually there talking to me, telling me to let go.”

She seemed surprised, “And you never told me?”

“I didn’t think it was important, I thought it was some sort of whacked out stress dream, and after that it… well it seemed like it stopped. I havent seen or dreamed about him in ages but…. Today just now I thought…” She pulled him closer wrapping both of her right arms around him.

“Adam, if you are really worried, there is always Dr. Adric.”

He grimaced a little, “You know how-”

“How you feel about psychiatrists, yeah I know, but if you are worried that seems to be your best option. However, in my unprofessional opinion….”

HE waited.

“I think its normal to be backsliding a bit. This whole incident reminded you of that. You are Stressed and paranoid, and the human mind likes to play tricks on you. I’ve spent enough time around humans to know that.”

He turned his head to look up at her, “You think so?”

“I do, but don’t use my opinion as an excuse if you are still worried.:

He sighed and nodded his head, “Alright…. Maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight, and see how I feel in the morning.”

It seemed reasonable enough, nothing had gone wrong, and everything on the ship was quiet.

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snowdice · 4 years

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There Are Things That Are Lost (Part 5 of the series “Is There Anything Left of Patton.”)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Virgil & Logan, Logan/Patton(?), Virgil & Patton (?)

Characters: Logan, Virgil, Patton(?)

Summary: Virgil’s lucky hoodie is missing. Patton is more helpful with this than Logan.

Notes: Zombie Apocalypse AU, Past major character death(?), It’s a zombie AU and Patton is a Zombie. Angst.

This is the fifth part of a series of one-shots called Is There Anything Left of Patton? For once we’re not going to have a big time skip between this one and the next one so watch out for their trip to the Home Depot next week.

Previous parts:

“Something Left”

“Someone You’ll Never Meet”

Food You’ll Never Eat

Things You’ll Never Do

“Ugh,” Virgil groaned. “Where’s my hoodie?!” Patton turned at the slightly louder sound of his voice and shambled over to him. Unwilling to deal with him right now, Virgil took the couch cushion he’d been looking under and raised it between them as a barrier. Patton glommed onto it and Virgil pushed a bit, so he stumbled back. Apparently, he’d been too rough because he fell and landed on his butt continuing to grip at the pillow mindlessly.

“Don’t be mean to Patton,” Logan scolded, walking into the room.

“Have you seen my hoodie?” Virgil asked him.

“You need to keep better track of your stuff,” Logan said. He pulled the pillow out of Patton’s grip meeting very little resistance.

“That is not helpful,” Virgil spat.

Logan grunted as he leaned over and pulled Patton to his feet by the underarms. Patton grabbed for his face once he was standing. “Hush dear,” Logan mumbled, gently taking his hands in his and pulling them away. “It’s okay.” Then he turned his attention back to Virgil. “Based on data from the last three months, I predict you’ll find it in a place you ‘swear you didn’t put it’ within the next 2-3 days. Then, you’ll inevitably loose it again within the week.”

“… I don’t appreciate your tone.”

Logan did not bother to respond to him this time. He simply settled Patton on the couch with gentle pushes. They had found that he was much more likely to acquiesce if they just poked him in the direction they wanted him to go instead of shoving. He liked to push back against things that were too forceful, but if you just nudged him, he tended to accept it. They’d figured out a lot of things like that ever since they’d started to let him off the leash a bit.

Virgil had convinced Logan to let Patton walk around on his own sometimes almost three months ago, honestly mostly out of boredom after a month being stuck inside by the winter weather. He’d cited the fact that the zombie couldn’t exactly figure out how to open doors or anything, and neither of them were worried he’d eat them at this point. All they had to do to keep him contained was make sure the exits of the room they wanted him in were closed. They didn’t even need to lock them; they could probably just put up one of those baby cages.

Okay, maybe not that. Sometimes when he got in attack mode, he could push really hard. Last month Virgil’d forgotten to close the door to the kitchen and had ended up being tackled for a piece of raw meat he’d been intending to cook. It had been all types of traumatizing to watch him eat something bloody while being held to the ground. Beyond just the instinctual fear, there’d also been the thought that maybe being covered in blood would finally activate his eat human mode and Virgil would be desert. Yet, the most he’d done to Virgil was shove at him with his creepy ass fingers. Patton was lucky Virgil had some weird misplaced affection for him after that stunt. Logan also was lucky for the same reason; else he would have murdered the man for laughing after he realized exactly what had happened.

With a dramatic sigh, Virgil flopped down on the couch next to Patton and immediately had fingers on his arm. “Do you know where my hoodie is?” he asked Patton, pushing the fingers away. Patton made a puffy moaning sound. Virgil nodded along. “I already checked there, but thanks for being more help than Logan.”

Logan glared at him. “It’s too warm for it anyway,” he pointed out. It was true, but that didn’t soothe him.

“And if a zombie comes and tries to bite me, I’d like to have more than a t-shirt for cover,” Virgil grumbled. “No offence, Pat.”

He figured since Patton didn’t stop with the grabbing at his face that he did not take any offence.

“The hoodie isn’t going to give you any more cover if a zombie attacks you,” Logan pointed out.

“Well, it certainly helps when this zombie attacks me,” Virgil said as fingers continued to touch him. He’d usually put up his hood and pull the strings tight to prevent the slightly too cold touch from hitting his skin when Patton did this.

“The lost hoodie is your own fault and I have no sympathy for you. Keep better track of your things.”

Virgil stuck out his tongue. “Fine,” he said. “you’d better hope I don’t die in an accident that could have been prevented by a hoodie when we go out today. ‘Cause I’ll haunt you.”

“Yes,” he snapped, “because I need more dead loved ones hanging around my house.”

…

Oops.

“Sorry,” Virgil said, properly cowed.

Logan sighed and sat down in the armchair across from him. “No, I’m sorry. That reaction was needlessly provocative.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking like he was battling a headache.

They’d been at each other throats the past couple of months. January and February had been particularly hard with the snow and the cold. They’d been snowed in the house with only each other and a zombie whose presence could either make Logan soft and sad or irritable at the flip of a coin. Now it was nearing April and though it had been snowing still two weeks ago, the weather had broken a day ago and it was suddenly edging on hot, at least in comparison.

Hopefully with a little fresh air they’d be able to calm down a bit around each other.

Speaking of.

“It’s fine Lo,” Virgil said. “I get it. We should probably get going if you’re ready.” At some point during the winter, they’d apparently sprung a leak in the corner of the living room by the armchair. They often woke up to the carpet damp and Logan was worried there might be rot if they let it go much longer. So, since the weather seemed to be holding, they were going on a mission to get lumber and some other supplies to hopefully fix it. The hope was that the Home Depot wasn’t too overrun and the wood there was good. Otherwise they’d have to chop down a tree themselves which would make a lot of noise: not exactly a good thing when flesh eating creatures that were drawn to loud noises were wondering around.

Logan nodded at his reminder and looked over at Patton, the skin around his mouth tightening.

Well, they certainly weren’t going to just leave him alone in the upstairs to roam by himself. Yet, Virgil knew putting him in the basement hurt Logan more than he let on.

There wasn’t anything for it.

They walked together towards the basement entrance, hidden carefully behind a few bookcases in Logan’s study. Virgil whistled long and low and, as anticipated, a couple of moments later, Patton lumbered towards them.

Virgil was glad that Patton wasn’t able to make the connection between where they were drawing him and the basement below because, if Patton was capable of hating anything anymore, he hated the basement. He imagined if Patton could produce the fleeting thought that coming to the study = cage in the basement, he would fight them all the way.

He was always discontent in the basement. The more restrained he was, the worse his sounds and struggling became. It was some instinct, Virgil guessed. After all, how were zombies supposed to hunt and eat people alive if they were trapped? Of course, Patton didn’t actually have to worry about that since he and Logan kept him very well fed, but the chomping living beings instinct seemed to be the only zombie instinct shut off for him. So, he’d still mindlessly shove against things restraining him just like he’d still reach for things and pull them to him and he’d still follow loud noises and dramatic movements. Just like he’d still chase you down and tackle you if you weren’t careful. He just didn’t eat you at the end of it all.

The point was, considering how strong he could be when he wanted to, it was fortune that he didn’t understand where they were going.

Unfortunately, Logan did.

He took a measured breath and pressed the lever that would open the basement door. “Come here, dear,” he requested. Patton turned his attention to Logan, reaching out to him. Logan grabbed one of his hands and pulled softly, causing him to stumble forward in confusion. “Come on,” he coaxed, “it’ll be fine.”

“Want help?” Virgil asked, pitching his voice low as to not attract as much attention from Patton. His hands moved towards where his hoodie pocket would usually be, but then fisted at his sides since he was just in a t-shirt. Virgil always asked even though he always got the same answer.

“I can handle it,” Logan said, his voice measured. Virgil just nodded once and leaned against the door to wait.

Want to read more? The next part of this series is…

There Are Things That Are Missing

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #logicality #?#adriana writes #zombie au #past major character death #angst #italop #platonic analogical #platonic moxiety #(sorta?)

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exalok · 4 years

Text

whaddup my dudes!!!

i am tired and wired and this means brain no writey but brain VERY focused on absolutely all the fic i have going on at once that aren’t prompts (prompts will be incoming, no worries dissociation anon)

and THAT means y’all get to hear about my many. many. MANY projects, or at least the ones that make my heart go pitter patter when i think of them

a few examples: demon!corvo and priest!daud with extra worldbuilding ; the naptime cuddles AU ; corvo doesn’t come to dunwall so jess and daud end up arranged-married for profit (more info..... under the readmore..... i’m gonna get rambly)

also feel free to ask questions, i love questions and they get me thinking even more in depth about the world and specific instances of characters and that is the entire POINT

LIKE OKAY SO MY BRAIN PRETTY MUCH CONTINUOUSLY THROWS IDEAS AT THE WALL AND ABOUT 95% OF THEM STICK BECAUSE I’M A HOARDING RAT BASTARD i love my ideas they are my precioussss

i might have about. 25 fic more or less active at the moment? which sounds like a reasonable number but those are the ones i have an actual plot for as well as the will to get them out into the world

let’s put aside the ones i have actually posted on tumblr or ao3 (teen!daud, domestic zombie apocalypse, bondageverse, knife!corvo) in favor of those you have either no or little idea exist. begin:

I MEAN OBVIOUSLY I MADE FANFIC OF MY OWN FANFIC or as i call it parallel/companion fic, because at some point in the past a prompter inspired me and i was deep in the prince!daud fic at the time and i thought what if high chaos. what if void monster corvo? what if horrifying yet human creature of the depths!!! what if EVERYTHING was TERRIBLE and daud killed corvo as a last ditch and vain attempt to get his people out of burrows’ clutches, and it all went to shit from there??? also they’re bound by marriage contract and the vagaries of magical intention and daud becomes corvo’s life battery, in essence, which you can imagine leads to a very unhealthy relationship i think it’s not spoilering much to tell you it does NOT end well, and i’ll be writing it as a sort of foil to low chaos prince!daud

i have quite a few high chaos fics actually. high chaos is depressing to play but the story outcomes are DELICIOUS and the degrading world and character motivations are a lot of fun to play around in

weirdly enough another one of these high chaos fics is the naptime cuddles AU!!! i won’t lie it’s the one i am currently on and i want to talk about it to everyone so bad constantly. in short, corvo doesn’t kill daud and the whalers because he’s trying to get out and currently too fucked up to fight, and when he doesn’t manage to save emily despite his best efforts he comes back to daud for some kind of symbolic execution. meanwhile thomas convinced daud to take a goddamn nap with him there because daud, despite his paranoia, does sleep better with people around, and this is entirely an excuse for semi-platonic daudthomascorvo cuddles in bed followed by whaler puppypiles when the gang catches on that this is a thing they can do now I LOVE PUPPYPILE WHALERS I LOVE NAPS I LOVE REDEMPTION THROUGH THE POWER OF RESTORATIVE SLEEP please i’m so tired and i can’t actually fall asleep next to people let me live my dream vicariously additionally: this will be my contribution to the absolutely wonderful whaler vineyard of old fanon

there is also what i feel should be a classic and ISN’T though a couple of fics were written around the concept and one in particular is /chef kiss, and the concept is: high chaos corvo meets low chaos corvo!!!!! i made it a threesome with daud because no one can stop me and i fucking LOVE the idea of daud ending up capable of telling them apart through tiny details even when high chaos corvo, bastard that he is, tries to impersonate low chaos corvo, who is a bastard in much more subtle ways and would probably be better at impersonating hc!c than the other way around but finds it distasteful; also i added intense body horror because that’s how i roll and there are eventual magical CONSEQUENCES to hc!c being in the low chaos world and regularly in contact with what is essentially his narrative double when he doesn’t belong there, probably ends in a tragically bittersweet way, i’m not completely clear on it yet though i do have ideas

and oh man......... the time travel corvo fic.... the one where high chaos corvo ends up in his own seven-year-old body........... fuck i hashed out so much of the general worldbuilding for that one and ended up going way too far and imagining a sequel like i always do where corvo learns how to walk universes and gathers people he cares about from places where he can actually save them from their eventual tragic futures and the dissolution of their timelines once the outsider is ousted from the void and a new void avatar is made and SHENANIGANS YO!!! SHENANIGANS AND CAMPING!!!! SELF-CROSSOVERS!!!!!!! I COULD HAVE HIM MEET HIMSELF IF HE HADN’T TRAVELED BACK I’M CRYING I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS

the one where corvo is a fae child is probably a lil bit high chaos though it isn’t determined yet, and he has all of these instincts with regards to possessing and exchange and deals, and assumptions as to how other people must work approximately the same, and he is so wrong. then there’s the really creepy bad touch possible sequel that i won’t get into unless someone specifically asks because it’s a lil bit much really

oh MAN oh SHIT speaking of bad touch there’s another dead dove do not eat one where i grabbed an entire handful of granny rags’ apparent fucking around with magical arrays and rune creation and general spellery and threw it at corvo post-interregnum and he sees “ghosts” and doesn’t understand what the FUCK is going on and things go really badly for him, and one ghost, soon the only ghost, is daud, and corvo doesn’t know if he’s real, if he’s seeing things, if he’s NOT seeing things but daud is some kind of void demon, if he is and also having psychotic breaks he doesn’t remember because he ends up with some hellish bruises, but the real daud is actually still out there just hiding out and corvo will eventually meet up with him and real daud will meet fake daud and even more shit will happen

god, the demon!corvo AU gets pretty fucked up as well if i remember right; corvo is both some dude with a wife and kid and the demon that inhabits him, jess is his wife and the demon that inhabits her (to be clear, separate characters but both based on either jess or corvo oh my GOD what if i switched the demons that would be amazing but no, calm down, maybe for a short what-if scenario that will inevitably turn into its own thing), daud is the overseer with the really good exorcism record trying to get the demons to fuck off except he thinks there’s only one of them and the other takes him by surprise; cue daud being hunted by that demon, furious that daud shattered his favorite pupil, and some revelations about what exactly lives inside the abbey and also under it

on a somewhat lighter note, the one where corvo never comes to dunwall (i think his mom gets sick and he doesn’t win the blade verbena at sixteen?) is also where jess keeps losing her royal protectors to assassination attempts because the first one was decent and died protecting her and the second one was decent and had an accident and people start believing there’s a curse on the position or a curse on her, and she’s like okay so how do i make sure i don’t die now that no one is willing to become my protector since it’s pretty much a death sentence, and she arranges a meeting with the best assassin in the city and suggests an alliance -- protection and some commission overview, all secret, versus funding and housing -- in the form of a marriage and daud ends up agreeing; then later duke abele visits and corvo is among his personal guard and he gets to meet the empress, and the assassin, and there are ot3 shenanigans

oh my GOD also the kids in karnaca AU. obviously. fuck you may have seen the (dis)armingly charmed notefic but this would be them meeting as actual kids, in karnaca, just tiny babies, daud recently kidnapped and corvo doing his best to make this cool older kid into his friend and also maybe hiding him from the people who want to train him to do Illegal Things, and there are dumb childish arguments and daud goes on the run to avoid capture and there is an exchange of letters that at one point stops and corvo is Devastated and there is a REUNION and they are ADORABLE but also INCREDIBLY STUPID, AS IS RIGHT AND CORRECT, and i don’t know what happens later but it gives me warm fuzzies okay

then i have a NUMBER of oneshots that are more or less plotted out, like the one where jess has a kind of groundhog day because Heart reasons but over months and starts out not quite remembering what happened in past attempts and OF COURSE it ends with royal ot3; and there’s the one where Daud becomes the Outsider and is very temporally confused and OF COURSE it ends with corvodaud who do you take me for (including Very Perplexing arguments where daud doesn’t know at what point in this relationship’s development he is and corvo is angry or very patient depending on where he accidentally time travels to, and i make some assumptions about the non-linearity of the void avatar’s existence); and there’s the one where corvo catches the plague and gets through kingsparrow to get emily out then to people he trusts, ie the curnows and sam beechworth, then crawls away to die, but daud finds him and sighs and rolls up his sleeves and sends whalers to the Tower and emily thinks the Tower is haunted then, when it becomes very clear the Tower is not, demands one of these assassins teach her how to stab a bitch; AND THERE’S THE ONE WHERE CORVO AND JESS ARE GHOSTS AND DAUD IS A REAL ESTATE AGENT AND THE WHALERS ARE THE KIDS HE TRIED TO HELP OUT AS A SOCIAL WORKER and yes it’s ot3 and yes he buys the ghost house and ends up being filmed by the whalers to do cooking videos and fancy knife tricks and asmr because his voice is insanely soothing when he’s not being ornery; oh fuck and there’s the one where i wrote an unrequited corvodaud prompt and my brain grabbed it, smelled it, and decided that corvo very reluctantly falling for daud was necessary to the health of my feelings, and there is at least one (1) sleeping beauty coma while corvo yells at the outsider about the Heart; also there’s the one where in D2 billie was evasive about the old guy living with her on her boat and em finds daud rather than sokolov in jindosh’s basement and they have long, emotional discussions; and for the character building hell of it one that would span the outsider’s beginnings and growth and how the void tries to welcome him in

okay........................ i think i’m done rambling now

i love fanfic y’all

#dishonored #writins #so many writins #gonna have me a nap now

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holdin-out-for-a-hero · 4 years

Text

Rookie (Leon Kennedy X Reader) Chapter 10/?

Words: 2631

Warnings: None

A/N: Sorry it took so long! I had the draft written for over a month before I got around to editing it

You looked down at the Licker's body before you; Its blood and tissue stained your clothes and the floor below. Disgusting. Although the sight before you was truly revolting, you took an audible sign of relief. They're better dead and gross then alive and slightly less gross. Killing the lickers wasn't easy, it required a lot of planning and a rather dramatic gesturing argument with Leon. Your plan was to call them over, and take one out each. Leon wasn't too happy to see those things again, but without a plan of his own, he gave in.

"You're a good shot." He said, still breathless from the adrenaline rush.

"I know," A small smile formed on your lips

"Like a REALLY good shot." he exclaimed "You killed that thing mid-air!"

"My father taught me," the smile on your lips fell away. You missed your dad. And everyone else, too. But this was not the time, you thought.

Leon stepped over both of the carcasses and then waited for you. You took a large step over the first carcass, but then your foot slipped in the pool of blood. Leon tried to catch you, but failed. Instead of falling onto the tile floor, though, you fell face first onto the second licker's corpse. A fate truly worse than death.

"Are you ok?" Leon asked, helping you up. Feeling the blood and goop on your face, you immediately felt like throwing up and crying. Leon wiped away the gore with his gloved hand as you tried hard to swallow what was coming up your throat.

"Do me a favor and shoot me," You said. He chuckled. "I'm not kidding."

"After we get that sample" he held your wrist and the two of you started walking down the hall. Those words stung, though you realize they shouldn’t have. Leon just couldn’t stop thinking about Ada, could he?

"She's really got a hold you, huh?" You remarked under your breath. Leon turned to you.

"This is for the government. This is so raccoon city never happens again. You know it’s the truth.” His words echoed though the hall, they stung as well.

"Never mind, forget I said it."

The two of you walked in an uncomfortable silence, around a corner, and down another hall.

"Would you feel better if I let you kiss me too?" Leon spoke up, that devious grin on his lips.

"No!"

You eventually found the nap room. And yes, it was a literal nap room. The right side of the room had a few pods built into the walls for sleeping. Most of them were open, except for one. A decaying hand dangled out of the only closed pod, dripping blood onto the floor. Was this the person who never checked out of the nap room, Wayne Li?

Leon slowly opened the pod because he too was curious (and he was running low on bullets and really hoped this person had a few with them). The body slumped out of the pod, falling face first on the floor and making a sickening splat sound. You couldn't look at it, not after the noise it just made, so you looked into the pod instead. There, you found a journal. Flipping through a few pages, you confirmed your suspicions. This was Wayne Li, and apparently he had a god complex. Man, scientists are really big headed, you thought. Was it wrong to insult the dead like that? Probably.

"Yes!" Leon whispered.

You looked over. He pried a gun from the dead man's hand and a package of bullets from the lab coat pocket. You noted how wrong this looked, two people stealing loot from dead bodies. And two cops, no less. It's funny how a zombie apocalypse can completely change your values. Then you noticed the blue flashing chip on his wristband. A security chip, high clearance, no doubt. So you took that too.

The two of you continued through the lab, entering a large, central area. It had a bridge that led to an elevator and a platform that you assumed would activate the bridges to the other parts of the lab. You looked down below the bridge, darkness shrouded the bottom, if there even was one. A fall from there would definitely be deadly, you though. But now is not the time for your fear of heights.

"Ada said it's in the west area," Leon said, you looked up at him. “You’re holding onto that rail pretty tight.” That was when you noticed your white knuckles.

Leon held his hand out to you and his eyes met yours. Slowly, you uncurled your fingers from the rail and grabbed his hand. He smiled at you, leading you across the bridge and to the platform. He needs to stop being so nice and cute all the time, you thought, because you could tell you were falling for him fast.

Leon scanned Ada’s wristband against the sensor, but unfortunately the security level wasn't high enough for the West area. He scanned it against the other sensor, and it unlocked the East area. Hopefully you'd find a higher clearance chip somewhere in the East area.

The two of you walked to the very back of the lab and scanned your wristband against the door's sensor. You were not prepared for what was inside. As the double doors slid away, all you could see was green. Though most of the foliage was behind a glass, it looked as though it was pouring out of any crack it could find, leaving stray vines hanging from the ceiling and coming up through the floor. Then you saw it, how could you have missed it? Right in the middle of the room, a man in a hazmat suit was pressed up against the cracked glass by whatever plant was overtaking the lab. A purple light flashed from the man's wrist. Your heart sunk. As much as you didn't want to retrieve the wristband from that death trap, there was no other chip: you had already checked the rest of the lab.

You looked over to Leon, and he to you.

"Well, you know what that means," he chuckled nervously. You groaned.

"Could this night get any worse?" You asked. Yes, it could. And it would.

You and Leon fought your way into the chamber with a can of gasoline and a lighter you found. Then you realized you couldn't reach the guy with the wristband, so you fooled around with some of the lab stuff and accidentally sprayed pesticides into the entire chamber. Luckily that solved your problem, and the corpse fell to the floor of the chamber. All the while, you were collecting emails and records from the computers around the lab. And now, with the wristband and a newfound fear of bushes, you headed towards the west area.

You held your wristband up to the door, and it buzzed open. This side of the lab, or at least what you had seen of it, was way different from the first side. There was a sanitation station at the entrance along with a cart full of hazmat suits. You could tell that whatever was in this side of the lab was probably not something you’d want to mess with.

You were right. The west side of the lab was far more interesting that the East, and not in a good way. The files you found on the computers detailed the disturbing experiments carried out on real human beings, and pods on the wall held some of their “successes,” which were mutated mounds of flesh and body parts. This, you knew, would haunt your nightmares for a long time.

The two of you reached the back of the lab, where one vial was left in a large centrifuge. Leon picked it out of the container. He observed the label, noticing the large letter G.

"That was easy," he said, looking back to you.

"Don't speak too soon, I have a bad feeling about this," you replied. As if on cue, the intercoms played a message:

"Attention: Unauthorized removal of a level 4 virus detected. Facility lockdown initiated. Self destruct sequence will begin when lockdown is complete."

Leon's heart sank when he heard the message. Of course this would happen, because nothing was gonna be easy in raccoon city. In fact, nothing has been easy all night. He questioned whether the universe wanted him to make it out alive since so many curveballs have come his way.

"Let's find Ada!" He said to you as he ran down the hall. You followed behind, trying to keep pace with him. You entered another platform room that led to the other side of the lab, running across the metal and praying to God you would be fast enough. You were so close to the next door, getting closer, and closer.

Then the ceiling behind you fell in. And a familiar face rose from the dust. Or rather, what was left of his mutating face. Birkin.

"You again," Leon clenched his jaw, glaring back at the creature that just wouldn't die. He raised his gun. Then the door behind him beeped open

"Move. He's mine!" A woman's voice yelled. You looked around. It was Annette. She limped in front of Leon, holding out a strange gun of her own. "This has to end."

She shot him. Not with a bullet, but a strange acid or serum. Whatever it was, it had Birkin writing on the ground in pain.

"What's going on?" Leon said, but it fell on deaf ears. Annette took another step forward towards the creature.

"Sorry William, you gave me no choice," She said to it. The creature stopped moving, and Leon walked around the creature with his gun trained on it. You walked behind him, pulling out your own in the process. When Leon was content it wouldn't be getting up any time soon, he squatted to take a better look at the monster in front of him.

"You called this thing 'William,' why?"

Annette didn't acknowledge him. She shook her head, looking down.

"It shouldn't have ended like this," she whispered.

"Shouldn't have ended like what?" You spoke up.

"It's Umbrella's fault, this whole mess!" She seethed. You don't know if she was answering your question or not, she didn't seem like she was listening.

"You're Umbrella too." Leon said.

"Yeah, and YOU made this virus," you added.

"William and I made the virus, but we never meant for this to happen!" He voice cracked as she yelled and you notice the tears running down her face.

There was a pause in the conversation. Annette's fierce eyes burned into your soul as she tried to control her ragged breathing. This took you by surprise, because in your first interaction with her, she didn't act very human. But now, you could feel her guilt, and you could feel her loss. Whoever William was, he was important to her.

"Tell us everything that happened— every detail," Leon said calmly and firmly. He definitely had the mannerisms of a cop, you thought. She took a couple deep breaths, and began to speak.

"The government was onto Umbrella, they have been for a while now," she paused, putting together her thoughts, "William was going to turn G in to the government for immunity. Umbrella heard about it and sent their special ops team in to take him down. When they raided the lab, I knew what they were there for, so I ran to find William," she choked down a sob, "I was too late, they had shot him and he had just injected himself with G.”

"So this is your fault? You created this monstrosity?" Leon accused.

"We made the G-Virus, but we never intended for this to happen!" She replied in a venomous tone.

You were listening to them argue, when you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Something moved, something in William's direction. It took you a second to piece together what was happening, it was a second too long.

"You could spin it anyway you want, you're still responsible,"

The monster rose, grabbing Annette with its clawed hand. He squeezed her tight, as she struggled to get out of his grasp. Then, he threw her against the opposite door. Her body crumpled to the ground.

The creature turned, looking at you with its many eyes. Then, it lunged at you, trying to grab you too. You screamed as you fell backwards into the floor, your abdomen grazed by it's claws. Your stomach burned as you felt your shirt grow wet, you looked down to see the tear that traveled from your bra to top of your pants.

"Y/N, get out of the way!" Leon yelled. Then you saw its claws coming at you again. You backed away as quickly as you could, though the shock of your wound kicked in, making it hard to focus on anything but the searing pain.

"Over here you ugly bastard!" Leon yelled, trying to get William away from you.

Anette slowly got up from the ground, holding her bloody side. Using all the strength she had, she trudged over to a control panel and pressed a button.

"He can't get away," she said to herself.

Suddenly, red flashed through the room and the platform you were on descended to the bottom of the lab. The lights, the pain, and the panic disoriented you.

But then you saw Leon. He was using the last of his shotgun shells to take down the monster, to keep it away from you. And then you realized:

You had feelings for him.

You had only known him for a night, but what had happened—and is still happening— in that night would surely keep you bonded for life. Maybe it was an adrenaline-fueled infatuation, you didn't care. You knew how you felt.

The platform was floor lever now, so you stepped off, one hand clutching your bleeding stomach and one hand wielding your gun.

Whatever it was, it was getting too close to Leon for your liking.

"Hey ugly! Over hee-ere!" You yelled in a sing-song voice. The creature turned around, stomping over towards you. Thank God you were a good shot.

"What are you doing?!" Leon yelled.

"I'm not letting it hurt you!" You yelled back.

"But that's what I was doing for you!"

Then you thought of a plan.

"Leon, divide and conquer!" You yelled.

So the two of you bombarded the creature on both sides, filling him with bullets and trying to light him on fire with your gasoline and lighter. Don't get me wrong, though, this was not a fair fight. William was fast and had inhuman strength He tore equipment from the ground to throw at the two of of you like it was nothing. You were also at a disadvantage with your injury, making your pace slower. Still, somehow the two of you remained unscathed. And by the grace of God, you defeated it. As you watched Williams body crumble to the floor, you made a note to go to church again after all this was over.

"You still in one piece? How’s your stomach?” Leon asked, walking past William and over to you.

"It’s just a scratch,” you replied, looking down at your would. The bleeding had stopped, and it looked like it was already scabbing up.

Leon grinned at you, still breathing heavily. That stupid smile of his. Perhaps it was best that you never got to work with him, because you knew if you had seen that smile at the precinct, you would have fallen helplessly in love. You could even hear Marvin yelling at you for it.

“Then lets get going”

#leon s kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy imagine #leon kennedy #re2 #resident evil #ada wong

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lambychop · 5 years

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Ultimate Horror Flick List

I know this isn’t usually my style, but 🎵it’s the most wonderful time of the year🎵

That’s right: it’s the spoopy month! Which means SPOOPY MOVIES

So I present to you:

IRONICENIGMA’S ULTIMATE HORROR FLICK LIST FOR ALL TYPES OF FILM LOVERS

1) For the Gore Hounds

•Saw series- the classic films for the guys who just wanna see some people get ripped to shreads (honestly, after the second one, they go downhill)

•Jigsaw- the more recent edition to the Saw series (this ones actually pretty good and FULL of gore)

•Hostel- Saw Studies Abroad (TM)

•Final Destination series- kinda a dumb one. The movies can be kinda dumb, but the kills are INSANE. Fun movies to watch with the gang

•Texas Chainsaw Massacre- you know it, you love it, I don’t gotta explain it

•Cannibal Holocaust- seriously messed up. Banned in multiple countries. It’s something special.

•The Midnight Meat Train- lesser known, kinda weird, super bloody

•Cabin Fever- gross disease makes you loose your skin. Nasty

•Wrong Turn- basically The Hills Have Eyes but with funner kills

2) The Classic Slashers

•Scream series- one of my faves. Classic story of small town teens with a killer on the loose. Lots of fun

•Friday the Thirteenth- do I have to tell you why this is here?

•Nightmare on Elm Street- Johnny Depp getting turned into a volcano of blood? I’m in.

•Halloween- can’t have Halloween without the movie that took the name, right?

•My Bloody Valentine (the original one)- one of my all time favorite movies. Creepy killer, great group of characters, great time

•Sleepaway Camp- infamous for its batshit ending. Kinda weird ngl, but a classic

•The Town That Dreaded Sundown- Based on a real killer. Oldie, but goodie

•Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon- different take on the slasher genre. Fun look into the life of a movie slasher

•You’re Next- badass female lead? Check. Masked murderers? Check. Family bonding? Uh sure okay

•I Know What You Did Last Summer- secrets are bad. Roll credits

3) Supernatural (demons, ghosts, etc)

•The Conjuring- it’s pretty popular, you know it

•Insidious- also popular. Moral: your body is a ghost hotel

•Sinister- classic demon: likes kids, likes brutal deaths, likes to appear in the background of pictures

•The Exorcist- obviously

•Lights Out- ghosts are scared of light, that’s all you need to know

•The Sixth Sense- not really scary. Actually pretty wholesome. In an “I see dead people” kinda way

•The Rite- priest Anthony Hopkins coughs up nails

•The Omen- aka don’t trust kids

•1408- haunted hotel room. Someone call the ghoul bois

•The Amityville Horror- based on true events. Well at least we know the murders were real and the house is creepy

•The Skeleton Key- Old People+Voodoo= bad time

•Haunting In Connecticut- also a “true” story. Don’t buy a house that used to be a morgue

•The Autopsy Of Jane Doe- boy bonds with dad over dead teenage girl

•Mama- moths are gross, ghosts are worse. Dead Mom from Beetlejuice, but now a movie

•Rosemary’s Baby- dont trust thy neighbor

•The Shinning- classic. That’s all I’ve got to say

•The Orphanage- again: creepy kids

•Stir Of Echos- Kevin Bacon sees ghosts. Must I say more?

•The Others- haunted house story with a twist ending

4) Creature Features

•Trick ‘r Treat- classic Halloween film. Fun, creepy, iconic

•The Ritual- camping trip turns bad. Monster looks really cool

•A Quiet Place- you’ve probably seen it. Jim from the office speaks sign language

•The Babadook- children’s storybook is not kid friendly

•Backcountry- bears are dangerous

•Alien- you’ve seen this already but it needs to be here

•The Descent- dont watch if your claustrophobic

•An American Werewolf In London- also a fave. Best werewolf movie ever made

•The Monster- lesser know, actually pretty good

•The Thing- classic. Super good. Based on a short story. No one can be trusted because you don’t know if they’re even them

5) Horror Comedies

•Zombieland- hysterical. Bloody. Great cast

•Cabin In The Woods- this movie is insane. Combine every horror monster ever, the Illuminati, and the Office- that’s this movie

•Shaun of the Dead- the classic horror comedy

•Scary Movie series- less horror, ridiculous comedy

•This Is The End- again, like no horror, but one of the funniest films ever

6)Found Footage (not a great genre, but some can be pretty entertaining)

•The Blair Witch Project- basically the king of the found footage films. You’ve seen it

•The Conspiracy- the Illuminati is real and they don’t like to be filmed

•Paranormal Activity series- kinda annoying to horror fans. Relies on jump scares and the characters are idiots. But if I’m doing a section on foud footage, this has to be here

•Creep- okay this movie actually really disturbed me. People are absolutely insane. Don’t meet up with people from Craigslist

•V/H/S series- basically a anthology of short horror films. Kinda fun

•Apollo 18- the government faked the moon landing because they found some crazy shit

•The Sacrament- Jonestown caught on camera

•As Above So Below- Paris Catacombs are wack

•Grave Encounters- what if Ghost Adventures actually found ghosts

•Unfriended Dark Web- lets be honest: the first one sucked. Second one is actually not bad. Take away the ghosts, add the black market

•The Poughkeepsie Tapes- lesser know, can be hard to find. Really disturbing. Basically watching a serial killer tape his crimes

•Cold Ground- Set up to look just like it’s out of the seventies. It’s pretty fun

•The Last Exorcism- priests are liers

•Quarantine- English version of [REC]. I wouldn’t say it’s great, but it’s something

•Hell House LLC.- kids set up a haunted house. People die

•The Houses October Built- again with the haunted houses. Don’t trust em

•The Bay- Cabin Fever but found footage-y

•Willow Creek- y’all gotta leave Bigfoot alone

•Lake Mungo- girl drowns, family sees her ghost. No jump scares with this one, like most found footage. Mostly just a family in mourning

•The Tunnel- if the government says to stay out, STAY OUT

•The Taking Of Deborah Logan- alzheimers itself is awful to go through, but let’s add some more spooks

•The Possession Of Michael King- another possession film? Yep they just keep comin

•The Last Broadcast- suspicious murder of tv hosts

6) Family Fun

•Hocus Pocus- okay obviously

•Beetlejuice- dark humor in a “kids” film. Most of the comedy caters to adults, but it’s an awesome film

•Corpse Bride- guy accidentally marries dead girl. Wholesome family fun

•The Nightmare Before Christmas- my fave Disney film. Super cute

•Frankenweenie- dead dog=goodest boy

•Paranorman- sixth sense but now for kids+zombies

•Coraline- Might scar some small children, but I loved it when it came out when I was 8

7) Psychological

•Midsommar- happy cult family holds a festival

•Funny Games- home invasion movie done well. No cheap thrills, just some sadistic shit

•The Strangers- dont answer the door for people wearing masks when it’s not Halloween are you crazy

•The Perfection- artistic, bloody, absolute mind fuck

•Gerald’s Game- sexy time turns not good

•Unsane- imagine being stalked and no one believes you. That’s the premise

•Triangle- ummmmmmmm wtf is happening what time is it??

•It Comes At Night- trust is bad. Paranoia is good.

•The Silence of the Lambs- my personal favorite film. Serial killer helps rookie detective find another serial killer

•Jacob’s Ladder- Vietnam vet struggles with EXTREMELY terrifying visions

AND THERE YOU GO. I have seen plenty more, so if you don’t see one you’d like on this list, hit me up with what kinda movie you’re lookin for and I’ll hook you up amigo

#halloween #horror #movies #movie recommendation #horror movies

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 26: Brought Back (Transcript) - 25th January 2016

tw: racism, colonialism, live burial, slavery

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

No one wants to die. If the human design was scheduled for a revision, that’s one of the features that would get an overhaul. Our mortality has been an obsession since the dawn of humanity itself – humans long for ways to avoid death, or at least make it bearable. Some cultures have practically moved heaven and earth doing so. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians built enormous stone structures in order to house their dead and ensure them a place in the afterlife. They perfected the art of embalming so that even after death, their bodies might be ready for a new existence in a new place. Death is a reality for all of us, whether we like it or not. Young or old, rich or poor, healthy or sick, life is one long journey down a road, and we walk until its over. Some think they see the light at the end of it all while others hope for darkness, and that’s where the mystery of it all comes in: no one knows what’s on the other side. We just know that the proverbial walk ends at some point, and maybe that’s why we spend so much time guessing at it, building story and myth and belief around this thing we can’t put our finger on. What would be easier, some say, is if we just didn’t die, if we somehow went on forever. It’s impossible, but we dream of it anyway. No one returns from the grave… do they? Most sane, well-adjusted people would say no, but stories exist that say otherwise, and these stories aren’t new. They’ve been around for thousands of years and span multiple cultures, and like their subject matter these stories simply refuse to die. One reason for that, as hard as it is to believe, is because some of those stories appear to be true. Depending on where you look, and who you ask, there are whispers of those who beat the odds. Sometimes the journey doesn’t end after all. Sometimes, the dead really do walk. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The quintessential zombie movie, the one that all the commentators say was responsible for putting zombies on the map nearly 50 years ago, was George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. The creatures that Romero brought to the big screen managed to influence generations of film makers, giving us the iconic zombie that we see today in television shows like The Walking Dead. The trouble is, Romero never used the word “zombie” to describe the creatures from his landmark film. Instead, they were “ghouls”, a creature borrowed from Arabian folklore. According to the mythology, ghouls are demons who eat the dead and, because of that, are traditionally found in graveyards. But Romero’s ghouls were not the first undead creatures to hunger for the flesh and blood of the living. Some think that honour falls to the Odyssey, the epic Greek poem written by Homer nearly 3000 years ago. In the story, there’s a scene where Odysseus needs to get some information from a long-dead prophet named Tiresias. To give the spirit strength to speak, Odysseus feeds him blood. In a lot of ways, the creatures we think of today as zombies are similar to the European tales of the revenant. They’ve gone by many names – the ancient Irish called them Neamh-Mhairbh, meaning “the undead”; in Germany they are the Wiedergänger, “the ones who walk again”; and in Nordic mythology, they’re called the draugr. The name “revenant” itself is Latin and means “the returned”. The basic idea is pretty easy to guess from that – revenants were those who were once dead, but returned to haunt and terrorize their neighbours and family. It might sound like fantasy to our modern sensibilities, but some people really did think that this could happen.

Historians in the Middle Ages wrote about revenant activity as if it were fact. One man, William of Newburgh, wrote in 1190 that, and I quote, “It would not be easy to believe that the corpses of the dead should sally from their graves, and should wander about to the terror or destruction of the living, did not frequent examples, occurring in our own times, suffice to establish this fact, to the truth of which there is abundant testimony. Were I to write down all the instances of this kind which I have ascertained to have befallen in our times, the undertaking would be beyond measure, laborious, and troublesome”. Newburgh goes on to wonder why the ancient writers never mentioned events like these, but doesn’t seem to take that as proof that revenants are pure fantasy. They mentioned all sorts of boring things, mundane and unimportant, so why not the unnatural and unusual? He was, of course, wrong – the ancient Greeks did have certain beliefs surrounding the dead and their ability to return to haunt the living, but to them it was much more complicated, and each revenant came back with its own unique purpose. You see, the Greco-Roman culture believed that there was a gap between the date of someone’s actual death and their intended date of death. Remember, this was a culture that believed in the Moirai – the Fates – who had a plan for everyone. So, for example, a farmer might be destined to die in his 80s from natural causes, but he might instead die in an accident at the market or in his field. People who died early, according to the legends, were doomed to wander the land of the living as spirits until the day of their intended death arrived. Still with me? Good. So, what the Greeks believed was that it was possible to control those wandering spirits – all you needed to do was make a curse tablet, something written on clay or tin or even parchment, and then bury it in the person’s grave. Like a key in the ignition of a car, this tablet would empower someone to control the wandering dead. Now, it might sound like the world’s creepiest Martha Stewart how-to project, but to the Greeks magic like this was a powerful part of their belief system. The dead weren’t really gone, and because of that they could serve a purpose. Unfortunately, that’s not an attitude that was unique to the Greeks, and in the right culture, at the right time, under the right pressure, that idea can be devastating.

In Haiti, the vast majority of the people there are genetically connected to West Africa to some degree, up to 95% according to some studies. It’s a remnant of a darker time, when slavery was legal, and millions of Africans were pulled from their homes and transported across the Atlantic to work the sugar plantations that filled the Spanish coffers. We tend to imagine African slaves being shipped to the new world with no possessions beside the clothing on their backs, but they came with their beliefs, with their customs and traditions, and with centuries of folklore and superstition. They might not have carried luggage filled with precious heirlooms, but they held the most important pieces of their identity in their minds and hearts. No one can take that away. There are a few ideas that need to be understood about this transplanted culture. First, they believed that the soul and the body were connected, but also that death could be a moment of separation between the two. Not always, but it could be – I’ll explain more about that in a moment. Second, they lived with a hatred and fear of slavery. Slavery, of course, took away their freedom, it took away their power. They no longer had control over their lives, their dreams, or even their own bodies. Whether they liked it or not, they were doomed to endure horribly difficult labour for the rest of their lives; only death would break the chains and set them free. Third, that freedom wasn’t guaranteed. While most Africans dreamed of returning to their homeland in the afterlife, there were some who wanted to get there quicker. Suicide was common in colonial Haiti, but it was also frowned upon. In fact, it was believed that those who ended their own life wouldn’t be taken back to Africa at all. Instead, they would be punished. The penalty, it was said, was eternal imprisonment inside their own body, without control or power over themselves. It was, in a sense, just like their own life. To the slaves of Haiti, hell was just more slavery, but a slavery that went on forever. These bodies and trapped souls had a name in their culture: the zombie. It was first recorded in 1872, when a linguistic scholar recorded a zombie as, and I quote, “a phantom or ghost, not infrequently heard in the southern states in nurseries and among the servants”. The name, it turns out, has African roots as well. In the Congo they use the word nzambi, which means the spirit of a dead person. It’s related to two other words that both mean “god” and “fetish” – fetish in the sense of manufacturing a thing, a creature that has been made. The walking dead, at least according to Haitian lore, are real.

What did these zombie look like? Well, thanks to Zora Neale Hurston, we have a first-hand account. Hurston was an African American author, known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, and regarded as one of the pillars of the Harlem Renaissance. And it was while researching folklore during a trip to Haiti in 1936 that she encountered one. In her book Tell my Horse, Hurston recounts what happened. “I had the rare opportunity to see and touch an authentic case”, she wrote. “I listened to the broken noises in its throat.... If I had not experienced all of this in the strong sunlight of a hospital yard, I might have come away from Haiti interested but doubtful. But I saw this case of Felicia Felix-Mentor which was vouched for by the highest authority. So I know that there are Zombies in Haiti. People have been called back from the dead. The sight was dreadful. That blank face with the dead eyes. The eyelids were white all around the eyes as if it had been burned with acid. There was nothing you could say to her or get from her except by looking at her, and the sight of this wreckage was too much to endure for long”. Wreckage. I can’t think of another word with as much beauty and horror as that, in the context. Something was happening in Haiti, and the result was wreckage, lives broken and torn apart by something – but what? The assumption might be that these people had all attempted suicide, but suicide is common in many cultures, not just in Haiti. When you dig deeper, though, it’s possible to uncover the truth, and in this case, the truth is much darker than we like to believe. Zombies, it turns out, can be created.

On the night of April 30th, 1962, a man walked into Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti. He was sick and complained of body aches, a fever and, most recently, coughing fits that brought blood up from his lungs. Naturally, the medical staff were concerned, and they admitted him for tests and treatment. This man, Clairvius Narcisse, was seen by a number of medical doctors but his condition quickly deteriorated. One of his sisters, Angelina, was there at his bedside, and according to her his lips turned blue and he complained to her about a tingling sensation all over his body. But despite the hospital’s best efforts, Narcisse died the next day. Two doctors, one American and one American-trained, each confirmed his death. The man’s sister, Angelina, signed the death certificate after confirming the man’s identity. Because she couldn’t read or write, she did so by pressing her thumbprint onto the paper, and then his family began the painful process of burying their loved one and trying to move on. Death, as always, is a part of life; never a pleasant one, but a part nonetheless. Over 18 years later, in 1981, Angelina Narcisse was walking through the market in her village, something she did nearly every day. She knew the faces of each vendor, she knew the scents and the sounds that filled the space there, but when she looked down the dirt road toward the small crowd of people something frightened her, and she screamed. There, walking toward her, was her brother Clairvius. He was, of course, older now, but it was him. She would have recognised him anywhere, and when he finally approached her and named himself with a childhood nickname, any doubt she might have had melted away. What followed was a whirlwind of revelations as Clairvius told his sister what had happened to him, and it all started, he said, in the hospital room. According to him, his last moments in the bed there were dark, but fully aware. He could no longer see anyone, and he couldn’t move, but he remembered hearing the doctor pronounce him dead. He remembered the sound of his sister weeping. He even remembered the rough, cotton sheet being pulled up and over his face. But awareness continued on to his funeral, where he claimed to hear the procession. He even pointed to a scar on his face – he claimed that it was the result of one of the coffin nails cutting him. Later, the family brought in a psychiatrist, who performed a series of tests on Clairvius to see is he was a fraud, but the man passed with flying colours, answering questions that no one but Clairvius himself could have known. In an addition, over 200 friends and family members vouched for the man’s identity. This, all of them confirmed, was Clairvius Narcisse.

So, what happened to him? According to Clairvius himself, he was poisoned by his brother over a property dispute. How? He wasn’t sure, but shortly after his burial, a group of men dug up his coffin and pulled him free. That’s a thought worth locking away deep in the back of your brain, by the way: trapped inside a coffin beneath the earth, blind and paralysed, cold and scared. It’s a wonder the man didn’t go insane. The men who dug him up were led by a priest called a Bokor. The men chained Clairvius and then guided him away to a sugar plantation, where he was forced to work alongside others in a similar state of helplessness. Daily doses of a mysterious drug kept them all unable to resist or leave. According to his story, he managed to escape two years later, but fearing what his brother might do to him if he were to show up alive, he avoided returning home. It was only the news of his brother’s death many years later that coaxed him out of hiding. The story of Clairvius Narcisse has perplexed scientists and historians for decades. In the 1980s, Harvard sent an ethno-botanist named Wade Davis to investigate the mysterious drug, and the result of his trip was a book called The Serpent and the Rainbow, which would go on to be a New York Times bestseller as well as a Hollywood movie, but few agree on the conclusions. Samples of the drug that Wade collected have all been disproven, no illegal sugar plantations staffed by zombie slaves has ever been discovered, and the doctors have been accused of misreading the symptoms and prematurely declaring the man dead – there are so many doubts. To the people closest to him, though, the facts are solid. Clairvius Narcisse died, his family watched his burial in the cemetery, he was mourned and missed, and 18 years later he came back into their lives. The walking dead: medical mishap or the result of Haitian black magic? We may never know for sure.

Stories of the walking dead are everywhere these days. It’s as if we’ve traded in our obsession with extending our life and resigned to the fact that normal death, the kind where we die and stay dead, might be better. We fear death because it means the loss of control, the loss of purpose and freedom. Death, in the eyes of many people, robs us of our identity and replaces it with finality. It’s understandable, then, how slavery can be viewed through that same lens. It removes a person’s ability to make decisions for themselves – it turns them, in a sense, into nothing more than a machine for the benefit of another person. But what if there really are individuals out there, the Bokor and evil priests, who have discovered a way to manufacture their own walking dead, who have perfected the art of enslaving a man or women deeper than any slave owner might have managed before, to rob them of their very soul and bind them to an afterlife of tireless, ceaseless labour? In February of 1976, Francine Illeus was admitted to her local hospital in Haiti. She said she felt weak and light-headed. Her digestive system was failing, and her stomach ached. The doctors there treated her and then released her. Several days later, she passed away and was buried in the local graveyard. She had only been 30 years old. Three years later, Francine’s mother received a call from a friend a few miles away. She needed her to come to the local marketplace there, and said it was urgent. Francine’s mother didn’t know what the trouble was, but she made the journey as quickly as she could. Once there, she was told that a woman had been found in the market. She was emaciated, catatonic, and refused to move from where she was squatting in the corner, head down, hands laced over her face. The woman, it turned out, was Francine Illeus. Her mother brought her home and tried to help her, but Francine seemed to be gone. She was there in body, but there was very little spirit left. Subsequent doctors and psychiatrists have spent time with Francine, but with very little progress to show for it. On a whim, Francine’s mother had the coffin exhumed. She had to see for herself if this woman, little more than a walking corpse, truly was her daughter. Yes, the woman had the same scar on her forehead that her daughter had, yes, they looked alike, yes, others recognised her as Francine, but she needed to know for sure. When the men pulled the coffin out of the earth, it was heavy, too heavy, they murmured, to be empty. More doubtful by the minute, Francine’s mother asked them to open it, and when the last nail had been pulled free from the wood, the lid was lifted and cast aside. The coffin wasn’t empty after all – it was full of rocks.

[Closing statements]

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #podcast transcripts #zombie #zombies #night of the walking dead #revenant #voodoo #haiti #transcripts #26

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real-life-pine-tree · 5 years

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Into the Arcverse: Weather Painting (2/?)

Yuan Amaya just wanted to hide away from public eye, but fate had other plans. Based on Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse.

With the table’s all pushed back towards the club room’s walls, everything was set up for Yuan and June’s duel. Much like how the school’s sports teams have fields and a gymnasium for practicing, the members are generally allowed to use the auditorium to hold any duels to prepare for any tournaments, test the newcomer’s skills before officially joining, or—if push comes to shove—settle any serious tiffs. If there was something important is taking place and the auditorium was needed, then most of those duels are conducted in the club room. Even though nothing remotely eventful was coming up, the duel was still occurring in the club room because June didn’t want to waste any time seeing the Weather Painters in action; she also has no intentions on holding back against Yuan.

Yuan inserted his deck into his Duel Disk, scanning all the cards he had with him and activating a holographic projection of its blade to materialize. As for June, she had the newer model, so there was no need for an actual deck. The cards she uses are all downloaded into her Duel Disk, meaning everything will be projected thanks to the advanced technology provided by Sol Technologies. If there was one thing both versions have in common, people can duel each other in and out of Link V.R.A.I.N.S. thanks to its dual virtual reality network compatibility. Having both of their decks ready, the digital text on their Duel Disks read, “CARD DIGITIZE COMPLETE,” followed by “LOCAL VR NETWORK DUEL STANDBY.”

"Just wanna let you know I won't hold back," June informed. "I'll use my deck at it’s full strength, so I'm expecting you to come at me at full strength. You got that?"

"O-Of course..." Yuan stammered.

June groaned. "Quit acting like a coward," she demanded.

Yuan's face went pale. "I... Uh..."

"Don't mind Yuan," Naoki spoke up. "He doesn't really have a lot of social skills, but his dueling skills are just as flash as mine."

"I don't need commentary from the peanut gallery," June bluntly stated. "Now let's begin the duel!"

"R-Right..." Yuan agreed. And with his and June's Life Points at 4000 each, the duel began.

"I'll start things off if you don't mind," June said. "First I summon Immortal Ruler."

That surprised Yuan. "Immortal Ruler...?" he echoed.

"What? Were you expecting some cutesy fairy deck?" June coldly asked. "Not every girl duels that way. I happen to like dueling with zombies. Now to activate the Field Spell Zombie World!"

From the ground, a blackish-blue light flashed right in the middle of the Duel Field and expanded outward, leaving behind what looked like human skulls and bones in its path. Whatever image was on that Field Spell kept spreading all over the room; this ominous light flooded the entire floor before reaching the edges and proceeded to climb up the walls. Before long, it made its to the ceiling until the entire club was enveloped in a new, horrific scenery. Strange creatures were crawling all over the piled skeletons, a few bare, demonic trees had popped up in a few areas near both Duelists, a bloody river flowed by the skeletal land, and tall, rocky formations erupted into place over the dark, cloudy horizon.

This Zombie World might as well be the scariest sight Yuan had seen so far. He examined the area with swift and somewhat frantic motions because he honestly believe the phrase “a fate worse than Hell” was a perfect way to describe this setting. For June, it was also perfect, but for her overall deck and her Immortal Ruler, who is a Level 4, EARTH, Zombie-Type monster with 1800 ATK and 200 DEF. Although it can’t be special summoned, it can be tributed to add Zombie World from her Graveyard to her hand.

"But I'm not done," June continued. "I activate the Continuous Spell Call of the Mummy! Now whenever my field is empty, I can special summon a zombie straight from my hand. And since I can't attack, I'll finish things up with a face-down card. Now show me what you got."

"Okay..." Yuan muttered. "I draw." After drawing a card, he checked his hand. "I activate Valhalla, Hall of the Fallen to special summon Weather Painter Rain from my hand. This allows me to activate the Continuous Trap Weather Auroral Canvas from my hand. Then I normal summon Weather Painter..." He double-checked the cards in his hand. "...Cloud."

The Weather Painter Cloud is a Level 3 WIND Fairy-Type monster with 1500 ATK and 1000 DEF. If a different The Weather card Yuan controls is sent to the Graveyard, he can target up to 2 The Weather Spells and/or Traps from his Graveyard and place them face-up in his Spell and Trap Zone, but this can be done once per turn. Another effect that be done once per turn is Special Summoning Cloud during the Standby Phase of the turn he was banished to activate a The Weather card effect.

As for The Weather Auroral Canvas, all The Weather effect monsters in the Main Monster Zone of the Continuous Trap’s column and its adjacent columns gain this effect: If a player adds exactly one card to their hand (expect during the damage step), this card and the added card are both banished, allowing that player to draw one card. Additionally, only one The Weather Auroral Canvas can be controlled.

"I also activate Weather Rainy Canvas," Yuan continued. "By banishing Weather Painter Rain from my field, your Field Spell goes back to your hand."

The Weather Painter Rain twirled around with her large, indigo pen in her hands. Firmly grasping onto the pen, the tip drew a rotating spiral ascending from her shoes all the way up to the top of her head. The encircling indigo ink cloaked Rain in a luminescent glow before fusing together to produce a paint puddle of the same color. It splashed down onto the ground in the same Main Monster Zone where Rain was summoned from and oozed into the dried-up soil through the skeletons. Pretty soon, a glowing patch lit up from where the puddle dripped onto, with it extending all over the land and stretching out into the rocky regions and the sky, bringing everyone back into the club room.

"Whoa, is this what Weather Painters are like?"

"That was so pretty!"

Yuan was surprised by the compliments. "But...this is still my first turn..."

"Then keep going!" Hannah encouraged. "I want to see more of those Weather Painters in action!"

She was right to tell Yuan to keep going; there was the desired option to head to the Battle Phase so that his monsters can attack. On top of that, this was everyone’s first time seeing the Weather Painters in a duel and they already had a positive response to witnessing this archetype. With such a strong reception from the start, Yuan might have a chance. He could feel a peculiar emotion budding from within him. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but he managed to catch on to what this sudden surge was. He exhaled before opening his eyes, which were filled with the spark of confidence, and staring back at June. But upon quickly realizing his current monster was weaker, he changed his strategy.

"I activate Magic Planter!" Yuan announced. "By sending Weather Auroral Canvas to my Graveyard, I get two free draws." He checked the two cards he drew and smiled wide. "And with the Spell card Ancient Rules, I'm allowed to bring out a high-level monster. Time to shine a light, Weather Painter Aurora!"

Weather Painter Aurora is a Level 6 DARK Fairy-Type monster with 2200 ATK and 2000 DEF. A Spell or Trap with The Weather in its name can be placed face-up from Yuan’s hand, deck, or the Graveyard after she has been successfully normal summoned. The opponent can neither target nor destroy The Weather Spells and Traps he controls with card effects. Much like Cloud, she shares the same “once per turn” where she can be special summoned during the Standby Phase of the turn she was banished from the field to activate The Weather card’s effect.

Because Immortal Ruler has only 1800 ATK, Yuan figured bringing her out would sustain some amount of damage to her, even if it wasn’t much.

"Time to begin combat!" Yuan declared. "Weather Painter Aurora, take out Immortal Ruler with Emerald Paint Splash!"

Aurora raised her paint brush roller towards the sky to charge up her attack. On the handle, two small, emerald green orbs and a larger orb of the same hue located in between them shone vividly, powering up the roller as it steadily soaked itself in a bright, fluorescent green color. She lunged forth to where Immortal Ruler was and commenced with coating it in paint. The combination of the soaking green paint and the rapid movements from her as she utilized her brush was proving too much for him to handle, and before he knew it, she delivered one final blow by thrusting the roller onto his chest and forcefully sent it upwards, dealing a move in a similar manner to an uppercut. As the paint splashed from underneath his chin, Immortal Ruler disintegrated from the field, bringing June’s Life Points down to 3600.

"But I'm not done!" Yuan continued. "Now Weather Painter Cloud can-"

"I don't think so," June interrupted. "I activate the Trap Haunted Shrine! Now Immortal Ruler is allowed to crawl back onto my field!"

A holographic hexagon digitized itself onto the field and projected pixels compressed themselves together until they were in the shape of Immortal Ruler, who shortly disclosed himself after the special summoned. Aside from a Zombie-Type monster getting special summoned from the Graveyard if June controls no monsters, Haunted Shrine can also—once per turn—be banished from the Graveyard to target and special summon a Zombie-Type monster from the Graveyard with its effects negated.

"So I guess that ends your turn," June assumed.

"Yeah...I guess..." Yuan realized as he set two cards face down.

"How pathetic," June scoffed as she drew a card. "And you haven't even Link Summoned yet. This is going to be a quick duel if this keeps up. Now to bring back Zombie World with help from Immortal Ruler! Offer me your life to restore my wasteland paradise!"

A portal opened up from below Immortal Ruler, and starting from the bottom, he gingerly dissipated until every trace of him was sent to the Graveyard. As a result of him getting tributed, a narrow beam of light shot upwards with a silhouette of a card rising up from outside of the Graveyard portal. That card quickly vanished before reappearing in June’s hand, and with a simple swipe, she promptly activated it. Pretty soon, Yuan found himself reliving the same experience he went through when it was first played. An expanding surge of holograms swallowed the club room once more until everyone was back in the demonic, skeletal hell known as Zombie World.

"And just to make sure Zombie World stays put, I'll bring out an old friend," June continued. "Come on out, Necroworld Banshee! Root yourself to my paradise!"

A handful of what appeared to be souls emerged onto the field in one big clutter, which was then scattered into multiple individual souls floating around what appeared to be a pale-ish blue girl with pointy ears, long, silky hair of a similar color, and wore a powder blue blanket that had been tied on her shoulders to make it resemble a dress. Although her appearance does not make her look like a banshee like her name states, she is a Level 4, DARK, Zombie-Type monster with 1800 ATK and 200 DEF. Her main effect prevents other card effects from targeting and destroying Zombie World, something June intended on doing. By activating her quick effect, which can be done once per turn, she can be banished from the field or Graveyard in order for Zombie World to be directly activated from June’s hand or deck.

"And just to spice things up, I'll use the Quick-Play Spell Zombie Power Struggle to give my banshee a power boost," June decided.

Zombie Power Struggle is a rather interesting card to play because instead of just targeting and increasing a Zombie-Type monster’s ATK, it can either add or subtract 1000 ATK until the end of the turn. If this Quick-Play Spell is in the Graveyard, during the Main Phase, a banished Zombie-Type monster can be shuffled into the deck in order to set it onto the field, but it must be banished when it leaves the field. As usual, this effect of Zombie Power Struggle can be done once per turn.

Having made the decision to raise Necroworld Banshee’s ATK to 2800, she has enough strength to destroy Weather Painter Aurora. Even though 600 damage isn’t much, it is still better than the 400 damage Yuan dealt earlier.

"Now to get rid of that Weather Painter!" June declared. "Necroworld Banshee, wipe her out with Decaying Shri-"

"I don't think so," Yuan interrupted.

"What are you saying?" June asked.

"Because Weather Rainy Canvas has an additional ability," Yuan explained. "By banishing it from my field, I'll negate the effects of Zombie Power Struggle and return it to your hand."

Necroworld Banshee had already declared her attack as she had stood up on her feet and covered her eyes as she unleashed a loud wail, almost as if she was mourning for the dead. The souls orbiting around her responded to her cries and charged to where Aurora was; however, at that moment, the young banshee could feel her ATK return to its original 1800, a direct result of June returning Zombie Power Struggle to her hand. To put it simply, there was nothing she could do to stop her attack.

Aurora readied her paint brush roller, and with the lustrous, emerald green orbs all charged up again, she deflected each and every soul back to the opposing monster, splattering them with a bit of chartreuse paint. With every soul struck back to Necroworld Banshee, leaving behind paint stains on her, it led to a point where it was too agonizing for her to handle and she let a pained scream upon getting destroyed, much to June’s frustration as her Life Points lowered to 3200. For a noob, this Yuan kid was definitely craftier than she initially expected.

"Then it's a good thing I still have Call of the Mummy," June pointed out. "I'll bring out Pyramid Turtle to provide some stable defense. Now show me what your deck can do!"

"Alright," Yuan responded. He drew a card. "First, Weather Painter Rain returns to my field since she was banished due to a card ability. Now here's when the fun begins. Link arrows authorized!"

"What?" June asked.

"I need at least three Weather Painters to bring out this masterpiece!" Yuan continued. "Link the circuit! I Link Summon Weather Painter Rainbow!"

His three Weather Painters transformed into violet, indigo, and green spirals of energy that whisked to where the Link portal was, but instead of heading inside of it, they went for the bottom three Link Arrows. The three set arrows triggered a reaction that caused an elegant, blonde-haired lady wielding a paint brush and a palette of assorted colors, complete with seven tubes of paint floating in front of her—violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red—to be summoned. Undoubtingly, this monster was The Weather Painter Rainbow, a Link 3, LIGHT, Fairy-Type Link monster with 2200 ATK and the Link Arrows set on the bottom-let, bottom, and bottom-right. For her Link Materials, she requires three The Weather monsters. Her quick effect allows Yuan to send her to the Graveyard in order to negate an opposing monster’s special summon and destroy it. Unsurprisingly, she can also get special summoned on the Standby Phase of the turn she was banished to activate a The Weather card’s effect once per turn. Finally, The Weather effect monsters that linked to any of her three Link Arrows gain the quick effect to banish Rainbow as a way to negate a card or effect’s activation and destroy said card.

Unfortunately not everyone was amazed to see the Link monster. "What is that?" June asked.

"My Link monster, Weather Painter Rainbow," Yuan repeated.

"I can see that!" June shouted. "Why did you bring her out?! What about your other Link card?!"

"Other Link card?" Yuan echoed. "What are you..."

All of a sudden, he paused halfway through his question right as he processed what June was talking about. Before the duel began, she had examined his cards and handed them back because she wanted to see them in action; that’s what he’s been doing, but that wasn’t enough to please her? Up until recently, he thought that was what intrigued her and he has been showing off what he can do with his Weather Painters. He memorized that same flashback and recalled her stopping to see something in his deck. Just like that, it clicked for him. That was why she longed to see his monsters in action? Just to see his other Link monster? But…why?

"You want to see...him?" Yuan asked, losing his confident streak. "But he doesn't fit with the deck..."

"So what?" June impatiently asked as she tapped her foot. "He looks powerful. Now bring him out already!"

Yuan flinched. "I, ah..."

Luckily Naoki ran in between the two. "Hey, don't yell at Yuan like that!" he defended with his arms stretched out. "I don't know what's going on, but you have no right to bully him!"

"I'm not bullying him!" June insisted. "I'm ashamed he's holding back! If he can't summon his true ace, he has no right to call himself a Duelist! So unless he summons it this turn, I'll have no choice but to call off this duel!"

"I have to agree with Shima on this one," Hosoda spoke up. "What's gotten into you, June? You weren't like this with the other members."

"So what?!" June snapped. "I can tell he's different from the rest of you!" She glared at Yuan. "Now bring out your ace already!"

Her cold, harsh stare did not settle well for Yuan; the eye color my be a magenta-red, but they may as well be an icy blue based on her heated temper. Tanaka stepped in to remind her how Yuan gets to call the moves whenever it’s his turn with Suzuki adding how it was practically normal for Duelists to summon their Link 3 aces first and then their Link 4 trump cards when the intensity gets amped up. Heck, even the soft-spoken Hannah was showing signs of having enough of June’s constant berating and had to call her out on it. To no avail, most of the club’s combined efforts did not phase her one bit; she was going to see Yuan’s true ace monster whether they like it or not.

Skye did what she could to maintain her composure although judging from her shut eyes and slightly twitching eyebrow, she was getting annoyed by June’s behavior too. Right as she got up to attempt to resolve this, her hazel eyes caught Yuan in the corner of her sight except…something wasn’t right with him. Was he…shaking? Possibly, but she could tell he obviously wasn’t getting any better at this rate and it seems like June yelling at him to play his other Link monster wasn’t helping in the slightest. From his perspective, he began to second guess himself on the move he just made. Was bringing out Weather Painter Rainbow the right call to make? Should he have brought out his other Link monster? Should he have Link Summoned him to begin with? With the mounting pressure and the heightening anxiety he is forced to endure, the implication that something needed to be done immediately was getting more and more apparent. So she did.

"Call off this duel," Skye demanded.

"Excuse me?" June asked.

"You're making Yuan uncomfortable," Skye pointed out, a fierce gaze appearing in her eyes. "And why do you act like you're the club president? You joined a few days ago and assumed the position of vice president. if anything, I should be vice president because I was able to get the new Duel Disks for everyone else. Now are you going to call off the duel, or do I have to report you to the headmaster for bullying?"

There was no arguments made on any of these points. Skye upgraded almost everyone’s Duel Disk because she is the step-sister of Akira Zaizen, who is the security manager of Sol Technologies, so it explains where she gathered the money from to provide the members with the newer models. Not to mention she is especially right about Yuan getting bullied, regardless if June continues to deny it. As long as anyone seeks to harm, intimidate, coerce, or make someone else uncomfortable, that is considered bullying and it is strictly against school rules.

June was left at an ultimatum; was getting to see Yuan’s true ace monster in action if it meant getting sent to the headmaster’s office? From what she could tell, every member did not approve of the way she acted upon seeing Weather Painter Rainbow. Just because he didn’t Link Summon his Link 4 monster right away doesn’t mean it is a big deal. Speaking of him, she observed his current state once all the yelling and bickering has subsided. She perceived right away that he had fallen on his knees and hugged himself as his body shook; it wasn’t shaking as much now that the disputing subsided, but there were still some visible vibrations. She peered back at Skye, who continued giving her the same fiercely serious glare. After about a minute of thinking, she had made her decision, and judging from the way she sighed, she ultimately the right choice.

"Fine," June said as she deactivated her Duel Disk, causing all the holograms to vanish. "But I don't think he's worthy to join."

"I disagree," Hannah spoke up. "Those Weather Painters were beautiful and he clearly knew what he was doing."

"So would you care to explain your actions?" Hosoda asked June.

"Because I can tell Yuan Amaya has potential to be as strong as me," June explained, still annoyed with the duel results. "Don't all great Duelists figure a way out of a tough spot, like when they're pushed into a corner with no way out? All it takes is the right card to pull off a miracle win, just like that one card I saw: a Link monster called Shining Claw Link Dragon."

"That old thing?" Naoki asked. "It's just a card Yuan keeps in his deck for some sentimental reason."

"Oh, really?" June asked. She glanced at Yuan, who had finally got back on his feet and was starting to calm down. "And what is this 'sentimental reason'?"

Yuan tried to come up with a definitive answer, but had trouble determining what this sentimental reason is. Not even his earliest memories provided any recollection of how he got Shining Claw. All he knows he has had it for his entire life while growing up yet he rarely used it, especially with his Weather Painters. Aside from his dragon not fitting with his deck, he just wasn’t sure why he was given that card in the first place. It has been an occasionally recurring thought of his, but it doesn’t entirely bother him; however, now that June mentioned it, Yuan pondered if Shining Claw has the potential of helping him pull off a “miracle win” like she said. Despite him feeling like he wasn’t that much of a great Duelist, he left quite an impression on everyone prior to the duel's abrupt end. Maybe if he kept practicing, he could pull it off? Who knows.

"Well, I've seen enough," Hosoda decided. "Welcome to the dueling club, Yuan Amaya."

"You'll still let me join?" Yuan asked. "But what about-"

"I believe there's no such thing as a worthless card," Hosoda explained. "What does exist, however, are useless Duelists who don't see their worth. But you don't look like a useless Duelist to me. Your skills are beyond incredible. You take art classes, correct?"

Yuan quickly nodded. "No wonder," Hannah spoke up. "I think I saw some of your sketches in the school art gallery. You're pretty gifted."

"Wow..." Yuan said, still surprised by the praise. "Thanks."

And that was how Yuan joined the dueling club. Despite his mild panic attack, it looked like most of the club members were impressed with his skills. But as the club members celebrated, Hannah stepped aside to type something into her Duel Disk. She felt a strange connection with this new member, but why? Why did she feel like this Weather Painter user was an important person? Regardless of why, she knew exactly what she had to do after school...

#Into the Arcverse #yugioh arc v #spiderman into the spiderverse #yugioh vrains

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gregellner · 5 years

Photo

Artwork by Tim Seeley, Daniel Leister, Mark Englert, and Chris Crank through Image Comics from “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac” #1.  (Mild censorship applied to Mortimer Strick’s buttons.)

For October 30 and Halloween of 2018, I did a thorough analysis of “Hack/Slash,” the horror comic epic (in the classical sense of the term) primarily by Tim Seeley. The analysis (viewable here as Part One and Part Two) was deliberately incomplete, as not only did it only intensely cover the first half of the original 2004-2013 run, but doing so involved providing intentionally inaccurate information as to the way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” functions so as to entice incoming readers without giving too many spoilers.

Here, I will be examining one way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” actually seems to function, by way of looking at the creatures that inhabit it so far as can be thoroughly explained.

There are many different kinds of beings in the world of “Hack/Slash,” all of which initially were collapsed under the overall collective name of “slashers.” While the Psychofiles in the earlier volumes (Volumes 1-5, collected in Omnibuses 1 and 2) did label them all as “slashers,” there were enough outliers, especially those who are given their own, unrelated categorization like “Faustian,” that the term itself seemed too generalized. In fact, many of the most famous villains of the slasher genre do not technically qualify under the actual, more precise definition proposed roughly halfway into the epic’s initial run.

As a note, “Hack/Slash” is a mature comic series. As such, there is the possibility of the occasional swear, as well as graphic imagery.

Furthermore, there will be no censorship for spoilers on this article either, so it assumes the reader is comfortable with the epic as a whole.

Some of the information gleaned here is from inference based on the information presented across the epic, while other pieces are from direct questions asked to Tim Seeley himself either online or through in-person conversation at New York Comic-Con 2018.

Slashers

For convenience, it seems best to list at least part of the first half of the analysis I did on Halloween for this.

What are slashers? Well, imagine your basic slasher movie villain. Revenge driven, extremely durable and at times supernatural. Commonly able to survive and escape if you don’t keep them in your sights. In many cases having additional supernatural abilities, most commonly superhuman strength and at least some level of physical regeneration to come back from death again and again. These villains focus on hurting those who are often guilty of some vice, mostly in terms of sexual activity.

Some of these villains, including many in “Hack/Slash” itself, focus on a specific day or a specific set of circumstances, in particular a holiday or otherwise a single day a year, before returning to their graves. These types of slashers are definitely the most predictable, and so are only very rarely dealt with, but do come up, in particular ones for Groundhog Day, Memorial Day, and Christmas each having some time devoted to fighting them in the story, and some others being mentioned as having been fought off-panel.

[…]

As defined, the slashers in “Hack/Slash” are also known as revenants, an older variation on the zombie archetype from European folklore as early as the Middle Ages, if not earlier. These undead are reanimated corpses that are believed to have revived to haunt the living. In the case of the slashers, as far as Cassie Hack knows from the beginning, they are reanimated by their sheer unstoppable hatred and insanity, their need for revenge, and are drawn to the things that they miss from life, mostly the aforementioned sexual vices. Furthermore, they often (but not always) retain intelligence on some level, enough to remember their past lives in spite of their new (or perhaps not-so-new) murderous obsessions, with their homicidal tendencies geared toward those memories, or even just basic impressions on the moments prior to or directly involved with their deaths in particular.

Additionally, several slashers tend to develop a skill set associated with the method of their death, making for a range of different types of villains. These powers range from someone who can kill others in their dreams, to secreting acids when sexually aroused, to the ability to detach one’s own limbs and move them independently, to transmission through the Internet like an electronic ghost. Each of these powers connects primarily to the manner of death, but also sometimes connect to the users’ personalities, in particular with respect to the acid user and the Internet transmission. The powers eventually tend to evolve over time and with subsequent appearances, developing new means of utilizing skill sets like the acidic secretions or a merger of dream-based powers with general psychic illusions, but on the whole, the power sets stay within set parameters in terms of what kinds of things they can accomplish.

While they do have a variety of powers, there are also some weaknesses that often do not come up in slasher movies. For instance, the most common slashers can be taken down with gunfire if in sufficient amounts, and can also suffer greatly from other forms of damage including blunt trauma or being cut up. In essence, while some slashers may have incredibly high healing abilities, they still can only take so much damage. One especially powerful weakness is fire. Whether or not it is truly the case, fire and explosions seem to do more damage than most other things. Those killed by fire have a tendency to have far more difficulties coming back from the dead again. The weakness is potent enough that Cassie tells others that “fire is your friend” when it comes to slashers. How exactly it works is unclear, but there are a high quantity of stories (which Cassie researched in the process of learning more about slashers) that include fire being used to keep things dead, especially zombies or vampires, so perhaps the same rules of “purifying the unholy” follows, as far as she can initially understand.

Now, all of that is all well and good. But why does fire work so well? Why do only some vengeful beings come back as slashers, while others do not? Not every serial killer Cassie Hack and Vlad face returns as undead, after all, and some of the slashers, like Blackfin the shark, are not even human in the first place.

The answer lies in where they come from, and by whom they were initially created. In fact, the elements stated before are an oversimplification at best.

The two elements at play are best said together at first, then explained separately. Rather than try to tell in general terms, it seems best to go to a certain quote from “Hack/Slash: The Series” #24.

“During his travels, Akakios discovered a small African tribe whom regularly used a plant with many unusual properties. When burned, it created a black flame. When its nectar was injected into a corpse, the body would regain a semblance of life. The plant was used respectfully, and in moderation. Inevitably, the plant’s effects on the brain wore off, leaving only a starving, unliving beast that fed upon living flesh. Akakios destroyed the tribe, taking the secret of the plant, which he called black ambrosia, with him back to Greece. […] Akakios synthesized a chemical from the flower, which he and his followers ingested. Akakios’ alchemy would allow the most devote among the believers to return to life after death, as true paladins of their beliefs. They would live again, stronger than ever before, some with bizarre powers and abilities like the Roman gods of myth, to destroy the Children of Dionysus and save the world. […] [Modern] paladins are those who have the nectar of the black ambrosia running through their veins even after many generations. Those you call slashers.”

First, let’s talk about black ambrosia, and its applications. The flower itself is rarely ever seen, but its nectar is rather prominent. The use of fire seems to burn away the black ambrosia nectar in the slashers’ blood, thereby making reanimation far more difficult (if most of it is removed) or outright impossible without other magical means (if all of it is removed). In the case of fire from lighting up black ambrosia flowers’ oil, the effect is even more potent, first negating the supernatural powers of a slasher, then killing them without the ability for the alchemy to bring them back. Furthermore, every subsequent death seems to result in both heightened powers (if they have specialized abilities) and lessened morals (to the point of attacking those formerly out of their own personal morality either without much care or with deliberate malice, such as in the cases of Bobby Brunswick and Acid Angel). In all, it seems as though a part of the slasher is left behind with each return, replaced with the power that flows through them.

The fluid is not limited to humans, as it has been shown to reanimate and make hostile at least one shark (Blackin) and one car (which will go unnamed intentionally, but appears in “Hack/Slash: Trailers 2”), indicating that ingesting the fluid can also cause one to turn given enough time.

Black ambrosia sees use in two distinct forms: through the bloodline of those who previously been given it, or through direct experimentation to create similar effects artificially.

The ones born into a bloodline with the black ambrosia can be considered “pureblood” slashers. They are the most common of slasher types, seeing as they can crop up at random and are bound to the anti-“sin” mentality originally thought up by Akakios himself, be it intentionally going after such people or unintentionally targeting them. The substance has to be activated, most commonly by the subject’s death, but it can, in theory, be neutralized by certain modern science to at least be rid of the homicidal insanity (or at least the exacerbation of it by the black ambrosia itself), but leave them biologically at the apparent age of their initial death until they are killed by external means. In this case, some of the more famous examples include Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise (with his resurrection as a zombie) and, possibly, Michael Myers/The Shape of the Halloween franchise (with his ambiguously supernatural abilities even in continuities that lack the Curse of Thorn). The members of this group that are “Hack/Slash” villains are extremely high, including, but by no means limited to, Doctor Edmund Gross, Angela Cicero/Acid Angel, Ashley Guthrie, both Fathers Wrath, Ian Mattheson/D1aboliq, Matthew Ravenswood/Grinface, Delilah Hack/Lunch Lady, and many, many more.

On the other hand, certain organizations have taken to creating slashers artificially, either intentionally or not, by utilizing black ambrosia-related substances.

On the unintentional side, we have “hate juice” distilled from captive slashers by the pharmaceutical company Ceutotech, Inc., which engaged in “experimental cosmetics” as one of its bases. The goal was to replicate slashers’ ability to heal in order to make better anti-aging creams and presumably other applications to that effect. Of course, the fact that the name was “hate juice,” along with Emily Cristy’s to use it herself, indicates that Ceutotech was aware of its dangerous nature. After ingesting the fluid orally (by drinking it), she began to take on some elements of a slasher, primarily in the form of some limited healing. Cristy, unfortunately, also took on some of the negative side effects as a result, including the “back of your head ‘panic attack’” voice (to quote Cassie from ‘My First Maniac’) and highly violent actions, but managed to keep herself more or less under control aside from some slips until her first death in the explosion of her building. Despite probably not being a hereditary slasher herself, she reanimated, and was far more lucid than many others, even to the point of paying back Cassie and Vlad’s kindness by saving their life once. Her ability to reanimate appeared to be far less potent than most, as being impaled killed her once again, and subsequent reanimations were quickly dealt with.

On the more intentional side, we have the work of Doctor Ezekiel Chase at the Englund Prison in Indigo River (examined in ‘Resurrection’ during its first arc). He seemed to be completely aware of the nature of slashers, to the point of having sought out Vlad to help her, and various “resurrection fluid” formulas (which are directly identified as connected to black ambrosia by Cassie and Vlad both) are able to reanimate subjects in varying levels of cognition, ranging from Vlad having all of his faculties back to Dominique Peacetree being little more than a zombie, as was the case with the “controlled fun-dead” of the prison and the fatally poisoned counselors. While this type does engage in some ritualized behavior in the case of the less aware, as Cassie herself says, “their brains are mostly soup at this point.”

Outside of black ambrosia itself, we have its originator, the mystical alchemist Akakios. Without indulging too heavily in who he actually is, his power over existing slashers, especially those of the pureblood variety, cannot be denied. To explain, it seems best to indulge not only in the events of his life (and apparent unlife) but also what came after his final death. During ‘Final,’ he seemed to have an unparalleled control over slashers as a whole, able to control even the most volatile of his “paladins” such as the first Father Wrath and Grinface with little more than a look and a speech, could control entire hordes of slashers in the averted apocalyptic timeline, and could even “feel their deaths, new and final” when Nef magic annihilated his army at the end of ‘Final.’

As Cassie says in “Hack/Slash vs. Chaos!” #1, “Vlad and I put an end to the slasher bloodline. They don’t come back anymore.” In arcs ranging from ‘Crossroads’ to ‘Final’ (especially those two), the black flame seemed able to resurrect many slashers without any direct input, something that ceased entirely after Akakios was finally executed with extreme prejudice, indicating that the slasher repeated reanimations relied upon his continued life as a mystical tether. This idea is further proven by the fact that Dick Weiner of the final issue of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection” was reanimated in the 1980s, but unlived long into the 2010s until his death by woodchipper being his last demise, as well as the reanimation fluid of Dr. Chase only allowing for one extra life.

Putting together these clues, Akakios seems to, as the “father” of the slashers as a whole, link the slashers’ reanimations to himself through his mystical alchemy to enhance his control over them and render himself indispensible (not to mention heighten his apparent messiah complex as the “murder messiah”). The problem with this is that Akakios renders the entire group vulnerable once he is killed off, but what can you do?

Witches

Some characters can use magic, but only a rare few are so integrated with magic that they can easily learn it. Only directly identified as “witches” in ‘Murder Messiah,’ this kind of magic user is distinct from other ones due to the fact that she (the examples given are both female) is intrinsically tied to magic through her bloodline, rather than being just any random person who can use a spell book.

In the world of “Hack/Slash,” the two primary examples are Laura Lochs and her black sheep sister, Liberty “Libby” Lochs. Magic comes exceptionally easily to these, and likely other, witches, regardless of its form. However, the type of magic used differs depending on the witch’s preferences (in terms of the style of how they use it) and what they come across (in terms of the magical systems themselves) more than anything else. Both of the Lochs sisters were able to learn myriad types of magic about as easily as basic study of a book, rather than needing any real training in many cases.

For Laura, it came in the form of the spell book with which she originally learned magic in her first story, ‘Girls Gone Dead,’ which seemed to consist of verbal magic and blood rituals, but very little, if anything, in the way of direct offensive use of her power. On finding Papa Sugar, she learned the use of certain voodoo magics (in the style of Child’s Play, on account of it being during the ‘Vs. Chucky’ story) such as the creation of certain potions and use of specific incantations, with little apparent effort needed to learn any of the intricate elements. She also appears to have known necromancy, which she taught to her sister Libby. Her own style focused on controlling others and the environment through murder, including creation of voodoo zombies, controlling a slasher’s actions through verbal commands said backwards, and leading her sister to control Julian Gallo the Mosaic Man by linking him intrinsically to the powers of death.

Libby, on the other hand, stuck to a different style. Aside from controlling the Mosaic Man in the name of revenge against Cassie’s hand in Laura’s death, she used necromancy’s control of souls to attempt to help people by manipulation of luck. After abandoning necromancy itself, she took to a more “modern” sorcery, to the point of openly calling herself a witch, focusing in on the use of verbal commands to control those who can hear them, to the general effect of far more offensive use of magic in the name of helping others instead of her sister’s malevolent, more low-key use of spells in general. She also seems to have a very good grasp on Neffish black magick (to be discussed lower down), such that she is capable of using the Neffish guitar for time travel relatively easily (physical illness notwithstanding).

According to Libby, every witch gets a “broom” (hers being a motorcycle) and a “familiar” (hers being flesh-eating bacteria), leaving the possibility that the reason why Laura did not develop either of these things is that she never took the time to do so or did not live long enough to accomplish it, unlike Libby’s several months on her own learning new magic.

Just because witches can have easy access to magic does not mean that they are completely aware of all of the intricacies of the magic that they use, as can be seen from attempts to use necromancy for benevolent purposes without understanding its basic manipulation of souls.

“She ruins everything she touches. She wanted to do ‘good’ with a necromancy book. She tried to make lucky items for the dregs, the luckless losers like her. But necromancy isn't meant to bless items. To do so drags a spirit out of the afterlife and binds it to the object. A slave spirit that doesn't want to be there.”

On account of their mystical nature, some of these beings (in particular Laura) can subvert their own death by latching on to another witch’s consciousness to teach how to use some magic, becoming a kind of ghost in the process, albeit one with very limited connection to the physical world.

Mystic Empowerment

Certain entities were empowered by magical sources, whether through spells they cast or those cast upon them or others connected to them. As these entities are not intrinsically magical in the same way as witches, they seem appropriate to discuss separately.

Insofar as famous examples in fiction go, we have Charles Lee Ray and his transformation into Chucky through voodoo magic of the Heart of Damballa in the Child’s Play franchise (though he might, possibly, be a witch), and the cursed, corporeal ghost of Victor Crowley in the Hatchet films, both of which coincidentally appear in the “Hack/Slash” series themselves.

While slashers can be additionally mystically empowered, such as the case with the Mosaic Man in ‘Sons of Man’ and ‘Foes and Fortunes,’ that power is distinct from that of external spells, and so cannot truly be considered the same type of foe. However, empowering certain beings with additional magic may leave them as servants of said forces instead of their own will, as is the case with the aforementioned slasher.

“When we raised Julian, we bonded him to the powers of death and black magic so that he would be at our beck and call. Julian serves death. He'll free any spirits imprisoned on this plane.”

In general, mystic empowerment is a subset to the doings of witches more than it is a distinct power on its own.

Nef

The creatures of Nef (adjective form “Neffish”) are, by and large, some kind of amalgamation between aliens and demons. They are called demons, and treated as such, but in fact are not in any form of Hell that can be accessed by humans after death. Instead, Nef seems to be some kind of alternate dimension.

The only real method of reproduction for the beings of Nef is impregnating virgin females from the main dimension, regardless of species. The resultant Nef being emerges from the host’s body through their torso akin to an Alien franchise chestburster, killing the mother very violently. Understandably, finding a willing mother is pretty much impossible, hence the use of avatars (see Avatars below).

What type of Nef being emerges depends upon the individual being impregnated. In the case of a dog, the emergent Nef demon will be a “lowbeast,” a kind of hellhound type creature that is what appears to be the lowest form of Nef life, and of which the character Pooch is a member. Others exist, such as the apparent greatest warrior Kuma, a tusked humanoid misidentified as “Bigfoot,” but barring one appearance of hers and some others like minor villain Kumok, there isn’t a lot of emphasis on them as a whole.

One thing that is known is that, again much like the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, Nef creatures appear to have some form of DNA reflex, an ability to take on certain aspects of the host creature while still being definitely of Nef. This difference accounts for not only the bizarre look of lowbeasts being vaguely similar to a dog or a horse, but also certain abilities of more advanced Nef beings. Mid-level Nef creatures like Kumok have the ability to utilize weapons such as Nef wands to control “black magick,” but instead of being sorcerers on their own, these wands seem accessible to and easily usable by anyone, including Cassie Hack or Vlad, meaning that there isn’t an intrinsic ability more than there is general sapience.

The most prominent example of this reflex giving powers has to be the Stillborn, a creature that was born from the body of the psychic Martha "Muffy" Jaworski possessed by the dream-based killer Ashley Guthrie, the latter of whom had a psychic connection to Cassie Hack that had only been exacerbated by increased powers through the former. As a result, he had an exceptionally strong psychic connection to Cassie, able to have her see through his eyes during his serial killings even aside from his fame-based cannibalistic empowerment, paralysis-inducing “starstruck” abilities, and eventual electrical manipulation, both of which fit in with the “worship through a rock star” attitude of Nef itself.

Avatar

In some cases, individuals play host to an otherworldly, superhuman power. The means of acquiring these powers differ, but the overall effect is that of a need to keep the connection to that power to retain magical (or presumably other) abilities.

On the one hand, we have the classic Faustian bargain, offering something up in exchange for power from demonic entities, ones that entirely relinquish their hold on said abilities until they decide to take them back through one manner or another. Our most prominent example of this kind of power would have to be Jeffrey Brevvard, a.k.a. Six Sixx of the short-lived band Acid Washed. Given access to the Neflords (see Nef above) by their latest recruiter and former avatar (heavily implied but never outright stated to be a certain music King who is presumed to have died in August of 1977), he sacrifices young women to the Neflords in exchange for various powers that his Psychofiles profile identifies as “black magick,” a skill set that includes raising his soulless bandmates from their crates, transforming into a demonic entity with wings, the ability to be seen as very famous and popular in spite of his lackluster music through probability alteration, and access to his black magick Neffish guitar. The latter is not as much a part of his type of creature as it is a consequence of said power, which can be used by others if they can get their hands on it to do things including opening a portal to different dimensions such as Nef and the Dream World or between different areas on Earth, time travel, projection of blasts of energy, hypnosis of virgins, and potentially much more. In all, the power relies upon a steady flow of virgin sacrifices, to which point Six Sixx develops a body count of at least fourteen before the end of his run.

Another example of this kind of power is famous from slasher films, and even comes up under a different name in the ‘Mind Killer’ arc after a brief appearance at the ends of ‘Shout at the Devil’: the Dream Demons that empowered Freddy Krueger of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Although the Dream Demons are only identified as “Dread Drinkers” by Six Sixx on account of him not knowing their names, their appearance and fear-inducing abilities make their true identities readily apparent to those with the right knowledge, placing Krueger (who had been previously identified by Chucky and also was mentioned without directly stating his name in ‘My First Maniac’) in the role of an avatar to their power, rather than a slasher in and of himself. The fact that he could be depowered through skillful use of time travel in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors adds further credence to him not being a slasher.

The other major type of power is that of a divine influence, as is the case with Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, a character in public domain who was involved in events during the ‘Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter’ arc and her own one-shot arc ‘Mystery Woman.’ In her case, the powers granted are fantastical to the point of her being seen as a goddess, able to perform ridiculously powerful, often quite over-the-top punishments on those she deems to be worthy of said behavior, including villains associated with her capture and those who would attack her jungle. However, while the powers themselves are quite memorable, their source is less reliable. Fantomah’s power relies upon the continued existence of her jungle, and with her capture for decades in the “Godbox,” she was unable to prevent the quite realistic destruction of said jungle by modern society’s deforestation. As such, while her powers are quite strong shortly after emerging from her captivity, they quickly weaken to nothing more than illusions, and eventually are removed from her altogether in favor of a more suitable host, leaving her to mortality once more.

Monsters

Perhaps the best term to use for the creatures outright called “monsters” in ‘Son of Samhain’ would be “orcs,” in the classic J.R.R. Tolkein scheme. Judging from how the overall tone of ‘Son of Samhain’ is more of a pulpy action story than a horror story, determining their characteristics is a bit more difficult, in no small part due to them only being brought up for a single arc.

What can be determined is that they are an ancient species that dwells deep beneath the Earth in tunnels, and that they have their own hierarchy. They have a variety of subspecies, including the following: insectoid tinier creatures that can possess and enhance bodies of others by crawling into their orifices, forcing their minds into a dream state; humanoid figures in varying degrees of muscle mass that look like prototypical orcs, with green skin and primitive weapons like clubs; and flying beasts described as “gods” of their kind that are, nonetheless, not powerful enough to withstand sufficient human-based explosives. Their numbers are in the thousands at least, but they are weak enough to be taken down with a single swing of Cassie’s bat, to the point that she seems willing to take on an entire wave of their army more or less by herself.

Vampire

Of course, vampires are known throughout fiction as bloodsucking undead, as one of the archetypical creatures of the genre up there with spirits and werebeasts. Given that, an analysis of their nature seems in order, considering some rules may differ depending on the series. In particular, the ones seen are from the ‘Return to Haverhill’ arc of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection.”

Of the typical vampiric traits, several are shown, especially for Chetly, Earl of Chanders. In particular, they have some form of hypnosis through eye contact, cannot cross into a location without being invited, and have superhuman strength and speed. In at least the case of Chet, vampires can be kept from touching particular people by specifying who exactly is allowed to fall under the “invitation,” with others being treated as essentially a restraining order. All vampires under the head of a group will turn back to normal once said vampire is killed. Vulnerabilities include holy water, silver, and staking (with a stake being any long, sharp piece of wood). Furthermore, multiple types of vampire, from the one first shown in ‘Return to Haverhill’ to the recurring crossovers with Vampirella, are afraid of cats.

As said by a head vampire, “The blood contains many magics.” On the one hand, this could mean sharing of abilities across vampiric strains, such as enhancing one vampire’s control over an area of expertise only held by the other. On the other hand, this also allows for transference of command of a group from an ancient vampire to a younger one through a dark ritual that involves “the purest of sacrifices,” which may include, or in fact be, the heart of the older vampire. The fact that the explanation changes slightly between issues of the series makes determining what exactly occurred unclear.

Hybrids

Across the entire series, there are some hybrids between humanity and other creatures, through a variety of means. Some are born as hybridized creatures, others are granted said hybridization through mystical means, and others still artificially hybridize themselves.

“Each generation brings us closer. We move away from humans and toward monsters with every hatching. It won’t be long before Attan-Soolu’s DNA consumes the human’s, giving it the strength to life on its own.”

First, there is the process of using an artificial selection process of breeding (coupled with directly applying nonhuman DNA) to create hybrid creatures. On a lower key level, this technique was seen with the eponymous creatures from the ‘Sons of Man’ arc. The Society of the Black Lamp used inhumane breeding programs to create specialized human breeds, essentially subspecies, including the following: the “Hades,” with innate night vision; the “Poseidon,” able to hold their breath and swim unnaturally well; the “Artemis,” near-animalistic supersoldiers; and the “Venus,” little more than companions and sexual slavery (with the exception of one).

More overt was the process used in the alliance between the degenerated remnants of the Black Lamps and the monsters under Morinto, which merged the DNA of Akakios (still called “Samhain” for whatever reason) and that of the monstrous god Attan-Soolu to create monster-humans. There are some more disturbing examples present, such as an apparently full-grown man with Akakios’ orange hair and a shell on his torso, but the most successful was one of those that they deemed to be the greatest failure known to live, the eight-year-old October “Ocky” Bourne, who had little if any connection to the monsters themselves.

“Her boon was power. The power to take. The power to kill. She made him better. She made him more than a man. Of course, tha’ power came with certain dietary requirements. Tha’ ne’er bothered Sawney. Eventually he decided it’d be selfish to keep all tha’ power to himself, so Sawney took a wife. When he saw his golden daughters, he knew tha’ he had to keep the blood strong. And so the Beanes passed into myth and legend. But the blood did remain strong…”

In the case of the Beane Clan, descended from the infamous Alexander “Sawney” Beane and his 48-member cannibal clan originated in 16th Century Scotland, the influence is more mystical in nature. After Sawney showed no fear in the face of a demoness that had attempted to kill him, she granted him the boon of superhuman strength and durability, powered by his own cannibalism. For his descendants, he decided to “keep it in the family,” resulting in an incestuous clan spanning all the way to the 21stcentury in Chicago. The women who were born of his line were very physically attractive at first, but were liable to transform into a far more hideous, green skinned form once sufficiently agitated. For whatever reason, private military contractors from Moreci Securities seem fit to call those ones vampires, perhaps due to their habit of injecting some kind of poison into victims to make their faces puff up with blood. On the other hand, males of the line were constantly in the monstrous form, with the green skin also working along with a complete inability to grow hair and an overall deformed appearance. The actual dilution of the bloodline as a way of weakening the power is unclear, seeing as Vlad, a member of the clan who had a father outside of it, was able to defeat one of their stronger members.

The downside seems to come with those who refrain from cannibalism. As the power is inherently tied to that food source, those who do not eat human meat, such as Vlad, seem to have a variety of physical ailments, ranging from respiratory problems (such as those that are half of why Vlad wears his signature gas mask) to a progressive bone disease that leaves Vlad bedridden for a several arcs of the latter half of the comic’s original run. While Dr. Vincent Morrow (of Witch Doctor) seemed to create a serum to cure his bone condition from the blood of Vlad’s grandfather, Bronson Beane, it is unclear if this treatment is permanent. However, considering there has been absolutely no mention of his various ailments since, and considering Dr. Morrow’s treatments are pretty comprehensive, it seems fair to say that the negative effects were counteracted until otherwise proven.

“You know as well as I do that this job, hunting like we do, has a way of aging us in some ways, and keeping us young in others.”

What exactly Caraway Cordero, ancestor of Cassie Hack on the side of her mother, actually happens to be is a bit of a mystery to some, but after some discussion with Seeley at New York Comic Con 2018, that question has been answered in regards to Tini Howard’s plans for her. She is still a human being, but mutated through a variety of deliberate, artificial means in a manner not unlike the Witchers of the novel and video game franchise of the same name. How exactly she imbued herself with supernatural properties is not entirely clear, but seems to involve things like drinking the blood of certain beings, injecting other things, and the like to the point of becoming similar to them, but on a lower level in some respects. Caraway is capable of sniffing out Cassie’s relationship to her down to who her mother was on first meeting, limiting or even entirely disrupting her aging process since the 1800s to the point of still appearing to be roughly in her forties in the 2010s, developing enhanced reflexes to the point of being able to take out a vampire coming at her from behind, an ability to scare away other vampires by hissing in a manner not unlike them, and, most impressively, using superhuman speed to a degree that even Vampirella, a vampire herself (albeit an alien one in this continuity), was unable to even see her until she had already struck a fatal blow to the head vampire of Haverhill.

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songketalliance · 6 years

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There Is Something Darker than the Night

“There are sons out there who aren’t allowed to be out late either, but their gender is never thrown into their faces like it’s a crime. And while the times have changed and parents who come from the younger generation are starting to think differently, there is still a lot of stigma towards girls who go out at night in countries as conventional as Brunei.”

by Raudhah Nadhirah

If by any chance you’re currently a middle-aged parent who has a millennial daughter, then first of all, welcome back. Secondly, chances are if your daughter is as much of a social person as I or anyone her age is, there will be times when her social life calls for her to go out at night.

You may give one out of several possible reactions to this: either outright forbid her to go out and stay in the comfort (hahah) of home, or reluctantly let her go and do her thing after acknowledging that she can probably take care of herself. In some special cases, you might have someone tag along with her, like a sibling.

If you’ve restricted her from going out completely or by imposing a curfew, she’ll probably ask why.

She’ll probably also point out that her male siblings, if she has any, don’t seem to have the same restrictions. From where I come from, you’ll most likely say, “Kau atu bini-bini.”

While the premise is obvious, it can be further translated to one thing: Girls shouldn’t be out at night.

There are sons out there who aren’t allowed to be out late either, but their gender is never thrown into their faces like it’s a crime. And while the times have changed and parents who come from the younger generation are starting to think differently, there is still a lot of stigma towards girls who go out at night in countries as conventional as Brunei.

Let me just give some credit to some parents of today, including mine, whom I think have tried to understand why their daughters sometimes feel the need to go out at night. I know my mother didn’t have it easy with her parents, who would subject her to more than an earful the moment she came home in the evening.

So what is it about being a girl that makes it such a taboo to be out past our supposedly lady-like bedtimes? I’m about to delve into some lore.

As a kid, I’ve always been told by my folks, “the night isn’t ours”. “Ours” here meaning us humans. My folks, being the superstitious Malays they are, believe the night belongs to creatures of the night -- the invisible and prowling kind.

If you’re imagining the streets being littered after sunset with demons, I think my elders really do see it that way. That’s the impression I get whenever I tell them I’m going out late and they appear as mortified as if I had told them I’m swimming through a horde of zombies.

Then again, crimes and other sinful activities are ultimately attributed to satan and its underlings in our culture. And since the unsavoury does have a likeliness of occuring at night, there may be some truth to the theory that demons are more rampant at night. It’s also possible that the #haram happens more after sunset because that’s when, instead of being at work or at school, people are out there kicking back or “YouTube and chilling”. If the world had turned upside down and the majority of us worked during the night as opposed to the daytime, who’s to say prohibited acts wouldn’t be more likely to occur during the day?

But for all the superstitious readers out there, let’s say satan’s temptation game is stronger during the night. If this is the reason why women are encouraged to stay indoors when it gets dark, does that mean these beings exclusively target us? I mean, there’s no empirical evidence to answer if this is true or not, but you can thank supernatural movies for instilling the stereotype that women are more likely to be victims of hauntings.

It doesn’t help that the Malay community perceives women as weak-spirited, something that is believed to make you susceptible to being targeted by evil spirits. But like other theories I’ve put forward in this article so far, I’ll humor it. If attracting unwanted beings is the reason why us girls aren’t supposed to be out at night, being inside the walls of our homes probably won’t do much good either. The perks of being demons, you know.

What parents are more worried about when their daughters go out at night is the people they see and for good reason. In a study conducted by anti-sexual violence organisation RAINN, it was found that 93% of sexual violence victims, 90% of which were females, knew their perpetrators.

So maybe women shouldn’t be out at night then, you might say. Well that’s ignoring the fact that 34% of sexual offenses are committed by family members. Locking up women in our homes after dark doesn’t solve the problem, because we’re not the problem. For centuries women are painted as pure maidens, ripe but forbidden for the taking except for a select few who are deemed worthy.

We’re always being compared to something valuable -- jewels, pearls, candy still in its wrapping -- but never human. Never human enough to be respected, to be left alone or to be allowed to make decisions about when we want to go out. So the next time you’re tempted to use my gender as an excuse to hold me down, maybe look elsewhere and you’ll find that perhaps the greater danger lies not in the unseen but what we are familiar with.

by Raudhah Nadhirah

Ladies, contribute your stories for March’s theme ‘Month of Women’! E-mail us at [email protected] with your ideas or article.

Like Songket Alliance on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

#raudhah nadhirah #songket alliance #theme: month of women #brunei #writing #gender and sexuality

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Booktober 2020 Wk 3: Creatures

Hello my lovelies, it’s week 3 of Booktober. The month we talk about books, books, books! Or in this case, I’m talking about horror and paranormal books. Anyone is welcome to join in, I have put up prompts on my twitter and tumblr! If you decide to join in and use the tag booktober, at me, ginnyzero, on social media and I’ll try to reblog your posts.

This week, I am talking about creatures! What books do creatures in interesting ways? Creatures are a huge part of horror and paranormal culture, ghosts and cyptids and people who can use magical forces for good or for ill.

I’m going to start with my favorite creature, the werewolf. Of course, you can say, “Ginny that’s not fair, your favorite werewolves are the ones you write.” Yes. Yes. They are. My favorite werewolves are my werewolves in the Heathens because I love cozy werewolf drama family stuff with action sequences and explosions. Write what you love. My werewolves are based on a couple of things, old folktales where werewolves are actually benevolent creatures rather than out of control monsters, modern wolf science where wolves are families with siblings that squabble instead of a strict hierarchy of stranger wolves (wolves in zoos) and a bit of ‘science’ like the first werewolf movie put out by Universal; Werewolf of London. (It was a bit of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing where they became a werewolf through the power of science.) But those are my tastes and may not be your tastes.

I think the most diverse werewolves in a book would be in Jim Butcher’s Fool Moon. Fool Moon uses a bunch of different werewolf types to drive the plot and conflict of the case Harry is working on. Harry has to figure out and work through the different werewolves in question to solve the mystery. He goes up against a gang of Beserkers, who are men who take on the spirit of wolves to be faster and stronger. There is a loup garou, the French and Cajun cryptid of an out of control wolf monster who rampages on the full moon. There are some werewolves who have made a pact with a ‘demon’ and use wolf belts in order to change into wolf monsters. There’s a group of DnD larpers who have figured out how to turn into wolves who are more benevolent and in control. And lastly, there is a wolf who has learned to change into a human.

It was really neat to see all the different types of wolves. I think all that was missing was the excommunicated/cursed by a priest wolf, and the ‘born werewolf.’ Unfortunately, outside of this case. These werewolves haven’t been hugely important to the story since. Other than the DnD group who Harry plays with on Friday nights. It really can get you thinking about the types of werewolves and how you can use them in a story.

Another popular creature and one I was fascinated with for a while are vampires. Okay, my favorite vampire is still The Count from Sesame Street but we are talking books. So, the most interesting take on vampires I’ve seen in a book is in Angela Knight’s Mageverse series. The Vampires in the Mageverse series are warriors who were originally turned by Merlin and Nimue in order to protect the Earth from alien invaders. Yes, Merlin and Nimue were powerful aliens. So, these vampires are all male, they drink blood of female ‘witches,’ they’re powerful warriors, and they can turn into wolves. (Yes. I know. But there are actual werewolves in this ‘verse too who are there to make sure the vampires don’t go nuts, but they aren’t as interesting.) If the vampires don’t feed off the witches, the witches get too high blood pressure and die. It’s paranormal romance so, there’s a lot of sex involved. The concept of “we’re the ancient round table of Arthur turned into magical vampires by the alien wizard Merlin’ was just so interesting to me.

Now, for demons, I really have to go to Christian literature. Because if you’re going to do demons, no one really doesn’t like the Christians do. Christian literature was the first place I was exposed to the supernatural. (Really, Christianity is metal and gothic, especially Catholicism. Catholicism is probably the most ‘mystical’ of the different groups.) To young me, Stephen R. Lawhead’s This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness were fascinating. He built this world where demons and angels were fighting over the mundane souls. They had personalities and jobs. So, you had two or three layers of story going on where the actions of the mundane characters gave power to the angels or the demons. Lawhead is a decent writer. The books are very, very protestant Christian making the concept of spiritual warfare very real but not trivialized like the way Left Behind did. And I haven’t seen anyone else do it precisely that way since.

Ghosts are difficult. I have seen books with ghosts that have really good concepts and poor execution. My favorite book with a ghost protagonist is Haunted by Kelly Armstrong. It’s part of her Women of the Otherworld series. In Haunted, the main female character is set a task to discover how another ghost is possessing people in the mundane world and causing murders. Kelly sets up rules for the ghosts. There are limitations to what the main character to do and this puts obstacles in her path as she has to navigate the realm of the living with these rules, different sections of the realms of the dead, prison realms, and make deals with demons. She ends up having a personal stake as well, when the other ghost targets her daughter! So, thrilling adventures.

So, what type of witch am I? I am a Cosmic Witch. I enjoy astrology, horoscopes, and all types of zodiac signs. I have looked into the Eastern Zodiac, Celtic Tree Calendar, blood types, the 12 moons of the year. I just enjoy delving deep into how different times of the year can affect your personality, whether or not you believe it’s real or not. If emotional energy is celestial energy, then I’m all about it. I also know some green witchery like herbalism and essential oils, but um, only for if you’re really sick. I mean it folks. It’s medicine. And like all medicine, it reacts differently with your body. I’m something of a night owl. So, being a cosmic witch makes a lot of sense. (Maybe I’m a Cosmic Werewolf Witch. Hmm.)

Now about books with witches! The most interesting books about witches to me were Rachel Caine’s Weather Witch series. Yes, it also involved fast cars and fashion. I really enjoyed the concept that there were different types of witches that could control different parts of the earth and the weather. So, like, fire witches could do forest fires and volcanos. While Weather Witches did storms and everything to do with the atmosphere. And Earth witches were mudslides and earthquakes and that sort of thing. Their powers also involved the Djinn. The main character was a female weather witch. She discovered corruption going on in the witch and wizard organization and abuse of the Djinn and yeah, lots of trouble. The witch craft that was shown was pretty scientific too the way it was described. It made things feel real.

Now for real old school horror, we need to talk about the fae. I’m not talking about the way fae are now portrayed in most paranormal romance and urban fantasy books. Because, the fae are just very, very powerful, and scary, so much so if you live in a world where they are still active, you don’t talk about them and you don’t try to gain their attention because they are capricious at best.

It’s really difficult for me to find a portrayal of the fae to take seriously. Maybe it’s too much Tolkien, maybe it’s DnD. I dunno. The best portrayal of the fae I’ve encountered was in the Lark and the Wren by Mercedes Lackey. Which is the first book of her Bardic Voices trilogy. Lark and Wren are in the middle of nowhere, when the fae kidnap Wren and Lark has to use her skills with the fiddle to get him back. (Kind of like a Devil Went Down to Georgia thing.) The fae are portrayed as capricious, deadly, and powerful. The books otherwise don’t have much to do with them. I’d really love to see a fae oriented book where the fae are portrayed this way.

I know Laurell K Hamilton did her Merry Gentry series, and yes, there are lots of horrifying parts to it (and not for the reason I think they were supposed to be horrifying.) But um, they’re erotica and for erotica they can be decent erotica. But for a fae story, they just don’t 100% hit it for me. Plus, she never finished them and it went to a really dark place (and I mean, like I thought she’d hit as dark as she could, but nooo.)

Now for the most out of the box creature book I’ve read is Terra Harmony’s the Rising. It involves mermaids and werewolves. Which, at first glance, don’t seem to have anything at all in common, but Terra works a way to give them something in common. The solution to the story is a bit horrifying, but I’m not sure I’d classify them as outright horror or even paranormal romance. Like Angela Knight’s the Mageverse series, the idea was very interesting to me. Plus, the mermaids are really well done.

I haven’t really seen books with gargoyles, mummies, djinn, actual sirens (sirens are birds, not fish) or secular books with demons in them. I don’t do zombies. Zombies are a hard no from me. So, here are some more interesting books for me books about creatures and witches.

Next week, I’ll be discussing classical horror and myths! Including some actual ghost stories and crypids. Once again, anyone is welcome to join in Booktober! Here is a handy image for next week’s prompt. (You don’t have to use it unless you want to do so.)

#booktober #writing tumblr #writrtumblr #amreading #amblogging #creatures #books #book #paranormal books #horror books #fantasy books #paranormal romance #urban fantasy books

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topworldhistory · 5 years

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The Exorcist, The Conjuring and other horror classics were inspired by actual (although not always factual) stories.

How do you make a horror tale scarier? Just say it’s “based on a true story.” That’s a technique book publishers and movie producers have been using for decades, whether or not the supposedly “true story” adds up.

Some movies are inspired by what might be called “real hoaxes”—made-up stories that people have believed. Others draw inspiration from unexplained behavior or folklore. Read about how the story of a troubled teen inspired a movie about demon possession, how a series of hoaxes launched a major movie franchise and how centuries-old folklore about disease gave way to a classic Hollywood villain.

Nosferatu (1922)

Actor Max Schreck in the 1922 film Nosferatu.

The 1922 German film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is basically an unauthorized knock-off of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The filmmakers couldn’t get permission from the late Stoker’s estate to adapt the book, so they made certain changes. Instead of Count Dracula, the main villain is Count Orlok.

Copyright drama aside, stories of undead beings feeding off the living have been around a lot longer than Stoker’s novel. The modern idea of vampires likely evolved from old European folk beliefs. Before people understood how diseases spread, vampirism may have been a way to explain deaths from the plague, tuberculosis and other unseen maladies that ravaged communities. Different regions had different ways of stopping vampires. In Romania, one remedy was to cut out the heart of a suspected vampire (i.e., a cadaver) and burn it to ashes.

Some have speculated Stoker’s Dracula was based on Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad III Dracula, a 15th-century ruler of Wallachia in Romania. In Stoker’s research notes for Dracula, he recorded that “dracula” means “devil” in the Wallachian language. However, scholars suspect he appropriated the name without knowing very much about Vlad. In any case, there was already a lot of vampire fiction by then: Lord Byron’s epic poem The Giaour (1813), the penny dreadful Varney the Vampire (1847) and the lesbian vampire novel Carmilla (1872), to name a few.

The Exorcist (1973)

Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil in the 1973 film The Exorcist.

In August 1949, The Washington Post ran at least two stories about a 14-year-old boy’s exorcism in Maryland. In one, the newspaper reported, “the boy broke into a violent tantrum of screaming, cursing and voicing of Latin phrases—a language he had never studied.” The story inspired author William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel The Exorcist, the basis for the 1973 film in which a young Linda Blair projectile-vomits pea soup.

In reality, the boy who inspired Blair’s character was probably troubled, not possessed. A Marylander named Mark Opsasnick who didn’t buy the story investigated it and published his findings in Strange Magazine in 1999. Opsasnick identified the boy in the story and interviewed people who’d known him (though he did not release the boy’s name), and concluded the boy likely had psychological problems and was mimicking the priest’s Latin.

In an interview with The Washington Post in 1999, Opsasnick acknowledged that although he was fascinated by his discovery, few other people would probably care. And indeed, when the Post reached out to a man who lived next door to the house where the exorcism had supposedly taken place, he replied, “I don't really care about that.”

The Amityville Horror (1979)

View of the home of Ronald DeFeo Jr where he shot and killed his parents, two sisters and two brothers on November 14, 1974.

On November 13, 1974, 23-year-old Ronald “Butch” DeFeo Jr. murdered his entire family in their sleep. One year later, the Lutz family purchased the house in Amityville, New York where the horror took place.

Parents George and Kathy Lutz then claimed they experienced shocking paranormal phenomena in the house: green slime oozing from the walls, a creature with red eyes and multiple family members levitating in their beds. The claims appeared in Jay Anson’s 1977 book The Amityville Horror, which inspired the 1979 movie of the same title, which inspired many more movies.

Butch DeFeo’s lawyer later admitted that he, George and Kathy had “created this horror story over many bottles of wine.” Even so, the tale raised the profile of Ed and Lorriane Warren, a couple who got involved with the Amityville story and helped promote it.

“They set themselves up as psychics and clairvoyants who investigate ghosts and hauntings,” says Benjamin Radford, deputy editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. “They would hear about stories either in the news or just sort of through the grapevine, and they would sort of introduce themselves into the story.” But more on them later.

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

Bill Pullman in the 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow.

In 1985, a white American graduate student named Wade Davis published a book with an extremely long title: The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic.

In it, Davis claimed he’d discovered that secret Haitian societies used tetrodotoxin, a toxin found in puffer fish, to trick people into thinking they’d died and come back to life as zombies from Haitian folklore. Many other scientists denounced Davis’ claim as bunk, including tetrodotoxin expert C.Y. Kao, who called it “a carefully planned, premeditated case of scientific fraud.”

The story grabbed the attention of horror filmmaker Wes Craven, who adapted the book into the 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow starring Bill Pullman as a Harvard researcher based on Davis. Writing in a 1989 issue of Latin American Anthropology Review, anthropologist Robert Lawless seemed to consider this fitting, since the book already read “like the first draft for a Hollywood movie with Davis himself as an Indiana-Jones-type hero.”

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)

American ghost hunters Lorraine and Ed Warren, 1980.

Remember Ed and Lorraine Warren, the ghost hunters from Amityville? A decade after Amityville, they became involved with the Snedeker family. Parents Allen and Carmen Snedeker claimed they’d experienced paranormal phenomena at the Connecticut house they rented in 1986. Most shockingly, both parents claimed demons had raped them.

“Part of the modus operandi of the Warrens was to solicit help in publicizing these stories,” Radford explains. The Warrens hired a horror novelist named Ray Garton to write a book about the Snedekers’ haunting, but Garton soon “realized that a lot of the information wasn’t making sense," Radford says.

Garton objected to his publisher’s decision to sell the 1992 book In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting as non-fiction, and admitted the story wasn’t true. In 2009, a movie inspired by the Snedeker case called The Haunting in Connecticut came out. “I suspect the movie will begin with the words: ‘Based on a true story,’” Garton told Horror Bound magazine at the time. “Be warned: Just about anything that begins with any variation of this phrase is trying a little too hard to convince you of something that probably isn't true.”

The Conjuring (2013), et al.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Lorraine and Ed Warren in The Conjuring.

Ed and Lorriane Warren promoted so many hauntings during their decades-long careers that they became horror movie characters themselves. Actors Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga have portrayed the couple in The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 (2016), The Nun (2018) and Annabelle Comes Home (2019), and will appear again in The Conjuring 3 (2020).

The first Conjuring movie is about the Perron family, who claimed in the early 1970s that spirits were haunting their Rhode Island house. The film also references a previous Warren case about a supposedly haunted doll, which inspired the spin-off movies Annabelle (2014), Annabelle: Creation (2017) and Annabelle Comes Home. The second Conjuring opens with the Amityville haunting, then moves on to the Warrens’ involvement with the Enfield poltergeist outside London in the late ‘70s. This sequel also features a demon nun inspired by a spirit Lorraine claimed had haunted her home (this led to the spin-off The Nun).

“It’s not a bunch of fairy tales,” Ed Warren told Connecticut Magazine in the early 1970s. “Everyone has experienced one form of supernatural activity or another.”

The Conjuring 3 will likely focus on a 1981 manslaughter trial in which the defendant Arne Cheyenne Johnson claimed he was innocent because he was possessed by the devil at the time of the crime. The Warrens testified in Johnson’s defense, but the jury didn’t buy it, and returned a guilty verdict.

from Stories - HISTORY https://ift.tt/30HxpTD October 04, 2019 at 08:02PM

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tyleroakley-obsessed · 6 years

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Fall is here in Memphis, and that means it’s time for pumpkin patches, Halloween parties, haunted houses, corn mazes, ghost tours, and plenty of costume contests. Here are a bunch of ways to celebrate this time of year in Memphis. Add your events here. TOURS + HAUNTED HOUSES – Historical Haunts Memphis (ongoing) Historical Haunts hosts ongoing spooky tours, haunted pub crawls, and ghost hunts at various downtown locations, plus the Woodruff Fontaine House. This goes on year-round, not just during this spooky season. But you’ll want to make your reservations for October tours and crawls quickly as it tends to get crowded this time of year. – Backbeat Tours (ongoing) Backbeat hosts walking Ghost Tours downtown on a regular basis as well as a haunted pub “crawls” where you pedal the Sprock ‘n’ Roll pedal bar to three stops with a side of haunted history (Wednesdays and last Fridays). – MidSouth Corn Maze (ongoing Sept. 14 – Nov. 3) It’s a Memphis tradition – get lost in the corn maze at the Agricenter. It’s “haunted” (might be scary for younger kids) on weekends in October and Nov. 3 Prices and hours vary, so check their website for details. Pro tip: lines can get quite long especially on haunted maze nights, so arrive early to avoid wait times. – Mound City Corn Maze (weekends in October) Head over to Marion, Ark. for a non-haunted corn maze, hayride, and concessions at the Mound City Corn Maze. It’s $10 admission to the maze. Hayrides (reserve for 8 people or more) are $10. – Wicked Ways Haunted House (select days Sept. 28 – Oct. 31) I’m hearing this haunted house – at 160 Cumberland near Wiseacre – is the most terrifying in town. Check out the website for ticket info and hours, which vary depending on the day. – Jones Orchard Shadowlands of Fear (select days Oct. 5 – 31) Imagining yourself in cute flannel, picking apples and such? Forget it. At Jones Orchard, creatures and creeps come out to haunt the corn fields and woods at the farm during the month of October for the Fest of Fear ($15). There’s also a Hangman’s Hollow Hysteria Haunted Hayride. Say that five times fast before the zombies eat you. ($12) Buy tickets to both for $25. – HauntedWeb of Horrors (Oct. 5 – Oct. 31) If their five haunted houses are anything like the scary sounds that emanate from their website, fright-seekers will love the HauntedWeb at 2665 S. Perkins Road. Open Thursdays through Sundays. Tickets are $20 for four houses or $25 for five. PARTIES + EVENTS – Monster Market at Crosstown Concourse – (Oct. 2 – 31) Shop for local art with a creepy/spooky/dark/monster twist inside the Crosstown Concourse at this annual pop-up shop. 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. – Spooky-Themed Cerrito Trivia Nights (Oct. 4 – 31) Catch special Halloween themed trivia nights (with costume contests!) several days a week during October. Think Stranger Things, Nightmare Before Christmas, Walking Dead, Hocus Pocus, and more. – Cemetery Cinema at Elmwood (Oct. 5) Watch “The Wolf Man” and “The Bride of Frankenstein” at Elmwood Cemetery. Tickets are $15. – Lizzie The Musical at Theatreworks – (Oct. 12 – 28) I’ve heard high praise for this Lizzie-Borden based rock musical at Theatreworks in Overton Square, presented by New Moon Theatre Company. Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. $25. For adults. – Movie Night at Shelby Farms (Oct. 13) Watch Casper at 6:15 p.m. and The Shining at 8 p.m. on the Great Lown at Shelby Farms. It’s $10 per car for parking, and they’ll have food trucks. – Agricenter Harvest Festival (Oct. 13) Free family-friendly event with pumpkin-painting, arts and crafts, hayrides, educational stations, and entertainment. 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Zoo Boo (Oct. 19 – 21, 26-28, 31) Candy stations, hay rides, mazes, magic shows, and more fun for the kids at the Zoo. Advance tickets are $13, day-of tickets are $15. Discounts for members. – Halloween Spooktacular at the Children’s Museum (Oct. 20) Take the kids to this fright-free event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be a magic show, spooky science experiments, treats, costume parade, pumpkin carving, and more. – Sweet Dreams Are Made of Tease at Rockhouse Live – Sat. Oct. 20 The Raleigh LeGrange Rockhouse hosts this Halloween-themed burlesque show at 9 p.m. (Doors open at 7:30 p.m.) – Boos + Booze at Shelby Farms (Oct. 20-21) Grown folks 21+ can spend the night at Shelby Farms – you’re welcome to camp (BYO-tent) after you enjoy drinks, a haunted hike, and a scary movie. The $35 ticket includes drinks, snacks, and continental breakfast. – Lana Blanc on The Fright Fest Tour at Growlers (Oct. 25) Horror rock and rap tour is coming through Memphis right before Halloween. $20 cover. Doors at 6 p.m. – Halloween at Hogwarts at The Abbey – Fri. Oct. 26 The Mystic Krewe of Pegasus hosts their fourth annual Halloween bash; this year it’s Harry Potter themed. Entertainment, open bar, food, and a costume contest. Benefits Tennessee Equality Project. $30. 21 and up. – Haunted Trolley Night in South Main – Fri. Oct. 26 It’s your favorite monthly Trolley Night – only with a spooky twist! Shops and businesses host open houses, some with free refreshments. The Vault will host a costume party. All ages, free. 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. though some festivities might go longer. – Addams Family on Adams Avenue – Fri. Oct. 26 Watch the classic spooky movie on the lawn of the Mallory-Neely House. Open house in the mansion at 5:30 p.m. and movie at 7 p.m. Bring chairs and blankets. Well-behaved, leashed dogs are ok for the outdoors movie. All ages, free. – Lafeyette’s Fright Nite – Fri. Oct. 26 A Halloween bash at Lafayette’s in Overton with music, costume contest, and drink specials. Doors at 9 p.m. Ages and cover charge unclear. – Dia de los Muertos Parade & Festival (Oct. 27) No, it’s NOT Halloween, but the Day of the Dead Parade & Festival hosted by the Brooks Museum is going on the list due to timing. The parade goes from Overton Square to the Brooks starting at 11 a.m., and the party starts at noon. – Booffalo Bash at Shelby Farms (Oct. 27) Family-friendly night of trunk-or-treats, crafts, inflatables, hikes, and food trucks. It’s $10 per car for parking and $1 per slide ride; everything else is free. – 2nd Baptist Pumpkin Festival (Oct. 27) Free event for kids with trunk-or-treat, games, snacks, inflatables, and more. 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. – Haunted Happenings at Woodruff-Fontaine (Oct. 27) It’s the 10th anniversary of Haunted Happenings – learn about the people who lived in this Victorian Mansion, have your fortune told, and enjoy music, food trucks, dancing, and more. Feel free to wear costumes. – Spaceface Halloween at Railgarten (Oct. 27) If you want to feel like you’re floating in an ocean of colors and sounds, mark your calendars for Spaceface’s annual Halloween hometown show. Their live shows include jam moments, rock guitar solos, and a full on psychedelic experience. 7 p.m. 21 and up. free. – Soul of the City Tour at Elmwood – Sat. Oct. 27 Tour guides in costumes lead you through a tour of Memphis’ most historic and beautifully haunting cemetery. At the time of this post, there were only a few spaces left for Saturday night (Oct. 27). $20. Adults only. – Flick or Treat Movie Night at the Garden – Sat. Oct. 27 Memphis Botanic hosts a double feature with “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” at 7:15 p.m. and “Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride” at 7:45 p.m. Kettle corn, food trucks, photo pops, booze available for sale. Tickets are $10 for non-members. All ages. – Hannyaween feat. HANNYA CHA0$ at The New Daisy – Sat. Oct. 27 Halloween night live music bash at The New Daisy on Beale. Doors at 8 p.m. $15 adv./$20 on the day of the show. Ages unclear. – Germantown Fall Fest at Bobby Lanier Farm Park – Sat. Oct. 27 Celebrate with haunted trails, food trucks, guided tours of Oaklawn Garden, bounce hours, games, and more. Fairy Tale Trail 6 p.m. – 8 p.m. and Trail of Terror 7 p.m. – 9 p.m. $4 per person for the trails, some activities are a few bucks. All ages. Did I miss something? Add your events here. Are you a home owner in Memphis, with a broken garage door? Call ASAP garage door today at 901-461-0385 or checkout https://ift.tt/1B5z3Pc

http://ilovememphisblog.com/2018/10/2018-memphis-halloween-events-haunted-houses-pumpkins-patches-and-fall-festivals/

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newstechreviews · 7 years

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Over the past 20 years, horror fans have seen some exceptionally wonderful horror movies. We're living in a golden era of modern horror where filmmakers don't have to rely on witty supernatural villains spouting terrible one-liners while killing off their victims one by one. Now, both indie and major studios are producing memorable films that mix horror with other genres to create something unique and wonderful, like this year's Get Out, which won big at the box office.

We're taking a look at the past two decades of horror and picking out the best movie, year by year. Some years were better than others, but all of these movies should be on your watch list, especially with Halloween right around the corner.

1997: Event Horizon

1997 was not a great year for horror movies. It was a summer filled with movies like Scream 2, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Relic, and a slew of other very forgettable films. That year, Event Horizon was released, a sci-fi/horror hybrid about the reappearance of a ship that went into a black hole. The rescue team discovers something horrifying inside. Sure, it's not an amazing movie, but it's fun, and there are plenty of memorable moments, like when one character's eyes get sewn shut.

1998: Ringu

Ringu kicked off what eventually become America's love affair with Asian horror cinema. A reporter and her ex-husband investigate a mysterious tape that reportedly kills you seven days after you watch it. The vast majority of people are much more familiar with the 2002 American remake, which had a much bigger budget, but the original Ringu is a much better horror film with some great scares, even if a couple effects sequences are dated.

1999: The Blair Witch Project

For better or worse, depending on your outlook, The Blair Witch Project started a revolution when it came to "found footage" movies. This was a new genre for horror to jump into and part of the allure was the audience wondering if what they were watching was actually real. The Blair Witch Project follows three film students that head into the Maryland wilderness to shoot a documentary about local myth the Blair Witch. Obviously, things don't go well for them.

Runners-up: The Sixth Sense and Audition

2000: American Psycho

In 2000, the world fell in love with potential sociopath Patrick Bateman, a wealthy white-collar worker during the '80s who fantasizes about murdering everyone around him while discussing Huey Lewis and the News. American Psycho isn't just a horror film; it mixes and bends genres to tell its tale. However, the amount of blood, brutality, and violence in this film makes it feel like a precursor to the modern gore sub-genre that came a few years later. American Psycho isn't just a good horror movie, it's a great movie in general.

Runner-up: Ginger Snaps

2001: The Devil's Backbone

Spanish director Guillermo del Toro is a name you're going to see a few times on this list because he is not only a fantastic director when it comes to horror, but he puts his name behind some incredibly memorable films. In The Devil's Backbone, a young boy, who lost his father in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, is forced to live in an orphanage. He never feels quite comfortable in his new surroundings as there's a groundskeeper who doesn't want him looking in a storage locker, and the building is haunted by ghosts. This is one of del Toro's most underrated films.

Runner-up: Session 9

2002: 28 Days Later

While 1985's campy Return of the Living Dead was the first time a fast zombie appeared on screen, 28 Days Later popularized the idea of fast-moving infected/undead chasing down their prey. The diseased in 28 Days Later are not traditional zombies nor are they the living dead, but Danny Boyle's frantic and intense film was terrifying and helped usher in a resurgence in zombie films and media. In 2003, the comic series The Walking Dead started and in 2004, Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake came to theaters. Fans of the genre owe a lot to Boyle's film.

Runner-up: The Ring

2003: A Tale of Two Sisters

While South Korea's A Tale of Two Sisters may not be as well-known or regarded for ushering in Asian horror renaissance like Japan's Ringu, it's a great example of Korea's style of horror filmmaking: a genre-mixing, intense process that leaves the viewers on the edge of their seats. A teenage girl returns home from a stint in a mental hospital, and is terrorized by her cruel step-mother and ghosts within the family home. A Tale of Two Sisters balances psychological horror and a mystery exceptionally well and makes that year's biggest American horror film, Freddy vs. Jason, look like child's play.

Runner-up: 2LDK

2004: Shaun of the Dead

In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun decides to try and win back his ex-girlfriend; however, the only problem is that there's a zombie apocalypse happening around them. This movie is one of the best horror/comedies of all time, thanks to the witty writing of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, and let's not forget how amazingly this movie is edited as well. While the focus is a bit more on Pegg's character, Shaun, and his best friend Ed, played by Nick Frost, there are a few jump scares and classic "trapped by zombies" moments that make this a legitimately great film.

Runners-up: Dawn of the Dead and Saw

2005: The Descent

If you're claustrophobic, then The Descent is a total nightmare. A group of explorers head out on an adventure to search an uncharted cave system, only to find monsters in the darkness that are hunting them all down, one by one. Aside from the scares coming from the man-eating beasts, what sets The Descent apart from other horror movies that year is the feeling of being trapped, thanks to the way it was filmed, which--believe it or not--was all in a studio outside of London, as filming in an actual cave was deemed too dangerous. The Descent is a must-watch for horror fans, and one of the better movies on this list.

2006: Pan's Labyrinth

Once again, director Guillermo del Toro makes the list. Pan's Labyrinth takes place in Spain in the mid-1940s and follows a young girl obsessed with fairy tales. One day, she finds a faun who tells her she's a princess but must complete three tasks in order to prove she's royalty. Pan's Labyrinth has a narrative setup that could easily be used for a children's film, but del Toro takes it down a dark path, setting it against a war, and creating some haunting creatures, like the one above. It's a movie that appears to be a fantasy, but upon closer inspection, is filled with unimaginable horrors.

Runner-up: The Host

2007: The Orphanage

2007 may have been one the best years for horror. It was a year that produced The Mist, 28 Weeks Later, 30 Days of Night, and 1408 to name a few, but none of those films hold a candle to The Orphanage, which was executive produced by Guillermo del Toro. In the movie, a young woman (Laura) and her husband raise their son in an old house that used to be an orphanage that Laura was raised in. Soon, her son begins talking to invisible friends and quickly disappears, so Laura enlists outside help to figure out what's going on. Obviously, the little boy in the mask is creepy, but this movie shines in its use of location, sound, and overall tone. There's a reason del Toro put his name on this movie: It's haunting.

Runners-up: Paranormal Activity and REC

2008: Let The Right One In

Sweden's romantic horror film is bizarre and haunting, and the American adaptation--Let Me In--just isn't the same. Let The Right One In follows a young bullied boy who is befriended by a strange girl, who turns out to be a vampire, of sorts. It's one of the early adopters of the the new age of horror that puts the focus on a slow-building tension that immerses the audience into the world where the real horror is rooted in realistic fears, even if said fears are coming from something supernatural. It's a film that's best enjoyed on your own, and we won't say much else about the film because there are so many twists and turns to it.

Runner-up: Quarantine

2009: Drag Me To Hell

Sam Raimi--known for the Evil Dead franchise--made a return to horror in 2009 with Drag Me To Hell. A loan officer has to evict an old woman from her home, and after doing so, finds herself cursed and on a mission to save her own soul. This movie is pure Sam Raimi, who has a knack for blurring the lines between comedy and horror at times. Are we supposed to laugh when the main character has blood/bugs/vomit/black tar dumped on her face or are we supposed to be disgusted? Sadly, Raimi doesn't direct as much anymore, but he did produce one of the best horror films in the past decade, Don't Breathe.

Runner-up: Pandorum

2010: I Saw The Devil

2010 was another great year for horror films: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, Black Swan, Rare Exports, and The Dead were all released. However, South Korea's I Saw The Devil was easily the best horror film of the year. It brilliantly mixes the genre with a Korean favorite: the revenge film, as a serial killer murders a secret agent's fiance, and he takes vengeance into his own hands, even if it means becoming a monster himself. Where this movie truly succeeds is with the character arc of the lead, Kim Soo-hyeon, as he morphs into what he is hunting down, in a sense.

Runners-up: Let Me In and Insidious

2011: You're Next

You're Next was one of two good horror films to come out of 2011, which was a pretty bogus year. Luckily, both of those films are pretty fantastic. You're Next has a new spin on the home-invasion story. A family on an anniversary vacation find themselves being hunted down by masked killers; however, one of the hunted has a secret: they know how to fight back. This genre of horror has been overdone, but the twist gives this story some new life.

Runner-up: Grave Encounters

2012: Cabin in the Woods

Cabin in the Woods is a really weird movie, in all the right ways. It starts as a typical horror film featuring a group of attractive young adults, heading to a remote cabin, where they're hunted down by zombies. However, what sets this movie apart is the turn, which happens during the first act--and we won't spoil it in case you've never seen it. Cabin in the Woods is ingenious and actually pretty funny at times. In addition, it's the only horror movie that will have you rooting for a gross merman to kill someone.

Runners-up: Sinister and VHS

2013: The Conjuring

Ed and Lorraine Warren's alleged supernatural encounters have been made into countless movies, with the most memorable being The Amityville Horror. However, in 2013, The Conjuring came out, which recounts one of the Warren's early investigations of a Rhode Island farmhouse that is under attack by a supernatural force. It is, by far, one of the best horror films of the decade and launched a fantastic franchise as well.

Runners-up: Oculus and VHS 2

2014: The Babadook

Jennifer Kent's 2014 film, The Babadook, follows a widow trying to take care of her problematic child who thinks there is a monster in the house. The mother quickly discovers a creature called the Babadook is terrorizing the family. Much like a few other films on the list, The Babadook slowly builds tension, and while the film has a few jump scares, it doesn't rely on them to horrify the audience.

Runners-up: REC 4 and Housebound

2015: It Follows

It Follows is a great way to promote abstinence. Joking aside, the 2015 film does revolve around a curse that can only be passed on by intercourse, and that curse comes in the form of a slow-moving, supernatural being that kills you if it reaches you. The movie centers around a young woman who becomes cursed after a sexual encounter with a young man who mysteriously disappears. She and a group of friends do what they can to keep her from being reached by the creature. The story is unique and keeps the viewers on the edge of their seats for the entire film. At no point does the tension let up.

Runners-up: They Look Like People and The Visit

2016: The Witch

On this list, 2016 was the best year for horror, as you can see from the long list of runners-up below. The film that beat out everything else that year was the slow-paced movie The Witch. This movie is an extremely slow burn that follows a family in the 1600s who believe their daughter may have been influenced by witches. What makes this such a great film is the attention to detail, from the clothing to the insanely specific dialect. In addition, it has some of the best cinematography in modern horror. It is a beautiful movie with some chilling undertones.

Runners-up: Don't Breathe, Green Room, Hush, The Conjuring 2, Train to Busan, Under The Shadow, The Shallows, and The Wailing

2017: Get Out

2017 may not be over, but as of October, the best horror film of the year is Get Out. The Jordan Peele-directed film follows Chris, a young black man who is on his way to meet his white girlfriend's parents for the first time. He quickly learns that something is off about the family and everyone in the circle of friends. Get Out has such a good story that weaves mystery and thriller genres into it as the movie progresses--along with a little comedy. What makes this such a great film is that while some of the elements in the film are "out of this world," it has its rooting in reality. Not only is it a great horror film, it's one of the best films of the year.

Runners-up: Split and It

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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Inside the 'Game of Thrones' Season 7 Premiere as HBO Brings Winter to Downtown L.A.

http://styleveryday.com/2017/07/13/inside-the-game-of-thrones-season-7-premiere-as-hbo-brings-winter-to-downtown-l-a/

Inside the 'Game of Thrones' Season 7 Premiere as HBO Brings Winter to Downtown L.A.

It’s hard to reconcile winter’s arrival in the thick heat of summer, but Game of Thrones is nothing if not adept at shattering conventional thinking.

Even without a single drop of actual snow in sight, Los Angeles nevertheless played the role of a wintery Westeros on Wednesday night, hosting HBO’s world premiere of the fantasy drama’s seventh season. The event, which included red carpet interviews with cast and crew as well as the world’s first look at a new episode of Game of Thrones since season six wrapped more than a year ago, was held at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles. Given the venue, it was only fitting that Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi would be on hand to conduct a special live performance ahead of the premiere episode, adding an exceptionally epic quality to what’s already one of the most epic series in television history.

In the weeks and months leading up to the premiere, HBO has touted season seven as the year that House Stark’s iconic words become more than just a warning. Winter is no longer coming; it’s here, and with it comes the Night King’s army of the undead, and the promise of all-out war (to borrow from another show in which zombies are featured) breaking across Westeros. The event’s red carpet theme reflected the ever looming threat of winter, beginning with the fact that the red carpet was more like a frosted blue. What’s more, the villainous Night King loomed over the proceedings, figuratively and literally, in the form of a massive statuette that stood in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

“You should be pretty afraid of him,” Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, told THR about the threat the Night King poses over Westeros. “This season is all about the alive human beings coming together and sensing that there’s a greater threat here, and there he is. You should be pretty afraid.”

Do you think this guy knows he’s about to be eaten by the Night King? #GameOfThrones #GoTS7 pic.twitter.com/NahqiM4wWA

— Josh Wigler (@roundhoward) July 12, 2017

Winter’s arrival impacted Game of Thrones on more than just a story level this year, too. Production was delayed in order to capture more scenes of winter, which not only led to the season’s later-than-usual debut (Thrones typically airs in the spring; season seven is the first year it airs in the summer), but also unseasonably cold conditions for the cast and crew. With that said, the folks responsible for Thrones know their way around a blizzard or two at this point.

“Belfast is never not cold,” said Isaac Hempstead Wright, who stars as the green-seeing Bran Stark. “That’s the first thing I learned when I arrived, my first day on set — my first day ever on a film set. It was a beautiful day in a forest, but it rained all day, and it was muddy, and I remember coming home and telling my mom that I didn’t think I could do it. But we’ve grown accustomed to the chill.”

Beyond bad weather, season seven promises an accelerated pace thanks to the fact that disparate stories are starting to thread together. For instance, Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and her forces will finally touch down in the Seven Kingdoms this season, an act of war that’s guaranteed to register on Cersei Lannister’s (Lena Headey) radar. With so many characters who have yet to cross paths now existing on the same (admittedly sprawling) continent, fans can expect more and more stories to start colliding, as the words “winter is here” take on meaning beyond the forecast.

“All of the stuff that’s been spoken about and all of the stuff that’s been predicted, the scenes you have been debating — it’s going to become reality,” said John Bradley, the erstwhile Samwell Tarly. “It’s not anymore about debating and speculation. It’s about reality. This is the time where conversation ends, and decisive action has to be taken. The time for debating is over. All of the stakes have been ramped up, and it suddenly becomes very serious.”

Given the show’s propensity for killing off characters, many of the actors who walked the red carpet were likely attending their final Game of Thrones premiere as an active member of the cast. But even for those who escape season seven, the final curtain call is on its way. Potential spinoffs are on the way, yes, but the proper Game of Thrones series will end its run next season, making this the penultimate premiere event for the historic series.

“I really don’t want to think about it yet,” said Hempstead Wright. “I keep going, ‘Oh, there will be another season. There will!’ But it’s really freaky. It’s really weird. This has literally been 50 percent of my life. It’s scary. This is a family to me, and everyone will attest to that. We’re all very close.”

Indeed, Hempstead Wright’s point was made roughly five minutes earlier, when he was pulled in for a tight embrace with one of his on-screen sisters.

“I love this,” Turner said, speaking to the atmosphere of the live season premiere. “We’re all over the place here. Emilia [Clarke] is in Morocco or Spain right now — Star Wars land — and everyone’s all over the place. But when we all get together, it’s a real celebration.

#GameOfThrones S7 premiere — with full orchestra performing the theme song. pic.twitter.com/QlcKAFmPb2

— Lesley Goldberg (@Snoodit) July 13, 2017

Following the red carpet, attendees settled into their seats inside the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where HBO president of programming Casey Bloys spoke a few words before the gathered crowd.

“I just want you to know that speaking at Walt Disney Concert Hall is not intimidating at all,” he said, “because I’ve decided this is the bar-mitzvah I never had as a child.”

After thanking a litany of members of the HBO family, Bloys introduced producers and showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss on stage. Rather than speaking about their process or the achievement of reaching seven seasons, the pair instead focused on the efforts of Ramin Djawadi, the show’s composer and someone they described as “the nicest guy in the world,” and the brain behind “the best music in the world.”

Benioff and Weiss recounted the story about how Djawadi was first brought into the Westeros fold. With two months to go before the series premiere, Thrones was still without a series composer. Benioff and Weiss were introduced to Djawadi, who they immediately agreed was the perfect choice for the job. Unfortunately, he was tied up with other obligations and was unable to sign on.

“So we did what we always do when somebody says no,” said Benioff, with Weiss finishing the thought: “We groveled and groveled until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he finally said yes. And now the single most recognizable role on the show might not be any character, creature, or Kit Harington’s hair — it’s Ramin’s music. It’s impossible to overstate the work he’s done for this show.”

With that, Benioff and Weiss brought Djawadi onstage, where he conducted a sprawling symphony of musicians, with footage from Thrones playing in the background. Djawadi began by conducting a live rendition of the Game of Thrones opening sequence, and then sat in front of a keyboard to play “Light of the Seven,” the riveting piece that haunts the explosive first act of the season six finale. The live music portion of the night concluded with a third piece, the same that played over the final moments of season six, scored against a montage of scenes from the same season.

Following the music, Benioff and Weiss returned to the stage once more to thank the people involved in creating Thrones, including the cast. Benioff joked that when they take meetings, they’re often asked the same question: “Who’s the dick on your cast?” After an audience member laughed, Benioff interrupted his own joke to peer out into the crowd: “Was that Alfie?”

“There’s no dick,” Benioff continued. “We’re the only big show in history that doesn’t have a dick.”

With music, anecdotes, acknowledgements and bathroom humor out of the way, the event turned toward what everyone came for: fire and blood. Presumably, anyway. At the request of HBO, absolutely no details about what’s contained in the season seven premiere can be revealed at this time. Will Jon Snow and Daenerys cross paths? Will her dragons finally incinerate an army of White Walkers? Will Cersei’s reign as queen end after no more than a single episode? Don’t bother asking; the gag order placed on the audience may as well have been made from Valyrian steel. Needless to say, the massive premiere elicited more than a few dropped jaws and uproarious applause before the credits rolled.

After the episode’s conclusion, attendees were invited to an elaborate after party, staged across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall on the top level of an outdoor parking garage. It doesn’t sound glamorous without context, but that’s not speaking to the various costumes and statuettes seen across the space. Performers dressed in ornate white garb walked throughout the party on stilts. A DJ sat on an ivory colored Iron Throne, playing a set in front of a dance floor that was covered in a vast map of Westeros. Once again, the Night King made his presence known all throughout.

#GameofThrones premiere party pic.twitter.com/yMGUynIrD9

— Lesley Goldberg (@Snoodit) July 13, 2017

Countless celebrities were spotted at the party, including Lost and The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof, Westworld masterminds Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy, Joe and Nick Jonas, Patton Oswalt and his new fiancé Meredith Salenger, Jimmy Kimmel, Timothy Simons (HBO’s Veep) and Alex Karpovsky (HBO’s Girls).

An elaborate array of food was on offer to attendees, including passed hors d’oeuvres (the goat cheese flat breads were the hit of the night, followed closely by the short rib sliders; the crab-stuffed cucumber shells were in healthy supply as well), prawns and melon, spring lamb chops, sweet corn ravioli, smoked rotisserie chicken skewers, and a healthily stocked dessert bar filled with chocolate tarts and lime cookies. No lemon cakes, unfortunately for Sansa.

Game of Thrones returns July 16. Follow our coverage at THR.com/GameOfThrones for more news, interviews and theories over the course of season seven.

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