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tilbageidanmark · 1 year

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Movies I watched (and books I read) this Week #101

First watch: Věra Chytilová’s seminal New Czech Wave Comedy Daisies, done during mid-60′s short window of permissiveness. An irreverent, Richard Lester surrealist romp of two carefree young women who don’t abide by any rules, except their own whims. Senseless mayhem, nihilist slapstick and constant eating, ending with a Mad Hatter Feast of pie fights and destruction. The Soviet Czech government banned the film because it promoted ‘Food waste”. 5/10.

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Fellini's Casanova, another of his 1970′s bloated, over-the-top, exaggerated Baroque classics. The story of the always horny, lecherous cocksman, whose life avocation was to fuck anything female, be it young, old, hunchbacks, ugly, fat, thin, even mechanical dolls. Traveling all over Europe with his sexually-stimulated mechanical bird and ridiculous girdle in pursuit of female benefactors, but who longed to be considered a serious intellectual, and not just a famous womanizer. The infamous Chesty Morgan was cast in the film, but her scenes were deleted from the final cut. 2nd re-watch after 40 years. (Photo Above). 3/10.

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A blind viewing of an erotic Japanese New Wave film I never heard of, This Transient Life, part of the unique director Akio Jissoji’s ‘Buddhist Trilogy’. Jissoji apparently was known for his distinctive visual style which he used in horror films, children television and Sadomasochistic adult movies.

This beautiful but controversial 1970 story deals with Buddhist thought, family roles, religious art, obsession - and incest. It tells of an amoral young nihilist who fathers a child with his sister, even as he flirts with moral and philosophical values. Gorgeous black & white photography, constant camera movement - and social transgressiveness. It also touches on impotence, voyeurism, threesomes, suicide and murder. It ends with a climatic philosophical “duel” between a Buddhist monk and the ‘hero’, and a surrealistic dream scene involving a giant stone carp.

What a complex, strange experience - The surprising find of the week!

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2 different foreign TV series:

🍿 The gift is a supernatural/fantasy Turkish TV series from 2019. I was under the influence when I saw the trailer for it (it felt longer), and also later when I watched the first episode. So I thought that this was one of the most visually-stunning productions I’ve seen in a long time, with superb stagecraft, surprising imagination, sophistication and modern uniqueness (quotes from my notes), original like ‘Close encounters of the third kind’. But as I watched the rest of season One, I realized that it was just an ordinary TV mystery of the Netflix kind. With lovely actress Beren Saat.

Kids, don’t do drugs. 2/10

🍿 Marseille, a French TV series about power, corruption and revenge in a mayoral succession struggle. Starring Gérard Depardieu (”The second highest grossing actor in the history of French Cinema behind Louis de Funès”, but also alleged-rapist).

I was attracted to it because of the mysterious Egyptian ear worm cover Ya Sidi, to which I listened dozens of times in this past week. However, of the series itself, I only watched the first episode.

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See how they run, another Agatha Christie adjacent murder mystery, a pleasant new comedy starring the always-lovely Saoirse Ronan (as well as Harris Dickinson who I saw just last week in ‘Triangle of sadness’). A meta-classic British whodunnit playing around the 100th performance of ‘The Mousetrap’ in 1953. 7/10

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My 3rd and 4th films by Ira Sachs (both with Greg Kinnear):

🍿 I was compelled to re-visit his low-key Frankie, the story of famous actress Isabelle Huppert who invited her family to a last Portuguese vacation, before she succumbs to cancer. It was my ‘Best film of the week’ about 5 months ago, but I now read it received mixed reviews upon its 2019 premiere. I can somehow see why: It’s a slow and melancholic art film, and the dynamics between the diverse characters are not very deeply explored. Still, the Sintra locations are magnificent and the final scene at the mountain top is transcendent.

🍿 Little Men is a quiet, humane drama about friendship of two 13-year-old boys in Brooklyn. It is now my favorite of his films. The boy who played the role of Tony, 14-year-old Michael Barbieri, was tremendous.

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The new She said retells how the two female New York Times investigating reporters exposed Harvey Weinstein’s decade-long sexual abuse, thus launching the #metoo movement around the world. I wanted to like it very much, but like most ‘Based on a recent true story’ it started badly and only slightly improved. I hate the trumps, the Weinsteins and the Epsteins of the world with a passion, and I liked the fact that this was a feminist film done with mostly women at the helm, but ‘All the President’s Men’ it was not. Even though it was clearly an attempt to frame it as such.

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Orson Welles X 2:

🍿 First watch: The stranger, Welles third feature film (after ‘Citizen Kane’ and ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’). He directed this Noir thriller to prove that he could make commercially viable films, and it did become his biggest box office success. It's a story about a Nazi refugee who hides in a small Connecticut town, and it was the first commercial film to use documentary footage from the Nazi concentration camps. Disappointingly mediocre. 3/10.

🍿“... How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. I am speaking for the Mercury Theatre, and what follows is supposed to advertise our first motion picture..”

The Citizen Kane trailer, a four-minute, self-contained, "making of" promotional featurette, released in 1940 to promote his first film. Unlike other standard theatrical trailers of the era, it did not feature any footage of the actual film itself, but was a wholly original pseudo-documentary piece. It is considered to be a standalone short film, rather than a conventional "trailer".

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Sr., a loving documentary by Robert Downey Jr. about his father, underground filmmaker, Robert Downey Sr. Filmed in the last 3 years of his life, so more than a family portrait and meditation about life, death and art, it’s also a tribute to saying goodbye. 5/10.

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A short: A lock of Walt Whitman’s hair, Jack Kerouac’s boots, and Virginia Woolf’s cane are just a few of the items of literary paraphernalia available at The New York Public Library’s Collection of Weird Objects.

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Central Park, my first book by French best-seller author Guillaume Musso, a thriller about a French policewoman who wakes up in NYC from a coma, handcuffed to a jazz musician she never met with the whole world after them. Poorly-written and empty-calories, it’s obvious that it was written to be optioned as a movie. I picked it up at a ‘Free Library’ stall at the University Train Station in Tel-Aviv, and read it in a quick tortured go on the plane back. 1/10.

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(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

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knightoflodis · 2 years

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Looking back on my short foray into Doctor Who (early 2010s, since Matt Smith is the first Doctor I watched and currently my favorite), I believe I remember at the time thinking about how a bunch of episodes go hard horror route, and then course correct and make everything nice and happy in the end and I think I felt cheated at the time. And I think that might have been some of the first realizations that I might actually like some horror stuff. And this is after my whole life believing wholeheartedly that I hated horror. I would watch these sci-fi almost horror episodes and be like “I want more, I want it to be worse”. Sadly. What I have found is that I DO like horror, but what I like is more sci-fi horror and most horror movies I just don’t like. I don’t like slashers, torture porn, regular human/modern day villains. Some supernatural could work. I think fantasy style could work. But not modern day slashers. Also. Looking back and liking Aliens, Jurassic Park, Predator, and other things like that, I think I have had a soft spot for horror adjacent things without even noticing. October is coming up soon. I need to get back to reading my horror comics.

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you-cant-spell-subtext-without · 2 years

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guess who’s currently watching the addams family and calling it research because i might actually write this. 🧐 like, the thing is! the brothers and their found family ARE weirdos to people who don’t know them. sam drank demon blood and slept with a werewolf. dean was a demon and has a tentacle fetish. cas became god and gave birth to leviathans. i lost sleep thinking about the dozens of ways i could spin this into the winchester family. also really want to write about cas in his garden delighting over his sundews successfully digesting their first insect. gifting claire a starter venus flytrap because she’s been asking for weeks. sam trying to be the normal one and inviting a serious girlfriend (jess or eileen) over for dinner and begging everyone to not act like freaks, but by the end of the night they all realize sam’s gf actually fits in perfectly and is edgier than sam in a lot of ways lmao. (very fester and debbie from the movie.) or auntie rowena teaching the kids about the horrors of history and jack and claire reenacting them like they’re playing make believe at recess. oh my god charlie being the least-supernaturally affected person, maybe a neighbor hired on to be a babysitter for date night, and just being down with whatever the family’s got going on. telling her dungeons and dragons adventures to the kids and them both eating it up like they’re the most charming fairy tales to ever exist. how canon adjacent i wanna be idk yet, but i love the idea of jack and claire learning spells from rowena and summoning demons to fuck with them. learning about possession with uncle crowley. holy oil trapping gabriel with sam’s help because trickster gabe won’t stop making sam hallucinate clowns for three weeks straight. how lighthearted you can make the horror of it all without digging into angst.

OH MY GOD ALL OF THIS PLEASE WRITE THIS I NEED IT AND I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE

#you-cant-spell-subtext-without-asks #nonnie #addamsfamilynatural

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p-artsypants · 3 years

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The Ghost of Smokey Joe (6)

St. James Infirmary

Adrien Agreste was acting bizarre. Before she can get the truth out of him, Marinette finds herself as the sole heir to the Gabriel brand and the mansion, following the murder-suicide of both Adrien and Gabriel Agreste. The mystery continues as Tikki explains that Adrien was Chat Noir...but if Adrien is six feet under, why is Chat Noir still running around?

Relationships:

Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug

Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe

Characters:

Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Alya Césaire, Nino Lahiffe, Nathalie Sancoeur, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth

Additional Tags:

Temporary Character Death, Murder Mystery, off screen murder, Ghosts, Supernatural - Freeform, Haunting, Horror, Psychological Thriller, Eventual Happy Ending, I promise, Song fic, Halloween Flavored, Identity Reveal, Aged Up, Canon Universe, Mabel Voice: He's Resting, SPOOOKKKYYYYYY

Ao3 | FF.net

The night of the visitation, it rained. Like a kick to the gut, a painful reminder of what it was like to fall in love…now was only a soothing presence to losing love.

The old umbrella in her hand didn’t help either. It was his. Adrien’s. The very same he gave her that day over ten years ago.

Marinette had agonized over what to wear for too long. It was a wake, so black, right? She had this outfit picked out and everything. A sharp blazer over her little black cocktail dress, with black pumps. Even though it was a wake, it was a wake for her boss, one of the most influential fashion moguls in the world, and she would be taking his place. She had to look her best.

But then, she changed her mind. It was a social event, yes, and she would be in the public eye and representing the brand, true!

But it felt gross.

The cocktail dress was too sexy for a wake, and wearing that much black made her look goth.

It just wasn’t right.

Then she saw the dress. A rose pink, knee length dress that flared out as it went down. It had little black polka dots on it.

And it was Adrien’s favorite. He said so every time she wore it.

Too peppy for a wake. Too casual, too fun and flirty. But a black cardigan over it, and she felt perfect.

She could almost hear his voice as she posed in the mirror.

“I love that dress on you. You look so cute, Marinette.”

It made tears spring to her eyes.

So no makeup then. Because she knew she would be crying a lot more tonight.

“Don’t forget to pack tissues,” Tikki reminded, helpfully.

“Right, thank you, Tikki.” She tucked the little package in her purse.

With one last pass of the brush through her hair, she was ready.

So now she stood outside of the manor, the gate open.

Well folks, I'm goin' down to St. James Infirmary

See my little baby there

She's stretched out on a long, white table

Well she looks so good, so cold, so fair

The paparazzi stood nearby with their cameras, ready to swoop in like vultures.

She must have paused for too long, because they descended on her quickly, shoving mics in her face and asking questions.

Didn’t they know why she was here? Didn’t they know what she was going through?

An arm reached around her shoulders and started leading her forward. “Alright everyone, that’s enough! Can’t you see she’s not in the mood?” Her rescuer shouted.

The reporters didn’t pass through the gate, as that would have been trespassing. So thankfully, the crowd was left behind as they moved forward.

“Thank you,” she said to the unfamiliar man.

“Of course, Miss Dupain-Cheng.” He nodded.

“You know me?”

“I know of you. Head intern to Gabriel Agreste himself, if I’m not mistaken. I’m from Harper’s Bazaar.”

“Oh...a reporter.”

“Yes, but I really was just here as a guest to pay my respects. I’ve interviewed both Gabriel and Adrien a few times.”

“I see.”

He led her into the house.

Let her go, let her go, God bless her,

Wherever she may be,

She will search this wide world over,

But she'll never find another sweet man like me.

She was early, as Nathalie had instructed. No other guests were here. Just funeral staff, some family, and two steel caskets.

Two steel closed caskets.

Might make retrieving Adrien’s ring a bit of a problem, but not seeing his face…cold, motionless, and waxy would keep her somewhat sane.

The man walked with her right up to the casket, the one with Adrien’s picture next to it.

“It’s a shame. That much skill, the absolute genius spread between the two of them. The world as a whole will never be the same.”

“Yeah.”

“Any idea what’s going to happen next? Not that this is an interview, I’m just curious.”

She shrugged, “well, I’ve been offered the position, and everyone wants me to take it...but it’s so…”

“Overwhelming?”

“Yes.” She rested her hand on the casket. “I wish I could have a moment alone with him.”

“Let me see what I can do.” He smiled, then he called louder, to the room. “The lady would like a few minutes alone, if possible.”

“Is she family?” A staff member asked.

“This is Madam Dupain-Cheng, she’s the successor to Gabriel’s empire. She’s practically family!”

There was no arguing with that, and the group of staff members filed out into the adjacent dining room.

“Thank you,” Marinette called to the man, still not getting his name.

“Don’t worry about it darling.” And he followed them out.

Marinette glanced around the room, just to make sure she was alone. “Tikki?”

“I’m here!”

“I need you to keep watch.” The casket had two doors, one on top that would have been open if this was a regular visitation, and one over the legs. She slid the flower arrangement on top over to the bottom section and ran her hand over the edge. She pulled up slightly, and as she feared, it was sealed.

“It’s locked,” she lamented.

“Let me try!” Tikki zipped around the casket, and a moment later, it clicked and the cap opened ever so slightly.

Marinette took a deep breath as her fingers curled under the lip.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Just…I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to see what he looks like. I don’t want to…” but she put her reservations on hold, and pushed the lid up.

She choked out a startled gasp. “Oh no…”

Now, when I die, bury me in my straight-leg britches,

Put on a box-back coat and a stetson hat,

Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain,

So you can let all the boys know I died standing pat.

Instead of the mangled body of her true love, there was only a pile of sandbags.

Tikki, also horrified, went over to Gabriel’s casket and phased inside. Then she popped out, “this one is the same!”

Marinette closed the lid and moved the flowers back into place, her mind moving at a mile a minute. Vaguely, she heard the click of the casket as Tikki put it to rights.

Marinette was panicking, but quickly calmed herself down. This didn’t mean anything malicious, not yet. Maybe they were cremated and the family wanted to keep it a secret. Or because there’s no graveside service, their bodies had already been buried.

Who was she kidding, something was definitely going on.

A mystery that was just aching to be solved, but her first priority was to retrieve Adrien’s ring.

“--A moment alone!” A voice shouted from the dining room.

Marinette whirled around in time to see Felix storming towards her. Did he know? Was she caught?

He brushed past her, “move.” And went directly to the casket, grabbing the lip like she had.

“Please sir! You’ll damage the casket!” One of the funeral home staff rushed and grasped Felix by the shoulder. “It’s shut and locked, it can’t be opened again.”

“I didn’t get to say goodbye!” Felix snarled. “Look at him!” He pointed at the photo on display next to the casket. “He has my face! I deserve to see him one last time!”

“Sir...he doesn’t look like that anymore. It would be very disturbing to see his remains.”

Disturbing indeed, considering Adrien wasn’t in there at all.

Amelie was quick to join the group and she consoled her son. “We talked about this. You knew it was going to be a closed casket.”

“They said the family had time alone. I just...wanted to say goodbye, face to face.” He shook his head and scowled. “He deserved that, at least.”

Marinette made herself small, feeling like an intruder in this family crisis. But Amelie still saw her and brought her in for a hug.

“How are you holding up, dear?” She asked, pulling away slightly.

“I’m…I’ve been better.”

“Of course, I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Marinette had met Amelie and Felix more than a few times working at Gabriel. As the years went on, they came to visit more and more often. Amelie was always insistent that she call her ‘Aunt Amelie’ like Adrien. It felt weird to break the habit now.

“Isn’t pink a little too festive for the occasion?” Felix bit. The red from anger in his cheeks had faded. Now he just sounded bitter.

It was Adrien’s voice…but not. It was a shame Felix sounded so much like him.

He looked just like him too, minus the slicked back hair and glasses.

“Adrien really loved this dress,” Marinette whispered. “I know it’s not—I just—“

His face softened slightly, relieved that she had Adrien in mind, and not fashion. “Sounds fine to me.”

Even after the disastrous first encounter they had, Felix and Marinette never became friends. He and Adrien certainly got along, or at least appeared to, but Felix and Marinette were only ever cordial.

It was a wake, after all. He should be nice. He gave her a small smile, one that looked eerily similar to Adrien’s.

Before she could stop herself, she was hugging him.

He didn’t smell like Adrien at all. He smelled like clean cat litter and laundry detergent, not spicy cologne and the smallest hint of cheese. Belatedly, she realized the cheese smell was probably Plagg’s doing.

“Uh…” He said awkwardly, before sighing and patting her on the back.

“I’m sorry,” she pulled away. “Even though…” she trailed off with a blush, embarrassed with what she had done. “You just look like him.”

“I know,” he shrugged. “I worried about coming. I’m prepared for people to see me and burst into tears. Or hug me, like you did. I get it. As much as I would like otherwise, I’m willing to tolerate it for today.”

“That’s kind of you.”

His face softened further. “You loved him, didn’t you?”

Amelie gasped. “Felix! You can’t just ask things like that!”

“It’s okay,” Marinette assured, hugging herself. “You’re right. I was—am. I still love him, even though he’s gone.”

“And…you know what happened?”

She nodded. “It sucks. And I really wish I could allow one terrible action to wipe everything away…but I knew him. These last two weeks he wasn’t himself. He was cruel to me in a way I had never seen. It just…it wasn’t Adrien.”

Felix gave her a critical look. “I always assumed my cousin couldn’t hurt a fly. It’s…bizarre, what happened.”

“It’s not public knowledge,” Amelie reminded. “And it should stay that way.”

“Who are we protecting by lying about it? The ‘Brand’? The family? Adrien himself?”

“What are they saying, anyway?” Asked Marinette.

“They’re saying both Adrien and Gabriel died from an in-home accident.”

“Vague,” said Felix. “Suspicious.”

“But better than ‘unknown causes’ at least,” said Marinette. “Maybe it’s selfish, but I want Adrien to be remembered for all the good he did…” As Chat Noir, her brain added, “and not the demons he faced in the end.”

“Still, I can’t help but wonder what made him snap,” he mused, looking at Marinette. “Do you have any idea what may have caused it?”

Her mind went back to two weeks, when he had asked her to dinner. He was nervous, and told her he had something to tell her.

And then that phone call a few nights ago. What had he said? Something about the basement?

“I’m…not sure. I’d have to think about it.”

“Perhaps you two could consider this mystery another day? Not during the visitation?” Amelie urged.

“Sorry mom, you’re right.” He glanced back at Marinette. “If you have anything on this, I’d love to hear it. I care deeply for Adrien, and honestly, I’m highly suspicious of these circumstances.”

Amelie huffed. “Darling, you heard Nathalie, what she saw, what the police found, it’s pretty cut and dry…”

“People don’t just murder their father’s for no reason! Especially with supposedly flawless mental health!”

The room grew quiet, as Felix’s outburst was louder than intended. Thankfully, guests had yet to arrive.

“Sorry. This whole thing…I’ve had enough of death in this lifetime.” He cleared his throat. “I need some water.”

When he left, Amelie squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t let Felix get to you. It’s just hard for him. He has so much in common with Adrien, it’s a little scary for him.”

Oh. That made sense. Fear he’d snap too?

“It was sudden for everyone. We’re all going through it.”

“They said you were having a moment alone with Adrien. I'll let you get back to it.” She squeezed her shoulder and left her in peace.

So now Marinette was left to wonder what she could possibly do. Where to even start? She didn’t need anymore time with an empty casket.

An' give me six crap shooting pall bearers,

Let a chorus girl sing me a song.

Put a red hot jazz band at the top of my head

So we can raise Hallelujah as we go along.

There were a few more guests now, but it was still a little early. She saw a man in a suit arranging flowers. He had a name tag on his lapel.

As casual as she could, she snuck over to him. “Excuse me, are you the funeral director by chance?”

“Oh? Yes I am. Bill Hunkerson, at your service. How can I help?”

She had to phrase this very carefully, to not be suspicious. “I’m a very close friend of Adrien’s. He was wearing a silver ring when he died. It doesn’t actually belong to him, and I was wondering if I could have it back.”

The man turned pale, but plastered on a smile. “Well, he’s probably wearing it now. Unfortunately, after we close the casket, we can’t open it again.”

She knew that was a big fat lie. And Marinette hated liars.

She lowered her voice. “Well, since his body isn’t actually in the casket, it shouldn’t be that hard, should it?”

The man stared at her, wide eyed, no longer smiling. “How did you—“ He frowned. “Look miss, I’m just doing what I’m paid for. I don’t know anything. That ring is probably gone forever, and I’d stop this search now.” He straightened his tie and bowed his head slightly. “If you’ll excuse me.”

Marinette opened her purse when she was alone. “I don’t know about you, Tikki, but I’ve got a bunch of red flags and alarm bells going off inside my head.”

“This isn’t good! We need to get that ring!”

“We need to find out what happened to Adrien’s body!”

“Yes, of course, that too!”

Marinette gnawed at the inside of her cheek. “Hey, no offense to Plagg, but wouldn’t he know to bring the ring back to me? If he can’t remove it, then wouldn’t he come tell me about it?”

Tikki’s eyes widened. “You’re right! If he died under normal circumstances, yes…but if he was transformed when he died…”

“Then what?”

“Plagg probably would be forced back into the ring. That’s probably why he didn’t come!”

“Now I’m even more worried and confused.” Marinette crossed her arms. “What if Adrien isn’t actually dead?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if…he ran away? And Gabriel made it out like he died? What if Gabriel’s still alive too?”

“It’s a theory, but I don’t know how well it will hold water.”

She studied the room again, trying not to draw attention to herself. She was supposed to be grieving after all.

Felix sat in the chairs over by the stairs, his back to the growing crowd.

Even if they didn’t really get along, two skeptics working together would be better than each on their own.

“Do you mind if I join you?” She asked.

“I suppose not.” He sighed.

Marinette sat in the chair next to him, and sat quietly for a moment, trying to decide how to proceed. She didn’t want to reveal her whole hand, but maybe playing a few cards would be to her advantage.

Felix beat her to it. He let out a weak chuckle. “I hate this family.”

What an awful thing to say at wake. “Why’s that?” She asked calmly.

“They die too quickly. It sounds so awful, I know. But it’s just my mother and I now. Grandparents are long gone, then my Aunt Emilie, then my father, and now them. It sucks and I’m sick of stupid funerals.”

“It must be hard. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well...I’m a pro at it now.” He was resting his cheek on his hand, and was staring at the corner of a wall, just pointedly avoiding eye contact. Still, she could see he had red in his eyes. Though she chose to ignore it. Felix seemed to be the type to hide his tears.

“You know...the last time I talked to Adrien, he told me to check the basement.”

This piqued Felix’s curiosity enough for him to look at her. “Basement? What basement?”

“I suppose here, but I haven’t had the chance to, since you know…all this going on.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. I used to come to this house all the time. It doesn’t have a basement.”

“So…maybe at the company?”

“Could be. I wouldn’t know.”

“Okay, I just wondered...since you were family…”

He growled. “Yeah, some family.”

“Do you...want to talk about it?” She offered, really hoping he would take the bait.

He chuckled again, no humor in his tone. “Might as well, no one around left to hide things from.” He leaned back in the chair. “Gabriel is...was a very private person. I tried to love him, since he was my uncle, but he did a very good job at keeping us at a distance. Adrien was the opposite. We talked often, even when his mom and my dad died and things got rough. Sometimes, it didn’t feel like we were welcomed here. But Adrien so wanted a connection. I could feel it in his hugs when we visited. He was starving, Marinette.”

Marinette willed herself not to start crying.

“Mom and I were told by Nathalie that Adrien and Gabriel were caught in a murder-suicide, as enacted by Adrien, early in the morning on the 23rd.”

“Did she tell you where the murder-suicide happened?”

“Nope, just that it happened in this house. As the only living relatives, she asked if we could come and help with the funeral arrangements.”

“Were you involved in all of it?”

“I thought mom and I did all of it together, but there was one thing that Nathalie insisted on and wouldn’t budge.”

“What’s that?”

“Gabriel is going to be interred in the Agreste family mausoleum, but Adrien…” he sighed with disgust. “As punishment, he’s getting an unmarked grave.”

“What!?”

“That was the compromise. The truth about the murder-suicide, which I am believing less and less, would be withheld from the public as long as Adrien was…effectively erased from the family line.”

She couldn’t help the tears that burst forth. “But that’s not fair! He didn’t do anything wrong! He couldn’t’ve!”

“Yeah kid, I know. I agree.” He scowled. “It makes me sick. I hate it. Adrien was suffering in life, and now he’s going to suffer in death.”

“You don’t think he did it?”

“Do you?”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I know what’s been said, and what people saw...but it just can’t be true.” And she had evidence to prove it, in the form of that empty casket.

“You won’t mention I said any of this to my mom, right? She’s also having a hard time, but she tells me I’m in denial.”

“I won’t say a word.”

Folks, now that you have heard my story,

Say, boy, hand me another shot of that booze;

If anyone should ask you,

Tell 'em I've got those St. James Infirmary blues.

I’m not sure about next week’s update. I’m going camping and I don't know what the wifi will be like. Fingers crossed!

#ml #miraculous ladybug #the ghost of Smokey Joe #fanfiction #adrienette #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste

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some-stars · 3 years

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Fic writer questionnaire! Tagged by @deputychairman, thank you!

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

65....just waiting for 69 so i can celebrate

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

288,609

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

okay, so, there's a lot so we're gonna collapse some. So, 16: The Witcher (games and show), Supernatural, Dark Angel, Glee, Stargate (both SG1 and SGA), MCU, Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, due South, DC (comics and movies), House of Leaves, Sense8, Harry Potter, Les Miserables (book), Doctor Who, and X-Men movies. Oh, and I wrote a lot of NSYNC RPF back in the day but you will never see it. (Unless you literally read it back then and remember one and want to reread it, I’m not ashamed of them if you were also in the pit with me. If that is the case feel free to ask.)

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all some children do is work: this one surprised me, i did NOT think there was this kind of appetite for almost-gen turned-into-a-kid fic, but i do really like the fic itself so i'm contented with its acclaim

method: i mean, it's fake dating, written back when there wasn't much non-modern-AU fake dating in witcher fandom (possibly there still isn't?) so, not surprised

Emergency Pants: this is the one that the Claw chose back in 2012 bc i had written very pornographic tony/bruce about a month after Avengers came out so there was a big appetite for it. i don't much care for it these days except i do still think the tony voice is good

warm you like the sunshine: deeply unsurprised this one is popular (and it's one of my own fics that i reread a lot), it's extremely tender BDSM with a juggernaut pairing, that gets the readers

As often as from thee I go: honestly kinda surprised about this one, which is just a 2500 word confection i wrote for my own satisfaction, but it does have explicit sex and jaskier crying about his feelings so maybe it makes sense

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I almost always do, but usually just with "Thanks!" unless it's a detailed or lengthy comment.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

"Long black night, morning frost" (Les Miserables) for absolute certain. One of the very few fics I've written with an outright unhappy and pessimistic ending (although I found it very cathartic to write). For Witcher fics, "Kind" and "go ask alice" are about as sad as I get.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Almost all of them, honestly. There's a point in happiness of endings where you really can't distinguish degrees. Probably the most--not saccharine, but distinctly Happy Ending-ish is either "Water like a stone" or "Darling, if you only knew," which to my eternal shame are both Glee fics. In terms of Witcher fics...it's still hard to pick! I think the kidfic trilogy ended very, very happily; I think "If you live through this with me" ended TOO happily.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've written?

I do not, and I don't read them, at least not since the days of the late 90s/early 2000s when I once read a really good Highlander/X-Files crossover (oh, and Martha's cosmic horror fic where Stargate and Angel and I think something else all cross over but it feels quite natural and right). I don't like fusions, either, most of the time.

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Never! In 20 years! I've been extremely lucky.

10) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

ahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

yes...yes you could say i write smut. on occasion. you know, when the urge comes on me. i write mostly kink or at least kink-adjacent fic, but i've done some vanilla scenes too, and i write m/m and m/f and (occasionally) f/f. fun fact, my only rimming scene to date was in a f/f/f threesome!

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think so? I can't remember, honestly, which sounds dreadful but like...I don't READ the translation, because I am sadly monolingual, but I get a burst of delight when someone asks to do it (or to make a podfic).

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

I have tried--me and a friend once got like 12k deep into a co-written Tiger and Bunny fic--but it doesn't really work out for me. I am a massive control freak when it comes to writing and absolutely miserable to work with. (Although I wasn't so bad back when we wrote the T&B fic, we just sort of never got around to finishing it. Which is sad, because it was GREAT.)

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

Max/Alec from Dark Angel. I shipped it when I only started watching DA for Jensen's episodes, I shipped it when I fell in love with Max, I shipped it when I frantically hand-wrote notes about the fic I wanted to write, I ship it right now as I'm typing, I will ship it in my grave. Also it's not a het ship bc neither of them are heterosexual, thank you very much.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I only post finished fics, but in terms of things I haven't posted, I still think my "For A Good Time Call" fem!jaskier/yennefer(/geralt) AU would have been truly incredible. If you haven't watched that movie go watch it immediately so you can share this beautiful idea with me.

16) What are your writing strengths?

Ohhh, this and the next one are hard, because I truly don't know. Well, besides "porn." I am genuinely good at porn, which is HILARIOUS considering how many more sex scenes I've written than participated in. But overall, I have so much angst and neurosis and tenuous self-worth tied up in writing, I'm a very bad judge of my own skills. Also, it depends on the fandom! In some fandoms I'm good at dialogue, in others not so much. In some fandoms I'm good at pastiching the tone of the source and in others...Not So Much.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

If I had to pick a weakness, though, I'd say concrete imagery/detail. Like, the things that characters are physically doing either out of emotional reaction or just, they're doing something in that scene. Dialogue is usually easier (not sure if it comes out better, but it's easier).

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I used to be mildly annoyed at it but! Now! On AO3! You can put a footnote by the French or whatever, so the reader can jump down to read a translation and then jump right back up. I now feel that if you choose to include dialogue (or any words) in another language from the rest of the story, this is the only acceptable method.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I remember vaguely in 1996 or so writing a couple pages of Kit whump for the Young Wizards books. I wrote some execrable nonsense in X-Files, but in my defense I had just turned 13. I don't THINK I wrote anything for Star Trek, which was my first fandom. Oh, and I attempted to write fic for Homicide, which I watched in 7th and 8th grade and lied about my age to get onto the good mailing lists (they were actually the bad, racist mailing lists, I would later realize, but again I was 13).

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

Sorry to disappoint anyone who follows me for Witcher content, but it's either "The absolute absurdity of end-series items" (House of Leaves) or "A quite unlosable game" (Dark Angel). They are both Big Idea fics, and I feel like in both of them I got the Idea across brilliantly, and I'm truly proud of them and think they're the best things I've ever made. (In terms of Witcher fic, it's the kidfic trilogy for sure.)

I am not going to tag anyone because that always makes me mildly anxious, but if you read this and you want to do it you can say you were tagged by me! :D? :D?

#meme

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writing-by-candlelight · 2 years

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🌹 Teen Wolf

This is an excerpt from a new fic in the teen wolf verse i hope that's okay!

"Every pack in the US had a reputation. Whether it was for being the most violent pack around or for being a place that will take in any Omega no matter how violent, they always had one.

The old Hale pack qhad the reputation of being the oldest known pack still standing. They were known for their unique gift of the full shift - and for the last generation- their terrifying left hand.

The new pack though…

The new Hale-McCall pack was ignored for years before the Supernatural Council looked at it and realized… they had no reputation.

They quickly looked back at their files and found nothing. Not one rumor, not one story, not one whisper outside of “oh beacon hills has a new pack”. They didn’t know who was is the pack, who was pack adjacent, or even who was in the know.

Oh sure, Beacon Hills itself had whispers of tragedy and horror. Stories of attacks at the school and Bodies in the woods, but then every story was closed with “and then the pack handled it”. No further details.

How could they let this get so out of hand?

So the council sent an invite to The Recount. An event that took place once a decade for the Packs to come together and tell their stories since the last Recount.

They accepted."

#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #fanfiction #beacon hills #my work

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farchanter · 3 years

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Steven Hall: Maxwell’s Demon

It’s an unsettling business, when you really look at it.

Unsettling to think that when we read a novel, we’re burning through years of a writer’s life in a matter of hours. Unsettling too, though in a different way, the realisation that a reader will rarely have any sense of the temporal disparity at all. From a reader’s perspective, the words invite movement across a page at an obvious pace, sometimes racing, sometimes ambling, sometimes moving with a slow, deliberate creep, and for all the world as though the writer is right there alongside the reader, that the two are in this together, tiptoeing, then sprinting, then pausing for breath at one another’s side. But none of that’s true. The truth is, it took me forty-eight minutes to get from writing the words ‘It’s an unsettling business’ to here, to build that little road with its various curves, slopes and rises. To work it over, to stamp its surface as flat as I possibly could, to do my best to ensure you wouldn’t trip or stumble along the way. How long did it take you to go from there, to there, to here?

Since I committed to reading more books a few years ago, I’ve read some outstanding work. My favorite discovery, however, is likely Steven Hall’s debut The Raw Shark Texts. It’s a literary laser-beam targeted right at me— it’s an ambitious, cerebral, maybe even somewhat pretentious horror story built around the idea of the transformative power of communication. It lives in a space adjacant to Mark Z. Danielewski’s seminal House of Leaves, and comes closer to that mark than any fiction I’ve read since. I don’t know that it’s strictly the best book I’ve read on this journey, but it’s such a big story— such a titantic swing for the fences— that I couldn’t help but fall in love with it and its warts.

So, when it came out that Hall’s second novel— this, Maxwell’s Demon— I was both excited and nervous. Nervous, because when an author succeeds with a book as high-brow and artsy as The Raw Sharks Texts, that tends to give them the license they need to turn their next work into something even more into the avant garde— and this jump is particularly difficult to do well. After all, House of Leaves was followed by Only Revolutions— despite that novel’s success, I found it so prose-y as to damage one’s ability to consume the story.

It came as quite the surprise, then, that when Maxwell’s Demon was finally in my hands it came across as much more restrained than The Raw Shark Texts.

Thomas Quinn is a writer living in a shadow. His father, Stanley, was one of the most celebrated journalists and poets of his generation. When his mother passes away, his father all-but vanishes from Thomas’s life, too— but not from the public. In fact, Stanley takes up a protégé— a fiction writer named Andrew Black who goes on to write Cupid’s Engine: in-universe, one of the most popular and world-changing novels of all time. And right there, on the cover, is the glowing accolade of Stanley Quinn.

Once Stanley passes, however, Black and Thomas strike up an unusual relationship. On one side is Black, one of the most venerated popular English novelists of all time. The literary press styles him as Stanley Quinn’s stylistic son. On the other is Stanley’s actual son, an author struggling to make ends meet. Yet, through Stanley, they are bound— one bitter of the other’s relationship, the other curious in turn. That strange partnership leads Black to send Quinn a mysterious photograph of an unsettling black orb. In investigating, Quinn starts down a rabbit hole of people who believe in a magical power of the written word— not magical in the sense that one’s eighth-grade English teacher would use it, but instead a literal supernatural force with the power to change reality.

In many ways, Maxwell’s Demon is an extension of the philosophy Hall explores in The Raw Shark Texts— the idea that humans don’t simply write down things that happen to them or wish would happen. Instead, the act of writing has a real ability to prescriptively recontextualize and alter the world around it.

If The Raw Shark Texts is that philosophy viewed through the lens of the horror genre (and particularly a House of Leaves lens), then Maxwell’s Demon is that same philosophy presented as a mystery novel (and, especially, it makes no pretense about what it owes The Da Vinci Code).

There’s a lot to like here, and once the book hits its stride you find yourself on a fun pendulum: you’re fully willing to accept a supernatural cause before Hall slowly presents evidence to walk you back to a mundane explanation, right before another shocking moment which casts the entirety of that mundane explanation into doubt— and the cycle begins again. Once we got there, I couldn’t read through the story fast enough.

There are two problems, after a fashion, with Maxwell’s Demon. I mention in the previous paragraph that the story has a good pace once it gets rolling, but it takes a while for that to happen. Relatedly, it lacks the “popcorn movie” feel that defines Dan Brown’s writing, the “pageturnability” that leads you to plow through Angels & Demons in one night. Brown is an expert at ending each chapter in a particular way to compell you to continue, to read just one more, which Maxwell’s Demon doesn’t do. This may be a deliberate choice— I’ve heard other writers refer to Brown’s technique as “cheap tricks"— but between the relatively slow build-up of the relationship between Black and Quinn and Hall’s predilection to philosophical explainers, I don’t think he quite nails the difficult highwire act between high-concept metafiction and mass-market pop culture he was shooting for.

There’s a truly startling twist ending here, and it achieves the same thing that a lot of modern mystery stories do— it’s so shocking it overpowers the part of your brain that would ordinarily realize that it makes no sense. If one were coming to Maxwell’s Demon purely as a mystery, one would find it disappointing. The careful layering of evidence and use of negative space which defined, say, Agatha Christie is absent. There’s no real plausible way to deduce what’s really going on from a plain reading of Maxwell’s Demon, and that would bother genre fans.

But, to my mind, this isn’t really a mystery story— it wears the clothing of a mystery, but those trappings are a vehicle for Hall’s metaphysics more than a sincere adoption of the genre per se. As someone who enjoys those metaphysics, I similarly enjoyed Maxwell’s Demon.

There’s a recurring theme of inadequacy in the story, and it humanizes Thomas Quinn to the point where it’s painful and upsetting to read. He holds an idealized version of himself— he is Thomas Quinn, novelist— but over the course of Maxwell’s Demon that ideal is slowly burned away. He is a man undergoing an identity crisis, and it feels so personal that a reader’s heart goes out to Quinn. He comes to realize that he is failing as a writer— on the verge of financial catastrophe. His wife is a successful scientists chasing down her dream, and he comes to realize that he is inadequate as a partner to her— that he is failing her romantically and sexually. He carries the weight of losing both parents, and of his father’s seeming discarding of him for Black. These bitter pills lead Quinn to make some very poor choices— but, with the care Hall takes in painting these inadequacies as the background for Quinn’s character, we can’t help but understand why he makes them. The outstanding humanization of Thomas Quinn, the careful characterization, is what carries the novel.

After two books, it’s fair to say that Hall has difficulty writing women. In both The Raw Shark Texts and Maxwell’s Demon, the characters have brilliant wives who work tirelessly to pull their husbands out of the mud. But they don’t necessarily have a ton of depth of their own— in the case of Maxwell’s Demon’s Imogen, her primary role is to shine so brightly that we both can’t look at her directly and cast all the darker Thomas’s shadows. She is the Guide on Thomas’s Hero’s Journey, but she does not seem to grow otherwise.

Possibly a spoiler in this next paragraph, although I’m going to endeavor to not spoil the entire mystery.

In fact, Hall’s tiny cast of women serves as an interesting literary device here. The moment the mystery ends, where the ending begins, involves the use of a "she” where we were expecting to read a “he”. Because there are so few women in the story— and every one of them is accounted for at that moment, save one— that single change of pronoun, that single added character is enough to collapse the wave function of the mystery into its only possible remaining solution.

So, all that to say: Maxwell’s Demon is more thoughtful than it is engrossing, but that thoughtfulness— the idea of writing as a literal magic— makes for a fun read.

#books #completion list #todo #review #steven hall #maxwell's demon #mystery #horror #metafiction #the quarantine list

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phantomofthepairofdice · 3 years

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Double Features 2: Splatter, Splicer, Slander, Slasher

Considering the fact that we’re locked down and most folks aren’t going out much, why not settle in on a weekend with double feature. As part of a series of articles, I’ve decided to suggest some titles that would make for an interesting pair. It’s a time commitment like binging a few episodes of a TV show, and hopefully these double features are linked in interesting enough ways that it has a similar sense of cohesion. They also can be watched on separate occasions, but the lesser the distance between them, the more the similarities show. Do it however you want, really. I’m merely a guy on the internet, and that qualifies me for absolutely nothing! Enjoy at your own risk.

This template is back! I wanted to suggest a few more double features, but this time keep them in a specific genre: horror. I love horror movies, and I realized that I hadn’t really given them their due on this here blog, so I wanted to remedy that by showing a lot of love across a lot of different movies. I’ve put together some international movies, some classics, some that are silly, some that are serious, and even a bonus suggestion hidden in one of these blurbs. So without any more ramble in the preamble, here are four new suggested double features.

Note: The pairs are listed in the order I think best serves them being seen.

Hausu & Evil Dead II:

Hausu aka House (not to be confused with 1985 American horror film of the same name) has sort of transcended cult movie status to become a staple of off-center horror-comedy. Directed by recently deceased Nobuhiko Obayashi, the film shows his roots in advertisements with every shot designed for maximum effect, a (still) cutting edge approach in the edit, and a joyous, playful approach to special effects. It’s a gauzy and dreamy romp about a group of schoolgirls who head to the countryside on vacation. While staying at one of their aunts’ house, the supernatural hauntings begin, and heads start to roll (as well as bite people on the butt). It’s the type of movie where the main cast of characters are named Gorgeous, Kung Fu, Melody, Prof, Mac, Sweet, and Fantasy and they each have corresponding character traits. I was lucky enough to catch this at a rep screening at the Museum of Fine Arts a few years ago (further proof that this has gone beyond the cult curio status), and this is absolutely a movie that benefits from having a crowd cheer and laugh along - but it’s fairly easy to find and still has lots of pleasures to be enjoyed on solo watch. I’m pretty much willing to guarantee that if you enjoy it on first watch, you’ll want to share it with others. Now, where does one start when talking about Evil Dead II? Sam Raimi is rightfully as well known for his start in the hair-brained splatter genre fare as he is for his genre-defining Spider-man films. The influence of the Evil Dead movies is nearly unquantifiable, apparent in the work of directors like Edgar Wright, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and the Korean New Wave filmmakers like Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook. There’s a reason that the second film of his Evil Dead odyssey is the one that people hold in highest esteem, though. There is an overwhelming gleeful creativity, anything goes, Looney Tunes approach to it that makes the blood geysers, laughing moose heads, and chainsaw hands extend beyond gore and shock into pleasure. It’s been noted over and over by critics and Raimi himself that the Three Stooges are probably the biggest influence on the film, and by golly, it shows. Evil Dead II and Hausu are pure in a way that few other movies can be. Both of these movies are an absolute delight of knowing camp, innovative special effects, and a general attitude of excitement from the filmmakers permeating through every frame. They’re a total blast and, in my mind, stand as the standard-bearers for horror-comedy and haunted house movies.

Total Runtime: 88 minutes + 84 minutes = 172 minutes aka 2 hours and 52 minutes

The Thing (1982) & The Fly (1986):

Feel free to roll your eyes as I explain the plots of two very famous movies. The Thing is John Carpenter’s body horror reimagining of Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World and the story that was adapted from, “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr. The film is centered around a group of men in an arctic outpost who welcome in a cosmic force of shape-shifting annihilation. What ensues is a terrifically scary, nihilistic, paranoid attempt to find who isn’t who they say they are before everyone is replaced with the alien’s version of them. The film is a masterpiece of tone in no small part due to Dean Cundey’s photography and Ennio Morricone’s uncharacteristically restrained score. The real showstopper here, though, is the creature effects designed by Rob Bottin with an assist from Stan Winston – two titans of their industry. There may not be a more mind-blowing practical effects sequence in all of movies than Norris’ defibrillation – which I won’t dare spoil for anyone who hasn’t seen it. The story is so much about human nature and behaviors, that it’s good news that the cast is all top-notch – anchored by Kurt Russell, Keith David, and Wilford Brimley. While The Thing is shocking and certainly not for anyone opposed to viscera, David Cronenberg’s The Fly is the best example of a movie not to watch while eating. Quite frankly, it’s got some of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen on film. Chris Walas and Stephen Dupuis’ makeup effects are shocking, but the terror is amplified because this builds such a strong foundation of romance in its opening stretch between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in what might be their career-best work. The story is simple: a scientist creates a teleportation device that he tries out himself, but unknowingly does so with a fly in the chamber with him. When he reatomizes on the other end, his DNA has been integrated with the fly. Slowly his body begins to deteriorate, and he transforms into a human-fly hybrid. While this is first and foremost a science-fiction horror film, it’s truly one of the most potent love stories at its center. The tragedy is that the love, like the flesh, is mutated and disintegrated by the hubris of Goldblum’s Seth Brundle. Here are two remakes that – clutch your pearls – outdo the original. They both serve as great examples of what a great artist can bring by reinterpreting the source material to tell their version of that story. The critical respect for Carpenter and Cronenberg is undeniable now, but both of these movies make the case that there are real artists working with allegory and stunning craft in less respected genre fare. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to transpose the thematic weight of the then-new AIDS crisis onto both films, but they both have a hefty anti-authority streak running through them in a time where American Exceptionalism was at an all-time high. If you want to get a real roll going, fire up the ’78 Invasion of the Body Snatchers first to get a triple dose of auteur remakes that reflect the social anxieties of the time and chart from generalized anxiety to individualistic dread to romantic fatalism.

Total Runtime: 109 minutes + 96 minutes = 205 minutes aka 3 hours and 25 minutes

Theatre of Blood & The Abominable Dr. Phibes

That old Klingon proverb that Khan tells Kirk about revenge being a dish best served cold is challenged by these two Vincent Price tales of the macabre. They posit that revenge is best served in extremely convoluted and thematically appropriate predecessors to the Saw franchise. Where Saw trades in shock and extremity, though, these classic horror tales offer an air of panache and self-satisfied literacy. In Theatre of Blood, Price plays a disgraced and thought-dead stage actor who gets revenge on the critics who gave him negative reviews with Shakespeare-themed murder. There’s good fun in seeing how inventive the vengeful killings are (and in some cases how far the writers bend over backwards to explain and make sense of them). It’s a little rumpled and ragged in moments, but Price is, of course, a tremendous pleasure to see in action as he chews through the Shakespeare monologues. Imagine the Queen’s corgis with a chainsaw and you’re on track. Phibes came first and, frankly, is the better of the two. The story is about a musician who seeks to kill the doctors who he believes were responsible for his wife’s death during a botched surgery. The elaborate angle he takes here is to inflict the ten plagues from the Old Testament. I hesitate to use a word that will probably make me come across as an over-eager schmuck, but it really feels best described as phantasmagorical. It’s got this bright, art deco, pop art sensibility to it that’s intoxicating. It also has a terrifically dark sense of drollery - it knows that you can see the strings on the bat as it flies toward the camera. Aesthetically, it feels adjacent to the ’66 Batman show. The music is great and the indelible image of his tinker toy robot band, The Clockwork Wizards, is a personal obsession of mine. Both Theatre of Blood and The Abominable Dr. Phibes feature great supporting turns from Diana Rigg and Joseph Cotton, respectively. Settle in for a devilishly good time and enjoy one of cinema’s greatest vicarious pleasures: getting back at those of criticized or hurt you.

Total Runtime: 104 minutes + 94 minutes = 198 minutes aka 3 hours and 18 minutes

Blood and Black Lace & The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

The final pairing comes from beyond American borders and, to some, beyond the borders of good taste. Mario Bava and Dario Argento are likely the two biggest names in Italian horror, and that’s for very good reason. Bava, who started as a cinematographer, has made loads of movies (even the film which gave Ozzy Osbourne and crew the name their band name) that have tremendous visuals and terrific sense of mood. Argento, probably most famous now for Suspiria, emerged onto the Italian film scene a handful of years later and picked up that baton from Bava to crystallize the dreamy logic puzzles cloaked in hyper-saturated colors. These two films are regarded as quintessential in the giallo genre – named for the yellow covers of the pulp crime fictions that inspired them. As someone who loves the flair that can be applied to make a slasher film stand out amongst their formulaic brethren, I found that the giallo made for a smooth transition into international horror. Blood and Black Lace is a murder mystery that’s as tawdry and titillating as its title suggests. Set in an insular world of a fashion house in Rome, models are being murdered. The plot feels like a necessity in order to create a delivery system for the stunning set pieces that revolve around a secret diary. Bava puts sex right next to violence and cranks up the saturation to create something thrillingly lurid. Six years later, Argento made his first film which has often been credited for popularizing the giallo genre and already is playing around with some of his pet themes like voyeurism and reinterpretation. Built around an early set piece (that stacks up as one of the best in thrillers) in which a man is trapped but witnesses a murder, the film sees said man trying to find the piece of evidence that will make the traumatic killing make sense. Like Bava, it blends sex and violence with tons of flair, including a score by the aforementioned Ennio Morricone. The film is absolutely on a continuum between Hitchcock and De Palma. If you’re looking for a pair of exciting horror/thrillers, or even an entry point to foreign genre cinema, this is an accessible and enjoyable place to start.

88 minutes + 96 minutes = 184 minutes aka 3 hours and 4 minutes

Well, there you have it. Eight movies, and hours of entertainment curated by some guy with no real qualifications. If you’re interested in some more suggestions (in horror and other genres), stay tuned for the next entry in this Double Features series. And if you’re looking for a way to watch these movies, I highly recommend the app/website JustWatch where you can search a title and see where it’s available for streaming or rental. Happy viewing.

Thanks for reading.

#evil dead #evil dead 2 #hausu #hausu 1977 #the thing #the fly #theatre of blood #dr phibes #blood and black lace #bird with the crystal plumage #double feature

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shirtlesssammy · 3 years

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1x15 The Benders

Then:

Two brothers on the road, hunting monsters (and it stays that way for 15 years!)

Now:

Hibbing, Minnesota

A young boy watching movies at night hears a noise outside. He goes to the window to watch a man take the trash out and promptly get sucked under a car.

Later in the week, the state police arrive to interview the boy again about what he witnessed. He tells them he thought he heard a monster.

At a bar later, the brothers discuss the disappearance. Sam notes that John marked this area as a place with a phantom attacker.

Sam wants to head to a motel and Dean reluctantly agrees, and heads to the bathroom while Sam goes outside to wait for him.

An HOUR LATER, Dean comes outside to find John’s journal on the car but no Sam. (And for anyone playing Spot the Difference at home: the beat up camper that was at the bar before is also gone.)

He heads to the Sheriff’s office to get help on locating Sam. He wants access to the traffic cameras around the bar. She asks him to fill out a missing persons report.

Sam, meanwhile, wakes in a dark and dirty cage. There’s someone in another cage adjacent to him. The man also wakes and Sam confirms that it’s the missing man, Jenkins. Sam asks Jenkins what took them --and then gets a look at the monsters himself when they enter their jail.

They’re just people.

Dean and Sheriff Kathleen are driving around the area where the camper was last seen on the traffic cameras. The sheriff gets an alert that Dean is not who he says he is. Dean pleads with her to help him find Sam --and he’ll cooperate with whatever she wants to do with him afterwards. It’s his job to look out for Sam.

Sam continues to try and escape and knocks a bracket loose. Jenkins is free, but Sam senses something hinky about the situation. Jenkins takes off anyway.

The most dangerous game is afoot!

He runs but is quickly attacked and taken out by the family from Home Supernatural’s own version of Home gross human hunters. Sam hears the screams from his cage.

The next morning, Dean asks the sheriff why she decided to help him. She admits that her brother went missing, much like Sam, a couple years ago.

On the road, Dean sees a turnoff and they decide to investigate. Well, Dean decides and then Kathleen seems to agree to let him come along. She tricks him and handcuffs him to the car though.

A disheveled girl greets Kathleen at the door. Missy - the girl - reports that her mom is dead and her dad is….SHAKES HEAD. The little girl then smirks as the dad appears next to the deputy and smacks her hard with a shovel.

Dean scans his surroundings for a way to escape and hits upon the car’s antenna to pick the lock on the cuffs.

Dean hears the distant growl and whine of the old truck approaching. He manages to snag the antenna at the last minute and picks the lock as the two guys arrive. By the time they circle the car, Dean’s gone. What a good bean!

Kathleen wakes up in a cage and exchanges small talk with Sam. The barn door opens and Dean arrives! He examines the lock as they exchange thoughts about the case. The attackers are…just people, and it leaves the Winchesters pretty baffled. The rules and patterns of a supernatural creature hunt don’t apply. Dean reveals that the back of the house is full of cars - likely stolen from the victims. (One of them belonged to Kathleen’s brother.) Realizing that the automatic lock for the cages needs a key to operate, Dean heads into the house.

He finds a trophy wall of polaroids with the two brothers posing with the people they killed. The house is full of macabre touches like a mobile made of bones. Dean heads through this horror prop dump towards one of the occupants, who is busy sawing something in the kitchen. I’m sure it’s something totally wholesome! Like watermelon or sweet corn.

Dean spots a box of keys, and then immediately gets distracted by a jar full of teeth. I suppose his tendency to touch everything in a crime scene IS well established.

Young Missy interrupts Dean’s examination of their house and hurls a knife through his coat, pinning him to the wall. She calls for her dad and the Benders come running. Dean fights hard, but he goes down to the sharp clang of a pan across his head.

When Dean wakes up, he’s tied to a chair. I…guess they ran out of cages? The Benders are gathered around Dean.

They talk about wanting to hunt him. “You gotta be kidding me,” Dean grouses. “That’s what this is about?” Yes, Dean. That IS exactly and only what this episode is about.

The dad asks Dean who they get to hunt…Sam or Kathleen. Threatened with a poker an inch from his eye, Dean tells them to hunt the “guy.” Bender tells his sons to kill Sam in the cage, though. And Kathleen as well, for good measure. Dean’s horrified - he thought with Sam free he’d have a chance.

Dean shouts after them, threatening to rain down violence on them. But don’t worry! Sam Fucking Winchester uses a broken bit of manacle to take down the brother who arrives with the shotgun. With one down, the other two Benders go to investigate. Both Sam and Kathleen have escaped, disabled the fuse box, and hidden in the barn. The hunted have become the hunters, etc etc etc.

A scuffle ensues. The dad gets shot in the melee, and the brother gets knocked out and locked up. Kathleen orders Sam to head back into the house while she watches the dad and definitely does NOT enact a revenge killing AT ALL.

Dean and Sam meet up with Kathleen afterward. The girl’s locked in a closet and the dad got “shot trying to escape.” Kathleen tells them that the police and FBI are on their way. She tells them to disappear before they arrive.

Dean begs a ride, but Kathleen tells them to walk back to town. “Duck if you see a squad car.” Ah, the glamorous life of a hunter! Dean tells her that he’s sorry about her brother, and she reveals that the truth feels worse than not knowing. Or at least...knowing her brother is dead sure doesn’t HELP anything.

The Winchesters walk back to the station. In the absence of Baby, they’re left to exchange their feelings in open air.

Dean orders Sam to never disappear again. NEVER, you hear him???

Hey! This used to be my least favorite episode, mostly for the wide-eyed CAN YOU BELIEVE HUMANS ARE TERRIBLE TOO theme of it. (No, really? I had no idea.) But a certain episode-which-shall-not-be-named has supplanted it. s l o w c l a p

They Were Quotes All Along!

No offense, but this is a piss-poor rescue

Demons I get. People are crazy

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn spoilers #spn 1x15 #the benders #dean winchester #sam winchester #supernatural season 1

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snarkwrites · 4 years

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-- about my writing --

I’m currently taking requests / asks for headcanons [ can be either NSFW or just in general or a specific idea ] or fluff/filth Alphabet letters. These are the only requests I plan on taking. If you send me prompts / one shot ideas.. I won’t do them, sorry.

To see what the questions are for the fluff / filth alphabet, see [this post]

[ To my thots anon whomst I love with every cell in my body... Your thots are all going to fall under NSFW headcanons so please.. By all means.. Feel free to send me all the thots you want because I really really really really really enjoy writing them!!! Also, you can find the thots you’ve sent me on my nsfw masterlist, they’re not going anywhere. They were so good I had to add them to a masterlist somehow, I couldn’t resist. At everyone else out there, the same applies to you guys.]

So.. Here’s the thing.. I’ve decided that I’m going to be taking 3 kinds of requests. Those are as follows: Headcanons { filthy, fluffy or themed specifically at your choosing }, fluffy alphabet and filthy alphabet letters. These are the only kinds of request I answer so don’t send me prompts / one shot requests or ideas unless I specifically say otherwise.

Bearing the above in mind, I have some guidelines.

I’m only accepting headcanons (nsfw / fluff / specific theme &/or reader), fluffy or filthy alphabet letters. If you send me one shot ideas or prompts, I’m going to delete them because I don’t do one-shots.

One character per ask. I don’t care how many asks you send. But I ask that you only send one character per ask because that makes things a lot more simple for me.

You can send up to 4 letters in each ask if you’re asking for either version of the alphabet. Be sure to let me know whether you want filth or fluff or a mix of both. IE, you could send me something like this; character name - a, b {filth} & j v {fluff}. I’m not saying your ask has to look exactly like this but it does need to clearly state which version you’re asking for. The format I just did above was just the easiest way that came to mind for me.

The more precise you are with the headcanon requests you send, the better I can tailor them to you. If you just want an overall NSFW headcanon or overall fluff, that’s totally fine. But if you want a specific scenario ( friends to lovers, date night, weddings, the sky is the limit here) you need to tell me that. The same goes for if you want a specific reader (POC, plus size, sick, shy, virgin, imprint, etc) then I need to know that. It’s like I said.. The more specifics you give me, that’s more I have to work from.

As far as headcanons go, the things I won’t write are rape, incest / huge age gaps between reader / character. I’ll only write abuse if someone is getting their just desserts at the hands of character on readers behalf. Any asks containing rape / incest / huge age gaps are going to be deleted.

All asks must come to my inbox. I don’t take requests through DM or in comments on a post. If it helps, my anon is on, so you can request to your hearts content.

If the ask box is closed, this means I’m currently not taking headcanon or fluff/filth alphabet requests. This will also be noted on my blog bio and possibly a post stating why/for how long. Anything sent in after the ask box is closed will either be gotten to the next go around or it’ll be deleted, depending on the situation.

First of all... My content is meant strictly for adults. I do write some things that people underage can safely read, but that is not always the case. I realize that I can’t stop minors from reading my work, but I can tell you outright that I’d rather you skip over it if you’re underage and it clearly states that it’s not written for anyone underage. Again.. I can’t do anything to stop minors from reading my NSFW content beyond just choosing never to post writing on the internet. And I don’t plan on stopping, so.. yeah.

I put warnings on everything. Reading those will definitely save you time and upset. If you keep reading something I’ve written and it upsets you in any way, I’m sorry but I can’t help. I warned you. You chose to take the risk -and most likely, you chose to skip the warning I gave before the post even started... It’s strictly on you now. It’s out of my hands. Any complaints or things of that nature are gonna be laughed at and deleted out of my inbox because I’m not here to argue or censor myself. I’m not your parents, just a peer. If you as a minor choose to look at me, an adult adjacent person, as an authority figure of any sort... First of all, why? Ya’ll.. no.. please don’t. I’m a hot mess, okay? To look at me like any trust worthy authority figure is... A huge error on your own part. Secondly, please don’t. I’m here to enjoy my favorite fandoms / post content for them. I’m not here to please people / censor myself and my content to make everyone else happy... Let me repeat. I put warnings on everything I post. If you keep reading and you read something you’re not supposed to this is now solely your own problem. Sorry, I guess?

I’ve seen other adults saying that they block minors on here. While I’m not gonna do that.. I will not tag minors in my NSFW content knowingly. If I find out you’re a minor and I’m posting something NSFW for a fandom you’ve asked to be tagged in, I will not be tagging you. Sorry. As much as I say I’m not here to parent you and I’m just your peer and you need to think of me like that instead, I’m also not willing to risk anything, either. I’m truly sorry in advance.

While I’m talking about tagging people / my taglist...If you want me to tag you in my writing, you need to be on my taglist. The taglist can be found [ here ] or you can dm / send an ask telling me you want to be added and I will be more than happy to do so. Don’t be afraid to ask me. I don’t mind at all!

Every now and then, I’ll tag my friends in things I write. If I tag you in something and you don’t want me to, let me know. I won’t do it anymore. I’m not here to overwhelm or annoy anyone and I don’t want to come off as pushy, either. SO.. if you’re getting tagged or whatever and you want me to stop tagging you, all you have to do is let me know.

If you’re not on my tag list (or I don’t know you well enough to know whether you’d potentially want to read something) I will not be tagging you. If you’re a minor and I know for sure/think you are and it’s smut, I will definitely not be tagging you.

Content I’m not willing to write or you probably won’t find here: Incest and Rape. Those are my hard no’s. Just the thought of writing something like that makes me feel gross. I’m also not going to be writing huge age gaps in romantic stories either. (the closest I’ll come is like.. 18/19 and up to 24...) I mean absolutely no offense against people who can and do write things like this, I just can’t?

American Horror Story; tate langdon, ben harmon, kit walker, kyle, dandy mott, jimmy darling, james patrick march, michael langdon, xavier plympton and night stalker.

Arrowverse; oliver queen, john diggle, slade wilson/deathstsroke, barry allen, cisco ramon, ray palmer, mick rory.

Bands / Celebrities; ask before sending because I haven’t done many of these and I’m still adjusting… Off the top of my head I’ve written for / feel comfortable with Nick Groff (ghost adventures), Jon Bernthal.. There are lots of others but alas, I’d stretch this out so badly if I added too many more names.

Boondock Saints movie; Connor Macmanus Murphy Macmanus & Rocco.

Breakfast Club movie; John Bender.

Castle Rock tv series; Dennis Zalewski, The Kid.

Criminal Minds; Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Hotch, Tobias Hankel & Adam/Amanda.

Crybaby Movie; wade walker.

CSI tv series; Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, Gil Grissom, Tim Speedle, Ryan Wolfe, Eric Delko, Danny Messer, Don Flack, Mack Taylor.

Dazed & Confused movie; Randal Pink Floyd, Mike Newhouse, Ron Slater, Fred O’Bannion and Kevin Pickford.

DC Cinematic; Digger Harkness.

Detroit Rock City movie; Tripp, Lex, Hawk and Jam.

Fast & The Furious series; Dom Toretto, Han.

Four Brothers movie; Angel, Jack or Bobby Mercer

Friday Night Lights tv series; Tim Riggins, ,Matt Saracen, Landry Clarke, Bobby Riggins, Vince.

General Hospital tv series; Sonny Corinthos, Jason Morgan, Johnny Zacarra, Dante Falconeri, several other of the guys on here…

Ghostbusters 80′s version movie; Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler , Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddemore.

Gotham tv series; Jerome Valeska, Jim Gordon, Joker, Riddler.

Harry Potter movies; Sirius Black, Severus Snape, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Neville Longbottom.

Horror movies various; Billy Loomis/Scream, Charlie Walker/Scre4m, Wade/ House of Wax, Tom Hanninger/My Bloody Valentine + others. Trust me, there are... So many others. I just didn’t have the brain power to think of them all at the moment.

Law & Order tv series; Barba, Carisi, Stabler.

Lucifer tv series; Lucifer Morningstar.

Luke Cage; Luke Cage, Shades Alvarez.

Marvel Cinematic; Bruce Banner/hulk, Captain america/steve rogers, bucky barnes/winter soldier, eric killmonger, hawkeye/clintbarton, thor, loki, pietro maximoff, venom/eddie brock, starlord/peter quill, ironman/tony stark, wolverine.. I’m a marvel ho.

Mayans MC tv series; Angel Reyes and Ez Reyes.

NCIS tv series; Anthony Dinozzo, Timothy McGee, Marty Deeks, Greg Callen.

On My Block tv series; Spooky Diaz.

Punisher tv series; Billy Russo, Frank Castle.

Riverdale tv series; Jughead Jones, FP Jones, Reggie Mantle, Sweetpea, Archie Andrews.

Shameless tv series; Lip Gallagher.

Sons of Anarchy tv series; Jax Teller, Chibs Telford, Clay Morrow, Juice Ortiz, Opie Winston.

Stranger Things tv series; Jonathan Byers, Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Jim Hopper.

Star Wars movie series; Han Solo, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, Poe Dameron, Finn.

Supernatural tv series; Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Crowley, Benny Lafitte, Kevin Tran.

Teen Wolf tv series; Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Derek Hale.

The Crow movie series; Eric Draven and Jimmy Quervo/Wicked Prayer.

The Lost Boys movie series; Edgar Frog, Allen Frog, David, Michael Emmerson, Sam Emmerson.

The Outsiders book/movie; Two Bit Matthews, Dally Winston, Darry Curtis, Soda Pop Curtis, Johnny Cade, Steve Randle.

The Walking Dead tv series; Daryl Dixon, Shane walsh, Rick Grimes, Negan, Glenn Rhee.

The Vampire Diaries tv series; Klaus Mikaelson, Kai Parker, Kol Mikaelson, Jeremy Gilbert, Damon Salvatore.

Twelve Rounds 3 movie; Detective John Shaw.

Twilight movies/books; Jasper Hale, Emmett Cullen, Jacob Black, Paul Lahote, Embry Call.

I’m gonna be honest here. I post on my own time, at my own pace. Some days I post constantly, sometimes it’s days or even weeks, and occasionally, a month before I post anything. So.. Now ya know.

If I’m not on and posting, odds are I’m busy, taking a break or whatever. But I’ll come back! I always do.

Basically, what I’m saying here is I have no set posting schedule. At all. I post what I want when I’m in the mood to do so. Just something to keep in mind when you’re asking for headcanons / nsfw alphabet letters with characters.

#about the writer #psa #multifandom writer #multifandom about page

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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How Fear Street Part 1 Tricks the Scream Generation

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This article contains spoilers for Fear Street Part 1: 1994 and Scream.

An instantly iconic moment in genre cinema arrived during the opening scene of horror classic Scream back in 1996 when Drew Barrymore, one of the most in-demand young actresses at the time, met her unfortunate, gruesome fate at the end of the Ghostface killer’s knife. No one expected it. What kind of filmmaker would have the stones to murder their biggest star before the story even really began? The legendary Wes Craven, that’s who. And horror movies would never be the same again.

The ’90s-set Fear Street Part 1: 1994 may hope to appeal to fans of Scream and other horror bangers, but much like Scream it aches to subvert any dated expectations—and succeeds in a multitude of ways. The R. L. Stine book series adaptation lands on Netflix this month after a rocky road to the screen. Directed by Leigh Janiak, who helmed a couple of episodes of Scream: The TV Series after her debut horror movie Honeymoon snagged a ton of positive reviews, Fear Street: 1994 and its two sequels were originally developed at 20th Century Studios before the pandemic shuttered theatrical releases for a while.

Fear Street Part 1’s opening scene will likely seem predictable to Scream fans at first. Instead of Barrymore’s high schooler Casey, we are presented with Maya Hawke’s Heather. The actress is at the top of the film’s cast in plenty of listings, having previously broken out in the third season of Netflix’s flagship horror series Stranger Things as the ice cream scoop-slinging Robin Buckley, and having since appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Heather is closing a book store she works at in the mall when she hears odd noises and senses that she is being watched from the darkness when Fear Street Part 1: 1994 gets underway. We’re hit with a jump scare and a couple of Scream-y fake-out nods, including a ringing phone, before Heather realizes that it’s just her pal Ryan messing around, and they agree to meet up before they leave for the night. But the stalking continues after Ryan departs, and suddenly the chase is on as a masked killer not too dissimilar from Scream’s Ghostface hunts her down.

He stabs her and she falls on her back, helpless as he gets ready to end her life. Just as Casey does in Scream, Heather weakly raises her arm and pulls the Halloween mask off the killer to answer one final question before she expires. But unlike Scream, which cuts away at that very moment to preserve the mystery of the killer’s identity, Fear Street Part 1: 1994 shows us the killer’s face. It’s still Ryan! He’s shot dead a second later, seemingly ending the story before it really starts.

Just like that, we’re unsettled and don’t know what to expect next. Fear Street Part 1: 1994’s opening homage to Scream makes it clear almost immediately that the film is not content with playing in the same sandbox of horror tropes as its predecessors and inspirations. And it won’t be the last time that the movie refuses to stay in its lane.

After the shock of Hawke’s death, we get a swiftly edited—and very ’90s-esque—opening credits montage that lays most of the Fear Street trilogy’s lore out for us. The gaggle of teens we’re about to meet live in Shadyside, which happens to be the no-good sibling of its idealistic neighboring town, Sunnyvale. Shadyside makes for a wild slasher hellmouth, with a long history of slayings creating a sort of fever dream you might have after playing too much Dead by Daylight.

Horrifying murder sprees are the norm in Shadyside. The 1970s boasted their own Friday the 13th-style slasher at the local summer camp, and the 1600s gave birth to the legend of a Blair Witch adjacent curse. What monstrosity is waiting in the shadows for the young stars of Fear Street Part 1? Pretty much all of them, as we quickly find out when the movie taps into another major horror influence: Cabin in the Woods.

Drew Goddard’s 2012 gamechanger poses the question “what if there were a huge selection of boogeymen available to prey on some unsuspecting teens?” but Fear Street Part 1 sets out to prove that its own protagonists would do a far better job of things than the Cabin crowd by quickly pitting them against their own Shadyside horde.

Which is not to say that Fear Street Part 1 doesn’t embrace 1990s movie tropes elsewhere. There are the relentless needle drops of the first act, which cover everything from “Machinehead” to “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover” to “Sour Times,” with a pace that gives you aural whiplash. There’s the candlelit vigil that turns nasty when some predictable toxic masculinity kicks in. There are visual homages to movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer. And some of the characters initially feel so two-dimensional that it’s easy to sink into the comfortable slasher movie mindset of cheering on their inevitable deaths.

But all this starts to fade away at around the 25-minute mark when Part 1 pulls its central characters into Shadyside’s supernatural web.

Deena, whose journey anchors the film, is a resourceful born leader who is ready to confront death at every turn. Her brother Josh is an early keyboard conspiracy theorist, on hand with some neat exposition whenever the film calls for it. Simon is a horny, goofy, drug dealing tagalong who has also been employee of the month—every month—and is often wonderfully sensitive. The film isn’t even halfway over before this gang have figured out what the score is and are plotting how they��re going to fight back as each of them refuses to fit into genre stereotypes.

But again, the film avoids rehashing a vintage scenario by dispensing with Cabin in the Woods’ more nihilistic and meta vibes. There’s no Control Room here; no one betting on the outcome. Fear Street would rather concentrate on the importance of teamwork and mutual respect in the midst of its endless cycle of violence—a tactic that feels like a fresh, essential strategy for a modern horror movie. Part 1 often wears its influences on its sleeve proudly, but it never seems particularly interested in copying them.

Then there’s that ending. In what is surely a first for the horror movie genre, two sequels are about to quickly follow that will push us deeper into Shadyside history. We are in the streaming age where studios are willing to risk a lot of cash on making a big debut splash, and the Fear Street Trilogy is surging into an unknown landscape by delivering three ambitious movies in three weeks. When the credits roll on Part 1, it could be easy to fall into the trap of knowing what to expect from a sequel posing as a prequel, but Part 1 has already succeeded in convincing us that we should set aside our expectations of what the trilogy ultimately hopes to bring to the horror genre.

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Duality, Chapter 4 (Crygi) - Metaluna

Chapter summary: Crystal has an incredible day at work, while Gigi has a terrible one. Crystal can tell something is wrong with her girlfriend, but she’s not sure what. When Gigi makes a mistake, it tests their relationship to its core.

A/N: thank you as always to the incredible queen who is @junosjukebox for beta reading. A TW for graphic depictions of violence/death

Crystal impatiently tapped her foot while waiting for the train. Of course the day she had to meet with the artist of an exhibit that she might book, she was running late. It was her first time coordinating an exhibit as the creative director of the museum. Here she was, about to leave a terrible impression on the prospective artist, as well as the rest of the creative team, who also vied for her position.

Checking the time, she saw that the train was running five minutes behind. Five minutes. She could make it, but she’d have to run. Cardio was on Crystal’s list of least favorite things, narrowly avoiding bad vampire movies. Her excuse was the one time she went on a run with Gigi, Gigi said that Crystal’s resting heart rate was two beats higher than average. Plus, she’d just gotten over from being sick.

Running through the streets of Chicago wasn’t necessarily an uncommon thing to see, but with Harry Styles blaring through her Airpods, she couldn’t help but feel like all eyes were on her. As she went up the stairs to the museum, she wasn’t paying attention and nearly collided with a woman, who narrowly avoided spilling her coffee.

“Oh, shit, I’m so sorry!” Crystal squeaked.

The woman, who looked sleek and sophisticated who was wearing a suit that looked like it was made for her said, “Don’t even worry about it. Are you running late?”

Crystal nodded. “I really have to go! Thank you!”

“What are you thanking me for?” The woman shouted.

By the time Crystal made it up to her office, her assistant Rock was already waiting for her with an iced coffee.

“Thank you!” Crystal said graciously.

Having an assistant was something she still wasn’t used to. Instead of relying on a planner that was falling apart at the seams, she had someone who kept track of all her meetings for her, who always had an iced coffee at the ready.

“You made it,” Rock said. “The meeting’s going to be down the hall. Conference room B. The artist is already waiting for us, but you’re on time so don’t worry.”

“God, Sasha would have never done this,” Crystal said as she took a sip.

“I know you think you have these huge shoes to fill, but you don’t.”

Crystal took a deep breath and smoothed out her blouse before opening the door. “Hello, everyone.”

Making eye contact with the everyone in the room, a wave of panic washed over her. One of the people who was sitting at the conference table, who she could only presume was the artist, was the same person she almost took out on the stairs.

“So we meet again,” the woman said.

“I’m so sorry about earlier! I was running late and I didn’t see you.”

“Don’t even worry about it. Jaida Hall.” Jaida held out her hand. The power in Jaida’s handshake surprised Crystal.

“Crystal Methyd,” Crystal said as she sat.

Jaida blinked and then raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” Crystal murmured. “My parents hate me.”

“So, tell us about the exhibit,” one of the curators, Heidi prompted.

Jaida stood up from her chair, her body language elegant and confident. “When I was doing my final project in art school I became very interested in horror, specifically werewolves. I independently studied lycanthropy so intensively my senior year, I might as well have a degree in it. It’s been three years since I began my studies, and I thought that it would be interesting to do an exhibit based on the history of werewolves and the interpretations of them through time in different cultures, as well as their representation in pop culture.”

None of the directors said anything, Crystal nodded to prompt Jaida to continue.

Jaida used the television in the conference room to show her art. “As you can see, it’s a very diverse exhibit, all different art styles, linked with a common thread. I feel as though this exhibit can really add a flair to your museum, not that it needs it by any means. It’s unlike any of the exhibits you’ve had before. With Halloween just around the corner, I think it’ll bring a lot of traffic.”

Apparently Crystal couldn’t escape from the supernatural. At least it was just an art exhibit. It’s not like werewolves were real.

“Can’t argue with that,” Heidi murmured.

Crystal had a notepad and pen in front of her, but she didn’t feel the need to take notes. She loved the premise of the exhibit. Jaida was right, it’d add flair to the museum. Jaida’s words were too kind, the museum desperately needed something to make it stand out from the other museums in Chicago.

“This exhibit is so unique. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and your work is incredible,” Crystal said earnestly.

Jaida smiled. “Thank you very much.”

“I am interested in bringing your exhibit to the museum. Would you be interested in a nine month contract?”

The norm for the museum’s exhibits was usually six months at the most, but Crystal could see there was something about this exhibit that was special.

Jaida’s jaw dropped. “That sounds great.”

“Lovely. Heidi will discuss the details with you. Have a great day.”

Crystal walked away with a huge smile on her face.

Gigi made it clear to Crystal that she wanted to know as soon as possible how the meeting went, so much so that Gigi told Crystal to meet her at the funeral home. While she was on the train, she realized that in the year they’d been dating, Crystal had never been to the funeral home.

When she arrived, Crystal hesitated before opening the door. The sign alone, which read Evermore Funeral Services was enough to make her feel uneasy. Crystal had never set foot in a funeral home, because she never knew anyone who’d died.

Once inside, she didn’t see Gigi. She didn’t see anyone. The funeral home was eerily quiet. Crystal didn’t have much experience with death, so she was on edge thinking about the bodies that were probably in the other rooms.

“Hello?” Crystal called tentatively. “Gigi?”

A woman, who Crystal assumed was Jackie, came forward which made Crystal jump. “You must be Crystal.”

“And you must be Jackie. Nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too.”

“So uh, where’s my girlfriend?” Crystal asked looking around the room.

Jackie pointed in the direction of what Crystal could only guess was the dead body room. “Someone was mauled by a wild animal. She’s probably going to be in there for a while.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah, it’s bad. One of the worst animal attacks I’ve seen. He wasn’t recognizable. Police had to use dental records,” Jackie said. “Even Gigi looked shocked, and that woman is unshakeable.”

Crystal’s face looked horrified. “I…”

“Sorry. Well, you’re welcome to go sit on the couch over there.”

The couch was comfortable, much more comfortable than it looked. Jackie sat on the chair adjacent to the couch.

“So Crystal,” Jackie began. “I don’t know that much about you. Gigi doesn’t talk too much about you.”

Gigi didn’t talk about her? That stung, especially considering everyone at the museum knew all about Gigi.

“She doesn’t?”

Jackie saw that Crystal took offense to the comment. “Gigi’s a private person. We don’t talk much about personal lives. What do you do for a living?”

“I’m the creative director at the Chicago Museum of Visual Arts.”

Crystal had to admit, every time she said “creative director” she felt an overwhelming sense of pride, mainly because she worked her ass to get there.

“That’s incredible! I’ve taken my wife there before.”

“Awe, you have a wife?” Crystal asked.

“Yes! Her name is Jan and I love her a lot.” Jackie took her phone from her pocket and showed Crystal her lock screen, a picture of Jackie and a radiant blonde woman at the beach.

“She’s beautiful.”

Crystal couldn’t help but feel jealous. Why couldn’t Gigi get that excited about her when she talked to people?

“I keep trying to get Gigi to come over for dinner. You’d be welcome too, of course. Jan’s an amazing cook.”

“That’d be nice.”

Dinner with someone she barely knew didn’t sound fun. But, she wanted nothing more in that moment to piss off Gigi.

“How does Friday sound?” Jackie asked brightly.

“Friday would be great.“

Crystal could hear Gigi’s voice from down the hall. “That was one of the worst bodies I’ve seen in quite some time. I know you said the family wanted an open casket… That’s out of the question. I’m good, but I’m not that good. No one is. I give up.”

As Gigi rounded the corner, she took her hair down from the messy bun it was in. “Oh. Hi, darling.”

“Hi, baby.” Crystal’s tone was short, which Gigi immediately caught onto.

“Are you okay?” Crystal nodded. “Let’s go into my office.”

Crystal sat in the chair normally reserved for grieving families with her arms folded across her chest as Gigi stood in front of her.

“So… How did it go?”

“What?”

Gigi raised an eyebrow. “Meeting with the artist?”

“Oh. Good.” Crystal knew passive aggression wasn’t a good look on anyone, but she couldn’t help it.

“Just ‘good’?”

“We booked the artist. Her whole exhibit is on werewolves. I can’t escape the supernatural. At least werewolves aren’t real, I guess.”

Gigi looked uneasy. “Yes, of course they aren’t real.”

Crystal looked at her girlfriend and saw just how bad she looked. Crystal kept track of the days that Gigi fed, and she knew it had been an entire week. Gigi didn’t leave her side when she was sick, and it showed.

Even with heavy makeup on, her dark under-eye circles were noticeable. There were light traces of the veins visible through her pale skin. Crystal was used to Gigi’s appearance, but Gigi was shaking. It wasn’t in a weak-needing-to-feed way. It was in a something-was-very-wrong way. Crystal decided that Gigi not talking about her to Jackie suddenly didn’t matter.

“Baby?” Crystal got up and hugged Gigi. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. Talk to me.”

Gigi sighed as she spun the pendant on her necklace. “That body was in the worst state I’ve seen in a very long time.”

Crystal knew she was going to regret the amount of details she was going to get, but she knew Gigi needed to talk about it. Gigi needing to talk about things was rare, and Crystal knew she had to take advantage of the moment. She also knew that a body in bad shape wasn’t enough to make her so freaked out.

“What was wrong with… them? The body, I mean.” Crystal asked.

Gigi sighed. “It was one of the most mangled bodies that I’ve seen, not only recently, but ever. The autopsy report said that the intestines were on the outside of the body.”

Crystal winced.

“I’m sorry. I can stop if you want..”

“No, keep going. Spare no gory details for me.”

“The claw marks weren’t anything I’ve ever seen. They were massive. Part of the torso was so shredded, there was barely any skin left, and what was left was hanging on the sides of the body. The face was so shredded, the skull was visible.”

By this point, Crystal couldn’t take anymore, so she changed the subject. “Do you have any idea what could have done it?”

“No.” Gigi answered quickly enough that Crystal raised an eyebrow.

“Maybe werewolves are real,” Crystal joked.

“Absolutely not.”

“Babe, as much as I want to spend time with you, I told Heidi and Rock I’d get drinks with them to celebrate.”

“It’s okay. We have the rest of the evening.”

“You still look really shook. Like, it’s not just that you need to eat. Something is wrong.”

“I’m okay,” Gigi said squeezing Crystal’s hand. “I promise.”

Crystal still wasn’t convinced. She moved her hair away and tilted her neck. “Do you need some just to tide you over?”

Gigi shook her head. “You know how I feel about that. You are not my personal blood bank.”

Whenever Gigi drank from Crystal, it was never for sustenance. It was only during sex, because Gigi didn’t want to treat her girlfriend as her blood whore. The blood whores Nicky kept around always made her uncomfortable.

“Don’t be stubborn, babe,” Crystal said, locking the office door.

“Fine.”

Gigi kissed Crystal’s neck before drawing her fangs. It took a huge amount of self control to not take too much blood. She took the amount she would take when she and Crystal had sex, which was the equivalent of eating a slice of cake, nice at the moment, but not much satisfaction.

Crystal shivered involuntarily once Gigi finished.

“I have to go now, because if I don’t, I’m going to throw all those files off of your desk and fuck you.”

“Please don’t do that. Those are important. Besides, that’s for later. You should go out for drinks now, because I’m about to do the same,” Gigi said, rubbing her blood on Crystal’s neck.

“Babe, I honest to God can’t stand you.”

“I love you, too.”

As much as Crystal didn’t want to think about it, Gigi had to feed in order to survive. Crystal tried to shove the idea of her girlfriend as a killer from her mind. Gigi assured her that she would never see her in that way, by promising Crystal she’d never kill someone in the apartment, since that was their safe space together.

“You know the rule.”

“Of course. No killing in the apartment. I love you, darling.”

“Love you, too.”

Gigi kissed Crystal. “I am so incredibly proud of you.”

“Go feed. You look dead.”

“I am dead.”

Once Crystal had changed to spend time with her friends Gigi sighed. There was no way she felt strong enough to make it out to the bar. The blood she’d taken from Crystal was not enough to satisfy her.

In situations where she was in a pinch, she used Tinder to find someone to feed on. Gigi hated the entire concept of Tinder, but it definitely came of use when she had to find her target. She scrolled through, swiping right to everyone, until a man messaged her. After pleasantries back and forth, including a picture of his penis, he agreed to come over.

Normally, Gigi would bring people to the funeral home. She looked in the mirror at herself. She looked like hell. Gigi was wearing more makeup than normal, and she could still see how ragged her appearance was. She had no other option. She had no choice but to feed in the apartment. It was either to break her and Crystal’s rule, or to kill someone in the streets.

Besides, Crystal wasn’t going to be back until late, anyway.

Gigi sat on the couch neurotically petting Akasha until she heard the knock on the door. With a sigh of relief, she answered the door to a man whose name she couldn’t remember.

“Lauren?” Gigi always made sure to use a fake name.

“Yes, hi.”

She took the man by the hand and sat with him on the couch. Ever since she started dating Crystal, kissing other people felt wrong. But, Crystal said she didn’t care, so Gigi continued her routine. She kissed the man’s neck before drawing her fangs.

Gigi made sure she was precise and clean, so as not to leave any evidence behind. After she dragged the man into the bathtub, she was sure to cover her tracks and make sure that no blood was spilled. Other than a few small drops that were easily cleaned, she was in the clear.

Next, she had to dispose of the body. There were a few things that Gigi kept in the closet that Crystal wasn’t aware of. Most of them were gifts, but there were much darker things, too. Underneath her textbooks on body reconstruction, there were things that she hoped to the gods she didn’t believe in that Crystal would never find. One such thing was a bonesaw that she kept for occasions just like this. Putting the body parts into a trashbag and driving to the funeral home would be the easiest way to get rid of the body.

Making her way back to the bathroom, she partially filled the bathtub so the blood would run down the drain easier. With that, she went to work, starting with the limbs.

Gigi was so focused on dismembering the body, she had no idea Crystal had returned and was watching her every move.

At first, Crystal was in shock. She couldn’t believe what she saw. Watching Gigi completely butcher a body made Crystal want to scream and run away, but instead she froze and watched in terror, wondering how the woman she loved so dearly could do something so morbid. The scariest thing to Crystal was the complete lack of remorse on Gigi’s face.

Crystal could barely listen to Gigi talk about work, even the things that weren’t particularly gory. Death was something that disturbed Crystal greatly. Despite this, Crystal was watching Gigi’s every move. It was like when she saw a motorcycle accident when she was a teenager. Something about it made her unable to look away, as desperately as she wished she could.

Crystal watched silently, until Gigi began cutting the head. Halfway through, Gigi tore the head with ease, like when her brother used to rip the heads off of her Barbies. She put her hand over her mouth and gasped sharply. The gasp was loud enough that Gigi heard.

Gigi looked up at her lover. Without missing a beat, she turned off the saw and shut the shower curtain.

“Crystal…” Gigi began. As she took a step forward toward Crystal, Crystal immediately took a step back.

“No.”

“Crystal I am so sorry.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Crystal…”

She took another step back. “Don’t.”

Crystal ran into their bedroom and locked the do or. Gigi wanted to immediately run after her, but knew that was exactly what she shouldn’t do. Instead, she stood outside of the door.

She gently knocked on the door. “Crystal… Please…”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to look at you.”

“I am so beyond sorry,” Gigi said as she could feel tears of blood stream down her face. “I never meant for you to see me like that.”

Crystal scoffed. “You really think that is why I’m so upset?”

“Yes…” Gigi trailed off. “It’s not?”

“Fucking

unbelievable

. No, Gigi. I know you kill people. Seeing you cut up that guy was fucking gross, but at the end of the day, you’re a fucking vampire. That’s not why I’m mad. I’m mad at the complete lack of respect. I let the fact that you kill people slide. But, you can’t follow one goddamn rule?”

“Can I come in?”

Crystal sighed as she unlocked the door. “Come in.”

“Thank you.”

Crystal sat in the chair in the corner of the room. It was clear to see how tense she was. Rather than sitting relaxed in the chair as she normally would, Crystal had her legs crossed on the chair with her arms wrapped around them. Gigi could tell that Crystal didn’t want her too close.

Wiping away tears, Crystal said, “Like I was saying, you not killing people in this space that we share, the space we made together is something that is so important. It feels like you don’t care about my feelings, just your own.”

“How could you even say that?” Gigi could feel tears of blood stream down her face.

“Sometimes I forget you aren’t human. It was only a matter of time before some shit like this happened.” Crystal’s voice cracked. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what?”

“You know what.”

Gigi looked at Crystal. “You can’t be serious.”

The tone of Crystal’s words cut Gigi like a knife.. “Actually, I am.”

“I…”

“I’m going to go. Get rid of him. Clean the bathroom. I need to clear my head. I’ll be back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know.”

Crystal slammed the apartment door so loudly, Akasha ran into the bedroom.

Crystal didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she had to leave. She put her Airpods in as she walked down the streets of Chicago at dusk.

A feeling of unease crept over her as she entered a neighborhood that was not her own. Even though Crystal and Gigi’s apartment was in a safe part of the city, as safe as one can get in a large city, being out at night was generally something Crystal avoided.

Tonight she didn’t care.

The wind was brisk on her tear-stained face as Crystal continued to walk. She didn’t have a destination in mind. To be honest, she wasn’t completely sure where she was. Crystal tried her best to recognize her surroundings, but night had fallen and she completely lost where she was.

Crystal began to panic. Looking at her phone, she saw that she had three missed calls and eight missed texts from Gigi. As much as Crystal wanted to text her for help, she put her phone back in her pocket.

Something made Crystal feel uneasy, not just because she was lost. It was like she was being watched. When she heard a noise, more than likely just a rat or stray cat, she felt like she jumped out of her skin.

Crystal wanted to scream when she realized the noise came from a figure that was definitely a person, who was quickly approaching.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Once under the streetlights, Crystal saw that it was a familiar face.

“Crystal?” Jaida began. “Are you okay?”

Crystal’s voice cracked. “Yes.”

“No, you’re not,” Jaida said as she guided them to a bench.

Rubbing Crystal’s back comfortingly, Jaida said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“We barely know each other.”

“It doesn’t matter. Something’s wrong, and I’m not letting you leave until you calm down.”

“First off I have no idea where the fuck I am. But that’s not why I’m crying.”

Jaida wiped Crystal’s tears. “What’s wrong?”

“My girlfriend and I got into our first fight. It wasn’t just a small disagreement. It was a full on huge ass fight that left me saying I didn’t know if I could do the relationship, and slamming the door.”

“Shit,” Jaida muttered. “What were y’all arguing about?”

Crystal had to choose her words carefully. “Basically… We have certain… I guess rules about our apartment. It’s weird to explain.”

“No, I understand. I think.“

“It’s just… she broke our one rule, and doesn’t understand that her ki… I mean, doing the… thing that the rule is about isn’t what’s making me mad. It’s that she clearly doesn’t respect me if she’s willing to break it that easily.”

Jaida raised an eyebrow. “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying, but I think you should talk it out with her.”

“You’re right. If I avoid this it’ll be worse.”

im ready to talk but im lost. im sharing my location with you

I’ll be there soon.

not too soon, im with someone. a friend found me

Got it.

“She’s on her way. You can go, if you want.”

Jaida shook her head. “Are you kidding? I’m not leaving you here. My apartment is just over there. We’re going to wait up there for your girl.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Jaida raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m a nice person?”

“Sorry… I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay. Let’s go.”

Crystal quickly texted Gigi Jaida’s address.

Jaida’s apartment was exactly what Crystal expected. There was art everywhere of all different styles. Even though none of the furniture matched, a stark contrast from her own apartment, it all fit together perfectly. Crystal inhaled the earthy scent of incense as she saw a painting of moon phases on an easel in the corner.

“My roommates aren’t home right now,” Jaida said as she led Crystal to a wildly patterned couch.

“You have roommates?”

There was something about Jaida’s energy that made Crystal think that she would live alone.

“I’m a starving artist who just booked her first exhibit. If I didn’t have roommates, I’d be back at my parent’s house in Milwaukee, the land of Dahmer. Of course I have roommates. But it’s all not bad, my roommates, Vanessa, Scarlet, and Yvie are great.”

“That’s good. Before I moved in with Gigi, mine were… Not.”

Jaida shook her head. “Are you really in your mid twenties if you haven’t had a horrific roommate experience?”

“Or a horrific edible experience,” Crystal joked.

“That, too.”

Jaida sighed. “I know we aren’t at work, but I just want to thank you. For everything.”

“Of course your work is incredible.” Crystal gestured to the art in the apartment. “All of it.”

“Thank you,” Jaida said with a small smile. “I try.”

Crystal and Jaida sat in a comfortable silence as a knock on the door startled Crystal.

“That’s probably your girl,” Jaida said, getting up to answer the door as Crystal followed.

Before Jaida opened the door, Crystal had no idea what to expect. Crystal didn’t know that a vampire cried blood until that day. She also didn’t know that after crying, a vampire’s eyes were red and puffy just like a human’s. Normally, Gigi dressed extremely cohesive, but she was wearing one of Crystal’s flannels and a pair of leggings.

“Hi. I’m Gigi.

“Jaida.”

Crystal had no idea why, but Gigi and Jaida locked eyes. It was like they were taking each other in as they looked each other up and down.

“Do you want to go talk now, Gigi?”

Gigi nodded. “Let’s go.”

While Crystal had a horrible sense of direction, Gigi’s was impeccable. This showed especially as they walked the streets of Chicago. Normally, Crystal wouldn’t feel safe, but after seeing what her girlfriend was capable of, she felt more than safe.

“So…” Crystal began.

“I don’t think that I could ever express how sorry I am. I also don’t think I can express how much it hurts me to know that I hurt you. I didn’t mean to disrespect you in any way, and the fact that I did will haunt me for decades.”

Crystal sighed, formulating a response before she spoke. “You’re right. You disrespected me.”

Gigi began to say something.

“I’m not finished yet. I know that you probably don’t want to talk about it, but I can tell something’s wrong. It’s not just that you needed to feed. Babe, I understand that you might not want to talk about whatever is going on, but just know, I know that something is wrong. I also know that you haven’t fed in a week.”

“It’s no excuse for me to do what I did. I broke our rule.”

“You absolutely did.”

“You saw me for what I really am. A soulless killer.”

“That was… shocking,” Crystal began. “I know you haven’t fed in a week.”

“That is absolutely no excuse.”

“It probably isn’t. But, why didn’t you feed for an entire week?”

“Because I was taking care of you.”

Crystal held Gigi’s hand. “Would a soulless killer take care of me?”

“I suppose not.”

“Baby, I know what I was signing up for when we started dating. It’s fucking disturbing to think about, and part of me realizes how crazy this all is. I know you kill people, but I can see your soul. You claim you don’t have one, but you absolutely do. Yours is beautiful. Also, I will say that I know you don’t tell me certain things, and as your girlfriend, it hurts knowing you don’t fully trust me with certain things. I’m not sure if you think you’re protecting me, or what it is. But, I don’t need protecting.”

Gigi sighed, shutting her eyes as she squeezed Crystal’s hand. “I will spend every day proving how much I love, value, and respect you. I love you. I’ll also try harder to tell you more.“

Gigi went in for a kiss, but Crystal pulled away. “I love you, but I need time to… I don’t know. Decompress? Destress? I’m not breaking up with you, but that was… rough.”

“I understand.”

“Thank you for respecting my boundaries. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Is there anything I can do immediately to prove it?”

“Well…” Crystal hesitated. “I may have told Jackie that we’d go have dinner at her place with her wife on Friday while you were in the dead body room.”

“You did what?”

#rpdr fanfiction #crystal methyd #gigi goode #crygi #jackie cox #lesbian au #vampire au #duality #metaluna #tw graphic depictions of violence #tw gore #tw death #submission #s12

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 5 years

Note

Why do you think Supernatural has such a large LGBTQ+ following? The representation of queer people ist piss poor and most of the time non-existent. Is it because of the IMO queerbaiting or are there other reasons?

I personally think that it’s a bit offensive to say that queer viewers are attracted to a product either because there is “representation” or because they’re “baited” into watching it. Gays watched television before Glee aired and they weren’t just watching Will & Grace. I'll also go on a limb here and say that I suspect that Supernatural is more popular among an older queer audience while a younger queer audience is more likely to be critical of it. There is a generational divide in how the queer audience relates to media, after all.

Before “representation”, queer subtext was the way for queer creators or queer actors to convey “we’re here, we see you” to queer people in the audience. I am not saying that was good and the way things are now is bad, because it’s only progress to have actual explicit queerness in media. We’re not arrived to the end of that process, though, and a lot of explicit representation is highly unsatisfactory (token characters, “bury your gays”, stereotypes that are still hard to kill, narratives limited to coming out or dealing with homophobia, etc).

An older audience is used to see subtext and appreciate it. A younger audience sees the same thing and instead of subtext they see queerbaiting, i.e. creators - who are assumed to be nonqueer, or whose queerness is not considered relevant to the discussion - dangling a “promise” of queerness that is not delivered.

Supernatural is, at its core, a show based on nostalgia. I believe it deliberately plays on an “old school” way of crafting stories, including subtext, which is also why I believe it makes no sense to compare Supernatural with a Shadowhunters or a Lucifer and point fingers and say “that one does the thing”, because we’re talking completely different storytelling ways. While Supernatural has definitely evolved through the years and “modernized” itself in many ways, it’s still a narrative that likes to keep a foot in a 1980s shoe. You can like it or not, but it’s one of the things that have made the show what it is, given it a specific identity, and make it last this long.

But the fundamental thing in this discussion is that Supernatural is a story about identity, agency, bodily autonomy, corporeity and violation, abusive parental expectations, defying paternal or paternal-coded and religious-themed authority - what about this doesn’t seem interesting for a queer audience? There are themes of non-normative experiences including in the sphere of sexuality and relationships, there is an undercurrent of masculinity as a theme, and of course Supernatural is a horror story, with all the history of the genre it references and pays homage to, and the genre plays (in good or bad ways) on non-normativity, social subversion, corporeity, and gender. (A fundamental mistake, in my personal opinion, is to think of Supernatural as a drama show, because then it just becomes a bad drama show.)

Why do you think queer people flocked to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, because they were deluded that Marvel Studios would deliver queer representation or because of a narrative about identity, agency, bodily autonomy and defying the authority of the wealthy white male figure in a position of power used for imperialistic totalitarian purposes? (Not coincidentally, The Winter Soldier plays with tropes from the horror genre.)

The main character of Supernatural is a queercoded man who a lot of queer viewers have identified with - I don’t think that experience is worthless just because it’s not textually explicit that the character is queer. A lot of explicitly queer characters in television are not given the same depth and relevance in the story as Dean Winchester, and maybe they’re relatable for their experiences with coming out or dealing with homophobia but that’s it. Dean’s story is about things that resonate with many queer people, his struggles with finding his role in the world as an outcast who feels like a freak for social reasons (unlike Sam’s “supernatural” reasons), as a man in a model of masculinity that is too restrictive and toxic for him, as an inherently antiauthoritarian, subversive force in a conservative, hierarchical system - does all of this get null because the character isn’t explicited as a mlm? Dean’s story is pretty much a journey about embracing a queer experience, is that less worthy of consideration just because it’s not about (explicitly) embracing a queer identity?

There’s also another thing - the inherent value of a metaphor. Castiel’s story, for instance, is basically a metaphor for the experiences of a queer, specifically trans for certain aspects, person from a hostile family. But it’s not - does that make it void of significance for a person with those experiences? I don’t think so. It can be uncomfortable and triggering to watch the same traumatic experiences as yours, but it can be more emotionally useful to watch a metaphor of them. A queercoded narrative can offer the viewer the experience of identification with the character and their story, but with a distance: you don’t live the same traumatic experiences while you “are” Castiel, but you live experiences that have similar aspects, but in an “unrealistic” context, that allow you to elaborate emotions while maintaining an emotional distance.

This doesn’t mean that a queer viewers has to like it just because. Nor that Supernatural shouldn’t have done things differently/better. (It is really not a perfect show.) But it seems to me that there are pretty obvious reasons for its popularity among a queer audience, and I don’t think those are reducible to the queer audience being “baited” into watching something that eventually reveals itself as unsatisfactory and disappointing.

I do realize that my experience with watching Supernatural is not the same as many other fans here on tumblr & adjacent, but universal experiences don’t exist, so I suppose that neither is the “true” one. These were my two cents on the matter and I hope it was a satisfying answer! I probably came off as a bit abrasive but I’ve spent way too many years on this site surrounded by talk of queerbaiting so I hope you can understand :)

#my spn thoughts #queer subtext #spn meta #queercoding #queerbaiting #spn #anon

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incarnateirony · 6 years

Text

Standom Perspective: The GA’s viewing experience.

So, it’s no secret that stan twitter has a hard time discerning where their perspective ends in relation to a broad wash of the general audience. It is one thing to point out that the majority of the audience aren’t single character stans, the majority of the audience are not meta authors/readers, and the majority of the audience aren’t “woke,” but it’s another thing to really carve out what that means before people start yelling about “reasons the show will fail/is failing,” which generally miss the mark already like the recent claims of failing ratings. [1] [2] - and that’s just the recent ones. We’re not gonna touch on how long people have erroneously been citing ratings-death every year, though ironically source 1 touches on the same issue I’ve been talking about in my #ratings tag.

But the real point is - how does the GA react when not actually sculpted by occupants of stan twitter?

I’ve almost accidentally run an observational experiment without realizing it, with the recent streams of SPN by Sonalii Castillo, the actress from The Outpost that I’ve gotten to watch SPN. Make no mistake: Sonalii and I are friends, but I have gone out of my way to not sculpt her vision as much as humanly possible. In fact, it’s to the point I answer “it’s complicated,” or a few episode citations to rewatch when she asks me things that have a very Destiel-esque answer to them, like the “living life in reverse” or Amara finding Dean via Cas when Amara couldn’t find him herself. Answering these from my perspective would automatically paint a Destiel lens, so instead I’ll just direct source a related quote from an episode and/or tell her to watch it and draw her own interpretation.

She’s also point-blank asked me about the nature of Dean and Cas, what point it ends at audience and what point it begins in the show while she’s catching up and hearing about it passingly through people’s fleeting squii tweets. Even that, I’ve tried to leave simply at “it’s complicated, just enjoy it as you see it.” as best I can.

That said, I’ve been doing backflips to avoid heavily impacting her experience, but still catch questions, so I’d like to address some of this beneath a cut to really scale what a GA experience is like for someone coming in with no real extended knowledge of the series or production, and someone who watches on what we WOULD call a “casual viewership” level - and why ratings screeching, yelling about continuity failures causing nonexistent ratings-death, or whatever else simply does NOT match what happens in the GA.

Okay, first of. Sonalii Castillo is a bean. I adore her. And not in that hero-worship actress way, but on that “we hold long discussions every day and I know who she is as a person and what she aspires to be” way. So let it be said if any of my wording about her paints a knee-jerk bad reaction in someone’s head, to ask for clarification before going off on the woke-brigade or stan-mob effect on or about her, as I may be clarifying badly and I do not necessarily speak for her, as much as attempt to illustrate a general perspective about her that I may need to refine.

First: about the person, about who she is, what her viewpoint is, and her general standing in the GA. So first,

About the viewer.

She’s an (until-now indie) actress, writer, producer, but has never had an enduring role and never really watches shows THIS LONG. Most of her personal writing and producing is in the area of 20 minute shorts where everything is a quick pile drive of as much as you can accomplish in as little time possible. She knew next to nothing about Supernatural when I dragged her in, as ten years ago she applied for a certain female role we would all know and recognize, but got declined because she -- frankly -- didn’t meet the racial profiling needed. There was an ax to grind and I had to lighten that from her and she eventually caved as on a friendly level she heard me constantly talking about Supernatural with other people, and curiosity got the better of her.

Speaking OF racial profiling, she struggles in the industry. She’s technically afro-latina, but does not identify with the afro-side, to the dismay of some african-american fans of hers. She was raised in the dominican republic -- which is also why I cite cultural impact since they’re a little less progressive over there about LGBT than even in the US (no discrimination protections, far lower/latent same-sex marriage support rate, but same-sex marriage was legalized when the DR was bound under the American Convention on Human Rights), so I actually greatly treasure what is, for her, culturally an accepting mind she’s still willing to grow with. She released an interview recently where she cited that once she got to America, the black teens didn’t know what to do with her because she was too latina, but the latina people thought she was too black, but she was raised in latinx culture, so TLDR, she identifies latinx even if not all latinx people accepted her as such in the US, especially after a brief time in France adding other stuff to her journey. She actually commented that, from her perspective, the racial divide actually seems worse in America; that it could be wrong, but nobody in France or the DR looked at her skin color, and now she’s running into stonewalls of it everywhere. Too latina to be black or white but too black to be latina and too anything to be anything that fits anyone else’s mold they want for her.

Now - Sonalii Castillo is super-duper straight. She is accepting of queer people, she knows about me and Shea and engages us regularly about our relationship, that it “isn’t for her,” but she will never EVER judge anyone for who they love or are attracted to. But she is still enough -- perhaps culturally due to where she was raised, then moved to over time -- in the straight-bin she feels like being straight is “under-rated” in our modern society. She is on the defensive-straighty spectrum, but again, culturally, I understand why and I more choose to let watching me and Shea deal with life become a passive form of education rather than trying to aggressively indoctrinate her because frankly, that will go a hell of a lot further and she has a good soul and I’ve seen her start to gain awareness of things.

That being said, she is ALL UP on wanting to monkey climb all three of our boys and a lot of her fangirling centers around their visual imagery as much as anything else, although she’s definitely not an emotional brick and is able to empathize with clearly illustrated trauma and pain. She is not a single character stan. She loves all three, for different reasons, and often talks about their strength as a unit and how they compliment each other when reviewing events; she feels for all of them, and sometimes feels bad for not even realizing she should have been feeling for some of them in certain ways that had slipped her mind.

And, realistically, this is still representative of a large wash of our audience with a racial bend to it (since America IS primarily white, for better or worse -- mostly worse.)

I disclaimer this all to really give you a view of what a GA member may look like. Not all GA will be writer-producers, but oddly, her style of writing-producing actually has ramifications that make her miss very large swathes of seasons-long story arcing until she comes scrapping up like “Wait... so, wait. Okay, did that mean-” which... well, the GA will do too. She is often taken aback remembering certain traumas or dangling plot ends WEREN’T handled or WERE still out there, because she’s not out there to meta these episodes. She’s out there to experience the ride. The shock and horror on her when the Michael flashbacks started kicking up in season 13′s finale are extremely telling, dividing the line between the meta community and the GA.

To her actual viewing response, let me say a few things. These have actually been live streamed to the public. She comes scrapping to the audience watching her looking for answers often. If they’re outright spoilers, nobody answers. If they’re basic questions like why X effect did Z thing, people will explain. But by and large, it’s mostly reactionary effects.

Sonalii Castillo is a brilliant woman. She isn’t dumb. But she watches the show as it comes. She doesn’t sit here psycho-analyzing every motion for purity, she doesn’t break apart every potential plot hole or retcon. In fact, she hasn’t mentioned, noticed, or asked -- be it to me personally or the folks on the livestream -- about a single damn one. In fact, she has more questions about consistent canon elements confusing her than what the stan/meta community has declared as plotholes, sometimes accurately and sometimes not.

And that part is my biggest point to really make.

She didn’t flinch about Cas not seeing the demons; she didn’t even ask. She didn’t dig into any of the S6-7 plot holes or anything in Taxi Driver or ANY of that. Because your average viewer? DOESN’T NOTICE, MUCH LESS GIVE A SHIT.

I know that’s hard for stan twitter to wrap their skulls around, but it’s a simple fact. THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT. That’s why it hasn’t hurt ratings before, that’s why (beyond it very obviously NOT tallying as mid-episode tune-out) it’s not the cause for any decline this year, and it never-ever will be. In the stuff I linked above to adjacent conversations, there’s any number of reasonable explanations, including: the decline is NOT as dramatic as people act like, it’s negligible and can have other explanations including Wayward axing, bad promotion, or a bad finale.

Speaking of the bad S13 finale, her hot take on it? She considered the finale epic still. To the side she told me, yes, the wires were terrible, and you could see that it was awful, but it was forgivable. Maybe that *is* her indie side showing and being more understanding, I’m willing to even argue that point, but odds are, not THAT many people are going to perma-grudge the show over the wires as much go “what the fuck?” and see if they fixed it later. A few might. That’s the great thing about a GA. It’s diverse.

Some arbitrary potential plothole isn’t going to ruin the show for the GA. Hell, bad wires isn’t going to ruin it for most of the GA. Anything you consider a character oversight for your personal favorite is not going to ruin it for the GA. Your character stanning point may even resonate with portions of the GA that do think like you do, but it is not enough to actually cause a widespread pandemic among the GA just because Cas was tied to a chair, or didn’t see demons, or Michael Dean isn’t Dean enough for you, or a camera blurred on Sam’s face in a few scenes.

Most won’t even fucking notice, much less care. Because the storytelling and cinematography and everything else is doing what it’s supposed to -- largely engaging the audience, and the audience is just as likely to have confusion “wait, what?” on actual canon-solid events that they have to doublecheck and negotiate backwards with information from six years ago as they are any brief “wtf?” momentary questionable plot events. And if they can negotiate those events with histories-old canon-solid events they can negotiate it with adjacent, subtextual, or even reasonable headcanoned reasons that they don’t even bring into question -- because why would they? They don’t have stan twitter in their fucking ear.

On a secondary point: Destiel

So here’s the fun thing about Sonalii and Destiel. Sonalii, on her own, while I bibbity bobbity bounce and dodge answering questions like that, has pretty much fulfilled what I’ve said about the GA. Or at least the straight GA. She sees things, she questions it, but she’s not entirely “sold” on it; she’s made comments that if it happened that’d be neat, she still squiis over “Awww, Cas loves Dean,” but she’s not out here 100% sold on DeanCas or shipping it or reading into it. Welcome to your aggressively straight female GA take on DeanCas. They see it, they occasionally coo about it, but they’re not sold on it as a standing product and are willing to consider other explanations or just not take it to heart until it happens, but they wouldn’t go fucking postal if/when it happens and wouldn’t be surprised, either.

This, of course, is different than if we were addressing viewership from queer-lensed viewers with a different origin than her, which accounts for 1/3 of the modern US population in our target demo (and 1-in-2 for our upcoming younger demo tilting into the bracket) [3], not counting highly receptive allies but people who tick onto the Kinsey scale in some degree.

So here we have a GA that doesn’t ask about plotholes, reads it through their respective interpretational lenses, glosses the surface quality as their minds parse it, and fill in the gaps with headcanons they don’t even realize are headcanons and just absorb as truths until something challenges it in active-canon to make them go “what?” - because the GA isn’t out here refining the exact border of canon, subtext, or headcanon. They are naturally negotiating the story as it unfolds, without interference. Now, if the queer-receptive-but-very-straight-lensed woman is going “awwwwww Cas and Dean” but “I’m still not sold,” but also “I mean, I see it though,” when people ask her or is even out here actively asking questions like what is going on with it, what do you think that means for our increasingly queer identifying audience as well?

Well, Jan, it means exactly what I’ve been saying it means. Don’t believe me? Check all the queerfolk that pour into twitter and tumblr after binge watching 12-13 seasons that are like “Wait, this is something people argue about? I thought this was just a thing???” and are utterly confused that it’s even in debate.

This of course says nothing for the aggressively-straight-lensed GA that are not receptive to LGBT or queer content. But the fact that we also see active outcry about “pandering” does tell us that they see it; they register it; they just simply want to dismiss it. It’s worth minding that 33% of the US is still opposed to same-sex marriage. Some are more passive in their homophobia than “FUCK THE QUEERS,” but it’s still a phobic tilt in society. Some of the same people opposed to it still endorse that they swear they love queer people, and you know -- I have a gay friend or whatever -- and may even try to be “progressively okay with” queer content so where exactly that 33% shifts down to is hard to say. It’s worth mentioning that every census in fandom has had a minimum 72% approval rate for Destiel, with something like 11%~ hard-against and the remaining being in neutral “Eh, no specific feelings on it.” 28% is not exactly far from the mark of 33% and to estimate 1-in-9-or-10 people in the US being giant cantankerous wankers about queer people still isn’t exactly way off the mark either, with like 6-or-7 in 10 being increasingly accepting and others floating in the middle, unsure how to feel, what to think, or what to do. Sonalii would be in that remaining central bracket, but tilts towards the supportive spectrum (I suppose #7 in the 6-or-7) and unshockingly, is in the “I see it/it’s cute/I’m just not sold/maybe it’s just a super weird bromance until it happens/it’s just not for me/so I’ll wait and see if it happens”) Given, those aren’t my hardest, most cross-checked numbers, but it’s basic observation skills.

That is a far cry from there being a majority of antis in the GA. But rather, like I’ve said, a heavy dose of support. The wide majority of queer identifying people in the fandometric supported Destiel. [4] Now, as queer is not a borg and we are not mandated to all like the same things, unsurprisingly, not all queer people liked Destiel. And that’s fine. Again, because we’re not a borg. But it was a remarkable minority. And someone is free to not like it, but flagging around an “i’m queer and don’t like it” card also doesn’t make you an auto-winner in a Destiel shut-down-argument when the vast majority of LGBT fans do. You’re entitled to your opinion. It just isn’t the only opinion, it is not more important than the next person’s opinion, and while “appeal to numbers” is itself a logical fallacy, if this were taken to a basic vote, yes, the LGBT community would come out with support for Destiel. And, by most censuses, the straight community would come out riding a VERY narrow line between support, or “I wouldn’t have a problem with it/I kinda see it/it’s just not 100% yet/meh” with only a minority screaming about how awful it is.

Let’s really double back to the census.

According to the census, the loudest screamers actually weren’t our antis. The loudest screamers were:

Male, Straight [5]

Conservative [6]

40+, especially 60+ [7]

Not all were all-of-the-above on the list, some only ticked a few of the boxes, but some also filled all the metaphorical boxes by basic vector overlap.

Also let me lay to rest the whole “it was all Cas fans that showed up to the survey so that’s why it was high Destiel” myth by dropping this. [8]

Let’s all be amazed that straight old conservative [read as: 89% white] guys don’t like the Destiel content. It came down to about 31% of straight-identifying men. Or, roughly, a cap of 10.3% of our demographic by general US demographics and known SPN male/female ratio outside of fandom centers. And possibly as low as 7.75% or LESS within target demo. Also unsurprising to us, straight-identifying women are more receptive to the content in regards to queer male content, because, IDK, just a shot in the dark here -- they don’t feel threatened by it to their own identity or some concept of “moral standard”; let’s not pretend we don’t 100% know conservative white dudes are totes okay with lesbians but gay men, that’s where they draw the line, because logic.

The rest are numbers that, unsurprisingly, tilt in female conservative, with a tiny overlap from bro-onlies that are the antis we know and love-to-hate.

Yes, the census has declared it isn’t 100% scientific. That’s just an outright responsible thing to declare. But it ran IP-checked individuality testing, it circulated across numerous platforms, and it resonates with every other online demo report we have today on modern trends, from hashtags to google search frequency, to even the imdb data an anti tried to break out on me only to admit it matched my point and not theirs, and yet they doubled down saying that didn’t prove anything either. Also cuz logic.

This census, partnered with other matching trends, external polls, and basic industry awareness, is as close as we will get to a scientific breakdown of our demographic, especially since they went to exorbitant lengths to break down everything from age, gender, politics, favorite character and whatever else to view them by percentile response we can scale into the surrounding US population or general show demographic by their independently displayed percentiles. Because 500 hard conservatives, not even minding libertarians or moderates in their own pool? Is a pretty damn big test group on its own. And you can view their percentile findings independently. And shock-and-awe, when scaled into all of our other information, it still adds up to everything we see.

And that’s another thing to keep in mind in the red/blue demo divide. Not all red is the same. Not all blue is the same. Not all reds are raging homophobes, some are voting red on fiscal opinion (though this administration is thinning that line), some are phobic-coded but not outright hateful or vindictive about it as much as they are learning. Libertarian tends to count as red in a basic census that only gives you one or the other. It’s a form of conservatism. Moderates tend to still identify more red than blue, or at least did a few years ago, this last presidency seems to be shifting that into moderates identifying blue. But go figure, our last red vs blue census for SPN that was a reliable polling source and not some poll on a rando website that ran for a few days with some basic bitch “What’s your favorite TV show” questions ... was a few years ago.

This really isn’t hard.

TLDR takeaways:

GA doesn’t give a shit about your declared plotholes

GA doesn’t give a shit about your character stanning

GA by and large recognizes Destiel in some capacity, with conservative old dudes hating it, a bundle of neutrals passively spotting/sighting/supporting it, and a whole lot of queers and allies yelling that they love it

You literally just have to watch people watch the show without intervening and filling their head with your horse shit to witness this

Also she completely independently raged when she realized Wayward Sisters was a spinoff that got axed and is like, WHY THE HELL WHAT WHY WOULDNT THEY IT WAS AMAZING WTF WHYYYYY so that’s a thing.

And that’s the tea.

#supernatural #demographics #casual viewers #general audience #ratings #and a little bit of #destiel #but mostly how arbitrary stan twitter is

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