#but then there are movies about serial killers depicting them as human and wanting you to have sympathy for them

[cheekblush]

it's insane how literal serial killers are depicted in a more empathetic way than marilyn monroe

#the things i have read about blonde made my stomach turn i don't think i'll even bother to watch it #but then there are movies about serial killers depicting them as human and wanting you to have sympathy for them #like the ted bundy movie with zac efron doesn't even try to depict what a true monster that man was.. #and now this dahmer series that was made without the consent of the family's victims #male directors will depict serial killers as human but will depict an abused woman as a piece of meat without any self agency #the fact that blonde is basically fanfiction too and just boils down to torture p*rn #male directors will really have more compassion for a male serial killer than for a woman! #☁️

[official-locke-writing]

Okay, I made a rant post about it, but Tumblr posted the draft rather than the finished one, so my points went uncomplete, so let's try again. Yes, this is about the N*zi drama bullshit happening in the EverymanHYBRID fandom.

TLDR; Stop defending Summer. EMH fans are not the problem. EMH itself is not the problem. The problem is N*zi supporters clinging to the N*zi reference and twisting it for their own agenda.

People defending Summer are not grasping the full situation and are contributing to sweeping harmful content under the rug instead of doing something about it.

It does not matter what your intentions are. If you draw a N*zi/Swast*ka in a cutesy little art style, it's a hate symbol. It's hateful content and makes you look like a N*zi supporter. Putting anything of this nature in a remotely good light is going to ruin your chances of ever being respected.

Summer drew a cutsy little N*zi in a sexual situation and then turned around with, "I don't support them!!!" Are you actually being real right now? Holy fuck.

I literally couldn't give a rat's ass about talking to Summer about this because holy hell, their "I feel so bad" guilt trippy shit will not work on me. There was no formal apology and no deletion of what was made. Summer is not sorry, they just don't want the heat.

Well, guess what? Brandishing a swast*ka is exactly how you get it, and until those posts come down and it's acknowledged in a non half assed way, you're gonna keep getting the heat.

Summer is making ALL OF US look bad. Summer is scaring people away from joining the fandom.

Depiction does not equal romantization. EverymanHYBRID used N*zis to disgust the audience and make HABIT a universally hated character. It was a throwback to an old media trope that mainstream movies do all the time. "Ooo, N*zi experimentation created a monster, ooo, spooky corny villain!!!" This is not the problem. Movie depictions of these fuckers were always made in a mocking light, and it seems like EMH did the same thing.

HABIT could barely remember who they were and spoke about them like they were shit on his boot. From what I've heard and seen, both the creators and the fandom agreed on minimizing and rewriting this reference out of EMH. You know why? Because people turned HABIT into a slutty fanonized mess of a concept. HABIT was not made to be romanticized for a fucking reason. They thought they were safe to use this trope because they weren't banking on people being ravenously thirsty and then using that reference as an excuse to connect N*zis with the "sexy serial killer" thing. HABIT was not to be sexualized in any way, shape, or form. HABIT was a mockery of real-life evil people. Dehumanizing monstrous people.

And then people turned around and humanized him to a terrifying degree. They made him "relatable," and people are raving about making him the new Tumblr sexyman.

Some of you guys, not all, but some, have no idea what the hell HABIT was made to do and it creeps me the fuck out.

Summer drew HABIT wanting to fuck a Jewish person. They drew a swast*ka next to a drawing of a real-life, non-celebrity, volunteer actor. It's disrespectful and just fucking mean, dude. On top of that, the Amon Göth quote??? The dude ran a labor camp, you've got to be kidding me.

"I'm just a history buff!" All N*zi supporters are history buffs. Your excuses mean nothing. If you didn't mean it, those art posts would be gone.

It's not the fandom or EMH itself. We agreed on being mature about this. Don't pin some 18 year old kid's edgy N*zi bullshit on anyone else but the person doing it.

#this is an emh fandom defense post #this is also an anti hate post #everymanhybrid #discourse #drama

[thenightling]

Willy Wonka misconceptions

As Charlie and the Chocolate Factory / Willy Wonka has become weirdly popular lately because of the successful prequel film and most recently that really botched / rip-off Wonka event in Glasgow Scotland, it felt like a good time for this post.

Here are a list of popular misconceptions about the book and films.

1. Much of the Internet thinks of Wonka as a "Serial killer of children." I pointed out that at the end of the 2006 film and novel you see the children alive, though altered. And in the 1971 film that version of Wonka says that they will all be fine, but a little wiser. Someone tried to argue with me that he was just trying to placate Charlie. Really!? Since when did that Wonka ever lie to make people feel better?

Based on his previous behavior we have no reason to believe Wonka would lie just to make Charlie feel better. It's just a dark, edgy, annoying headcanon to pretend Wonka killed those other kids when every version tells you they survived.

____________________________

2. Grandpa Joe was not "Faking it" or "being lazy." It seems ironic to me that so many rant and even get genuinely angry about the character Grandpa Joe. It is especially odd to me when the rage is in regard to the depiction in the 1971 film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory.

The reason it is odd to me is because in the 1971 film Grandpa Joe very clearly was suffering through severe depression, possibly a long bipolar depression phase.

The depression is clear in his "I've got a golden Ticket" song.

"I never thought my life could be Anything but catastrophe"

"I never had a chance to shine Never a happy song to sing"

It seems weird to me that today people shame characters like Cinderella for not being assertive and empowered when she's a live-long abuse victim. And then you have the people against Disney's The Little Mermaid who say she gave up who and what she is for a man but ignore that she had a song number from before she ever saw Eric, where she expressed body dysphoria and made clear she wanted to be human even then.

And you have a large part of the Internet shaming Grampa Joe for being "lazy" and "faking being sick' while he's literally telling us that he he's been in a severe depression.

It's almost like watching a generation that supposedly respects mental illness and understands depression in ways previous generations didn't... suddenly having a justification to shame someone for having all the symptoms of clinical depression.

Hell, even the song "I've got a Golden Ticket" kind of indicates Grandpa Joe is entering a manic phase. If Grandpa Joe's illness is psychological why do we treat it as not-real? I get so annoyed at how many people mock the character or act like he's a con artist exploiting Charlie.

________________________

3. The Oompa Loompas were not slaves.

It's true that the earliest depictions of the Oompa Loompas were little African people (before the novel was revised) but in all versions he tells the kids that he pays them in coca-beans. That might sound like he pays them in fallen acorns he found in his garden but it's made clear that to Oompa Loompas, in their society, coca-beans are worth more than gold.

Try to imagine you got a job working for aliens who offer to pay you in large bars of gold if you just help him make some gold jewelry. But because gold isn't worth THAT much to these aliens they think you're a pathetic slave, even though Lofty (the Oompa Loompa from the new Wonka movie) probably now has a palace on Loompa Land that he uses as a summer house.

Interesting bit of trivia: Charlie was originally going to be black.

___________________________

4. Wonka (2023) is NOT a remake. A lot of people mistakenly think this is yet another remake. No. It's a musical prequel to the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971. ________________________

5. Lots of fans have "figured out" that the shoe shine boy Wonka sees early in Wonka is Charlie. One small problem with that. This is twenty-something Willy Wonka. Wonka was supposed to be pushing fifty or sixty when he went looking for an heir. The timeline wouldn't work. The director has confirmed that for this reason the shoe shine boy is NOT Charlie Bucket.

And there you go. A list of popular Wonka misconceptions debunked.

#Willy Wonka #Wonka #Charlie and the Chocolate Factory #Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

[paintaboveyourbones]

David fighting for his life during his date night dinner with Lestat.

David : Leatat, no

Lestat: Lestat, OUI

Forget AMC IwtV Daniel, book David was the original old man fighting for his life against a manic gay vampires

I laugh so I can also process the fact that underneath the usual Lestat ass-clownery this is also a really good depiction of what it’s like to be in a relationship where the other person is spiraling or not regulating and their partner doesn’t catch it.

Lestat is fresh off an attempt at ending his life in the desert and - hey look at that he survived! Just like that, he’s back to being good ole’ Lestat. And, some of this misunderstanding we can write off to David being So Terribly British (stuff upper lip, don’t talk about your feelings too much), but the other part is understandably just Lestat always kind of being a mess.

So if someone’s basic personality is Clown everyone around them just kind of gets to a place where …. Oh that’s just Lestat, I guess? Lol

So what do you when the other persons usual level of manic energy begins to go into over drive? Again, there’s no way David can know because Lestat isn’t communicating to him about the Claudia dreams, and how weird he feels post-Akasha about his new powers and how he doesn’t even feel human anymore. He’s just spent the last 6 months traveling the world and killing serial killers because they’re a convenient symbolic stand in for how Lestat sees himself at this point. Killing them again and again he has the opportunity to live out his fantasy of self harm and destruction.

But again, David’s in the dark. So to him it’s just another case of Lestat typically being messy and not having his shit together and he’s getting more and more irritated.

Which is familiar to anyone who went through their unmedicated period in a relationship.

Can’t you just listen to common sense?

I’m getting sick of your BS

Can’t you just be normal for once?

Why are you acting like that?

And then just a few pages later there's this interesting contrast with Louis where the opposite is happening. Louis might not know that everything is going off the fucking handrails, but he's showing up. He's being present in their relationship, but because he's not engaging in any of Lestat's love languages (words of affirmation, gift giving) and Lestat is going through it, he's missing all the signs and viewing Louis' care for him through this super distorted lens.

Hahah, it's not like Louis is actually showing up because he might actually want to spend time with me or anything. Lollll that would be super weird right? Because, like, I hate myself. Haha I'm literal TRASH LOLOLOLOL Like, no one could ever just want to spend a night watching movies all of which are about ordinary people being elevated through their love of what is monstrous or anything. Louis must just really like my apartment and my TV and my shower because all of these things and the things I could buy for him just have so much more intrinsic value that the presence of my being 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

everything is pain

And then when Louis DOES realize how deep in Lestat is, he deflects. Absolutely can not handle it.

#tvc #anne rice #iwtv #lestat #totbt #tale of the body thief #lestat de lioncourt #david talbot #Lestat/david #david/lestat #loustat #louis de pointe du lac #louis/lestat #lestat/louis #tvc reread #vc meta

[beesmygod]

people on tumblr are only seeing a fraction of the amount of jojoposting ive been doing. who couldnt love the adventures of the joestar family

part 1: the only kind-hearted englishman on earth in the 1800s meets the most evil and most gay bitch in the entirety of human history. dio brando finally defeats jonathon joestar in their slowly escalating, lifelong sibling rivalry by becoming a vampire with an instant kill eyeball laser-beam. with the help of a solar powered italian and a homosexual in the midst of a manic episode, he narrowly defeats dio at the cost of his own life.

part 2: the manic homosexual (mr. robert e. o. speedwagon), dedicates the remainder of his life and oil speculation fortune on supporting the joestar family forever and ever, as well as destroying any remaining stone masks that turn you into vampires with instant kill eyeball laser-beams. his efforts awaken a crew of mysterious, powerful and very homosexual vampire god-men from the depths of the earth and it's up to jonathon's grandson, joseph joestar to use his hamon and wiles to stop them. he'll do whatever it takes, even and especially if he has to climb a big leaking pole while wearing a BDSM mask that controls his breathing.

part 3: dio's back, baby! and this time he's gayer than ever! joseph joestar, now in his 60s, recruits his autistic (positive) grandson jotaro kujo in his newest quest to make sure dio stays dead for good this time. his crack team of anti-dio experts is comprised of a frenchman who just wants to take a shit, joseph's personal buddy from egypt, a boston terrier that transforms into a chihuahua, and a high school teenager with more brains than everyone else combined. in a globe-trotting adventure, joseph joestar and da boyz use their "stands" (powerful dudes) to battle enemies with stands based on whatever horror movie araki watched recently and gather information before dio becomes too powerful and too gay to be stopped. a heartwarming story about a little boy who, after 47 episodes, finally says a badass one-liner.

part 4: jotaro kujo is cleaning up a big mess left by dio and his minions: a bunch of them went around firing magical arrows into people around the town of morioh and giving them stand powers. jotaro recruits the help of his 16 year old uncle (long story) josuke higashikata, at least 3 other teenagers and a gay bitch named kishibe rohan to help him clean up the town. however...a dark secret lurks in morioh...a murderous pervert with four fucking stands (?!) named yoshikage kira!!! can jotaro and da boyz stop this sadistic serial killer from living a peaceful life!? FUN FACT: this is the first piece of media to depict an italian as heroic

part 5: this is the one im on and im not finished yet, but i'm pretty sure it's just about the first ever they/them nonbinary mafia protecting the bosses' daughter. our protagonist, giorno giovanna, is the son of both dio and jonathon (long story) and he does not seem to understand what a mafia is or what it does. however, he tell his future capo that all he wants is to be a "GANG-STAR". he does not elaborate on this.

thats all i know dont tell me anything else. these are the most surface descriptions possible. when you get into details you can really get lost in the weeds.

#jjba #text

[boreal-sea]

"Stop telling people to encourage the cop inside their head...you do not need to be careful" "I can write tentacle noncon of my favorite character all day long" Ahh. It's always about finding ways to justify rape, isn't it? Fantasizing about rape absolutely makes you a bad person, and definitely tells a lot about your character. If you can masturbate to it, you're definitely okay with it to some degree. Studies show men exposed to rape porn are more likely to believe women enjoy rape and that it's not that big of a crime, especially if the victim shows a positive reaction to it. Fictional acting doesn't change the fact that your orgasm is real. These things DO affect real life. So pathetic.

"Fantasizing about rape absolutely makes you a bad person."

No it doesn't. Thoughtcrime is not real. I just imagined a random person getting stabbed right now, just to do it. Didn't make me a bad person.

I see you quote studies about cis men watching rape fantasy porn. But did you know that the women in those videos aren't actually being raped? They are actresses. They are playing a role. I notice you also don't cite any studies about cis women who enjoy rape fantasies. Do the studies show that these women also think real-life rape victims secretly enjoy being raped? And how do those numbers change when you involve trans people, including binary and nonbinary trans people?

I'm sorry but statistics about a single demographic of humans just isn't very convincing to me, especially when that demographic is cis men. Y'all always act like they are the only demographic that matters when it comes to sexual fantasy, and that's super weird to me.

And I'd argue that the idea that real-life women secretly like being raped is not caused by porn, but that the trope itself is a symptom of the patriarchy. That said, I don't think rape fantasies would disappear if the patriarchy disappeared. Because again, "this woman secretly enjoyed being raped and ravaged" is not exclusive to porn catered towards cis men. It's literally an entire romance novel genre written by and catered towards women. In this case, the reader is placing herself not in the position of the offender, but that of the victim. One could argue that these novels, because they reveal the inner thoughts of the character and how much she's actually enjoying the rape, are even more harmful than porn movies, since at least in the movie, we aren't 100% sure if the character the porn actress is playing is actually enjoying it, since we're not privy to the character's thoughts.

Hey - do you like horror movies? Do you think the writers, directors, crew, and actors are trying to justify violence? Do you think the people who made Friday the 13th all want to murder teenagers at campgrounds? Do you think the fans who watch these movies and delight in the violence and laugh at it are all secretly serial killers? Because I don't know if you're aware of this, but horror movies are very fun, and audience members do typically enjoy the murders.

What about the hit TV show Hannibal? Do you think the people who made it think cannibalism is ok? The show really glorifies cannibalism, rolls it up in a mixture of horror, eroticism and elegance. The main character Will is an incredibly unreliable narrator with regards to Hannibal, because he's partly in love with Hannibal, partly terrified of him, and literally suffering from a brain fever half of one of the seasons. But you're supposed to root for them anyway, you're supposed to be so swept up in their fucked up romance that when Will "betrays" Hannibal, you're supposed to feel heartbreak, and when they finally murder someone together and then plunge off a cliff in blood-soaked ecstasy, that's supposed to be a moment of elated victory.

What about Oldboy? You must HATE this movie - it depicts alcoholism, kidnapping, mind control, and torture. Oh yeah and incest. Is Oldboy trying to justify incest? The ending is kinda vague on what happens to the two main characters, after all.

What about action movies where the hero kills dozens or maybe hundreds of nameless characters on his way to kill the main villain? Are those movies trying to justify violence? They're definitely glorifying the violence.

And me? My noncon fanfic? I'm afab. I still identify as female. I've been into noncon since long before I came out as transmasc. I was finding things like men being tied up fascinating even in my teens, before I ever learned what bondage was.

There was a statue of some colonial guy with his hands tied behind his back in a museum. I stared at that statue for a really long time. Another time during this same age, we watched a Zorro movie, and Zorro was standing there very heroically, all tied up, and I found the scene very moving. Then, again in high school, a buddy was playing Metal Gear Solid. At one point in that game, a robot with long tentacle-like robot arms grabs one of the main characters, Raiden, and squeezes him and thrashes him around a bit. This time, the feelings I felt were definitely erotic.

I had never seen porn at that age. I did not know what bondage was. I didn't know BDSM was a thing. But I still, naturally, all on my own, found bondage erotic - and bondage can have elements of noncon to it. It certainly did in the fantasies I was experiencing. That's because these fantasies and kinks are natural human things. It is NORMAL to find this shit erotic.

Now. If you're watching porn that features rape fantasies and you start to believe that real-life people might secretly enjoy actually being raped, then you need to stop watching that kind of porn. But that applies to anything. If you watch a bunch of horror movies and start to think that maybe, murder is actually good, then you should probably stop watching horror movies. I'm not saying media can't affect people. But I AM saying that's not something that happens to everyone, and I am saying that most people are fully capable of consuming media in responsible ways.

Fictional rape is not about real people. I absolutely do want to justify the continuation of fictional depictions of the taboo and the forbidden, because these are perfectly normal fantasies that humans have had probably for our entire existence.

#tw noncon mention #tw rape mention

[yallemagne]

So far asking for textual queerness in Dracula media since it's not the 1890's or Hays Code era anymore to self-censor as much is a monkey's paw, because so far we've got: 1) "bi-homicidal" Dracula in love-hate with woman Van Helsing 2) queer Lucy who punishes Mina for not loving her back and gets killed by Dracula over this (and for being the promiscuous sapphic trope in two cases)

I'd rather have the

You cut off there, bud. I'm guessing you're saying you'd rather have unhealthy straight than unhealthy queer dynamics displayed. I'd just rather have good media.

Yeah, I don't enjoy the tendency of casting queer people as these evil, corruptive, predatory creatures rather than... ya know. Human beings. I feel like the tendency of making queer people just straight-up awful is probably left over from when we could get no representation whatsoever. In order to publish stories featuring themselves, queer people had to write morally dubious/evil queer characters that always die in the end. That's fair. Until you get straight people writing those fucking stories so they can claim diversity whilst also shitting on anyone not cishet, white, and Christian.

So, "bi-homicidal" Dracula... it's telling that they felt the need to make VH a woman. Not only a woman but just a very strange and homophobic woman. Agatha van Helsing would corner a gay couple and harass them until they told her who was the bottom and who was the top. Everything about the Dracula miniseries was annoying. It's telling that they were so uncomfortable with the bi part of bisexual that they killed Jonathan off in the first episode and replaced him with a woman. AND IT IS VERY TELLING that they gave all the queer characters and the characters of colour the most unnecessarily brutal deaths. HMMM MOFFAT.

It's because of heteronormativity that Dracula had to switch from Jonathan to Agatha. The bisexuality is less representation, and more of a crutch. Dracula can switch off his attraction to men whenever the straight male writers get too uncomfortable with it, but whenever they need it for a horror scene, he can turn it right back on.

Lucy who punishes Mina is just promiscuous Lucy but reclaimed as a "girlboss". It casts sapphic people as predatory, it casts bisexual people as more promiscuous and willing to cheat and homewreck, it's annoying. You can write a story where Lucy is queer (in fact, most do, but they just make that part of the sexual deviancy of the Bloofer Lady), but because of the rule that you're not allowed to depict healthy relationships onscreen because they're "boring", we get this shit. Lucy's just Dracula at that point. She's the replacement Dracula who gets punished by the actual Dracula for stealing his idea.

The issue here is adaptations' refusal to have Lucy be the sweet young woman she is in the book. No adaptation can accept more "submissive" or "girly" girls, they have to be subversive and manly (but not in a butch way, never in a butch way). Women have to be overtly sexual and sarcastic and just basically toxic men but with tits. The only way to be femme in a movie is to be a femme fatale who objectifies herself to? Get back at men? Great plan. But sometimes you don't WANT to be fatale, you just want to be fucking femme and kiss your girlfriend. But since these movies are made with only the male gaze in mind, you can't.

And listen, I know someone's gonna blame me if I keep begging for Holmward and then an adaptation comes out where Jack like... I dunno, kills Lucy so he can have Arthur all to himself, but that's just the cards we're being dealt here. The solution isn't to settle for eating shit, it's to demand something better than the shit on our plates. It's not our fault for asking for representation. We aren't inflicting this upon ourselves. If I asked for a movie about an ace person and Hollywood responded with a movie about a sex-repulsed serial killer who kills people who have sex, THAT ISN'T MY FAULT. THIS ISN'T A MONKEY PAW SITUATION, THIS IS JUST BAD WRITING. I'm not being karmically punished for challenging the laws of nature, mainstream media just sucks in terms of representation.

#update #people ask me things #dracula #dracula daily #dracula rant #rant

[snail-speed]

I dunno if this will be seen as me missing the point of these, but I seriously hate how those weird dystopian sci-fi movies get treated as in any way a good representation of society.

Specifically, treated as if they're accurate depictions of human nature and how everyone wants to act, deep down. The Cube, The Platform, all other movies like that, I think they're full of shit.

They're all about situations where characters are in the most stressful, hostile environments possible. No fucking shit everyone acts like an asshole, being starved to death and/or getting placed into a fucking Torment Nexus will do that to you. That does not speak for however those characters would act in a normal setting, and it sure as fuck doesn't speak about the behavior of people IRL.

Those movies and series are good representations of the cruelty of governments and businesses, and I do see merit in them for that. But as "proof" we're all awful little murderhobos waiting for the right trigger to act like serial killers? Fuck off.

[iconlytical]

JEFFREY DAHMER, AGAIN?

if you are making jokes or tiktoks about this show, you are quite disgusting

unfortunately, another form of media has been made about life of jeffrey dahmer even though there are countless shows, documentaries and movies.

if you don't know who this horrible, disgusting man is/was, then you must live under a rock, but i will tell you. jeffrey dahmer was an american serial killer and sex offender who committed the murder and dismemberment of seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991. he is also known as the milwaukee cannibal or the milwaukee monster. majority of the men and boys he killed were black or poc. it was horrific how long he could commit the crimes he did. even though dahmer wasn't genuinely insane, he entered a plea of guilty but insane in 15 of the 17 murders he confessed to committing, so he was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences. he couldn't get the death penalty since it was abolished in wisconsin in 1853. he died while serving his time in prison. he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate, christopher scarver, on november 28, 1994, at the columbia correctional facility in wisconsin.

now enough about that disgrace of a human. on to netflix, the greedy.

on september 21, 2022, netflix released a show about dahmer called "dahmer – monster: the jeffrey dahmer story." when i first heard about this show, the first thought that came to my mind was "another one." there had already been countless things made about him, so why again. there was a movie, my friend dahmer, made about him about 4 years ago starring ross lynch even though some people thought the movie was mad, it still was made. this netflix series starred evan peters as dahmer who is a well-rounded actor.

the problem was netflix was that they decided to make this series even though the victims' families didn't want it made and didn't even offer the victims the money they made from the series, especially since it's been in the top 10 since it came out.

the whole dahmer case was a big racial thing for black people and having it all depicted for everyone to see just makes it worse. i just think if they were going to make a show about real life then the people who were affected should get what is made.

after the release, then came jokes about the series like this weren't about something that really happened. i don't find them funny and i truly think it's disgusting, especially if you're black laughing at something that occurred in another black person's life causing their death. there were also people on tiktok talking about dahmer looked good and they feel bad. first off, he was a fucking serial killer, he killed people and ate some of their body parts. second, evan peters is not actually jeffrey dahmer and he didn't look good, so you in fact have poor taste. if you fetishize serial killers, seek help!

overall, the show was pretty pointless besides trying to depict what happened in a nicer way but it was more realistic. we already know about this man, please hang it up or give these families some money since you're profiting off of their trauma.

bye :)

#jeffrey dahmer #monster #evan peters #netflix #tv series #serial killer #again #ross lynch #my friend dahmer #not funny

[nazaningosili]

1. The pre-echoes of a revolution

The Holy Spider, is a 2022 Persian language crime- thriller, directed by Ali Abbasi. The story is based on true events that took place in Mashhad, Iran. From 2000 to 2001 a serial killer targeting sex workers, killed 16 women. To tell the story in a way that was both relevant to the time and relatable to the audience, the film depicts a fictional female journalist investigating the mentioned serial killer, where the authorities refuse to do so in relation to religious ideologies and misogynistic behaviors.

The development of this movie started in 2016, but mostly due to Covid-19 restrictions, the filming was postponed to May 2021; It only took 35 days. The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 22nd. Exactly 4 months before the death of “Mahsa Amini” and the start of the " Woman, Life, Freedom " movement in Iran. On 16 September 2022, and in light of Masha Amani’s murder because of her “improper hijab”, protests started against mandatory hijab laws, with woman burning their scarves in public. This is the part that I explain the irony of these events.

The premier of a movie that took 35 days to film, was postponed, unintentionally, for six years. A movie about extremist religious behavior, ignorance, deep rooted misogyny, a film that depicts ridiculous restrictions on women, was postponed for six years, only to be shown to the world, right before what is being called the first female-led revolution in the history of humans. (I do realize that this might not be historically accurate, but I will take it.)

Thanks to this movie, and its success at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, we had an internationally recognized, two-hour movie, that showcases the problem of “misusing religion” to justify the most horrific acts a human being can perform, while also presenting all the restrictions and oppressions, the women of this country are being presented with on a daily basis in the name of religion.

Clarification for all the people who have the privilege of not being “political” and don’t want to “offend people”: No, this is not Islamophobia. No, the people of Iran, burning their “mandatory” hijab, is not Islamophobic. These are demonstrations against a government that has used “Islam” to oppress its people for 40+ years. Understand the distinction. When a whole nation, all those inside the country and outside, are calling on you to PAY ATTENTION, please look further than just one article, one news platform or that one celebrity who made an Instagram reel to be a part of the “trend”; find real sources, find real people, and actually listen to what they are saying. when the whole ass nation is SHOUTING in every corner of the globe, all you need to do is LISTEN.

Because of the socio-political and economic situation that the country has been backed into, these protests very quickly turned into a socio-political uprising. And now, after 6 months, it can only be classified as an on-going revolution against a religious dictatorship. The combination of politics and religion was never a good idea, But the atrocities done in the name of “religion” for political gain… I don’t really blame the people if they are sick of all the religious ideologies they have been force fed.

Abbasi said “It was more about how a society creates a serial killer." In the narrative we see how the serial killer’s son, goes through all the different emotional stages, a person in his position would logically experience; but then we also see the religious and social justifications of a heinous act, that leads to him changing his perspective. The last scene of the film, will tell you everything you need to know about the root of the problem. The way the boy is standing over the little girl, willingly putting herself in that situation, defenseless, because neither of them know better. “It is about how a society creates a serial killer."

The rotten tomatoes website's consensus reads, "Holy Spider foregoes subtlety in favor of a viscerally outraged dramatization inspired by appalling actual events."

The religious justifications of certain barbaric acts are so unimaginable, that for them to be comprehensible for any audience, in the case of The Holy Spider, the script, needed to become “fictional”. This is still the case with what has been happening during the past 6 months.

Woman, Life, Freedom. That’s what it’s all about.

[docrotten]

CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (APOCALYPSE DOMANI, 1980) – Episode 216 – Decades Of Horror 1980s

“It says here the body showed signs of cannibalism. … That’s what it says, Chief!” Exactly what are “signs of cannibalism,” Chief? Join your faithful Grue-Crew – Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, Crystal Cleveland, and Jeff Mohr  – as they investigate the “signs” in Antonio Margheriti’s Cannibal Apocalypse (1980), starring John Saxon.

Decades of Horror 1980s Episode 216 – Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)

Join the Crew on the Gruesome Magazine YouTube channel! Subscribe today! And click the alert to get notified of new content! https://youtube.com/gruesomemagazine

Mentally unstable Vietnam vets who were held captive by the Vietcong come back to America after being rescued carrying a dangerous virus that turns people into cannibals when bitten.

IMDb

  Director: Antonio Margheriti (as Anthony M. Dawson)

Writers: Antonio Margheriti (screenplay) (as Anthony M. Dawson), Dardano Sacchetti (screenplay & story) (as Jimmy Gould)

Music: Alexander Blonksteiner

Special Effects

Giannetto De Rossi (special effects)

Bob Shelley (special effects coordinator)

Selected Cast:

John Saxon as Norman Hopper

Elizabeth Turner as Jane Hopper

Giovanni Lombardo Radice as Charlie Bukowski (billed as John Morghen)

Cinzia De Carolis as Mary (billed as Cindy Hamilton)

Tony King as Tommy Thompson

Wallace Wilkinson as Captain McCoy

Ramiro Oliveros as Dr. Phil Mendez (billed as Ray Williams)

May Heatherly as Nurse Helen

Renzo Marignano as Dr. Morris

Venantino Venantini as Lt. Hill

Jere Beery as Biker Leader

Luca Venantini as Bobby

Joan Riordan as Tina

Don Ruffin as Carlos

Goffredo Unger as Mall Guard

Did you ever have one of those movies that you didn’t think you’d seen, but when you finally watched it, it turned out you already had? That’s the case for Chad and his pick for this episode, Cannibal Apocalypse, also known as Cannibals in the Streets, Cannibal Massacre, Cannibals in the City, Invasion of the Fleshhunters, Savage Apocalypse, Savage Slaughterers, The Slaughterers, Apocalypse domani, and Asphalt-Kannibalen. With all those alternate titles, it’s easy to see how he might have been confused.

This time around, Chad points out that this allegory for Viet Nam veterans returning home has no one to root for. He’s a John Saxon fan and thinks he is the best thing about the movie, but he is perplexed by the film and the fact that it even exists.

Crystal loves John Saxon as well, especially his confused and shocked look when he sees his troops in the pit eating human flesh. The film is trying to be serious with a metaphor depicting PTSD as some type of contagious cannibalism but in the end, it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. And beware! There are triggers aplenty.

Bill generally appreciates director Margheriti’s work and can see why Quentin Tarantino likes him, but Cannibal Apocalypse feels to him like Margheriti wanted to make a Viet Nam movie but could only get money for a horror film and it turns out to be a bit of a mess. He does like the idea of war as a virus that comes home. Just because you’re no longer on the battlefield doesn’t mean you can escape it.

Margheriti’s The Long Hair of Death (1965) was covered in Decades of Horror: The Classic Era Episode 110 but Jeff sees few similarities between that and Cannibal Apocalypse. He loves Giannetto De Rossi’s special effects and of course, John Saxon’s performance, but also gives a trigger warning for several scenes.

At the time of this writing,  Cannibal Apocalypse is available to stream from Tubi and on physical media as a Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

Every two weeks, Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s podcast will cover another horror film from the 1980s. The next episode’s film, chosen by Jeff, will be Lady in White (1988), a serial killer/ghost story starring Lukas Haas.

Please let them know how they’re doing! They want to hear from you – the coolest, grooviest fans:  leave them a message or leave a comment on the gruesome Magazine Youtube channel, on the website or email the Decades of Horror 1980s podcast hosts at [email protected]

  Check out this episode!

[langernameohnebedeutung]

The annoying thing about the youth-fixiation in acting and everything else is that older actors are simply better. ///

I believe there is a lot of young talent ….unfortunately most don’t get big roles or opportunities due to lack of looks or marketing. You have to remember…..Hollywood is a business. If they actually cared about talent SO MANY things would be different. I’m glad many actors past 60 are still working just sucks that many of their roles are limited, but I don’t think it’s fully fair to compare someone in their 60s who’s been acting a long time to someone in their 20s/30s. At one point that 60 year old was a rookie. Some people sucked when they first started and eventually got better. Some folks have been trained and came out full force with greatness. It’s one thing to have talent to act it’s another thing to take that talent and be able to know the technical aspect and how to depict things on camera. Acting isn’t easy and we see that when many actors make things look so simple and easy because they are that good, but yes there are individuals who have no reason to be labeled an “actor” because they just suck. Lol

Oh, I definitely agree - there are many talented young actors (many of which are getting sidelined due to looks or discrimination or because they don't have the right contacts or networks in the industry) - and acting is a skill that takes time to perfect, just like any other skill. And the thing is, of course it's not fair to say 'wow older actors are so much better than younger ones!' and ignore the experience-gap and that really wasn't my intention. It's completely normal that someone who is younger and doesn't work in a certain field as long doesn't have that same experience - and there are still many brilliant younger actors. (And quite a few older actors that always make me wonder how long their 80s smash hit cult movie can possibly keep their expressionless concrete-mug in business)

But the weird thing with the film industry is ... that in most other industries, the most talented person is put at the centre and the younger people work their way up and support them and learn by doing. The movie industry, however, is an accumulation of time-sensitive singular projects and obviously doesn't quite work the same way. In a hospital, you probably don't give your most complicated surgery to the guy who just finished med school and have the guy who did that surgery for twenty years watch the ventilator. A lawyer's office isn't going to give defending the rich serial killer with his fingerprints all over the victims' bodies to the rookie and have the best senior attorney who won all her cases on a 'their dog is pooping into my yard' case. And that's not because they don't respect these young people or don't see their potential for growth - but simply because they want the best result.

But Hollywood operates differently because these actors are part of the product. In fact, it stands to notice that opera and theatre are also more flexible than films. I've seen Hamlets of all ages, ethnicities, and genders. They're definitely not casting Siegfrieds, Wotans, and Brünnhildes based on how visually convincing they are in these roles. There is a much bigger range from 'hey, if we casted X in that role, what would it say about the story?' to 'fucking suspend your disbelief, it just matters how good this guy sings.' - but portrayal in mainstream (!) Hollywood movies these days really doesn't do that. (unless it is asking you to imagine that a 27 year old is actually 14).

Most films are about younger people compared to the...range of human life expectancy. The reason why I edited my post from saying 'youthficiation' to 'youth-fixiation' actually was that...well, thinking about it, it's not even a recent problem. Especially for actresses compared to actors - because having an older male lead character is much more common than an older female lead character. And pairing a male lead (especially an already famous actor) with a much, much younger female lead is a lot more popular than pairing an older female lead with a much younger male protagonist. And I think one way to solve this would be to actually tell all kinds of stories with characters from all kinds of different age brackets (and not every story with characters that are 40+ need to be about mid-life-crises or aging and handing over the reigns to some rookie or something. They can get a dumb vampire flick same as everyone else.)

I see the problem with balance (or lack thereof). I think one 'problem' with famous, big name older actors is that they're expensive. So they're only cast for a small role but it's advertised all over because it might just be your only selling point. That's how you get Patrick Stewart playing the poop emoji in the Emoji Movie (although, from a place of love Patrick, 'no' is a word that is free to say). But putting famous older actors front and centre is also extremely expensive. So you might want a cheaper lead.

And this isn't bad - as long as the rest of your film holds up. If you have two talented leads (even if they're not famous and even if they're need a lot of cues and coaching etc), the difference between their acting and one or two scenes with really seasoned actors won't stand out nearly as much. (But also, coaching, lots and lots of takes etc. also costs time and money - and the authority and leverage for an actor to say 'no, I want to do it like this/no I want X, I want more takes, I want to change this line, this angle' - that also all has to do with experience and influence, I'd imagine.)

The real problem is if (on the one hand) the leads are...well, rather mediocre and (on the other hand) one or more side-character/s in a really minor role draws all the intention/audience emotion - that makes the film as a whole easily appear unbalanced for me and I will always be sitting there, hoping to see the 1 talented person again, doing their thing - even if it's not part of the major plot. At the point where I'm more interested by just a person doing their own thing in the living room and not the high-stakes mainplot, I feel like there is something off.

I think the most famous example for this problem would be child actors. There are brilliant child actors! Child actors that act beyond their years - especially if they get the right coaching and direction. Many of them don't deserve the bad rep child actors get. But even for those who do, directing, scene compositions, cues, timing, pacing, cuts etc can make a world of difference. Also, stuff like children's movies really call for child actors to be front and centre - but your average rom-com doesn't call for the leads to be 22. Children's movies are about children, that's the point. But when it comes to movies for an adult audience (...not the raunchy kind), I really think it would help if the ages and experience-levels of the actors involved were spread out more evenly over the cast. I think that would be the easiest way to smooth that problem over a little.

#sorry it took me a while to answer!

[jocrude]

Do War Films Exist?: A Schizopost

“Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to their soldiers is like a serial killer making a movie about what stopping for hitchhikers did to his clutch.”

- Frankie Boyle Francois Truffaut once said that there is no such thing as an anti-war film. I wonder, is there even such a thing as a war film to begin with? Several years ago in my adolescence I was reading some askreddit posts and whatnot, killing time, falling down morbid internet rabbitholes as one does; Vicariously escaping my my curious predicament of being tramautised and depressed and constantly exposed to the undercurrent of fear and violence and neglect and “what-if” shadows at the foot of the bed that flow and coalesce as in all troubled not-quite-broken homes, but also being decently well-off and comfortable in my American Dream “riding-the-neoliberal-boom” PMC family and able to eat and get just about anything I wanted after maybe a bit of whinging since it was easier to crystallise care by proxy in objects rather than confront how fucked up your family situation actually is. I was reading a post asking people who’d experienced war what they thought of anti-war films, what they thought the best anti-war film was, what they thought the most accurate one was. They said that in general they kind of laughed at war/anti-war films, found them inaccurate and hammy and ignorant-preachy depictions of war. The writers, the actors, the directors, and maybe even the audience of all those 20th-century war films are all part of the same artistic viewpoint. The cream of the crop of the West’s long cocaine high, riding the waves of the American dream and of course feeling the turbulence underfoot but too in the zone, man, for it to amount to much, the knowledge the comedown is coming is in the back of their head and if they concentrate enough on it they can feel it real in their body but their psyche is too zooted an environment for such sober thought-body-action-mechanisms to take root, and be grounded to the earth. What I mean is that these people have the privilege that they can view war as a concept. An isolated whole, represented to them by headlines and statistics and tv footage and art, in varying degrees of abstraction from the real events occuring. While the real, horrible, terrible fact that we are all being consumed by these great incomprehensible are-they-real-or-abstract? global political forces that leave chaos and mayhem and the blood of real life actual babies in their wake (War) is just an ill wind undercurrent that rustles the grass these privileged people stand on. The dissonance must be resolved, and their conscious mind makes up rationalisations about how art can change the world, and they depict war and make that war look very bad and hopefully people’s hearts and minds will change and they’ll put an end to war.

War films are abstract art. Because war as a concept-in-itself, an isolated whole, is an abstraction. In real life there is wartime, In real life there are events that occur during wartime, but there is no war-in-itself. The western cream of the crop, the privileged, peaceful people, don’t see very well the constant dialectical torrent of conflicts and struggles and social energies that eventually outgas in the form of what the Western academics call a war. What Western academics call a war, and crystallise it and isolate it and mount it on a slide, prepare it as a specimen of study. Thinking about war like that is like viewing of the entirety of the human condition in the terms of a few dyed specks and clumps of skin cells through a microscope. I remember one person in that thread said that their grandma or somebody, who had lived through World War 2 as a child, said that most war films were very unrealistic, but when they saw Come And See they said “yes, this comes close.” I also remember one of my old teachers, woodshop teacher, a chill and kind of cooked rambly oldhead movie nerd, you know the type, saying how Come And See is a beautiful film, and that at its core it’s a romance story. This is the paradox of trying to depict war in films. If you do it “accurately”, focusing on a depiction of the conflicts taking place, you just get people shooting at each other and things going boom. You’d get an action movie, and really not even a very good one, and even action movies which are mostly just like theme parks generally try to have a story in between the rides. And the more you try and make the war movie “mean something”, the more you try to send your anti-war message, the more abstracted it becomes, because war is not something we choose to wage, but an environment that some people must live their lives in and some people who do not live their lives in that environment must grapple with their empathy and make sense of. The people who are not in an environment of war feel a vague survivor’s guilt. People far off are dying and it’s so so wrong and even though we like to think we are free and capable agents it’s out of the hands of a lone individual to control. If we try to ignore it, that goes against our sense of empathy. But if we occupy our minds with it, we become more and more unhappy but as lone individuals don’t know what to do, don’t see a way out, don’t have much power to fight against this tide of great injustice. So there’s a tension that we must release, there’s a dissatisfaction, and we try to externalise it and capture it in the form of art. For the people who are in an environment of war, well, life goes on as usual. Until it doesn’t. Goya and Otto Dix did not draw their masterpieces under fire.

#war #art #anti-war #film #vietnam #frankie boyle #francisco goya #otto dix

[theparanormalperiodical]

Top 10 Controversial Horror Films That Are Famous For All The Wrong Reasons *gags* *cries*

At the beating heart of horror is offence.

From that undeniable sense of something not being quite right, to the CGI-blood-spurtin’-adrenaline-fuelled scenes that leave us shaking in our boots, horror pivots on the knife edge of controversy.

It’s used to drive plots. It’s used to drive hype. And at the end of the month, it drives studio executives to the bank.

Horror films can be traumatic enough. But there are some films that bear the cross of controversy more than others. There are some films that have been branded as so damaging to their potential viewers that merely circulating copies of the film is illegal.

And yet their infamy has forged cult viewership. What was once shielded from us has now become ‘must see’.

Today we are going to be counting down horror’s most controversial films and what made them quite so topical.

*I’m going to star the ones that you can actually watch without getting traumatised. Some are controversial not because of their content but because some religious or political groups disagreed with them*

#10 - The Blair Witch Project (1999)*

Let’s ease in with a classic - a classic you can watch without sleeping with the light on.

In this found-footage flick we see a team of film students as they explore a local urban legend. But what they find leads them to unknown and ungodly territory.

The problem with this film is that it was marketed as a true story. No, not based on a true story, a true story. Yep, they claimed what we were seeing was real, found footage of some teens going mad as they forage deeper into mysterious woods.

IMBd went so far as to report that the actors were dead. Then, the movie studio super-charged their efforts to confirm to the public that not only was this film 100% real, the three main actors were still missing. The parents of the actors then started receiving sympathy cards.

There’s even a mocked up website that perpetuates these claims. 

#9 - Night Of The Living Dead (1968)*

Time for another not-too-disturbing film.

This is the original zombie apocalypse film saw a group of Americans attempt to survive an incoming attack of the undead while trapped in a rural farmhouse.

But the Motion Picture Association of America wasn’t too happy about it. The film rating system was yet to be in place, allowing children to also show up for an afternoon screening and be greeted by a 97 minute montage of extreme violence.

“The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying”

#8 - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

In this psychological film, we watch a random crime spree take place at the hands of a couple serial killers. Loosely based on real murderers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, its controversial reputation was founded on the gore ‘n’ guts screened in the movie.

Whilst it didn’t receive much attention from the public, various classification boards across the world ensured new versions edited with certain scenes - often involving sexual assault and necrophilia - removed for viewers.

In 2003, the BBFC (the UK classification board) finally allowed the uncut version to be released and Australia followed suit in 2005.

#7 - I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

It’s the original rape-revenge flick. And it managed to piss everyone off.

Originally titled Day of the Woman, it tells the story of a fiction writer who exacts revenge on a group of four men who gang rape her.

Despite its pro-women claim-to-fame, the 30 minute rape scene begs to differ. Furious debate surrounds its feminist label as a film that forces the audience to endure rape from a female perspective and long-winded violence against men (something which is often reserved for women in horror). Regardless, the graphic violence earned it a steady ban in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany.

#6 - Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)*

You don’t get many controversial Christmas films. They typically stick to a cookie-cutter plot ‘n’ purpose every holiday season. But there are no strong women who need to rediscover the meaning of Christmas here.

Instead, we see a child traumatised by seeing his parents murdered on Christmas Eve go on a seasonal rampage as an adult.

A week after its release in the early 80s, it was pulled from theatres due to backlash. Marketing was focused on a Santa Claus killer with adverts often airing during family-friendly TV programmes and meant numerous children developed a phobia of Father Christmas. Large crowds protested cinemas with one notable protest involving angry families singing carols at the Interboro Quad Theater in The Bronx.

It was only in 2009 - 25 years after its original release - that a DVD of the film was first made available for purchase in the UK.

#5 - Psycho (1960)*

This legendary film follows the disappearance of a young woman after her encounter with a strange man called Norman Bates, one of horror’s most iconic figures. The controversy that would engulf this fim lay not in the violent attack on an innocent woman or even the disturbing content of the film.

Oh, no. It was because of what the leading lady was wearing.

In the opening scene of the film, we see Janet Leigh wearing nothing but a bra.

*gasp*

This racy attire was emblazoned across promotional material, meeting Hitchcock’s high standards of creating controversy around the movie. There was a no late admission policy for movie theaters, and the posters told viewers “Do not reveal the surprises!” to maintain a mysterious aura around the plot twist.

#4 - The Human Centipede (2009) (all of ‘em)

I’ve watched a lot of horror films, in case you couldn’t tell.

I’m used to watching a scary movie, shaking off the anxiety, and moving on with my life. But there are some that stayed with me. I only watched the trailer for the first movie, and it legitimately traumatised me. It gave me quite a severe, sudden bout of a depression for a solid month when I was 13.

Throughout horror’s goriest franchise, we see an evil doctor and amateur mad scientist attempt to sow several people together into a centipede-like chain from mouth to anus.

*retches*

At the heart of promoting the franchise was controversy. Tom Six, the director, forced a narrative that claimed from the first film that this was "100% medically accurate". He even alleged a Dutch doctor helped inspire the film, confirming that with an IV drip, this was entirely possible.

Although it didn’t receive furore that amounted to serious censorship or long-term banning, it was infamous for having its viewers vomiting in the cinema aisles.

The second film, however, was subject to much more severe controversy and could not legally be supplied in the UK until 2011 due to its heavy focus on sexual abuse, more graphic violence than the original film, and it’s pretty vile depiction of a murderer that was intellectually disabled.

Audiences were used to the graphic nature of the franchise by the third and final release. As the least-controversial and least-enjoyable film according to critics, it barely made a dent in the horror community.

Good riddance, I guess?

#3 - Faces Of Death (1978)

I’m not sure I’d recommend this one per se - but I will give it credit for being an interesting project.

This documentary-style film is a montage of footage of people dying in different ways. As a result of its very graphic and very real content, it was banned and censored in many countries. Only in 2003 was it released on DVD in the UK after a scene was cut featuring dogs fighting and a monkey being beaten to death.

Germany, Australia, and New Zealand followed suit, reversing their bans and releasing edited versions.

However, 7 years after its release, the media revamped its interest in the film after a maths teacher showed it to his class at a Californian high school. Two of his students claimed they were so traumatised they received a costly settlement to reimburse their emotional distress. Things took a darker turn a year later, when a 14 year old bludgeoned a classmate to death with a baseball bat; he claimed he wanted to see what it would be like to actually kill someone after watching Faces of Death.

#2 - Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This Italian film’s title alone hints towards two frightening things: flesh-eating humans and genocide. In this found-footage movie we see an anthropologist lead a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to find a group of filmmakers that went missing.

The rampant graphic content including sexual assault and animal cruelty showcased in the film (7 animals were killed during filming in some pretty horrific ways) led to it being banned in 50 countries.

Some also alleged that a handful of deaths seen in the film were real, as were the missing film crew. In fact, the actors portraying the documentarians signed contracts that stopped them appearing in motion pictures for an entire year to maintain the illusion of reality.

And only 10 days after its premiere, the director was charged with obscenity and the film confiscated. All copies were to be turned over to the authorities. There are currently a range of versions that have been edited to varying degrees and are allowed for circulation.

#1 - A Serbian Film (2010)

No.

Nope.

Don’t do it. Don’t watch this film.

A Serbian Film follows a retired porn star who agrees to feature in an “art film” for some cash. Little does he know this film will include rape, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia…

Just don’t watch it.

It is still banned in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia. It is supposedly a parody of politically correct films made in Serbia that are funded by foreign groups and allegedly speaks openly about post-war society and the struggle for survival.

*shakes head*

Off to have a 3 hour shower, brb.

If you, uhhh, liked this post please like and reblog.

And if you want to hear more about horror and the supernatural every week hit follow!

#horror #Horror Movies #horror films #best horror movies #scary movies #banned films #video nasty #a serbian film #human centipede #the blair witch project #cannibal holocaust #faces of death #banned movies #censorship #night of the living dea #controversy #controversial films

[gpsoftun]

Bryan, have you tried NOT being a blatantly bias scumbag?

Just a little experimentation. See if you like it.

"Have you tried not being a mutant?"

Real subtle, ground-breaking commentary there, Singer....

Besides the illegal amount of cringe that's in that short but sour line, there's another issue with this theme across the X-movies. Several sub-issues as well.

The gay metaphor for mutation does not work, especially in the film franchise. Hey, hey, put down those cancellation torches this instant! Sit your homo hides down and hear me out, please.

Firstly, as I've previously told you, you do NOT want Magneto's murderous terrorizing tendencies as your pride icon. Gays can also never make up the majority of the population like Erik wants for mutants because repopulating is kind of important. Gays don't grow on trees, dears.

Now, of course I don't believe every glbt-er is going to become a genocidal madman because of these lame movies. However, the awful execution of their messages is so problematic. Such media depictions oversimplify serious issues and make the whole thing an extremist us vs. them war exactly the way Magneto does.

As I made clear in my post yesterday, I'm not trying to take away any legitimacy from other people's experiences. I'm sure many of you have endured violence and hatred even within your own families.

There will always be those who don't approve of your choices due to their own personal beliefs. That's just the way it's always been and always will be with the variations of morality. However, if the gay orientation was detectable in the womb, many of those same people would fall on a grenade to prevent your mothers from terminating you. They would also join the manhunt for any serial killer/rapist targeting you. I know the media's narrative tries to convince you otherwise because drama and tension are more sensational, but they're wrong. Disapproval is NOT synonymous with hatred.

Who is this hateful enemy that takes pleasure in your torment and/or death? The hateful. No, it's not contained within one specific faith, group, or political party. That's more media spin. The actual hateful either have delusional ignorance or possible demonic possession(yes, really). The rest use hate as a weapon for their own convenience and power. Ironically, the hateful are the least discriminatory. They will come after you and any group to meet their own ends. History as well as the present prove that.

While you're on the lookout for men in white ghost costumes, churchgoers, red hats, and swastikas, you remain completely oblivious to the self-proclaiming progressives. Many of which who couldn't care less about you. You're a gimmick, a trend, a bit of taboo risque to exploit for online clout, PR, and political campaigns. They want to keep you separated, make you feel hated and alone to profit off your pain.

My 'God still loves the gays' tag isn't about pandering, kindness, or recruitment, as I have nothing to gain there. I say it because it's factually true, no matter who tries to convince you that He hates you. To deliberately try to hinder your relationship with Him is worse than all naughty night lives combined. You're not alone- deal with it.

No, I'm still not giving a resume of experiences to qualify the validity of these statements. Believe it, look it up, go grab a bagel- whatever. Yes, I crack jokes and think a LOT of slash fans need trauma counselors. I'm free to express myself the same as you are, but I'm not running to the headmasters of social media and public opinion to tattle on you. Filters and block options exist for a reason. If you perceive hatred from anything I say or write, you're a narcissist to think I'd waste time like that on you. I will not bow to your cause nor walk on eggshells around you. I will treat you like a human being- deal with it.

Further, in this age of coveted victimhood, make certain you do NOT emulate Magneto. Do NOT use vulgar behavior, bullying, or a gun to the head to force people to do anything. All you'll wind up accomplishing is using self-fulfilling prophecy to really make them your enemies.

Secondly, I have to share some very startling but nonetheless true news with you. You are not sub-human. You are not defined by your bedroom activity. Maybe you want to parade it around like it does but no. You might feel like you have to hide, but metaphysical conditions like mutations are not comparable to any lifestyle choice.

There are some breeds of humans of which you've probably never heard. There are heterosexual virgins content to die that way. There are asexuals- get your jaws off that floor- that opt for celibacy, but also those that get married to reproduce or for general companionship. These lifestyles- which have next to ZERO representation in mainstream media- do NOT define an individual. You aren't physically forced to give into feelings of any kind or put them on display. Otherwise, we'd be living in the rape-ster's paradise.

Beyond the sexual, others feel they have to stay closeted. Only very recently did adopted children and their families stop being the topic of much whispering. A lot of parents hid their children's biological parentage for this very reason. To this day, adoption is still viewed as the 'booby prize'.

Mixed people are still behind gays in terms of respectful acknowledgement, especially mulattos (black parent, white parent). During and after slavery, the mono-racials enforced the biologically nonsensical one-drop rule. Until the melanin-infused are able to reproduce completely asexually, half of a child's chromosomes and heritage cannot be ignored. It cruelly disregards the white parent and implies that colorful blood is an inescapable curse. Grey is neither black or white but both. Pink is neither red or white but both. Grey and pink are entirely unique and distinguished with cultural and symbolic significance separate from their prime and neutral parent colors. Many mulattos have either been forced to pass among whites or pledge allegiance to a black community that relishes in reminding them what outsiders they are. For generations, colors/blacks and whites have maintained a united front in making their shared offspring feel like impure anomalies. This will likely never change, as the true majority are the mono-racials.

I can continue, but I'm hoping the point has been sufficiently grasped.

Meanwhile, mutation is something that will only get worse or become dangerous if ignored. In the movies especially, the mutants are closer in resemblance to people with mental illnesses and/or learning issues. Think about it. Those often manifest during puberty or earlier, most were kept secret/misdiagnosed/given no attention for years, and can make someone the family oddball. Some of these cause physical abnormalities. Others come with special powers of sorts, such as genius intellects, photographic memories, numerous types of savants, etc. There are also unfortunate downsides like volatile outbursts, rapid mental deterioration, severe anxiety, extremely little or no ability to socialize, violent behavior, inability to experience emotions including joy or pleasure, and more.

Professor X reminds me of the adults who offer educational assistance for such misunderstood minds. He wants them to be able to function in society, but some have greater struggles than others or never want to leave their comfort zone. Magneto is a lot like modern internet adults, wanting young people to not only be shameless in their differences but be defined by them with plenty of media attention and flag waving. When Charles and Erik were young, mental issues were not spoken of. Those found out were frequently committed to asylums, experimented on, and sterilized.

If this is the allegory, it goes with the natural mutant instinct to ignore or hide their mutations. Confused, scared teenagers running away. I could see Bobby's parents being freaked out like many loved ones are towards conditions like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not telling you that you're forbidden from getting some glbt meaning from the X-Men. I am saying that the films portray it very immaturely and I don't think mutation fits as an allegory for lifestyles. Mental illness and learning issues make better sense. They're also more universally relatable, particularly in current day.

Yes, let the law take away your firstborn because his powers can help you save room in the fridge.

Get over yourself, Singer, you marginalized overpaid, talentless hack 😒

#x-men movies #x2 x-men united #anti bryan singer #God still loves the gays #glbt #Christianity #mixed race #found family #mental health #coping mechanisms #bobby drake #rogue #Charles Xavier #Patrick Stewart #James McAvoy #mutation allegory #anti nagneto #racism against the mixed is still racism #you're not alone #Charles' Angels #Charles Xavier is awesome #Magneto is a social media parent #Charles Xavier Institute of Individuality

[mor-beck-more-problems]

The Two Fingers of Death || Morgan & Gabriel

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @bugbearnecessities & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Gabriel needs a snack and tries out a new scare in the English department offices, to unexpected results.

CONTAINS: slight zombie body horror

“I can't believe that bitch flunked me!”

Gabriel was not supposed to be in the ladies room, and he honestly felt bad about it. Normally he did his best to respect people's boundaries, especially those involving very intimate ceremonies like make-up fixing, gossip sharing and any other mysterious ritual that normally went on in the ladies' bathroom. But he had no choice, really: it'd been far too long since his last feeding, and between that and his natural instinct to just nap the winter away, his energy level was dangerously low, so he needed a little pick me up, ASAP.

And the ladies' room, he'd found, was the best place to get a quick fix: Gabriel only needed to hide in one of the stalls, conjure up the illusion of a giant spider and BAM. Instant snack, with high-pitched shrills on the side. But not this time, apparently. No, this time the two girls washing their faces were too focused on their angry rant against Professor Beck to pay his fake Charlotte any mind, not even when he made the spider dance. The girls sounded so genuinely pissed that for a moment Gabe forgot all about his hunger and just listened intently. Apparently Professor Beck hadn't been particularly impressed with Jessica's essay about The Tell-tale Heart, and frankly Gabriel hated the idea that Jessica could be turned off that masterpiece forever just because of a misunderstanding with her teacher. And truth be told, he was looking for a decent meal... Professor Beck was no murderer, but ruining Poe for young minds all over campus was two steps away from a federal offense, as far as he was concerned.

With that thought in mind, Gabriel waited for the two girls to go away and then he left the bathroom. A quick internet search later, he made his way to the professor's office, knowing that she'd probably be inside. He stood in the hallway in front of her door for a few minutes, waiting for the perfect moment and then, when no one else was in sight, he bent down to spy from the keyhole and focused intently, projecting his magic inside the professor's office.

Morgan cherished her office hours no matter what: if any of her students got over their anxiety enough to come visit, she had a chance to get to know them and put in enough help and suggestions to make whatever homework they turned in after more interesting; if they didn’t, she had some time alone to get her work done,  have fewer things to take home, and listen to some her playlists that didn’t get as much airtime around the house. Today was the latter, and Morgan’s only concern was making sure she didn’t write down the lyrics to “Ivy” while she was trying to respond to her students’ questionnaires. There’s no shame in liking Twilight, she wrote, Looking forward to seeing what your thoughts will be when we get to Carmilla! She got through a few more like this, singing along under her breath since the Medievalist Bros were out doing stars only knew what. Her timer went off. Morgan jolted from the switch between Taylor Swift to the X-Files theme, hard enough that one of her earbuds fell out and rattled to the far side of her desk. Morgan chased it with her hand, only then noticing the bright, bleeding heart on her desk.

She yelped with surprise and scanned the room. “Hello? Is this, uh...for me?” Morgan hadn’t seen anyone come in with a special delivery. But then again, whoever had been tasked with it might’ve been too grossed out to ask questions or stick around. Deirdre was usually more discreet than this when she sent presents over, but sometimes she used her promise binding powers to be a little dramatic. Morgan laughed fondly, remembering a small candy box of eyeballs. “Babe, you shouldn’t have…” she sighed, and reached for the snack, which called to her the same way chocolate cake had when she was alive. Morgan reached and--nothing.

Morgan couldn’t stifle her whine of disappointment, but now there were more pressing problems. “Okay,” she called, louder this time and mildly irritated. “Now I know you’re hiding. Come on out!”

Gabriel had to stifle a villainous chuckle (or, well, the closest thing to a villainous chuckle he could muster) as he waited impatiently for the screaming and the flood of energy that'd follow. Alright, maybe a still beating heart was a bit much, but hey, she was a Lit professor, she had to appreciate the poetic justice in that, right? In any case he'd make it up to her somehow, anyone who listened to the X-Files theme couldn't be so bad after all, and...

Gabriel frowned. There was no screaming, no delicious fear. Why was there no fear, the woman had a freaking human heart on her desk! Granted, hearts were fascinating, Gabriel couldn't wait for the embalming classes to start just so he could maybe see one up close, but most people were at least a little squeamish about them. Was Professor Beck actually... Something else? Blood-thirsty murderer? No, it couldn't be: she'd also been listening to TSwift, and most comments he'd read about her on ratemyprofessors.com actually depicted her as a sweet, caring person. Then again, wasn't that what neighbors always said about serial killers? I never thought he'd be capable of something like that, he was always so nice...

The theory was starting to look more promising as Gabriel watched through the keyhole. She was trying to grab the heart, holy crap! And when her hand just passed through the illusion she looked... Disappointed? Gabriel was so confused that it took him a few moments to realize she'd called out to someone, to him. He hesitated. Should he just go away? That would be the wisest course of action, for sure. But then again, if Professor Beck was a serial killer wasn't it his duty to expose her? He, unlike most people, had the means to defend himself against a crazy murderer, after all. And also he was still so hungry. His mind made up, Gabriel took a deep breath and opened her door, his steps far more boisterous than he actually felt.

“I wasn't hiding!” Gabriel mentally slapped himself. Of all the things he could have said, that was going to be his first line to the very first potential serial killer he'd ever met? Lame. And then he added “Dude, you do realize that's a human organ, right? Like, from an actual person. With a hole in their chest. And it's bleeding all over your papers. Doesn't that... Scare you? Please be a little scared, please.” Even just slightly grossed out. And then he realized what he'd just said. “Uh, I mean... That's a human heart, professor.” Hunger was no excuse to ignore someone's academic accomplishments, not even those of a serial killer.

The door opened and Morgan reached for her bag. Salt, knife, iron, they were all still in there, even if she didn’t want to use them. A dozen different possibilities flickered past her head. Was this a trap? A hunter trap? Some magic critter she’d never heard of? Morgan was alone, and if it hadn’t been for her earbud falling out, she might not have heard anyone come in. This world was cruel and bloody and maybe she was an idiot after all for setting aside her combat training---But then the door opened a little wider and there was just a kid. A college kid, twenty-one at most. Not one of hers, although he did have that awkward intellectual vibe that her more enthusiastic boys held. But he didn’t flaunt that archetype like them, he hadn’t finished growing into himself yet. He wore his presence like a suit that hadn’t been tailored yet, a little oversized in some places and a little too tight in others. But maybe he was just flustered, and she was reading too much to give her mind something to do while she came down from the surprise. Morgan looked from him to the phony heart and back again. Scared?

“Uhhh…”

Granted, most people probably would. The Medievalist Bros absolutely would, even though they loved to posture about how ‘sick’ some of their favorite comic books were when it came to gore. But this was White Crest, people were weird, everything was weird. Please be a little scared, please. And it was only then that Morgan remembered the last time she had been startled by illusion magic: in her family’s old haunted house, the day she’d met Nora.

“It’s...so gross. Nasty, ooey, gooey, gross...thing! Aaaah!” Morgan eyed the boy as she tried to scream. But her heart wasn’t in the charade, she was too focused on the idea of there being another Nora in White Crest and what it was about her that made her seem so yummy to them. Sighing, Morgan deflated. “I’m sorry. I actually kind of…like this stuff.” Especially for dessert. “And it’s actually pretty good looking! More true to life than most movies. Actually, I was too caught up in the visual to know it was pulsing, but that is a really great touch. And um….” Oh, stars, he didn’t think she was being patronizing, did he? He was so young, and she didn’t want to crush his confidence. “Look, it’s not you. Really. Anyone more a...well, anyone different from me in this office and you would’ve really had something. And I’m not just saying that! But, if we’re going to be coming clean about our respective supernatural secrets, you should probably come inside and close the door.”

Gabriel appreciated the effort, truly, but Professor Beck's fake groans were doing nothing to quench his thirst for some genuine shivers. And in truth her act could even get him in trouble: someone might pass by, hear a teacher scream (albeit unconvincingly) and think he was attacking her or something. Which he was, technically, but not in a 'this might get you expelled' sort of way. So even though he was still more than a little disappointed his illusion hadn't sorted the desired effect, Gabe let out a sigh of relief when she apologized. And then, listening to her following words, he actually perked up, a tiny smile tentatively making its way on his face. “You really thought it was realistic? It's kinda tricky to really shape them from behind the door, and I focused really hard to get the rhythm right, but I figured it'd be like, uh... Shakespeare! Mess up the beat and the Bard is just not the same, right? Rhythm's important, so...” Gabriel's voice waned as he looked past the warm fuzzy feeling only a straight-A student could get from a teacher's praise and he finally realized exactly what she had said.

Slowly Gabriel took a couple of steps into the office and closed the door behind him, one hand awkwardly flying to rub his neck. “Wait. Respective supernatural secrets?” Wait, not the right word to stress. “Err, I mean- Supernatural secrets? I don't know what you're...” He didn't finish the sentence, he realized no one, lest of all Professor Beck, would ever buy it. Note to self: learn to come up with a decent lie when put on the spot. “Nevermind.” Gabriel blinked, once twice, three times as he felt the awkwardness of that pause weight on him like a heavy blanket. He drew little circles on the floor with the tip of his foot, unable to meet Professor Beck's gaze as he quickly added “Sorry. About the heart. I know you said you liked it -which we're totally gonna go back to eventually by the way... But, uh... Sorry about the intention behind the heart, I guess. I just...” His stomach chose right that moment to rumble loudly. “I'm really hungry.”

Morgan waited until the boy had closed the door and they were well and truly alone. She ached for her magic and good old fashioned silencing charms. Whatever confusion and discomfort she’d had around his trick was gone. He was too clumsy and good-natured for his own hunt. If she had been a hunter or some kind of heartless caster, he might be in a lot more trouble, and he put so much thought into his magic, he was so...eager. Morgan couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a young supernatural so positively engaged with their power and identity. She struggled not to smile as she said, “First of all, you really need to have your cover story in place before you do anything that might make a normie ask questions. You never know who’s going to turn out to be a hunter or an alarmist. You and I are fine, and I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but that may not always be the case.” She gestured for him to sit and reached into her bag for her pyrex, which had her brain stash, and her knife.

“Secondly, yes. The animal hearts I’ve seen are a little more purple-y, than that but not by much, and your average normie is definitely not going to notice any difference. And the texture of the blood? Amazing. We can and will circle back and it probably won’t take long because thirdly…” She eyed him warily. If anyone was going to not be terrified of what she was, it would be this kid, right? Nora hadn’t minded any, and whoever this boy was, he had her kind of fear magic. He thought bleeding hearts were cool, so maybe a whole zombie body might be something to feel excited about. Or at least...not something to flee in panic over. “Thirdly, first rule of supernatural club is you don’t talk about other people’s powers or species or whatever else without asking them. So I’m keeping this snack attack between you and me--well, I’ll tell my girlfriend, but I’ll leave anything specific to you out of it--and you’ll do the same for me. I uh, can’t help your food front, yet, but I can show you something about me that you might find….” Cool? “...Interesting.”

Morgan couldn’t help it; she smiled, she hoped. “How are you with real-life body horror? And how much would you like to see a real zombie…?”

Gabriel's fingers had a little spasm, desperate for a pen and a notepad. It was an automatic response, atavistic almost: when a teacher spoke, you took notes, and you listened and you learned. And man, was class fascinating today! Gabriel nodded, although part of him was so desperate to tell Professor Beck she didn't need to worry: he could become a 10 feet bundle of muscles and claws, he could defend himself. Then he remembered all those times his roommate had managed to draw penises on his face while he was snoring, and he realized that even an 800 lbs monster, when asleep, could easily be poisoned, suffocated, paralyzed... “Cover story is important, got it.”

As Professor Beck described the ideal heart, Gabriel tried to summon up a good image of it, but the result was somehow worse than the first one: less tangible, the heart illusion floated behind the professor, ghastly and practically see-through, such a pathetic attempt that he made it disappear without even showing the Professor. Gabriel frowned: why couldn't he do it anymore? Was it because he was running out of energy and needed a good scare? Or maybe it was because now he knew the Professor wasn't afraid of hearts, so his illusions would no longer be able to summon a heart for her? He would ask mami later, Gabe promised to himself: she was no bugbear, but with his father still doing his disappearing act she was the only one that had been able to give him any sort of info about those things. Until now.

“So basically supernatural powers or species is sort of like...” Gabriel paused, looked for the right metaphor, and then he perked up again. “S&M! Nothing inherently wrong with it, but some people don't really get or understand it so you gotta respect someone's choice to keep it on the DL.” Immediately he paled. Had he really just said that? To a professor? “Not that I know anything about S&M! I mean, that's not the point, the point is... Respect people's privacy, got it. I won't tell anyone about you, I swear.” Once again, Gabriel nodded solemnly, hoping that his awkwardness wouldn't make her doubt his sincerity as he raised his right hand up and made that promise, an oath he fully intended to keep.

Luckily for Gabriel, Professor Beck's next question brought the conversation back to a topic that was far more comfortable to him. “Body horror? Puh-lease! I'm majoring in Mortuary Science and yesterday I fell asleep watching The Hills Have Eyes... think I can handle some gor- Woah, wait, back up...” While during the rest of the conversation Gabriel's eyes had darted around the room, dancing between captive attention and awkward embarrassment , now they landed solely on the Professor, rudely staring. Normally Gabriel would have apologized about that, but all he could focus on right then was...“Did you just say... Zombie?” If the giant grin and wide-eyed excitement on his face didn't answer her doubts, the excited twitching probably would.

Morgan snorted with laughter at the boy’s comparison. More people knew about her species than the particulars of how she and her girlfriend frequently enjoyed sex together, and she didn’t know of anyone who was maimed for having a ball gag in their purse, but he was on the right track. “Oh, of course you don’t, totally just stuff you’ve heard around the dorms, strictly abstract, intellectual curiosity.” Her smile was knowing as she waved away the subject. There were a lot of things she was willing to speak to that other professors weren’t, but this wasn’t one of them.

The boy had put her so much at ease with his enthusiasm, she almost forgot to warn him. “What’s your name, by the way? This feels like a weird thing to demonstrate to just some kid in my office. But, anyway, brace yourself.” Morgan’s words were for herself too. It had been a while since she’d shown anyone this particular part of herself on purpose. She reached for the knife on her desk and raised it over her hand. She closed her eyes and imagined she was chopping carrots as she brought it down swiftly over her fingers.

There was a bite of pain, enough to make her whimper, but there were no tears, and by the time she opened her eyes and scooped up the two severed fingers to give to the boy, fresh white bone had sprouted from the sockets and red muscle and purple sinew were braiding themselves over it. The severed fingers did not bleed, per se, but dripped a few globs of black blood where they had been cut, but only when squeezed, like tube of toothpaste. “These’ll keep for about a day or two, if you want to stick them somewhere for somebody to find,” she said. “After that, they turn to goo.”

“Gabriel Rivera. Swear on mami's snake, I usually introduce myself before sharing secrets, but in my defense... Zombie.” There was still a hint of amazed incredulity in that last word, but any lingering doubt he may still have was quickly cut down with that swing of the Professor's knife. No matter how comfortable as Gabriel was watching gory movies or even studying the theory of preserving corpses, he still flinched out of concern for Professor Beck more than squeamishness. It was just a moment, and then he was back to enthusiastic curiosity. Without hesitation he grabbed the fingers and held them close to his face, squeezing a little and even sniffing them. He stopped short of tasting the dark blood and, after a few moments of enraptured studying, he looked up at the Professor again. “Did it hurt? Are you okay? Will they grow back?” She seemed pretty unfazed by the fact someone else was holding bits and pieces of her, though, so the questions continued rapidly, before she could answer. “Have you ever tried preserving them? I could stea- Borrow some embalming fluid from the lab and... Wait, is that offensive? Asking if I can keep your finger in a jar must be rude, I'm sorry. But just... Look at 'em!”

Gabriel traced the tip of her fingers with morbid fascination before closing his whole hand around them, like protecting some precious treasure. The Professor's words registered a second later. “Stick them somewhere for somebody? Wait, so you're saying you're not going to tell me I shouldn't scare people?” Not that he wanted to scare anyone, really, he just had to, as the waves of exhaustion made themselves known again. “Because I get it, it's not exactly nice. And, uh, I'd totally understand if you were upset about the heart or if, at the very least, you wanted me to just... Not scare people on campus. And I can totally do that, no feeding on school grounds is a reasonable rule! But since we're being so open I'll be honest.” Gabriel paused, a hint of guilt tinging his next words. “If you let me keep these I definitely will hide them somewhere. Pretty soon, too. And then I'll feed from whoever finds them. Kinda hoping it'll be Baker, since he's kind of an assh- A jerk. And then, after he runs away terrified and I'm no longer hungry I'll swoop in and retrieve them because I don't want the cops to close down the school to investigate your fingers. No need for a cover story if no one is the wisest, right?” Truth be told, Gabriel was proud of himself: between the pangs of hunger and the excitement of the Professor's revelations he thought it quite impressive that he'd managed to think ahead like that. Apparently moms with babies under cars had adrenaline bursts, teacher's pets trying to impress their new favorite Professor had bright ideas. “So, uh, if you want Baker to not see a severed finger maybe just...” It visibly pained him to finish that sentence and offer the fingers back, but he still did. “...Take 'em.”

“Yes, Gabriel, it hurt,” Morgan admitted, “But not to the same degree it would hurt you. And--” She waggled her hand in front of him. All the muscle had regrown on her once severed fingers and fresh skin was slowly growing from the knuckles upwards. “I’m fine. No need or interest in preservation. I can regrow anything but my head, which is great, because I can’t begin to tell you how many times my feet have been eaten by hungry critters here.” She determinedly kept up her blasé attitude, because at least this time she was in charge of what happened to her body. She didn’t need to feel like food or remember that to some creatures, even some people, she was only a thing. This was different. At least she and Gabriel were the same, and he understood the distinction between who she was and what she could do.

Satisfied, Morgan opened her pyrex and popped a brain meatball into her mouth, swirling it in some eyeball puree first. It would speed the re-growing process along and get the taste of fresh heart out of her head. “I should probably mention, the reason I wasn’t scared was because I kind of eat dead organs for dessert. Not really nutritious, but neither are candy bars, and that’s never stopped humans before. It’s like that.” She waved away Gabriel’s hand as he ate, insisting he keep the rather unconventional gift she’d handed him. “Oh, stars, what do you think I am? You’re, what, nineteen, maybe twenty? You’re a college kid, you need to eat! Granted, on campus is a big risk. But I understand that you need this.” And this gave her an idea. She scarfed down the rest of her food and ducked her head out of the office door. No one around, but there were some murmurs from the lower floors. Another class period had ended, and the Medievalist Bros’ lunch break was probably ending soon.

Morgan turned back to Gabriel, brow arched with a friendly challenge. “How do you feel about sticking a zombie finger inside a candy bar wrapper and telling a TA who still needs to respect women more that it came from a secret admirer?” She asked. “This will be easier if you have cash, but I don’t think my snack was so big that I can’t bust through some glass for a good cause. You can still save the other one for Baker. Also, side note, I really respect how fast you learn. But whatever you’re comfortable with, you should decide quickly, because my guess is we’ve got about five minutes to pull this off.”

Zombies were fascinating. Gabriel briefly wondered if there were any zombies working on movie sets, donating their limbs to get that perfect decomposing tint on the thousands of severed hands flying around during movies with a chainsaw-wielding maniac as the main character. Gabriel tried to listen to all the cool facts Professor Beck was spouting, but honestly it was hard for him not to get sidetracked by the gross, slopping noise of brains and smushed eyeballs being chewed. Not that it grossed Gabe out: he was actually memorizing it for his Scare Bank. “I'm 20,” He answered almost distractedly, with a small chuckle. “I only look younger thanks to my healthy diet.” Part of him was dying to ask about her diet: if organ snacks didn't cut it then what? Was the brain myth accurate? How come she was so present, so alert and aware? She moved like a living person, talked like one as well... Had she not claimed the title for herself Gabriel would have never guessed she was a zombie, not even after seeing her gulp down raw mashed livers. But something told him that was not a first meeting question, and the last thing he wanted was to upset the professor, so he kept those questions to himself. For now.

Gabriel's grin grew into a mischievous smirk as he listened to the Professor's plan. “Say no more, misogynistic dic- douchebags are my favorite meal! And it'll be the best two bucks I ever spent!” Acquiring the snack was easy, just a quick trip to the closest vending machine and back to her office, bless consumerism. Unwrapping the snack without tearing the plastic apart was a little bit trickier, but Gabriel was not going to ask the Professor to help, not after what she'd already done for him. Gabriel had finally managed to put one of the fingers inside the colorful wrapping. Not perfect, but hopefully the TA wouldn't notice. “Ready to go, just point me in that guy's direction and watch the magic happen.” He sounded more confident than he actually felt, but this time Gabriel's usual self-doubting and insecurities weren't enough to sully his excitement. “Also, do you want the candy? I'm not sure if you even can eat it. For all I know it's poisonous for you, like chocolate for dogs, and I definitely don't want to poison you.” The wrapped fingers almost fell as Gabe flailed and rushedly added “Not that I'm comparing you to a dog!!! And even if I did, hello, bear here! But, uh, what I mean is... You've been great, and I kinda feel like I owe you, so if you want candy it's all yours.” Another long pause. “Speaking of how great you've been, is this... Common for you? The whole reveal thing? Because it's a skill that might come in handy one day, really so I was wondering if I could maybe... Ask for your advice every now and then. Office hours only, of course!”

Morgan grinned, ducked her head out of the office door to listen. “Even better than that,” she whispered. She grabbed one of the spare chairs and tucked it near her own. “Have a seat here, and uh…” She grabbed one of the books stacked around her work and put it in front of Gabriel. “Look busy, or borrow it to read, if you want, I’ve got way more copies than I should really have.” She huddled near him. “The guy in question might be one of the people I share this office space with, so you can probably watch your handiwork play out if you really want. But, this is your scare, so you can do all the talking. Also, you can keep the candy. It’s not toxic, but it also doesn’t taste like much of anything to me.” She shrugged.

The TAs had made it to the hallway, making plans on how they were going to humiliate the competition on their next co-op game and how they were going to bribe the Anthro Babe into going out with Jeryn.

Morgan rushed herself, whispering rapid-fire, “And uh, about the reveals, I’ve only been dead nine months and I was a little depressed and graceless when I talked to my friends about it. I’ve been trying to work on it more recently, but you’re the first person I’ve told this month who didn’t feel the need to immediately run away. And I only made them check for my non-existent pulse.” She shrugged haplessly. “But, hey! Being dead is really different than eating fear. Maybe--”

Jeryn and his tweed wearing bros burst through the door.

“Maybe you should spend a little more time developing this post-colonial theory you’ve got!” Morgan turned to the TA’s, smiling sweetly. “Gentlemen. Nice to see you back.”

The shyest of the bunch flinched back, still traumatized from the time Morgan had threatened him with bloody murder. But Jeryn, the newest recruit to the program, was unphased. “Good day to you too, my lady. No girlfriend today? I came back early just to see you two.”

Morgan bit back her retort. Whatever she had to say wasn’t going to be nearly as satisfying as what Gabriel was going to do.

Gabriel sat down with his eyes glued to the book, but his mind was busy wrapping around Professor Beck's words. I've only been dead nine months. What do you say to something like that? The Grief Counseling classes included in his major often discussed how to talk to the family members of the deceased, the proper way to offer your condolences while keeping the professional detachment needed to help them through the trying process of accepting a loss, and yet Gabe had no clue regarding the proper etiquette to adress someone who had died. Luckily the door opened and spared him the awkwardness of replying.

When the TAs entered Gabriel was reminded of his high school's football team, only with tweed instead of letter jackets. Any hint of guilt he might have had at the fact he was about to scare, maybe even traumatize a young man was dissipated the moment Jeryn opened his mouth. Gabriel didn't need to look at the professor to recognize the target.

“Wait, it's you!” Gabriel did his best to sound surprised and annoyed at the same time as he stood up and approached Jaryn. “I thought Linda was making stuff up, but man you are something! Linda Blair, you know her?” Jaryn blinked. “The name sounds familiar, but I can't quite pla-” Gabe interrupted him. “She's been auditing your classes and just won't shut up about you, says her fingers literally fell off from refreshing your Facebook page.” As he spoke, Gabriel pretended to dig through his pocket for something, and after a few moments he produced the fake snack. “When I told her I had an appointment with Professor Beck she basically begged me to give you this. Think she wrote her number on it or something. Apparently the way you treated her made her feel things she just can't ignore, and she just has to meet you... Women, am I right?” The wink he offered Jaryn made him feel dirty inside, but it was for a good cause.

Everything on Jaryn's face seemed to scream 'Is she hot?' and sensing his reluctance Gabriel retreated his hand and started to tear the wrapper, raising it to his mouth as if to take a bite. It took all his effort not to gag as putrescine and cadaverine (They were decomposing already? So cool) assaulted his nose, but somehow Gabriel managed to keep his poker face on as he said “Hey, don't worry, you don't have to accept! I mean, honestly I was thinking about asking her out myself, so I was kinda hoping you wouldn't be here, I can tell her I-” Jaryn basically ripped the 'candybar' away from Gabe. “No need, kid. It'd be rude to refuse a thoughtful gift from... What was her name again?”

“Look inside...”

The female voice echoed through the office, repeating the name over and over, punctuating it with the occasional forlorn sigh. Gabriel's eyes were closed as he channeled his energy into the magic. “What the...?!” Jaryn and the other TAs looked around, tense. The more their panic grew, the easier it was for him to add whistles and bells to the trick. “Look what you did to me...” Jaryn turned to stare at the Professor, confusion and nervousness painted all over his pale face. “What's the meaning of this, Profe-” The door slammed shut. Or rather, the door sounded like it had been slammed shut, though it was all part of the illusion.

“LOOK!”

When a ghastly, disembodied voice barks an order at you, you obey. Or at least that seemed to be Jaryn's thought process. He went above and beyond the call of duty and clumsily tore the wrapper, revealing the two fingers inside. Gabriel had to hide a smirk. The smell of decomposition assaulted everyone in the room, magically enhanced by Gabe's illusions, and the sticky dark ooze coming out from the fingers added a layer of realism to the image of copious amounts of blood running down from the severed extremity. Gabe's magic couldn't give it weight or make Jaryn's hands actually wet, but Professor Beck's impeccable prop did the work for him. Jaryn's face paled and his terror... Man, his terror was prime. Gabe even let out a satisfied hum, almost a cat-like purr as he absorbed their fear, sharp and vibrant and oh-so-filling. After a few long moments Jaryn dropped the fingers inside a sizable pool of fake, intangible blood that had collected at his feet. Almost as if that were the signal they were all waiting for, the TAs snapped out of their petrified terror and trampled each other in a clumsy race to the door, their screams echoing across the hallways as they ran from the office.

With a satisfied sigh, Gabriel picked up the fingers, rubbed his belly and turned to the Professor, finally breaking down into a laughter that took a while to die down. Normally he would never be so informal around a teacher, but man he always felt ready to take on the world after an all-you-can-eat buffet like that. “So... Was it as good for you as it was for me?”

Morgan did her best to keep her face straight, even disinterested, as Gabriel summoned the disembodied voice of a young woman into the room. She opened her laptop, watching Jeryn’s reflection through the screen. When he called out to her she looked at him confused. “What?”

The voice cried for everyone in the room to look, and Morgan, her face still bland and innocent as before, did. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself steady. His scream, shrill, throaty, and desperate, must have echoed through the entire hall.

“Aw, guys! What happened?” She called. “Come back, are you okay?”

When she could only hear their footsteps thundering to the bathroom, Morgan finally let out all the laughter she’d been holding in, tipping in her seat and covering her mouth to stop from getting any louder. “Are you kidding me? Gabe! That was amazing! I mean, the way his eyes looked like they wanted to melt! He sounded like a little kid when he screamed too! I’d be surprised if one of them didn’t piss themselves! Oh, stars, I can’t wait to tell him he screamed over a plastic toy when he comes back. This is way better than anything I could’ve done on my own. Seriously, you were--” She shook her head, speechless, and offered her hand up for a high five.

“Hang onto those so you can grab dinner tonight, or dessert,” she said, pointing to the fingers. “They won’t be any good after tomorrow, and I’d rather them go to a good cause than Besides, I can trust a fellow supernatural to look after them, right?” She smiled fondly at Gabriel, already certain that she could. “And, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m really glad you showed up to my office. I think you’d also like my lit seminar, but I hope this isn’t the last time I see you either way.”

Gabriel shook his head vehemently. He wasn't going to take all the credit, he was raised better than that. “Listen, you're the only reason it worked so well, it had weight! Lots of people can take the sight of horrible stuff because, well... TV, I think. But the feel of holding a severed piece of a human bo--teacher?! CSI can't prepare you for that.” Gabe nodded solemnly at his own words, as if he was the teacher and she the student. And then he finally realized her position. Was that a... Holy crap, it was. An actual high five! From a professor! It was almost surreal, but he'd promised to himself long ago he'd never leave anyone hanging. The high-five echoed through the office, to his ears even louder than his own illusions, and his huge grin threatened to split his face in half.

“I'm glad I showed up, too! Though now I better go, I kinda don't want them to come back and find me still here...” Truth be told, part of Gabriel was dying to just stay and ask her all sort of questions about herself, but he still wasn't sure he could trust himself not to put his foot in his mouth and ruin what felt like the luckiest meal of his life. “Oh, and by all means, mail me the deets on the seminar because I am so there...” It was only then that he realized, once more, that this was not one of his peers, this was a teacher, he shouldn't be so casual with her. Yet something about her demeanor had managed to put him at ease from the first moment, to the point where it was hard not to file the Professor under the Potential Friends category in his mind. Maybe, just maybe, that's exactly where she belonged.

#two fingers of death #wr gabriel #wr chatzy #wr gabriel chatzy #wickedswriting