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daveinediting · 2 years

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Less than 24 hours to go before the 48 hour horror film project and I'm basting myself a little in memories of the mysterious, the eerie, and the unsettling... with which I used to spend my time. The stuff of nightmares I indulged on a regular basis.

You see for me, growing up, scary stories on my transistor radio after bedtime was the tip of the iceberg. After all, those horror radio shows happened maybe only once a week.

So the rest of the time?

I was reading it.

Not sure how this started... but one of the things I read as a kid was comic books. Not Superman, though. Not The Justice League. Not Spiderman, Batman, Wonder Woman, or any other superhero comic. No. None of those.

It was horror comics. DC horror comics, my friend Susan told me they probably were at the time.

They were essentially anthologies of short stories in comic book format. For example, I never knew "The Price of the Head" was a legitimate short story written by John Russell and published in 1916. I never knew that until my jr. high language arts class teacher, Mr. Allen, had us read that story.

Heck. Up until then I thought it was just a comic book thing.

I don't remember a lot of those stories at this point. I definitely remember "The Price of the Head". I remember "The Most Dangerous Game" (another legitimate short story). I remember one story about WWI or WWII enemy solders facing off against each other in the mountains... doomed, even in death, to face each other in the mountains. And I remember a similar story in which a death row inmate, relentlessly harassed by the penitentiary's warden, is finally executed... only to discover that death is no escape from the warden.

Loved that stuff. 😁 😁 😁

Around that time in my life, one of the local television stations took to broadcasting horror movies on a regular basis. Which is how I was introduced to Vincent Price and "The Masque of the Red Death". Which is also how I was introduced to Edgar Allen Poe and, subsequently, H.P. Lovecraft.

I think around that same time as well I was introduced to the 1963 black and white film, "The Haunting", based on the Shirley Jackson novel, "The Haunting of Hill House" published in 1959. The horror in that story was more implied than explicit but it was still.

Creepy.

As hell.

The part where you hear the sound of running footsteps pounding on the floor above when everyone in the house is gathered in a room below?

The part where the young woman believes she's holding her sister's hand in bed at night but it's, you know, not her sister’s hand??

The laughter of that little girl???

Good grief.

Creepy.

As I grew older, it was Alfred Hitchcock and his series of paperback anthologies like "12 Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV", "Stories My Mother Never Told Me", and "Scream Along With Me" that consumed my reading attention. Anthologies in book form instead of comic book form. And those Hitchcock paperbacks? I still own 'em. Because over the years I read them so many times over and over again...

I couldn't let them go.

From Hitchcock of course to Stephen King by high school. It wasn't “Carrie” that hooked me. Or “Salem's Lot”. It was “The Dead Zone”. And from there I read everything King I could lay my hands on. He had my number, did Mr. King. And not just with horror, either.

You know that Barf-o-Rama scene from the novella "The Body" or the movie "Stand By Me"?

Yeah.

I seriously laughed out loud the first time I read it and couldn't stop laughing.

And it still makes me laugh just thinking about it.

It was the novel "Christine", though, the one about the possessed car, that pinned me to the wall.

You see I was on vacation in the San Juan islands with my family the year I got the novel. And one afternoon I was alone in our cabin reading it. I don't remember where I was in the novel but it was intense wherever that was. Gripping. And, at exactly the same moment as I was having that experience, somewhere outside the cabin a car backfired.

And I nearly came out of my skin.

No joke.

Everything in me felt like it would explode in that moment.

So that happened.

Which brings me to the 1973 film, "The Exorcist".

Now of course I didn't watch that film in the theater when it came out. I actually watched it on television probably a decade later when it was available for general viewing. Edited, of course.

Still.

My parents were watching something else on our living room TV so I decided to watch "The Exorcist" on our old black & white downstairs.

At night.

And I'm down there alone.

And even though I've got the lights on, I'm completely captivated by the dark tale unfolding within the confines of our TV screen. I'm captured by the unsettling reality of the story.

It's just all kinds of subconscious manipulation before the spinning head later in the movie. And maybe that's what rocked me the most. They started you off in a pleasant kind of family reality and then slowly, slowly, walked you away from it into something dark and sinister and thoroughly disturbing. In retrospect, I was amazed at how long I was kept in a kind of ever growing physical tension that, at some point, became unnerving.

It was crazy great film-making, that's for sure.

The kind, some of which, I’d like to tap into.

In a way, my trip down memory lane is my own attempt to put my finger on what it is.

What it is?

Yeah. Of my experience with horror throughout my early life from comic books to paperbacks, from radio to television, from the big screen...

To the one in my mind.

I wanna pull from my magic bag of tricks the whatever it is that once upon a time...

Gave me the heebie jeebies.

Less than 24 hours before we do this.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

🤔 🤔 🤔

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philipkindreddickhead · 2 months

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100 Fiction Books to Read Before You Die

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Book of Margery Kempe by Margery Kempe

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks

The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Veronica by Mary Gaitskill

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Passing by Nella Larson

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

White Teeth by Zadie Smith

The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Street by Ann Petry

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskill

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Small Island by Andrea Levy

The Idiot by Elif Batuman

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

The Price of Salt/Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Wise Blood by Flannery O Conner

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsey

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

House of Incest by Anaïs Nin

The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Corregidora by Gayl Jones

Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Democracy by Joan Didion

Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates

The Violent Bear it Away by Flannery O Connor

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I Must Betray You be Ruta Sepetys

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The Mare by Mary Gaitskill

City of Beasts by Isabel Allende

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

The First Bad Man by Miranda July

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston

Disobedience by Naomi Alderman

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

The Narrows by Ann Petry

The Blood of Others by Simone de Beauvoir

Under the Sea by Rachel Carson

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

Desert of the Heart by Jane Rule

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

@gaydalf @kishipurrun @unsentimentaltranslator @algolagniaa @stariduks @hippodamoi

#fiction #100 books to read before you die

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powells · 7 months

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The days are getting darker. Are your books?

Maddelena and the Dark by Julia Fine "This book absolutely shines with the beauty of venice, the terror of first loves, and the singular intense passion of musicians and artists. Se deeply romantic! So alluring!" O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker "One of those rare writers whose charisma can be felt through the page"

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson "A pioneer for women in horror literature, Shirley Jackson remains as relevant as ever." Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi Try it if you like Castlevania, Hellsing, Western Gothics, and the art of Yoshitaka Amano

Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz "A YA Debut that truly has everything, and yes, even some casual grave digging." Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier "A beautiful gothic mystery dripping with atmosphere and teeming with dread"

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James "Is our narrator actually being haunted, or is she slowly losing her mind?" The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter "A collection of the best adaptations of classic fairy tales, with a feminist flare, modern twists, and carnal delights....If you like Neil Gaiman, you will like Angela Carter"

#powell's books #powell's recommends #books #book recommendation #reading #portland #pdx #bookstore #Powells #gothic #gothic literature #gothic lit

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lowkeyrobin · 3 months

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mcyt with an s/o that's insanely good at driving?? like in the video with Schlatt and he was just doing donuts and that stuff but it's reader? almost like it's stuff from a freaking action movie with how they drive lmao

OH FUCK YEAH LMFAOOOO yes this is how my mom drives but she's a serious road rager too 💀💀💀💀 this is more like "You're a good shitty driver but yeah ��"

MCYT ; insane driving skills

includes ; tommyinnit, tubbo, ranboo, badlinu, nihachu, quackity, & foolish gamers

warnings ; language, talk about car accidents, talk about death due to car accidents

masterlist

TOMMYINNIT

genuinley refuses to sit in a car when you're driving

yk the vlog where he, jack, tubbo and becky go see the alien rocks? you offered to drive and he screamed no

honestly you understood, your a bit of a road rager

and that one vlog you guys made together where you show off your NASCAR level driving really doubted his trust in you

it's half jokes half serious tho

has genuinley said you should become an F1 driver 💀

he's just afraid of you yelling at other shit drivers LMFAO

will genuinley scream when you do donuts in an empty field

"I wish we had rollercoasters closer to us"

"we've got one right here"

the fact you haven't crashed and killed both of you is astounding to him

literally how'd you get your license

TUBBO

he doesn't like driving so when he can't get a ride anywhere else, he's left to call you

you're literally the last person he'll ask for a ride /lh /hj

you're responsible, just fast

it's the way he grips the console and the door, and pushes his feet down on the floor when he's a little afraid 💀

"hang on, since this asshole wanted to cut me off and do 20 in a 50"

"y/n/n pleas-"

you'll go out in a field to do donuts and shit and he's strapped up with a helmet and two seat belts

he'll be screaming in fear and excitement bc let's be honest it's kinda fun

the fuckin 360 u-turns??? christ man calm down we're not in a rush 😭

you almost got ran off a bridge one time with him in the car with you. 2 minutes later you see your phone light up with a notification from Twitter

it's tubbo. "y/n almost got ran off the road on a bridge. I am afraid. please send help"

he knows you drive way worse when he's not around so he's trying to go with you more so you don't accidently kill yourself

he quotes that one scene from the Haunting Of Hill House or whatever that show was where the dude gets in a car accident and dies because he was like hanged from his seat belt

"I don't wanna be that old woman! I don't want your ghost haunting me with your death!"

"well, for one, we aren't in a TV show-"

RANBOO

loves going out in fields with you to do donuts and be a little dangerous

"more donuts!"

"how are you not about to puke!?"

you rented a golf cart one a vacation to a little beach town for the Misfits Gaming channel and holy shit

the amount of wheelies?? he's surprised you didn't get arrested

you drive like you're driving a monster truck like please calm down

he genuinley compares you to schlatt when driving and you're just like "Yeah because we're cool. cool people are insanely good at driving"

they blink and stare before saying "I don't think good is the word I'd use"

you'll deadass slam on the breaks going at max 10mph just to piss him off

they're actually confused as to how you aren't on your fifth car already, you drive like a sicko

you do a racing vlog with some friends and safe to say you won

"You should be an F1 driver or something"

"What"

FREDDIE BADLINU

you terrify him a bit

"y/n, do you know how to do wheelies?"

"get in the golf cart"

"holy shit!"

thinks it's pretty badass that you know a bunch of tricks and stuff

he doesn't endorse bad driving on the road though

you do your best to behave around him because you don't wanna get yelled at 🤞

"oh my god why are these fucking semis in the passing lane?? I don't wanna get Final Destination-ed!"

"this is surprising for me to say but same"

"please, i just wanna eatttt, go faster and actually pass someone!"

but when you're purposefully fucking around yourselves he'll literally smile and laugh when you go over bumps and do donuts lmao

he'll probably record it and send videos to Tommy, Jack, Bill & Harry

tweets like "my partner is a crazy driver pls help" and "YEAHHH LETS CRASH THE CAR TODAY" are to be expected

also jokes about you being a NASCAR driver because the way you swerve through traffic 💀💀💀

NIKI NIHACHU

look, she loves you but calm down

she will admit that she likes doing donuts and tricks in an empty area but lord

the swerving through traffic? the usual 70-80 mph? no thanks

you do try and drive like a normal person when she's with you tho

one of her favorite memories is you driving one of those kiddie cars, with both of you in it, and doing very muddy donuts with it 💀

yk how moistcritikals dad hotwired a kiddie car to make it go faster? yeah that's the explanation to how it even happened

you guys were soaked in mud after LMFAO

she likes when you rev your engine in tunnels, the way it echoes is so cool to her

like she giggles and shit and like 🫶🫶

"I love when I fly down the highway to see my gf"

"OMG SLOW DOWN WHAT?"

"ppl r complaining about me on Facebook so I think I will.."

"Y/N OH MY GOD"

ALEX QUACKITY

again, kiddie car wheelies 🔛🔝

he loves doing fucking donuts and shit with you LMAO

if you, him, schlatt and charlie r meeting up irl, you guys make a whole vlog out of it

you rent two sports cars and literally make a mini action movie (obviously with comedy) (basically a better fast & furious) (quackity is better than vin diesel)

when I tell you that shit got 16 MILLION VIEWS. the edits after that were astronomical

so many clips of the cars in tunnels, on bridges, speeding down the highway, etc

you're respectful for others around you but you have a need for speed

although if you're doing it on a golf cart or anything open, he's wearing a helmet

he's running a whole business, he can't risk dying to your shit driving atm LMAO

makes some merch, basically a racer jacket that's black and your favorite color or black and dark blue (variants)

they say 'quackity racing team' or 'y/u/n racing team' with some sewn in patches, like the quackity poker chip and whatever goes best with your brand

they're cool as hell too LMAO

FOOLISH GAMERS

he does the little giggle and shit it's adorable

loves doing dumb shit with you

you obv don't do it with a bunch of people around or anything but yk

you, him, karl, punz and tina met up and you had all of them piled in the car while you did donuts and shit

foolish had a vlog cam set up on the dash and the amount of screaming and the reactions 😭😭 /pos

genuinley confused how you've never wrecked your car before

and no the one time you backed into a mailbox doesn't count

revving the engine through tunnels>>>>

he always smiles at it even if he's tired or kinda miserable

will pretend he's in an action movie if you're swerving around people a bit or going really fast

he'll load up the finger guns and get ready to aim LMFAO

gta irl with him basically

#lowkeyrobin #mcyt x reader #mcyt preferences #mcyt oneshot #tommyinnit x reader #quackity x reader #ranboo x reader #badlinu x reader #tubbo x reader #niki nihachu x reader #nihachu x reader #freddie badlinu x reader #alex quackity x reader #foolish gamers x reader #they/them reader #gender neutral reader #gn reader

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cleolinda · 5 months

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I am so fucking pissed. We’re hearing forecasts that we might get FIVE FUCKING INCHES OF SNOW overnight from Monday to Tuesday. In ALABAMA, where we have no snow removal equipment. Like I think we got one bag of sand for the whole town. No snow tires, I don’t even know what those are. This isn’t cute “Haha it’s just barely below freezing! Snowball fight!!!” snow. This is 14° Fuck (-11° Come the Fuck On) snow. FIVE INCHES? We get flurries and the city descends into madness.

What if we lose POWER. Everything runs off USB cord stuck in the outlet charging nowadays. This is why everyone used to run out and buy Milk Bread Batteries. Listen. I have this memory of the power going out during this wild snowstorm when I was a kid--I want to say it was Winter Storm '93. Ask anyone who lived in Alabama at the time. Like we had Desert Storm '92 the military operation one year and Winter Storm '93 the next. It was that serious in our minds, and I'm not sure you can blame us:

The storm dumped several inches of snow each hour on Birmingham, which ended up with officially 13 inches of snow.

Due to the high winds some parts of Birmingham reported drifts 5 to 6 feet deep. One state trooper reported that the roads were in the worst shape he had ever seen. "People can't tell what's road and what's not."

Low temperatures during the storm were in the 5-to-10 degree range on that Sunday.

IN A TOWN WHERE WE DON'T KNOW WHAT A SNOW PLOW IS. I think we had one for the entire county. Like I'm only kind of joking here.

And our power went out.

The snow was so heavy that it pulled down power lines either by its own weight, or by the tree branches its weight broke off. Meanwhile, the power at my house already went off every time a squirrel sneezed. I don't how many days this lasted; it was probably like, 2-3 days, but in my head, I was 14 years old boxed up with my family with no heat and it lasted two weeks. Maybe three years. The four of us slept in sleeping bags layered with quilts, huddled on the floor around a wood burning fire. (In the haunted house, no less.) The carpet was really nice, at least. We had a--do people still call them boomboxes? A big portable cassette player--battery-powered--with AM/FM radio. We listened to whatever TV shows were broadcast from the ABC station at night. We did have hot water; I took a lot of hot baths. We cooked food over the outdoor grill (which we moved to the comfortably large area under the deck, to hold off the falling snow), sometimes using aluminum foil as a kind of thin impromptu frying pan, and kept perishables like milk and meat in a cooler. Oh, did we have a bag of ice for the cooler? No, we used snow. God knows there was enough of it. Of course, I'm sure the refrigerator was perfectly serviceable even without power, because it was TEN DEGREES FUCK ALL.

I remember going outside a good bit and playing, as much as a teenager plays, in the snow with my seven-year-old sister. I remember that all the neighborhood kids got big rubber trashcan lids and used them as toboggans, going up to the top of the hill on our street and pretty successfully sledding down. Maybe it was "lmao snowball fight!!" snow when I was 14. I'm 45 now, and the cold makes me hurt. It makes me hurt all over. Maybe Winter Storm '24 will be a fun core memory for my nephew. I am pissed. And also charging all my electronics.

(ETA: It’s ‘24 now, isn’t it. My brain hasn’t clicked the date over yet. What is time.)

#me for some reason #long post

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ojcobsessed · 4 months

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Few actors have endured as fraught a journey as Oliver Jackson-Cohen. Few actors are more in demand than the star of The Haunting of Hill House and Jackdaw

by Maeve Ryan

OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN HAS been doing this a while. He decided to act at the age of six. Joined a theatre troupe and began to climb. He continued until university but didn’t get into any drama schools. Throughout our conversation, he tells me there were no signs pointing him in this direction, no surefire chance at success. But he’s found it, and then some.

He rose to prominence with his highly acclaimed portrayal of Luke Crain in Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House.

A character that battled a heroin addiction to cope with past traumas, though addiction was the least interesting thing about him. The show featured stars of the past, and launched new ones into the present, Oliver Jackson-Cohen being one of them. The role of Luke changed the course of his life – for more reasons than one.

It was the first time in his life he no longer had to hide, he tells me. “I could be as fragile as I felt.” He took his newfound Netflix fame and began to carve a path that finally aligned with who he was, not who the world wanted him to be.

Now, he takes centre stage in Jamie Dobb’s new film Jackdaw. When he read the script, he thought he was the last man for the job. When Dobb explained the hyper masculine lead needed someone to bring softness behind it, he signed on.

Jackson-Cohen’s career, and presence, proves that the strength of a man lies in his ability to go beyond society’s standards. He breaks the stereotypes like bread over a long conversation in Soho. We discuss his entrance into the industry, facing traumas, and finding a safe place to land.

sm: What was the first movie you ever saw that made you want to act?

o-jc: Home Alone. I remember seeing that film and saying, oh whoa, so a kid can do this? I remember telling my dad, ‘I think I want to do that.’ I was six or seven.

But it gets dark. So, my mum and dad’s house had a bay window that was on the street. And when I came home from school for a week, I just sat in the window thinking, any minute now, someone from Home Alone is going to walk past, and go, there’s a kid! Let’s get him! I was willingly wanting to get kidnapped. Which is so fucked. My dad came home and was like, ‘What are you doing?’ And then he was like, ‘Yeah, that’s not how that works.’

We found a theatre program – I started going there when I was eight. I was never the golden kid. In the drama clubs, I was always like the snake in the background. Or just the scenery. We used to put on terrible plays. I was such an insular kid. I found a safe place to feel where it’s real, but it’s not. So you can experience it all. I did that for three years, and then I was kicked out.

sm: What! Why?

oj-c: I had an attitude or something like that. I got suspended so many times. I genuinely was not looking for trouble. I was always the one to get caught. Like, I was the kid who someone handed the knife to, and I’d be standing above the dead body, and then the next thing I knew it was 20 years in prison. It was always stuff like that. But it was time to move on anyway.

I found this drama school at Riverside Studios. It was a small group, maybe eight or nine people. It was so interesting, because I’m going to do a gross name drop, but in the group was Carey Mulligan and Imogen Poots. It was incredible.

sm: Those were the kids that were just there? Did you have to audition?

oj-c: No, but I did a trial. It was a lot of devised stuff, like improv. A guy named Andrew Bradford ran it. He really supported kids. It was all day Saturday. We were all teenagers. It felt like another life. It grew and grew and by the time I left I was 17 or 18. It wasn’t one of those places that you were beaten down. No fake bullshit. It was a safe place to try stuff. We’d put on plays and we all got agents from that as kids.

sm: Is that the moment you look back on and think of as the beginning?

oj-c: I think so. But it was such a long period of time. Career wise, it was quite stagnant. I did one job when I was 15 that was some late night soap. Then I didn’t do anything until I was 18. I wasn’t like this is real until later. It started to snowball when I finished school. I went to get a French lit degree, hated it, dropped out, and applied to drama school. I didn’t get in anywhere.

In the meantime, there was a job at the BBC for a silly period drama. I did that, took the money, and went to do a foundation in New York at Strasberg.

sm: Tell me about the audition for drama school. You didn’t get in anywhere?

oj-c: Yes. I’m telling you there were no signs that pointed to me saying, yeah, you’re quite good at this. It felt like everyone was saying, ‘don’t do it.’ Which is a really interesting place to start from. If no one around me believes in me, how do I? And I just keep going? It was a mix of delusion and stupidity.

sm: Did you think about doing something else?

oj-c: When I was still in high school, I worked as a runner on productions, mainly at the BBC. I was revolving through that so when I finished school, that was kinda my job.. I got to see the inner workings of how sets worked, rehearsal periods. I got to see the writers and the actors, how they would construct a joke, and adjust things.

When I was 17, I started doing the European Music Awards. I would go and work in the costume department, I didn’t fucking know anything about how to sew on a bun but it was amazing. I got such a solid understanding of how a production office works, how a schedule works.

Tragically, you see a lot of how an actor is a small cog in this machine. Everyone is working so diligently. This whole idea of superiority that can go on, it was important for me to witness early on. Because when you go onto set and someone says five minutes, it actually means five minutes. But it was also hard because I was watching people do what I love. I didn’t get into school, so I said fuck it, I’m gonna do a foundation for a year and reapply to drama school from New York.

sm: Why choose the Strasberg program?

oj-c: Someone told me about it. I thought I needed to go do something that gives me a playground, a space in the meantime. But when I got there, I was with this small agency, and they started sending me out on auditions. The first or second one I went on, they flew me to LA to do a screen test and I got it. This was six weeks into the program. I was like: what do I do?

sm: What did you decide?

oj-c: There were three or four movies I got, but then the financial crash happened and it all fell apart. So I went back to New York to continue with the program. But meanwhile, I had been signed to WME and my agents were like, let’s go down the studio route because that’s going to be fun. I got an audition for this Drew Barrymore movie, got that, and then I dropped out. Then got another job that moved me to LA. I was there for a year shooting and doing the prep for that.

The whole idea was that I’d do that and reapply to drama school. Then I kept on booking. It’s only in the past couple years I was like, thank fuck I didn’t stop. There were moments that I thought I needed to stop and do three years of training.

sm: Did you feel like you were missing something that other people had?

oj-c: I felt like I was back-footed. Like I had no idea what I was doing, then I realised no one does. There is no arrival point where you’re like, ‘I know how to act!’ A lot of it was becoming comfortable with learning and making mistakes. Some will hurt and some don’t matter.

sm: So you start booking jobs, and then it just keeps going? No break?

oj-c: There’s obviously periods where you’re out of work. Or you really want a job and you do 50 auditions for it and you don’t get it. A lot of that went on. But I was 22. I ended up staying in New York until I was 28. I felt like a deer in the headlights. I was just so grateful that I was working and that people wanted to hire me that I never stopped to ask if it was actually fulfilling.

I listened to a lot of people early on. I needed guidance. I needed someone to say, do this job, this will lead to this, or it’s important you work with this person. Then I woke up one day and was like, is there anything here that I’m actually proud of?

That comes with experience and maybe a little bit of delusional confidence where you go, I think I want to try and do something here that is more aligned with me. It was a weird time to be in LA. I’m six foot three. I look a certain way. People wanted the product. I thought that was how I’d get there. I’ll pretend to be confident, I’ll be a version of what these people want. Keep my mouth shut and pretend. I reached a point where I was like, I cannot keep going this way.

sm: Did you feel that you’d abandoned yourself? Or was it a slow realisation?

oj-c: It became harder and harder to pretend to be this chill guy. I’m not chill. But when you’re handed something, you go, this is fun. Then the more you read and become accustomed to the environment you’re in, you start to feel entitled to have an opinion. To feel entitled enough to say: I actually don’t like this, I actually find this quite soul destroying. Having to make myself small, or block myself off and not be as vulnerable as I feel. To not show that.

It was an interesting time – in the late 2000s, men were men and what I was being asked to do was be an idea of what a tall, white, masculine man was that sort of never really sat. I actually feel really fragile. So I took a break for six months. I was like, I’m just going to say no now and try to re-shape the direction of what I want to do. Then The Haunting of Hill House came along.

sm: How did that audition happen?

oj-c: I’d done a film with the producer before. They sent me a conversation that happens in the show between Luke and his twin sister, it was him asking her to get him drugs. They asked me to read that and literally the following day, they called me and were like yep, you.

means something to people. It was an amazing thing to be a part of.

sm: Did you immediately recognise that Luke was the kind of character you were looking to play on the page?

oj-c: Sort of. If I’m honest, I did quite a lot with the role. Mike was very open to collaborating. I put a lot of stuff in there that wasn’t necessarily there originally.

All of the siblings were there but they were sort of blank canvases for anyone to put whatever they needed to put in it. We all came in and made bigger choices to create this family dynamic. They brought on this incredible writer, Scott Kosar, who wrote The Machinist, to tackle the Luke character because he was in recovery at the time.

sm: The writer was in recovery?

oj-c: Yes. He tackled all those monologues about staying clean and everything. That was him. You know, you’re talking about a family that lived in a haunted house, that’s sort of a silly premise but all the substitutions that everyone did, it was all about trauma. Living and being followed by things unless you face them.

sm: What did you bring to the Luke character that wouldn’t have been there if somebody else played it?

oj-c: Someone else would have brought something amazing to it. But Mike Flanagan had so many tapes come through of people playing the addiction, and you can’t play the addiction. When I first looked at Luke I was like, okay, he’s a heroin addict, but then I was like, actually, to put a label on that, to label him, does such a disservice.

So it became about what he was running from, and what was terrorising him. For me, it became about childhood sexual abuse. How do you escape this thing you don’t want to feel? And if you can’t keep it at bay, it will take over. It became about that struggle, not ‘I need my fix.’ It became about this terrorising thing that’s always present, which translates into the show. We all have things that follow us. It became about trying to humanise it and make it real by using that as a way in.

sm: You’ve been open on social media about the sexual abuse you faced as a child. How did you navigate acting something so close to home?

oj-c: I’m of the school of thought: use whatever is real for you. That’s why I do the job. A lot of us use our own personal experience, but we bring it to a safe space where it’s okay for us to experience it. In a way it calls for that, and it felt important to do for the show.

I come back to this idea of needing to stop and reassess what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and what I wanted to say in the work that I do. I felt like I couldn’t keep hiding. We’re all complicated, we’ve all had complicated upbringings. That’s just part of life. It’s unfortunate, but it’s sort of always going to be a mess. I needed to put everything that I felt into something. I do that all the time.

We use the parts of yourselves. Including the darker parts, and some of the stuff we don’t want to look at. I’ve never been one of those people to go half on something. You either do it or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. I’m not going to half step in, or pretend.

sm: Did you have any practices while filming to help you not carry the hurt from that world into your own?

oj-c: What was interesting was that all of that sadness was in there anyway. I wasn’t generating any of it, I was just opening it up. I didn’t whip myself up into a frenzy. It just felt like I didn’t have to hide, or pretend it wasn’t there.

sm: Would you say acting has been healing for you?

oj-c: I don’t think the word healing is correct. But it’s been incredibly helpful in helping me understand myself better. It’s probably not the healthiest but I’ve said this before, I feel like I need the job to lay out all my neuroses and vulnerability. I keep myself so closed off in real life. It’s an outlet that feels necessary. That’s why I go off to work every couple days.

sm: You are cast in a lot of thrillers and horrors. Why do you think you mesh well with that genre as an actor?

oj-c: You know, after I did Haunting of Hill House, it was sort of this big thing where the amount of horror scripts that came through was crazy. The amount of, ‘do you want to play a drug addict?’ It’s incredible how desperate people are to put us into boxes.

After Hill House, I did The Invisible Man. That was a horror but the messaging - we’re talking about gaslighting, we’re talking about toxic relationships to an extreme. It was so much more than a scary film. It felt like it had something to say. That’s the thing about horror. When it’s done well, it’s incredibly impactful.

sm: After Hill House, did you feel you had agency when choosing your roles?

oj-c: To a certain extent. But no matter where you’re at: the job you want, they don’t want you. You can be Julianne Moore, but they’d rather have someone else. It’s constant. But it did change quite a lot. In terms of becoming Netflix famous, which is the strangest, most intense thing ever because you’re the most famous person on the planet and then something else comes out. I felt like I was in a fortunate space where I could choose more, but there were films that I really wanted that I didn’t get.

sm: I heard that when you first read the Jackdaw script, you didn’t think you were right for the role?

oj-c: Yes. I called the director Jamie Childs and told him he was nuts. Because again, here’s this hyper masculine man that felt quite robotic on the page. I met Jamie on the set of Wilderness. He was telling me, ‘I’ve written this movie. I’d love to get your feedback on it.’ So I read it. It was still an early draft. Then he said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ I genuinely thought I wasn’t the right fit. I thought it was just out of convenience that he wanted me.

He said to me, ‘It needs someone to come in and make it human. To give it vulnerability.’ He said the film is about how this man readjusts his life following the death of his mum, and I was like, sold! You need some tears? I’ll bring you tears! I’m never leaving my sad boy era. It happened so quickly. We wrapped Wilderness, and then started filming three and a half weeks later. We were up north in January.

sm: You go swimming in the North Sea quite a bit in the film…

oj-c: Oh yeah. It got to like minus nine. It ended with me getting hypothermia. I think I’m a bit too delicate, that’s why. I had this amazing stunt guy called Jamie Dobbs who’s this gold motor-cross champion, and we had to shoot all this stuff of us in the night. They’d get me on a rig, and then they’d get Jamie and it got to minus 12. He got frostbite on his face. It was unbelievable. It was all night shoots. I am so surprised we all made it out alive.

sm: Had you ever cold plunged before?

oj-c: Not at all. I’m one of those people in August that’s like, I don’t know if I want to go in the sea, it looks a bit cold. We did three days on the water. Some of it was in a kayak. The underwater stuff, that’s where it got brutal. We were all eating every 25 minutes because we were so cold. There was a boat just for food. I couldn’t name one thing we ate. It was just fuel. We were going to work at 5pm, and then wrapping in the morning.

sm: Do you often try new things on film sets that you’d never do otherwise?

oj-c: Yes, all the time! That’s part of the allure of it. You get to learn all these weird things that you’d never do. You get to experience these amazing things. I’ve been doing this for so long, because I’m 150 years old, and someone will bring something up and I’ll be like, oh I’ve done that! But then I’m like wait no I didn’t, the character did.

sm: Was there anything else you learned on the set of Jackdaw? Motorcross?

oj-c: Yes! I fucking loved it. If I’m honest, a lot of it is me jumping on and starting up and then getting out of frame. Insurance-wise, I couldn’t do any of the jumps or anything. But it is so great. There is nothing quite like it.

sm: Do you ever think you’ll get into the writing side of film?

oj-c: I have. I just don’t know what I have to say yet. Everyone reaches a point where they think, I don’t want to forever be a product. It would be nice to be part of the creative. I have a lot of opinions.

You go into a job with the best intentions. This is what they’ve told us, this is what’s been sold and then you’ll see the final product and be like: that’s not at all what I thought it would be. The more you do it, the more you feel like you know what you actually like and what you want to be part of. I’ll get to it at some point.

Jackdaw is in cinemas now.

#oliver jackson-cohen #oliver jackson cohen #jackdaw #jackdaw film #jamie childs #2024 #interview #cw: csa #mike flanagan #haunting of hill house #luke crain #jack dawson #i have that home alone anecdote memorised by now 😭#he writes!

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deathbecomesthem · 5 months

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The Piano Man

Part 2

Older!Eddie Munson x Reader | 1K

This is something. It's possible there will be more tomorrow. For now, I leave you with this teeny bit of a thing that I wrote while thinking about home.

The hotel is a ghost town, and it has been since the snow hit. Unlucky you missed your last chance at escape because you believed the weather report. You should have trusted the folks on their mass exodus from the tiny Berkshire village.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You were supposed to be on the road to your mother’s house last night. The trip was an impulsive decision. The day that Russ left, you turned in your request for the vacation time you’ve been hoarding for the last several years, and hit the road the following day. Your apartment was too quiet, and you remembered visiting this town when you were a child. The mountains are a dream this time of year, fresh snow capped peaks hiding over every hill. Mother Nature foiled your escape, and left you with the ghosts of regret to haunt you in the eerie stillness of the snow covered landscape.

Now, it’s Christmas Eve, and you’re sitting at the hotel bar with the elderly bartender as your only company. The martini is passable, it’ll do its job anyway. You’re picking at the tray of cheese and crudites, the only food available from the kitchen with no staff past 6 in the evening, when you hear it from across the big room.

Like a punch in the gut, the tinkle of piano keys echo through the space. O Little Town of Bethlehem. You close your eyes and listen to the song without turning around to see the pianist that’s celebrating their own private Christmas concert. A small part of you thinks you’ll see your grandmother sitting at the baby grand in the corner. Even now, with the taste of gin still on your tongue, you can almost imagine that you’re sitting in the first pew of your grandfather’s church on a Christmas Eve candlelight service so many years ago.

“Carl,” you draw the attention of the bartender behind the counter to you as the mystery pianist begins a new song - Hark the Herald Angels Sing, “can I get another martini please?”

He nods his head and makes your drink. When he sets it in front of you, you pick it up, along with the square black napkin underneath the base, and begin to make your way towards the sound of the music from the corner.

You do not expect to find a man, let alone a man with long black hair and tattoos on his neck and fingers, with his eyes closed while his hands dance along the keys in front of him. Of course, his long fingers are made for the instrument in front of him, and they are clever. You think maybe under other circumstances, you’d see him at one of the fancy piano bars Russ used to like to take you to. He’d fit right in there.

When his eyes open, he finds you standing next to him, glass in your hand. He smiles and nods his head in a bow before asking, “any requests? Christmas music only, please. ‘Tis the season and all that.”

“O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” you answer without hesitation, “and then you should join me at the bar on your break.”

He nods and closes his eyes, giving you the opportunity to watch him in private. His neck is long, and it delights your eyes to see the way he moves his body while his fingers pull the song from the keys in front of him. He’s not playing a song, he’s discovering it, he’s pulling it from the piano and breathing life into it.

After a couple of beats, you reluctantly turn and make your way back to the bar, hoping he’ll join you at some point. You’re willing to sit and wait. You’ll stay there until he either sits down next to you, or leaves.

Three more songs, ghosts from your childhood, float through the room. With your eyes closed, you are that child in knee high socks and a red bow in your hair. You can almost smell the spiced cake baking in your grandmother’s kitchen. You can’t even be sorry that he hasn’t joined you, this stranger is giving you the gift of memories long forgotten. You wonder if he’s searching for his own past in the songs he’s playing.

The timing is perfect, you drain your second marini as his clever hands run along the keys for a final time. O Silent Night, how true that is. The snow outside absorbs every sound, and the cars are all sitting under several feet of snow. You don’t remember another time when things were this silent.

“Is this seat taken?” The stranger, soon to be friend, takes a seat without waiting for your approval. A neat whiskey, double, and another martini for you, and you’re both well on your way to a new kind of holiday memory in the frozen New England hideaway.

—

The ink on his skin, jet black marks on his neck and thighs, gray on his arms and chest, shine under the bright moonlight that filters through the big window of his hotel room. The fresh snow on the ground outside makes that moonlight radiate in a way that can only be seen during this time of year.

The snow soaks up the small sounds that escape your lips while your bodies seek pleasure and refuge on that frigid December night. The clever fingers that danced along the keys of that baby grand piano move along your skin. Those fingers find the keys of your body, and bring out the songs that are hidden deep inside of you. You are his instrument, and he plays and plays and plays until sweat slicked and spent, you sleep under the warm covers of the hotel bedspread.

#eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson #eddie munson smut #eddie munson x reader

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schlock-luster-video · 5 months

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On January 9, 1960, House on Haunted Hill debuted in Italy.

Here's some new Elisha Cook Jr. art!

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just-some-sad-bitch · 8 months

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I dont care if bagginshield is a ship of the past, if no one reads this or finds it I DONT CARE I NEED TO WRITE THIS DOWN BULLET POINT STYLE.

Ok so this is an AU where Erebor was never attacked by Smaug, the ring doesn’t exist and dragon sickness is related to like old age and long exposure to gold rather than a curse that haunts the line of Durin.

In this AU, as I said, Smaug didn’t get to Erebor but was taken down in Dale. This results on a disaster to both kingdoms because while dale was dependent of Erebor for trade, gold, etc. Erebor heavily depended on Dale for its food, sure the kingdom had cattle and what not but in the midst of the disaster Erebor begins to suffer.

Thranduil is still an asshole and states that he owes nothing to either men o Dwarf.

So, regent king Thrain strikes a deal with the only kingdom that responds to their call: The Shire

Of corse the shire doesn’t respond out of the goodness of their heart, they are in dire need of protection. It is well known that hobbits are a peaceful race, rarely conflictive and with no actual army, they see no need for it for they have no enemies, however, in the last few years goblins have stationed themselves on the blue mountains and when they see fit, they attack the shire and everyone in it.

So the Thain and King Thrain strike a deal

Erebor will send an army to provide protection against the goblins, possibly chasing them out of the Blue Mountains and getting to keep the new mountain

In return, the shire will build a road that leads directly to Erebor making sure to have a direct way of sending food and supplieas all year round

Both kingdoms sharing their surplus, strong armies and nurturing food

However the deal must be strengthened by more than paper and ink, and so a marriage is in order.

The shire will send the Thains grandson to become the master of agriculture of Erebor and marry the second son of the house of Durin, Frerin the golden

FINALLY with all this convoluted background I present you:

Bilbo arrives after years of building the great road that unites the two kingdoms, he is obvs accompanied by Gandalf the grey and dozens of caravans filled with grain, cattle and rich soil

Waiting for their arrival is the regent king Thrain who took the role from his father Thror after he fell ill to gold sickness. With him were his family

Lady Dis, known for her character, forwardness and cunningness as well as beauty and strength. and her two sons; Fili, heir to the crown eventually and Kili, his younger brother, the pride and joy of the kingdom

Thorin, crown prince of Erebor, strong warrior that fought valiantly against the white orc and in his victory earning the title of Thorin Oakenshield. Loyal to his people above anything else and commited to becoming a great king one day.

And of corse the groom, Frerin who had little to say in the matter of his marriage but couldn’t refuse. You see, his older brother will inherit the great kingdom, such promise cannot be waisted on diplomatic endeavors, and his sister, one of the smartest dwarves to ever walk middle earth had already gifted the line of Durin with two strong heirs. So what was he to do? Refuse the only thing that would allow him to show his valor? Of corse not, he was as much prince as his brother and sister, and if his father commanded he be married to an outsider in order to save the kingdom, he would a thousand times.

What he did not expect however, was having his brother fall head over hills for his betrothal upon first meeting. Of corse no one noticed, everyone was too focused of the arrival of the hobbit, but himself and his sister notice right away how Thorin could not stop looking at that creature as if he was the most beautiful being in all of middle earth

The hobbit, however was fat too focused on the king’s speech, the strange surroundings and his wizard companion to notice

He was mad, but similarly to Frerin, he found himself in a situation that he could not escape, his parents were taken by the awful goblins and if being married off is what he had to do in order to save the shire then he will marry whoever and whatever the Thain asked him to

And that’s it, that’s all I got, sorry if grammas is wonky it’s almost 2:00 am and English is my second language, also I was too lazy to review it over. I would love for this story to develop in a way in which Thorin is trying to woo Bilbo while also trying to not Interfere in the deal. Also Bilbo falling in love with thorin but also feeling guilty because were dwarfs marrying for diplomacy is super common, hobbits usually marry for love and I imagine him feeling guilty for loving Thorin while he is supposed fo be marrying Frerin. Also Frerin and Dis egging them on even though they KNOW they shouldn’t. I just imagine this ending with Thorin proclaiming his undying love for Bilbo and both of them being torn between running away and living together but also knowing they have a duty to their respective kingdoms. Of cors everything would work out in the end but Idk

If someone has a similar fic to this please please please share it with me I AM STARVING. Anyway thanks for reading bye!!!

#the hobbit #bilbo baggins #thilbo #angst #bagginshield #thorin oakenshield #thorin x bilbo #bilbo x thorin

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evanesdust · 8 months

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i think i dreamed you into life

written for - @sterekfests prompt: haunted house @sterekweekly word: veil

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Characters: Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski Additional Tags: POV Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Established Relationship, Alpha Derek Hale, Haunted Houses

Summary:

...the one where Derek enjoyed a clingy Stiles (thanks to a haunted house).

"Are you sure you want to go in there?" Derek asked a visibly apprehensive Stiles, who clung to Derek's arm, his breath hitching every time the wind howled. Just because it was close to Halloween didn't mean they had to visit any haunted attractions, but Stiles had insisted they come here ever since Erica mentioned going with Boyd last weekend. She'd said it was spooky 'in all the best ways.'

Derek had difficulty believing that as he looked up at the massive, ominous structure better known as the infamous haunted house of Beacon Hills. It was neither infamous nor haunted at any other time of year, but whoever ran this place definitely went all out for Halloween with a distinct taste for the macabre. Cobwebs hung heavy from the pointed roof and jack-o-lanterns with grotesque faces leered from each window. Tombstones littered the front yard, eerily glowing in the dark. Sinister (and slightly over-the-top) sound effects are playing in the background. The air reeked of candy corn and a peculiar, damp smell that permeated the entire area—a scent Derek attributed somewhat dubiously to the atmosphere.

"Are you sure?" he asked again, ready to turn around if Stiles said no.

But Stiles nodded, so Derek straightened his jacket and stepped forward. The crunch of fallen leaves under his boots amplified the eeriness around them. As they entered the house, the atmosphere intensified. Stiles's grip on Derek's arm tightened as a ghostly fog rolled in, shrouding the haunted house in an ethereal mystery.

"God, the music just makes everything so much worse," Stiles muttered, jumping when a sudden shriek pierced the air. It was quickly followed by a round of eerie laughter. Meanwhile, ghoulish figures darted in and out of sight, their movements deliberately swift and unpredictable to maintain a sense of dread.

Derek would hate it, except it made Stiles cling to him even tighter. An unexpected thrill coursed through him; there was something strangely reassuring about being the one Stiles relied on for comfort. Even amidst the staged horror and low ambient lighting, Derek could see the trust in Stiles's eyes intertwined with the fear.

"Focus on me, not the house, alright?" Derek whispered just before another frightful scream echoed through the corridors, followed by hasty footsteps, eliciting a high-pitched yelp from Stiles.

If he didn't have his keen werewolf senses, Derek would probably be scared too. The chilling whispers of the wind, the ominous creaking of the wooden floors, and the distant sound of rattling chains...every element was perfectly designed to instill a deep-seated fear. But thanks to his supernatural abilities, he could hear the whir of mechanics from the animatronics set up in the house, the muttered instructions of workers hidden from sight, and the giggles of other visitors not too far ahead of them.

"Remember, it's all fake. None of this can hurt you," Derek reassured Stiles, even as a headless figure suddenly lunged towards them, causing Stiles to yelp and bury his face in Derek's jacket.

"I know it's all fake, but I feel like my heart's going to beat right out of my chest." Stiles's words were muffled into Derek's jacket. His heart was pounding fast, his pulse seeping through Derek's shirt.

With a smirk, Derek gently patted Stiles's back as they advanced deeper into the heart of the haunted house—past the spider webs and blood-smeared walls.

"Maybe next year we stick to corn mazes and pumpkin patches," he suggested, his voice echoed hauntingly by the eerie soundtrack playing in the house.

Stiles shook his head despite clinging to Derek all the tighter. "Where's the fun in that?"

"This is fun?" he asked, but Stiles silenced him with a vigorous nod.

"Best adrenaline rush ever." Then Stiles screamed as a vampire animatronic jumped out of a coffin.

If Stiles wanted an adrenaline rush, Derek could think of a few better things they could do than visit a haunted house. Something that would benefit both of them, like a night in the woods, under the moon and the starlit sky, with Derek chasing Stiles as if he were the most delicious prey.

Derek's pulse pounded just thinking about it, his every instinct responding to the thought. Unlike the artificial thrill of fear from these dubious props and jump scares, this was a thrill of genuine, primal excitement.

Stiles's eyes snapped to his, a curious look in his gaze. "Well, something's got you all worked up…"

Derek told him the idea and smiled at the rush of anticipation that radiated through their bond, the sudden expectancy evident in Stiles's widened eyes and the excited pounding of his heartbeat.

"But only if you're up for it," Derek added, raising a brow challengingly at Stiles, a daring glint in his eyes.

"I don't know… A scary, haunted house or being chased by a real-life werewolf…" Stiles's words were teasing, and it looked as if he were going to say more, but then a skeleton fell from the ceiling, and he screamed. "Okay, definitely being chased by you. At least that would be more like foreplay."

Fuck.

And now all Derek could think about was this game of their own, a primal chase between predator and prey. Catching Stiles and having his way with him. The wild images played out in Derek's mind—Stiles sprawled out on a bed of leaves, panting and flushed under the veil of moonlight while Derek prowled over him. No haunted house or fabricated horror could compete with the thrill that came from that anticipation, the genuine adrenalin surge.

After all, werewolves loved a good hunt.

"You're already thinking about it, aren't you?" Stiles asked, breaking Derek from his reverie. The knowing smirk on his face somehow looked even more appealing in the gloom of the haunted house.

"Maybe..." Derek allowed the word to hang in the air, raising a brow in response to the anticipation sparking in Stiles's eyes. Even though they were surrounded by artificial horror, it was drowned out by the real, tangible excitement growing between them.

Before either of them could say anything else, another animatronic figure abruptly jumped out of a coffin beside them, its hollow screams echoing through the haunted corridors.

Stiles responded with another loud yelp, clenching Derek's jacket even tighter. "Okay, let's just get through the house, then we'll negotiate terms for this werewolf chase of yours."

"Deal," Derek answered fervently, pulling Stiles closer as they ventured onward.

They spent the rest of the night navigating the labyrinth of chilling rooms and corridors, emerging victorious at the end of the night, Stiles clinging to Derek as if his life depended on it.

#sterek #sterekfestshaunted #sterekfests #sterekfestsfall2023 #sterekweekly #sterekweeklyveil #holy shit i wrote something

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