Any tips on writing horror? Asking bc you are sooooo friggin good at it, it’s wild lol—and on a similar note, any underrated (or just general) horror recs? (any medium, comics, movies, fanfics etc)
Thanks so much for the flattery! I'm glad you like my horror, it's the funnest for me to write 😁 as far as tips go they might sound a little milquetoast but i think horror is more about the execution than the concept. Even something conceptually scary falls flat if the execution is there, and mundane things can seem really really scary if there's proper execution (i think the best comparison is like, sharknado isn't scary even though sharks in a tornado are scary, because the medium is so comedic, and despite pregnancy being very very common rosemary's baby is blood curdling because the execution is so well done, even though the demon part of the story is relatively small).
I'm writing a Damian horror story, and pacing is very important. esp if you're going for a simple concept like a final girl story w/o a huge mystery element, a lot of times shorter is better. I'm gutting all the plot ideas i've been throwing around because the longer you string along tension the harder it is for you to return on the emotional investment your audience has made. in Living for the Damage, for ex, there were going to be a lot more scenes of Damian interacting with the dead robins, because it was my favorite part to write, but as i kept writing more I realized the witch was losing some of her edge. The scene with the dishwashing was already starting to fall flat, so I knew i needed to wrap up that part of the story.
visuals are so so so important, not just the scary ones. a horror story without a setting is just a book about a bad day. setting the atmosphere of the scene is an absolute gamechanger. mostly i just pull on atmospheres that make me feel uneasy or invoke deeprooted anxieties (ex: bathroom stalls in deimos, the 1950s nuclear family home in vrykolakas) or to subvert expectations sometimes you can enhance the unsettling or out of place aspects of mundane settings (the sitting room in capgras syndrome, the quiet bright lit forest in dollhouse)
visuals can also contribute to themes and metaphors explored in horror, and deepen the thematic meaning of a short or plot-focused horror story. in the upcoming damian fic, locust borers are going to be heavily featured
to go along with themes of foundational corruption, loss, deception, and consumption.
getting good at description in prose is also something i value in horror. A lot of times people suggest under writing, to let concepts and themes hold more weight, but I really appreciate flowery prose in horror. I guess it's up to your preference, but I like to get in the habit of describing as much of the mood/setting/horror objects as possible. especially before the 'scary' thing happens, i've found that it lends to a sense of dread.
getting good at anatomy (check out textbooks for this, but also chubbyemu videos can be good for decriptive/medical words) helps but isn't a requirement as long as you're willing to research. As a kid my father made me read the dictionary several times in order to grow my vocabulary and write/speak eloquently. I think making horror a 'hard' read, on a grammatical/reading level helps generate an atmosphere of confusion. It also may just be that i'm partial to a more wordy horror genre.
Lastly you should write what scares you the most. or really anything that you spend a long time thinking about, that could be twisted into a horror concept.
As far as recs go, I've finally re-found one of my favorite horror movies of all time, The Feast
It's Welsh and it's such a beautiful, beautiful movie. The imagery is glorious the gore is well-executed. I loved the conclusion. It's slow paced and feels a lot longer than 93 mins, but it earns it. I think about this movie at least weekly
Some of our favorite quotes from Artemis ii so far:
"Copy. Moon joy."
"I have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."
"Houston, if you could give me about 20 new superlatives in the mission summary for tomorrow that will help out my vocabulary a little bit, that would be great. Thank you."
“If you’ve ever seen the top of the spotlight of the top of the Luxor at night in Vegas, this looks like what it wants to be when it grows up.”
"To all of you down there on Earth... we love you, from the moon."
"We just went sci fi."
"It is so great to see Earth again. To Asia, Africa, and Oceania: we are looking back at you. We hear you can look up and see the moon right now. We see you too."
"We will always choose Earth. We will always choose each other."
“It’s a bright spot on the moon, and we would like to call it Carroll.”
"Amaze amaze amaze."
"I said that we do not leave Earth, but we choose it. And that is true."
"Christina has been sleeping head down in the middle of the vehicle, kind of like a bat"
"It's really fun to be floatin' around, it just makes me feel like a little kid."
"Trust us, you look amazing, you look beautiful."
"'Homo Sapiens' is all of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like. We're all one people."
"I'm proud to call myself the Space Plumber."
"We were all eagerly awaiting the chorus."
"Copy heart. Copy bracelet."
“Welcome back. We are still here. They are in space.”
Astronauts are so funny man. Here's just a couple of things I've found hilarious from this past week of space stuff:
It's probably already been spread around here enough already, but in case anyone's missed it; 7 hours after launch, commander Reid Wiseman, dealing with tech issues, uttered the generational quote "I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working."
After fixing the issues that were afflicting the onboard toilet, mission specialist Christina Koch (who has quickly become my favourite of the four) laughingly said “I’m the space plumber, I’m proud to call myself the space plumber.”
On Easter Sunday, the Artemis II crew hosted a makeshift egg hunt, by hiding packets of dehydrated scrambled eggs around their Orion capsule.
The way the crew always makes sure to make it very clear they're in space when doing interviews. From stuff like Wiseman just hanging out floating sideways on screen or Koch letting her hair loose so it can freely span out flowing around her.
While in transit, the crew decided to record a parody of those bad 80s sitcom intros where everyone turns and smiles at the camera.
When the crew reached the furthest point from Earth in the mission, they jokingly clambored over each other in an effort to get to the far side of the capsule, so that they could individually claim to be the furthest person from earth.
At the same time, on the ISS which was at the time on the other side of earth, the 7 astronauts onboard had a light-hearted race to the far side of the station, making jokes about being the furthest humans from Artemis.
On the way back to earth, NASA actually managed to establish an audio call between the crews of the ISS and Artemis II (where they shared the above info), and Koch called one member of the ISS crew, Jessica Meir, her "astro-sister" as the two of them previously spacewalker together in 2019. Meir then responded I'm so happy that we are back in space together, even if we are a few miles apart" (a few here being 230,000).
While Jeremy Hansen was doing an interview, Wiseman and Koch were just in the background swatting the mission mascot (a little moon plush toy named Rise) back and forth between each other.
"shit, his dick's on fire" is in the first line of the show
his dick really was on fire
the gay cop who shows up to the crime scene on the way to a yoga class dressed in yoga pants because he "just got a five day pass" and didn't want waste it over a murder investigation if he could help it
"i loved that cunt like a brother." "he was your brother."
the town's mayor-doctor swimming up to the beach where the crime scene is "like a russian sub"
the coroner's caravan transports trent's body to a dramatic score in a cinematic sequence inspired by something out of a german opera
the caravan is told they're going the wrong way so the score stops for them to reverse in the middle of the road
the score continues as the caravan continues
the police station staffed by three cops made their wifi password "three little pigs"
eddie getting everyone's names wrong, including thinking trent the murder victim's name was "jason" for a good portion of the initial police briefing
eddie trying a croissant, and, disliking the taste, takes the chewed up piece out of her mouth to put it back with the rest of it
eddie spending the first few hours in deadloch thinking she's in adelaide
before the discovery of a serial killer, deadloch's main villain was kevin the seal
when dulcie asks jimmy what happened to the smashed security camera footage at the dock, jimmy very obviously panics and says "birds?"
turns out birds did ruin the security camera footage
fay opening her "welcome to country" with "actually this is an acknowledgement of country. i'm not fucking welcoming any of you" and proceeding to give the best/funniest fuck-off to white settlers i've ever seen on tv
oh, and the fact that the dead body prop was made the show's prosthetic artist who stopped by the supermarket to run an errand whilst the prop was in her car and had the cops called on her in real life
Don't forget 15+ fantastic female characters of different ages and backgrounds and personalities while almost all the white male cops are just called Steve and barely get five lines 😂
The suspects in Cluedo, but with the Glass Onion (Knives Out sequel) actors/characters.
Madelyn Cline/Whiskey as Miss Scarlett
Dave Bautista/Duke Cody as Colonel Mustard
Kathryn Hahn/Claire Debella as Mrs. White
Edward Norton/Miles Bron as Mr. Green
Kate Hudson/Birdie Jay as Mrs. Peacock
Leslie Odom Jr/Lionel Toussaint as Professor Plum
It's a terrible, terrible game.
CLUEDO card art by Lacey Van Nortwick
Blackram Hall: whodunit, murder mystery, hardboiled, pulp, crime, thriller, italian giallo, noir and neo-noir, detectives and serial killers, spy stories, vintage, manor houses, art, life and death.
people who are just finding out about internet tracking and data mining in the year 2025 and that your special robot friend does not respect your privacy lol
I don't understand how people who are so "LOL magas don't believe climate change is real!!! How stupid!!!" are so blithely skipping to chatgpt as a search engine at the same time. Like you cannot be "haven't you noticed the lack of bugs this year" and simultaneously "here's how I made my 17 step skincare routine using chatgpt!!!". It beggars belief.
a young woman suddenly saddled with raising her younger sibling who ultimately has to accept that she isn't up to the task and it'd be better for her sibling to live in a stable and loving home with a family friend, leading to a bittersweet ending where the siblings remain in contact and still love each other, but must accept living apart at least for the time being, could be an interesting and compelling character.
Lilo and Stitch (the real one, natch) is about traumatized people trying to make the best of a really bad situation and almost failing, but ultimately succeeding beyond their wildest dreams because they opened their hearts to the strange and expanded their ohana beyond the boundaries of the solar system. But either way, certain ships had sailed and they could only move forward.
This change invalidates the interplanetary ohana. It says "It's not right that a 19-year-old should raise her little sister (with the help of awesome space aliens), we have to fix this so the little girl gets a proper family with adults and the teenager goes to college like a regular person and the space alien is just a dog. The solution that the characters find through the course of events is not the solution; the real solution is the one that makes things as normal as possible."
and imo this change is actually fucking evil and diabolical when you factor in that Lilo and Nani are indigenous girls and the US government has always always always tried to rip native families apart. the fact this new movie is explicitly saying "yeah thats for the best that two native Hawaiian sisters get separated at the end and one goes to the mainland this is the correct choice for everyone" is fucking evil and i hope the disney execs who proposed this change never know peace
Extra insulting when you remember that in the original movie, right after Lilo is being taken away by the alliens, there's a scene MOCKING the very concept that these two would be better off apart. "Look on the bright side, you won't have anyone to fight with."
And right before that scene? We have Bubbles telling Nani that he believes SHE needs Lilo, not the other way around, because duh, that's her baby sister. And this hits so hard because through the whole movie we have Lilo feeling like she's different and that people dislike her for it (and the autistic community has heavily latched onto that character over the years for that exact reason). Stitch lands on Earth right after she prays for a friend... right after Nani was apologizing for being too mean and acting like she'd trade her for a pet.
The movie was making it very clear: Nani might not want to be a replacement parent, but she does want Lilo in her life. And not in a "Maybe we'll reunite eventually" or "We'll see each other every now and then" but in a "We're FAMILY, my life is not complete without you, we'd be completely lost without each other" therefore Bubbles and literal alliens are going to have to fight her because she's NOT giving up on being Lilo's new mom, it's a sacrifice, but it's worth it, because that's just what you do when you love someone.
To replace this with a ending that CONFIRMS that Lilo, despite being family, is actually a BURDEN that Nani wants to get rid of? It has to be one of the most evil things ever put to screen.
Thinking about Lilo & Stitch makes me really appreciate certain things about the original + the series. Almost every single named [human] character in the movie isn’t white: the only exception being Mertle, y’know, the bratty little girl we’re not supposed to like.
Besides all of the racial representation, Lilo herself is very much a neurodivergent icon, and her portrayal as the protagonist is amazing considering how characters like her are typically either sidelined or depicted in ways to make them less sympathetic/human (modern media does at least a slightly better job at adressing that kind of thing tho).
So all of that is great, but to anyone that hasn’t seen Lilo & Stitch: The Series, it also does some extremely refreshing stuff.
Pleakley gets tons of validation to dress in drag, everyone always referring to Pleakley as “she” when dressed up as “aunt Pleakley.” There’s even an episode that tackles Pleakley dealing with the pressures of his family that wants him to marry a girl and settle down to have a “normal life.” After the episode's shenanigans, there's a realistic depiction of the misunderstanding of a heteronormative/traditional parent with their non-traditional child: Pleakley's mom says that she just wants her children to be happy, but when Pleakley says that he is happy, she thinks he's only trying to console her as she insists, "How can you be happy? You aren't even married." But Pleakley finally gets it through to his mom when he says, "I don't want to be married, mother! I'm happy just as I am."
After getting to meet all of Pleakley's ohana throughout the episode and hearing from Pleakley himself -after all of the previous misunderstandings- that he really, truly, is happy, she's finally starting to understand.
Even though his mom comments as they leave that she wants him to “try wearing men’s clothes more often,” she still does walk away accepting that she simply doesn’t understand her son's way of thinking. It’ll definitely be hard for her since she’s so much more “traditional,” but she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that her son is who he is, and likes being that way, so she’ll love him regardless. She's trying her best.
The portrayal of people with physical disabilities is also great. It’s not because there’s one recurring character with some condition, but almost because there are non-recurring characters. It isn’t in every episode, but here’s an example: they want to show someone at the park playing fetch with their dog for just one shot. They could very easily have it be any a random person, but they decided to make it a lady in a wheelchair. There's another episode where Nani's friends from highschool show up and one has forearm crutches, but not just because she had some recent accident. No one in the episode questions her condition or feels the need to point it out, the only comment on it being that the friend will use the crutches to lightly bonk the others' arms, and Nani jokes, "You are still deadly with that thing."
The fact that they include characters with disabilities when they "don't have to" makes it that much more normal. These people aren't some special case or the main highlight of the episode, they're just another person. They're normal.
There's so much that all of the original Lilo & Stitch media did right, but now the name will forever be tainted with the association of the remake, which I'm sure will have absolutely none of the tasteful writing and ideas of anything prior to it.
I feel like the big push for AI is starting to flag. Even my relatively tech obsessed dad is kinda over it. What do you even use it for? Because you sure as hell dont want to use it for fact checking.
There's an advertisement featuring a woman surreptitiously asking her phone to provide her with discussion topics for her book club. And like... what. Is this the use case for commercial AI? This the best you could come up with? Lying to your friends about Moby Dick?
One of the big pushes tech companies are making for AI is entirely in the tool of convenience. Take Gemini for example, one of Google's really big pitches for it is in features like Help Me Read and Help Me Write, which are like the lowest tier use case for deep learning models but are also the two AI features that the average consumer will actually care about. Sure they advertise the GenAI stuff Gemini Advanced is able to do, but they've woken up to the idea that the average consumer does not care about GenAI and non-AI Bros fundamentally loathe GenAI.
Every company with a language model got sucked into the venture capital pitfall of AI and now have to market the one set of features the general person actually cares about.
I work in advertising and the culture shift surrounding AI even from January until now (end of March) has been drastic. At the beginning of the year, the company I work for was using AI to design most of their assets. Clients started coming back and requesting that we no longer use AI generated images or videos for copyright liability reasons. Basically, there's no way to tell whose art or photography was scalped to make an image, so as companies who are trying to make a profit using potentially stolen images, it puts them in a gray area, legally.
Also, companies do look at their comment sections. Anti-AI commenters on social media ("this is not a real image" "I don't trust companies who use AI" etc) are seen by higher ups of a company. Basically, keep bullying brands who use AI, it's working. Now my company uses almost no AI for deliverables, which is a huge win.
