#tammablog

[tammalee]

I have plumb forgotten how to draw faces. Time for faceless art.

[tammalee]

I’m grateful that ads don’t seem to load a lot on my tumblr feed but when they do...

..they really come for me.

Just...

...savage af.

[tammalee]

Just more Graveyard Keeper tweets. XD

[tammalee]

Trolls: A Horror Movie

Trolls. A ‘computer-animated, buddy, romantic, musical, comedy film with catchy musical numbers’ based off of the troll doll whose North American popularity began in the 1960’s and enjoyed resurgences up until the 1990’s. In this essay I will use horror movie tropes found on tvtropes.com to prove the 2016 Trolls movie is actually a computer-animated, buddy, romantic, musical, comedy, HORROR film with catchy musical numbers.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***

The Plot

The story opens with an adorable scrap-book-esque retelling of the historical relationship between Trolls and Bergens.

"The Trolls are small creatures who live in an almost perpetual state of happiness, singing, dancing and hugging all day. However, they are discovered by the Bergens, large miserable creatures, who can feel happy only after eating a Troll.” - Wikipedia

THIS IS THE BASIS OF THE WHOLE MOVIE! BERGENS EAT TROLLS! I’m just gonna slap Cannibalism Superpower and Eaten Alive tropes down here. In this story, Trolls are the protagonists and they are trying to NOT GET EATEN by Bergens.

Horrific.

As part of the backstory we find out about a Bergen prince who was old enough to eat his very first Troll and experience 'true happiness' for the first time. It seems like the whole kingdom has gathered around the Troll tree to witness the young prince’s initiation into happiness.

These monsters even have a holiday called Trollstice where they eat Trolls en masse!

Horrible.

Thankfully, the young prince eats a wooden dummy instead of the troll princess, Poppy, and we find out the Trolls have escaped their horrible fate just in the nick of time. The Bergens have been denied their feast and the Trolls can live happily ever after.

But wait.

Our story ACTUALLY starts twenty years later when Princess Poppy, now twenty-three, decides to throw a big party. After twenty years of peace and safety from Bergen-horrors she doesn’t even think twice about making it the biggest, loudest party ever; despite one Troll, Branch, warning her of the danger.

We also find out that Trolls are conditioned to hug one another every hour through flower bracelets they wear that light up and make a noise.

Suuure, hugs aren’t really a horrific thing unless you’re Branch. Or an introvert. Or there’s some sort of virus being spread via hugs. But it still counts as conditioning.

Blah blah the Trolls make so much noise it attracts the attention of a Bergen who kidnaps a handful of Princess Poppy’s friends. Now Princess Poppy must go through the scary forest to find a way into Bergentown to rescue her friends. In the forest we encounter the following tropes:

Giant Spider 

Man-Eating Plant 

Nature Is Not Nice 

Spiders are Scary

All Webbed Up 

Basically, this is a forest of horrors and creatures other than Bergens seem to think Trolls would make a tasty snack.

Then Branch joins her. Branch, we find out later, has a Dark and Troubled Past which is why he doesn’t sing like other Trolls and why he is grey and dour.

More things happen, the Trolls are sort of rescued but Creek, Princess Poppy’s crush, has a few tropes of his own before the movie ends.

Enemy Rising Behind

Mysteriously Premature Death Declaration

Cruel and Unusual Death

Death by Mocking

Turns out, Creek is an asshole and he gets eaten in the end. After being set on fire. Along with the Bergen he allied himself with to save his bacon.

Yay happy endings!

SHEER HORROR THERE!

The Cast

Okay, so the plot had a lot of tropes but what about the cast? Prepare yourself….

Cooper

Trolls have a lot of colour variation but this nightmare looks nothing like any other Troll we see. He fits both the Long Neck and the Beast with a Human Face tropes! But srsly, WTF is Cooper? His entire body is covered with Troll hair according to Dreamworks!

Satin and Chenille

Usually, Conjoined Twins are connected by the body somehow but these two are connected by their hair; a major organ to Trolls. (The official Dreamworks site also says they’re conjoined twins.)

Branch

Oh, Branch. Branch, Branch, Branch. You poor bastard caught in a prison of Personal Horror. When he was a child, Branch caused the death of his Granny. (Notice how bbBranch was blue? This incident changed him profoundly and he lost his colour.)

This Creepy Child

This creepy child Troll has no name that I could find but omg. So creepy. 

Conclusion

Look, I know Trolls is billed as a computer-animated, buddy, romantic, musical, comedy film but over a dozen horror tropes applicable to the show also means it’s a HORROR movie. 

I rest my case.

[tammalee]

I used to work as a forestry technician and would regularly spend 8+ hours a day by myself in the bush (forest, woods, whatever).

Usually, the woods were normal. Noises are normal animal noises. Normal sounds of trees creaking in the wind and bugs buzzing around your head.

Sometimes, there’s something really fucky going on with the woods and it makes the fine hairs on your body stand up. There’s this weird clarity to your senses and the light isn’t right and you notice there are no animal sounds. Your skin crawls. It’s one thing to experience this at night but when it’s in the afternoon on a bright sunny day it seems ten times creepier.

I like to think it was just a bear or cougar out there, staring at me, wondering if I’d be too much trouble to eat but sometimes I’m not sure...

[tammalee]

How would you pronounce Elodine?

Ell-oh-deen or Ell-oh-dine?

Or some third option? I'm trying to decide but I'm having trouble.

[tammalee]

Just had a lovely date night where we did a tasting menu... and I was introduced to smoked buttermilk foam. This is the weirdest thing I've ever eaten and yet, so interesting. It's like a puff of smoke kissed a cow's teat and then collapsed on my tongue with a dramatic sigh.

It was served with a sablefish custard.

Fish and foam.

It was definitely the most interesting dish of the night!

The best dish of the night was this goat's milk ricotta served with garlic, chili, and olive oil (or was it honey? Or both? I knew I should have taken notes!) I've never had cheese that soft before!

[tammalee]

I keep getting excited by a notification I have a new follower only to find out it's a porn account. I have nothing against sex work but it is disappointing. I wonder how they decide which accounts to follow?