The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

...there was this show a friend found and got me into called Making Fiends. Yes, that's spelled correctly. It was pretty fun (at least, we thought so at the time); I think it got picked up by Nickelodeon after a few years. I can still hear the theme song very clearly, although by now I only remember little bits of the storyline beyond the general plot (Vendetta makes fiends to destroy Charlotte/the school, Charlotte defeats her attempts by making friends with the fiends or accidentally defeating them while trying to--stuff like that).

~Z

PS: The theme song? "Making fiends, making fiends/Vendetta's always making fiends/making fiends while Charlotte makes friends." No wonder I remember it, especially combined with the tune.

...I think it was pretty much just Kim Possible. I saw a few scattered episodes of other animated shows (stuff like Proud Family and Fairly Odd Parents, though I think I might have the second title a little wrong), but in terms of shows I really liked and didn't just see with younger friends/cousins (Arthur, Franklin, tiny bits of Caillou, and just barely enough of Bob the Builder to know the theme song--I do know there was one show my cousins watched that I actually kind of liked, but unless it was Barney I have no clue beyond that I don't think it was animated), it was really just KP. I used to read Clifford books and W.I.T.C.H. books and comics, though, albeit at different times. I also read a bunch of the manga/manga versions of shows that the library had. And this answer is now far longer than I expected it to be.

In terms of actual gushing...well, put it this way. I saw my first KP episode on an airplane before age ten, and it just stuck. The show really holds up, too, especially with nostalgia goggles in the mix: I've seen some of it within the last couple years, and I still like it. The animation is nice, the writing is fun and frequently good in some way, the characters are pretty 3D and have interesting relationships with each other (and are usually interesting in their own right), it doesn't talk down to the audience, and it doesn't have terrible messages, either. It's a good, fun show that I somehow rather enjoy as an adult (perhaps because of the aforementioned nostalgia goggles where it's concerned). It was a good show when I was little, and in my opinion, it still is. Would absolutely recommend it to kids around ten (ish? It probably has a recommended age, and I haven't seen the whole show recently. Ten is probably a reasonable age to watch it, though).

~Z

My family and friends are crushing me with plans all week, and unfortunately, I also finished reading Firestarter last night. Now I have to churn out this review during breakfast before work today. I really wish life would move more slowly!

Spoiler warning for Firestarter.

This is more of a spy thriller with some science fiction elements, rather than a “classic” horror novel. The scary parts are what the government was willing to do to its own citizens in the name of power “security,” and the strange powers they unlocked in their victims that are so destructive and hard to control. It reminds me quite a bit of Frankenstein, in that way, but at least Victor’s test subjects were already deceased when he did his experiment. The government Shop in this novel intentionally targeted college students with no close family, just to protect themselves if things went wrong. And oh boy, did things go wrong, and the Shop destroyed so many lives. It’s interesting that while the Shop’s experiments are, on paper, about protecting U.S. citizens, they’re also clearly terrified of the overall U.S. populace finding out about what they’re doing. The professor who administered the initial tests even seems to go mad with guilt and shame near the end of his life, and presses for all the surviving test subjects to be executed to wipe out all evidence of what he had done. Funny how the Shop doesn’t want the country to find out what the Shop did on its behalf, huh?

Even though it’s Charlie’s pyrokinesis that got the focus of the government’s research and the title of the book, and even as destructive as it could get, I actually found her father Andy’s mind control power way more terrifying. The weird mental connections he could accidentally forge when giving people suggestions, ones that could eventually spiral out of control and unravel their minds completely if he didn’t undo what he had done, are just dreadful to imagine happening in my own mind. It’s like another facet of the experiments themselves: the human brain is complex and its function, incomprehensible, and mucking around with it can open up mysteries we aren’t ready for. Then there’s the fact that his psychic ability is so strong it can actually affect the real world, like when he made the gunman drop his weapon by convincing him it was too hot to touch, and the man’s hand actually blistered. Finally, the little detail that Andy has been basically punching holes in the nerves of his brain all these years is just so painful to think about. Again, the human brain: complex. Don’t play around.

Maybe I’ve just seen too many Marvel movies this past decade, but I can’t help but look at Charlie’s story in this novel as a botched origin story for a superhero. If the Shop had just left the McGees alone and let Charlie grow up with the support of her parents, she could have grown into a well-adjusted, if cautious, young woman. Then, superhero for sure, yeah? Maybe. But the Shop removed all possibility of that occurring when they panicked and killed Charlie’s mom, set her and Andy on the run, and eventually wound up imprisoning both. They were so focused on seeing her as a weapon, it didn’t occur to them to let her be a person, as well. And they screwed themselves out of getting a bona fide U.S. superhero because of it. Good job, government!

There are a couple of characters that are artifacts of the 1980 publishing date that rather lessened my enjoyment. One is a Shop psychologist who is revealed to be a crossdresser, and that’s portrayed . . . about as positively as you might expect something written in the seventies to be. It’s even used as a facet of his death, though that’s all I’m going to say about that, because it was pretty gruesome. The other is John Rainbird, who . . . honestly bothered me more early on than he did by the end. I actually didn’t notice how much his character changed until I started writing this paragraph; some more proofreading was perhaps in order, Mr. King! Anyway, Rainbird is a Native American, and he starts out the novel being very eccentric and magical in a kind of faux-spiritual kind of way. You know, they way white people tend to write Native Americans? He also has a weird obsession with death, and looking into people’s eyes when he assassinates them, trying to glean the meaning of life from seeing the light fade. Toward the end of the novel, he does come to feel a lot more like a more standard villainous character, partly because he acts normal around Charlie to make her trust him. But that still doesn’t fix the fact that the only character of color in the novel is a death-fetishizing villain. Yay.

I do love the way King structured the novel to have Charlie’s powers ramp up in dramatic effect from the reader’s perspective, even telling some parts as flashbacks to keep them in “order.” It makes it feel like we’re experiencing the same ramp up in power and lack of control as Charlie is, culminating in that big final scene of destruction. It felt like the fire power was surging up in the novel, getting ready to burst out, just as it felt for Charlie.

All right, got that done in about an hour. Time to go get crushed by all the rest of this week!

—doctorlit, understanding spoon theory a little better now

All they could see were SPOILERS, glittering and blinking like some mythical Vegas jackpot. All they could see were SPOILERS, glittering and blinking like some mythical Vegas jackpot. All they could see were SPOILERS, glittering and blinking like some mythical Vegas jackpot.

Have a brownie!

Have a triple chocolate cupcake (chocolate with chocolate chips and chocolate icing), and don't forget to blow out the candle!

Gotta wash down that Generic Cake with something, after all.

I don't think I've actually ever even watched any scary movies! I'm a massive coward, especially as someone who's quite into horror in novels and so on.
You stick noises and blokes in spooky suits on camera and stuff in there and it gets me good, I guess.

But you know, just recently I did some very minor legend tripping. For ANZAC day me and a couple relatives, none of whom I actually told my reasons for suggesting visiting the place, went to Narrabeen Lagoon.
It is itself a generally nice place to be, and they all wanted a good place to go, and I happened to be the one who spoke up.

It's a pretty damn thin place, let me tell you. I didn't notice anything strange while I was there other than the ridiculous amount of cyclists and super fat and cute spiders, though, admittedly, it was broad daylight and very busy. But there's been some weird stuff there.

Firstly, the Narrabeen Elephant-Man, witnessed by Mabel Walsh in April 1968:

Grey (like an elephant) in color, and with what looked like a tough, leathery skin, it had a snout resembling that of an anteater, a slim trunk, long back legs, and a pair of very short forelimbs that dangled limply as it waddled along – sideways, no less – by the edge of the road before vanishing into the scrub. Here's a link to an article on that if you want. Strangest to me about this fella is how it appeared once, disappeared, and hasn't appeared since. There is no suggestion it's any sort of extraterrestrial, as there weren't really any local UFO sightings around this time period.

Narrabeen was also the site of a whole bunch of sightings of a few UFOs in 2001 (here's a link to some of that). Various folk witnessed huge, fast, silent orange orbs whizzing about in the skies above Narrabeen. A few witnesses saw a dark shape accompanying them, flapping and moving apparently like a manta ray.

The road along Narrabeen Lagoon, Wakehurst Parkway, is actually considered one of the more haunted roads in Sydney. It's got one of those classic 'white lady' ghosts, named Kelly, who harasses drivers at night. She'll appear in the middle of the road and make drivers swerve right off into the trees, or will appear in the back of your car in your rear window and make you crash if you don't tell her to toss off. She also might appear all bloodied on the road and, when taken to a hospital by a good samaritan, will promptly vanish.
It's a pretty garbage road, I must say, all wavy and without streetlights. You'll find a lot of haunted roads also tend to be the kind of roads that you'll, uh, just generally crash a lot on.

There's a bunch of the stuff I'm aware of right now about that place. I'm not aware of any particularly dark history there--nothing, at least, distinctly dark as compared for the whole of this country in general. You'll find there's always a lot of activity happening around water, places of water, so on, which is part of the reason I personally associate Kelly with the lagoon, though she's more associated with the road itself.

Anyone else here done any good legend tripping?

It's my birthday!

I recently learned that this wormwood-flavored wine (not to be confused with absinthe, it's different) is drunk in traditional May Day celebrations in Romania, for health and protection from harm. Its close relative, mugwort, is known as a tonifying and insect-repellent herb in various cultures, and used in moxibustion treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The More You Know!

~Neshomeh

18 years and counting to be exact. Catwoman Cat-Tales. It was initially written in 2001 as a fix fic for Batman Year One. It has since taken on a life of its own with 18 years of consistent updates. It would also go on to launch its own spin-offs.

It is really good. 'Nuff said.

Have a link: https://catwoman-cattales.com/

1: I don't watch horror movies, but apparently both The Fugitive and The Usual Suspects count as thrillers. And I love those. Oh, oh, and Three Days of the Condor. Not really all that scary (a bit paranoid, I guess) but I love it to bits all the same.

2: Does Pokémon Black count? It's my favorite piece of internet creepypasta/urban legend for exactly one reason: There is nothing supernatural about it. In fact, there's nothing impossible about it at all. I could believe that just maybe someone hacked a copy of Pokémon Red to create a creepy version that is designed to send a message to people who play it about life and death and whatnot. In fact, it's almost kind of inspiring: someone creating a strange sort of life lesson and packaging it up as a Pokémon cartrige? Come on, there's something cool about that. Even if it probably didn't happen.

3: I don't think anything I watch here really counts as obscure, but I recommend the above nonetheless. Furthermore, I recommend a film I haven't seen: They Live. I know, one again not obscure, but the closest I could get to obscure was John Dies at the End. Which... actually, yeah. Go watch that, it's my new recommendation. It's joyously insane if it's anything like the book (I read the book, I didn't see the film. So... well, take your chances).

4: The first time I read the first Laundry Files novel. It was a dark night in Yankee Stadium when I got to the bit where they saw the Atrocity Archive proper. Which was pretty chilling on its own. And then the nailbiting climax... well, those who have read the series get the idea. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't.

SPOILER WARNING!

It’s not a scene, but a sound of six clangs—noises taken from the first Iron Man movie, when Tony was making his first suit in the cave.

*sobbing*

It's not a life-changing movie, but it delivers pretty much exactly what it should: plenty of action, laughs, tears, and satisfying moments for all. Even a few surprises! The three-hour run time felt just right.

FYI, there's nothing after the credits this time. Phobos and I hung around to be sure. It's a little sad, but yeah, the arc is really done. It's the end.

Until they start the next round...?

~Neshomeh

He's a close second on my list of favorites because he's such a unique monster, and basically the internet's answer to folklore. Sadly, the multiple bad adaptations and huge amount of bad creepypasta involving him means I can't really take him seriously anymore, but I do hold Marble Hornets in very high esteem to this very day. It does an incredible job on creating an otherwordly, mystical atmosphere around the Operator with relatively low-budget effects and techniques. Plus, I do love the characters, especially Tim.
I have to say though, not every seriously dark horror movie necessarily involves a downer ending. If you'd like some examples, I'll gladly give you some, provided you don't mind the slight spoiler of knowing they don't end with a downer. Right now, I can point you in the direction of The Frighteners, which is a genuinely funny *and* suspenseful horror-comedy.
And I know the feeling of being freaked out by movies which aren't really that frightening in hindsight. One of my first experiences with horror was Ghost Stories (the anime which you might now for its hilarious trainwreck of an English dub); on the internet, it's mostly acknowledged as a dull and lackluster anime, but when I accidentally caught episodes of it as a kid? I didn't sleep well for days. I genuinely think it could have been a good anime (the concept of middle-schoolers accidentally unleashing the captive spirits of a haunted schoolhouse and having to hunt them down again does have some potential), but for 9 year-old me, it was downright amazing. Man, I miss those late nights with the local anime channel.

Horror isn't really my go-to genre, despite being a Stephen King fanboy. The darker, more serious horror movies are a little too bleak for me; I prefer my stories with the protagonists winning in the end, even if the price is high. So I tend to like the more action/fantastical focused edge of the horror spectrum.

1. I've been told that the Tremors series doesn't count as real horror, but alas, it's Tremors. I know most of the series is more action-focused, but there's no denying that the original movie was very suspenseful. Like I said above, I like it when the human victim characters stand a fighting chance, and Tremors is all about fighting back. I just have to overlook the glaring biology fail the series employs; for the record, yes, albino animals absolutely can reproduce.

2. Does Slender Man count when it's blatantly engineered online? I say it does, because it was engineered naturally, by many minds, over time. The lack of personality or emotion make its variable backstory all the more unique, and confusing in a threatening, incomprehensible way. Marble Hornets is my definitive Slender Man story, because it does an excellent job of inserting the weird, mysterious nature and behavior of the Man into what should be the bland everyday dullness of some twenty-somethings filming low quality YouTube videos.

3. My folks, let me tell you about a campy little 1980s horror called Waxwork, which I had the luck to see aired on Sci Fi Channel way back in my teens. It's the only time I've ever been able to see it, and I am still enamored of it. The basic gist is that a creepy dude is using what appears to be a wax museum to lure folks in as sacrifices to bring about some vague apocalypse. The wax displays are all homages to horror films and genres—some classic, and some contemporary to Waxwork's release. Getting too close to each display reveals that it's actually a dimensional portal to another reality where the monsters are alive. Again, it's 80s camp, so more fun than scary, but . . . well movies are supposed to be fun. It also has a sequel that leans even farther away from horror and leans more into action, and also time travel. I seem to recall they're a bit gorey, and I can't remember the swearing level, but try to look them up some day, yeah?

4. Okay. I know now, as an adult, that the movie is considered pretty lame trash, but when I was a teenager, and I saw it with my sisters and cousins one Halloween, I got really really freaked out by the terrible film adaptation of Children of the Corn. Just the idea of a small town filled with slash-happy people being controlled by a murderous underground entity that we never actually get to see . . . I basically wasn't old enough to be watching movies like that, okay? I slept on the floor of my parents' room for a couple nights. One positive outcome, though: our cat Zoe, who always stayed in my parents' room, was super-happy to have a bonus human friend in the room with her. She sat just out of petting distance all night, facing me and non-stop purring. "Friiiiieeeeend. Friiiiieeeeeend." Not sure she actually slept through all that purring, but hey, she was a cat. She could sleep whenever she wanted!

—doctorlit, possibly not a good horror fan?

I held a horror movie marathon last night, and it very much reminded me of why horror is my favorite genre of all. I'd love to discuss spooky movies, movie recs and spooky stuff in general, so if there's anyone who wishes to join me, it'd be most appreciated.
Here's a few questions to start a discussion:

1. What's your favorite scary movie (horror or thriller)?
2. What's your favorite scary urban legend/folklore monster? (Mine's Kuchisake-onna.)
3. Is there an obscure scary movie you think deserves more love? (My answer to this: Ghostwatch, Ghostwatch and Ghostwatch again.)
4. What's the most scared you've ever been of a story? (My story is when, after watching The Ring for the first time, I had to sleep with a giant cathode tube TV at the foot of my bed and it turned itself on in the middle of the night because there was a storm. Damn near gave me a heart attack.)

I've always loved Google easter eggs, like "do a barrel roll" and the others, but this might be one of my favorites.