ma’am could you please take a step back. yes—yes ma’am it’s because of your AOE poison attack aura
ma’am please
This here is me homunculus flesh puppet that me soul will transfer to in the event of me death. It’s got no soul insider it right now, so we keep it in a constant state a euphoria ter keep it from massacrin’ me customers.
attractive qualities to look for in a woman
- on-hit effects that reward her for being aggressive in combat
- health regeneration, either as a constant passive effect or as lifesteal so she can be self-sufficient without interrupting the pace of her attacks
- a powerful attack which has her dropping onto the target location from above, either launching her into the air beforehand or requiring her to initiate the move from a high elevation
- soft hair
"The Big Dipper as it is today (left) and as it will look in 50,000 years." Dream of stars. 1940.
Shovel
this is what ancient greek philosophy is like
Diogenes driving a mobile home into the symposium to ruin Plato’s day.
dear god please let our new baby octopus feel confident enough to move out of her corner hiding spot today while i’m on exhibits so i can see her properly for the first time amen
she stuck out a single arm before changing her mind and deciding the rest of the tank is too scary, far too scary by far she is scared
this movie is so fucking creepy jesus fuck
tripster-and-the-mad-hatter
It’s by Tim Burton, what did you honestly expect?
Actually, it’s Henry Selick, who was the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The book was written by Neil Gaiman, though, and is far…far….worse.
Sorry, I’m about to geek the hell out.
The movie is captivating, but the book is twenty kinds of terrifying, even now, ten years after I first read it. As disturbing as the movie may have been to some, the things Selick added really serve to cushion just how horrific the story really is.
First of all, the character of Wybie does not exist in the book. Coraline is facing all of this nearly alone, with her only help coming from the sly comments of the cat, a warning from the circus mice, and the stone given to her by her neighbor, presented with no comment but that it “makes the unseen seen.”
Second, the Other Parents are never quite as warm (and, dare I say, normal) as they are in the gifs above. They’re described as having paper-white skin and the Other Mother’s hair is said to move on its own, and her long, red, claw-like nails don’t ease any uncertainty that she is absolutely, positively up to no good. The first time Coraline meets them, they (and the rest of the Others) seem to be playing roles (for whatever reason, Coraline does not seem to pick up on this), like they all know what to say and what to do and are simply waiting for Coraline to make her move in their terrifying play world. This is shown to be partly true when the Other Parents tell her they know she’ll be back soon after she refuses the buttons - this time, to stay.
Third, the Other Mother commits atrocities that really should not have been in a book for anyone not fully grown up. She physically deforms the world around Coraline to slow her progress in their game beyond any mild traps the movie portrays, and, instead of turning the Other Father into the wandering pumpkin-thing seen in the film, she simply ceases to use him and throws his body away in the cellar, leaving him to rot with whatever bit of sentience he has left. She begins to lose her touch, as Coraline gains the upper hand. Her world doesn’t just become a nightmare - it falls apart completely. No creepy but oddly cool bug furniture here, just the house that now appears to be a child’s drawing. Whatever the Other Mother is (a beldame, but something tells me she’s much more ancient and powerful than that), she does not give half a hump about what she has to do to ensnare Coraline. Destroy the supporting characters of her twisted creation? Done. Allow herself to be dismembered to ruin Coraline’s life in the normal world? Not even gonna bat an eyelash.
On a final, personal note, imagine eight year-old me, ignored by my parents, absorbed in the story and identifying with Coraline from the start. Imagine me finishing this bloodcurdling book and immediately thinking of my basement, where there is still a locked door that my grandmother swears up and down is nothing more than a storage room, but has not once in my (or my mother’s) lifetime unlocked.
Can you see why this book still scares me?
Fun fact I learned from seeing neil gaiman speak: when he first wanted the book published, his editor said it was too scary. He suggested she read it to her young daughter, and then decide. So she did, and her daughter wasn’t afraid, and it was published. Years later, Gaiman was sitting next to that daughter at an event and told her this story, and she said “oh I was terrified I just didn’t want to tell my mom”.
Coraline WAS too scary to be published, but exists anyway because a girl lied to her mother.
@neil-gaiman, is this true about the publisher’s daughter?
It was my literary agent, Merrilee Heifetz who read it and said “you can’t seriously expect this to be published as a children’s book.” So I suggested she read it to her daughters. And she called me back a week later and said “They love it and they weren’t scared at all. I’ll take it to Harper Children’s.”
A decade later, at the Opening Night of the Coraline musical, I was sitting next to Morgan, Merilee’s youngest daughter, and told her how her not being scared had made the book happen. And she said “I was terrified. But I needed to find out what happened next. So nobody knew.”
So, yes.
This website can be toxic at times, but the fact that people can just tag Neil Gaiman to get his input, like a sorcerer invoking a benevolent spirit, is definitely a bright spot.
i love how that’s worded like the only person this applies to is neil gaiman.
there is one benevolent spirit on this hellscape of a website and it’s neil.
I believe Don Bluth said once that kids can handle anything so long as there’s a happy ending?
