Russell and Mr. Deadman talk about his literary work, sociology, and horror. Catch the show live this Friday at 9:30CST
https://www.spreaker.com/show/deadmans-tome-podcast
Russell has been writing for the majority of his life. Last year, he published a second edition of his freshman novel, The Tale of Old Man Fischer. Slipping into alternative universes allows Russell to enjoy the process of creativity from the novel’s conception to its final draft.
My daddies woke me up again.
After dinner Dad took me upstairs, helped me put on my pajamas, counted to 120 as I brushed my teeth and told me a story about a girl who followed a rabbit into a mysterious world. Poppy was downstairs cleaning up dinner and humming “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”. Dad read for a bit until my eyes fluttered and I fell asleep. He tried to be quiet as he slipped away from my room and down the stairs but the top step always creaks and I woke up.
I listened, hoping that tonight would be different because Christmas was coming.
Daddies were so happy during the day, smiling as we decorated the tree, holding hands as we walked in the snowy park and taking turns messing up my hair when I begged for a new toy. It was not the same when they thought I was asleep. I would first hear Dad talking very low, saying things like “house” and “bills”. Poppy would also be talking low except for when he said, “we can do this”. I don’t know what bills are but I hate them.
Poppy would keep talking low, but Dad would move something a little bit too loud and Poppy would tell him “Shhhhh”.
One year Poppy got a doll for me. He said it was a special doll from Santa that would make sure I behaved. It wore a green jacket with a red belt and had a pointy green hat. He put it up on a high shelf and it sat there with big eyes that would stare and stare.
As I watched TV it stared. Eating dinner it stared. Poppy even moved it to my room where it would stare at me.
I kicked my robot covers off of me and tiptoed to where the doll sat staring.
I thought maybe daddies needed someone to watch them to make sure THEY behaved, then maybe they wouldn’t yell so much.
I opened the door just enough so that the doll and me could squeeze through. I was good at making myself small and I was really good at hide-and-seek so I was able to get around to the part of the upstairs hall where I could spy on daddies without being caught. I lay down flat on my tummy and made the staring doll sit up and look downstairs. He watched daddies as they pointed at each other with angry faces. The doll watched as Poppy showed Dad something on his phone, which made Dad angry and Poppy cry.
“Who is this?” the doll heard Poppy ask Dad.
I left the doll alone as I snuck back to my room and into bed. I hope Daddies see the doll and stop yelling.
*
I was dreaming that a goat was running downstairs in the house. It must have been a big goat that worked on a farm because I could also hear chains making a lot of noise as they hit the ground and slammed into furniture. The goat growled like a lion, which was weird. I think my daddies were in the dream too because I heard yelling. Then one of them yelled out my name…
I woke up and then quickly stood in my bed getting a little dizzy.
“Dad?”
I jumped down to my bedroom floor and while holding my head called out,
“Poppy?”
The house was quiet. No daddies yelling and no goat with chains. I could see that the lights were on from the little line of light at the bottom of my door, so I thought daddies were in the living room.
The top step did not creak because I was too afraid to go downstairs. I stood at the top frozen. I wasn’t dizzy anymore, but I felt sick. I could see why Daddies were so quiet. They were not there.
The black leather couch that I was not allowed to have snacks on was covered in a red thick mess. All over the pillows were long sausages that were also covered with red.
Small chunks of meat hung from the lamps at the side of the couch. They were stringy and slowing plopping down onto the side tables. Behind the couch on the wall it looked like black snails were moving down towards the floor. Across the TV it looked like someone used a brush to paint long streaks of crisscrossing red with lots of red dots in-between, above, and below. I looked more and the red was on the ceiling, the drapes, the carpet, the cabinet, the lights, the chairs, the blanket, on Dads book, on Poppy’s phone…
Poppy’s phone…
Poppy’s phone was in Poppy’s hand.
Poppy’s hand had no arm, or body.
I was shaking very hard. My pajama pants got very warm for a second, but then it quickly got cold and wet. I could smell pee, and it reminded me of when I used to wet the bed. The house now smelled like my pee, daddies’ red and a dirty animal.
I was too scared to move but I did turn my head to see the doll still sitting, still staring out where daddies had been and where the red puddles are now. In its’ lap was a piece of ripped paper. There was a red streak on it but it did not cover the two words that someone had written. The first word I knew because it was in the story Dad had read. It was “Behave”. The second word I didn’t know but I tried sounding out the letters.
K-R-A-M-P-U-S.
Stranger Things, for those that have yet to see it or for some reason remain untouched by the hype around the show, is a Netflix original series about a group of Dungeon and Dragons RPG nerds on a quest to save their friend after he mysteriously vanishes. Stranger Things is fun and thrilling ride, for sure, but somehow the coming of age story about three boys finding their friend with the help of a telepathic super girl named Eleven is transphobic.
In BuzzFeeds defense, the article does not outright call the show transphobic, but the implications are insinuated from Shannon Keating’s complaints about the show. I’ll highlight some of the best moments and give my rebuttal. You can read the full article here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/shannonkeating/stranger-things-and-compulsory-femininity?utm_term=.fhRK8zRDdZ#.ehqZBLm4J6
In Netflix’s ’80s-throwback sci-fi horror series, Stranger Things, its young hero gets a girly makeover and wins the heart of a boy. For decades, masculine-looking girls in film and television have been a problem to be solved — or at worst, queer monsters to be vanquished.
For those that haven’t seen Stranger Things, the girly make-over comes about midway of the show and is used to disguise Eleven so that those that are looking for her don’t FIND HER! Three boys help a shaved head girl who is often mistaken for a boy by others throughout the show was given a blonde wig and a dress, a radical difference to her typical government experiment child demeanor. Was it sexist for the elementary school boys to assume that she would like a dress and a wig? Maybe to current SJW standards of TODAY, but not back then.
In Stranger Things, Mike develops a crush on Eleven two episodes BEFORE the “makeover” scene.
Will’s friend Mike (Finn Wolfhard), in whose basement Eleven has sought refuge, helps her put on his older sister’s makeup and clothes so she can take a trip to their school without rousing suspicion. The end result — frilly, feminine, pink — has Eleven looking like a miniature version of Ally Sheedy, brand new and beautified, emerging from Saturday detention with the Brat Pack.
Hold on here. The author makes it seem as if Mike immediately had Eleven change. Did she even watch the show? Mike took care of her the moment he found her because of empathy. He hid her in the basement and fed her out of kindness and compassion, but he’s still a sexist anti-LGBT asshole because he gave her one of his sister’s shirts? Go fuck a dildo. Wait, you can’t fuck a dildo because that’s a patriarchal symbol.
Eleven is at home in a long history of young female characters whose ultimate worth is dictated by her romantic appeal to boys — someone who must first become desirably feminine before she can fully claim that worthiness at all. That premise is all the more galling in a show where Eleven is a) the hero, and b) prepubescent. Why on earth does she need to be worrying about attracting boys when she’s a literal child — one preoccupied with saving people in mortal danger, no less?
When did Eleven seem actually interested and willing to engage with a romantic appeal to boys? She put on a wig and Mike gave he a compliment, as a child that was hardly ever given positive regard, she enjoyed it while on the defensive. Eleven NEVER had a self-reflective though or tearful breakdown over her romantic appeal. Who the fuck are you writing for? Has your audience even seen Stranger Things?
On the whole, Stranger Things makes sure to scrub all possible traces of queerness from its characters. Bullies pick on Will, his brother, and his friends by calling them queer freaks, but that’s largely an empty insult. Mike is safely paired with Eleven, while Will’s brother, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), after taking enormously creepy photos of Mike’s older sister Nancy as she’s undressing in a window, becomes her confidante and friend. Lonely hetero geekdom is romanticized in this world — stalking is merely a minor offense, something that very well might be less shameful in the show’s diegesis than gayness.Stranger Things champions the nerds and the weirdos, as so much of ’80s pop culture did, but the writers temporarily put Eleven in a wig and make most characters seemingly straight as if to assure that their weirdness won’t become unruly. Queerness, gender-nonconformity (nonwhiteness too, for that matter) — in a world with monsters and alternate dimensions, these things are just too alien to make the cut.
You said it yourself. The show takes place in the 80’s. that’s the most you’re going to get but it is still a very generalized way to say that Stranger Things is transphobic. I know the author did not outright say it, but she might as well have. Afterall, to her Stranger Things actively scrubs away possible traces of queerness from its characters. Why are you so concerned about queerness in CHILD CHARACTERS? Eleven is a lab rat girl who was NEVER transgender or queer. Sexuality has ZERO to do with Stranger Things, other than Mike’s childish crush on Eleven, and Jonathan’s attraction to Nancy. Which, by the way, did involve stalking and taking of some creepy photos but the show ABSOLUTELY did not condone that. His camera was smashed up for it!
Homophobic name calling? Honey, that’s still around today and is a rite of passage for most boys. be a boy at school and you’ll be subjected to more than that, and it builds character. Some random bully calling you a fag or queer freak is a test to see how you can handle trolls. But in context of Stranger Things, the bullies are the product of the 80’s and are going to do what bullies in the 80’s do.
But Eleven is a kid. We don’t know her sexual orientation and we don’t need to. Yet the Duffer brothers felt compelled to give her a makeover and stick her with a boy. (She might have grown up to be with both boys and girls, of course, or no one at all, but in our culture girls are presumed straight unless proven otherwise; even then, they’re belittled and disbelieved.) No matter her orientation, Eleven simply doesn’t deserve to be reduced to a romantic plotline with anyone.
Exactly, Eleven is a child so why the FUCK are you concerned about her sexual orientation. Also, Eleven was NEVER reduced to a romantic plotline. You are either lying your ass off or just dumb. Eleven does not even give two shits about Mike’s feelings towards her. She sees him as a friend, but does not even have the understanding to explore complex relationships or what it means to be interested in someone. Name ONE fucking scene where Eleven felt conflicted about her love interest with Mike. That’s right, you CAN’T because it doesn’t exist.
This sort of idoitic post annoys me. It serves as another example of SJW taking a show and projecting their own bullshit narrative into it. Stranger Things said nothing about LGBT community or sexuality. though it did break the carnal rule of horror. Nancy should’ve died.
Deadman’s Tome is home to Book of Horrors, a horror anthology loaded with terrifying horror short stories that’ll chill you to the bone!
FOX, the same network behind GLEE, is remaking Rocky Horror Picture Show for TV.
That’s all I have to say, right? The proof is clear as a day that FOX intends for this series into BE their GLEE replacement.
Tim Curry gave FOX his blessing and is even in the show as the Narrator.
Fox’s two-hour event, airing October 20, follows sweethearts Janet Weiss (Victoria Justice) and Brad Majors (Ryan McCartan), who stumble upon the residence of Frank-N-Furter (Laverne Cox), a mad scientist/alien, who is hosting a Transylvanian science convention to showcase Rocky Horror (Staz Nair), who has been created to fulfill Frank’s desires.
Regardless of Tim Curry giving his blessing, FOX is going to take the heart and soul out of Rocky Horror Picture Show and sell it as some waterdown mainstream GLEE clone with transvestites. The original was edgy, offensive, and relished in its tastelessness, but this shallow clone is a TV show? Rocky Horror is a TV show now?
I predict that anyone that talks negatively about FOX’s Rocky Horror remake will be labeled as some sort of anti-LGBT bigot. I also predict that FOX will double down on the Rocky Horror remake and will last for two seasons.
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