another thing about the tim burton sweeney todd that my bf pointed out and which I fulllly agree with is that all the characters feel super emotionless in a lot of ways, whereas he was surprised to see that, in the original musical (he saw the Lansbury/Hearn), just about everyone had feelings for each other - whether it was love, hate, disdain, lust, fear, admiration or just a sardonic sense of humor. He said “it felt like no one had feelings for anyone in the tim burton version”.
to me all the flirty bawdiness and charm was entirely lost in the tim burton one too. mrs. lovett was way too uncolorful. I hadn’t seen the Lansbury/Hearn since middle school but I’m so glad I finally rewatched it again, what, 17 years later, because it reminded me of how much I love and miss theater arts ;-;
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
What do you think is the reason JEH has such appeal to you?
Idk, really!
I guess maybe cus he’s small, cute and v good at acting. The way he emotes, the way he develops any of his characters (so far as I’ve seen) also captivates, I’d say.
My bf and I watched Dollman (1991) last year, I loved him in that. We started calling him “the Dollman” even tho that’s not the character he plays (cus he’s so tiny and cute, like a doll lmao). Then over the summer, we dared each other to try watching (the horrendous imho) Dark Shadows (2012), and as soon as he opened the door at the beginning, I immediately recognized him and got stoked. I jumped up and said “Look! it’s our Dollman!” He’s just very charming! Fun to watch!
I’m not on Letterboxd rn I just wanted to talk about how we tried to watch Dark Shadows (2012) again after not having seen it since I was literally 18 when it came out and… it was so difficult. Unbearable, even. I’m not even a snob it’s just look, why in tf were they making the 15 yr old wolf girl “sexy” every 5 seconds 🤢 ✋🚫🙅dont do that!!! Hollywood is disgusting but anyway
No we turned it off it was so bad. Im not leaving a full review. It was so horrible. That’s it. Impossible it was like Tim vomited himself all over the screen and then finger painted with it ok I’m done however —
I did like this guy a lot and ended up almost 35 min in solely because of him:
We need more creepy, oily butlers or like groundskeepers or like whatever, that’s my favorite kind of guy.
Jackie “It’s The Fuckin’ Dollman, Who Else?!” Earle Haley carried this mf. heavy lifting, too.
What happened to him, eh? Well, I don't know. I can tell you about him. My side only. Never say I said - but I will tell you only my side, if only to reflect. It matters not. I've long needed to confess this. Though it matters not.
I saw Sméagol often in my life, very often. Even as we were little ones, he was always 'round. He wasn't a bad child. He wasn't rough and tough, I mean. He wasn't unkind. I say it's my side - he wasn't unkind to me. We all know his grandmother - we did then, and we do even now. The old crone, now. She's our elder; we trust in her. We have all reason to trust in her... it was her decision, of course. So we - so I follow her wisdom.
They say misery is a butterfly, what spreads its heavy wings, and flies 'round even the coziest of dwellings. Those flutterings can take you right away - take o'er a gentle mind.
We were friends, me and him. As children, too, we played sometimes. Often enough. We would meet in a field and clasp hands and I'd beg him to spin me as hard as he could until we both fell away in dizziness, and then start back again. But I'd not gotten to know him better until... Well, once, when we were a long while older, I was making my way toward the river Anduin with my gear, and I saw him on the way out, rummaging through someone's open back window. He was struggling to climb up into it. I saw that it was the hut of the baker.
"Hey-o, Sméagol, what are you up to?" I called to him from the pathway. At this, I recall, he jumped back, and locked his wide-eyes on me. At first, he was startled, and looked so irate, but then he smiled in his friendly way and waved to me. I recall him. I had something soft in me for those large blue eyes - so unlike his grandmother's that we all mused about where he might've got 'em. Some of the men joked thru their tobacco pipes, with their hairy arms crossed, that the lad likely stole 'em. In the sunlight, his eyes...they reflected like pools of water - pools small as any Stoor's eye, but deeper beyond what any of us could dive. That's what I say on it, mind you.
"No matter, no matter," he called back quickly, abandoning whatever it was he was doing, and then he set toward me. "Where does it go?"
I had pointed into the trees, and I told him "a-fishin'."
I recall him. He was what the others called "obsessive". And you ask me, what did they mean? After that day, when he went a-fishin' with me, he stood nearby that baker's hut, by the pathway into the woods, every single day, and at the same time every day. For a while, yes, he did this. And it so happened that I was always heading out to go fishin'. I recall him; he'd begun to grab ahold my hand and lead me to that river each time, regardless that I already knew the way myself. If I wasn't as quick-footed as he, he pulled, almost to drag me along with him. But, I tell you, I liked him. I liked him so. Somehow, he knew exactly what I wanted: I wanted to share in his enthusiasms and schemes.
I recall him. He could plant his feet in a running stream and know exactly when to catch a fish, what slinked between the stones - and with his own hands he'd catch a few, or many, and throw them to me on the wet grass. I became obsessive, too. I would watch him do this, a-marvelin'. I began to desire nothing more than to sit nearby him - and watch him do anything, closely, for hours. He watched me closely, too.
For a Stoor, he was small. Unlike us all, he had little color to him except for the tops of his rather large ears - I mean, he was so milky pale that, under breath, it was his grandmother who got the censure from us ("shading the boy like that under her wing, that's what did it!"). As we aged, he did not grow out his beard, but for the long sideburns that framed his face, and so he looked a youth through his years; and he did not suffer any grit, the way we all did. He kept his dark grown-out hair long and free; his clothing sinched, buttoned and tucked well; his neckerchief (a strip of paisley from his grandmother's own skirts) knotted neatly at his throat. Who did he think he was, eh?
The menfolk would make more of an issue of it, had Sméagol not been of a sturdy nature. Nothing yet would make him cower, and it was difficult to push him over. He was able to swim and fish better than most. He was much stronger than he looked. All fealty and respect we gave him, for he was the grandson of our elder. In the shelter of her reputation, he did as he wished without any serious questionings (Though I do recall my sibling telling me once, "I watch out for Sméagol - he creeps a little too much for my comfort").
But it was merely common envy what made anyone else cross about him. He was a darling, and rather handsome despite the peculiarities. Honestly, we considered him a friend on the whole. He could be very generous and sweet, we knew it. This is how I knew him before.
And he was always adorned with trinkets. These he would let me see, let me examine. He handed me, once, a lengthy chain, longer than could be wrapped 'round someone so small as he. From out his pocket, like a magician, he pulled it, unending collection. Dangling from each link were his findings, which, he at once whispered to me, were secrets. What looked like shells, glazed buttons, beastly teeth, some fish bones dipped in silver, green and red beads of glass, a miniature bell, and many finely crafted fish hooks - these Sméagol coiled into my open palms, and he looked satisfied as I examined.
"A true fisherman's catch," I remember the compliment I gave to him. My admiration of these charms - the way they tinkled in my hands - seemed to excite him at length, vicarious. I heard him sigh, and he quietly said to me, in a way he'd not spoken to me before -
"Do these shiny things speak to it, my love?"
(Cont. below)
Sometimes Sméagol would lead us beyond the River Anduin, some ways beyond its shore, into a meadow of baby grass that would flood whene'er it rained. It would leave behind many long lasting puddles and muddy ground. Insects gathered here - though they weren't the pestering, bothersome, stinging kind. These I would not swat; Sméagol said it was where moths and butterflies came to swoop and drink, for they lived in some of the damp, rotting, fallen oaks by the thousands.
One of these days, he lazed about against a tree trunk as I roused families of butterflies, hoping to see them fly. They were busy with their drink, but with my persistence, I managed to set a group high into the air. They climbed up, fluttering their wings, you could almost hear them, a stampede. And through their ascent, I saw Sméagol over there, watching me. The man had a way about him, even the burly menfolk would admit. His gaze, so intense, could stand you still in your boots. It was the gaze of both a hunter and the hunted. And while you wonder on it, on what he might be about to say, or what he might mean by it, you realize that the silence between you and him had already gone on far too long for anyone to move.
I recall him. Without breaking from my own eyes, he reached into one of his many pockets and slid out his long pipe, stuffed it, lit it and puffed it. Then he grinned, in that satisfied way. Through the fluttering of many blue-and-green-and-black butterfly wings, the smoke and the sunlight, I felt his gravity. Sméagol had a voice which mesmerized any listener. At once blithe and hushed; erratic and shrill. Through any emotion he expressed, it pierced through you. In the beams of sunshine through the leaves, I heard him softly call. "Come to me, my love." I recall myself. I swear I was in love.
The smoke from his pipe was a fine scent, but I hadn't known him to smoke that kind.
"Where'd y'get this pipeweed, Sméagol?" I asked him, and I sat beside him in the new grass. He tutted.
"Questions, eh? Why must it always ask me 'where'?" He asked this with some exasperation, pipe clenched between teeth. "Why must it ask - when see! I've already got it here, in my hands," He smiled meekly, finally lowering his gaze, and gently pressed the small sachet of fine pipeweed into my palm, and closed my fingers 'round it. "All for you, see?"
And I recall myself, and himself, sitting in the grass together, smoking.
That day in this meadow beyond the river, he had suddenly grasped hold of my face. It was so very sudden, I could not think. He turned my head roughly to him as if I'd said something insulting - as if there was something inside my mouth he wanted me to spit out for him immediately, and it startled me good. It hurt only a little. My heart jumped up my throat. Like a snake - and I mean this in good faith, though I struggle to describe it any other way - a snake with a squirrel in its coils, he wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me closer, and closer. I could not get away from his impending embrace, but I recall myself - I did not wish to break free from it. On that squirrel's dying day, it felt euphoria in the grass.
--
Deeply, deeply. Both awake and asleep. Unearth. Expose the bones to gnaw. One ultimate trinket to posess, I gave myself up to him. How can I ignore it? he says to me. It draws me into it, he says to me. I only want him to enjoy, I say to him. Perhaps this wasn't done, even in our backwoods society, but I recall myself letting him inside. He pried open my palms and pinned them each to damp, black earth. He nailed me to the ground with eyes of blue. Even before he touched me, he had me. No worm, nor spider, nor giant centipede in my hair could interrupt us; no boiling sun could bake and redden our skin there. Handfuls of my hair in gentle fists. Only the fluttering of wings and green o'er us, and the nighttime shade he provided me with his dark hair, cascading. He was no brute, and so I let us go 'til we ached. I recall myself; thoughts of drowning sweetly in the river Anduin with him. I hear the trinkets in his coat pockets jangle like fairy bells. And in the afterward, we lay entangled, enmeshed, unwilling to let the other go away. If he pulled even an inch, I felt I would dig my fingers into his flesh, like claws. I have not felt this way since.
The day he left me for good, it was my birthday. But he'd promised to go fishing with his cousin, Déagol. And Sméagol was honorable in the way he would always keep a promise. He would always figure it out, some way to give a gift, some way to make good on his word, some way to follow through and atone. He'd learned this from his wise grandmother. That day, he promised me a birthday gift like I'd not received before, but he had to go and see Déagol. To compromise us both, he'd handed me a little bundle of cloth, an early gift, and I said good-bye to him there on the stoop of my burrow.
--
I told you my side of it. The rest is known-fact. I don't care to go over it again and again and again. I don't know what happened to him after that, and it was difficult enough that it all happened, you see? I don't know what came over him, I have not seen him ever since they made him go away. But I had unwrapped the bundle he gave me for my birthday, and saw it was a glass - but, it was really made of jewels - butterfly. Blue-and-green-and-black wings, and silver legs. Though it matters not, I've wondered for ages where he'd gotten it.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
At Home with the Hatbox Ghost, short fan work by “Bonetta” 2024, based on my headcanons 🕸️
Down a lonesome dirt road through weeping willows and junipers, situated within a crown of tall cypress, kept behind an old moss-ridden brick wall, stands a mansion. Bone-white and ghostly, you can see its rooftop from a sure distance through trees and kudzu vines. It's rather ornate, with its encircling muted green wrought ironwork and matching shuttered windows. It looks like a funeral home. In a way, it is. Don't they say, "Tomb Sweet Tomb?" There, inside every crooked hall, a ghost makes its way through. Beyond the house, expanding out like a city of its own, lay tombs and graves, which glow bright in the darkness with the living dead. Zombies in high collars and ghouls in sheets and shrouds pry themselves out of their confines to mingle at the 13th strike of a terrible clock, every single nightfall. Here, Halloween is never-ending, the overpowering reek of dust, white pepper and clove pervades, and time is a silly joke that only mortals take seriously.
If you were brave enough to come and stay, you'd meet around 999 ghosts in total - but you're a cowardly person, aren't you? A bit of a chicken? Yellow-bellied? Scaredy-cat?? Shaking like milk, aren't you? You couldn't fathom the full spectrum of specters that reside in every nook and coffin within (and without) the house, and so, I'll only introduce you to one ghost. Does that sound reasonable? Oh, stop crying! Pull yourself together!
Look up there, to that open terrace at the back of the house. I just saw a shadowy figure move away from the cloudy daylight, back into the dark recesses of the mansion's attic. Let's call to him, shall we?
Here in the attic is where "The Hatbox Ghost" stays. In life, he was Harland Boniface, the skilled owner of a long-gone hatmakers in the area. In death, his friends and lovers call him "Hattie". As you can see, he stands in short stature - would-be average but for his hunch and his marked lean over his cane; he's been in the coffin buried out in the pines since the 19th century, and so his stovepipe hat is bent, bristling whiskers, void of sheen and color, are kinked into a frenzy about his skull, and his black inverness cloak is wrinkled and patched up with decay.
If what stood out to you first is his being a ghastly skeleton with a golden tooth that winks just about as much as his sunken, yellow eyes, then I suppose I understand that. He's got a grin like he knows where my scruples falter. Indeed, he is the type to triple-dog-dare you at the drop of his head! His boney fingers are wrapped round the handle of a gaudy looking hatbox, and he motions for you to come closer - to peek inside the lid. You never expect his shrieking severed head, wagging his tongue at you!
An incredibly lively spirit, he is able to materialize well in the mortal plane, and with all his boisterous, recycled energy, he goes about making his friends and enemies. He can shake hands with us mortals and interact with just about any object we've got, from hat ribbons to bottles of bubbly to television knobs - watch him get his hands on that remote control and you'll have to sit through Three Stooges marathons and parades of washed-up stand-up comics. He's got a laugh like a hyena down in a coalmine - the shrillest cackle you'd never want to hear in the dark. His obsession with childish jokes and banana-peel hijinks brings on this scary laughter, which can be heard throughout the mansion at the eeriest of times. In exchange for your patience, he'll make you a smart-looking hat or bring you some vexing charm from The Beyond.
Most of his gifts to friends come from his mighty collection. He's the soul-preserver of hundreds of old hats from back in the day, though he is also partial to collecting bones, stones, frocks, socks, spools of wool and shoes (in fact, its known amongst frequent mansion guests that leaving your shoes in front of your bedroom door overnight will result in them being exchanged with some random trinket from the Hatbox Ghost's strange collection, a 'thank you' for a new pair of shoes to add to the pile). His passing fixations accrue a lot of little bits and bobs, which he's always trying to circulate (he is no miser!). Trading with Hattie will get you just about anything you desire (but don't ask him any questions or he'll concoct some horrifying answers for you, and laugh at the face you make).
New people tend to find Hattie intimidating and scary - especially as he is one of the louder ghosts in the mansion. Whether with a group of ghoulies causing a ruckus or slinking through corridors, planning tricks in the dark with his lone-self, you can hear his anxious giggling, his dragging limp echoing through empty doorways and through the walls.
Cont. below 👻
Hattie blames the stormy combination of restless excitement and utter boredom for losing his head. He's gotten so accustomed to showing affection through teasing that he sometimes forgets himself, but he mends his ways as he goes and tends to avoid misfiring where it counts. While not very obedient, he is very caring. When he's behaved badly, he makes amends first, usually by way of mending his friend's coat. For as chaotically driven as the Hatbox Ghost is, he can be clever, observant and artfully tactful when he wants to be.
His buggy, darting eyes see more than he lets on, and the Art of Silence is one that a ghost learns well. Did you know that spirits are sensitive to otherworldly vibrations themselves? The emotions and unspoken languages of the living are endlessly fascinating, and powerful enough to set off a ghost, for better or worse. Hattie catches onto these vibrations like a bat uses echolocation to find a moth fluttering in space. He taps his cane to give time for contemplation. One, two, three, he taps and examines. He can read the faces and hands of guests as good as Madame Leota can. He knows better when he should show up, and when he should really just dematerialize.
He can feel the air soften when his bride looks his way (and she, his ghostess, is a hopelessly romantic thing, with a patient and persistent heartbeat that eases even Hattie's most agitated states). Hattie, too, has a gentle side. He's an artist after all. A few times a month he retreats into himself to reflect on the more romantic aspects of the mortal world and The Beyond, respectively. The Hatbox Ghost, alone in the cemetery, can be seen inspecting his reflection in the lily pond, mumbling thousand-year old questions to himself, admiring tangled rose bushes or weeping at epitaphs written for deceased lovers. Hattie has no trouble in giving affection. In life, he was quite a lover, and kept many good relationships with others in town - some delighted in a shared passion in fashion accessories and practical jokes, while others took inspiration from his fierce genuineness. Before his untimely beheading by one jealous whack of an axe, he was quite beloved, and many pretty ladies and many heartbroken men shed their tears for him at his wake.
Hattie's bride told me just this afternoon: "Once every full moon, Hattie takes a long stroll through the graves on his own to contemplate all number of plants and animals out there; to visit the cats and the rats he so adores, who come to him when his arms are bursting with treats and toys - or else he visits the alligators living in the nearby swamp land for tea. Alligators are his familiars, and after tea they take him for a ride on the bayou. Once, he snuck a gator up into the attic for a game of dress-up - one guest made their way upstairs by chance, and that's when the mansion got its 997th permanent resident!"
Oh, I mentioned dress-up! This is one of Hattie's favorite pastimes. With all his hatboxes, trunks and wardrobes stored in that attic, and with no shortage of old mirrors and broken vanities, he spends the uneventful days of eternity with his precious costumes. His bride's old record player and an Arthur Brown record is sufficient ambience for this game of old jewelry, veils, cravats and ostrich plumes. Hattie can spend hours changing his clothes, and he tailors what's become far too passe on a whim. Needless to say, we're all very well-dressed here, thanks to his passionate toil.
In death, Hattie magnetizes just about every spirit he meets, both on mortal roads and the roads of The Beyond. This accumulation has made up much of the residency of the mansion. Imagine you're walking along an empty lane between the trees. You cross an oddly quiet bridge out of the woods and see up ahead, rounding the corner out of the cemetery, a grinning skeleton with a black bow tied up around his throat having a little stroll. Perhaps he's followed by rainclouds, and perhaps your heart begins to pound as he comes nearer, with those eyes that watch you closely. One look at that gold tooth winking in a waning light, and a wave of his stovepipe hat as if he knows you already, and you're completely taken. Everyone follows him home. Those that can handle the chaos of the afterlife - all the possessions, the gore, the screams at night - always end up staying a while. We're all quite happy here, thank you very much!
If you were to ask Hattie who his enemies were, he'd tap his cane a few times on the ground in earnest thought, before answering: "Jealous suitors carrying axes." And this would be very honest (he tends to be painfully truthful), but if tomorrow you asked him this question again, he'd likely say something else, like: "Physics!"
So don't quake, don't quiver! If you're not charmed by the likes of the Hatbox Ghost, you must be dead! And if you do ever decide to bolster up your bravery someday, pay a visit to the mansion and stay a while. Just set out an extra plate at your dinner table, and Hattie will surely appear to lead you on home - for those with enough spirit, there's room for one more!
Pagan Poetry, a short fan fiction by “bonetta” 2024/2025
Tags: Christine Daae/Erik (Phantom of the Opera 1925); just a scene I wrote to make myself happy, SFW romance, this is based off the Lon Chaney Phantom but you do you, I just like ‘em freaky, Björk lyrics, Gaston Leroux, Lerik
READ NOW ON AO3
“ …This "Angel" had swooped over her. No, he was a bat in the night. He had held out his hand to her - those hands that conduct and take lead, that play up and down on the smooth necks of violins and on pipe-organ keys so expertly... she shivered watching him play. She could fall apart in those hands. Crooked five fingers aligned themselves perfectly to take her wrists gently in handshake - and did this scare her? It electrified her. Hands that speak power to anything his face would otherwise express... but for that mask. Boney, yet skilled fingers that curl and beckon her to follow him deep into the belly of the opera house. A grave elegance so overpowering…”
So I get kidnapped from the governor’s mansion by Pintel and Ragetti and taken to the Black Pearl where the spooky captain claims I’ve got some stolen ancient Aztec gold that he needs in order to break some ancient curse of blood and coin and he’s doing an evil laugh at me and rubbing his gnarled hands together over the candle light dinner he’s throwing solely to intimidate me and toy with me because the truth is that he’s going to drain my blood over a basin of treasure in a ancient Aztec ritual to break said curse of blood and coin except — oops — he didn’t know I’m temporarily anemic cus I gave blood at a drive for the first time last week and forgot to take iron supplements or drink enough water and so now he’s stopped laughing entirely and he’s watching me struggle to use both my hands to cut a slice of Gouda with a dull butter knife and I’m going “wait, hold on. ugh. sorry, hold on.” because my strength keeps giving out on me and after like 30 seconds of working at the cheese I have to take another minute to stare at the cheese and muster the strength to eat it and the captain is like trying to push some pork or some kinda meat my way for gods sake but the fucked up thing is that I kinda like this in a way cus I’m a chronic insomniac who rarely ever gets to experience relaxation, so. The captain decides he’ll figure it all out later cus he doesn’t actually want my blood, it doesn’t have enough hemoglobin and it’s ugly how I keep resting my chin inside my goblet