Short Stories, CreepyPastas, and Other Random Writings

[JustinHoskie]

Even though I'm starting this thread with a specific thing, feel free to jump in with something you've written. :)

About a year ago, while scrolling through Tumblr one morning, I stumbled upon a Creepy Pasta story called "Abandoned by Disney." As I read it, I became more and more drawn in, and by the end I was blown away. It left such an impression on me, that I would tell it to anyone who would listen. Six months later, again while on Tumblr, I saw a gif of a creepy mascot, and the idea of seeing this story as a short film got me thinking "Gee, I wonder if I could make a script out of this thing." Another six months later, and I have possibly the best thing I've ever written.

This was a blast to write. One of my terrible writing habits is that I will go into a script with only some idea of what the entire story will be and maybe a vague idea of what the ending will be (if that). With this, I didn't have that problem. I had a clear story I could work from and could focus on the writing rather than "Where the hell is this going?"

Here is the original story, "Abandoned by Disney," by Christopher H. Wolf.
Here's a reading of the story by DoubleTabb.
Here is the most recent (possibly final) draft of my adaptation of the same name. (Mirror.)
Here are various drafts and revisions of the script. (Link hopefully works.)

Tell me what you think, and feel free to share your own things. :)

[Reegar]

That's a creepy story, and comes across as believable for quite a while. :)

[JustinHoskie]

EXT. GALE FARMHOUSE — INT. DOROTHY’S BEDROOM — LATE
AFTERNOON
[Dorothy is sitting on the edge of her bed, sobbing over the
mean and wicked Mrs. Gulch taking her beloved Toto. Her room
is fairly plain, with simple wallpaper, an open window, her
bed, and a small nightstand, which holds candle and a
picture of her and Aunt Em. The plaster on the ceiling is
flaking, and her bed is covered by a simple, but beautiful
quilt, handmade by Aunt Em.

She is crying into the shoulder of Hunk, who has his arm around
her and is rubbing her shoulder, comforting her as best as he can.
(Still dirty from the day’s work, he’s covered in dirt,
dust, and sweat.) He seems genuinely upset at seeing her so
distraught.]

HUNK
Don’t worry, Dorothy. It’ll be
okay. We’ll get lil’ Toto back. I
promise.

DOROTHY
No Hunk, you heard what she said.
She’s gonna take him to the sheriff
and… and… and…

[She continues crying.]

HUNK
Oh, don’t you listen to what that
wicked old witch said. She won’t be
able to do a damn thing; that dog
ain’t done no harm to her or anyone else.
You and I both know that. It’ll all work out
in the end. I swear.

DOROTHY
But what if she does what she said
she’ll do?

HUNK
Then… Then I’m an elephant named
Flint.

[Dorothy gives a small chuckle as she wipes her eyes.]

DOROTHY
Do you really think everything will be
okay?

HUNK
I know everything will be okay. You
just have to keep your chin up.
(Sings.)
When life’s a little rotten
And you feel a bit forgotten
Down and in the dumps
If you wanna beat the sadness
And replace it with some gladness
All you gotta do is laugh…

[When Huck reaches “laugh,” he sings in a deep, comical
British accent in an effort to make her smile. It works and
she laughs.]

DOROTHY
Oh Hunk!

[She embraces him. He smiles and returns the embrace as he
says…]

HUNK
There’s the Dorothy I know.

[They stay embraced.]

HUNK
Don’t you worry about mean ol’
Gulch. Everything’ll work out in
the end, okay?

DOROTHY
Okay.

[There is a knock at the door and Hickory enters. The two
break apart.]

HICKORY
(Smiles.)
I knew I’d find you in here, Hunk.

HUNK
Oh! Hickory! Um, I- I was just-

HICKORY
Hunk, don’t worry; I won’t bust you
two. I just came in to tell you
that Mr. Gale is looking for you.

HUNK
Okay.
[He turns to Dorothy.]
Hey, are you gonna be okay?

DOROTHY
Yeah, I’ll be fine.

HUNK
Are you sure?

DOROTHY
Yeah, I’m sure.

HUNK
Okay. If you need me for anything,
just let me know.

DOROTHY
Okay.

[The two share a quick kiss. Hunk gets up and goes to leave
as he says…]

HUNK
Hickory, you promise not to tell
Mr. or Mrs. Gale?

HICKORY
Hunk, cross my heart and hope to
die. Now come on; if we hurry, we
can pretend you were helping me
with the wind-machine.

HUNK
Thank you so much.

[The two exit.

Dorothy sighs, lays down on her bed, and closes her eyes.
After a moment or two of silence, we start to hear Toto’s
barking from outside.]

DOROTHY
Quiet, Toto.
[After a moment, Dorothy realizes what she’s hearing and
excitedly pops up from her bed as Toto jumps in, through the
window.]
Toto?!
[Dorothy rushes over and picks him up!]
Oh Toto! My sweet Toto, I’ve got
you back! Oh, I’m so happy! But…
But they’ll be coming back for you,
won’t they? We’ve gotta get away!
We’ve gotta run away — quick!

[She sets Toto down, quickly grabs a suitcase, and begins
hurriedly packing it, grabbing the picture of her and Aunt
Em first.]

EXT. DIRT ROAD — LATE AFTERNOON
[Dorothy, carrying her wicker basket in one hand and her
suitcase in the other, is walking down a dirt road, with Toto following
closely behind. After a couple moments, as music swells, she runs
to the top of a hill, and, excited to begin this new
adventure, she indulges in a Julie Andrews moment as she
looks out onto the horizon and belts out…]

DOROTHY
(Sings.)
If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why! Oh why!
Can’t....
[She looks behind her and sees the little farmhouse that’s
been her home — her entire universe — for her whole life,
and as she realizes that she’s leaving her beloved aunt and
uncle, her friends, and her whole life behind, sadly and
nervously sings....]
I....
[She turns back around, and continues down the dirt road.]

[JustinHoskie]

Here's an essay I wrote in my senior year of high-school in preparation for a speech.

Everyone is aware of censors and censorship, and everyone has experienced it. The most obvious case is when a word is bleeped or an action is blurred on a television show. The reason used most often by supporters as to why this happens is that it is to protect children and the easily offended. As long as the uncensored version is available in some form, there is not a real problem. However, there is a form of censorship that is not as common; the modification and banning of movies.

This form of censorship does not happen very often anymore. It is when a film is edited or banned from re-release or a foreign release after its initial premiere due to offensive material. This happened mostly during the “Code” years in Hollywood, between roughly 1925-1970, in when older films were edited to fit within the Hayes Code, and destroyed when they could not. The most recent film that has been subject to this form of censorship, in both forms, was the 2009 comedy film Brüno, starring Sacha Baron Cohen. A small scene involving La Toya Jackson was hastily, and permanently, edited out of the film hours before it’s Los Angeles premiere (due to Michael Jackson’s death earlier in the day), and it was banned outright in Ukraine. While the Lat Toya Jackson scene was included as a bonus feature on the film’s DVD release, other films have not been so lucky. And this is a detriment to film history and preservation.

Disney has been known to censor and ban films, both feature and shorts. A prime example of it is the 1940 animated masterpiece, Fantasia. Released first as a road-show picture, then edited for a general release, Disney has begun restoring missing pieces of footage with every new re-release. However, according to Steve Daily, writer for Entertainment Weekly, characters were removed from all subsequent releases since 1969. During the segment set to Beethoven’s The Pastoral Symphony, three stereotypical black centaurs, including one named “Sunflower”, were featured as servants to the white centaurs. Set during Ancient Rome, and made during a time when racial stereotypes were common in cartoons (for instance, the recurring Mammy Two-Shoes character in the Tom & Jerry shorts), the removal of Sunflower and her fellow centaurs has been meet with criticism from animation fans and enthusiasts, who believe that, although the characters do cross the line for today’s standards, tampering and permanently deleting something from an established masterpiece is unthinkable. This would not be Disney’s last encounter with racial problems.

Based on the stories of Uncle Remus, and featuring the original song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”, Disney’s Quasimodo, Song of the South, was originally released on November 12, 1946. Unknown to newer generations, Disney has not released the film on any home video format since it’s last re-release in 1986, due to racial issues, according to Christian Willis, webmaster of SongOfTheSouth.Net. While Walt and his story-team tried their hardest to make the film as racially sensitive as possible, the film has been deemed racist by the Disney corporation, and, despite various rumors online every couple of years, Disney CEO Robert Iger has recently stated that there are no current plans to release the film on DVD.

There have also been two, more recent films that Disney has censored. One of them, Aladdin, first released in 1992, has undergone two subsequent changes. According to the 14 July 1993 issue of The New York Times, the first involves the first verse of the opening song “Arabian Nights”. The line, “They’ll cut off your ear, if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” was, understandably, found offensive by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC. The line was (noticeably) changed for the film’s VHS release and all subsequent home video and soundtrack releases to “Where it’s flat and immense and the heat is intense. It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

A smaller controversy arose after the film’s home video release. According to the article “How A Rumor Spread About Subliminal Sex In Disney’s Aladdin” by Lisa Bannon, home viewers reportedly heard Aladdin say something along the line of “Good teenagers, take off your clothes,” off screen during the scene where he is being attacked by Jasmine’s pet tiger, Rajah. The actual line, “Come on… good kitty, take off and go…” was hushed, and the word “kitty” is obscured by Rajah’s snarl. The line was changed to “Down, kitty” on the film’s DVD release in 2004. A similar controversy arose after The Lion King’s first home video release; during a scene when Simba lays down on the edge of a cliff, viewers reported seeing the letters “S-E-X” in the sky, formed by blowing dust. The animators, however, say that the dust forms a common abbreviation for special effects; “S-F-X.” They were removed from the 2002 IMAX release and the 2003 DVD release.

Some things from Hollywood history just simply cannot be edited back in. Before roughly the seventies, things like costumes, sets, and extra footage were all considered industrial waste; when a film was released, things were reused, stored, given away, or destroyed. Because of that, there is no longer a copy of the cut “Jitterbug” or “Over the Rainbow (Reprise)” sequences from MGM’s 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, for various scenes and lines of dialog in 1932 Marx Brothers film, Horse Feathers, or for the scrapped “Spider Pitt” scene from the classic 1933 RKO film, King Kong. The original and unedited versions of those films are lost forever.

Fortunately, Disney saves a considerable amount of “industrial waste” from their pictures, making the restoration of these films entirely possible. That may not be possible forever, though. A simple solution to this would be to release these films online, via digital download, for just animation enthusiasts, films historians, students, and fans of the films. Or, better yet, as a series of limited edition, “Straight from the Vault” Blu-Rays releases, featuring the original, unedited, theatrical release prints of the films.

Tick tock, Disney. Tick tock.

[JustinHoskie]

An Illusion - A Poem by Judy Garland
How strange when an illusion dies
It’s as though you’ve lost a child
Whom you’ve cherished and protected
Against the wilds of the storms and hurts
In this frightening world.
Your child is dead.
An hysterical frenzy possesses you
Your precious, virtuous dream has been taken,
Torn from your defensive, guarding breas
Next a morose loneliness descends
You’re a pitiful stumbling creature
Lost in the woods of despair.
Suddenly you see a light.
You straighten, and walk with steady footsteps into the sun
Time has done her work.
Your dream is gone - yes -
And you light a candle in your heart
In a rememberance of something never to be recovered,
But deep in your soul, in its embryonic state,
another illusion is maturing
Waiting to grow strong and radiant
Only to be crushed and join the other.

[JustinHoskie]

The following is a comment I left on one of my friend’s Facebook updates right after the airing of "The Life of Brian". In it they said, in a nutshell, that there aren’t really any characters in Family Guy and the writers treat them as empty joke vessels, so it’s ridiculous that they ask us to care about the characters when they’ve told us not to. It turned out more like an essay.

No. You’re way off. In terms of the side characters, you may be right (though I’m inclined to say not), but not with the main family.

It may not seem like it, but they are their own characters. Brian can never say something Stewie says, who can never say something Peter says, who can never says something Lois says, etc, etc, and so forth. They are somewhat caricatures, but they all do have their internal workings and emotional layers. Even jokes aren’t interchangeable. A perfect example is in Life of Brian; after the family comes home from the vet after Brian dies, Peter says to everyone something like “I think I need to be alone for a while. I’m going upstairs to have a sad yank.” That joke can only work in that moment with Peter. It doesn’t matter how you word it, the joke concept of “sad yank” only works with Peter.

And look at Stewie’s emotional arch in the episode: it’s based solely on the emotions of 200+ episodes behind him. He’s far more upset than anyone else during Brian’s death scene and funeral. In every scene after the funeral, he seems to have gotten over it, and he seems to be fine, but then they show him alone, in a secluded corner sobbing to himself so no one else will see him after everyone else has really moved on. It’s an emotional arch that’s only available after all the crap they went through together.

There are emotions under these CHARACTERS. There just are. And yes, every now and then, there are inconsistencies. Things happen that are just sometimes out of character. This isn’t Little Shop. They aren’t working on a single script that they can cradle and fineness for a year or so. There’s about 25 scripts every season, and a limited number of time between each. But effort is put into making sure the emotions are there and everyone is in character.

This is not a guilty pleasure for me. This is my Little Shop. I have been watching this show since I was 10. It’s the reason that I write. It’s had a defining role in shaping my sense of humor. It’s been there for me to make me laugh when I wanted to sob.

I know every single inch of this show. I have studied it. I have analyzed it. I have committed it to memory. I have discussed and argued about it. I have listened to every single commentary, watched every single special feature, and learned as much as I could about how the show is made. I have spent a majority of the last 9 years thinking about this show, in one way or another. What you’re saying just is not true.

[JustinHoskie]

CONTEXT: CIA Agent Micky Crosby (real name Chris McFarlane), while out with his friend and his friend's girlfriend, is almost shot down like his father before him. As he calls his fiance Jodie to tell her to hide until her gets her, he hears her being kidnapped, and, after a brief trip to the CIA command center, searches their appartment for any clues. This takes place soon after.

[Micky is 18 years old, of medium build, and wearing a white-cotton shirt and jeans. (He is still injured from his last mission, and he's beaten up and bruised from earlier in the night). He's leaning agaist his apartment building, smoking a cigarette, and trying his best to think straight. Something catches his eye and he briefly glances to his right. After a second, something hits him and he looks back.
We cut to his POV. We see a man, all in black and sitting on a motorcycle, at the end of the street looking in Micky’s direction through binoculars. When he sees Micky looking towards him, he quickly puts on a helmet and drives off.
We cut back to Micky. Without missing a beat, he drops and steps on his cigarette, grabs a nearby bike, hops on it, and takes off in the direction of the motorcycle. What follows is a high-speed chase through the town, with Micky's beaten and bruised body struggling to keep up. (At one point, we see the man say something into a walkie-talkie.)
Soon, we hear the sound of a helicopter. At this point, Micky has fallen far behind.
They turn onto a street adjacent to Main Street, where we see a helicopter hovering over and a group of people climbing up a rope ladder. Slung over the shoulder of one of them is an unconscious girl with blonde hair, wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Guess who?]

MICKY:
JODIE!

[Micky speeds up as fast as he can. However, it isn’t fast enough. The man jumps off the bike and onto the rope ladder. As he does this, the helicopter starts to fly away. Micky, going into a panic, jumps off his bike, gets down on one knee, takes out his gun, and begins trying to shoot the chopper down. As he runs out of bullets, the helicopter goes out of sight. Micky drops the gun, puts his head in his hands, and, at the top of his lungs, screams...]

FUCK!

[He starts to breathe deeply and pound on the ground as he tells himself…]

Fucking keep it together, Chris. Keep it together. Keep it together.

[He looks up to figure out where he is, and realizes he’s on Jodie’s old street. He sees three black cars parked out of her old house (now a CIA safe house). He grabs his gun and replaces the clip, slowly gets up, and slowly walks over to the house. He looks into the windows of the car.]

Not CIA. Great.

[He slowly goes over to the door of the house, closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. He then kicks open the door and rushes
in, gun pointed and ready to shoot. No one comes. He sighs, and then notices a light coming out of the old living room. He slowly enters, gun still pointed, and sees no one.

On the coffee table is scattered various photos and pieces of paper. Also resting on the table is a laptop, the source of the light. Micky puts away his gun and starts looking through the papers and photos. The papers turn out to be blueprints and detailed plans for all of Moriarty’s previous plots, and the photos are from the opening scrapbook. Micky tries to make sense of this.]

Is... He’s fucking with me.

[He turns his attention to the computer. The only program open is a publishing program, which was being used to create... a party invitation?]

The hell?

MORIARTY:
[Off-camera.]
Good evening, Agent Crosby.

[JustinHoskie]

I absolutely love it when I read CreapyPasta on Tumblr without realizing it's CreapyPasta: http://www.creepypastaindex.com/creepypasta/the-trap

[JustinHoskie]

http://biasexualpotterhead.tumblr.com/abandonedscript

[JustinHoskie]

I wrote a test-scene for Micky Crosby, and I'm insanely happy with it: http://biasexualpotterhead.tumblr.com/micky-test-scene