Disturbing Hallowe'en Decorations

A house in our neighborhood is decked out with the most disturbing Halloween decorations I've ever seen. The theme: an insane asylum, possibly haunted.  Particularly troubling are the bedsheets stretched across the windows... from the inside. Scrawled upon them are the words "Danger -- Keep Out" and "Help" in ghastly red letters.

Something's not right. Apart from the obvious -- someone may be in danger -- those messages conflict with one another. If a person is being held in that house against their will, why would they create a sign that says "Keep Out" right next to the cry for help?

This has gone too far. Perhaps I should call the police. Or better yet, launch my own covert rescue operation....make a citizen's arrest, if necessary...tonight.

Further Reading
The Old Torrance Mental Hospital --  abandoned and reputedly haunted
The Truth About Halloween -- my post from last year

When Worlds Collide: X-Men/Game of Thrones Crossover

The next X-Men movie spinoff, The New Mutants, features Maisie Williams as Wolfsbane. This sets up an earth-shattering possibility. It has taken me some time to figure out how to explain this, but stay with me.

Ms. Williams is best known for her role in HBO's A Game of Thrones. Another young English actress, Sophie Turner, is in a very similar situation, portraying noblewoman Sansa Stark in A Game of Thrones and mutant Jean Grey in the X-men franchise (including the soon-to-be-released  X-Men: Dark Phoenix). The two are sisters in A Game of Thrones, but in the X-Men films..... who knows?

Let your imagination run wild. Imagine an X-Men movie in which Wolfsbane (Williams) encounters Jean Grey (Turner). They discover that each of them also exist in the  Game of Thrones universe. They have the power to move between these parallel universes. This would be a bit like those "crossover" issues of comic books, in which one character suddenly appears in another's story arc (e.g. Spiderman meets Thor, or Doctor Strange meets Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandos).

Archie Meets The Punisher

This would be no mere combination of comic book characters. My fevered daydream envisions a crossover between a comic-based film franchise and a fantasy television series. Sansa Stark could appear in an X-Men film, or Wolfsbane could be in a Game of Thrones televison show.  What happens when these two worlds collide?

Yes, that's pretty far-fetched. But on the most mundane level, it would set the stage for sequels, a mind-numbing string of films stretching off into the distant future and ensuring job security for these two actresses. Envision Maisie and Sophie becoming confused between their dual characters, unsure which universe they're in, spouting Game of Thrones dialogue in the midst of  an X-Men movie or vice-versa, and driving directors insane.

In a way I feel sorry for these young actors caught up in comic book movies at such an early stage in their careers. I'm sure they're making plenty of money, but they become committed to multiple installments of films which may or may not be any good. It holds the potential to limit their careers and the way they are perceived by directors and audiences. Shailene Woodley had the same predicament with the Divergent films, and Natalie Portman with the Star Wars movies.

Further Reading:
The New Mutants
X-Men: Dark Phoenix
The Twelve Weirdest Comic Crossovers Ever
DC vs. Marvel Comics Crossover Series

The Lincolnshire Hoard

Metal detectorists recently found 282 Celtic coins in a farmer's field in Lincolnshire. This hoard is particularly interesting because the coins weren't Roman. Buried about a foot deep, they were of the Corieltauvi tribe, Celts who lived in Britain before the Roman conquest. Experts are still trying to determine when the hoard was buried. 

Courtesy of Coin World

Courtesy of Coin World

Further Reading

Brothers-in-law find ancient coin hoard ‘of national significance’,  Coin World, Oct. 16, 2017

Corieltauvi tribe, Wikipedia