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.
Yuji x reader x Sukuna Yuji x reader x Sukuna - Cruelly Necessary (4,4k) Yuji x reader x Sukuna - Tease Yuji x reader x Sukuna - Intention Yuji x reader x Sukuna - Confliction
Slapping (and sometimes ground spot but it depends on farming practices and season) is the only way to actually find a good melon before cutting into it.
“Gender” isn’t a thing; all melons are grown up ovaries of the flowers, they don’t have a sex let alone a gender.
The stem being dry or green is based on how long ago it was cut, assuming it still has a stem on it when it gets to the store. If you let a melon stay on the vine til the vine dries up, the melon is going to go bad.
Webbing on the melon is the result of inconsistent watering, just like stretch marks and splits on a tomato. It grows really fast when it gets a ton of water after not getting a lot previously. It panics and goes “QUICK BEFORE THE DROUGHT COMES BACK” and puts all that water straight into the melon. It expands too quickly and causes micro cracks in the rind which dry out and become the hard brown webs.
The ground spot is reliable on organic and small-scale farmed melons, including your own backyard-grown melons. It turns yellow as the fruit matures, but in store-bought melons, even a lighter colored spot could still have a nice tasty melon inside because they’re often picked slightly unripe and sprayed with ethylene. They also suck up the ethylene from their ripe buddies and will continue to ripen in the store crate, even if the spot never changes color. So it’s a 50/50 shot in a lot of cases; sometimes, yellow-spot melons in stores are already going mushy and nasty inside because they were already ripe but hung out with their buddies too long and got over-exposed.
But slappin? Accurate all the dang time (except in the field in the middle of the day when all the juices have expanded in the heat). Make a fist. Knock on the middle of the melon (gently, don’t smash him). Sounds kinda metallic and sharp? That puppy ain’t ripe. Sounds hollow and dull? Perfect melon, ready for eatin.
The one exception is if your melons have been on a super long journey, I’m talking been on the shelf for weeks and weeks, then they’re all going to sound hollow regardless of how tasty they are. That’s why early and off-season melons, the ones that get shipped in from other countries, are so hit-and-miss and often not tasty. Because it’s impossible to tell good from bad by slap method at that point, and they were all picked early and ripen off the vine on the journey there, which is never as tasty as if they’re allowed to get ripe before picking/shipping.
So yeah. The dads are right, this chart is garbage, and now you too have secret Melon Knowledge. Go slap some melons, kids.
This is 100% accurate - slap (or knock, but politely!) those babies around is still the most fool proof way of telling.
also idk when the hell the idea of male/female fruits and veg became a thing - I’ve seen similar things said about bell peppers BTW - but that’s not how fruit and veggies work, like, at all. As a long time gardener I beg of you all to just take 10 minutes and read about how plants reproduce.
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.
