#Some TV shows & film

[poirott]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AGATHA CHRISTIE! (b. September 15 1890)

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller; 15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the "Golden Age of Detective Fiction", Christie has been called the "Queen of Crime"—a moniker which is now trademarked by her estate—or the "Queen of Mystery". She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

[mostlyvoid-partiallyflowers]

The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.

There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.

This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.

Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.

He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.

He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.

Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.

Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.

[callipraxia]

Lying here at 7am, sneezing my head off because of ragweed, and I had a thought about the novelization of Revenge of the Sith.

Early in said novelization, there’s a retrospective on a couple of important moments in Anakin and Padme’s early marriage, specifically around how, since Anakin, as a Jedi trainee, doesn’t own things or have much ability to acquire them, which is an Issue when it comes to giving his new wife a wedding present…so he ‘gives’ her C-3PO, to be ‘a friend’ while he is, as he frequently is, absent, and there’s a sweet moment where Padme politely invites Threepio to join her staff, because on Naboo, droids as high-functioning as Threepio are considered beings, not property. Anakin also notes that technically, since his builder (Anakin himself) owns nothing, Threepio kind of owned himself even before this. Then later, she gives him R2-D2 as ‘a friend’ in return, at which point Anakin starts modifying him this way and that until Artoo eventually obtains at least as much cognitive function as Threepio, setting the stage for the bond the droids have throughout the series. All very nice…but then jump to the very end of the book, immediately after Padme dies and Bail Organa adopts Leia. Y’know. The moment when he casually orders that Threepio undergo a mind wipe to forget…pretty much everything. Who “the Maker” was, all about his years of service to Senator Amidala, where the Princess came from and the fact she has a brother, etc. Then cut forward about twenty years to the beginning of A New Hope, where Threepio fussily keeps scolding Artoo about how “Master Luke” is his owner now and he should therefore forget the mission from their previous owner. It never seems to occur to Threepio, after his years on Alderaan, that they could think for and own themselves, even though again, in the novelizations, Threepio has technically done so for longer than Artoo has; the only difference is that Artoo still remembers everything, whereas Threepio only remembers, at most, the past twenty years.

Clearly, droids did not enjoy the same legal privileges on Alderaan that they did on Novelization!Naboo…but why is that relevant? Threepio, recall, was said to have legal rights on Naboo as a member of Padme’s staff. At a stretch, since Anakin couldn’t technically own Artoo either, one could make an argument that Artoo was still legally Padme’s property and therefore automatically passed into the ownership of her daughter when Padme died*, since Anakin and Padme and Threepio seem to have been the only ones who realized at that time how sentient the astromech had become, but there was really no doubt about Threepio: if Stover’s writing in the official novelization is taken as on any level canonical, then Threepio, as a high-functioning droid, was an employee; certainly this is the case within the pages of the book in question, where he meets the same ends. Padme no more owned him than she owned Jar-Jar or the Handmaidens who acted as her body doubles or her other Senate aides...at least on Naboo and areas where its laws applied, like the embassy on Coruscant, I suppose. They were not in Naboo space at the time of Padme’s death, and apparently the idea that droids could be autonomous was culturally alien to Alderaanians…but we see in TCW that Bail had worked pretty closely with Padme for years. They were political allies, but also friends. They’d risked their lives together before - in the Committee of 2,000 conspiracy, in that episode of The Clone Wars where they investigated a murder together, and arguably, Padme had put her life in his hands without a second thought again on Empire Day when she made that “how liberty dies” remark in the midst of the rest of the Senate’s enthusiastic endorsement of Palpatine’s announcement. Padme also was shown to have a real Problem with the discovery that slavery still existed in the galaxy when she met Shmi and Anakin as a girl, and considering she later married an ex-slave who had…rather strong feelings about the subject, it’s hard to imagine that she didn’t get personally emotionally invested in the issue as well. Anti-slavery measures would have probably been part of her political platform, especially in that gap between Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones where there wasn’t a war that depended on slave soldiers to consider. It never, in all that time, came up with Bail? He never said, “It’s strange how you treat that protocol droid of yours - you act as though he were a person,” to which Padme could only reply that “by my planet’s laws, he is”? Padme never voiced any discomfort with the Alderaanian stance on high-functioning droids in all their years of working together? Why would her good friend not think twice about treating one of her staffers as his property before the poor woman’s corpse was even cold? Even if he disagreed, he ought to have at least had the thought “oh wow, I am disrespecting my friend’s memory here,” or even a hesitation about his legal right to give orders about Threepio’s memory, given that there would of necessity have to have been some interstellar agreement on whether Planet A’s laws about droids applied to droids from Planet A when they were on Planet B, especially if Planet B was neutral space like Coruscant, the place where Bail would have been most familiar with Threepio. I’m American and reasonably historically literate; American history was never my favorite branch of history, but I know all about the sort of trouble it causes when people don’t agree about whether laws from one state in a republic apply in another. See also: the American Civil War? And more recently, the issue of gay marriage, back when states determined that individually. Didn’t cause a war that time, but anyone who had the political awareness of a tree branch probably knew of the issue and, however dimly, probably something of why it was such an issue.

It’s now 9am, and yeah, yeah, I know, all this was necessary to protect the Chosen Twins because Threepio is a bit of an idiot, or it would have taken too much time/been too much at the tail end of a plot as dark as that of RotS to have a quick scene where Threepio agreed to become Bail’s property in order to stay with Leia, etc etc. But considering that Bail’s one of the good guys, it’s pretty messed up to realize how casually someone’s rights could just get hand waved away the moment they no longer had anyone politically powerful immediately on hand to defend them. It’s hard not to think…with his memory gone, Threepio doesn’t even know that he was supposed to have rights, and most humans cannot communicate fluently with Artoo. Bit disturbing to put oneself in that position, to wonder, as messy as the world’s getting…who’s the one person standing between us and having our rights almost as casually overwritten? Not quite as casually, I suppose, since mind wipes don’t exist for us (…yet…probably), but almost. Not something Lucas probably meant to put there, given that he didn’t write the official novelization and his apparent failure to think out the droid issue especially well**, but there’s where my brain’s going on this sneezy, sneezy morning.

* Note: this is totally ignoring the issue of whether this is moral and ethical or not. Also ignoring the issue of how that even stacks with the assiduous efforts to conceal that Padme’s child/children hadn’t died with her, in which case, being legally dead/never personified, it’s hard to consider them her legal heirs anyway.

** See also this video essay: https://youtu.be/WD2UrB7zepo?si=HcttHLpZFGnU5bNb

[sunny-rants]

the heartbreak I feel every time I get on here, so excited about a new piece of media, only to look it up and scroll through post upon post of the same dude just cause people think he’s hot.

[oddberryshortcake]

Since @cozymochi and I watched every single animated disney film (including the 40s anthology movies) hopefully people would be interested in me pulling every single specific reference I find in twst and events because you’d be surprised how much intimate knowledge Yana and the devs have

[captainfairygodmother]

Any LGBTQIA+ show/movie recs? Particularly fantasy/sci-fi but I'd watch pretty much anything

List of LGBTQIA+ Shows/Movies (/Features an LGBTQIA+ Character) I've Watched (Feel Free To Take Recs From This Too!):

-Good Omens

-Dead Boy Detectives

-Our Flag Means Death

-What We Do In the Shadows

-BBC Ghosts

-Interview With the Vampire

-Maurice

-But I'm a Cheerleader

-Renegade Nell

-Shadow & Bone

-Heartstopper

Currently (Slowly) Watching:

-NBC Hannibal

-The Sandman

There's probably some more that I accidentally forgot about but yeah

[filmmakerdreamst]

I went to go see if the person who uploaded the entirety of Life With Derek plus Vacation With Derek on YouTube had also uploaded Life With Luca, only to find that either they had deleted their channel or deleted those videos, because they weren’t there anymore :( If I want to watch the show again I’ll need to pay for the Family channel extension on Amazon Prime, which I would rather not do. Amazon loves their paywalls.

Nah they just made it unlisted.

Life with Derek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcESER0d7U0&list=PLiX9FA_nmKnFdnmvEt3a8Jfu7iYXpBVPX

Vacation with Derek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxllq0ueEuA&list=PLiX9FA_nmKnH7v0-zfLluFWdFY3KkY3Vw

Life with Luca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dq2U6K_aTw&list=PLiX9FA_nmKnHy6moTZ4GySd-XVFYacmQt

[ultimate-v3lvetfang]

can someone pls tell me an easy way to read the transformers comics since i’m having a hard time locating them and knowing where to start, i love comics sm and i want more transforms content that isn’t the God awful Michael Bay films plsplsplsplsplspls

[incoming-wormhole]

Gosh I was at a writers meet up today and we were talking about TV shows when someone brought up Stargate SG1 (BC my friend has just started watching it with her daughter) and I had to sit on my hands and gently correct all the things they got wrong, pretending like I'm very normal about the show

[laniidae-passerine]

genuinely pathetic how Brad Pitt refused to give a good performance in the IWTV film because Tom Cruise, despite all his immense flaws as a real person, was serving undead bisexual cunt. he was never able to reach his highest heights without a good Louis to play off but his Lestat laid the foundations for what we have now. and despite my common sense I am undeniably fond

[deankarolina]

nine albums that got me through 2024

tagged by @yvesbuprofen thank you! have I mentioned how much i love your url btw cos i do cannot get over how good it is whenever i see it

So a large part of the reasonings for some of these is gonna be concerts + yes all the loona girls getting a spot here

i did - yves: not to be parasocial but yves was honestly a large part in getting me through the winter, her releases this year have been amazing and having her concerts to look forward to had me pushing through everything I had going on & getting to meet her multiple times after being a fan for 7 years was wild. her newest album is so good and i don't think i can explain how some of the tracks on that emotionally resonate with me with dim maybe being one of my fave releases.

ttyl - loossemble: this album was such a great showing of the girls talents, you could really just see them shine and how happy they were performing and showing it off just filled with upbeat bops also that just made me happy.

dall - artms: deciding last minute to go to their concert despite my anxieties and such was such a correct choice it really dug me out of a hole i'd fallen into at the time and seeing them perform this album was amazing, the tracks are so joyful to me (& like w/ yves interacting w/ lip & choerry was just <3).

howl - chuu: while loving her strawberry rush release this yr & how upbeat it made me I think I ended up gravitating towards the howl tracks for comfort a lot more especially aliens <3.

the land is inhospitable and so are we - mitski: I've gone to see mitski nearly everytime she tours in ireland since her first show in 2016 with a tiny audience with the same 2 friends each time, so after they immigrated this year it was very melancholic to go to her dublin show alone & then very emotional to travel to see her concert with those 2 friends in the new country where they're based + seeing the growth of her music and performance from then to now really felt like the culmination of some personal things for me that persisted every time i listened to this album through the year.

aaa - hyukoh & sunset rollercoaster: this one is just an album that I had on a lot tho usually in parts with about half of the songs on this exactly being the type of music that can get me through doing mundane tasks and the other half being music that would just help me sleep

sink - sudan archives: just a hypnotic stunning album great for relaxing, do yourself a favour and listen to her tiny desk the way she uses that violin is just fantastic 'nont for sale' a fave.

jubilee - japanese breakfast: yeah this one esp 'posing In bondage' is just another one of those that would relax me a lot it was very much a just a late night repeat play many a times.

adventure - momoko kikuchi: I have this on cassette and anytime I needed a break from my phone or just being online at all (which was a fair few times) I'd end up popping this on and forgetting everything else.

tag if you'd like: @staghunters @blastburnt @elizabeth-mitchells @kdramamilfs @everyoneisrelevant

[danganronpa96]

I've wondered this for a bit – but what's the "time" for some of the characters?

For example, for characters like Bojack and Jesse, what season are they portrayed in the fic?

(This sounds like pure nonsense, but I'm genuinely curious.)

Don’t worry, I’ve been asked this a few times before. I’ve never really went into detail here though, so I don’t mind sharing all the “time”s I yoinked the cast from:

Hayasaka, Kurumada & Mai -> non-asunaro death game AU (these guys are a big exception lol)

Walter & Jesse -> around mid-season 2 (after episode 9)

Saiki & Kaidou -> since their anime is episodic (aka non-chronological), I don’t think a time is necessary. For clarity however, they are post season 2

Retsuko -> post season 3 (we started planning the fic before season 4 and 5 came out)

Natsuki & Yuri -> Post-established literature club (which includes the side stories from DDLC plus)

Hiroshi -> post Ao Oni 1

Brian -> post game, ‘Stay with me’ ending

Bojack -> mid-season 5 (post episode 6)

Latte -> post ‘Light the Beacons’ and ‘On Graduation Day’ stories (she doesn’t have much deep cookie run lore)

L -> post episode 24

Ena -> as the episodes have no continuity, a time period isn’t needed

[allygatoor]

i think it's time that we as a society realized that actually eternals wasn't bad it was just not standard marvel fare and that's okay

[riddlerosehearts]

moana 2 absolutely is not the first time disney has made a sequel out of episodes of a TV show but it is the first time they had walt disney animation studios make it (99% of disney sequels before this were outsourced to disneytoon studios which is why they were so low-budget and often very cheap-looking) and the first time they put that thing IN THEATERS (the sequels from disneytoon studios were always direct-to-video). things like cinderella 2, belle's magical world, atlantis 2, even the little mermaid 2 aren't part of the disney animated canon because they aren't WDAS features and can be ignored by disney. i don't think people who play the characters at the parks are even required to know about them. moana 2 is a first in some really weird ways and i'm so disappointed in everything i've been hearing about it

[icewindandboringhorror]

It's always interesting to hear about people's weird/unexpected "alternate life paths". Like, something that you could have done with your life, a job you almost took, a school you almost went to, etc - that was still actually realistic enough that it could have happened, but NOW it seems to not suit your current personality.

Like for example, I currently hate advertising (how manipulative it is, brands trying to be 'relatable', social media amplifying it to an obnoxious extreme, etc.) so much that even seeing a little ad before a youtube video is grating to even witness, but there was a point in time where I was genuinely seriously considering going into marketing/making commercials as a career lol. Or like, I have a relative who was very inclined to be a pastor when they were younger, even though today they're a super strong atheist, etc. etc.

[mariocki]

RIP Kenneth Cope (14.4.1931 - 11.9.2024)

"Michael Pratt and I just gelled. We had never met previously but we got on so well. Michael wrote, and we had such a great relationship that we would just change lines, and we were both on the same wavelength. That was such a lucky, lucky thing."