#anyway i did like the substance

[shinesurge]

I think about this bit from an excellent Jacob Geller video on the regular

[welcometogrouchland]

♫ I do what I want/Crying in the bleachers and I said it was fun/I don't need anything from anyone ♫

(ID in Alt) you guys ever think about your own posts and get upset?? Anyway Damian Wayne I love you I'm so sorry your life is like that

[skeletalheartattack]

honestly, the most devastating news you could hear about in 2007 while playing roblox was learning that Scatman John passed away in 1999. like, finding that out was the roblox child's equivalent to 9/11.

[billdenbrough]

fundamentally disinterested in the recurring discourse about kevin's drinking that aims to a) make it his Specific Problem To Focus On And Overcome when it is a crutch and coping mechanism to get him through a Much Bigger Problem (emotional fallout he can't square with by himself, culture shock, trauma, loss of his extremely wildly co-dependent relationship w riko, losing the structure of the nest, mourning a future he was meant to have, processing a grave injustice, anger and fear and desperate grief, all of which is his Actual Specific Fox Problem) while he builds himself back up, and b) thinks that even if it is a problem (more on that later), it's the foxes' problem to deal with.

like. it's just not.

yeah, he doesn't drink until he meets them. they gave him that habit, and in traditional terms, they're (the monsters specifically) a 'bad influence'. but these are the foxes. this is kevin day, son of exy, whose meteor is crashing spectacularly through no fault of his own. there are no traditional terms to be found here. the framework for it literally doesn't exist. neil comes into the foxes with more conventional expectations—appalled at the athletes' substance use, his horror at matt's trip to columbia, his steadfast and early repeated stance that none of the foxes should let andrew treat them the way he does, and certainly not nicky—and tends to engage with them less as the series goes on and he folds himself into the foxes. the thing about the foxes is that they've all been in pits deeper than they are tall. and some of them got a helping hand on the way—erik, andrew's extreme intervention methods, stephanie walker—and wymack was always waiting for them on the other side, ready to throw down a rope, but all the foxes dragged themselves out of their own holes. often not alone, often not without assistance, but at the end of the day, they have to do it.

there's that line neil has about aaron in that scene that got deleted when the timeline shifted around, when he thinks about how aaron got this far in life on his own, surviving on willpower and sheer desperation. that applies to aaron in a way that's a little more acute than some of the rest of them—boy who doesn't let the foxes in bc of andrew, boy who doesn't let nicky in bc he doesn't know how, boy made of flinching and seeking an escape and grieving the one who hurt him—but is broadly true for the foxes en masse.

this isn't to say the foxes can't help each other, but it's not their job. it just isn't. they'll keep kevin alive, keep him safe, keep him flanked and contained within their ranks. they'll fight tooth and nail in this battle with him, fight to get him to that championship game, fight to get that trophy in his hands. but that's all they've agreed to. that's all they're responsible for, in this covenant they've made with him. he says they can make this happen, and they're going to get him to that final game, but it's up to him what state he's in when he gets there.

like. they're foxes. they've been triaging their whole lives. they hate each other and they hate everyone else more. they're the kids with their backs up against the wall. half of them are addicts. i don't think kevin is comparable, personally; he's getting through a horrific situation with a coping mechanism. that's not the same thing as battling yourself to stop using. but that's not really the point of this. what i'm getting at here is that to the foxes, it's easy math: kevin who can lean on vodka and andrew and wymack and the foxes to stay upright when he's not ready to stand on his own two feet is still a kevin who is standing. a kevin with one less piece of scaffolding to lean on is a kevin who falls over, a kevin at risk of complete collapse, a kevin one phone call away from running back to the master, a kevin one crucial loss away from not ever making it back to himself at all. they're triaging. this is low on the totem pole of things they have the room to care about. they very much have bigger problems, both individually and even just kevin-related. if alcohol makes seeing the boy he knew best in the world and moved in tandem with his whole life and who destroyed their entire legacy and his entire life in one move — if alcohol makes facing that boy easier to stomach, then, fuck, why would they take that away? they're foxes. they've all got their demons. this is what kevin needs this year and a half to let him face his, that's all. they can understand that. it doesn't have to be pretty, as long as it keeps him in the fight. that's the priority.

i think there's absolutely space to explore this in fic and art and fandom in a way that maybe does explore it as a Problem, both that it's an active problem for kevin & that it's something to explore other foxes helping him with (there's a t&n fic that i've been gnawing at the bit to read for months that seems poised to explore this premise, and that's super up my alley)! i just think we're in different territory when we're talking about the series—and its characters and dynamics—in a conversational rather than transformational way, and end up talking about this like the foxes are responsible for kevin's choices. i love kevin day. i read these back at the start of 2015 & he's so dear to me that loving him was the blueprint for how i feel abt kageyama. but it's been pretty weird to see how the conversation has been translating Loving Kevin Day into... thinking the foxes are doing wrong by him with respect to this in actual canon. like that's just not how it operates there

[gummirock]

folks do we think jean had a speed habit before meeting harry or did harry introduce him to it

[ninoochat]

The Substance (2024) dir. Coralie Fargeat

[kingsdodecahedron]

he’s my fav actually

[fishlung8877]

She just like me fr

[catboymettaton]

tbh a lot of feedback I get when I talk about my mental health is like. Oh so you struggle to do these things? well you’re still doing them. have you considered that some people can’t even do those things. you’re fine

[crehador]

i don't know if i think it's really funny or kind of a shame that many people are going to know tadaima okaeri solely as "the omegaverse bl" when it's actually such a sweet slice-of-life about community, family, the struggles of the older generation to understand the younger and vice versa, recovering from social isolation and how recursive that recovery can be, forging lasting friendships as adults, and so on. it's so wholesome and drama-free that it barely has any plot to speak of, but what it lacks in plot it makes up for in themes and man. what beautiful themes

[stormyoceans]

Hi Monica, have you watched the movie The Substance?

hello, anon!!!!

i DID watch the substance!!!!! i was able to see it last week with a coworker who’s REALLY into horror and we weren't sure what to watch between this and longlegs, but in the end fate (a coin flip) decided for us

quick review: i liked the movie overall, but im not as in love with it as my coworker and pretty much everyone else seems to be. im also never gonna watch it again in my entire life ;;;;;;; (but that’s on me)

slightly longer review (i swear im gonna try to keep it brief): let me start this by saying that unfortunately i am not the biggest fan of the body horror sub-genre because it’s one of the very few things that can actively be triggering to me, so as much as i try to be objective about the media i consume, this is the one instance where i really have a hard time doing that. i still willingly watch body horrors because i really appreciate them as a vehicle for social commentary, and it was no different for the substance: i admire the messages it conveyed about systemic misogyny, and internalized sexism, and self-hatred, and the inhumanity of the anti-aging industry, and the brutality of fame, and i think that watching such a poignant portrayal of the violence against the self could be a very healing experience in a way. i definitely came out of it wishing to be a little bit more accepting and kinder to myself

it's also a visually stunning movie, i really liked the cinematography, especially when it referenced other movies (although it got a bit too much at some point imho), and demi moore's performance is PHENOMENAL

all that being said, and without spoilering it, i personally think the movie would have benefited from a little bit more subtlety: the choice of partially super-imposing prior scenes over current ones and inserting voiceover flashbacks to earlier bits of dialogue honestly made me wonder if the director didn't trust the audience at all. im also not sure if the last act did the movie any favor. i really do understand why they went so over the top and what they were going for with it, i just feel like the tonal shift was very jarring and kinda derailed the momentum of the entire moviet

his is just my opinion tho!!!!! which..you didn't ask actually so im sorry if i kinda got ahead of myself ;;;;;;;; but in case you were interested in it, i think overall it was a good movie and im glad to have watched it (even if it did give me a panic attack ;;;;;;), however i do believe the execution could have been better

[statementlou]

.

[sunjoys]

saltburn is not a fucking eat the rich movie ??

[britneyshakespeare]

well in more positive news

midge is now the proud wearer or friday night date (1960-1964)

[13eyond13]

my god. I'm tellin ya, ya gotta see The Substance (2024) in theaters with at least a half a full crowd

[angustully]

last night i watched the substance and then talked about it with my best friend who i met in film school and his literal reaction to the movie was "WHY would anyone make this type of movie, what even COMPELS A PERSON to make something so horrific and gruesome and awful to look at. i dont think movies like this should exist" and i literally had to be like idk man i think it depends 😭 also fwiw i thought the movie was awesome lmfao