#i get what she meant in this movie

[fairyfleshprison]

Finally a really watched Donnie Darko 8/10 chilling in a way that I wanna call comforting but more like in the way that waking up in reality after you've had a bad dream is comforting like you can acknowledge like Woah glad I don't actually live in that nightmare universe like youre chilled and a tad shaken but still like comforted that you can still grasp the reality after the fact

[moonlit-orchid]

These two lines in the movie make me the most mentally unwell.

"I should have been the one to go. You needed your mother more than you needed me."

The amount of layers to this, oh my god. He's blaming himself for being alive. He probably wants to die. He genuinely thinks Adrian needs Emilie more.

And it's been YEARS since Emilie's passed away. Look how tiny Adrian is over there, he only just about comes about the bedpost. Gabriel still looks like he did in the pictures of when Adrian was little. It's been literal years. It could have literally been a full decade ago.

And Gabriel breaks the narrative here. He's supposed to be telling a story, he's supposed to be saying what happened in the past. But at this point, he doesn't say "your mother was taken from us" or anything like that referencing Emilie's passing. The story breaks, he's using a statement. I should have been the one to go. It's completely out of the story, because he isn't saying what he felt then, there's no "I felt like I should have been the one to go". It's just "I should have been."

Because he still thinks this. It's been about a decade, and his opinion, his feelings about this, is still "I should have died". It interrupts his storytelling because of how strongly he feels this way, almost like it's a fact to him.

And then he follows it with "You needed your mother more than you needed me." Again, he says this like it's a fact, like Adrian actually did need his mother more. Because he believes it himself. And this could be because of so many things. It could be because of the way people consider the mother to be the one supposed to care for the children much more than the father, or it could be that Gabriel himself didn't see how much Adrian needed him, or even that Gabriel didn't see himself as useful to Adrian. Especially because he said he should have been the one to die. He's essentially saying he was useless. That he was expendable but Emilie wasn't. He literally is implying he doesn't see any worth in himself regarding being a father.

And then it's not just his grief, it's Adrian's grief that has him desperate to bring Emilie back. He literally doesn't care about himself, he wants his son to be happy and doesn't see himself as able to do that. He loves him to the point of being suicidal and self-sacrificing if it would give Adrian what he need, all while simultaneously not seeing himself as what Adrian needs because he doesn't think he has that much worth regarding him.

[drumlincountry]

I love tucking my hair up under a flatcap. Makes me feel like a daring young lassie on her way to become a sailor or a soldier or some such.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

just got a notification from my phone calendar saying "It's almost alfo's birthday, do you want to plan something?"

[gwensy]

i cant do this today

[robylovi]

Thinking abt that catradora ‘While You Were Sleeping’ AU fic I read that was so good it got me to watch the movie only for it to feel exactly like when you watch a movie based off a book you read and feel incredibly disappointed even though the fic clearly didn’t come first ??

[mostofthingsmostofthetime]

So the new Hunger Games book. I have some thoughts.

Can't wait to see who's gonna play which characters.

Wonder what Snow will look like middle-aged.

I'm guessing the movie will cut Maysilee having a sister due to Madge being absent from the original films & if so, I wonder how that will affect the Mockingjay pin origins or if they'll completely remove the fact that it originally belonged to her.

Omg, the film could use the same reaping dress (or more likely a replica) for teen Miss Everdeen that they used for Katniss as it is said to be something that belonged to her mother during her time as a Merchant, in the original series.

Can't believe we might finally learn Katniss's parents' names lol.

Omg, do you think they'll at least hint at the baker/apocathery/hunter love triangle?

Oh (no hate to Woody Harrison but) young Haymitch is gonna be white, isn't he? Well, at least they could let him have black hair. & that wouldn't nessaryly even break movie cannon. All they'd need is to have a scene showing/implying that the stylists are gonna dye his hair after he ends up winning the games. The movie could even create an in-universe reason (outside of the Capitol citerzens just thinking it looked better). Such as with blonde people in 12, not coming from the Seam. Snow views it as the perfect subtle punishment to help Haymitch feel a loss of cultural identity by separating him from his community (now that he looks & lives more like a Merchant).

Hope the movie won't try to appeal to Hayffee/Effie stans by adding unnecessary scenes of them getting close, as if Haymitch didn't have a whole ass girlfriend while Effie would be nose deep in Capitol propaganda at that point in time.

Everyone who's saying it's gonna be weird to find Haymitch hot is weak. I was attracted to Woody Harrelson in a wig.

Don't know if this is at all realistic/accruate, but this is how I'd want the movie to end. Haymitch, back in 12. Maybe waking up in his new house after being sedated (due to him losing it after his last interview). Him desperately trying to find out where his family/GF is after discovering his old house empty (left there as a reminder), his GF's family not opening the door & everyone seemingly too nervous to speak to him. Till he eventually ends up on the Everdeen's doorstep (where Miss Everdeen is being comforted) & they explain what happened as best as they can. Then, after he returns to his new home, he gets a phone call from Snow bassically telling him that he should have behaved himself, leading him to rip the phone out of the wall before completely trashing the place. When he eventually wakes up, Hazelle is cleaning up the mess (he forgot to lock the front door). She tries to talk to him about applying alcohol (she was given by miss Everdeen) to the wounds he sustained from smashing up the place & about his girlfriend (as I could imagine the two having been friends as I can only see Haymitch's GF being from the Seam), but he tells her to get out before he starts drinking the alcohol right from the bottle, with a voice over of older Haymitch saying the line 'there's survivors, there's no winners'. Or something along those lines.

Maybe that's too fanficy, though lol.

[laniidae-passerine]

Amazed with how many people say they like Birdie or they find her, not Kate Hudson but her, genuinely attractive. Did you completely miss the point? As an attractive white woman, Birdie Jay can get away with saying “Jewy” as an insult, can get away with comparing herself to Harriet Tubman and implicitly can get away with doing blackface. People forgave her, because she’s just a little stupid, she didn’t mean it, it wasn’t her fault! All she needs to do, as Peg outright states, is give a half apology and lay low and then the world will get over it. But the things she did are still horrific. Her racism is still racism, regardless of whether it comes from hate or ignorance. Birdie Jay is not a good person and you’re not meant to think she is.

[frogspawned]

pet peeve is when a story tells us something is aberrant, but it seems to matter more about who does the behavior than the behavior itself. rorschach in snyder's watchmen isn't going too far; we watch nite owl and silk spectre ii snap necks and arms with gleeful, loving abandon, in slow motion no less, while they lecture the audience about rorschach's violence. heroes frequently torture the plot contrivance out of a villain and then moralize to the camera when the villains do the same. indominus rex's killing spree doesn't shock or appall me; all the jurassic world dinosaurs act like mindless killing machines, and the camera lingers, rapturous, on their cruelty. it's not an outlier. there's nothing interesting about it beyond as a set piece.

in a better script, the indominus rex would have had pathos; a chimera made for entertainment, for profit, stitched together with no regard for itself and placed in a lonely box. a freak among freaks. of course it would be mad. but the film wasn't interested in it as an animal, or a character, only as a moving piece of scenery for people to scream at or breathe tensely while it can clearly smell and reach them but doesn't, because it isn't a character and doesn't have motivations.

it's just sort of boring, i suppose. it tries like all other empty drab things do to cover it with bombast and roaring and soaring brassy scores but it's just sort of dull. a sprawl of nothing.

conversely peele's nope is a transcendent monster movie, imo, because it thinks about the the whys and hows, how jean jacket perceives the world, how the world perceives her, and lets that shape the narrative as much as jupe or emerald or gordy. they consulted biologists and behaviorists, digging into the meat of it. the creature as a camera as an animal as a device. nope has layers. it takes its own insane premise seriously, and has something to say, and is a goddamn good movie. i forgot where i was going with this.

[muchmossymess]

It might be the weirdo in me but imagine an anamatic to the song shiny from moana with an evil/antagonist revali as the crab and link trying to recover the master sword as maui and zelda as moana

[womanenthusiast]

Accomplice (Keith/Tenebris & Custom MC)

No romance, just a no good very bad day for everyone involved. Bambi and Keith discover they’ve been cheated on at the same time and things go from bad to worse. Inspired by this ask.

TW: blood & gore, swearing

AN: I haven’t written anything since 2017/2018, but the call of the @dualityvn fanfic contest was too strong. Please forgive any issues, I have no idea what I’m doing.

The knock at the door was unexpected, the rattle of a key in the lock even moreso. When Keith stepped out of the bedroom to see what was going on, his partner, Sam, met his eyes with a guilty look. She seemed to know what was about to happen, her shoulders straightening resolutely as the door opened.

Another woman stumbled in, arms were weighed down by groceries making her unsteady. Sam stepped forward to take a bag and balanced the woman with a hand on her elbow. The motion was domestic, familiar. Keith’s stomach sank.

“I’m so sorry to drop in unannounced, I noticed you were low on some things the other day and wanted to make sure you had enough for the week, I know how crazy work’s been.” The stranger was pulling out items and restocking Sam’s cabinets with practiced movements. When she finally spotted him, she jolted with surprise. Keith tensed too, readying himself for a confrontation. It didn’t happen. Instead, her face brightened into a welcoming smile. “Shit sorry, I didn’t even see you there! You must be a friend of Sam’s.” 

The woman’s attitude caught him off guard. She didn’t seem to be aware that anything was wrong. His brain rushed to smooth the edges of his assumptions; maybe he wasn’t being cheated on, maybe he’d been too hasty to assume. A sister or cousin? A friend? An assistant? Tenebris stirred in the back of his mind, drawn out by the frantic chaos of his thoughts. The woman’s next words startled them both into silence.

“My name’s Bambi, I’m Sam’s fiance.” Bambi wiped her hands on her jeans and offered one to him to shake. “I just stopped by to drop off some groceries, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll be out of your hair in a sec.” 

Keith took her hand without thinking, but couldn’t bring himself to shake it. Bambi’s smile wilted at the look in his eye. They both heard Sam cough behind her. 

“Keith, listen-” His hand tightened around the stranger’s at the sound of Sam’s voice, colored with guilt. The remnants of Bambi’s smile crumbled away as the pieces began to fall into place and she squeezed his hand back involuntarily. They stared at each other, frozen.

Keith looked pale. Bambi would later come to see the omen in the blue splotches crawling up his neck and the uncanny curl to the corner of his mouth, but at the time her frantic brain twisted the strangeness into something she could understand. A lifetime of self-imposed service pushed her legs toward the window, the clamminess building in her hands making it easy to slide out of his grasp. 

“What are you doing?” Sam asked, incredulous.

She blustered about the lock with hands numb and shaking as though she’d just plunged them in ice water. An old routine turned awkward and clumsy with the shock to her system. “He needs air.” 

Did he? Keith wasn’t sure. His head was a mess of his own swirling thoughts and the frustrated prodding of Tenebris. The other inhabitant knew something was happening and wanted to step in, but Keith wouldn’t yet relinquish control, regardless of the temptation to just let go. There was an innocent here and he could tell by her demeanor that Bambi hadn’t known, either. He didn’t know how far Tenebris’ rage would extend if he didn’t take the time to sort his thoughts and inform him of the situation properly.

Sam seemed to take pity on Bambi and nudged her away so she could undo the lock and slide the window open herself. Bambi looked confusedly at her own trembling hands. Sam wasn’t shaking at all, which seemed wrong. She felt like it should’ve been the opposite. 

Bambi had learned young that relationships were fleeting, frequently slipping through her fingers. She refused to be lonely but kept a loose grip, letting one relationship go and then reaching back into the bucket for more. Made herself useful so they’d have a reason to keep her around a little longer, but not begrudging them when they left. The way her mother had held a white knuckled grip to her cheating father had seemed embarrassing to her in her adolescence. The longer it had gone on, the more Bambi had wanted to take a hammer to those fingers so her mother would finally let go and fall away somewhere better. The desperation of wanting to hold on to someone like that became associated with the sympathetic humiliation Bambi had felt for her. She’d vowed to never do that to herself long ago, so why was this affecting her so? 

She squeezed crescents into her palms, shame coloring her cheeks as everything came together for her. She’d gotten too comfortable, held on too tight. Just like her mother. A toothbrush wrapped in a paper towel, found shoved into the back of the medicine cabinet. A sweater, out of place in Sam’s pile of laundry. The orchid that had been thriving on the windowsill despite Sam’s self proclaimed touch of death. How long had she willingly ignored the signs? She’d let Sam become important, let the ring on her finger dig a mark into her skin. Hers. Mine. 

She willed herself to feel anything else about her own lot, but embarrassment reigned over all. In the face of that, she decided instead to feel for Keith. There was more there to work with, bubbling up in her chest like a witch’s brew. Indignation. Anger. Offense. Sadness. Pain. She tended to those emotions, urging them to loosen her own grip on the relationship, pop her fingers off the ledge one at a time as though breaking a seal. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. A deep breath, a release of tension.

“What the hell, Sam? How long has this been going on?” 

“Not long, I swear! It was just some fun, I wanted to try something new before we tied everything down.” She mistook Bambi’s anger as hurt for her own self, a loose thread in the sweater that Sam could pull to unravel her into forgiveness. She knew Bambi didn’t like to fight, that she’d roll over and show her belly if it would make the conflict stop, regardless of her own feelings. This wasn’t about Bambi’s feelings, though. Her need to defend overshadowed her aversion to conflict.

“Something? He’s a person and he’s right here!” She didn’t bother asking if he knew, the truth was written in his wide eyes, turned towards the floor, and the distressed pinch to his brows. His mouth was clenched shut and a muscle twitched in his jaw. Keith looked like he was having a conversation in his head and feared he’d speak it aloud if he eased up even a fraction. 

“Keith, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, I-” She didn’t know why she was apologizing, maybe because she didn’t know if Sam would. Someone had to be sorry. “I don’t know what to say.” 

He didn’t either, a small part of him just wanted to take her hand again. There was comfort in being tethered to someone as lost in the situation as himself. 

Seeing that placation wouldn’t work, Sam bristled and turned defensive. “I’m sorry it turned out like this, but Bambi you’re so fucking hard to love! You keep everyone away, even me!”

“What?”

“I thought we could make things work, that you’d open up if things between us were more stable but you’re so damn cold! I was lonely, that’s it.” Sam scoffed, “you’re not even crying! You cried watching a fucking documentary last week but not over this?” 

There was a stabbing feeling in Bambi’s chest, a rage clawing to the surface at Sam’s assessment of her. She wasn’t wrong, but she didn’t want to hear it. She wanted to strike back, find a soft spot in the other woman’s armor and dig her nails into it, but she didn’t know what to say. 

She didn’t have to say anything. A blur of movement tore past her line of sight and collided into Sam. The snap of a rubber band pulled too tight. For a moment Bambi didn’t move, only to stumble back a heartbeat later as though hit with the shockwave of Sam and Keith’s impact. 

He drew back a blue fist -was it always that color?- and something wet landed on her cheek. As though in a trance, she brought a finger to it. Red. Oh shit. 

“APOLOGIZE!” He shouted, his voice was raspier than she’d expected. There were other words too, but they all sounded garbled and incoherent to her. Through the fog of the shock, she thought the sound of it didn’t quite suit Keith’s delicate features.

Sam didn’t apologize, Bambi doubted she could anymore. She couldn’t see much past the haze of his movement, but each thud of contact was beginning to sound like an open palm slapping the surface of a pool. 

Bambi was on the ground. She didn’t remember dropping, but her tailbone ached so it couldn’t have been graceful. When she tried to scoot away, her sock slid tractionless through the pool of blood lazily inching towards her. When had she taken her shoe off? 

It wasn’t long before he stopped moving, shoulders hunched, and she noticed the faint shape of a women's size nine and a half printed on his sleeve in dirt. Her other, still shoe-covered, foot managed to gain a bit of traction and she shot back into the cabinets behind her hard enough to knock the wind out of herself. 

He turned to face her and she saw that he was different. Blue skin, eyes wide and bloodshot with pinprick violet irises. Odd lines stretched from the corners of his mouth which pulled back in a grimace full of knifelike teeth. She wasn’t as hung up as she thought she should be on this change in appearance. Perhaps she was fresh out of shocks to her system. What else could today throw at her? Why not this, too? 

“Are you okay?”

What an odd question to ask her when her former fiance was a pile of meat beside him. She shook her head violently, not wanting to test his patience by not answering quickly enough.

“Keith doesn’t want me to kill you.” He let out a puff of air through his nose, “Sam hurt you too?”

She nodded. Should she call the cops? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Her phone was in the car. Not-Keith was between her and the door. Fuck. 

“Do you talk?”

He wasn’t hostile yet, maybe she could get out of this if she played her cards right. Talk her way out of this horror show. Bambi nodded, eyes flicking momentarily to her feet. The blood puddle was encroaching on her space again. She’d always suspected the floor in this code violation of an apartment building wasn’t level, what a way to have that confirmed. She turned her gaze back to him. “Who are you?”

He tilted his head like he was surprised she wasn’t running screaming out the door. To be honest, so was she. She might’ve had a chance to escape back when he was busy with Sam and she was genuinely baffled that the shoe had been her first instinct instead. “Tenebris. I’m a part of him.” 

Sure. Normal. Tenebris sat down across from her. Very normal. Just two people and a puddle of blood. Having a conversation. 

Bambi opened her mouth but a knock sounded at the door before she could say anything. Both of them straightened, making startled eye contact.

“Is everything okay? I thought I heard yelling.” Bambi recognized the voice of Sam’s neighbor, two doors down. She’d met him once. What was his name? Luke? Lake? Lance?

Tenebris was looking at her, his eyes narrowed slightly: this was a test. Her mouth was still open so she snapped it shut with an audible clack. The motion caused a tear to streak down her cheek. 

“Sam? You in there?” 

She tried to read what Tenebris wanted her to do in his face. He gave her a small nod; great, he wanted her to cover. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment, steadying herself. “We’re good, man. Thanks for checking up. I sat on the remote and it blasted the volume.” She clenched her hands into fists on the floor, distantly aware that they were now wet.

Panic was beginning to set in. The fear of being caught, the fear of Tenebris sitting across from her, the distress of sitting in the blood of the woman whose name was next to hers on a pile of wedding invitations in her living room. She was shaking badly, every muscle in her body taut as though bracing for some sort of impact. 

Tenebris didn’t look impressed with her improv, but he wasn’t turning her into a human smoothie so she suspected she’d done well enough. 

Luke or Lake or Lance scoffed on the other side of the door, “well don’t fucking do that again, I have a night shift tonight.” Neither of them moved until they heard his footfalls disappear down the hall and his apartment door open and shut. 

When the coast was clear, Tenebris rose and offered a hand to Bambi. She took it without thinking, but cringed when her brain finally caught up. He pulled her up easily and she tried not to slip back onto her ass in her haste to pull away again. 

“What’s your name?”

“Bambi.” 

“Like the deer?” 

She tried not to let the instinctive disdain for the question show on her face. “Just like the deer.” 

He nodded, making an expression like he was proud to have correctly made the connection. “Do you know where she keeps the cleaning supplies?” A nod. “Show me.” 

Bambi led the way, wet sock slapping against the vinyl flooring, to the half bath that contained the cleaning closet. Everything was where she’d left it last time she’d cleaned. Sam had always hated cleaning but Bambi found it relaxing and would stop by to vacuum, mop, and do her laundry for her quite frequently. Most of the things inside had been purchased by Bambi herself. Tenebris filled his arms with supplies and indicated for Bambi to do the same. 

“We’ve gotta make sure this place is spotless before dark so we don’t have to come back after we get rid of the body.” 

He strode out of the bathroom after dropping that bombshell and she watched his back disappear around the corner towards the kitchen. Bambi nearly dropped the bleach on her foot. Fucking we?

From the other room, Tenebris barked a laugh, “Is this your shoe? Did you throw that at me?” His tone seemed a touch too casual for the situation, if you asked her.

Bambi laughed back, though there was no humor in it. Her brain had finally caught up to what was going on and she felt the weight of everything that had and would happen fall onto her shoulders. Their lives were about to become very tightly intertwined.

Son of a bitch, he was making her an accomplice. 

[go-to-the-mirror]

I have lots of thoughts about the canon events in Across the Spiderverse, and I thought I’d share some that I talked vaguely about with my sister when we were coming back from watching the movie.

Firstly, I don’t think they’re going to kill off Miles’ dad. I think that the story’s really pointing in the direction of Miles being proven right. It’s all about how the other Spiderpeople not believing in another way to be a Spiderperson — even though their whole thing is being different types of Spiderpeople, but I digress — and having Miles prove them wrong. It’s about the Spiderpeople learning from Miles, like how Peter B. Parker learns from him in Into the Spiderverse, like how Spider-Byte (Margo) lets Miles go home in this movie.

Across the Spiderverse also talks a lot about Miles defining his own story, his story as a Spiderperson that was never meant to be there, his story as a student, as a child of his parents. I think it would just make way more sense for part of his defining of his own story and people learning from him would be for him to be able to find away to avert some canon events.

Secondly, I think that the canon events and the attitude surrounding it from the other Spiderpeople is reminiscent of the idea that trauma happens “for a reason.” That it makes one grow into the person they are today, and sure, trauma affects people. Trauma might make someone nicer or able to empathise with people going through similar things as they are — as seen in the scene where the members of the Spider Gang comfort Miles about Uncle Aaron’s death in the first movie — but this doesn’t mean it’s good that they’ve all watched people they care about die, and doesn’t mean that it’s the only thing that made them a good Spiderperson.

Bringing it back to the first point, I think that Beyond the Spiderverse is going to be about how, yeah, bad things happen, bad things beyond one’s control happen, but this doesn’t mean that bad things have to happen, and it doesn’t mean it happened for a reason.

[gaylittleguys]

IM SORRY but any ‘character gets suddenly hit by a car coming out of nowhere’ is going to be KIND OF funny it just isss

[prophecyofgray]

okay i FINALLY watched kung fu panda 4 and i have a lot of thoughts, especially about the parallels between tai lung and zhen. tai lung was taken in by shifu, who loved him and believed in him but took pride in him to a fault, leading to the arrogance and entitlement that was tai lung's downfall; zhen was taken in by the chameleon, who criticized her and used her and acted only out of self interest, a belief system that ultimately lead to zhen's rebellion. two young kids each given a chance by a master, one of them with kindness and excessive leniency, the other with mal-intent and no room for error. tai lung and zhen could've easily swapped places and each of them turned out differently. it's so fascinating, and a very smart writing choice to bring tai lung back into focus in conjunction with the the introduction of zhen's character.

[mx-paint]

.

[crazypossumman]

There is something incredibly charming about the bitchy-older-man-who-hates-kids-develops-a-meaningful-healthy-relationship-with-a-parentless-child trope. Especially in a world where nearly every movie/novel/whatever has to have a romantic plot/subplot when there are a plethora of other options. It’s a trope that carries great weights of love, caring, and understanding without being romantic; it expresses a different kind of love that is equally important in this world. To open your heart to a child and become the friend or parental figure they not only need but deserve is such a beautiful thing, and to watch a child help an adult learn something new about the world and the way they see it is a constant reminder that people will always have room to grow and change. To see an adult learn as much from a child as the child learns from them, sometimes even more so, is the reminder that so many people need that wisdom often comes in the form of a fresh perspective.