#it’s just skewed because i generally watch movies that i think i will like

[stonedfemmeblues]

my letterboxd makes me feel like gregg turkington, i rate like everything a 4+, i throw out 4.5s like the directors have a gun to my head

[youkaiyume]

So, are you going to be watching transformers one? And what was your favorite version of Bumblebee in each depiction?

I DID watch Transformers One (twice). I'm ngl, TFOne Bee probably ranks the among the lowest on my list of favorite Bumblebee depictions. I just don't think his voice fits. Now character-wise he is not dissimilar to TFA Bee or Cyberverse Bee. Both of which are very talkative and hyperactive--I liken them to little kids. Kind of annoying, but they also come off as more endearing because their voices are skewed younger and more playful. So we get the impression that they are less mature and younger than their teammates.

TFOne Bee.... just sounds like a 40 year old man who never outgrew his frat boy phase so it's very hard for me to like him. I'm sure if all of his lines were read by a younger sounding voice actor it would not come off nearly as grating to me. I think they really fumbled by insisting on using Keegan (who is great in other roles! just not this one) and wanting his default comedian personality that never shuts up. I am of the firm belief that just because you want Bee to talk now does not mean the solution is to never have him shut up ever.

Beyond that I don't think Bumblebee in TFOne brings much to the table besides comedic relief. He does not have any strong views or convictions when it comes to the conflict at hand, and probably could be removed from the movie without much difference. He seems to be there for the sake of having mandatory Bumblebee, which pains me to say because I LOVE Bumblebee. obviously.

But most egregiously, they put antenna on him and then NEVER did any sort of reveal where they can pop up and then do cute antenna twitchy things. Blasphemy.

On my ranking of Bumblebees in every universe I tend to go:

Bumblebee Movie!Bee (of course, my cute soft boi)

RID 2015 Bee (shocking to most ppl but if you know me, I just love his dorky Dad energy. Also have you seen him smolder?)

Transformers Prime Bee (RID, TFP and Rescue Bots in general as part of the aligned continuity sits in the top spots)

Earthspark Bee (for the same Dad energy)

G1 Bee

Cyberverse Bee

TFA Bee

TFOne Bee

War for Cyberton Bee

Bayverse Bumblebee

I didn't include any comics cuz I haven't read them yet. Despite my gripes with TFOne Bee, I do think he has his moments and no matter what, all Bumblebees are good Bees.

[flownwrong]

chaotic ckr c6d squee propaganda (?) post

This, started half a year ago for @ds30below, was initially a general c6d short reviews post but kinda skewed majorly towards CKR's repertoire and wasn't too review-y. So I gave up on making sense and on including the non-CKR works. I don't know who the audience for this is, because I never give basic details for people who don't know about this stuff but say too much for those who do. I giffed what I could and tried to avoid what I know a lot about but haven't actually seen. Here goes.

Frank's Cock (1993)

Not much to say. It's only 8 minutes, it's beautiful and you should see it if you haven't. I won't spoil the subject, but you can likely guess. Watch it, cry a little. Then go watch some more of Mike Hoolboom's stuff, the vimeo link above is from his channel.

Two X-Files episodes (1994 – 1995)

Well, I haven't actually seen X-files since I was about fifteen and watched the like two seasons, and I remember none of it. I rewatched the two early episodes CKR appears in and they were fun. I did not watch the, the movie or whatever where he's doing the evil gay thing. But really, this one is on the list so I can show you this self-indulgent gif of him being Very Long:

Double Happiness (1994)

You shouldn't watch this one for CKR. I mean, you absolutely should see him here, looking like he's barely out of his teens and playing up the insecure act and having devastating chemistry with devastatingly beautiful Sandra Oh, but this is not why it's great. And it's really, really great. It's touching and funny and sincere. If you wanna have some feels about complicated family relationships and identity and growing up (at any point in life), you'll find them here.

Curtis's Charm (1995)

Don't regret watching it, can't recommend. Not gonna lie, I was emotionally affected. But I usually am by things as in-your-face bleak as this. Mostly, it's trying very hard to be smarter than it is, I think.

However: CKR's One Wild Curl is everything to me (see above, on the right. It was, like, actually curly. I was rendered speechless). And like two seconds of Hugh Dillon made me do a double-take, lol. Incredibly weird knowing this was shot like half a year before HCL began shooting. Feels like it must've been a decade earlier.

Hard Core Logo (1996)

I could make three separate posts about this one, so of course I have no idea what to say.

This one, you should watch for CKR, actually, he's something, but so is every single other aspect of this film. I wouldn't change a thing about it. It hits you like a 16 wheeler. Perfectly cast, unimaginably beautiful, hysterical and melancholy and disgusting and compelling.

Related recs:

A wonderfully fun article/retrospective/interview for its 20th anniversary a while back.

You should also absolutely read Hard Core Roadshow if you enjoyed the film. It's a book documenting the whole thing from conception to release. It touched me for its own sake, not just a backstage glance, full of love for the craft and the people and carrying this tangible bittersweetness about the heightened and fleeting nature of this kind of work.

(here, I feel compelled to include a quote from another c6d-related interview on Slings & Arrows, which I read after the book and went like man, it's really a universal experience isn't it.

Coyne: <...> But I also think, and this is my experience, what we were all experiencing, because we were all talking about our lives, our life in the arts — there’s something very melancholy about doing something you love, because it will never be good enough, it will always break your heart.

McKinney: Or it will be fleeting.

Coyne: It’ll be fleeting. You come together with people you feel passionately connected to and two weeks later they’re tearing down the sets.)

Quotes from the article and the book respectively include:

McDonald: So there was a kind of mutual dependency society with Hugh telling Callum, “Don’t worry, man, I got your back, I’ll tell you how high or low to wear your guitar, I’ll tell you how you should dress, I’ll tell you what you should drink…” and Callum was like, “I’ll tell you what hitting your mark is, I’ll tell you why they pull out fucking tape measures, I’ll tell you why you have to do it again, I’ll tell you about not overlapping dialogue..” and you know they clung to each other, like the other one was gonna fucking save them.

And:

A final gathering at the back of the tour bus with Bruce, Callum, Hugh, Bernie. We listen to the tape of HCL songs, all the way through, one last time. And we belt the words out. Bernie sings loudest, performing for Salerno's camera. Hugh and Callum sit back, looks of sadness. I get the sense that if they could do it, they'd chuck their lives and be Joe Dick and Billy Tallent forever. Callum leans to Bruce and says exactly what everyone else is thinking: "I don't want it to end."

There's much more to both texts than *gestures* the whatever those two had, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

And Xeriscape is the best HCL fic I've read. Granted, I read very few because it's not a source that creates in me a craving for fic. But this one perfectly matches the film's fucked up beauty with its language while also adding a quieter, more fraught layer of humanity that we only get glimpses of in canon and that perfectly fits John. 10/10, would recommend.

Anyway. Watch it. Read it. If you haven't. Otherwise, come scream with meeee! And go reblog my gifs or something. Idk.

Letters From Home (1996)

Mike Hoolboom strikes again, with another short. This goes into the "don't watch it for CKR, watch it because it's great" box. Yes, you will cry.

For Those Who Hunt The Wounded Down (1996)

Another bleak one! It sucked to watch, I mean, on purpose. There were a couple of very effective scenes. I really enjoyed the opening. They say the book is decent too, I haven't checked that out.

Actually, let's just switch back from coherent thought to undignified staring at his mouth with this one. What the fuck is that cigarette thing. I couldn't help myself.

Last Night (1998)

These gifs are not representative of the whole movie. There is more happening than CKR kissing or hugging people. He's also doing more than just kissing and hugging. It's all very... impressive.

Guess who's also here again? Sandra Oh! And say hi to Don McKellar, who is an absolute champion for writing/directing/starring. You'll be seeing more of him.

Another one for the "watch it for its own sake" box. Seriously, that late 90s indie stuff is banger after banger. It's so beautiful! Look at those colours! Look at those shots! It's very uneasy and charming and melanchioly and itself in the best way.

Twitch City (1998 – 2000)

Don McKellar is back to murder you with discomfort! Bruce McDonald lends a hand. Molly Parker is also here. And Daniel McIvor, who'd go on to direct, for example, Wilby Wonderful. It's a party. If you watched some stuff from above (or below) on this list, most faces and names will be familiar to you, tbh (another Hugh Dillon double-take happens).

If you liked Spaced, you'll love this. You might also love it because it commits to its weirdness with an admirable resolve and is genuinely hilarious. (Honestly, CKR's outfits alone warrant a watch.) The idiosyncrasy is definitely Don McKellar's doing 200%. It couldn't be more different from Last Night, but if you've seen one, you'll recognise the other.

Battlestar Galactica (2003 – 2009)

I don't think a person should be allowed to look this pretty in the sweaty-and-dying makeup in that light (this sentence probably looks very weird to those not under the CKR magic spell).

I don't know what to say about BSG because I really, really enjoyed early it initially, but by the middle of S2 it got... well, whatever that was. If you know you know, if you don't, still give it a go. You might get invested enough to suffer through it all, as I have been, slowly.

The unfortunate thing is that CKR got to be there mostly in the "what the fuck" years and not the "wow that's so cool" years. That, as you might be aware, is a pattern with him. But! When he was here, he was so genuinely, wonderfully creepy not in the typecast-baddy way, but in this slow, half-absent way, which really worked. You can also see him tortured a little, as a treat!! <3

Also, a wild John Pyper-Ferguson appears! If you're looking at him thinking you know him from somewhere but not immediately remembering, you'll figure it out, I believe in you. I was very happy to see him.

Wilby Wonderful (2004)

Another win for the put CKR in more good shit team!!! Guess who's here again? Sandra Oh! Also, Paul Gross. Don't watch it for him either though haha.

Another one for whoever wants to look at pushing against the weight of others' (or your own) expectations and growing into who you are or reconsidering who you are or finding meaningful connections with others even when you're kind of a mess and they are too.

Not nearly the first time CKR's gotten to play a queer character, but man, this one really is the heart of the in-universe community, and, through that, of the film. A rare chance to see him so far out of the prickly persona! He's just so solid and calm and there for others in this one and, and soft, ough. It's awesome.

By the way, if any of you have the commentary track or know someone who has, please drop me a line here or on discord (emotionalrisotto), I really wanna hear that.

Supernatural (2005)

I love Supernatural a lot. It was a formative experiences (albeit a very late one) and I owe a lot of my favourite stuff about fandom-ing to the buddies I met through it. I can't believe I'm telling you this (because who hasn't seen it, not because I'm reccing it), but you should really try it if you haven't. It's pretty rad.

I had no idea who this guy was when I saw that episode (the second ever one!), though. I simply cannot fathom what @nigeltde-fic felt when she first saw it. I think I personally got very lucky she didn't combust on the spot. It would've been unfortunate.

On a sillier note, CKR's character has weird tension with both Sam and Dean in this episode, which is par for the course. I personally think they should've... no, I shan't say it. You can probably imagine.

Californication (2008 – 2013)

I haven't actually seen it, lol (and I suspect I won't enjoy it, but I'm very curious and also CKR looks really really good).

The real reason for this one on the list is to share a fic rec. Really, it's a due South F/K fic featuring Lew Ashby. It's ridiculously hot and very satisfying in its romantic resolution, too (but then, I'm kind of big on selfcest. And consensual voyeurism. And pretend relationships when done like this. And sublimated yearning. Erm.)

Shattered (2010 – 2011)

I wish this never happened. I badly, badly wish this never happened. I can't turn back time, but I can warn those luckier than me: do not go there. Yes, even for this dude. You'll sleep better not knowing just what it is he was the EP on. And the only important part — the mascara — can be seen above (yes, the show does look that bad, it's not just the gifs).

Just kidding — I watched it, didn't I? You'll have fun hating it! Just prepare for industrial grade cringe, lower your expectations (No, lower. No, still lower than that. And just a bit more.) and you'll have a great time!

Star trek: Discovery (2024)

Or, as I call it, Star Trek: The Mediocre Show. Discovery S5 was... what it was, but it was a wonderful viewing experience — mostly thanks to the gang (@kittkatk and @feroxargentea especially!)

What a joy it is, to follow a show week by week, yelling and laughing and discussing the whole time. And giffing, too. I was very happy to contribute to the Disco fandom from my own little obsessive corner, and I was glad to see people adoring Rayner, haha.

He's a pretty neat character — very much a stereotype, yes, but with CKR's usual twist of odd vulnerability and weirdness. Also, I loved the ears. I miss the ears. The ears were great.

I even wrote a fic! Although it's not within my usual range to write for canons and universes I don't know well — and back then, I'd only seen S5 of Disco. It was a lot of suffering, and a lot of fun.

Closing thoughts

I'd really love the dude to get a better agent. And possibly better taste, but I realise that's a tougher ask. Seriously, it's been too long since he was in something majorly cool. I'm grateful to him, at least, for not making terrible music on the side. And I still have a lot of his back catalogue to get through, some of it even good, so there will be more insanity. Until then!

[lailoken]

What are your favorite pieces of media that you think accurately represent magic and spirit work? Movies, books, even music..

This is an interesting question, but one that requires a lot of thought, as I have read and watched an inordinate amount of books and movies. Plus, even really good fiction with pagan themes that I've read/watched is generally inaccurate in most ways, with some realistic aspects of magic woven in here and there. Some of my very favorite media relating to the subject can't really be included, simply because of how inaccurate it is overall, but there are a few that have caught my notice.

I'm sure I'll end up missing ones, which bugs me, but I'll do my best to recount some examples that I can think of:

The Love Witch (2016) is a movie that I think presents a strikingly realistic portrayal of what magic can look like. It manages to show some of the ways one might use magic to great effect, without actually skewing into fantasy at all. Clearly, the magic shown isn't going to line up with every paradigm, and its not exactly a heady or spirit-based story, but I think it's a very real look at how ritual and magic is/can be approached by many folks in the modern day.

The Witch (2015) is, above all else, a great slow-burn horror film and an excellent period-piece. However, it also portrays quite an accurate conception of folkloric beliefs about Witchcraft in the 17th century, which inexorably inform the realities of modern Witchcraft traditions. It does just barely skew into fantasy horror, but the actual folkloric information being presented is quite sound.

A Dark Song (2016) is a film that portrays ceremonial magic realistically in many ways. Ultimately, it is still a supernatural horror film, but the bulk of the magic in the movie is based directly on the Abramelin Operation, which was interesting to see. A lot of the ways that the magic "takes shape" in the film feels real enough to me, too (though it certainly takes it to extremes at points, as horror movies are wont to do).

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is a horror novel I much enjoyed when I read it a coulple years ago, but I also remember that it happens to contain small, but meaningful, instances of sympathetic magic within the story that I appreciated as a practitioner looking in. This one has been made into a movie as well.

Cunning Folk by Adam Nevill is one of the more realistic looks at magic—including the uncanny side of it—that I've come across. It's still definitely a horror story, first and foremost, but there's an oomph to the ritual and magic described therein that a lot of other similar fiction lacks—even when the ritual act being described isn't necessarily accurate in terms of historicality or my personal experience of the Craft.

The White People by Arthur Machen is a Welsh short horror story from the turn of the century, which I think is worth including here. There are elements and aspects of the story that feel surprisingly real in terms of Gloaming initiation and the Gloaming Spirits—though, of course, it takes creative liberties informed by the paranormal beliefs and trends of the time (1890s).

The Craft (1996) is a movie that I'm sure a lot of pagans have of nostalgia for in one way or another, myself included. I struggled with whether this movie should be here or in the Honorable Mention section, but I included it here in the end because a lot of the ways magic and ritual are presented in the film are accurate enough. I also think it did a fairly good job of capturing how it can feel to discover, revel in, and then become overwhelmed by magic. However, since it is a supernatural horror film, a lot of magic shown is portrayed more fantastically than the real thing, and there are aspects of the magic (rituals, entities, etc.) made up entirely for the sake of the story.

As implied above, there are also some pieces that, while largely inaccurate or too far into the realm of fantasy, still manage to succesfully capture some essence of realistic feeling magic in them. I will list those here as Honorable Mentions:

Practical Magic (1998) is another movie that I'm sure a lot of Pagans have nostalgia for in some way or another. I won't claim that it's a genuinely "accurate" representation of magic—and it certainly strays into outright fantasy at times—but there are little things throughout the movie that managed to ring a bell for me, as someone who grew up with magic in my family. I know this was originally a book, but I actually haven't read that as of yet, so I can't speak to it.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) is a movie is squarely in the fantasy-horror genre to me, but even still, I include it here as an honorable mention because a lot of the lore depicted is drawn from real lore, and the overall ambience it manged to evoke strongly reminds me of some of my own experiences with chthonic journeying.

The Good Witch franchise isn't one I have ever actually watched any part of before, but I include it here because, oddly enough, multiple practitioners have mentioned to me that they think the magic is surprisingly realistic for a Hallmark series. As I understand it, the main character is a sort of local Wise Woman who helps the folk in her little town using things like folk-knowledge, remarkable intuition, and an uncanny ability to seemingly sway people and circumstances. Since I haven't seen it myself, my take on it may be somewhat lacking, (which is why I listed it as an honorable mention), but based on the description, it actually sounds like it may be one of the more realistic interpretations of magic on this list.

I know this is a strange addition, as it's not exactly magic, per se, but much of how Stephen King writes about psychic abilities like clairvoyance and healing throughout his works manages to touch on something all too familiar for me. I think, sometimes, that he may have known someone with the Sight and/or the Touch in his real life, as it comes up a lot in one shape or another in his writing.

As I said, I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, but this at least a serviceable overview. I encourage others to share any other media that they think deserves a mention, too!

[blondephil]

dnp movie analysis p2: genres, studios, franchises

thanks everyone for enabling me <3 i'm back with some more analysis by genre, franchise, and studio!

genre ratings

first, genre ratings (genre is kinda arbitrary here, tbh; there's a lot of overlap!)

here we have the first table (please tumblr don't mess with the quality) (i can post the excel sheets if needed; r tables were being a pita)

here we have the number, mean (= median for all of this analysis), minimum, and maximum ratings by genre. within each statistic, i've highlighted the minimum (light) and maximum (dark) for dan (blue) and phil for genres with >1 movie (just realized i fucked up western, ignore that lmao)

phil has watched the most horror (64) and dan mostly sci-fi (53). interestingly, but presumably because of their love for these genres, each of their minimum scores went to these genres. if you watch a lot of one type of movie, you're gonna find the duds.

both of them liked christmas movies (tbh this was like, home alone, so), with their highest minimum and mean ratings being for that category (nostalgia, i assume because like, same). lowest mean scores were for superhero movies (both) and mystery (phil). for both of them, marvel was pretty all over the place (we'll get into that in a sec), so that's not super surprising.

their highest minimum scores were both given to war movies, which is a little surprising but this include movies like 1917 and dunkirk which are ~critically acclaimed~, so makes some sense. their minimum max scores went to westerns and mysteries for dan, and musicals, mysteries, and biopics for phil.

here are the histograms/bar charts for genres. these aren't the prettiest tbh, and i excluded some that had only one or two movies / weren't very interesting. without delving deep into the data, you can see how their preferences play out especially in horror and sci-fi, where phil has more highly-rated horror movies (partly because he's rated more) and dan has a lot of highly-rated sci-fi (but also low ratings). you also see how superhero movies are pretty middling -- there's almost a normal distribution! (not really, but sort of!). romance too. there's in general a lot of left skew here -- they like to rate movies highly.

final genre analysis is number of movies in one genre rated by one and not the other. i'm so sorry this table is so long.

i highlighted here the top three genres one has watched without the other. again we see phil likes his horror (and as i said in my last post, a fair amount of these movies were watched when dan was on tour, and this doesn't even include the guillermo del toro's cabinet of curiosities episodes he rated), but also thrillers (similar!) and comedies (which i get; i love to put a comedy on in the background). unsuprisingly, dan's watched a lot of sci-fi without phil, but also horror and comedy. in general, though, his genres are more distributed.

next, studios/franchises!

again, i've highlighted the maximum and minimum in each column, only for franchises. both of them really like ghibli, and dan likes disney more than phil (though i think this is missing big hero 6 now that i'm looking at it again, because dan rated that lower). that's theatre kid behavior: the 4.5 was beauty and the beast, all pixar and aladdin and so on were highly rated.

i fucked up the matrix somehow so just ignore that -- they both gave matrix sequels low scores

turning to franchises, phil is a harry potter hater (valid at this point). but loves lord of the rings. so does dan, though his dan's ratings actually skew pretty high for franchises in general (see: his maximum scores for each franchise are 4.5 or 5); he can pretend to be alternative or whatever but he's still a millennial at heart. their minimums minimums are both for star wars (sequels!) and marvel, which, valid. phil's highest minimum is bond (there were only a couple rated) and dan's is the hunger games, but unlike phil he only rated thg and catching fire, not either mockingjay.

and bar charts!

i only picked the most interesting ones here as well. marvel follows a similar distribution to the superhero movies, which, since they each only rated a couple dc movies (and i didn't include nolan's batmans), makes sense. again they both rate lotr highly, but the hobbit was low. the studio ones are less interesting imo because they skew so far left, but again: dan is such a disney kid.

that's all i have! i love this because dan, for all his faux cynicism, just rates movies so highly + it's so often the movies that don't fit his curated doomer persona but moreso the pooh one. and also phil expressing opinions! phil just watching a lot of horror!! i love it.

[youremyheaven]

I second completely what you are saying about Claire Nakti's work, it's so male centered and heteronormative, and she always has to find a way to make it about sexuality or attraction when it frankly is not relevant.

I know that this is a personal thing, but as an ashlesha native I could not finish watching the ashlesha video, I found it so triggering as a person that has been sexually abused before. I found it really disturbing how she, in my opinion, seemed to romanticize abuse scenes or even directly say that it was part of the ashlesha "allure". She didn't criticize the men for being abusive, and placed responsibility on the ashlesha natives. I have absolutely no desire to be dominated or subjugated by a man, and the BDSM connection was just completely uncalled for, as she also ignored the fact that women can also be and are the Dom. Then again, she might have mentioned this but I couldn't finish the video.

Comparatively, I'm also a Purva bhadrapada native, and when I watched the Purva bhadrapada video, I learned a lot thematically yes, but I cant ignore the one dimensional representation she gave the women. Just like I don't have the desire to be dominated by men, I also don't have the desire to ruin their lives for absolutely no reason! 😭 It's cartoonish, a Femme Fatale is just the male version of "the bad boy" archetype but without the grace men are given by women cause they think "uwu he's sad I gotta save him♥️". Archetypes do not represent real women, they are just a way to dumb them down.

I think that part of the problem is using movie and movie characters to represent nakshatra themes, when most of these movies are made by and for straight men. They do not represent the experiences of women or queer people. Also, Movies aren't real life and I feel like it would be more realistic to study the patterns in natives lives and use movies more sparingly.

I've actually heard the same comment from multiple Ashleshas about how uncomfortable they were with how Claire sexualised the whole Ashlesha experience. I haven't watched the whole video either so idk but something I've noticed with Claire's research in general is how she fixates on one or two recurring themes (usually sexual/romantic/somehow involving men) and makes the whole video revolve around that?? she nitpicks examples to further her narrative. whenever she makes videos that are more centred around planetary dominance, its very apparent that the examples she is citing aligns with one nak or two more than the rest. In her Jupiter women video, most of the examples cited where Vishaka with some Punarvasus thrown into the mix and virtually no PBP girlies cited. i think the whole concept of planetary dominance is skewed to say the least because each nak manifests the planet's energies in a way that is unique to them so the qualities we associate with a planet are perhaps actually just the qualities of one single nak that exhibits it the most.

claire's research is also rooted in western esotericism, like kabbalah and whatever Aleister Crowley was teaching folks idek, and those are heavily based on weird sex rituals and male gaze-y teachings which if the rumours of her creepy bf doing the research are true, makes sense

she correlates vedic astrology to "archetypes" so each nak is "femme fatale" or "mother of maya" or whatever but its 1000x more complex than that?? its really really hard to narrow down a nak's energy into just one or two aspects, even when i do research i am acutely aware of how this is just a glimpse that i have into this energy at this moment, i find it very icky how claire will outright claim some nak is a succubus or some other nak is a tantric initiatrix without giving them the complexity they are due??

yeah same i think relying heavily on movies and fictitious works is not reliable because even beyond the fact that men make it for men, all art is the source of imagination. imagination and reality are very different. in my research i found out that many dictators have Jupiter naks, i wouldnt be able to make that connection by looking at movies because Jupiter themes manifest in movies are very different?? (surreal punarvasu, transformation heavy vishaka and chaotic destructive PBP and their mafia movies) what art we make and how we channel our naks through art is different from how these naks affect our personalities and behaviour

[fictionadventurer]

wowww I just watched Love Strikes Twice and it was actually wonderful! It was sweet and funny and I could really see the couple’s teamliness and what Maggie’s mom told her about finding “the one” (or there not being a One) was kind of just what I needed to hear right now. I’m so glad you told me about it <3

I'm so thrilled you loved it! Recommending Hallmark movies is dangerous because low expectations can skew my idea of what's "good", so it's a relief to know my instincts weren't totally off.

I actually rewatched this movie about a week before you sent this, and I was thrilled to find that it held up. It's so sweet and funny, and yes, the teamliness! They felt like a real couple! I realized that the reason this feels more real than most Hallmark romances is that they let the guy be dorky. There's a scene where she tells him, "I know you have a thing [edit: she means a phobia/disgust] about wearing other people's clothes", and it's just a funny little detail that you'd see in a real person, not in a wish-fulfillment Hallmark guy. That kind of thing informs all the characters, and it's great.

And yes! The speech about "the one" was one of my favorite moments on rewatch. It's exactly what I think about the subject--"true love" is about choosing to love the person you've made a commitment to--and I wish more romance films in general (not just Hallmark ones) would recognize this.

[itsclydebitches]

I honestly have no idea how they intend to greenlight volume 10 if it's not been greenlit already. They've announced the final season of Red vs Blue and a lot of early day fans are in agreement that the end of RvB is the signaling of the end of RT in general. It's their second biggest money maker next to RWBY. After this new season, it's over. What do they do next? Do RT really believe that RWBY is popular enough to coast on for another decade? It'll be a miracle if it lasts even one more year.

Their viewership has been on a decline since Volume 6, they've abused so much of their animation department that there's almost no one left, most of their VA talent for RWBY's popular characters aren't coming back due to all the controversies, any spinoffs or soft reboots or whatever keep going back to the Beacon era and don't really do much to help with the overall problems that are down to the roots of the company.

They even made their biggest ship that kept what few fans are left canon and put out half assed merch that sold out in minutes, and somehow they still haven't managed to find enough money to greenlight another volume?

If they somehow miraculously get Volume 10 made, it's probably going to be the last.

The last few years of RWBY have really highlighted for me how challenging it is to define "popularity" and "success" nowadays. Granted, a good chunk of that is simply my own ignorance about how the production side of things are run, but it nevertheless feels like there's this intense level of ambiguity that wasn't there in the past (or at least wasn't as obvious). Fandom itself has always been an unreliable source because depending on the corner of the internet you're in, you can get a wildly skewed perspective without engaging with everything that contradicts how "good" or "bad" you think things are going. As you say, merch sells out in minutes, yet neither the finances nor the implied security of that seems to be enough to land another Volume. There are questions about whether this could be a marketing scheme, wherein Volume 10's future is simply being kept under wraps to drum up interest. There's the question of whether popularity matters at all when we've got companies cancelling and pulling undoubtedly successful shows, all according to their own, long-term algorithms. On the one hand the information surrounding RT is all about the abuse of their workers, another scandal, how this might all tie into the strikes... and yet most of this is nothing new and RWBY has still secured movies, a soft reboot, comics, and books. I agree completely with your list above of all the ways in which the series is struggling (massively) and yet RWBY has been "dying" for half its run-time. So is this the final nail in the coffin—the inevitable ending that's been a long time coming—or just another year where the fandom unintentionally cries wolf?

I'm not so naive as to believe that things were actually simple 'back in the day'—that's the nostalgia talking—but it still seems like things were simpler in comparison to what we've got now. TV and its media equivalents used to be—or at least felt like—a fairly straightforward journey of airing, ratings, syndication, cancellation, renewal, and then (eventually) the viewer securing a copy for themselves via VHS and DVDs. Now it's like, "What do I do with the newbie webseries eventually bought up by a major corporation and moved from a free watch, to a company-specific streaming watch, to a different, more expensive streaming watch, all of which has led to a decade of success with various spinoffs, but apparently this webseries still isn't making enough money to continue? Regardless, it and everything else I love to watch is inching more and more towards digital-only copies, a status that is inherently nerve-wracking, which means that if it does suddenly crash and burn (given that this is one of two series keeping the original company afloat) circulating this story and maintaining the fandom will be that much harder."

I find that depressing and I'm someone who thinks RWBY is pretty awful right now. I can't imagine what that ambiguity and the state of streaming media in 2023 feels like to fans still in love with the show.

So yeah. Idk how they intend to greenlight Volume 10 either.

[utilitycaster]

You've talked a bit before about genre and genre-expectations. If you have the time/inclination, could you talk a bit about what classifies something as horror? More specifically, what makes Candela Obscura fall into the category of horror?

As a bit of background: I am a Travis-level scaredy-cat, but I love the supernatural - ghost stories, monsters, superstitions. I tend to rely a lot on genre labels to help me differentiate, and media labelled "horror" is pretty generally a no go. I starting watching Candela out of curiosity because I'd heard great things about the characters in chapter two, and was fully prepared to have to nope out. Instead I found that it sat comfortably within my "supernatural" bubble of tolerance, and I absolutely loved it! Obviously a person's tolerance for what is "scary" is deeply individualistic, but its got me wondering what exactly classifies something as horror? (and whether there is other media similar to candela that I am missing out on because my genre expectations are skewed)

So...genre boundaries are all very permeable and take a on very "I'll know it when I see it" quality when you get to the edges. There's a poll about horror tolerance going around right now and I actually found it completely unusable because, for example, all three of Jordan Peele's films are considered horror, and while I consider myself also kind of skittish, I loved Get Out and Nope whereas the premise of Us fundamentally is on my personal "absolutely cannot" list. Basically: defining horror is tough (though I'll make an attempt, with the understanding that I am the most amateur and there are actual media studies folks in the fandom who might be a better bet) but also a lot of people, myself included, who consider themselves bad at "horror" often, as you say, actually have a very specific personal list of tolerances and plenty of horror is fine for them (and plenty of non-horror might not be!) Basically this is a great question and multiple people out there are writing their PhD theses attempting to answer it, and they probably have different answers, is what I'm saying. I also, in looking up horror on Wikipedia in order to see what that definition is, found that it defines the genre differently for literature vs. film. Short answer: no one fucking knows; scary shit.

I think horror is most generally works that are intended to build a sense of fear or dread, and I recall (possibly incorrectly) someone on a podcast talking about writing define the difference between a thriller and a horror movie is whether the protagonist succeeds; I'd modify that to say "whether they succeed without a great cost (thriller) or whether the price of success possibly outweighs the win (horror)."

Anyway, I do have a list of horror subgenres here that speaks the language of TTRPGs, namely Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, and I find that horror subgenres are more helpful signposts than just the "horror" label, and I suspect you may find the same as well. I'm not going to run through them all, but, for example, "Ghost Stories" and "Dark Fantasy" are two of them, and those never bothered me and it sounds like you like those! Candela covers a lot of ground - elements of body horror, gothic horror, cosmic/eldritch horror, and occult detective stories, but it is absolutely in the supernatural realm. It is worth noting that a lot of not explicitly horror shows often dip into horror and I (and possibly you) are fine with it. The CR main campaign and D&D in general absolutely has horror elements. I only watched the Nine and Ten seasons of modern-era Doctor Who but that absolutely has episodes that are basically straight up horror (Midnight? Silence in the Library? Don't Blink? Even though, famously, everyone lives in that one set during WWII, the "are you my mummy" line is chilling.) Again: genre/subgenre lines are very permeable and hard to use as signposts.

What has been most helpful to me in finding horror works I can personally enjoy is understanding what I can't do. I don't mind blood and gore but I don't want that to be the point (I don't think I'm so much upset by slasher films so much as don't enjoy them) and I don't want to watch torture porn (which is pretty much exclusively within the realm of horror film, not literature). I have a lot of trouble with zombie films but a lone zombie in a D&D game is fine. The premise of a film like The Thing is intellectually fascinating to me but the idea that you can't trust anyone or anything is too unsettling...although also that was kind of the premise of the monsters of Candela Chapter 2 and I thought that slapped. Psychological horror is case by case; folk horror can be great or can mess me up; like Marisha I flat out don't do narrow tunnels in caves and I especially don't do caves with water in them. Cosmic/Eldritch, dark fantasy, and gothic horror are all almost always okay or if they're not it's because they take place in a water-filled cave. Honestly, I don't have a good answer of how to find things but I use subgenre, talking to people you know who watched the film/saw the show in question, and understanding your own personal issues - whether they're genuine triggers or just "this will upset me and I don't find it fun." I will say a lot of the tropes within horror that bother me bother me out of horror; the cave diving, for example, is part of a general hard line I have; I don't like zombie comedies even though horror-comedy can mitigate other issues (eg: I liked Cocaine Bear even though it's basically a slasher film with a bear because it's pretty funny).

Another really big distinction for me that might be true for you: audio horror, literary horror, and actual play horror (even if filmed), where the visuals are limited or only described, is much easier for me than visual horror. I don't know if that's the same for you, but it's very true for me.

Some other similar media I can personally recommend as someone who I suspect has similar broad preferences re: horror:

Of the Candela touchstones listed, will personally vouch for V. E. Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic series (dark fantasy books, wouldn't even classify as horror), Frankenstein (the book); Crimson Peak (gothic horror/ghost story film; I recall it having a lot of blood but not gore but I saw it in theaters so it's been a while); Penny Dreadful (is it good? debatable. Is it fun? absolutely.)

The New Weird genre is often thrown around and I don't think Candela per se falls into it, but it's certainly the same vibe of horror/fantasy crossovers that don't always fit into one or the other. Anyway: I have brought up the Silt Verses, which is a podcast solidly in that genre which I think I would not enjoy as a film but greatly enjoy as a podcast.

The Southern Reach Trilogy is...not Candela in vibes exactly but I just think everyone should read it, and it is in that weird horror-inflected sf genre space.

Twin Peaks and the X-Files which are very different stories in some ways, but are also investigations of horrors in a world where most people don't believe in that, and Spenser says his cinematic description style is using some of that lexicon, notably from the X-Files' cold opens. (The X-Files is very long and I only watched a few seasons but also while there is an overarching plot, from what I recall it's kind of ridiculous so you can bounce around; Twin Peaks is worth the watch through though I never watched anything after the original series).

I'm not going to lie, I listened to all of Alice Isn't Dead, which was a horror podcast from the Night Vale team, because the actress was so good, but the plot never totally clicked for me, but worth checking out. More worth checking out, while definitely New Weird and not horror, is Within the Wires, which I mentioned before, if you find the concept of Newfaire interesting on a sociocultural level. I am going to make a shitpost about Within the Wires in a second so just look at that. I also never finished Old Gods of Appalachia, but if you liked the Candela playlist Spenser and Rowan put out and are interested in the Bridleborne Mountains region/vibe with folk horror, it was pretty good; I just found it hard to binge, personally, and I listen to so many fucking podcasts it fell by the wayside.

Hope this helps!

[virginreprise]

dearest VR, have you watched the film paris, texas? i have many jumbled incoherent thoughts about how its exploration of landscapes (specifically the american west) as metaphysical spaces, its prominent age gap relationship and other thematic elements intersect with the same sorts of things i like best in joel and arthur fics (skewing toward the DDLG ones hehe). and the same sorts of things that speak to me in lana's art, too. the film is not smut obv lol but i see strong connections between it and the fics i like best (and stories in general). it is a bit more gut-wrenching than i like the fics i read for escapism to be, like one of the truest depictions of ptsd, domestic violence, substance abuse, and 'the inability to go back' and the age gap is kinda just a fact of the mater. BUT i think you said once you are not necessarily a happily ever after person and i kind of love when age gap fics are not. typing this on my phone, it makes no sense, just thoughts... but wanted to say them after i saw your americana post from the other day on my dash :))

okay nonnie, i wanted to watch the film before i replied, just so i could you give you a comprehensive reply that wasn't just me pretending to agree with what you were saying and promising to watch a movie that would've probably stayed in my to watch list for a long time. soooooo, i watched it last night and it has been stuck in my mind ever since.

its exactly my type of film, so much so that i put in my top four on letterboxd. the shots of the landscape were breathtaking every time, no matter the length, the sympathy that i felt for travis was constant throughout the film and then squandered towards the end with the revelation and that fucking brilliant last conversation between him and jane. the cinematography was impeccable, the acting from the kid was brilliant which is unusual because i don't usually like kids in movies because (no offence) the acting always sucks. however, this time round it felt like they'd just told hunter carson to talk about his special interests and they'll just film him doing so with harry dean stanton nodding along and listening as a dad normally would.

it was just so personable and i don't wanna seem like I'm droning on because half the people reading this probably won't have a fucking clue what we're talking about, but it was so visceral in every way that a film should be. my melancholic nature was definitely stimulated and the age gap was unexpected but also extremely poignant and necessary. i just feel like its so realistic for such extreme age gaps to not have a happy ending, you know?? especially in an american wasteland where two people come together out of comfort that then transforms into obsession and possessiveness that ultimately stunts a healthy growth of the relationship. its something that i want to explore in this next fic i have planned called 'An American Trilogy,' (yes i named it after the elvis song), which is hopefully gonna be a three part fic that spans three months of summer starting in alabama, through north mississippi to memphis (for reasons i think you can gather from the fic title) through arkansas and into texas where...inevitability occurs.

i'm undecided whether i want to write it for joel or arthur because i feel like i've got a good few joel fics now and nothing to show for arthur who has always been my original man. if it were to be arthur then i'd have to transform the setting into a late 1800's southern america and there's a whole load of history that goes alongside it. unless people wouldn't mind a modern au - personally that's not what i like in an arthur fic tho. the historical setting is kinda part of him. let me know what yall think though!!

[adventurerlyra]

Feel like I need to give Steven universe another chance, I feel like I was too harsh on it for many years.

I'll be honest, I never really got into Steven universe, during the time it started airing, I was growing into my "all modern cartoons are dumb" phase due to me beginning to leech of other people's opinions on the internet and thinking what they said was right. Along with me having a very skewed perception of queer people due to being exposed to a lot of really edgy memes as a teenager, although I would be there would be some instances where I've given some shows a chance like star vs., the loud house, and some others that I'm probably not thinking about although I do know that I fell out of watching modern cartoons again out fear of being judged.

that phase of my life would finally go away when I hit my early 20's and overtime I would begin re watching many cartoons I haven't seen in years, from classic cartoons from the 1930's to 1940's and even watching one show in particular that I never saw, that being the 2018 She Ra reboot, A year before watching she ra I began learning a lot and becoming more aware about various issues that queer and other marginalized groups of people were facing and learned to take them much more seriously, I was also trying to heal from a lot of bad personal experiences that I would prefer to not speak about here. watching She Ra was a massive part of my egg cracking phase, it was one of those things that made me realize that I was very fascinated with lesbian/wlw relationships, quite literally cheering for catra and adora to kiss in the lips, which is another thing I did when I first saw princess bubblegum and marceline kiss in the series finale for adventure time back when it came out. The show would inspire me to have a lesbian relationship between two of my original characters, Melanie and Grizzly, something that has stuck to this day.

While writing those two characters, I had a bit of a panic in terms of what my true gender identity was, especially because I began to realize I felt a similar way about myself in a similar way that Grizzly felt about her self, for context, Grizzly is a trans woman, so I ended up spending a couple of months trying to unpack my own identity and trying plenty of labels and rethinking my entire sense of fashion. Thus leading me figure out who I truly am, a non binary trans woman and also a pan lesbian. Which was around 2 years ago. and even with in the span of those two years and even this year, I have changed so much as a person, I've gotten back into so many things that I have suppressed for so many years (examples: Minions and ugly dolls, specifically the original toy line, not the movie) thanks to the encouragement of my own partner who I have happily been in a T4T relationship in for the past year, and within the span of that year, I feel like I've grown so much more rapidly and healed from my past experiences much better since we both fell in love. (also dear if you're reading this I love you so much and I'm going to love you for the rest of my life, you are the best human being I've ever met)

Now you must be wondering what the hell this has to do with Steven universe, basically, what I am trying to say is that with the immense amount of personal growth I've gone through, and how much I've become more comfortable with liking things I was a afraid to for so many years, I feel like Steven universe would be symbolic of that growth I've gone through in a way, that and of course I want to give the show another chance in general, now of course, I am aware that it is far from perfect, but it is something that I've grown to respect for how much it paved to way for LGBT+ representation in animation and just having an overall impact on cartoons that we are still seeing today. That show is basically has the same level of impact that shows like Adventure Time, G4 My Little Pony, and Gravity Falls for how influential it is to the current landscape of cartoons and the community that we see today. Also from what little songs that I've heard from the show, they are really good, especially stronger than you, not only that song is really good, but also it just brings me back to my undertale phase when that game was at the peak of it's popularity.

Okay, I feel like I've said everything I've had to say about steven universe, I not really sure how much the show is going to fully pull me into it, but I still think it's worth a try. Although I do have one more question to ask to those that see this post, has anyone else gone through a similar phase of hating steven universe like I did?

[obscureoperations]

Martin with a country gf pls? Like full backwaters, hick, hillbilly, etc. lmao

Ohhh I love this haha! Once again.. so sorry for the delay. Things have been interesting here to say the least *eyeroll*

Anyways..

I think Martin would adore your overall attitude and hands on approach in life. Not one to shy away from hard work and getting your hands dirty.. Martin really liked that about you.

Adventures. The two of you would often go on adventures together around town or your family's farm. On the nights that he stayed over, Martin had no problem rising early to help you with the morning chores.

Your family. Martin adores your family.. they were some of the most genuine people he had ever met. Needless to say he had a very skewed perception of family in general.. it was wonderful to witness the loving dynamic. Your mother absolutely loved him and often referred to him as "Pumkin'' Your dad was a huge prankster and would sometimes tease him for his floppy hair and shy demeanor.

Your phrasing. He loved listening to you speak, the accent was distinct to say the least. You had the funniest way of phrasing things which he thought was adorable. He wished he could listen to you speak all day. All the little nicknames caused him to blush... you sometimes called him "June bug" because of his birthday. " Darlin', "cutie-pie", and "sugar" all caused butterflies to form at the pit of his stomach. You loved him so much! It caused his heart to ache.

You were so active.. Martin always thought he was the one with nervous energy.. you on the other hand never seemed to quit. From the morning you woke up till the two of you went to bed-- There wasn't a moment you weren't doing something.

He loved watching you interact with your animals... especially the sweet fluffy sheep. You even went on to name one of the new lambs "Martin" teasing that it looked just like him. Frogs, snakes, and mice seemed to be some of your favorite little critters. He was genuinely surprised. Most girls.. at least the ones in the movies would usually grow pale at the very sight of them. Definitely a bit of a "tomboy" and to Martin's surprise... he found it extremely attractive.

Martin just enjoyed your overall approach in life, you were so optimistic even on a bad day. You always had a story to tell or way to relate to him that could pull Martin out of the deepest slump. He felt so lucky to have you!

[marvelandponder]

15Qs and 15As!

Thanks for the tag, Marvel, this sounds fun! Tagging: @smallcrystals, @digikate813, @eddiescorner, and @bevinbrand if she feels like it :) Don't dox yourself on the 'where were you born' question tho, y'all. We're better than that. Are you named after anyone? Two people! My Uncle Stephen and my Nana (maternal grandmother). My brother was named after my dad's high school best friends

When was the last time you cried? I think the last time was a couple weeks ago watching anime. I love a good cry, I've embraced that that's how I express a lot of emotions

Do you have kids? Nope! I'd like to someday, but all in due time.

What sports do you play/have you played? I'm not a team sports kind of girl anymore, but I played soccer as a kid and really enjoyed that.

Do you use sarcasm? Usually only obvious sarcasm. Bevin and I will often use excessively obvious sarcasm with each other to express love. A little linguistic game we play with each other. We never enjoy spending hours and hours on the phone together. So unlike us! Where would you get that idea?

What is the first thing you notice about people? First thing? I feel like my anxiety is charge of that: looking out for how friendly they seem, what they laugh at (if they do), how approachable they might be. I had pretty bad social anxiety disorder from like 14 - 22ish and human beings tend to do the social thing once or twice.

What is your eye color? Hazel! Looks brown but up close you can see there's a lot of green around my pupils, too.

Scary movies or happy endings? My media diet is heavily skewed towards happy endings but every now and then, nothing satisfies like a good tragedy.

Any talents? People know I like the writing thing! I'm also learning to draw now and picking up guitar again for the first time since before uni!

Where were you born? A hospital about... 30 - 40 minutes away from me? I don't live in that city anymore, and haven't since I was 3, but we stayed in the same general province!

Don't dox yourself, folks!

What are your hobbies? Writing, drawing, guitar, going for bike rides or walks. Geeking out by myself or with friends! I'm also starting to learn some German and pick up a few more cooking skills.

Do you have any pets? Nah, wish I did. My living situation doesn't allow for it. But my dad has a dog who I love so much and get to visit! And my sister has two cats who used to live with us that are excellent cuddlers.

How tall are you? Uhhhhh I think 5'11? To use ancient Tumblr Lingo: Tol, not smol

Favorite subject in school? In Elementary - Middle School, it was English, because reading and writing. In high school, Psychology, Legal Studies, Guitars, History, or Writer's Craft

Dream job? Cool question, I'mma over-complicate it! For my career, it's either one of two things: Creative and/or helping people. Add another axis onto that: Stability vs. freedom. I like stability. It helps me feel happy and builds self-esteem to build stuff up. So since most of the creative jobs I'd be down to try have a lack of stability (and often crappy working conditions), I decided to start with stability and helping people! My current job is actually the goal I set for myself to get into in 5 - 10 years. So. Whoops! Got in early! I can't stay beyond this year (covering a mat leave) but wow has it been good experience. And it's cool shit that I like to think supports people in building something good for themselves.

Not a ton of creativity though, and so what's cool about life is that the time horizon isn't just right now, forever. The job I'm in now is a dream job of mine based on the criteria I set out (stable, treats me right, and helps people), but I have other dream jobs I'd like to also try out!

For example: I'd like to become a published author! And I'd also like to learn storyboarding to maybe try being a storyboards artist someday, or some job in animation.

What I like about the job I have now, too, is that I still have enough energy in and around my job to have a life outside of it. So I can build the creative skills that'll lead to cool stuff and opportunities down the line.

Having multiple dream jobs I think is realistic. And just kinda fun to not only achieve one thing, but look forward to what else I can do!

[desertfangs]

Marius and Louis for the character ask

Send me a character and I will do the thing (although I've already done most of the main ones and Armand is on deck)

Louis: 

Sexuality Headcanon: I think Louis is pretty asexual tbh. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t participate in sexual or romantic activities but I think while Louis likes intimacy, his brand is more skewed toward cuddling under a blanket together reading a book or watching a movie. 

Gender Headcanon: Oversized dusty sweaters are Louis’ gender. Also he identifies as tired. 

A ship I have with said character: Louis/Lestat of course! Louis, regrettably, realizes that Lestat is his person. I also think his relationship with Armand is complex and fascinating. 

A BROTP I have with said character: I can’t put Daniel for every one of these (but I think after some awkwardness on Night Island and again in TG, they are friends!) so uh… maybe Antoine. Honestly they’d have a hell of a lot to talk about if nothing else. 

A NOTP I have with said character: Again, I just don’t have a lot of these. Maybe Gabrielle? Although I hope they kissed under the mistletoe one year at the Coven Christmas party just to watch Lestat squirm. 

A random headcanon: I think Louis enjoys folding laundry. For all his sitting around in dusty old clothes, I think he finds the process of folding–especially warm stuff right out of the dryer–soothing. I imagine TG sends their laundry out but also has a pretty sizable laundry room for when it’s needed and I can see Louis doing a load of towels or blankets and then sitting on the sofa and folding them neatly. 

General Opinion over said character: Louis was my first guy in this fandom. I guess you call it a blorbo now. I’ve always appreciated his cynicism and his love of reading, his desire to learn more about his kind. The reunion scene in TVL is one of my faves, as are Louis’ scenes with Lestat in TotBT.

Marius:

Sexuality Headcanon: We wants to be dommed and would rather die than admit it

Gender Headcanon: @uncivilcivilservice said his gender was Roman and yeah, I’m gonna second that

A ship I have with said character: Marius/Pandora is fun. I like him with someone who can stomp on his dick.

And whether you see Daniel and Marius as platonic or romantic, I do really like them together. I think Daniel’s sense of humor and directness are refreshing for Marius, and Daniel gets him to try new things. Marius is a grounding force in Daniel’s life and a constant, even-keel source of love and affection. I also think Daniel could be a great mediator between him and Armand and/or Lestat and maybe that’s why Mr. Molloy is not in the last book. 

A BROTP I have with said character: IDK man… Marius is the person who desperately needs a bro but is awkward and stoic and refuses to ask for help or admit he wants to hang out and thus is often alone (relatable AF tbh). 

A NOTP I have with said character: I don’t really have one. I don’t know, to me a NOTP is a strong aversion bordering on squick, and I just don’t have a lot of that in this fandom. 

A random headcanon: I think sometimes he Facetimes Daniel from Court when he’s not there to ask his opinion about innocuous things like which tie he should wear or what color they should paint a wall, not because he needs another opinion but because he likes to hear Daniel’s take on random stuff and hear what Daniel is up to, and it often leads to long, tangential conversations about the most random stuff.  General Opinion over said character: Marius is great! I don’t know why he gets so much flack in fandom (I mean, I do, but 😑😑). He is absolutely that guy who tries to hold things together and seems like he’s got it all figured out until you get to know him and then you realize he’s kind of a dork and doesn’t know any more than anyone else. He’s just doing his best!

[xtrablak674]

Singing my life with his words...

I am not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect that.

Trailers, I think they serve a purpose, in my personal opinion they can skew expectations, generate false anticipation and quite frankly spoil the story. I stopped watching them a few years ago. I mostly pick my films based on familiarity, or subject material and sometimes, well a lot of times seeing stills or gif sets of the film on Tumblr.

Hey I am a visual artist, pulling out stills of a film that feature its visual aesthetics is like crack to me, I just can't get enough! Recently I added more queer films to my diet, and albeit tonights Friday Night Movie's theme wasn't solely left to the gays, All of Us Strangers had been stalking me for weeks all over the Tumblr-verse, so I gave in and added it to the list along with The Marvels and The Color Purple, two other '23 films that kept @'ing me.

Part of my process in choosing my films is traditionally picking a theme or genre and trying to watch films from different decades just to mix it up a bit. These films were all from last year, so they only other thing I could use to distinguish them was their release dates, this placed All of Us, in the middle, right after Marvel's latest block-bluster. #YesThatWasShade

Having peeped that this was categorized as romance and fantasy, I was curious what made it fantasy. Once again IMDB had mis-labeled a film, this wasn't fantastical but a psychological thriller! #LeSigh Maybe I was way too close to the subject material and Andrew Scott clearly being my contemporary wasn't helping the matter at all.

Some of the details were different, albeit after my moms death I was raised as a single-child. I came from a one-parent home, not two. We didn't live in a house but an apartment. We were clearly not middle-class but living below the poverty level. Even with all of these differences I felt exposed in a way that wasn't remotely comfortable. How had this whyte man found out about my story and was now telling it on a stage for all the world to see? #😳

Metastatic breast cancer was the cause of death listed on her death certificate, not a car accident. I wasn't left alone in her bed while she left me for a Christmas party, but I discovered her dead in her bed, the couch in the living room four days before my eleventh birthday. Nine years later I buried my father, who was found by his parents rotting in his Harlem apartment, a reverse to the film where the dad went first followed by the mom.

Like the film they were joined in a way by both dying at approximately forty-four years of age. I rued the moment I would be the same age because like my parents, I thought I'd never live past it, but just like Adam I ultimately ended up being older than my parents than when they died. If I met them now, I guess I would be the one dispensing words of wisdom.

Unlike Adam I wasn't lonely, I have lived alone for nearly thirty years, and have had moments of loneliness, but like so many things that a multiple-orphan and an individual with intersectional identities, I had developed coping methods that were born when I was separated from my siblings at eleven and for the first time had to suffer the world on my own, navigate bullying and nasty taunts from other children. I had learned to have a rich internal emotional life, being my own best friend, and creating adventures in the simplest of things. I had become my own best company.

But like Adam I longed for connection, I longed for resolution around my dead parents. But unlike Adam I am not dead. That's my big reveal/spoiler these many paragraphs in to this essay/journal entry. I think everyone we encountered in that film was dead. #HolySixSenseBatman Delving into how I understood this is immaterial to how it still felt. His parents wanted him to move-on, which could be misconstrued as moving on with his life, but could also have been acknowledging that he was indeed dead and accepting it. The nuance of interpretations of what exactly is going on in the film is masterful, and the director never quite gives us a definitive answer.

Adam felt he wasn't particularly successful with anything in his life, still feeling the scars of his childhood bullying, taunting and the trauma of losing his parents at such a young age. I have mirrored this feeling about my own life, with the only difference that I have been more successful than my parents because I made it to the upper-middle class. #yea But like Adam I have always felt I am just passing-the-time, existing and muddling through.

Curiously the last real relationship I had was nearly twenty years ago, and also interesting was the fact that like Adam, Karl was my junior and like Harry was damaged in many ways, clearly not visible to the world around him, because even my best friend at the time thought he was the boy next door, literally mirroring the movie by his perceptions.

Isn't this why we watch films? Don't we see ourselves in the characters on the screens and sometimes wish we were them or living the lives they were living? Or sometimes what we see on screen is too close to reality and art imitates life in a ghastly manor. But then that means the director/writer has done his job right? Making you feel the pains, indecisions and joy of fictional characters is what a good film is about. But is it exciting to see yourself realized in a way that you wish wasn't you?

All of Us Strangers is a psychological thriller, clearly with aspects of drama and romance. As the reviews say it is haunting and heartbreaking. It is also something else that I am tired of in queer cinema, albeit as realistic as it is, specifically to my own journey, it once again paints queer-life as sad, aloof and unfulfilled.

Having dealt with dysthymia my entire adult life I guess this is in some ways true, but as I explored in a previous entry, I really want our queer movies to be more aspirational. I am not saying Red White & Royal Blue syrupy, but some middle place where we can be not-partnered, not have kids and not be dying or dead and be content with our lives. Is this asking too much?

[Photo Courtesy of All of Us Strangers via IMDB]

[scarystinkyskeletons]

Heres some ranting and raving about the feminist horror of Barbarian. Hopefully you all enjoy or are at least amused.

**SPOILERS for the 2022 movie Barbarian ahead - it's 2 years old lol but whatever here's your warning**

Last night I got to enjoy the movie "Barbarian" with some friends. Now, I have to start out saying: It is quite gory, I am a big baby, and don't like watching (or reading!) gore/gratuitous violence in general. But god, am I willing to put up with it for the sake of the absolutely brilliant social commentary that really only comes from the horror genre. 

The main take away is that a "nice guy" rapist with plentiful justifications for his terrible behavior sees a "women in cages" rapist as if they have nothing in common, not realizing that they are both monsters. You can find movie explanations expanding on that theme online (here, for example).

But I want to touch on some other things I find noteworthy:

First, the creature (called The Mother) everyone is running from & trying to escape in fear is actually a victim. She is the result of generations of captive inbreeding. She's doing the only thing she knows how to do - "mothering". People fear her for reasons that are the result of what has happened to her and generations of women before her. When victims do everything right & come forward, we punish them, as we see with our "nice guy" rapist degrading and attempting to manipulate his own victim. But even when victims do things as they were taught - the only things they know to do - we punish them again. There's no winning outcome for them, just degrees of survival. The mother been forced to become a creature that doesn't have a place in human society, and ultimately that's why Tess has to kill her.

The Barbarian who is living under the house is a bed bound alcoholic, and when we first come upon him, he looks like he might be a victim! <sarcasm> Who has trapped this helpless, bed bound man under the house? </sarcasm> and truly, this is a reflection of how our biases skew our perception/interpretation of what we see, what we think we know, and our consideration of unknown unknowns. Looking at him in that state, he doesn't look like someone who could climb a flight of stairs, none-the-less build a tunnel system for his captives. But he is actually still the master of this world he has created despite being physically powerless, as he has a bell system in the tunnel. We may speculate that he calls for the Mother (who is his daughter) when he has needs to be satisfied.

In the end, it is the male ego we tend to nurse back to health, helping it cling to life well beyond its welcome. I think this all really points towards how society receives victims who make themselves known - they are perceived as a random monster wrecking some helpless man's life.

But there's an interesting dualistic pair also in this story: the exploration of how men who actually try to protect women are treated, and the actions/inaction of males who pretend to be protective in our society. The first side of this is represented by the homeless man who tries to warn her. Initially she runs from him due to her own biases and assumptions. He later saves her, and she realizes she can trust him. The contrast are the cops who show up, degrade the survivor, do nothing, and leave them to be re-victimized. All to say, the men we expect to show up and help us rarely do; many of them are all talk and work together to intentionally accomplish nothing. Those men who choose to do the right thing - who choose to warn us and show up to protect us from the real monsters - tend to be punished for it, or are exiled from their social circles for speaking out. The homeless man even tells Tess that the Mother isn't the worst thing down there, and he is right. He knows the real evil is the man who created the Mother. He is violently killed by her because the cops have failed to protect him too.

The men in this movie show quite the gradient of behavior: the homeless man who warns and saves her; the cops who have the power to help but choose to do nothing; the housemate, a stranger Tess is stuck with by circumstance, who is super creepy when he tries to stop her from leaving; the "nice guy" rapist, a hollywood bro who is never at fault in his own mind nor in the minds of his friends, and is blissfully full of excuses for the way he violates women; and the monster who has build a secret passage into/under his house for the purpose of keeping generations of women and children as sex slaves.

The mother kills multiple men in this movie, but not the man who has done her the most harm. He has killed himself like a coward when our "nice guy" rapist discovers the evidence of what he has done. Truly, there is no justice for the Mother. At the end, our leading lady survives with the help of the Mother after our "nice guy" rapist tries to kill her, and I think that allows us to wrap up on a positive note: we can survive if we stick together.