#like the movie 'past lives'

[s0fars0perfect]

there are so many pieces of media where i'll be like, "it was good but i wouldn't watch it again." and then i end up watching it again.

maybe it's not that i won't watch it again. i just won't watch it with anyone else.

[simcardiac-arrested]

day 30 - videogame (undertale, fnaf, etc)

somebody get this man some chapstick

[dirchristophernolan]

rewatching pacific rim (2013, dir. guillermo del toro) for the nth time and it really is a cinematic masterpiece. the idea that the only way for us humans to defeat monsters is through effective global collaboration but more specifically, through people that are drift compatible, meaning SOULMATES who can be romantic partners or siblings or father and son or best friends or complete strangers with very similar experiences/traumas, and that the stronger their bond the stronger the jaeger and the better it fights, is just

[skyburger]

genuinely devastating that it's been four years since hlvrai came out and i still haven't seen ANY art of dr. coomer and dexter jettster together 😢 come on bro hes dr. coomers FAVORITE star wars character. they can hang out in the diner (from star wars: the clone wars)!!!! i think he would love that shit. we have the freedom to draw whatever we want and yet.........!!! 💔 world is a fuck

[bmpmp3]

sorry to be a bit of a hater but i do wish youtubers weren't so scared of making their videos just like, "reviews", whys everything gotta be a "video essay" all the time. every day my recommendations are filled with 40 minute videos titled "_____: An Underrated Masterpiece" where the first like five minutes are reading the wikipedia definition of "masterpiece" in a somber voice with dramatic themed text on screen. please just tell me how good or bad you think something is and use the rest of the runtime to explain why. you dont need to put on all these airs

[https-moonzilla]

Guys the revival of Maxley on tiktok was NOT on my 2024 bingo card

[einaudis]

Who do you think we are then?

PAST LIVES (2023) written and directed by Celine Song

[wishuponroses]

I adore how Tatsuya Endo writes his characters, especially the women. They can be warm, soft, cute, cool, tough, scary... all, if not most, of his ladies in Spy x Family are equally wonderful in their own way, both in character design and personality.

[jacarandaaaas]

“what if they forgot to make mirabel a room in rebuilt casita”

bro she’s literally in charge of planning the whole thing

[martianbugsbunny]

Love the ending (and ONLY the ending) of Dark Phoenix bc it means Charles and Erik don't just get to be old together, they get to grow old together

They get to watch the lines and the wrinkles form on each other's faces; they get to see all of the events that shape those lines, like the way Charles gets a permanent crinkle between his eyebrows from sighing at the prankster students and the way Erik learns to smile so often that he gets proper crow's feet

Charles gets to see Erik's hair go grey, and then white, and he gets to run his fingers through that white hair even when his hands are gnarled and veiny and shake a little bit

They get to play thousands of games of chess together, day in and day out, night after night, until they have difficulty remembering all the rules and they're not as good at planning strategy as they used to be

All of the mutants they help, they get to watch grow up together; they get to see those mutants get married and have children and then they get to see those children grow up as well and neither of them ever has to feel alone again because in finding each other, Erik and Charles started a community that provides them both with more family than they ever imagined having

And eventually they get to die together, within days or weeks of each other, and be buried side by side after having lived the best years of their lives that same way

[bagofbonesmp3]

very telling that ppl were complaining about greta gerwig and margot robbie not being nominated for the oscars (hack awards show aside) but not about celine song and greta lee also not being nominated in the same categories 🤔 I thought we wanted to support women in film

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

can anyone recommend cartoons or shows for a 12-year-old with a lot of time on her hands to watch with her teenage and adult siblings? she likes gravity falls, bluey, spy x family, infinity train, avatar the last airbender, monk (yes monk 2002 starring tony shalhoub), and murder drones, although IDEALLY we're sticking to PG and mild PG-13

[amakumos]

the last ride... for a while, at least. after meet me in monte carlo. this one will be an angsty one, but you expected this from me, didnt you ❤️

[sa1808fi]

Rex in his timeline fic :)

______

He was sitting on the edge of a cliff, a large field behind him. The cool night breeze ruffling through his hair as he stared into the inky darkness below his feet.

His brain was...really fucking hazy right now. He didn't fully remember what he was doing here, just that he wandered off, needing to get out of the sickeningly bright and cheerful environment the residents of Syspocalypstar surrounded themselves with.

The fireworks were so loud, too loud

He picked up one of the lone rocks lying on the ground near him, tossing it into the icy depths of outer space, watching as it got swallowed up by the unforgiving darkness. Just a meaningless speck in the grand scheme of things. Easily forgotten... just like he was.

He didn't get why Lucy and the others were making such an effort now to comfort him. Ever since they had such a 'happy' reunion, they've all been somewhere around him. Sure Emmet might've appreciated it but he didn't, all of the attention was suffocating, and he usually liked attention so that was saying something.

It just... didn't make sense. They all forgot about him so easily, moving on like he never existed, like he was meaningless to them. They left him to suffer in the depths of space for years as his mentality slowly crumbled, unforgiving rage taking root in his once sunny demeanor.

He spent so long believing they never cared about him, so long that he didn't know what to think anymore.

The sound of fireworks exploding in the distance overtook his hearing again. The loud booming only serving to make his breath quicken with anxiety.

He was crashing, burning, it hurt-

Lucy... came back for him in the other timeline. Rex still didn't know what to think about that, and it's already been months since that happened.

Something just tightened in his chest whenever he thought about how Emmet never had to go through Undar. That Lucy loved him enough to do whatever it took to find him again. His... gave up on him so quickly.

She and his past self had such a lovey-dovey happy reunion, they were so... happy to see each other. Her speech before Emmet destroyed the cake only adding to his inner turmoil.

Was it just... him? Was he the problem?

Lucy said she never wanted Emmet to change, but that's what happened to Rex. The isolation broke him beyond repair, he could never be the man that Lucy loves-loved-he didn't know.

Looking back down, all he could see was the darkness threatening to swallow him alive. The rock he threw was gone, swallowed by the shadowy abyss, left to be forgotten, just like he was.

Another loud boom erupted in the air as another firework was set off, but all he could hear was the sound of his ship crashing, blowing up into a burst of flames, burning his side as he was launched into Undar. Forgotten by the world around him, rotting in the dusty, lonely wasteland.

It was getting hard to breathe, it was like he was back there, trapped, suffocating while his lungs filled up with dust.

Everything hurt.

None of them were coming to save him.

He was trapped inside an unforgiving cycle of suffering

shedidn'tlovehimshehatedhimwhy-

"-ex, REX!"

He suddenly felt two hands make contact with his shoulders, the touch so sudden it had him leaping away from it like it was burning him. Maybe it was, all he could feel on his entire left side was a searing pain.

His whole body was shaking with his panicked breaths, eyes darting everywhere. Another boom echoed through the air, eyes snapping to watch the firey red and orange explosion erupting midair, just like-

"Hey, no, look at me okay?" A soft voice broke through the thoughts racing through his head. His toxic green eyes locked with Lucy's blue and pink ones. He didn't feel her grabbing hold of his gloved hands.

"Good, alright, take a deep breath, okay?" He could only manage a shaky nod at her question. Everything was still so blurry, reality slipping away like sand.

He distantly heard her counting, trying to encourage him to breathe every 5 seconds or so.

".....in.....hold.....and out....." Rinse and repeat. He didn't know how long they were sitting there in the grassy field as she slowly coaxed him out of that panic attack, the fireworks long gone.

"You okay?" She asked once his breathing evened out, tone drenched in worry he didn't deserve it. He tilted his head in thought. God, she was so beautiful, he never deserved her. Not then, not now.

"...What? You want the truth, or would you prefer me to lie about feeling great to make you feel better?" He answered, voice still hoarse from the frantic puffs of air escaping him beforehand. Maybe he was being a bit harsh, but panic attacks always sucked the life out of him.

She just gave him a sad look, letting go of his hands while he turned away from her, tucking his knees up against his chest and resting his chin on his forearms.

"...Do you..." She began, before thinking over what she was about to say. He just watched her from the corner of his vision, focusing his gaze on the night sky, finally seeing the stars instead of just darkness.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She decided to say.

He let out a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a scoff, dragging one of his hands down his face.

"Talk about what? The weather? The way you all keep dragging me to those mind-numbingly bright celebrations? The ones that have fireworks that remind me of-" He caught himself before he could say more, immediately looking away from her, though he could still feel her gaze burning into him.

"Remind you of what? Rex, what do fireworks remind you of?" She asked. Her tone was so soft and understanding. It made him want to punch something.

But he still hesitated, did he really want to trust her? "I...it's just too... loud. Reminds me of... crashing." He muttered at the end, subconsciously rubbing at his burn scar. He didn't see the way Lucy tensed up at the mention of his crash into Undar, the guilty look that overtook her face.

They both sat in silence, neither willing to break the tense atmosphere that came from his words.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[faaun]

procrastination is starting to have its consequences finally