#no i totally wasn't watching don quixote

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hmm... you know what you said about people not actually reading books they claim they've read? I feel like this can basically apply to most media. We're living in the tik tok generation attention spans and media literacy have never been lower. I know people who watch everything speed up or they fast forward through movies and shows or they watch those movie plot summary videos on youtube and facebook and count that as watching the actual movie! (big yikes) I saw my sister the other day watching Friends via tik tok clips despite the fact we have the whole show on dvd. This is how people consume media nowadays and it's worrying!!

It's true lol. And I won't pretend to be super invested in everything I watch, but if it genuinely doesn't interest me I'll just kinda stop and move on (when it comes to shows--with movies I usually soldier on unless it's REEEEALLY bad).

Me and my lovely lady friends have had a movie watching group for... like four years now (since right before the pando lmao but the pando made it a lot bigger) and I think that our commitment to watching trash, amazing, and mid things (we've given up on VERY few movies) has made me believe even more that you need to watch or otherwise something before really getting into the discourse. Like. I just said I watched The Bear season 1 (or near to it) and decided it wasn't for me. But I absorbed like, none of that show lmao. It REALLY wasn't for me. So while I can say "I didn't like The Bear", I don't feel like I consumed it, so I can only say on the surface level what didn't work for me, and maybe what I dislike about it on a cultural level (see: the way romance arcs are handled and discussed in the media).

But if I REALLY wanna get into critiquing? I'll watch it. Maestro was such a bad movie. So hard to watch. It wasn't even so bad it's funny, it was just bad. But now I can tell you that with an informed eye, because I WATCHED IT. And there have been movies that have surprised me, too! We just rewatched one of my all time favorite movies that only us and Adam Driver's wife have seen, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. That movie is so weird! We only watched it because Adam looked good in it! And it's AMAZING to me. I LOVE that movie. I also love so many random little movies people trash. I hate movies like Wonka yet I get through them so that I can properly drag them with an informed heart.

I feel like a lot of people have really lost the ability to invest time and thought. I mean, I know this because Zaslav has asked creators to make things that don't require attention from viewers. For HBO Max, dude. When HBO has been the home of shows that offer so much more nuance than the initial dialogue, based on line readings, expressions. Succession's dialogue, for example, is practically incoherent at points on paper. I mean, Roman Roy sounds so sadistic on paper lol. But when you see Kieran Culkin deliver his dialogue, there is a totally different read, and you see what Jesse Armstrong was actually trying to convey.

I also think this is one reason (other reasons are cultural lol) that people give such surface level readings even when they do consume the content. Like, if you've trained your brain to only read into the most straightforward, "the dialogue and actions are the single truth, there is no other truth, there is no other meaning than EXACTLY what is being done and said in a literal manner"... You are almost never understanding what truly great work really means.

I mean, I just discussed this re: Dreaming of You. Derek Craven stealing Sara's glasses is not meant to convey "Derek Craven is a tool". That is a completely surface level reading. Kleypas is conveying "Derek Craven is obsessed with her" and honestly? Some character work about his background (he steals impulsively because it's super easy to him because even though he's rich now he had to grow up stealing shit because he was LESS THAN dirt poor) and the way he sees the world (he wants her, he doesn't think he can have her, he covets her, and what he does when he covets is take, through theft if need be). And I don't know, probably some subtextual shit about stealing Sara because she's engaged and shit, but that's more interpretive lol.

And I don't expect people to get as granular and obsessive as I do, because a) I am super analytical by nature b) I am A Nerd c) I write a lot so layered meaning is something I'm obsessed with. But like... in the above example, the MOST BASIC reading of "he wants her so he took her glasses because he doesn't think he'll see her again" is so obvious lol. Lisa leads you to that reading. I think he literally has internal dialogue like "he'd never see her again so whatever" while holding the glasses.

The same with the Succession example. If Roman shakes off his dad's weird abusive comments going "it's whatever" you shouldn't go "Roman is devoid of emotion" lol, you should be able to pick up Roman actually deeply caring based on the line reading and expression and a million other line readings before that.

I don't know, dude. Just take the time to consume shit. Not everyone does have a lot of time, I get it. So consume fewer things. Take more time. It's okay. You don't have to be on top of the cultural moment all the time, and if you're faking it to be in it, you're not getting the full experience anyway.

[g-sas-g]

Rough sketches of the Papyri with hot hot leg.

N Y E S.

Extra with 🏱︎♋︎◻︎⍓︎❒︎◆︎⬧︎ vs Undyne the Undying that I thought of literally 10 minutes ago....

Dang dem legs.