#this film is just. god. it means so much to me

[elijasz]

I know a lot of people wont be with me on this but give me a moment of your time anyway. This whole trend of mindless consumption is related to the huge amount of media and input we have access to nowadays. I believe that we should limit what we consume and only consume things we have found through social interactions, word of mouth or because we looked it up. There is SO MUCH media out there. More than we could ever consume in many lifetimes. We have to limit this. Not by creating less! My gods please don't create less! But by consuming only things that people have created for the sake of creation. If you create for the sake of money, like Disney does, you'll lose your depth. Mass produced culture is worthless and temporarily relevant. It dies eventually.

We HAVE TO take more time to create amazing things. Wait 10 years for the next movie, or book etc. A month is not enough to write a good book or make a good movie. Half a year isn't enough to create an amazing animated film. Please start taking your time to create and consume again. And consume with awareness. Meaning consume things that took time and effort to create and aren't made by some huge company because they want to sell you the next mass produced piece of culture.

So finally, I have a quest for you: Go to an art gallery or museum or even a library. Gather information on a topic or artist that/who fascinated you when you encountered it/them. And then tell someone about it. Ask them to join you on another trip to a gallery or museum. Hook them into something that is worthwhile. (I don't mean just old art etc. There are art galleries with small, young artists aswell) Get off the internet and see culture in person. Even just go through a walk in the city, listen to street musicians, look at street art and graffiti. Because in person, culture has a limit. Both in time and location. You need to put effort into consuming it. And because you put in effort, its worth more to you.

I’m not even an anti-internet person like I love the internet, I just get so frustrated with the passive way people have become accustomed to using it now. not actively seeking things out or engaging with communities, just turning their brain off & letting the algorithm feed them whatever it wants. & I can’t help but feel like that’s partially to blame for the current state of things (anti-“woke” backlash is easier to digest if you turn your brain off when online)

[thebramblewood]

Who knew window shopping could lead to so many revelations?

Previous / Next

All credit to @moonwoodhollow for Exerzierplatz, where you can find the bookstore, and @its-opheliasgarden for Umbra Boulevard, where you can find the antique shop, both of which are only one small part of these incredible builds!

Caleb: You’ve grown awfully comfortable with her.

Helena: First of all, you have no room to judge. [mockingly] Oh, she’s my sister and I loathe her! But I’m too much of a coward to move out.

Caleb: I’ve certainly never uttered those-

Helena: Secondly, being angry is exhausting. Holding an eternal grudge requires too much energy. And she can be fun — in her own way.

Caleb: You mean the way that’s fun until it isn’t? Not long ago, she had you on the verge of murder. Your memory can’t be that short.

Helena: We have our differences. But she respects my limits now.

Caleb: She’s being careful, but I know her too well to believe it’s for anyone’s benefit but her own. She’s only biding her time until you let your guard down.

Helena: God, you’re cynical.

Caleb: I’m realistic. For a long time, I held out hope she would turn back into the Lilith I knew. But there’s a point of no return, and she’s far past it. I just think you should tread carefully.

-

Helena: Why do you really stay? Is she holding something over you? Are you a masochist?

Caleb: I’ve told you. It’s complicated.

Helena: Have you ever even tried to leave?

Caleb: Helena-

Helena: Who’s Morgyn?

Caleb: [uncomfortably abrupt silent]

Helena: I heard that name in your head just now, not for the first time. I didn’t want to pry, but it must be someone who means a lot to you.

Caleb: Meant.

Helena: Did you have a falling out or-

Caleb: [flatly] They’re dead.

Helena: Oh. I’m sorry. [softly] Caleb, were you in love with them?

Caleb: Something like that.

Helena: What happened? Don’t tell me Lilith-

Caleb: [insistently] It had nothing to do with her. They were a spellcaster, a very powerful one. They wielded influence. They had detractors. One of those detractors killed them.

Helena: Oh my god. That’s awful. Could you tell me what they were like sometime — when you’re ready?

Caleb: [faintly] I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

Helena: Caleb, look! I haven’t used one of these since I was a kid. Do you think they’ve got film for it?

-

Caleb: Come on. Don’t waste it on a picture that won’t even turn out.

Helena: What’s the deal with that anyway? I saw something about silver online, but-

Caleb: Anything you read on the Internet is conjecture and myth.

Helena: Is it because we don’t have souls?

Caleb: [bemused] What does that even mean? Do you feel as though you’ve lost yours?

Helena: Yes. No. I don’t know. I guess I feel the same… mostly.

Caleb: Countess Flores has a theory that we innately shroud our physical selves in images, just as we veil human minds, that we could appear if we willed it. But that remains pure hypothesis as far as I know.

Helena: I think I’ve attempted enough desperate selfies to safely debunk that one. You know, I wonder… [trails off distractedly]

Caleb: Helena?

Helena: Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. I used to want to capture every moment, but now the pictures make it impossible to forget.

Caleb: We both know it’s not the pictures that keep the memories alive.

[leehsngs]

양정원 (𝖏𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗐𝗈𝗇) 𝗑 𝖋!𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 , 𝗐𝗋𝖽 𝖼𝗇𝗍: 𝟬.𝟯𝗸 , 𝖔𝗇𝖾𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗍 , content. fluff petnames simp behavior , disc. 𝗅𝗈𝗐𝖾𝗋𝖼𝖺𝗌𝖾 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗱 , networks. @k-films , taglist. @myjjongie @enhanextdoor @choisanswife @zb1jwng @antoncyng

synopsis. jungwon shows you the tattoo he got in reminder of you.

you were just chilling when jungwon, your beloved boyfriend, came bounding into the house and into the living room. he was out of breath, rosy cheeks and all, with a wide smile on his face.

“baby, wanna see what i did?” the question alone had you squinting in suspicion but you nodded regardless.

“sure.. let me see.”

before anything, he made the motion for you to close your eyes so you sighed in a playful manner and nodded as you closed your eyes with a gentle grin pulling at your lips.

you heard some shuffling and even some mischievous giggling, that didn’t help the suspicions either, before you were told to open your eyes. upon doing so, you gasped and looked at the fresh tattoo decorating the skin on his inner forearm.

“oh my god? this is so cute,” he took a seat next to you and you, with a featherlight touch, ran your fingers over the creation, “what’s the meaning behind it?”

this ensued giggles out of jungwon and a cheeky grin, “you. you’re the meaning.” he then began to go into detail about every little thing unbeknownst of the fluttering your heart and stomach were doing.

pointing to the moon, stars, and cat, he spoke, “you’re my moon and you hold me, the cat, up all the time and the stars represent the love that we created.”

there was a little pout on your lips as he explained, tears brimming in your eyes and a small sniffle sounding. it’s like jungwon didn’t fully understand the effect he has on you.

“wonieeee,” you cried out, “that’s so cute! oh my god, i’m crying.. i love you so so much.” your poor face was scrunched up as you cried.

jungwon gasped and pulled you into a hug, gently rubbing your back with an amused chuckle, “oh my poor crybaby, i love you more. i just knew you’d love it.”

you playfully smacked his back, but he was right. you loved the tattoo and you love him.

c. leehsngs ; do not copy, repost, or translate my works.

author’s note. this is short… but it’s fluff filled, to the point, and tear worthy. i was giggling the entire time i wrote this.

[bonesfucker3000]

My one year anniversary of watching Star Trek and just rambling about how much I love Star Trek

Today is my one year anniversary of watching Star Trek (3rd of February 2024 was the first time i ever watched any form of Star Trek media) and I honestly can not believe it has been a year already. I know this will most definitely sound cringe and what not but I really do not care; Star Trek is such a comfort to me and it helped me through a quite shitty part of my life. I only watched it because @thetwinksainttwunking really loved it and would not stop yapping about it for years since we known eachother and I decided to give it a go. I only knew a few things about Star Trek: it's gay, Kirk and Spock love eachother (Spirk is the main reasons why I gave Star Trek a go) and Spock had to pretend he was Chinese (one of the first things twunking ever told me about Star Trek was that scene in The City On The Edge Of Forever, where Kirk and Spock have to lie that Spock is Chinese and he only looks like that because he got into an accident in a rice farm, I thought it was the funniest shit known to man...Still do) and I decided to give it a go, even though scifi was never my thing but hey I might actually enjoy it (i never thought I ever would had enjoyed it THIS much)

So on the 3rd of February 2024 me and @thetwinksainttwunking watched Star Trek 2009 together and I actually quite enjoyed it, so the next Day we watched Into Darkness, which I somehow enjoyed even more and actually made me intested in the franchise, wanting to watch more. I really enjoyed both AOS films, I thought they were fun, enjoyable and had a good plot, I really loved Kirk in both movies (I honestly started tweaking when he "died" in Into Darkness and when Pike died too because Kirk was yk in pain) On the same day Twunking showed me an episode of TOS The Naked Time aka Peak and may god I loved that episode so much, it just fun and silly (and I started tweaking when I saw Sulu shirtless too-) and that episode is the reason why I even considered and given a chance in watching TOS, because I just loved that episode alot (and from that day I started singing randomly 'ill take you home again....kathleeeeen') on the 15th of Feb I watched Wrath of Khan and on the 16th of Feb Search for Spock, on the 24th of March I began watching the original series and a year later...here I am completely obsessed and in love with this franchise, already finished with TOS, all TOS films, half way through TAS and nearly done with TNG-

Star Trek just means so much to me, I started watching it when i was in a bad and failing relationship which led to a horrible break up and Star Trek was a massive comfort to me during that time. I just loved watching TOS seeing the silly situations the crew were in and just overall loved seeing the characters (in the beginning it was just Kirk, Spock and Sulu i mostly cared for but later Chekov and Bones too because of my Bones obession), interacting with eachother and just in general seeing them. I absolutely loved it and still very much do. I also loved how Star Trek overall was optimistic about the future and the lessons they taught (even though some in TOS were outdated or not handled the best)

Man...I just love Star Trek so much...though I only liked it for a year, it really does mean alot and it will always hold a special place in my heart ❤️🖖

Thank you so much @thetwinksainttwunking for introducing me to Star Trek, I love you

[darklinaforever]

Jesus Christ, as much as I'm not against people supporting and shipping Ellen x Orlok, you people have got to pull in the reins when it comes to shitting on Thomas. Constantly throwing in his face how he couldn't understand Ellen for who she really was and her powers blahblahblah, throwing on top of it all how he failed to provide both as a husband and a friend and last but not least, ultimately failing to kill Orlok as he intended to. Who's to say those things are even his failings, even if he did say that he will provide for Ellen and tried to be a doting husband, friend etc? Who can claim to have reacted better in his place when faced with A LITERAL MAGICAL DARK UNDEAD BEING, the literal personification of death itself?!! Is there a manual on how to handle your possessed wife that I apparently didn't read, please do send me the link to it?! And also you people WILL NEVER BE ABLE to know for sure how Ellen's and Thomas' relationship would've worked out if someone managed to kill Orlok before he and Ellen got together again, and Ellen and Thomas actually communicated properly, because there is no alternative to this movie!! So whatever you claim about their relationship proves to be just specalution in the end, just like everybody else. What sane man would've let his wife easily into the arms to rotting undead death machine corpse, without trying to kill it and save his wife, whether that wife is a supernatural being herself or not?? Have we forgotten how difficult it is in fantasy stories for a person who discovers they have powers to convince people around them that they do, if they can't actually show them their powers?? Who would believe such a thing, no matter how much you love that person?? Also, for all of you blaming all of that shit on Thomas.. Ellen also failed as a friend, she let a monster inside the Hardings' house and kill her beloved friend Anna and the children and consequentially Friedrich. She also broke Thomas' heart by not only choosing Orlok but dying beside him. And I'm not trying to paint her as the villain but if you're going to play dirty with Thomas then so will I with Ellen. In the end, you people can imagine Ellen bouncing on Orlok crazy style you can imagine yourselves bouncing on it crazy style for all I care, you can imagine them as some sort of vigilante heroes who are fighting against the poor little evil victorian society... but start using your god damn brain when imagining on how to deal with supernatural forces... when they are in fact supernatural??!!

You're honestly getting angry for nothing.

I never theorized about the future of Thomas & Ellen if they had stayed together already.

Then, it's Robert Eggers' words, not mine, that Thomas doesn't understand Ellen even though he loves her and he dismisses her for that.

So be mad at him.

We're just repeating what the creator of the film said because we see it in the film.

Second, Thomas was made to fail, simply because he was a tragic hero.

It's... just facts ?

Also, I'm tired of your excuse of trying to rationalize the fact that people don't understand Ellen's powers and that we should put ourselves in their shoes and that we won't react better, and so we can't critical them, because that doesn't not what the film is about.

The fact that the people around Ellen do not understand her power is meant to be seen as negative (and criticize) because it is the result of Victorian society of which they are the instruments.

Victorian society which is the real villain of this film.

I don't care how I or anyone else in real life reacts because that's not what this movie is about.

When you watch this movie, you're supposed to think about the meaning /symbolism of things. Not see it literally, at least not only.

Damn, we're not in a banal fantasy story where it's complicated for characters to accept that the hero or heroine has magical gifts ?! You are in a huge off-topic simply to try to further justify the actions of the characters towards Ellen and prevent them from being criticized. The context is not the same here as a more classic fantasy story once again. The comparison is ridiculous !

And then, I don't see why I would be upset with you for "playing dirty with Ellen", when I literally made posts talking about her parallel with Orlok, that Ellen is Orlok and Orlok is Ellen, that she is just as much Nosferatu than him, therefore a form of monster. I have also literally already reblogged posts or said myself that Ellen let Orlok into the Harding house signing their death. And @apoloadonisandnarcissus explained very well why Ellen can be considered as a villain. Do you think you're doing something to me by throwing things at me that I already know and have already talked about ?

And at what fucking point did I blame Thomas for what happens in the movie ? No one ever said he was the bad guy either ?The only thing I really say about him is that he's a bad husband. Which is... true (for so many reasons) ?

Visibly you are not a regular on my tumblr and have absolutely nothing to do with what I post about this film.

Also, am I supposed to take you seriously with your comment about how I can imagine bouncing on Orlok ? You are disturbed my word.

Oh, and you obviously aren't capable of interacting properly with fictional stories / fiction to have such a childish reaction.

[tamilhobbit]

Couldn't agree more.

Reinventions and modern trends and narratives are all very well and good, but you really cannot call yourself a Greek mythology fan if all you ever read is Rick Riordan and stuff like Lore Olympus or that baby Cerberus comic. I'm sorry if that sounds like gatekeeping, but it's like claiming you're a fan of Gaston Leroux if you've only ever seen the Phantom of the Opera film. Or saying you're a fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle if you've only ever seen BBC Sherlock. You're enjoying a particular adaptation in a different medium, with all the flourishes and changes it made, and you can say you're a fan of that. But you're missing out on the original, and to claim fondness of the original is disingenuous.

If all you know of Norse myths is Marvel, for instance, then you'd think Loki is Thor's adopted brother. When in fact he is Odin's blood brother (where two adults adopt each other as siblings). That's going to affect how you read everyone's relationships and actions in the Eddas.

As for the distinction between mythology and religion... that's such a Western Christian lens, isn't it?

I'm Indian and Hindu. I grew up hearing tales of the Hindu gods from my mother and grandmother, as well as reading them. I also grew up reading Greco-Roman and Egyptian and Norse myths pretty much from the time I could read. My parents never told me that our myths were real and to be respected but these other ones were mere fiction - no, they simply gave me the books and left me to it. Of course I treated them with the same respect and awe that I gave the Hindu gods. They weren't my gods, but they were gods nonetheless.

Long before Gaiman wrote American Gods, as a young child I had already formed the nebulous belief that these gods all existed in the country where they originated - Isis and Anubis and Thoth in Egypt, Athena and Zeus and Aphrodite in Greece, and Krishnan and Sivan and Amman in India. But I myself was born and bred in Singapore, where there were many Hindus and temples. Surely the gods were with us too? Well then, surely the gods went wherever their worshippers went. Easy.

I believed in all the other gods too, but I didn't really offer them active worship at the time, although in my teens I also felt drawn to Bast. But when I went to Egypt I prayed in the ancient temples we stood in, because they awoke the same feeling in me that Hindu temples did. (Today I have a few statuettes of Egyptian gods in amongst the Hindu ones on my altar, and am seeking a nice statuette of Athena. I can't offer the Egyptian gods beer, which was part of their libations, because that's taboo in Hindu worship. But they still get milk and fruits and incense.)

So. I think it's pretty telling that people from a cultural background of Christianity - even if you're not Christian yourself, your culture has been shaped by Christian thought and scholars and lawmakers and media and thou shalt have no other god but me - see mythology as mere stories, malleable pieces of literature that can be changed and adapted and used as much as Doyle or Leroux or the Grimm tales.

Y'all never refer to the Bible or the apocrypha as mythology, after all.

To me, there was never a distinction of 'oh well, these cultures are dead, these religions don't exist'. Why would there be? Gods are eternal. Isis and Athena were no less than Durgai in my mind.

(I ended up doing a degree in Classics and Ancient History, and that was so fascinating and such a wonderful experience.)

I'm not, by any means, saying everyone reading Riordan needs to believe. Just... show respect, I guess. Be aware of the weight of this tradition, and consider checking out the originals. Be aware that modern retellings change a lot, because of that perception of Greek myths as a static source of literary material to be mined.

You don't even need to learn Greek or Latin, lol. Roger Lancelyn Green has some excellent editions of those tales that I adored as a child and still recommend to my students. And there are reference encyclopedias aplenty! Heck, Wikipedia is free.

I have seen someone say, to accentuate the fact a certain book needed a basic knowledge of Greek mythology to fully understand all the references and jokes in there, "You better have read the Percy Jackson novels, else you will be lost".

You guessed it: it bothers me (every time I begin a post like that, you can expect me ranting about something)

I don't know if this was said as a jest or not. If it was said as a sort of joke or as a light-hearted comment, I fully get it and I have nothing to say, because of course that's a funny nod. However I fear this was said in all seriousness. And even if this person was not serious, I have seen a LOT of people treat mythology... out of fictional works. Especially the Riordan novels (a similar thing is happening with Norse mythology where people start using God of War as a reliable source but that's a discourse for another day).

I get how popular and beloved the Percy Jackson novels are. I myself am a big fan of them. It was my butter and jam in middle-school. I never was a Harry Potter fan, but I WAS a Percy Jackson fan. So I get it, I get how it can be... But it doesn't mean these novels should be treated as a source of reliable and certain info on Greek mythology. People seem to forget that these novels are rewriting, reinventions and adaptations of Greek mythology. Back in the days, nobody would have went around claiming Saint Seiya or Ulysses 31 were reliable sources about Greek mythology, and yet today people treat stuff like Blood of Zeus or Wonder Woman Historia as almost primary sources when it comes to handling the Greek gods...

I guess it is due to a change of generations, and a change of point of view as time goes on. Today Greek mythology is treated, handled and accepted more as a source of narrative material, as a host of characters, as a compilation of folktales, rather than an actual culture, or a literary corpus, or a set of beliefs and rites linked to a religion. Probably because people are getting more and more used to Greek mythology being used for entertainment and narrative purpose - Disney's Hercules, God of War, Class of Titans... People don't have their primary contact with the Greek myths through classrooms and school lessons, they have it through movies and animated series and novels. And so for them, Greek mythology becomes "fiction" before "study".

Before, to make the point that you needed to know the basics of Greek mythology, someone would have said "You need to have read at least a Greek mythology encyclopedia". There's a SHIT TON of these around. Today it's just "You need to at least have read a Percy Jackson novel". I mean, again, if it is for humoristic purpose or for a light-hearted comment, okay, it's funny - but if it is serious, than it is as stupid as to say "You need to know about witches and witchcraft... so you need to at least have read the Harry Potter novels".

Again, I don't want to spit on the Percy Jackson novels. I adored them, I still love them, and I think it is great and amazing how it boosted and popularized Greek mythology and made it such a casual topic. But I always thought the series was much more enjoyable when you knew already a bit about Greek mythology BEFORE reading the books, instead of learning things from it. The reason I fell in love with these novels was because I was a HUGE Greek mythology fan as a child and unfortunately as a result the range of media exploring my interests was limited (Mission Odyssey, the classic italian Odyssey movie, The God Beneath the Sea). Until the Percy Jackson came along and I had a blast seeing how they reinterpreted, reinvented and reused things I was already familiar with. That was the fun of it, see their interpretation of mythology.

Because I am sorry, but if you try to learn Greek mythology with the Percy Jackson novels, you will learn a LOT of misinformation. You will learn that Athena can have kids, that Poseidon is one of the coolest Olympians, that Demeter basically has no role whatsoever in anything, that Venus and Aphrodite are one and the same, that the demigods all inherit the powers of their parents like super-heroes... In fact we do see today a lot of the effects the popularity of the Riordan books had (like the overblown and excessive villainization of Zeus). But that's something endless and eternal: as I pointed out, after the OvertlySarcasticProductions video about Dionysos with them having horns as part of his design, EVERYBODY on Tumblr and the friggin' Internet started putting horns on Dionysos. It wasn't just something that spread slowly, it was a real boom and fashion.

I was NOT expecting this rant to go that far, as usual I got carried away X) But here's kind-of my point: people originally brought forward the idea that "There is no "real" canon to Greek mythology because there's tons of conflicting versions and alternate tales" to defend the idea that fictional takes and adaptations could deviate from the dominating versions. It was nice and a needed reminder. Except... people of course used it wrongly and started use it to A) just allow themselves to do anything and everything while B) not bothering to do any research by pointing out how since there's no "canon" and not a set of defined clear-cut legends, they don't have to justify their adaptation choices.

Yes, there is a lot of variations, alternate continuities, rivalizing characterizations and conflicting elements in Greek mythology, as in all and every mythologies, from Norse to Indian. It doesn't mean however that the modern fictional works about Greek mythology have as much importance as the actual original texts of ancient civilizations... I get that you love your Song of Achilles and your Epic the Musical, but it doesn't mean that I won't judge you if you never bothered doing any research about what Greek mythology was about outside of seeing other people adapt it. (And don't even get me started on the so-called "devotees" of the Greek gods who aren't even true neo-pagans and are just fad-following pseudo-poets who bring forward random ideas as facts and literaly have "headcanons" about gods as if they were OCs... Random personal take but I have never seen any dog-loving "devotee" of Hekate ever question or mention how THOUSANDS of dogs were killed in the name of their "patron")

I guess it is because how people have a hard time getting what a "mythology" is about... I mean a lot of people really don't know the difference between a "mythology" and a "religion", and yeah, in mythology the gods are as much figures of worship/centers of cult as they are literary characters and narrative archetypes, so it's this weird in-between... I don't know, this rant literaly leads to nowhere so I'll just stop here and leave you to your own thoughts :p

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

okay i've finished rewatching pride now i will stop having feelings all over your dash

[ct-multifandom]

I don’t usually make posts like this, but I’ve been seeing a lot of anti-intellectual junk lately, and I really think we need to put the word “pretentious” up on a shelf until people learn what it actually means.

It doesn’t describe someone who likes artsy-fartsy deep meaning media. People who are pretentious are fake. They’re posers trying to be sophisticated and unique, not like other girls. They pretend to only like stuff they think will make them sound cool when they talk about it. They want to act like they know something you don’t, and they want attention for it.

By definition, if you genuinely enjoy something, you can’t be pretentious. If it resonates with you, and you analyze it, and you don’t care what people think, that’s the polar opposite, actually. If you love obscure experimental prog music, if you watch underground high concept indie films through English teacher eyes, if you spend hours in a modern art museum reading each piece as a vessel for storytelling, if your backpack’s full of poetry books that inspire you, if you play underrated games that were someone’s passion project, if you have an interest in studying the classics or the masters, you are not pretentious.

Of course, some people just don’t like some stuff, and that’s fine, but that’s not what this is about. Don’t let anti-intellectuals shame you for enjoying things just because your interests are inaccessible to them, because they refuse to be brave and put effort into critical thinking. You’re not stuck up for refusing to overlook the craft of artists.

[seeminglyseph]

I know everyone hates M Knight Shyamalan's The Village, and "oooh it's modern day all along" seems like a lame twist, but consider:

A) wool cloaks fuck and that's always a cool look and I won't apologize for the fact that I definitely just wanted to wear cloaks instead of coats even though I live somewhere that experiences winters in Hardcore Mode and that was not viable

And B) the concept that your parents decided for you that you had to live in a dangerous and reductive environment and raised you on fear and punishment and secrecy because they hated the way society was developing and didn't want you to have access or choice was like. Extremely real fore as someone raised Catholic with multiple friends raised either Jehovah's Witness or Mormon. Like, obviously, it was extremely exaggerated as a 2000s horror-thriller type movie, but like.

It's no Lady in the Water. I honestly haven't seen The Village in a bit, but in concept, I think it does make sense as a cult movie. It's just that too much is like... "oooo it's a twist!" Rather than, like... "damn, the adults of this movie have a cult compound that they have used to isolate, indoctrinate, and control their children, literally creating and becoming monsters that haunt and torment them to keep them in line to maintain a way of life in line with their own moral values"

And like. If you look at it through the lens of like. The emotional impact of how much betrayal goes on within the film in the families and the cult and for the children who had no choice to be there and no information, like. That's much more impactful than simply "it was modern day all along"

It's "your parents have been lying to you all along, and all of your pain and fear has served no greater purpose. Half of these rules were not to keep you safe. They were to make you obey, and you have no way of knowing which are which. The people you trust have deeply and intentionally fractured your relationship with reality as a way to keep you contained and docile and under control. You have been betrayed on the most fundamental level by the people who were supposed to raise you and guard you and keep you safe."

And that's like. That's good horror that sticks in the back of your brain forever? Idk. Maybe my imaginary Village is better than the real Village but like. I think it's a better movie than it gets credit for.

And I want more excuses to wear wool cloaks, like damn.

[ratatatastic]

Guess Who? Global Series Panthers edition.

my favourite dynamic for dumb games that don't particularly matter is sore loser who's trying not to be a sore loser and man who acts like winning means he gets the keys to the city rather than just a participation sticker

[shima-draws]

Rewatching HTTYD 2 and RTTE made me realize how badly they fucked everyone over in HTTYD 3. Like. Did they just look at all their character development and go “Yeah, we can flush this down the drain”, or

[stephantom]

I’d need to watch it again to confirm this, but I’m pretty sure that Thomas Becket is the only character who independently initiates touch with Henry?

There are plenty of people whom Henry touches, and it’s almost always possessive or threatening: the villager woman in the first flashback scene, the Saxon peasant girl (and possibly the old man? I think he prods at both of them with his riding crop), Gwendolen (holding her shoulders/neck), the French prostitute (kissing, leaning over, sitting on, slapping her butt), his sons (pushing and kicking them), the bishop (strangling), his barons (clutching onto one, tapping one’s head to indicate his vapidness), and Thomas too—(clasping his shoulders when he realizes Thomas is hurt, holding his hand to put on the chancellor ring).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever see Henry touch or be touched by his mother or his wife. There’s the moment when he grabs/kicks their needlework, and later on he knocks all the plates off the table, possibly vaguely in their direction—so there are two physical interactions which are violent but still sort of… distant? And still the direction is just Henry to them (in terms of physicality, anyway—verbally, they do initiate conversations/fights with him).

Does anyone touch Henry? There are the monks who whip him in the end, but Henry has ordered them to do it. Likewise, there’s the servant/valet/page who begins to wipe him dry in the bath scene, but again, that’s someone performing a duty. Thomas Becket though, cuts in and takes over the drying, and the dialogue tells us explicitly that he’s not expected to do this, and doesn’t have to (“You’re a nobleman—why do you play at being my valet?”) but Becket seemingly wants to do it, and he knows Henry likes how he does it: enthusiastically, confidently, warmly, and freely (“No one does it like you, Thomas”). He towels Henry’s head, helps Henry put on his boots, and then casually uses Henry’s legs to push himself up to stand.

There’s the scene in Henry’s tent, after the French prostitute has left and the two of them are sitting on the bed: Becket sort of leans in and briefly clasps Henry’s arm where it’s lying in his lap, casually and warmly.

There’s also the getaway horse ride, where Becket is holding onto Henry, arms wrapped around him, and they’re both laughing and smiling. Henry’s shirt actually falls open a little and Becket’s hand winds up on his bare torso.

And then there are the thwarted attempts at touch, after the split: the two scenes where Henry accuses Becket of not loving him. Both times, Becket moves toward Henry and reaches out to touch him, and both times, Henry moves away and tells him to keep his distance.

They’re quick little things, but if they are actually the only instances of anyone touching Henry affectionately (or even of their own volition) that we see over the course of the movie, it does support an impression of Henry as fundamentally isolated—maybe there is truth to his claim that Becket is the only person who’s ever loved him.

What’s tragic is that 1) Henry doesn’t really know how to express love himself (see: Henry expressing nothing but violence and entitlement to everyone else around him, and even to Becket for the most part), and 2) Becket’s love, albeit huge in Henry’s world, is conflicted and unfulfilling—for both of them.

Becket might be the only person who’s dared to reach out to Henry and meet him on something close to a human level, and Henry loves him for it, but why does Becket do it? Part of it may just be an instinct of Becket’s to fulfill a need where he sees one, if he can, and if it benefits him. I think it’s so interesting that Henry seems obsessed with the question of whether Thomas really loves him, when it seems the truth might be that Thomas actually doesn’t know; maybe it’s an unanswerable, even nonsensical question to him. Like, what else could he do? I don’t know. “Insofar as I was capable of love, yes I did [love you].” But the fact that his last words, unwitnessed and private, are, “Poor Henry.” Fuck me up.

Ok, that last paragraph got away from me and now I can’t stop. Tempted to draw comparisons to “Beauty and the Beast” (this is a sad version where no magical transformation happens… unless you take a particular Catholic stance and consider that both of them maybe took real solace and meaning in Thomas being made a saint and that Henry maybe found real absolution through his penance).

I also want to compare all of this to “The Lion in Winter”, where it feels like, rather than a story about one lonely monster in a castle full of people he sees as objects, it’s a whole microcosm of traumatized and power-hungry people, reaching out for power and security and love and stabbing each other in the back, over and over. (Like, of course his mother and wife and kids have complex feelings for him—some of which involve love!) I think that depiction is better and less myopic, more true to life and probably a more accurate portrait of the historical figures involved (even when it comes to Henry and Becket—Becket was of that world too, after all), but I think I’ve rambled enough about all of this, so I’m going to end this post now. I’ll just say that there’s something nevertheless appealing about the boiled-down fairytale melodrama of “no one else ever loved me but you!”

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[araneitela]

Me staring at test results: It makes so much sense for her, but if I don't specify or elaborate, then we end up with the fanon take. Ugh, how do I easily explain that if you look at the word 'sex' through a much more old-fashioned lens instead of the modern one, that you'll get a vastly different picture of it?

/takes angycat.png typing to my tags

[soldierandawar]

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[cowchickenbeefpork]

god I need to rewatch the wolf man (1941) again I take breaks while watching films often which is a bad habit I need to break I need to stop treating movies like they’re books this film was fantastic I just finished it and like it’s so fucking good. One of my favorite films. Made me wanna cry. Love the themes of isolation and how no one believed Larry’s illness he was either seen as being ridiculous or being inherently cruel deep down in his heart or even just the mere assertion he was insane and needed to get treatment for psychosis when that was not what he was facing in his struggles. He knew he was harmful to others he knew what was happening to him but no one took his word for it. No one truly believed except the mother of a son who lived and died as a werewolf. To know what is wrong with you and try to isolate, try to ensure everyone else is safe after finally acknowledging that is something you are going through, and for everyone else to never understand it is heartbreaking. He did nothing to deserve this fate. No one truly deserves being treated like this, being neglected like this.

I also kinda interpreted how Larry’s father reacted to his son behaving like this as him knowing that the asylums won’t help, you know? This is a recurring issue in their family, something that has sprung up again and again, family members with the same illness, the same curse. I feel like they have at least tried to institutionalize them before at least once, and realized how horrendous they treated them in it. He doesn’t want his son to go through that, he wants his son to just push through this “delusion” and make it through when he cannot. His father basically has to convince himself that his son can push through if he tries hard enough, because that itself feels like it is the only cure for something like this. He doesn’t want his son to become a husk, he doesn’t know how to help his little boy. His own attempts to help him by trying to make him snap out of it only pushes them further off the edge, leading to his death by the hands of his own father at the end of the film.