vibes

Armand Hubert Simon Leleux, 1818-1885

Cat on a chair in an interior, n/d, oil on panel, 16.7x12.3 cm

shoutout to the guy who created a parody account of cinemasins where instead of pointing out every single flaw in a film, he just pointed out things he liked about the movie. you're so right cinemawins its so much more fun to like things

CinemaWins once said "Every movie, with very little exception, is someone's favorite, I like to find out why." and that sentence alone is worth more than every single thing the CinemaSins guys have ever created.

Even when he legit dislikes the movie he's reviewing, he manages to find things that are praiseworthy. The world needs more positivity like that.

physically go to your local library at least once. seriously.

look around. find a random book with a cover that catches your attention. read the description. read the first page. if you like the sounds of it, borrow it and take it home to read. borrow a handful of books even.

if a book loses your interest, drop it. if a book grips onto you, ride that wave.

i've struggled to read recreationally for years despite having read so much as a kid. a lot of us are frozen by the seemingly infinite choices. even when we buy books to take home, we don't read them because which book is worth reading first? we don't have to decide, we have it right here in our bookshelves, we have an eternity of never deciding.

in this past month, i have read five books, most of them i've never heard of when i spotted their cover at the library. most of them, i've ended up loving. the due date of library books maintains the ability to read a book so i can return them to the library and leave the library with more books. an even better incentive than borrowing ebooks, because i actually have to leave the house and not be a hermit.

so if you used to enjoy reading but struggle with it now, ignore the book recs you hear. go to the library, come across a book that piques your interest, and read one page after another until you either lose interest or finish the book.

then it's onto the next one.

we are not born to die!! what are you talking about!! do you think a book begins just to finish? do you think a song opens with a beautiful chord just for it to end? you don’t read the book to finish it, you read the book to eat up the excitement and the emotions it evokes!! to learn and to digest and to fall in love and be heartbroken!! you listen to the song to dance and dance and sing your throat raw!!! to cry and smile and swell with the harmonies!! yes, we are born with the inevitable fate of death, we are mortal after all, but that is merely the finale of the play!! the final act, the closing of the curtains - we are not born to take a bow and exit stage left!! we are born to love and be joyous and yell and move and learn and cry and feelfeelfeel!!!  we are not born to die, silly, we’re born to live!!!

This is so violently hopeful and uplifting everyone needs to see it

Wild to think how invested I once was in captain america. They really put something in the winter soldier (2014). you had to be there

#they fucked up so bad by making it so good #we just thought they were all gonna be like that #congrats you played yourselves (via notyourplayground)

embarrassment has good bones

i hate when ppl act like the only reason to not like a "sad" ending is because you can't take it or whatever. personally as a tragedy enjoyer, i hate a poorly written ending. i hate an ending that is just kind of a bummer. i hate an ending that feels mean-spirited to the audience. i hate an ending that's redundant. i love a sad ending that is thematically consistent, poignant, and bespoke to the rest of its narrative.

#if you've got to earn a happy ending you've got to earn a sad one too

Bead Embroidery Kits // Craft Artist Studio

“this character should kill their abuser” i agree. unfortunately they wouldn’t do that.

like it feels like “some people can have complex feelings about or even love their abusers” is tough for a lot of people to grasp because they’d rather have some kind of easy karmic retribution toward a character at the hands of their victims. which i sympathize with. but sometimes they just wouldn’t do that, you know?

Cat

Dear Applicant, Thank you for applying for the team member position at our company, We carefully reviewed your skills and qualifications and have decided you are so epic and so fucking cool and we are going to hire you and give you one bilion dollars because we like you so much

The End of a Dream    -    Giuseppe Pennasilico , c.1908

Italian, 1861-1940

Oil on canvas, 99.5 x 145.4 cm

Posters for Robert Eggers Nosferatu (2024)

You want to know why Inigo Montoya remains such an iconic and beloved character even 35 years after the Princess Bride came out?

It’s because he’s one of the few characters in fiction who has a story where he has dedicated his life to revenge, his whole motivation is about getting revenge….and he gets it! and then he isn’t empty or despairing! he doesn’t regret it! he’s totally satisfied!

because so many stories about revenge or rage are about characters “seeing the futility of their actions” or learning “their desire for revenge has only made them the monsters they hated” FUCK THAT.

Inigo Montoya kills the man who kills his father, is allowed to live in the narrative after and be happy about it and it is so satisfying. it’s fantastic. it’s iconic.

let more characters rage against the world, bring it down with bloodied hands, and let them be FUCKING RIGHT about it. Let them celebrate their success with sharp grins, and let them live happy, full lives where they always remain proud/fulfilled for what they’ve done

Another thing that set Inigo Montoya apart from other characters with vengeance arcs is that Inigo’s vengeance drove him but it didn’t consume him. He was wronged and wanted - needed that injustice to be corrected - but his vengeance was focused. Rather than taking his pain out on the whole world, Inigo was a charming, pleasant, good-humored person that treated everyone respectfully, even folks he was fighting. He even asks politely to people he meets about any extra digits they may have.

Would a bitter, angry, vengeance-consumed man swear on the life of his father and help a guy he was planning to duel, then give him time to catch his breath? Would he hand his sword over to his future opponent to lovingly show off his late-father’s skill as a swordmaker?

“You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you.”

I think part of what makes Inigo so iconic and beloved is because while vengeance was his story, it wasn’t who he was, so when he achieved his vengeance it was less an emptiness and more of a satisfaction, a story completed, a wrong made right, and a man suddenly baffled at the possibilities before him, not sure what his next story would be.

You actually do need noble lineage to rightfully rule, but since lineage doesn’t dilute, and given the historic sexual tendencies of people in power wrt their servants, eventually noble lineage spread wide enough that everyone had it and that’s why democracy happened.

nice *adds to list of theories that irritate everybody*

salt & vinegar chips are snacks for fucking masochists. literally the entire flavour of the goddamn chip is “acetic acid, which will hurt your tongue, and then just salt on top of that to hurt it worse”. it’s brutal. this chip is designed to hurt you

yeah and it kicks ass