I'm reading the lord of the rings and I'm once again amazed at how... good most characters are. Like, they are genuinely good people. They are a bunch of kindhearted, gracious, caring people, coming together under adverse circumstances and trying to figure things out and find a solution and support each other through it all. Like Frodo and Sam meet Faramir and Faramir is a bit suspicious at first and kind of implies Frodo may be a spy, and then when he hears his story and he's like Frodo, I pressed you so hard at first. Forgive me! It was unwise in such an hour and place. And this blows.my.mind. He wasn't even particularly mean or threatening to him in the beginning, he's just such a kind, considerate man, recognizing the kindness and honesty of another man. And they're all like that. Even Gollum starts slowly changing (for a short while) when he encounters Frodo because that's the thing about kindness and humility and grace, they are contagious. They transform people, even a creature like Gollum cannot be immune to that. Like, you may consider all this simple and basic and I get it but, hear me out. It is quite rare to see that in modern media and it is also pretty difficult to pull off in a way that is not corny and simplistic. It is mind blowing that you actually don't have to present the entire palette of human cruelty and vice in order to tell a compelling story, contrary to popular belief. Lotr does the exact opposite, and it is just beautiful and it warms my heart. Especially taking into consideration tolkien's pretty grim growing-up experience, him being a double orphan without a home, raised between an orphanage and a priest and having no family apart from his brother and then the war and then he almost dies and then he's poor as hell and then a second war and it all makes sense somehow. He writes to his wife who is also an orphan two days before the marriage "the next few years will bring us joy and content and love and sweetness such as could not be if we hadn't first been two homeless children and had found one another after long waiting" and, yes, yes! The love and sweetness just radiate from his work, the entire lotr series is a little radiant bubble of hope and love and grace that he imagined in his head to deal with a dismal reality and then he just gave that to the world, and isn't that what imagination and art is all about after all?

Rereading the Lord of the Rings series recently, and it's so fascinating to me how much the series is a denial of the typical juvenile power-fantasy that is associated with the fantasy genre.

Like, the power-fantasy is the temptation the Ring uses against people It tempts Boromir with becoming the "one true king" that could save his people with fantastic power. It tempts Sam with being the savior of Middle Earth and turning the ruin that is Mordor into a great garden. It tempts Gandalf and Galadriel with being the messianic figure of legend who brings salvation to Middle Earth and great glory to herself.

The things the Ring tempts people with are becoming the typical protagonists of fantasy stories that we expect to see. and over and over we see that accepting that role, that fantasy of being the benevolent all-powerful hero, is a bad thing. LotR is about how power, even power wielded with benevolent intent, is corrupting.

And its so fascinating how so much of modern fantasy buys into the very fantasy LotR denies. Most modern fantasy is about being that Heroic power-fantasy. About good amassing power to rival evil. But LotR dares not to. It dares to be honest that there is no world where anyone amasses that power and remains good.

I guess that's one of the reasons its so compelling.

i understand toddlers cuz if i was just born a couple years ago and someone tried to get me to understand and say words while i'm growing insane amounts of teeth very quickly and painfully i'd be having a temper tantrum on the floor of a department store too

Look SO many things are better as an adult, but I do so very genuinely truly miss the childhood experience of going completely insane over something at the drop of a hat. As an adult you need the right cocktail of drugs weather humidity feng-shui and job prospects to feel like a piece of media can rip you into orbit. As a 14-year-old all it took was the worst Naruto reruns in the world playing at 10pm in your childhood basement. Unmatched experience. Irreplicable. Truly a once in a lifetime gift as an apology for the experience of being 14.

Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë

girl, that tom bloomfield - "flower of the flock" according to his mother - is a public menace 👀

THE MUMMY (1999) Dir. Stephen Sommers Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan

the desire to pronounce words as they are said in their source language for the sake of accuracy vs the desire to not sound like a complete tool

She'll be here. Do you even want her here? Only a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else’s relationship, and you’re neither, Lloyd. Kitty and I are grown-ups. We've walked through fire together.

EMILY BLUNT as KITTY OPPENHEIMER in OPPENHEIMER (2023) dir. Christopher Nolan

thinking abt caffeinated saint cornelius hickey and his beautiful nervous eyes

SUCCESSION 4.04 -> Honeymoon States

SANDRA HÜLLER by Tyler Mitchell for W Magazine's Directors Issue | 2024

SWANN ARLAUD + LETTERBOXD REVIEWS Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Messi the Dog as Snoop in Anatomie d’une chute (2023) dir. Justine Triet

You're petrified by your own fucking standards - and your fear of failure! This is the truth. ANATOMY OF A FALL (2023) | dir. Justine Triet

THE CRAFT 1996 | dir. Andrew Fleming

LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY | 1x07, "Book of Calvin"

- TACITUS

Loeb Classical Library Edition