[clarabeau]

Before I watched X-Files my impression from cultural osmosis was it's "Scully is reason/Apollo v. Mulder the believer/Dionysus" which does more or less hold up, it does do the interrogatory/Plato pointing up Aristotle pointing down exposition style for sure, but it's also interested in asking "imagine if this was your coworker"

Unusual scope and vision. The kind of show that will have you saying what in the?, which is why it's good. It leaves the viewer asking ??? Which one of you is eating people, & what are you to each other

[clarabeau]

If I said for me in the context of the grim American crime investigation drama genre specifically, the closest analogue for this weird respectful austere perma-professional relationship they have for years that's obviously charged but stays "professional" based on respect even though it's obviously charged is probably Anthony Hopkins Hannibal and Clarice, what would you even say

If no-one was eating people.

Also, to me Bryan Fuller was so inspired by this "smart people solving philosophy crime" exposition style imo, which is also probably what makes me keep expecting someone's a killer. He lifts/homages some X-Files conversations directly in Hannibal too, I've recognized a few. I wish I could talk to him about X-Files.

[clarabeau]

Before I watched X-Files my impression from cultural osmosis was it's "Scully is reason/Apollo v. Mulder the believer/Dionysus" which does more or less hold up, it does do the interrogatory/Plato pointing up Aristotle pointing down exposition style for sure, but it's also interested in asking "imagine if this was your coworker"

Unusual scope and vision. The kind of show that will have you saying what in the?, which is why it's good. It leaves the viewer asking ??? Which one of you is eating people, & what are you to each other

[clarabeau]

Employed…… :’)

[clarabeau]

Life's so good right now! I went on an afternoon walk (it was too hot, I did hate that part) and picked up "Lemon Gelato" for me (not the dessert; the nice guy there gave me a discount!!) and a 20-pack of Fancy Feast wet food for Bubby (the tiny cans; Poutry and beef pate, his favorite!!), and I was NOT worried about perpetually having on-average $60 in my account for years now. THEN I also got a local cheap and gross/delicious specialty food with a Diet Coke and, get this, I added a blondie bar. I had Lemon Gelato and am about to eat and just put on an episode of X-Files for the first time in like, 5 months to be honest. You'd think I'm watching it all the time, but I've never seen the show before actually and I'm only in Season 3 currently (I'm on s3ep23 "Wetwired"). I'm watching it like very slowly, ok. I'm digesting.

Anyways, Bubby just joined me on the couch for his after-dinner nap after eating his tiny can of Chicken "Pate" and I was cutting into a french fry when I observed genuinely just now approx. 5 minutes into the episode: wait, Mulder's hot. I forgot this show's good actually. waait

There is good in this world.... Mr. Frodo..

[clarabeau]

waiting by the phone for imminent job application news update like

[clarabeau]

For the next six months on a contractual basis I am EMPLOYED

[clarabeau]

waiting by the phone for imminent job application news update like

[clarabeau]

Yesterday I was like “Do you want to hear something kind of weird I just learned that’s very exciting?” and J was like “when aren’t you excited about something weird” and I was like “no no but-” and he said “seriously, what are you ever excited about that ISN’T weird,” but he was barking up the wrong tree (he wasn’t), however this time the weird fact I learned, following my dreaded drs appt and testing last week (which all went fine btw), is that I’m “medically deficient” in Vitamin D!

Can you believe that? Me, a perma-fatigued agoraphobic housebound Victorian ghost who paces the halls ceaselessly, for whom MAC Cosmetics does not manufacture a pale enough shade of white? I learned that there are levels to Vitamin D calibrations in humans, from Potentially Toxic to Adequate to Insufficient to Deficient, with Adequate being defined as 30-50 on the bloodwork panel and Insufficient being 20-29 and Deficient being <20, with me clocking in at a whopping 6 (six). There are but six hard-working little Vitamin Ds within me.

This is exciting for reasons immediately accessible to the Tumblr user I think, bc 1. it’s probably the closest thing I’ll ever experience to that classic post about fantasizing you have some crucial deficiency that can be fixed with a mere supplement and "everyone gathers around to be tremulously compassionate and discreetly admiring: all this time, you lacked the Vitamin? And yet you persevered?" (dreams really do come true), and 2. bc I can make over-the-top dramatic excuses for every little thing with J by being like yeah?? well I'm Severely Deficient in VITAMIN DEE, and you're being INSENSITIVE/doing a bow chika bow wow flirtatious blame game that he, my husband, has allowed me to become deficient. in. vitamin D ;;;;)

[firstfullmoon]

If you persevere, in time you will have an entirely different problem – not that life is meaningless, but rather that life has almost too much meaning. As the scales fall from your eyes the world rushes into focus, presenting itself with a kind of vibrational eloquence that can, at first, be almost overwhelming. Everything shimmers, everything clarifies, everything wrestles for your attention. Trees feel super-real, their roots plunged into the earth, their branches stretching to the sky, birds are flesh and blood souls, fragile with life, the sky unfolds and rolls, the ocean crashes, people fascinate, books are beautiful, children are whirling dynamos of chaos, dogs bark and cats meow, flowers shout, your neighbour glows, and God runs like a helix through all things. The world awaits you, humming with meaning. You are alive with potential. You are not dead.

— Nick Cave on getting clean, Red Hand Files #258

[clarabeau]

Never 👁️👄👁️let them ste👁️👄👁️al the 💡 .. behind.... your 🧿🧿

[hoopskirt]

Goodbye Mr. Lynch I’ll see you in my dream

[draconisxmalfoy]

Fly Away Home 1997 | dir. Carroll Ballard

[zegalba]

birds flying over the jurassic canyon of Iceland

[apocryphics]

[myonegin]

“Some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or a person who explained to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize that we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and that, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed.”

— Alice Walker, Living by the Word

[clarabeau]

Speaking of baby Mischa Barton!Sixth Sense "🤮 I'm feeling much better now 🥺," I just remembered one of my favorite things anyone's EVER said to me about me, which is when I was being apologetic about posting way too much (I always am, btw) and @flavorcountry replied "i like when you're in Posting Mode honestly; it feels like a ghost who has its own interests is haunting a very specific corner of my house."

I do feel self-conscious every time I'm doing it and try to space my activity out to not bother anyone (while knowing I definitely am, but I GOTTA), which probably IS how a ghost with its own interests who must haunt a specific corner would feel, lol. Anyways, I always understand when someone calls in the exorcist and removes my presence from their space, but I'm glad you guys keep letting me knock around our tumblr house <3

[dailyflicks]

The Sixth Sense 1999 | dir. M. Night Shyamalan

[clarabeau]

Nothing beats that feeling of satisfaction after a long day of producing blog!

[clarabeau]

This movie was so important to me as a kid actually, while also scaring the SHIT out of me. Anyways, I still find it extremely scary, and still love rewatching it every few years. I love how the solution to Cole's problem is forcing himself to sit with SERIOUS discomfort and extend compassion to experiences that terrify him. I guess it's all old hat and obvious atp, but STILL: the way his path to peace is realized(/the movie resolves) not by exorcising/banishing/silencing the ghosts, but by asking them "Is there something you want to tell me?"

It works on the "ghosts are a metaphor" level, obviously--learning to live with your personal hauntings; feeding your Babadook a bowl of worms in your basement instead of fighting to evict it all the time--but it's countercurrent to "real" ghost lore I've always found kind of annoying, too. Like doesn't the combativeness and rejection of the guest/stranger/Other inherent to many ghost stories kind of bother you? "Speaking with ghosts is DANGEROUS. DON'T tell them your real name. DON'T ask their name either, or GIVE them some cutesy nickname. Give NO quarter in your home. NEVER open that door." So once a person's dead instead of alive, we start acting like fucking conservatives? Meanwhile Cole!Sixth Sense is asking: are you visiting me for a reason? can I help you?

I'm being tongue in cheek sort of; please don't dishonor me with "well actually 🤓" re: the danger of communicating w ghosts lol. Anyways, Sixth Sense itself acknowledges that not everyone who wants to be heard should be offered your ear, or the vulnerability inherent to your empathy. Cole's like "What if they don't want help? What if they're just angry and they just want to hurt somebody?", which ultimately IS all some people want, alive or dead. So--what? We never listen to anyone at all? We live in perpetual fear?

Anyways, horror is interesting bc depending on who's making it, it's both a transgressive genre that empowers/embraces the Other AND an inherently or at least historically conservative genre in the social proscriptions it makes/rules it enforces etc. It's worthwhile to think about these things.....