Release the Bats!

goth into goth things + #1 w101 fan

[cactusique]

i survived griffith park and all i got was this lousy ptsd

[wwrenderer]

started playing vtmb for the first time. sketches of my shitty little tremere

[mswyrr]

This scene is at the heart of (in addition to the actors' brilliant chemistry) the love story here works so well -- they're not different, they're the same. Soulmates. Deeply romantic people. (They're both the noble, romantic detective in this neo-noir, each in love with a "femme fatale" in their own way). Protective and loyal beyond all reason and loving and honorable according to their own honor in a broken world. And what's happened so far is that all that love as been short-circuiting instead of connecting and forming a strong union. But the ending, where they get together, is not "out of nowhere" -- it's finally them clicking together in the way they were meant to.

[mswyrr]

It's so much in the romantic tradition of noir/neo-noir. This scene spells it right out:

Both Mace and Lenny are capable of "that place you cannot reach" -- the thing that sees the cynicism and chaos, but chooses to have honor and love in defiance of it. And the final scene is the power of that mutual recognition:

The lyrics are (chef kiss). And no, the romantic culmination of the story isn't sudden or out of nowhere -- it's the point of the whole damn thing and where the entire journey was leading. Yeah. Things are chaotic and wrong. But raise your sights. What's there to lose? Fall in the light.

[mswyrr]

It's established early on that what draws Mace to Lenny (the reason she fell in love with him) is that shared capacity for a "place you cannot touch" he speaks of to Max later -- they are both romantics despite everything. Both honorable people, despite everything.

Harkens to that bit in The Big Sleep where Philip Marlowe (one of the most romantic of the hardboiled leads) looks up at a painting in a rich man's house of a knight rescuing a maiden

Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him.

They're that kind of neo-noir character. They both know the score; they've both been hurt by life and seen all its chaos and sorrow. They know all the reasons for cynicism, and yet they want to touch the light that can exist in defiance of all that. In terms of worldview and desire for love and honor and the their relationship to the tropes of the genre, they belong together from the beginning of the story.

[kindalikerackham]

strange days 1995 is the rare film which suggests a few good apples in the police force, rather than a few bad apples

[anthonybourdyke]

4K release for strange days (1995) maybe?? criterion collection i believe in you

[golyakh]

I’m a leftie and I’d give my left arm for this I’ve been begging for it for so long

[ubourgeois]

Strange Days (1995) dir. Kathryn Bigelow

[thewolveswithin]

Wonderful how Strange Days is such an iconic film they made an official holiday for it

[cthaehart]

Lenny and Mace in Harry and Kim inspired portraits because sweetseaslug made a very good point on twitter (attached below)

[bontenmarumaru0401]

Collateral🚕

[spockvarietyhour]

The opening scenes of Michael Mann's Collateral between Jamie Foxx's Max and Jada Pinkett's Smith's Annie are some of Mann's best work in setting up tone and atmosphere and just getting lost in the moment.

[golyakh]

Just watched this one for the first time in theaters and ugghh I’m blown away

[skriveting]

me after writing out the scene I imagined in my head:

[ria-coolgirl]

I found this on Pinterest!

[oladyagnil]

existing as a vtm fan in 2025 is crazyyyy

[feyspeaker]

stitches sept print club is Bloodlines themed, a few days left to join to get this print + one more! link

[blowfliesorangeeyes]

I love urban fantasy so much

Lucifer is eating at Donut World and Harry Dresden the all powerful wizard is wearing his little burger king crown, John Constantine is in the back of a punk hideout getting beaten up by Sid Vicious, there is a naked woman at Atticus the Weird Hippie's occult shop who is quite literally Death in some form, that guy in a trenchcoat running through a busy town square laughing has electric blue angels under his skin, Clyde Hatchett is having lunch at his favorite pizza joint with the god of adventure, your university professor is going to save the world (he was the one to nearly end it). It makes everything just a little bit more colorful I think; to have the grounding of real life

[ink-the-artist]

The angel came to me in a fever hallucination, perched upon my bed as I returned from the bathroom.

[malinaa]

I HAVE A MEANNESS INSIDE OF ME REAL AS AN ORGAN SLIT ME AT MY BELLY AND IT MIGHT SLIDE OUT OF ME MEATY AND DARK