Finally got around to watching the PBS pro-shot of Next to Normal (I've heard the music before but never seen it, and how could I resist a free hd pro-shot musical with subtitles easily accessible on their website!)
Dear LORD I have never cried so hard while watching something. That show is like 5 consecutive sucker punches to the gut, and then it pauses long enough to make you laugh at something, and then you get drawn in and then BOOM another sucker punch. 10/10 I'm emotionally ruined after that and I regret nothing
I find it funny how the entire Hollow Knight fandom basically agrees that the Void siblings would absolutely be better family to Hornet than the Pale King. We don't even have any canon information on if Hornet and Hollow ever interacted, and Hornet was willing to kill her own biological void siblings on several occasions for what she thought was the best outcome for Hallownest.
Yet the Pale King was such a dog-shit father to all his children - excluding (maybe including) Hollow - that ran and left everyone behind once things got serious that fans just want Hornet to have any kind of living family member that will actually look out for her and have no particular reason to believe her void siblings would do a bad job of it.
truly no matter how people go about it i adore the interpretation that eventually, these three just deserve a massive nap and for that nap to hopefully be in a pile of blankets together
i have THOUGHTS apologies
I didn't quite subscribe to Hornet and Hollow meeting pre-sealing until i hopped my ass up white palace and saw that nursery.
Personally, i adore the idea of it being Hornet's - as heart wrenching as the idea is of Hollow being a vehicle for the White Lady's grief (before they could have "an idea instilled") - realistically her reactions to Ghost leave me wondering just how detached she was from the getgo -> Hornet becoming the being she attaches to in order to fill that desire to parent until even that isn't enough and she flees to the gardens
(Also i really love fics that include her and Herrah having a gab or two about the king being dense. What can i say i love women uplifting each other-)
so, Hornet and Hollow existing in the same space while she is tiny and impressionable and decides the fuckoff tall bug that is the /only other bug that looks like her/ is her new playmate and best friend, became my go to thought to gnaw on
as a young adult i imagine she berates herself often for ever thinking Hollow could have actually felt anything back (even if deep in her soul she never actually stops believing it) because it's the only way she can reconcile with the idea that the vessels who escaped are not supposed to exist (by pale king and white lady's decree, u feel? hornet had to have picked up on some of the weight her father pressed on her about making hallownest eternal)
So when,,, in the big happy post ending that exists in our hearts,,,both vessels miraculously survive, not only does she have family again for the first time since Herrah slept and the Pale King ripped the palace out of the ground, but a chance to make amends in her own way by at least giving /these/ siblings the love she wanted desperately returned as a child
.
And yes in all this i imagine, whether on purpose or not, the Pale King was at the very least distant. Dude was inundated enough by prophetic visions and a fight with a goddess to think tossing eggs into the actual abyssal sea was . Appropriate. There's a part of me that thinks it would be even more sad to have him want to be a good dad and unable to from circumstances, but also, guilt, for not having done that for the millions of dead kids . Buttttt I also don't mind him suffering the consequences of that in the form of his daughter hating him LMAO SOOOO
hmmm. ok. i know nobody really cares about an obscure movie that came out almost 30 years ago but i finally watched the 1997 Herbie movie after watching literally all the other movies first and i have a big complaint i need to get out. long post under the cut, if you'll indulge my rambling.
alright, so i know the 1997 herbie movie is already not the most liked for a good handful of reasons, one of the biggest being the absurd backstory they tried to give herbie. and it really is absurd. german nazi scientists who wanted a living car?? what a bizarre decision. especially since it makes it seem like herbie is the only living car. he's not. even if you disregard the army of beetles herbie gathers at the end of herbie rides again, there's giselle in herbie goes to monte carlo, and other objects like old no. 22 the trolley and the orchestrion that live with mrs. steinmetz are both also alive. so like. ????
but the biggest thing that bugs me about the 1997 movie is the way herbie himself is characterized. i didn't notice until my second viewing, but herbie has ZERO bite in the movie at all. don't get me wrong, herbie is always very sweet and protective and loves his people, but he's also prideful and vain and angry. herbie has always had a temper. speak ill of him, insult him, threaten his family, and feel his wrath.
if you're sitting in him and say something mean about him, he'll drive around in a crazy way until you apologize! if you lie to him and hurt him, he'll lock you out and refuse to budge until you apologize! if you threaten him or his family he'll literally try to run you down, or he'll trash your stuff! he has a temper. he's sweet and kind and caring yes but he's ALSO prideful and vain and angry. these traits can coexist. people can be nice and kind and also have a temper.
so it really bugs me that herbie spends the entire 1997 movie acting like a kicked puppy. he has zero bite, at all. he underperforms when simon is mean to him at the beginning, sure, but he's not even like. mad about it. he's just sad. even later in the movie, after hank picks him up, when hank is mean to him too, he's still just sad. when hank comes back and finds herbie gone, herbie didn't even leave cause he was angry or upset, he just left because he was looking for hank! the only time he shows any bite at all is when he pops his trunk open to hit simon in the face. what the heck, dude?
the movie leans way too hard into making herbie a good soft sweet little guy who is "pure" and "everything we'd like ourselves to be" and i understand the sentiment but thats!! not!! my!! boy!!!!!! it feels especially disingenuous coming from jim of all people. jim do you not remember having to physically hold herbie back from running thorndyke over??? do you also not remember herbie smashing your brand new lamborghini that you bought to replace him???
idk. it just really bugs me that the 1997 movie removed basically all of herbie's negative traits, and then made an "evil" herbie in horace who's prideful and violent and angry and then framed the ending as love vs hate, good vs evil. ya know what i mean?
decided to make sure all the bullshit "personalization" was off on my laptop and holy fuck. theres so much creepy ass stuff.
"can my ai scrape through your emails??? pretty please???" get out. shoo. im getting the broom.
"it would be such a biiiggg help if you let us use your data to improve our services" shut up billion dollar company.
"would you like your ads personalized?" no the fuck i would not. i dont want my ads trying to figure out how to manipulate me. if im having mental health problems, my computer shouldnt be recommending me predatory online therapy services.
"would you like to use our presence sensor to automatically turn on sleep mode and save battery?" frankly, it probably uses more battery to constantly use my camera and microphone to track me.
"can we look through your files :))) to personalize :)))" no. stay out.
"we would like to study your voice and handwriting :)))" why are you obsessed with me. you dont need this much data. i didnt agree to be your guinea pig so that your ai could learn to mimic people.
A yuu that was an elder back in their world. Like, they were 86 or something and have already gone through their life's course. Maybe they fought in a war, fell in love, had kids, opened a business. Maybe they saved lives, maybe they took them. You get it, this person has been through their life's chess game.
Now, imagine that when they get transported to twst, theyre back at age 16-18? Their bones no longer ache, their vision is anew, and their voice is youthful again.
one of the things that i love about calculester from monster prom is how much research has been done to make him more realistic. i don't think i've ever found a piece of media that really dwell deeper into the question "how does an A.I experience life, if it could even experience at all?" rather than merely stating "yeah this A.I is sentient and can experience life"
Me: haha yeah this is my family's hand me down 2014 prius. Its a piece of junk but you gotta drive something, y'know?
family member: *mentions weird noise or how bad the car is*
Me suddenly: EXCUSE YOU this is the FINEST AUTOMOBILE KNOWN TO MANKIND. This baby has driven 200k miles and still rides faithfully! You DARE insult my glorious 2014 Prius? Yeah the backup cam is terrible, because I don't NEED to rely on a backup cam #stoprelyingontechnology and the bumpy break noise is just its character! How would you like to decelerate from 50mph down a hill, huh? You think you're better than it?
