do you think pigeons have feelings

Just finished book one of the raven cycle, and oh! “Why?” Gansey asked. “Was I so awful?”. Stab. “I’m sorry your father didn’t teach you what repugnant means. He was to busy smashing your head into a van while you apologized for being alive.” Stab. Stab. “Can you believe I’m only alive because Noah died? What a fine sacrifice that was, what a fine contribution to the world I am.” Stab. Stab. Stab. ‘Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year. They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them.’ Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab.

Okay. For my money, the entire thesis of Chris Nolan’s 2026 film The Odyssey is that society chokes and sputters and dies when we abuse, ignore, or violate social norms like the laws of hospitality. That is not really what The Odyssey (the book/poem) is about, but I can clearly see why in the horror that is the 2020s, someone could read The Odyssey and go oh my god that’s a lot of bad dropping in. That’s a lot of bad visits. That’s a clear vision of how the loss of social norms and cohesion fucks you up and how war, literal, brutal war, is a terrible wound that destroys your humanity and your understanding of what civilization and society is. I don’t know that the iteration of Greek society that ultimately birthed the poem would agree with Nolan’s take, but I think this movie is quite ideologically coherent, that Nolan knew exactly what he was trying to say with each and every adaptational change, and I think he wasn’t nuts for using one of the most famous classical western civilization works as a way to make that argument.

THIS.

Instead of the new dogshit Odyssey film you should watch Iphigenia (1977). It’s made by actual Greek people and focuses on a mother-daughter relationship to explore how women are sacrificed by powerful men in times of war. Also the main actress has the face of an angel 🙏 the whole movie is available on YT with English subtitles.

Loved the reveal of vmax in this movie. It was so simple yet so impactful. How I love you Jean Gray

spiderman bnd ending with the power of friendship trumping romantic relationships hell yeah

ned creating the spider-man tracking board even though so many people theorised that it was mj.

ned remembering the handshake with peter, causing something to click for him about who peter was.

point is that ned and peter are the best friends to ever best friend, and that platonic loves come in for the win in bnd!!!!!!!!

homie bond so colossal it breaks the laws of sorcery

there’s just something so lovely about how a passionate kiss wasn’t enough to jog mj’s memories, but peter and ned’s secret handshake was more than enough for ned to start remembering, everybody say thank you to destin daniel cretton for showing that platonic love matters just as much and can also break any spell

I love that Jimmy Olsen is exactly the type of photographer Peter Parker pretends to be. Just bat-shit insane.

Whenever someone asks Peter how he took a picture he's like "Oh! I uh-, climmed a flagpole. Totally"

And very mortal, normal-human Jimmy is like "See, Clark, is not that weird"

I mean, look at this nutjob.

The world could be ending, lava on the streets and Jimmy would be out there photographing away. No powers, no sense of self preservation. Just khakis, a camera and a dream.

I like to imagine Peter meeting Jimmy and immediately being mortified about it.

Jimmy: –and so luckily I was able to take the picture before the building collapsed on me... Superman was super pissed at me but, photographer to photographer, it was totally worth it.

Peter: Right, no– See, this is actually my first time hearing how fucking insane that sounds. No wonder people at work look at me weird.

And yes found family Jean Grey and Peter Parker is never going to leave my mind they are siblings now.

What do you mean he let her into his mind so the memory of his aunt could comfort her when he couldn’t and than took a bullet for a girl he knew was hurting as much as he was?

What do you mean she stayed by his side using her powers to keep him alive in the room where her sister was killed despite the danger because she couldn’t bare to lose him too?

Siblings.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻ 2016 // 2026 ⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

In brand new day in the hospital scene jean literally keeping peter alive by making sure he's heart is beating, blood is flowing, he's breathing, is such a cool thing cuz it really showcases how she's grown as a mutant cuz she's absolutely got long range telekinesis and it's so precise that she can keep a entire body forcibly alive, and presumably did so while escaping the facility, and also this is just pure fucking jean grey no phoenix force, no amped up shit this is just jean grey being able to remotely pilot a entire human body without even forcing control over the mind, and just using his body with her new found telekinesis because his mind would have shut down already at the time, godsakes she's so cool

the theme of spiderman: brand new day being about non romantic love!! the ongoing throughline being that peter needs to not be so alone, that he needs friends. the way jean's story was about her sister. the way frank cried for peter, was soft with him like that, apologised like that because he cared about peter. the way mj's boyfriend doesn't matter at all because what matters is that she's ned's friend. the way the first person who remembered peter was his best friend, his oldest friend because of their special handshake. the way peter being bruce's friend was enough to snap him back from being hulk. the way peter being jean's friend so that she's not so alone is the entire reason we have an ending as happy as we do.

the way these non-romantic relationships are so important to the story.

if you zoom in on ned then spider-man brand new day is literally like what if you felt your heart reaching out for another person so fondly and fiercely that you build an app that connects millions of people just so you can know where he's been and you want to find out who he is behind his many masks just so you can say thank you (and be safe and i love you) and you have a secret handshake in the well of your memory and a lego figurine on your desk and there's another aspect of those memories that your mind can't really hold onto but you keep trying to build a life around those empty spaces and then one day you're eating a sandwich and a man tells you his name and oh.... how could you ever have forgotten your best friend?

"spiderman brand new day has a good plot"

looks inside plot

''there is no righteousness in suffering alone and isolating yourself from everything is never the answer because you'll eventually start to lose sense of who you are as you spiral further into depression and suicidal ideation this is why you need to let people help you and allow yourself to believe in a better future even if it feels impossible at times''

well shit. it does have a good plot

edit: yes i know this is the theme not the plot. i wrote plot, you still get the point. deal with it

“Blue was a fanciful, but sensible thing. Like a platypus, or one of those sandwiches that had been cut into circles for a fancy tea party.”

Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.