“are You Gay?” — Boring, Overused, Very Awkward

hermes in hadestown is the exact opposite of an unreliable narrator. a tortured narrator. a little *too* reliable. incredibly aware of exactly what is happening at any given moment, vaguely spoiling it for you in the beginning, despairing every second of it. but ultimately motivated to continue to tell the story over and over and over with a smiling face for the sake of the audience, and for the sake of the characters themselves, singing it again to keep them alive. knowing how it will end, but singing it again so that the cycle may restart and eurydice may come back to life. enduring the misery of it all, over and over, holding the knowledge of what will come to pass but continuing anyway to see orpheus happy just one more time before it all goes down in flames again.

2nd watch, a few new details:

On the first watch, I was like "of course Owen couldn't go with Maddy the first time, her mom had cancer :(". But this time I caught that Maddy went missing "a few weeks" after Owen's mom died. Owen had nothing left to stay for. Maddy probably waited around for those extra weeks, just in case Owen had a change of heart. And yet,

The first time we see the dress flashback, it's through what seems like a relatively objective perspective. The second time we see it (as they walk to the grave), the memory has taken on the vhs-fuzz and aspect ratio of the pink opaque tapes. The real becomes unreal, an impossible fantasy, "kid stuff"

Happened to see a captioned screening this time, and the Tara from the streaming version is described as "Fake Tara."

The tv guide page Owen finds by the electrical field is for "season 6, episode 1: Escape from the Midnight Realm"

Mr. Melancholy and Maddy's ex friend who accused them of dykery ("like a secret agent sent to ruin my life") were the same actor

All the school hallway motivational posters are thematically relevant, but this time I caught the "the only easy day is yesterday" and "courage: without it, no other virtues matter" ones

You can see the emotional shifts between Owen and Narrator Owen in real time (ie, Owen looking distraught as the firefighters surround Maddy's tv, then dropping the expression and looking coolly into the camera as she starts to narrate again)

There's an interesting recurring thing where audio from the near "future" plays over footage from the "past." ie, we hear Maddy's planetarium monologue, while we watch Owen still walking to the school to meet them. Something about time not working right, something about Owen playing back memories that already happened, something about inevitability and walking down a path with a fixed ending

Void High School, or VHS

#yellowjackets

doomed by the narrative but not to death. doomed to survive. doomed to stay alive inside the story. doomed to never escape the narrative, not even through death. you are allowed no exit. there is no way out for you and there never was. you couldn’t die if you wanted to. the narrative has a hold on you and it won’t let go. death is too sweet a doom for you. the story has something much worse in mind. there is no way out.

What about you? Do you like girls? Boys? I... I think that I like TV shows.

I SAW THE TV GLOW (2024) dir. Jane Schoenbrun

watching the scene where maddy draws the symbol on the back of owen’s neck was like. oh. Oh. this is Such an intimate experience and even though, physically, we are watching a boy and a girl exist on screen, it is SO MUCH a representation of a young queer person’s first experiences of intimacy with the same gender that it almost physically hurts. i felt like i was intruding. how much she touches him, pushes his head forward, the slow drawing of the pen, fingers drawing softly over her shoulders afterward. it was so tender.

hopelessly devoted to you

― Ovid, Metamorphoses

shauna will never not be the butcher. she married young, she's a housewife, she's shauna sadeki now, but she's always going to be shauna shipman. she cooks every night, she portions the food up. prepares it. does she filet her steak the same? probably. the first time she added salt it made her sick, the first time she had meat in general it made her sick. she thought of jackie, she thought of shauna shipman. she wept for a life lost, and a person forever intertwined into her soul. she bought a professional butcher knife, but it wasn't the same. it's center of gravity was different, blade not as jagged from sharpening it with stones. she learnt how to use a wet stone, how to stop being so surgical with her cuts, but she'll always remember. it's like riding a really fucked up bike. maybe she doesn't even want to forget. it doesn't matter either way.

YELLOWJACKETS 3.06 — Thanksgiving (Canada)

people criticising the world-building in bottoms as if that wasn't the entire Point. it's supposed to be stupid and silly. the classes are 10 minutes long, their textbooks were all burnt conveniently, no-one has parents except hazel, nobody gives a fuck if jeff's car burnt down or if they killed a bunch of guys, etc etc. it's supposed to be silly in the way shitty romcoms usually are! and it fucks so