#amateur film maker

[mpilgrimx]

I made a short film about an egg 😄

[katsfilms]

'Crime of Passion"--A short film made from clips taken from vintage educational videos.

[tangirlisfangirl]

ALEXANDRA SHIPP

as WRITER BARBIE — [ Bonus Gifs ]

Barbie (2023) dir. Greta Gerwig, cd. Jacqueline Durran

[thepeoplesmovies]

Watch UK Trailer For a Bunch Of Amateurs Documentary

Watch UK Trailer For a Bunch Of Amateurs Documentary #KimHopkins @republicfilms #bradfordmoviemakers #abunchofamateurs

One of Britain’s oldest film clubs takes centre stage in profoundly moving documentary A Bunch Of Amateurs. Republic Film Distribution have sent us the UK Trailer, a moving tribute of flickering memories. Kim Hopkins directs and produces this one. Her film won the Audience Award at this years’ Sheffield Doc Fest. All about Britain’s oldest amateur film clubs, Bradford Movie Makers. A working…

[mpilgrimx]

What even is ART, you know?

I made a new short film.

[bioticlaw]

Symbiosis

( yandere geto suguru x female reader )

It couldn’t be. He was a professional, someone like him wouldn’t make such an amateur mistake. He said it himself: he wanted to help you. Dr. Geto becomes your lifeline.

content: yandere Geto, drug misuse & non-consensual drugging, dependency, past familial trauma, mental health issues, introspection, mentioned past overdose, medical malpractice. contains sensitive content. not a love story. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT — 5.5k words

notes: please keep it mind that my intention is not to romanticise or glorify these experiences, it is a personal narrative, so it's based on my experiences and feelings at the time. otherwise, I hope you enjoy the story and please, be kind. <3

divider by cafekitsune | cross-posted on ao3

You coasted through your life.

You moved on autopilot, you never questioned or thought about anything, and you had a routine you followed without deviation. You’d been in a state like this for as long as you could remember. You used to wonder how it all began. You used to feel hurt as you were thrown into a deep spiral when you realised that the joyous child you were was now a puppet on its cruel maker’s strings.

You wished you could have saved her.

You knew it was illogical to think that way. You can’t change a story that has already been inked and carved into permanence. Still, it didn’t stop your mind from wandering. Sometimes you’d think of what would’ve been if you could go back in time and save her from her father. If you could have escaped from your captor who saw you as collateral and not his child. Your grandmother used to believe that men were meant to lead and protect their families, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. Was it protecting you when he’d forbidden you from reaching out to the outside world?

Was it protecting you when he’d lock you in his room, away from anything you could use to call for help?

You liked to insist that you didn’t care anymore. Maybe you were a liar. You’d been dishonest far too often in your life, after all. Maybe, in a fucked up spin on the story of Narcissus and his reflection, you fell for your own tricks. You liked to believe you didn’t care, but sometimes, you’d find yourself feeling like that child again—alone and afraid as he gave more love to his stepchildren than you.

You might not have known anything at six years old. He was still your father. But as much as you loved him, you needed to break out of the chains he placed on your life. When he fell asleep from all the drinking he did, you took your chance. Called the number you weren’t allowed to call, decided on where to meet her the next day. Pretended like everything was normal when he woke up. Your mother took you back to your real home from school, and just like that, you were finally free. He cared too much about his public image to start a fight in public. It was the luckiest you had ever been.

You ended up forgetting about it all. You were happy. You were home. You might have spent more time with another relative because your mother was always busy, but you were loved. You felt loved. At least, that was how you remembered it. You weren’t quite sure if your memory was truly failing or if passivity had just been present for all your life. Your memories were in vignettes, burnt and broken, a film reel that was cut and couldn’t be put together. You’d given up on trying to remember. You were fine with leaving yourself in the dark and you were fine with being oblivious. You wouldn’t know if your memories were real, but it didn’t matter anymore.

High school was a blur. You fell asleep, skipped class, and still managed to stay one of your class’ best students despite it all. It was all you could do, anyway. It was just another obstacle you had to get over. As soon as you left the graduation ceremony, you left everyone behind with your memories. The teachers, the staff, your ‘friends.’ You didn’t know them that well. You hadn’t been all too honest with them, just like you weren’t honest with your doctor. The pills he gave you helped—you knew they did. For once, you felt like you were back on earth. You needed the feeling to stay with you. You needed to feel alive, to be alive again.

You liked the moment of bliss you’d get when you came to, so much so that you’d taken it all to die with a smile, but death never came.

Instead, the white light you saw was from the fluorescence of the ceiling, and the angelic choir you wanted to hear was instead the slow beeps of your heart rate on the monitor. What the doctors were talking about over your half-unconscious form didn’t feel like words but nonsense. You couldn’t remember what the nurse said to you, either. All you knew was that in your trance, the state where you teetered on the line between life and death, you saw shadows in that hospital. You saw the ghost of your grandmother in the corner, watching as charcoal flowed down your throat and into your stomach. You felt your father’s indifferent gaze, the same one he had when you drifted too far from shore at the beach.

You heard your mother crying, felt her guilt as she went through the whirlwind you had inadvertently put her in. It was perhaps your biggest regret of all; not the taking of your happy pills, but letting her shed tears over you. Your grandmother used to tell you this was the greatest sin you could ever commit. That scared you enough to force yourself to be better. To be as normal as you could be, as normal as your mother would want you to be. You didn’t want her to cry anymore.

But strength was never your best suit.

Your regret turned into something worse—anger that you let them take your salvation away from you. You weren’t always an angry person. It was hard to get on your nerves that much, you thought. You’d like to think you were carefree (or careless?) and resilient, but the craving in your system and the need to feel something again was all you could think of. You wanted your control back.

You had to get it back. Now that you were on your own, thousands of miles away from home, you had more autonomy to do as you liked. There were no vigilant eyes on you, no more obstacles to overcome, and no more people you had to lie to.

Tempted as you were to resort to such tactics again, you did initially come to the medical centre for a harmless reason. You were running low, and going through another withdrawal episode wasn’t something you were particularly thrilled about. You only wanted—needed—to keep yourself functioning; this was just part of the conditions that came with it. You hated dealing with these things for too long, so begrudgingly, you booked an appointment just to get it over with. Then you could go back to whatever your life was this time.

That feeling of emptiness would continue to persist, fading from one day to another, but you would live. It wasn’t anything worth celebrating. It was just a duty you gave yourself. Even if you didn’t want to, you had to.

Your leg bounced up and down as you sat in the waiting room, idly watching the second hand of the clock tick little by little. It was quiet and surprisingly not too crowded like you assumed when you looked at the appointment times. Other students you didn’t recognise scrolled through their phones, waiting for their names to be called just like you were. You sighed into your face mask. You were bored out of your mind and nothing on your phone could fix that. You’d still zone out anyway.

You glanced down at the paper in your hand. The letters seemed to burn themselves into your eyes the more you read them. You didn’t have to print the appointment details, but you valued your routine and habits no matter how mundane they were. You liked doing things in order. It kept you sane, you thought.

You didn’t quite recognise the name Dr. Suguru Geto. You were to meet them in—you took a glance back at the clock—2 minutes but you were dreading it more than anything. It would be your first time meeting them and if things went well, they’d be someone you see regularly. Apprehension and annoyance simmered at the pit of your stomach. Sudden changes were something you hated, even more so the fact that you had to tell a stranger your history all over again. Suffocated couldn’t possibly be the only word to describe how you felt about it. It was their job to know and help you, you knew that, but you still hated having to muster up the words to talk about how you were mentally and physically.

You didn’t like how vulnerable and paranoid you felt every time you sat in a doctor’s office. Anyone could use your weaknesses against you at any moment. Walking on eggshells around everyone had become second nature to you, irritatingly. It wasn’t as if you wanted to; it was more of a reflex, an instinct. You learnt to hide behind a character you built for yourself and grew used to it. To break that down and expose yourself again wasn’t the easiest thing to do.

Your name was called. “Dr. Geto is ready to see you now. Please follow me.”

The nurse’s heels clicked against the polished floors and the low buzz of the air conditioning was all that accompanied you as you followed her down the hall. Even the air was dreary, and the anxiousness you were feeling only seemed to grow as you got closer to the doctor’s office. It was colder at the end of the hallway where you stood. The nurse gently opened the sliding door, catching the doctor’s attention with a soft lilt of their name.

“Thank you,” you muttered and shuffled past her, tentatively making your way to the chair that was across Dr. Geto’s desk. As the door slid shut, the doctor greeted you, his voice far too jovial for a situation that could be the worst thing to deal with.

“Good morning,” he said. “How can I help you today?”

You shifted in your seat, feeling oddly more uncomfortable under his gaze. “I need a new written prescription. The one I brought from home doesn’t work here.”

“Ah, you’re a foreign student?” He scanned over the paper you handed him, a low hum vibrating in the back of his throat. His lips tugged into a frown. “I don’t think we have this variation in our pharmacy. I’d have to prescribe you a different one entirely.”

“W-What do you mean?” The words came out of you before you could think. “It’s pretty common, isn’t it? I could just buy it from pharmacies at home. What do you mean you don’t have that here?”

Geto raised his eyebrows. It was only then did it occur that you’d spoken too much and might’ve just attracted some suspicion as to why you were here. You pretended not to see how his expression changed, staring down at the floor instead.

“I’m sorry for raising my voice,” you said quietly. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine. I understand your worries,” he replied, eyes crinkling as he smiled once again. “How do you feel about starting a different one?”

“But…” You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him. You didn’t like how it felt being watched by him. It was like you were getting reprimanded for something, even if there was nothing in his visage that implied that at all.

“It won’t be that different. I can prescribe you something with a similar composition,” Dr. Geto explained. The way he spoke was soft and calm. It didn’t take too long for that to affect you, making the tension in your shoulders lift away and your fists unclench. “I assume you know enough about drugs, don’t you?”

You weren’t here for that reason. You just really needed a refill, you weren’t falling back, you weren’t—

“Yeah. Just enough,” you replied hesitantly. “I’ve been seeing psychiatrists and doctors for years, so I just picked it up from them. And I read a lot, so…”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. The answer seemed to placate the doctor enough for him to lean back and scribble something down on a piece of paper. The sound of the pen scratching against the surface felt more grating than usual. You thought it was all done, that he’d give you that damn paper and you could leave. But then he crossed his arms over his chest and stared you down, and you realised that wasn’t the case at all. Why was he holding this back from you? Why wasn’t he helping you? All he had to do was click a few buttons, hit print and send you on your way. Why wasn’t he doing any of it?

“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything.”

“I have been telling you everything,” you argued, exasperated and flustered. You didn’t understand why he was being so pointed at you. You didn’t remember exactly what you just said to him either. It had always been that way. “Doctor, I just don’t want to go through withdrawals again. That’s it.”

He didn’t seem convinced. What made him change his mind so quickly?

“I want to help you,” he said, your name rolling off his tongue smoothly. “I can’t do that if you don’t help me, too.”

You didn’t like the way he was speaking to you. It reminded you of being back at that wooden house, hiding behind the door as you anticipated when your father’s patience would burst. You shook your head, trying to clear the thought away.

“I… would like it if we could wrap this up soon. I have another appointment in half an hour,” you lied, hoping it would strike some urgency in him and that he would just hurry up. “I’m already running late. I need to be on my way.”

Dr. Geto raised an eyebrow. “You’re avoiding my request.”

“I-I’m not!” you stammered. “Please, doctor, I only have two days left on that bottle. I’ll take whatever it was called that you talked about. I’ve always responded well to medication, it won’t be a danger to me.”

He didn’t respond, only continued to watch you as he absentmindedly drummed his fingers on the desk. The sound was overloading your senses—you felt cornered, you could hear the blood rush in your ears, you could hear ringing, and the taps of his fingers were making it worse.

Hunching over, dejected, you relented. “I was never really told what was wrong with me. They just gave me antidepressants and I never saw the psychiatrist again.”

“You said you met several, no?”

Did you?

“I won’t make assumptions about you,” he said, “but I’m not sure I can trust you with a month’s worth of pills. I’ll only give you a week’s worth of them, then we’ll have a follow-up next Saturday to see how you feel. ”

“I don’t know… Changing medications is scary.”

You cringed at how the confession came out of you so easily. Sometimes it felt like your mind and your body weren’t in tune with each other. There was a gap between the two and you could never manage to get it to close.

Suddenly, the stern demeanour melted away and the friendly doctor was back. His brows were no longer furrowed. His face relaxed as he leaned back against the chair and smiled at you.

“It’s only a bit stronger than what you used to take. There shouldn’t be a drastic change.” The printer whirred to life as it ejected a small piece of paper with words you didn’t really recognise on it. Medical jargon was one of the things you could never memorise well. “Alright. Come, I’ll lead you to the pharmacy.”

You blinked. “You don’t have other appointments?”

“We’re understaffed. It’s only me and two other colleagues working here.”

It didn’t answer your question, but the hope blooming in your chest took your mind off of it. You could finally leave this creepy clinic—well, you were exaggerating, you thought. The clinic was actually well-maintained and populated, but there was just something that felt a little off about this place. You decided you’d blame it on your nerves.

“Please wait here.”

You watched him move between the shelves with an air of familiarity and grace as he murmured something you couldn’t hear. He came back with a small pouch that was labelled with your name and the general details (you knew the gist, you’d done this for years) and placed it on the counter between him and you.

“Like I said, this is a bit stronger than what you used to take, so I want you to start by taking half a pill every morning first.” The pills didn’t look anything out of the ordinary. It was a small, standard white tablet with a line etched in the middle for easier splitting. You gingerly tucked it into your bag, instead rummaging through the mess to look for your wallet. Before you could take out a bill or two, he stopped you. “The university has that covered, remember?”

You blinked. “Oh, right. Yes. Thank you.”

“Come see me if you have a bad reaction to it.” He gave you another friendly smile. It was starting to grow on you. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as you thought he would be. You had a knack for being a bit paranoid, after all. It was just one of those days. You felt a bit bad for judging him so harshly before you even properly spoke to him. “That’s all. I’ll see you next week, same time.”

There was a sense of discomfort nagging you in the back of your mind, but you shook it off. You were prone to overthinking things; this was just one of them. Relieved, you thanked him again and left the clinic. The weather was nice today and you didn’t have overdue assignments. You could recharge for as long as you wanted to.

While you knew not to underestimate these little things, you also weren’t sure how effective taking only half of the pill would be. It wasn’t the first time being on a dosage that would gradually increase, but you were still guilty of constantly worrying if something would work out. You didn’t think you had anything left to turn to if it didn’t.

You’d just have to take Dr. Geto’s word for it.

—

You were never one to pay much attention to how you were doing.

It wasn’t that you didn’t care. Something like that was simply not on the forefront of your mind. You were more than accustomed to being in a perpetual state of lethargy. You didn’t think you ever had a time in your life when you weren’t tired. Despite that, you felt the changes in your behaviour and demeanour. It was hard not to.

In the first half of the week, you felt sluggish and ill, as if your immune system decided to go haywire with the hormones in your brain, but you quickly recovered. It was nothing a little caffeine couldn’t fix (or worsen, but you didn’t want to think about it). He wasn’t lying when he said the medicine was stronger. The side effects weren’t as bad as you assumed they’d be, which you were glad about. Your appetite died down a little, but that was fine. You didn’t eat regularly anyway. As the days passed, you felt less anxious. It was somewhat easier to concentrate and follow along with your professors, even if you remained easily distracted.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

You were never one to pay much attention to how you were doing, but you weren’t one to shy away from your impulses, either. A thought popped into your mind. If you could take only half of the pill well, surely it would be fine to take another for a minor boost? You had a presentation later in the afternoon. Embarrassing yourself in front of the whole class was not an option. Your mother was working overtime to keep you in this position. You couldn’t fail her.

But as you picked up the blister pack, you found that it was empty.

“What?” you breathed. He prescribed you enough for seven days. Where was the last one? Had you accidentally double-dosed without knowing it? You wouldn’t put it past yourself to do something like that. The presentation slipped out of your mind entirely as you seemed to move purely on instinct, tugging the drawers open to also find nothing. When you crouched, you couldn’t find anything under the bed. There wasn’t anything in your luggage. Not even the closet where you’d habitually keep your pills hidden.

Your breathing was getting faster. You could hear the blood rushing in your ears, overwhelming you in white noise as you paced back and forth, shaky sobs leaving your lips as you clutched your hair in a firm grip. Just where was it?

Did Dr. Geto forget to give you enough?

No. It couldn’t be. He was a professional, someone like him wouldn’t make such an amateur mistake. He said it himself: he wanted to help you. It made no sense why he would screw you over like this. This was on you, you thought. You were responsible for keeping them and taking them per instruction. A doctor wouldn’t make a mistake like this. Dr. Geto wouldn’t make a mistake like this.

Your nails dug into your palms as a broken wail escaped you. You needed it. You had an important class later, it was almost exam season—you needed to do well. Your eyes scanned the room once again. Your old ones had already run out; the new pills were your only option, but both of them were gone.

You cursed and harshly wiped away your tears with your sleeve. You were going to be late. You’d just have to run to the clinic as soon as your next class ended. That’s right, you echoed in your head, nodding frantically. That was all you had to do. You could do this, you could. This has happened before. You just needed to try to keep yourself together.

“I can do this,” you repeated to yourself. “I can. I can.”

Tugging your hood over your head, you grabbed your bag and hurried your way to class, trying to ignore the dull ache at your temples. You could take a painkiller later. For now, there was no time—you had to go.

Your breathing was going back to normal by the time you stepped inside the room with a couple of minutes left to spare. Though you weren’t the only one late, humiliation still washed over you. It felt like an omen. You somehow lost or accidentally double-dosed on your pills, you arrived past your self-designated time, and all eyes were on you. Things were all going downhill from here, you just knew it.

You meekly shuffled to the back of the class instead of taking a seat at your usual spot. Maybe the professor would be less likely to call on you that way. The student beside you smiled in greeting and moved his bag for you. You didn’t know his name, but he was nothing but friendly to you the whole semester. It was embarrassing, being in front of someone who recognised you while in such a pitiful state, but there was nothing you could do.

“Hey, you okay?” he asked. His brows furrowed, brown eyes looking at you in concern. “You wanna go to the infirmary? I mean, Fushiguro’s great at taking notes, we can just copy from him.”

You shook your head. “I’m fine. Just overslept.”

Thankfully, he seemed to buy it.

“Oh man, I totally get you. I actually ran here a bit before you did.” He patted your back, the action more awkward than it was comforting. Before he went back to chatting with his friends, he smiled at you. “Glad you’re okay.”

You returned the gesture. Though it didn’t quite reach your ears, he didn’t seem to notice or mind it that much. Luckily enough, the conversation ended there. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. The last thing you needed was for anyone to see you in a state like this. It was better to stop it as soon as it happened.

“Today we’ll talk about transference…”

The voice of your professor eventually became muffled as the ringing in your ears grew louder. The headache was getting harder to ignore and you felt cold, your hands trembling under the desk as your mouth felt like it had just dried up. The world seemed like it was spinning and fading into a blur, and you swore you could hear the boy next to you call out in concern, but you felt heavy like you were falling—

You collapsed to the ground with a loud thud, raising gasps all around you as the boy next to you froze for a moment. You traversed between the light and the dark, barely registering the voices speaking over your weary body.

“—you’re the strongest out of all of us, Yuji, carry her!”

“Shit, yeah, okay—”

“—her friends? Take her to the doctor.”

Your bottom lip quivered, your hands loosely gripping the front of his shirt as he carried you in his arms, swiftly making his way across the campus. Tears sprung to your eyes as you blubbered, latching on to him to help keep you grounded. Nothing else was registering in your mind, only the cold and tremors that got worse the more you cried.

As your sniffles quietened down, you heard a familiar voice—the doctor—talking about something with someone while you felt yourself sink into a soft surface. Queasiness held you in its grasp, left your stomach churning. It dragged you deeper and deeper, distracting you from the sharp prick in the back of your hand before you fell into nothingness.

—

The fluorescent white light was unkind to your vision as you slowly blinked awake.

You felt… strange. Like you were floating. Like you weren’t in your own body. You felt weary, incredibly so, that just forcing yourself to sit up felt impossible. The world was coming back to clarity the longer you kept your eyes open. You were no longer in the lecture hall but in a doctor’s office. Your seatmate must have carried you here, you thought. You parted your lips to speak, tried to call out for anyone, but your voice wouldn’t come out.

You fell back against the pillow, your eyelids fluttering closed again. It wasn’t until the door slid open did you finally feel more alert, bottom lip quivering the moment Dr. Geto stepped in. How could he still smile at you after what you’d done? After you broke his trust?

He took a seat next to the bed you were on. You whimpered out his name, blindly reaching for him with what energy left you could muster. You wanted to apologise, to try to explain yourself, but instead—

“You didn’t give me enough,” you whispered, the rest of your words dissolving into soft and incoherent whines. You didn’t know what you were supposed to do or how you were supposed to feel. Anger? Regret? Ironically, emotions seemed like the least of your worries when he was right next to you. You stared at him, your eyes glazing over with tears. “‘m sorry.”

You barely felt a warm hand clasped on top of yours as he sighed deeply, taking a glance at the heart monitor by his side.

“It was my mistake,” he said. You shook your head weakly, a quiet no leaving your lips. “I’ve failed you as your doctor.”

“No,” you repeated in what you hoped was a more assertive tone. It felt useless to wish for something like that. Maybe you should just stop thinking overall and let whatever this was play out on its own. You were so tired, but slumber was falling out of your hands and replaced by a burden upon your shoulders, guilt. “No, doctor…”

You wanted to tell him it was your fault. That this was just another lapse of memory, just like the last time and the time before that. There was a sense of fear clouding your mind, a flash of a warning that disappeared as fast as it came. You felt like there was something you should tell him or even ask him, but you couldn’t think of what it was.

“You’ll be alright now,” Dr. Geto reassured you. “How are you feeling?”

You couldn’t answer.

Just why were you nervous? There was nothing wrong here. He took care of you while you were unconscious, made sure you’d survive. You mumbled something under your breath, tears building up at the corners of your eyes the more you tried to speak. Bringing your hands up to your face, you shake your head again, this time allowing yourself to cry freely.

He softly shushed you, gingerly urging you to look at him. You let out a choked sob as he pried your hands off your face, saying your name in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

“You’re okay now,” he said, “Don’t cry.”

You weren’t sure how long he comforted you. All you could do was cry and cry until there was nothing left, until all your sobs became sniffles and exhaustion crawled into your bones, finding a home in your being. A rustle of fabric and you were being lifted in his arms, your head dropping as you drifted in and out of consciousness.

“I’m cold,” you exhaled shakily, nestling closer to him in an instinctive search for warmth and comfort. “I wanna go home.”

You couldn’t hear what he said as you succumbed to fatigue, further and further away until you came to again. You’re not in the clinic this time but in someone else’s room on a softer, warmer bed. The haze you’re trapped in overpowers the warning alarms in your head, replacing them with a sense of longing for the doctor who’s been taking care of you so well. Your wish is granted as the mattress dips with someone’s weight. Dr. Geto sits at the side, gently clasping his hand over your thigh as he says your name, soft as the wind.

“I don’t…” you trail off. What were you going to ask him? Were you just anxious that he was gone? “Something… Something’s wrong.”

“Are you still feeling sick?”

“I don’t know.”

You turn on your side, bringing your legs to your chest as you curl deeper into the blankets. You glance up at him. He’s not wearing his doctor’s coat anymore. Is he going somewhere?

He gently brushes stray hairs off your face before cupping the side of your face, wiping your tears away with his thumb. When did you start crying? You don’t know why you still feel so tired, or why you keep forgetting things the moment you think of them. But maybe you don’t have to know. Maybe you just need to trust him and just fall.

There isn’t any strength left in your system. Briefly, you’re reminded of how this is just like when you were in the emergency room years ago, alone and confused and helpless. Still, you force yourself up and crawl to him before resting your head on his lap. Like he’s in tune with you, his fingers card through your hair, comforting and familiar. You don’t think you’ve felt that in years.

You’re in a daze and you’re starting to enjoy how it felt. You don’t have to think anymore. Don’t have to worry, don’t have to feel afraid. Still, you can’t help but call for him again, as if you were worried he’d disappear if you stopped looking at him.

“Doctor…”

“Suguru.”

“Suguru,” you echo. Something feels wrong. He’s your doctor. This isn’t the hospital or the clinic. You should get up and run, get away as far as you can, but it feels so good to be held by him. Your mother used to do the same thing until you fell asleep and got lost in a dream. Dr. Geto—no, Suguru—is warm. He loves you. He cares for you.

You don’t want it to end.

“I can’t do this without you.”

You stare into space, completely missing his smirk as he coos in reply, voice sweet like honey, “I know. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You promise?”

He urges you to sit up properly before handing you two pills and a glass of water, comfortingly patting the top of your head when you take them from him. Your body moves on its own, far too used to this routine—take the pills, take a sip, swallow. Your limbs feel like jelly as you slump against him, resting your head on his chest. Strong arms wrap themselves around your frame and hold you close to a steady heartbeat.

Soft whines and whimpers leave your lips without you realising it. He’s so warm, a stark difference to how cold his office is, and the longer he holds you, the more you feel like you’re drifting away, sinking deeper, deeper…

“I do.”

And you let yourself fall into the ocean’s depths.

[stari-hun]

Reverse 1999 is an Existential Horror and they’re reminding us of the genre

This is a post about Vereinsamt, book 7, but I won’t be talking about any massive story spoilers here!

Chapter 7 - The Maze of the Minotaur is horrible cause it viscerally shows how different we are as humans from then to now.

I was just talking about how 1999 was when Blair Witch came out, so every character has massed out on the massive horror resurgence that came out after it. In Reverse 1999, 1999 was when they had it all. But to us, if you asked what the best era in the past was you’d get 100 different answers, and very few would be before the 2000s.

Blair Witch was the turn of horror films because it gave the foundation for a new genre that was accessible to amateur film makers: the Found Footage genre. It made way for an entirely new type of story where all people needed was a friend and any kind of camera in order to tell their story. This stemmed into a digital version of this genre: Alternate Reality Games or ARGs. As well as a subgenre of Found Footage called Analog Horror, in today’s age, even phones have better camera quality than most cameras' film quality back then. So the genre learned to turn the quality down on videos in order to get a vintage quality to them because the inability to see would give a fear of the unknown. We both have a fear of the unknown, but the characters in Reverse 1999 have no knowledge or baseline to be afraid of things that aren’t what they appear. Arcanum can be used to change one’s appearance and it’s uncommon knowledge, but to totally change a person's stature and look is a rare ability. A few arcanists have a certain transcendental ability to tell people apart by their aura, bones, or unique arcane signature. But they haven’t experienced this horror renaissance. Horror movies actually have a pretty important role in public perception of things. If a person was walking around with a knife or a bat and we didn't have horror movies or stories of that exact situation, then unless you heard about a dangerous person on the streets, your guard wouldn't be up. Hearing and seeing stories about the possibility of harm and what could happen in a certain situation is a very important role media has in our lives. With the Mandela Catalogue came a fascination with urban myths and similar cryptids. People from Appalachia and indigenous people around the time it came out would share stories of their encounters with creatures who would pretend to be human and lure us to them. Whether or not a person chooses to believe in nonhuman entities is up to them, but it's a fact as well that a lot of animals have adapted to humans and learned how to mimic us. Birds mimic us easily as animals who specialize in it, but cats and dogs do their best to mimic our speech patterns to. Humans are animals as well so we sound like other animals. Bunnies being hunted in the woods make screaming sounds that grab the attention of anything nearby but especially humans, they even sound similar to us in the way babies' cries can make other animals think we're a similar species to them. So whether it has a mystical explanation or one in nature, we know that something that sounds like what isn't on purpose is a sign of danger. We've seen horror movies and heard stories about turning around and seeing what we think is a friend only to be betrayed by a monster tricking us in many popular media. We've seen media portrayals of that person being something pretending to be human and pretending to be your friend, so we know that that means imminent danger. In Doctor Who you have Weeping Angels who use the voices of others to communicate until they're caught, Supernatural used the stories of mimics many times, even in DnD as a tabletop game has it as an enemy that isn't strong but always poses a threat because trusting that you're safe when something is tricking you into thinking that way is one of the scariest things to humans. It's why I think Arcanists, because of the nature of arcanum, struggle the most from memory gaps or mental illness. Arcanum relies on your mind and schema as power. As humans, we naturally feel uncomfortable with the unknown and take comfort in learning and overcoming fears. We like an environment we can feel control in and safety from as well as people we can feel safe with. So along with the unknown, another thing we fear is being innately unsafe around someone we've placed absolute trust in.

The characters in R1999 lack the public zeitgeist we have. 37’s instincts aren't to distrust the people around her in any situation. Even when 210 is purposefully trying to knock down her ego, she doesn't react to it with feeling hurt because she genuinely trusts the people of Apeiron and especially her close group. She doesn't consider they would do anything bad to her, and she doesn't have the knowledge to consider that something could use that trust by pretenidng to be them.

[084392]

bw2 gijinka team of amateur film makers..................

[justforbooks]

The word “great” is somewhat promiscuously applied to actors. But it was undoubtedly deserved by Sir Michael Gambon, who has died aged 82 after suffering from pneumonia.

He had weight, presence, authority, vocal power and a chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself from one role to another. He was a natural for heavyweight classic roles such as Lear and Othello. But what was truly remarkable was Gambon’s interpretative skill in the work of the best contemporary dramatists, including Harold Pinter, Alan Ayckbourn, David Hare, Caryl Churchill and Simon Gray.

Although he was a fine TV and film actor – and forever identified in the popular imagination with Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter franchise – the stage was his natural territory. It is also no accident that, in his private life, Gambon was an expert on, and assiduous collector of, machine tools and firearms for, as Peter Hall once said: “Fate gave him genius but he uses it as a craftsman.”

Off-stage, he was also a larger-than-life figure and a superb raconteur: a kind of green-room Falstaff. I have fond memories of an evening in a Turin restaurant in March 2006 on the eve of Pinter’s acceptance of the European Theatre prize. Gambon kept the table in a constant roar, not least with his oft-told tale of auditioning for Laurence Olivier as a young actor in 1963 and cheekily choosing to do a speech from Richard III; but the next night Gambon gave an explosive rendering of Pinter’s poem American Football that threatened to blow the roof off the Turin theatre.

However, Gambon’s bravura was also mixed with a certain modesty. In the summer of 2008 I met him for tea in London and found him eagerly studying the script of Pinter’s No Man’s Land, in which he was scheduled, several months later, to play Hirst. He told me that he had started work on it so soon because he found it difficult to learn lines at his age.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I sleep with a script under my pillow, or just carry it around in my raincoat pocket, in the hope the lines will rub off on me.” I think he was genuine; but with Gambon, one of life’s great leg-pullers, you were never entirely sure.

Gambon achieved greatness without either the formal training or genetic inheritance that are often considered indispensable.

He was born into a working-class Dublin family that had no artistic background; his mother, Mary (nee Hoare), was a seamstress, and his father, Edward, an engineer. When the family settled in Britain after the second world war, the young Gambon went to St Aloysius school for boys, in Somers Town, central London. On leaving at the age of 15 he signed a five-year apprenticeship with Vickers-Armstrongs, leading to a job as a tool-and-die maker. With his mechanical aptitude, he loved the work. But he also discovered a passion for amateur theatre and, having started by building sets, eventually moved into performing. “I want varoom!” he once said. “I thought, Jesus, this is for me.”

With typical chutzpah, he wrote to the Gate theatre in Dublin, creating a fantasy list of roles that he had played in London, including Marchbanks in Shaw’s Candida; in the end, he made his professional debut there in 1962 as the Second Gentleman in Othello. His best decision, however, on returning to London, was to sign up for an improvisational acting class run by William Gaskill at the Royal Court.

Gaskill was about to join the newly formed National Theatre company at the Old Vic and recommended Gambon for an audition: hence the celebrated story of Gambon’s first encounter with Olivier, which ended with the young actor, in his excess of zeal, banging his hand on a nail in an upstage column and bleeding profusely. Far from being the nail in Gambon’s coffin, this led to a productive four years with the National in which he progressed from walk-ons to substantial roles such as that of Swiss Cheese in Gaskill’s revival of Mother Courage.

On Olivier’s advice, however, Gambon left the National in 1967 to hone and pursue his craft at Birmingham rep – a shrewd move that saw him, at the astonishingly early age of 27, playing his first Othello. He moved on later to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in 1968 made his first foray into television with the leading role in a BBC adventure series called The Borderers.

However, it was through working on another TV series, The Challengers, that he made a contact that was to transform his career. His fellow actor Eric Thompson was moving into directing, and in 1975 was set to do an Ayckbourn trilogy, The Norman Conquests, at the Greenwich theatre. He cast Gambon, against type, as a dithering vet.

He revealed, for the first time, his shape-shifting gifts; and the sight of him, seated at a dinner table on a preposterously low stool with his head barely visible above the table’s edge, remains one of the great comic images of modern theatre.

This led to a highly productive working relationship with Ayckbourn including key roles in Just Between Ourselves (Queen’s theatre, London, 1977) and Sisterly Feelings (National, 1980).

At the same time, Gambon began an association with Gray by taking over, from Alan Bates, the role of the emotionally detached hero in Otherwise Engaged (Queen’s theatre, 1976).

That was directed by Pinter, for whom in 1978 Gambon created the part of Jerry in Betrayal at the National. It was a production beset by problems, including a strike that threatened to kibosh the first night, but Gambon’s mixture of physical power and emotional delicacy marked him out as a natural Pinter actor. That power, however, manifested itself in the 1980s in a series of performances that staked out Gambon’s claim to greatness.

First, in 1980, came Brecht’s Galileo at the National: a superbly triumphant performance that brought out the toughness, obduracy and ravening intellectual curiosity of Brecht’s hero. It was a measure of his breakthrough that, as Gambon returned to his dressing room after the first night, he found the other actors in the National’s internal courtyard were shouting and roaring their approval. Two years later, Gambon returned to the RSC to play both a monumental King Lear and a ravaged Antony opposite Helen Mirren’s Cleopatra.

But arguably the finest of all of Gambon’s 80s performances was his Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, directed by Ayckbourn at the National (1987). It helped that Gambon actually looked like Miller’s longshoreman-hero: big and barrel-chested with muscular forearms, he was plausibly a man who could work the Brooklyn docks.

Gambon also charted Eddie’s complex inner life through precise physical actions. He stabbed a table angrily with a fork on learning that his niece had got a job, let his eyes roam restlessly over a paper as the niece and the immigrant Rodolpho quietly spooned, and buckled visibly at the knees on realising that a fatal phone-call to the authorities had ensnared two other immigrants. In its power and melancholy, this towering performance justified the sobriquet once applied by Ralph Richardson of “the great Gambon”.

When you consider that the decade also saw Gambon playing the psoriasis-ravaged hero of Dennis Potter’s TV series The Singing Detective (1986), you realise his virtuosity and range.

And that became even clearer in 1990 when he played the mild-mannered hero of Ayckbourn’s Man of the Moment (Globe theatre, now Gielgud, London), had another crack at Othello for Ayckbourn in Scarborough and appeared, in 1989, as a romantically fixated espionage agent in Pinter’s TV adaptation of Elizabeth Bowen’s The Heat of the Day: that last performance, alternately sinister and shy, was one of Gambon’s finest for television and deserved a far wider showing.

In later years Gambon successfully balanced his stage career with an amazingly prolific one in film and television. In Hare’s Skylight at the National in 1995 he combined the bulk and weight of a prosperous restaurateur with a feathery lightness – a skipping post-coital dance across the stage with the balletic grace often possessed by heavily built men.

Gambon was equally brilliant as a disgusting, Dickensian, accent-shifting Davies in a revival of Pinter’s The Caretaker (Comedy theatre, 2000), as a perplexed bull of a father in Churchill’s A Number (Royal Court, 2002), as a Lear-like Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame (Albery, 2004) and as a brooding, alcoholic Hirst in Pinter’s No Man’s Land (Duke of York’s, 2008). Even if Gambon’s Falstaff in a 2005 National Theatre production of Henry IV Parts One and Two did not quite match expectations, his work for the theatre revealed an ability to combine volcanic power with psychological depth and physical delicacy.

Ill health and increasing memory problems forced him to retire from stage acting in 2015, but not before he had given memorable performances in two Beckett plays: Krapp’s Last Tape (Duchess, 2010) and All That Fall (Jermyn Street theatre, 2012), where he played, opposite Eileen Atkins, the sightless but stentorian Mr Rooney.

He also continued to work in television and film for as long as possible. He belied the whole notion of the small screen by giving large-scale performances as the black sheep of a big family in Stephen Poliakoff’s Perfect Strangers (2001) and as a reclusive plutocrat in the same writer’s Joe’s Palace (2007).

He was nominated for awards for his performances as Lyndon Johnson in an American TV movie, Path to War (2002), and as Mr Woodhouse in a BBC version of Jane Austen’s Emma (2009). Later TV series included The Casual Vacancy (2015), Fearless (2017) and Little Women (2017).

In film, he had a rich and varied career that ranged from the violent hero of Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), to a heavyweight mafia boss in Mobsters (1991), the aged Lord Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (2008), a cantankerous old director in Dustin Hoffman’s Quartet (2012) and the bearded Hogwarts headteacher (whom he privately referred to as “Dumblebore”) in six of the eight Harry Potter films, taking over the role for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) following the death of Richard Harris.

He also provided the narration for the Coen brothers’ Hail, Caesar! (2016) and voiceovers for the two Paddington films (2014 and 2017).

But Gambon brought to everything he did, in life as well as art, enormous gusto, a sense of mischief and a concern with precision: he was almost as happy restoring old firearms as he was working on a new role.

In 1992 he was appointed CBE, and six years later was knighted.

He married Anne Miller in 1962, and they had a son, Fergus. From a subsequent relationship with Philippa Hart, whom he met on the set of Gosford Park, he had two sons, Michael and William.

He is survived by Anne and his three sons.

🔔 Michael Gambon, actor, born 19 October 1940; died 27 September 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[corrodedcoughin]

Corroded coffin (plus Wayne who actually got them started in this whole thing) as ufo hunters and Robin and Steve as amateur documentary makers as part of a college course (steve as the presenter Robin as the cameraman and let’s face it, co-presenter because she’s not going a minute without interrupting what Steve is saying with a very Important Point). Steve and Robin travelling out to meet the guys after getting a tip from Nancy that this could be a story for them to film for their final assignment. Corroded coffin jumping at the chance and even ask if they can do the soundtrack for the Final Cut.

Steve and Robin don’t take it too seriously, thinking it’ll be a bit of fun and a mini holiday, an easy slice of life film.

Until Wayne takes them all out to a notorious sighting spot and his nephew maybe gets a little to enthusiastic with his call to the ufos, jumping out and putting on a show for his audience. So enthusiastic that Eddie calls back to the full car that he ‘hey Wayne wait, is that star getting closer?’ And then there’s a light so bright that closing your eyes is useless. And then? Eddie is gone.

[butchdykekondraki]

hi what's marble hornets??

marble hornets is a slenderman-based arg(-esque) series based around a group of amateur film-makers being terrorized and turned against eachother by "the operator" (slenderman) (<- this is a very basic description but u get the idea lol)!! it's one of the stepping stones of the slenderverse, and one of the earliest pieces of slenderman related media ^__^ it's on youtube and its super well-made + a general staple of early analog horror (kind of? it's more-so the ground work that most were based on lol), but if you just want a general lore run down i'd reccommend watching night mind's series on it! .:3

[spawksstuff]

Happy Landings - Long Beach

De was part of the Long Beach Cinema Club that made amateur movies. I found his name in Jan 1941 Amateur Movie Makers Magazine:

Home Movies Magazine in February 1941 did an article on the movie and production:

I think this is him?

Compare it to this photo that @citizenkampbell posted:

This was filmed after "Suzanna" (1939, also by the Long Beach Cinema Club) which takes place at a waterfront dock and I'm assuming that one picture where he's in the white shirt and the captain's hat (that I now can't find) is from that, and since the vimeo video was deleted 😢 the search continues.

[elezenappreciator]

In the last week I have seen 3 large companies get caught using AI, one of the largest digital art suppliers Wacom, a very large online game Apex Legends, and the largest patron of fantasy art Wizards of the Coast, as well as the newest clown running SquEnix to talk about AI on the stage celebrating one of the pieces of art I have cherished. Obviously this sucks and is upsetting. The AI art trend feels like the end game of of "content"-ification of media. Through discussions of plagiarism and clickbait and content mills on youtube and other platforms, I think we started loosing ground to corporations when the word "content" started being adopted. People were no longer artists, or amateur film makers, or modern essayists, but became "content creator". All of their deep insights into the human experience viewed through many mediums, with so much complexity and love put into them, no one person could hope see and understand all of these aspects, have been put through the corporate meatgrinder, leaving nothing but a beige, homogenous sludge. Chasing the advertising dollars from platforms like Yotube or Tiktok have done terrible things to creators or even to stab each other in the back, plagiarizing their love and passion of projects in pursuit of these sucesses. Corporations have been forced to work with creatives because they want them to make "content" to put on their tv to watch in between their advertisements, or now to fill their monthly subscription to give the illusion of value, as more and more we feel the crater left behind by video rental stores. Money has stifled these expressions of art through these forms of media, becoming a modern Faustian bargain, giving creatives the power to make art, but corporate committees grinding down all of the edges to leave something hollow and flat after. AI is the beige sludge corporations want us to get used to, but it can never hold a candle to the art I have experienced and cherished. AI will never be able to rip my heart out of my chest, chew up up so terribly, the only way I can put it back together is in a heart shaped gelatin mold. I will continue to refuse to call it "content". I will continue to post what pieces of art I make with infrequent irregularity because I don't want it ground down to "content" by the need to feed algorithms and I will do my best to avoid companies that use AI anything. I hope we can weather this and make this new shitty tech fad unprofitable. Please keep making art, if not for others at least for yourself.

[naavispider]

Can you make a fanfic about spider being so scared about idk watching a horror movie while Quaritch is having an argument with someone so he has to end the argument and put his attention to spider to calm him down

(English isn't my first language that's why I suck at grammar my apologies) also happy belated birthday!!!

Let me first of all rec chapter 4 of Left for Dead by @fictionramblings, which contains *spoiler spoiler* Spider watching Scream with the recoms. My absolute favourite image, bonus points for the fact that Spider is curled up in a duvet like a burrito 🥰

Spider headcanons 🤡👻 Scary Movie 👻🤡 edition

has never seen a scary movie. The scientists never thought it was appropriate to show him any growing up, and by the time he was old enough he was spending all of his time with the Omatikaya, so had little need for human entertainment.

Knows about the concept, and would vaguely like to watch one one day, but it has never been a priority

His favourites would be Scream (ofc it has to be), IT and Alien

Once he watches one, he absolutely loves them, maybe he goes through a phase of being like an amateur film maker and tries to film his own horror movie with a tablet around Hell's Gate. Imagine him recruiting Lo'ak or Kiri to play one of the characters, 'no, not like that, like this,' 'do it again but this time scream even more!' 'no, no, no, you have to picture that it's trying to bite your head off! how would you react?'

one time he gets in trouble for introducing Tuk to the horror genre and showing her a scary movie at Hell's Gate. When Neytiri finds out, she bans Tuk from ever going back there without her or Jake. When Jake finds out he pretends to be mad.

Sorry it's not exactly what you asked for, but check out the fic above! 💞

[supbreak20]

Reverie ch3 almost had me cryin

Spoilers below

SUNNY HALLUCINATING HIS FRIENDS TELLING HIM THEY'RE MOVING ON WITHOUT HIM AND THEY DON'T NEED HIM HURT ME SO MUCH OH MY GOD AUUUGH

THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL THAT'S TRUE SNUUY

THEY NEED YOU AND YOU CLEARLY NEED THEM

DON'T LISTEN TO THE LIES SUNNY

oh also

DAPHNE AND BOWEN GAVE ME FREE SWEETS HELL YEAH

ok

I think that's all for now

Uh

The new characters were funny too

Pretty accurate to how amateur film-makers do their craft (I would know)

Ok bye

[chaosandwolves]

Ok ok ok.

I know I'm late but..

I have to go meta again cause that one scene made me shout at the TV.

So let's dive in:

-

We have Carla and Eddie and Chris.

We have Chris trying on the suit. The last time we saw him doing it was in the store where Eddie panicked when Ana was referred to as Chris' mum. The moment that clearly set off Eddie's journey to finally make a decision for himself and break things off with Ana.

This is already a big reference, especially cause Eddie mentions "the last time" Chris was wearing the suit.

You're directly reminded of that scene.

Then Carla and Eddie leave Chris and go to the kitchen (where Ana and Eddie broke up) and talk further. The conversation is about Chris, sure, but also about Eddie.

And we have Carla yet again saying something big, something that's clearly meaningful.

I don't think I have to elaborate on what that dream could be for Eddie...

-

And then this is the next scene:

Chim and Buck carrying in Jee's new bed.

Again, a scene cuts from Eddie to Buck after something meaningful.

And in which way!

Buck in the context of being an uncle, Buck in the context of a kid - after he's donated his sperm.

This CAN'T be a coincidence. Not again and again and again.

What Carla says also applies to Chim and Jee's room situation and might apply to Buck as well.

We see that the room situation doesn't really work out. The fantasy was better than the reality...at least partially. But Chim brings back the words "dream(house)" and "fantasy" and lifts the situation through that into something nice.

So in this case, fantasy and reality kind of mix and it all turns into something positive in that moment.

Now, what does that mean for Buck?

This HAS to relate to Buck's sperm donation. We haven't seen Buck interact with Jee in ages and now he's taking care of her and helping to create a space for her.

Maybe the fantasy Buck had of helping others with their dream will turn out to have been better than the reality in the end.

And what about the "talking about your dreams make it seem too real."?

Eddie's expression is so prominent here

and absolutely reminds of his reaction the last time Carla said something impactful to him "make sure to follow your heart".

Ultimately, back then Eddie's fantasy turned out to be better than the reality as well.

-

There are just too many references in this little scene, in these two sentences, for them not to mean something. We were right last time when we all knew Carla's words were big.

It's set up the same way again. Her words clearly affect Eddie on a deeper level.

Now, of course I'm gonna make this more about Buddie.

We don't only have the scenes cutting from this to Buck, but also that sentence.

Of course the first thing that came to my mind was: That's why Eddie hasn't said anything about his feelings towards Buck because it's too real.

But also... We haven't had a talk between Buck and Eddie since the very significant one in the first ep where they were talking about Buck's love life. And we haven't had a talk about the whole sperm donor thing.

Maybe both of them are too nervous to actually talk about it cause that would make it real.

Idk idk but you can't tell me that this isn't all on purpose. There are just too many references and the absolute lack of Buddie scenes is so suspicious.

-

The film makers are all too aware of how big of a thing Buddie is within the fandom. They know what will make us scream and what will make us read Buddie into it. They're pros. They're not some amateurs.

There are too many things going on that are very suspicious.

You just can't convince me that it's not at the very least, precisely placed.

And as a bonus we have Eddie saying that as a parent you have all these visions for your kid, just like his parents had for him.

But Eddie is fine with letting go of them and imo he's also fine to let go of what remains of the expectations his parents have had for him.

-

This is my Buddie meta rant for this episode. I swear, these two sentences and Eddie's expression and Buck's storyline... It's all connected.