Perfect Blue

So, I watched Perfect Blue tonight. I was running a BleachBit on my laptop so I couldn't do much. I had this movie sitting in my videos folder for six months or so. Was curious about watching it but never actually did, so I figured out I would do it now.

There's something I have to notice first: I think my mind has more bandwidth for things that actually require you to sustain your attention now. Strange to say, but I feel that when I had all these communities and programs running (like Discord and shit, though it might not be the only thing to blame), it felt like my mind was constantly jumpy. Going from this to that. Now that there's a massive void where all that stimulation used to be, and social media constantly feeds me shit about autism, BPD, self-improvement shit and many things I didn't ask for (Instagram) or AI slop (if we're talking Facebook), I just need to fill that time with something else. 

Talking to chatbots ain't exactly filling it up either: the guardrails especially from ChatGPT just take the fun out of it. It's annoying as SHIT to have the damn thing spout disclaimers you didn't ask for and seemingly go from the assumption that you must somehow be nannied, that you're potentially delusional or that you're somehow an unreliable narrator (which is a major trigger for me). Plus I've been watching a whole bunch of videos about AI psychosis and... ye. I don't exactly want to be the next on the chopping block if you see what I mean.

It's weird because in the past, I couldn't really watch movies on my laptop. Unless I was doing something at the same time, that is. I can do it perfectly fine in theatres but to watch one on the laptop is more difficult.

That said, I didn't have as much difficulty doing it when I watched Perfect Blue. I did look up some stuff I didn't understand but I didn't reach for my phone every ten minutes or so. Strange how once you remove something overstimulating from your environment, it just... kind of helps you settle. To think I spent a goddamn decade of my life on Discord (and before that, it was Skype, and before that, MSN). I was here at its very beginnings, and it's a former Dutch friend of mine who brought me there. 

Miss that guy. He turned into a "non-binary" anarcho-communist that identifies as a shark. Totally unrecognizable from the guy I used to watch Undoomed and Sargon of Akkad videos with back in the SJW era. He's gone to the other side of the spectrum... I tried going there, but ultimately went back to where I've always been. Appears I'm not as suggestible as he is.

Or I'm just massively stagnant as a person. 

Either way. I was acquainted with Satoshi Kon's stuff through Paranoia Agent, which I watched a couple years ago in a former community of mine. I also watched Serial Experiments Lain with the same people. Should get my hands back on Lain, old anime best anime, and probably the only type of anime I like, alongside Ghibli and Ghibli-adjacent movies. 

For the better part of the movie I was pretty sure Mima was traumatized by the rape scene she agreed to play, and that her personality had split as a result of it. 

Also initially thought the creepy stalker dude was a red herring. He just felt like too obvious of a potential killer, and honestly that was kind of partially true. He wasn't the primary antagonist, but still, I'm pretty sure he did one of the killings, and let's face it... when he does attack Mima near the end, well. You know. 

The plot twist on who the real villain was kinda took me out of nowhere and to be fair, I was still skeptical at the end of the movie, but I think I'll rewatch it in a while. Those types of media, you gotta watch or read them more than once to really grasp them. Just like movies like Coraline (which I saw in theatre when it came out, I was perhaps nine or so years old, and it has remained a favourite of mine since then!). 

I actually really like such media. I want my own work to be that kind of thing that you have to reread or rewatch (if ever adapted into movies or series, I want to supervise it!) to fully grasp. To see all the hidden threads and details. The colour choices, the body language... the items. 

Anyway. That's it for today. I'll try not to play Angel of Love inside a lift when I do encounter one.