Welcome to Maren's Dasein

Dasein-An abstract philosophical term that basically means the condition of existing as a human

The Odyssey (2026) deserves every ounce of the praise it has and will continue to receive, but I think a mismatch of story and storyteller significantly weakens it. Evil Dead should be played out by this point and yet 6 movies and 1 tv series in and the franchise is still top to bottom bangers! Evil Dead Burn was great and I'm looking forward to Wrath Have I mentioned how much I love The Sound of Music? Cause like it has got to be one of my favorite musicals. Basic take I know. 😅

New Stuff!

Website features

Thought Marquee: That scrolling text at the top of the page. It's a bunch of random stuff I've been thinking about. Kinda like a twitter feed, but somehow both more and less annoying.
New background: Fancy colorful background. Took way too long for me to make cause I am most certainly not a digital artist.
New Stuff Section: Section on the homepage that informs you of the newest content and updates.

Content

Newest Blog Post

7/10/26 - The Heart

Newest Poem

The Parable of "I" and "She" - 5/28/2026

A prose poem I wrote both out of mild frustration, and intense joy.

Newest Essay

In Defense of Criterion's Citizen Kane - 7/15/2026

The Criterion Collection's 4K Blu-Ray release is often reviled for it's impractically, and potential for damage. I disagree.

About Me

Hello! ^^ I'm Maren and you've found my personal website. If you're here, you probably already know me. If you don't, or just need a refresher, here's the run down. Fundamentally, I'm just a person (She/Her) who: might just be a little too obsessed with movies (and to a lesser extent videogames), harbors semi-secret delusions of being a talented writer of prose and poetry, occasionally takes pretty pictures, and is almost certainly quite pretentious.

About This Website

So that's who I am, but the next question is: what am I doing here with my own Neocities page? Well to put it simply; social media sucks. I found myself frustrated by the unpredictable way my online presence, my very digital identity, is presented through the engagement driven hellscapes of Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, Threads... whatever else. By centralizing my online self on a website I have full control over I can make sure that the people who want to see my online content can without having that content filtered by some obscure black box. This website is me: unfiltered, and it literally can't be anything else.

Quick guide for navigation:

Home is this page here. It's an overview of me and my website. Welcome!
Blog is a repository of general thoughts and where I'm at in life. One might call it a web log of my life ;)
Photos is a repository of my photography work (storage permitting).
Prose & Poetry is all my fiction and poetry writing. A lot of it is rough, unpolished and old. Some of it might even be worth reading.
Critical Essays is all my film reviews and informal media essays usually about videogames, film and television.