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olreid · 11 months

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ok i think what i was (poorly) trying to get at in that original miss fisher post is the way the show really only takes like. three and a half people seriously as full people who are responding intelligently to the particular qualities of the world around them and then the rest of the cast are like. comedy props. thinking particularly about the way dot's religiousness generally serves as a punchline to the joke about the contrast between her backward beliefs and practical nature rather than a jumping off point to experience what was compelling to people in that particular context about organized faith... also the way bert and cec are introduced as communists but it feels like that's because the show was like. well, there were communists then, so here are some! rather than trying to explore what conditions might have produced communist organizing in the 1920s.. anyway,

of course i understand that a tv show is almost never going to focus on everyone equally but it just seems like a lazy approach to be like. well the character that we've given the most 'modern' beliefs is the one who is most portrayed as a fully realized & complex person because of course no thinking person would believe anything Other than what we believe today.. and then the farther away a given character gets from our current way of looking at things, the less time we spend exploring what conditions might have produced their beliefs.

it's also not like a nuanced exploration of the political realities of the 1920s was necessarily ever on the agenda for what is ultimately just supposed to be a like comfortingly structured detective show or whatever but i just think that sometimes you read or watch someone's historical fiction and you can FEEL that, whether consciously or not, they subscribe to a linear conception of history and can't actually fathom the fact that each period has been populated with people who were every bit as sentient and capable as we are. not that miss fisher is like a particularly egregious example of this belief but it is the one i watched the most recently, so.

anyway! historical gimmick show fails to properly historicize human behavior & ultimately creates a fetish of out of progressivism, inadvertently positing that if you're a good enough or smart enough person you will naturally arrive at certain 'modern' beliefs regardless of your time period or historical context when that's just like. really not how anything works. more at 10

#not really thinking about miss fisher anymore except that i think sleuth of ming dynasty approaches this in a productive way #and that helped me realize where the miss fisher treatment fell short 4 me.#also remembered that if i wanted to experience interiority wrt historical figures‚ i could just read a historical fiction . thank god 👍

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airlock · 20 days

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there's something I can never help but to notice in the way people on the internet talk about trans girls' dicks, and it's a matter of size

it's odd inasmuch as, y'know. when it comes to cis guy dick sizes, you have this interminably complex debate raging all the time

dudes are out there measuring, comparing, going "that's a nice argument but...", all in all inflicting on each other and themselves this hell malestrom (y'know what, sure, I'm throwing that typo in) of ways in which dick size is the world's most important thing. something that's theorically about having sex, but also doesn't interrogate what women think and would make fun of you for being a fag, so really it's just a front for men competing against men to be the biggest baddest alpha man.

not that you'd get a clear unissonous answer from asking women, either. by now I think most men who have ever listened to a woman, have heard all the aphorisms. it's about how it's about how you use it and not about size; inconsiderate lovers who assume their dick size will carry them can be especially painful in bed; so on and so forth. at the same time, though, women both gleefully partake in the same exercises of social approval/dismissal associated with dick size as men do, sometimes with an added layer of not really caring about dick size but using it as a metaphorical shorthand. and dick size also keeps showing up in the way women talk while they idolize male celebrities, in the erotica they write, etc and etc.

don't get me wrong; this isn't the preamble to my mass shooter manifesto. you don't generally get clear unissonous answers from women about anything, because that is around 4 billion people's worth of opinions and tastes. all of this is just to paint a picture of the strange place that cis guys' dick sizes are regarded in this world we live in. it's at once a genetic trait that can't be controlled and should not be treated as an indicator of personality, and also a symbol of social status so overwhelming that the symbolism has a life beyond the physical realities.

a cis guy's dick can be small, and that's okay and/or pathetic; a cis guy's dick can be huge, and that's insignificant and/or awesome.

but when people talk about trans girl dick. they always talk about huge dick. isn't that strange?

well, perhaps it's not if you're familiar with how trans women are treated on the internet in general. the first and foremost thing being that we're sexualized to hell and back by our enemies and appreciators alike, so of course we'll promptly be described in the crassest terms available. and just as obviously, it is that huge dicks are seen as symbols of masculinity, so there's an insidious dimension to always supposing trans women must have them. it's a pretty unsubtle member of the panoply of ways we're constantly denied femininity even by people who are supposed to be on our side, let alone the ones who aren't.

I don't know that these things explain the phenomenon by themselves, although I'm sure they remain as the leading reasons. maybe it's also just that society's baseline for how long a girl's dick should be is in the negatives, so really any length of trans girl dick compares favourably there. in that regard, "girl with a huge dick" is an especially incongruous image, and evoking it tends to make your punchlines punchier.

but perhaps most of all, at least in terms of relatively original insights here, it might also be a matter of many people still being mere fledgelings in the art of sexually appreciating trans women, and thusly these people have not honed the nuances of it.

talking up a trans girl's feminine traits might come across like you're really just thinking of cis girls or, worse, traditional femininity -- so you swing for the fences, and romanticize the huge dicks and the hairy legs and the widow's peaks. but what if you could appreciate a trans girl's qualities, not in comparison to any cis people of either binary gender, but in her own terms?

would you, then, love her dick in all shapes and sizes it might come with?

#my stupid text posts #in effect I think most trans women don't have much to say about this themselves #because their thoughts about their own dicks will kind of begin and end at whether having one like this causes dysphoria #but I dunno; maybe I just notice this trend because I'm not exactly well-endowed #and frankly I like that for myself #anyway sorry not sorry for belting out this ridiculously long 2 AM post about trans girl dick and not even readmoring it

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unhumanrights · 7 months

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Thoughts on my brewing Mariner/T'Lyn fic

I keep putting off talking about this, but hey, it's my day off, so I have time. Here's what I have in mind for the fic. I'll put it under a cut for courtesy. Read if you dare. It's long. I'm kind of working through it as I write it.

I know I have talked about this before, so if you read something you've read before, apologies in advance.

I'll start with the original idea. T'Lyn, aware of the danger of Starfleet away missions (and just living on the ship, apparently), asks Mariner to train her in combat. Mariner agreed, if T'Lyn teaches her the nerve pinch.

The very first version of this idea had the punchline of T'Lyn not knowing the nerve pinch, so it was deception for her own gain. It was a simple gag. Maybe not the best characterization, though.

I eventually changed it to T'Lyn admitting that she didn't know the pinch, but they could try to learn it together. Bonding experience, so nice. Still funny to think of Mariner getting "tricked." Also, Vulcans aren't supposed to lie, I guess? I'm sure they can use loopholes.

Canon made this version impossible. Also, from her fighting stance in "Empathalogical Fallacies," it looks like T'Lyn isn't COMPLETELY defenseless. Not that she might not still want training, of course, hence why this idea is still viable with tweaks.

So, then the idea evolved into Mariner wanting to build up her resistance to the nerve pinch, “for reasons.” So, instead of combat training, it would be stealth training, because she would insist that T’Lyn try to sneak up on her throughout the day and try to pinch her. I still like this idea, and it might be what I end up doing. I changed it from learning the nerve pinch itself because I've decided that it's something that Mariner just can't do for whatever reason.

But if I DID still do the combat training, what form would it take? This is still a mystery. Another reason I'm second-guessing the combat training is because I don't really know anything about combat, so it probably wouldn't end up very good.

That being said, I came to a realization yesterday. I was a little sleep deprived, and I was riding my bike to work. Sleep deprivation combined with road brain to reveal a truth to me. Why would T'Lyn ask Mariner for training? Yes, she might have read about it in her file, and we know she reads files. However, she hasn't witnessed Mariner's combat prowess firsthand yet. She HAS, however, witnessed TENDI'S. Now, I think T'Lyn knows it's a touchy subject for Tendi, but she might ask anyway, if she can properly frame the question as education and friendly sparring rather than combat. So, either T'Lyn would just ask Tendi, or she would ask both of them instead of just Mariner. GIRL SPAAAR!

And this is the scenario I currently have in my brain: T'Lyn has made a holodeck recreation of her encounter with the Betazoids. She's trying to figure out where she went wrong in order to correct herself for future battles. She asks Mariner and Tendi to observe and give their impressions. I imagine T'Lyn as something of a perfectionist, and she will obsess over this in her quiet way.

This might become two different ficlets at this point. First with the nerve pinch resistance training, second with the holodeck Betazoid attack. Maybe combine them into two chapters? Or better to keep them separate, perhaps.

I guess that's everything that's in my head at the moment. I really need to start writing the damn thing/things. Maybe just start one and try to figure it out as I go, even if I'm more of a planner.

If you read all that, bless you.

#fanfiction #fanfic #fic #writing #brainstorming #star trek #lower decks #star trek lower decks #fanfic thoughts #fanfiction thoughts

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dreamylyfe-x · 3 years

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hello there. i'm sure this has been talked about before, but upon rewatching some of shameless, i can't believe how homophobic it can be. like making ian- who's been sure since middle school that he's a gay man- be so weak minded as to let caleb's bisexual (cheating justification) comments lead him to go down on a girl, even tho he knows he wouldn't like it? that was so contrived and for a cheap gag. or in s8 when he went down on a woman again?! (and whoring himself out no less). bad writing!

Gah. Top five least favourite Shameless stories, ever.

I’m not sure I’d call it homophobic because it’s almost giving it too much credit when I just want to call it stupid. Like, so, so stupid. Also maybe desperate? Sometimes you wonder what the actor thought when he got the script and I do wonder -- as Cam always says something along the lines of “out of stories for Ian” when he talks about why he left the show if this isn't one of the moments where he was like... “I think we’re maybe running out of stories for Ian.”

I suppose... So a brief queer history of television (and I have been snarked at -- I think -- for going into history before, but what do you think you’re purchasing at this store? This is what this store has in stock.) -- This used to happen all the damn time. They didn’t really have gay men on TV as anything but punchlines, and when they finally started to have them as a character the audience was asked to invest in -- on shows like Soap and Dynasty -- they would be gay for a season or two and then drift into bisexuality. Which was annoying and ridiculous, so TV stopped doing it. Which led, actually, to the opposite happening -- a straight character who had a same sex relationship might then be expected never to be in a het relationship again. Willow Rosenberg has entered the chat.

(I’m getting off topic. I do find Shameless pretty baffling on the subject of bisexuality, but I find most TV pretty baffling on the subject of bisexuality. So.)

Anyway. One reason I don’t like that moment is that it feels like the show rockets back to the 80s for some reason I do not understand.

Here is another reason I hate this story: They already DID it. In the pilot. Lip needs to verify Ian’s homosexuality, like the fucking scientist he is, so Ian consents to a blow job he has no interest in. In the same season he fully puts Mandy’s hand on his crotch to demonstrate his lack of interest. Ian is -- particularly post-Mickey -- a little easily led by his boyfriends, but why he would think that he needs to test out bisexuality is beyond me. Ian is so gay he veers into biphobia. Probably because he hates people trying to convince him he hasn’t tried enough vagina yet.

The number three reason I don’t like that story is that it feels misogynistic to me, too. I mean, the biphobia bugs me, but that’s because a character I like is being biphobic while dealing with being cheated on. I don’t think the show wants me to agree with Ian. But, as a woman, I just don’t enjoy the “I have PTSD” part of that story, because like... I GET it. He isn’t into women. I do not need the long played-for-laughs scene where he's literally traumatized by it. (Though. I have to admit, I'm always bugged by someone finding someone else’s body disgusting. Like, I’m not into the joke that it’s gross to confront an old woman having sex either. Terry, who is an abusive rapist, having sex? Yes. I’m grossed out. But not because of how he looks or what age he is. Revulsion non-ideals having sex as a joke isn’t my jam.)

Hmmm. I guess I’m not sure what “phobia” I’d tag that with so I’ll return to my original position: It’s mostly stupid. Caleb sucks. I think they were going for humour, but I am all frowny-face, crossed-arms about it.

Hey, look! I don’t ALWAYS defend the show! 😉

#asks #you really got me with this one #I hate that story so much #I feel like I am always pushing back on the opinion the asker has #and imagine that's annoying?#but here we go #I don't like this story at all #I guess this isn't Gallavich meta #it's just Ian meta #so #Ian Gallagher meta #shameless meta #?#anti-caleb #always anti Caleb in these parts #thank you for the ask!

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flowerbloom-arts · 3 years

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Well uh, thank you @boorishbint for leaving these lovely tags on my post, otherwise I wouldn't have spent, like, almost two hours striaght writing a 1134 word fic depicting an inner monologue by dear old Hodgkins himself and 12 minutes coloring one of my doodles from the original post. I deeply admire your work and I hope that this is atleast enjoyable to you in any sort of capacity.

Cw: death mention (please ask me to add more if needed)

And as I sat on the armchair, book in lap, I stare at it and wonder why this could've possibly happened. My own brother and the love of his life, deceased, with his son left to be in my care. I feel... I'm not quite sure how I feel. It's always been rather difficult for someone such as myself to simply understand my own thoughts, I don't exactly have the ability to articulate these things. I've turned to the tangible things in life when my own abstractions fail me, there seems to be a maze in the back of my throat that makes it difficult to speak more than a few words and I've been so used to my younger brother interpreting my intentions for me, it seemed remarkable how easy it came to him. Now he's gone, I'm left behind for good, with a mere 8 year old sleeping on the sofa next to me. It's almost baffling to me how fate could twist a situation like this and not make it obvious who or what it favours, all I know is, it's not in my favour. I had come to terms that I may never fall for anyone in my life unlike my brother who seemed to take chances with any woman he happened to fancy, it was almost a relief that he found his metaphorical princess after kissing so many frogs, like that one fairytale but backwards, but now it's been a decade since that muddler from across the sea came and had their hearts stolen by the other, and now they're simply... Gone, and I'm still wondering to myself on if there is going to be a funeral for them or not, my brother seemed to not have quite the roster of friendships and any relative of his wife is a complete and utter mystery to me, just like everything else about that Confounder. For someone who has an extremely chatty brother and attended his wedding you'd think I'd know more about that strange thing, but no, just like everything else it appears to be part of this grand yet cruel joke that had it's climax just a week ago and I discovered the punchline just about an hour ago.

What am I to do now? What am I to do with my nephew? I can't simply leave him to an orphanage, I hear they're rather cruel places, so I suppose the other option is taking care of him myself. It'd be too odd for someone unrelated to care for him when his uncle is literally right here, I've already been doing it for the past 5 days since I discovered him starving in an oversized american coffee tin for 2 days since spring cleaning was supposed to start, I might as well. There really isn't anything to lose if I do, is there? Only problem is that I don't exactly understand other people, children especially, and I've never been familiar with his species in the slightest. Muddlers are a very rare sight if they do in fact live anywhere near here and not just across the atlantic, I might need to do a bit of research before I understand anything about parenting or muddlers as a whole. I might also need to find a partner to help care for him, but that seems far too daunting for me, there are far too many factors to list...

I am in completely unfamiliar territory here, it's almost laughable how all these pieces culminated into a situation I could never even dream of being in, it's a nightmare scenario if I were to be honest. And thinking this, I realize now that I'm feeling... Uncertain. Scared. Hopeless perhaps- things I'm lead to believe comes with parenting, except the circumstances are simply much worse than what would've ever been described to me, so much worse. I have yet to think about what to tell this child when he wakes up for goodness' sake, what am I to tell him? I could keep my mouth shut but eventually he'll pester me with questions if my lack of response bothers him, I will admit he is his father's son from what I could tell of him. Telling him his parents died is far too harsh, does he even understand what death is? Am I going to have to explain what death is to an 8 year old child? He was crying over a button getting lost under a drawer, I can't imagine the devastation he'd feel for something like this! I myself am already devastated at this, I can't handle such a thing right now! And that only leaves lying to his face about it, a white lie, sure, but a lie nonetheless. I'm nowhere near creative enough for something like that, I'm so bad at acting it'd be a miracle if he were to believe me.

Think, Samuel, think! You're supposed to be the smart one, academically gifted, aspiring inventor, why in the bloody hell can't you think of anything good to say to a child? You were a child once, surely you should know how you'd feel if anything about this sort of situation was said to you! But you were a strange child in comparison to others- your nephew isn't a younger you, he's far more like his father, you should know something with that atleast! Or atleast- an approximation of what you should say! Why does this have to be so difficult!? Why did any of this have to transpire? This can't possibly be your fault in any way but why does it feel like it is? Why can't you be a normal creature and just know what to say? Why can't you be normal and feel things everyone else is able to feel? Why are you like this? Why is this happening? What is going to happen now? Part of me hopes I could just stay in this moment and avoid the inevitable confrontation with my nephew about the whereabouts of his parents but I know that simply isn't possible, it's going to happen, if not today then some other day...

Looking at him- the Muddler- my own nephew, sleeping peacefully and blissfully unaware of what is going on, it feels... Melancholic, for a lack of a better word that comes to mind. I look back down at my brother's book of poems, or anthology, 'the Ocean Orchestra', this was his one achievement outside of his personal ones such as marriage and having a child, and it's practically the only thing of his creation I bother to own... My mind still wanders back to what I should say to Muddler. And I whisper to myself, softly and sadly, salted with my own frustrations towards myself...

"What to tell him...?"

#moomins #moominvalley #art #hodgkins #moomin hodgkins #samuel hodgkins #moomin fredrickson #samuel fredrickson #fredrickson #fanfic #fan fiction #short ficlet #death mention #cw death mention #this ain't gonna get any sort of traction why did I do this to myself skhfhfjgjdjdjd #I'm just like. regretting it almost #muddler #the confounder #hodgkins' lost brother

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riseofarmy · 3 years

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02 | SO THERE'S THIS MAGIC BOY

i can do this all day 02 | so there's this magic boy

author : @riseofarmy

pairing : kim seokjin x original character

words : 2343

i can do this all day masterlist

previous chapter

DARLING

What. The. Hell.

Before me stands a man I've never seen before in my life. He's barefoot, loose harem pants hanging low on his hips and an open vest doing nothing to hide his bare chest. The most startling thing about him though is his hair. It's purple, as in I Am The Love Child Of Amethysts And Lilac purple.

I don't get how I could've missed someone as stand-outty as him.

He leans down elegantly to pluck the lamp from the floor and my heart seizes up instantly. I have no idea where he came from, or how he got so close to me without me realising, but one thing I do know - this piece of shit is not getting away with my lamp.

With a swipe of my foot at the stranger's legs, I fell him like a tree. He shrieks, trying to pick himself up, but I pounce on him, sitting on the back of his thighs and twisting his arms behind him so he has to curl backwards to stop his arms from hurting. I pull out the twine I store in one of my pockets, intending to tie up his hands, but then...

He's gone.

As in gone-from-under-me gone, making me fall onto my back since the hands I was pulling have goddamn disappeared. Disappeared! Again: What. The Hell. I stare at the ceiling, trying to orient myself. He was right there and then he was... not.

"I can't believe you just did that to me, like surely you knew how that would make me feel."

The man stands next to my knocked-down body, bending over to look me in the eye. He flicks a lock of purple hair off his face with a lop-sided grin that might have been meant to make me feel at ease but instead makes me growl in irritation. I make a grab at his ankles, but I only touch them for a moment before my hands close around empty air.

That did not just happen.

Except it did. He's out of my arm's reach and fanning his face lazily as I get on my feet, eyes lasered in on the lamp still in his hand. He twirls it carelessly and I totally lose my mind, snapping forward to jump on him again.

This time, I manage to tackle him to the ground again and lock his head into my elbow before-

"Don't bother, you'll just tire yourself out." Suddenly, he's on the other side of the small room, a roguish curl to his lips as he lounges on one of the bigger chests of gold. He notices me twitch in his direction, and with a wave of his fingers, I'm frozen.

It's an awful feeling, like time has stopped, but only for me. There's an emptiness in my chest that takes me a second to place, but then I realise what it is - I can't breathe! Somehow, I know that my lungs have stopped working, my heart has stopped beating, that the only thing working in me right now is my thoughts.

And then he lets go of me. I suck in a grateful breath, flexing my fingers until I'm sure my blood's flowing again.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit literally what the hell.

"Please tell me you've calmed down." I flick my gaze up to find the strange man eyeing me warily. He has a better grip on the lamp now and isn't flinging it around like before, so I force myself to stay on the ground even though I was itching to take it from him.

"Who are you?" My voice cracks, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead, his expression clears up significantly into an overly bright beam.

"You know what, I have a song prepared for exactly that question, gimme a second to change." Before I can consider the ridiculousness of that statement, he snaps his fingers, and suddenly he's wearing...

Actually, what is he wearing?

He has on a startlingly white jacket, with odd, overblown shoulders, and a matching pair of breeches that were fitted to his body and made of a stiff material. The outfit was studded with what looked like diamonds, his hair was slicked back off his forehead, and the whole look completed with a set of short, silver boots.

I can't help it. Before I can slam a palm over my mouth, a snort slips out.

The man looks a little shocked, mouth dropped into a horrified 'O'. "Are you laughing? At me? Why are you laughing?!"

"You look... What are you wearing?"

He splutters, ears reddening so quickly they might just pop. "Do you not have any taste? This is high fashion, the result of a gorgeous marriage between class and art and I look stunning."

This man was serious! His hand was curled into a fist and he looked almost comically furious, but I just couldn't take him as anything but a joke.

Especially not when, a few seconds later, he lets out a scream and jumps onto a chest. It takes me a moment realises that the thing that had him currently shaking like a leaf was none other than... Yoongi.

Yoongi, my little furball cat, who slinks past the terrified man and curls into my bent form.

"Wait. Are you scared of cats?" When he doesn't reply, I have my answer. The man flinches as I stand up and step closer to him, eyes trained on the only-slightly-feisty ball of fluff at my feet. "How does this sound: you give me the lamp back, and I won't tell Yoongi to bite you."

At this, the man looks up. "The lamp is yours anyway! Take it! Just keep that thing away from me! WHY IS IT COMING CLOSER?!"

I stop moving closer to him, eyebrows furrowing - it seems too easy. I pat Yoongi's bum and direct him to the other side of the room before turning to address the man again. "You'll just... give it back to me? Then why did you take it in the first place?"

Now that Yoongi's further away, the man looks at me directly, throwing his hands up in what was probably frustration.

"Are you out of your mind? Seriously, did you get knocked on the head too hard before or something? Why would I take the lamp? It's literally yours? I can't? Do anything with it? Just? Take it?"

It was my turn to splutter. "Well- I- Alright then? I'll just? Take it?" It's strange to be talking in question marks, but everything about this situation is strange and I don't have the time to get hung up on the details.

I rush forward before he can change his mind, swiping the lamp from his hand. I cradle it to my chest, deciding right there that the next person to even glance at it without my permission is getting castrated.

"Can't you keep it away from me?" The stranger jerks his head at Yoongi, who was pawing through a pile of gold, completely unaware that he was the object of the man's derision.

"It isn't even near you and it has a name. Yoongi. He's not gonna hurt you."

"Mmm-hmm, that's what they all say before letting those monsters maul your face off."

"It's a little concerning how oddly specific that was, but Yoongi's not gonna 'maul your face off', he can't even catch rats. Anyway, can't you just save yourself by doing whatever it was you did before?" Before, when my body stopped but my mind didn't. "Um. What did you do before."

"Well, that's exactly what I changed into this incredible outfit to explain!" He gestures at himself, the diamonds throwing light around the room. "I literally told you I have a song prepared. You have a problem with that?" He adds in the question, probably realising that my face was twisted in disgruntlement.

"Can't you just say it?"

The man visibly deflates, and I almost take my words back. Almost, but not really. He clicks his fingers again and he's back in the harem pants and vest, then once more, and two plush armchairs appear. I think I'm already desensitised to things popping into existence.

"Sit," he gestures, plonking into the one opposite. "Since you want to do this the boring way. What do you want to know?"

I sink into the seat, half expecting it to disappear from under me, but it holds. Yoongi jumps into my lap, and I quickly look up at the man for his reaction, but he seems to have calmed down from his initial fear - he just purses his lips and avoids looking at Yoongi.

"I guess I'll start with... Who are you? And how did you get here without me noticing?"

He cocks his head. "Do you even know what the lamp is?"

I look down at my lap where Yoongi was batting at the purple gem in the lamp. I don't want to let on that I knew what the lamp can do, but something gave me the feeling the man already knew. "Yeah, it's a magic lamp. Makes all your wishes come true."

"Wow, it's so interesting that you think that because that's wrong."

Cue round two of me spluttering. This man did not just show up, out of nowhere, and deny what I have known for the last eight years.

"Wrong? What do you mean wrong, I'm supposed to be the only one left who knows about this lamp."

"And who told you about it? Actually, it doesn't matter, because sorry to disappoint you, honey, but whoever it was didn't have their facts straight. The lamp doesn't do anything, it's just a vessel for the real wish granter. That's me."

I blink, waiting for the punchline. It doesn't come, though, and the man cocks his head again, an amused smirk lifting his lips.

"Since you haven't figured it out yet, I'll spell it out for you. I am a djinn, a genie if you will. And since you freed me, you are now my master until I grant you your wishes." He furrows his eyebrows. "No wait, I've missed something. You know, my song was perfected to give all the information you need in the right order and now you've messed me up."

And then he starts humming something under his breath, bobbing his head to the beat in his head. "Oh! You have four wishes. And my name is Seokjin."

"What?!" Oh hell no.

"Yikes, what's with that reaction. Seokjin isn't a weird name or anything so-"

"No, what do you mean four wishes? I'm supposed to be able to make as many as I want!" If I can only have four wishes...

"I mean exactly that. I can grant you four wishes, no more, no less - not that anyone's ever wanted less. And before you even think it, you can't ask for more wishes." He looks at me sternly, as if it's something he's had to say repeatedly.

His words feel like a physical blow to my chest, winding me and making my brain blank. Four wishes. That certainly is less than I had planned for, but I guess it could have been a lot worse. I could have had only one wish, or I could have never found the lamp. Yes, thank goodness I have at least this many - I just have to make sure I make it count.

"Are you okay? You haven't said anything for, like, two minutes. I mean, I'm used to people becoming speechless in my presence, but you look more stressed out than in awe, so."

"Huh?" I shake myself out of my increasingly spiralling thoughts. "Yeah, I'm okay, I just... Wait, the ball!"

Only four wishes? This new stranger I'm apparently stuck with? Both of those I can deal with, I can find a way. But if I miss this ball then it doesn't matter how many wishes I have, I won't even be able to start with my revenge plan.

The ball, as in the prince's twenty-third birthday ball, which is only a week away. It was announced by the king when the prince was only ten: a grand ball open to nobility from all over the world. Even in Paaratham, the announcement sent tremors through towns because the prince was to choose his bride from among all the single noblewomen that attended.

I'm not from a noble family, and I'm definitely not a princess, but I'm determined to be the one the prince chooses.

The lamp was supposed to help me with that, and I had planned to wish myself into the kingdom after getting the lamp, but that's not an option anymore. If I wanted to get there in time, I need to leave now.

Immediately, I snap into action. I start stuffing my pockets with gold, since I don't have much more money on me, and packing into my rucksack the few bolts of fabric that were already tailored into clothes. The man - Seokjin, I tell myself - only stares at me, until I address him.

"Some of us can't magic up stuff whenever we want, so excuse me for snatching what the dead won't use anyway. Is there anything from here you want to take?"

"Me?" He looks shocked, probably thinking I must be dumb to ask a genie if he needs anything.

"No, the creeper behind you. Yes, you, is there anything you need from here? You have two minutes."

I go back to filling my pockets as Seokjin frantically rustles through the room. I don't see what he's getting but he seems satisfied when I call him to me.

Yoongi meows at him, obviously wanting to investigate Seokjin, but I pick him up and lay him on my shoulder. I kinda want to figure out this whole genie thing too, but I don't have the time right now.

Right now, I've got to get to the capital, Mansae. Everything else I can sort out later.

"Alright, magic boy. Let's get outta here."

i can do this all day masterlist

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#bts seokjin #bts #fanfic #fantasy

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watching-pictures-move · 2 years

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Movie Review | Animal House (Landis, 1978)

I've been thinking a bit about how some movies are hurt by their stature. Perhaps the stature is deserved because the movies are of sufficient quality, but I wonder if approaching a film known for its greatness might blind you to its pleasures if its power comes from its ability to disarm and surprise. The question has been on my mind thanks to the marketing for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a movie I don't feel particularly eager to see. To me, much of the power of the original movie comes from how it subverts the special effects blockbuster, with a group of absolutely ordinary heroes taking on great cosmic forces. Plenty of movies have borrowed its mixture of wisecracks and spectacle (think of all the programmatically deployed quips in the Marvel movies), but fewer grasp the underlying tension and irreverence that make it work.

Animal House, a earlier product of the same SNL/SCTV/National Lampoon ecosystem (Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis were involved in both pictures), is another movie that I think suffers accordingly. Its slobs-vs-snobs plot has been absorbed so thoroughly into the comedy genre that it can be hard to grasp what might have been so fresh about this material initially. (I certainly had this problem the first time I watched it, having seen multiple movies that studiously copy its exact beats.) And there's certainly been a lot of (well justified) rumination about how this movie has held up in relation to the more toxic dimensions of its sense of humour. What I'm going to suggest is that this material was always supposed to be abrasive, even troubling. The movie is packed wall-to-wall with the kind of things right-thinking people aren't supposed to laugh at. What's the worst possible thing that could happen when you're trying to get laid? What if your date passes out? And then turns out to be underage? What if a bunch of white guys wandered into a black bar and some of the patrons stole their dates? What would happen if you tried to play a prank with a horse and it died of a heart attack? The punchlines resonate because taboos have been breached. This is a pure lizard brain movie.

The movie is full of pitch perfect performances, from the pathological stiffness of John Vernon to the apoplectic rage of Mark Metcalf (a quality he deployed later in two memorable videos for Twisted Sister) to the rich, sinister baritone of Cesare Danova, and the movie brings them together in a shambling, episodic, anarchic structure. Yet I'd like to direct your attention to the two that I think are most key to its effect. The first, obviously, is John Belushi. Much has been said of the bracing, animal impact of his presence, of the way his onscreen excess perhaps mirrored his troubled personal life, and of the many iconic moments he has during the proceedings. But there's something to his total lack of dignity, the fact that he appears at almost all times to be unkempt, in dirty clothes, belching when he's not jamming something in his mouth. It's hard for me to see anything he does as an endorsement. Contrast this with the warmth directed towards the heroes in Revenge of the Nerds, one of this movie's better known progeny, where we're supposed to root for the titular nerds as they commit a bunch of sex crimes. (I do like the movie, mostly because how jarring the contrast is between its moments of sweetness and its uglier elements. And hell, that climactic musical number is a lot of fun. "Clap your hands, everybody, and everybody, clap your hands.")

The other is Tim Matheson, the smug, somewhat charismatic, somewhat unctuous leader of the Deltas, who adopts the language of the aspirational only to highlight its hollowness. The caption during the coda gives him another fate, but it's easy to see this character going on to become a used car salesman. Consider his speech in defense of his fraternity during a sham hearing (during which he wears a fittingly hideous plaid sportcoat):

"But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg, isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America."

The fervour with which he delivers this doesn't mask the transparently flimsy reasoning, and in pitting him and his debased friends against a group of junior authoritarians, the movie posits that all of the supposed good vibes we're supposed to feel about the college experience, and the sanctity of the related institutions, is actually a whole lot of bullshit. The total lack of good intentions behind the climactic gesture (ruining the big parade) are especially revealing. (And isn't that an indictment of our entire American society?) In light of all this, the most dignified thing one can do is to get shitfaced and sing along to "Louie Louie".

#film #movie review #animal house #john landis

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