#but I’ll think of something

[bubblesthecow]

Watching Star Wars in chronological order is so funny.

Obi-Wan Kenobi really took one look at R2D2 in the middle of the desert and said “No, Luke, I’ve never seen this fucking droid in my life. Looks like a real bitch though. Not that I’d know. This is my first time meeting the asshole.”

No one in that whole franchise was Gatekeep-Gasslight-Girlbossing quite like “Ben” Kenobi, regular human-man.

[pangur-and-grim]

alright, I’m annoyed with the class that I’m taking. it’s about writing novels, and I thought it would have cool stuff about balancing your narrative and developing themes etc, but instead she spent the first class talking about how every book fits into the Hero’s Journey (the monomyth template). and I was somewhat of a contrarian, and said “can you give us examples of books that don’t fit into this template?” and she said “no. because all books fit.”

but I dunno man, I just finished reading this Korean book where the plot is just the character having a string of hookups and reflecting on them without changing in any way. I don’t know if it’s possible to contort that into the Hero’s Journey.

[badolmen]

WARNING 18+

19

[a-a-lost-munchkin]

I Can’t Help But Wonder

Odysseus, who just violently and mercilessly murdered 108 or so men, who claims in the next song that he’s no longer a kind or gentle man, actively listens to Telemachus and kindly and gently responds to everything his son’s expressed.

Telemachus asks, “Am I like you? Am I strong like you? Will you embrace me? Will you love and accept me as yours?” He says, “I’ve felt so alone.”

And Odysseus claims him in a heartbeat, answering, “My son. My boy. My sweetest joy I’ve ever known. I embraced you twenty years ago. I’d do the impossible for you. I’d die for you.” He says, “Seeing the men here today, I can only wonder what you’ve been through for twenty years. My son, you’re already strong. You’re my own. You’re not alone. I’m home.”

And then they fucking embrace.

[title]

“May I rest my weary head on your shoulder?” (insp.)

In the Mood for Love (2000), Rafiki (2018), Cold War (2018), Your Name Engraved Herein (2020), But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), Moonlight (2016), Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), And Then We Danced (2019), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), My Own Private Idaho (1991), Anatomy of a Fall (2023), Lovesong (2016), God’s Own Country (2017), The Handmaiden (2016), Notorious (1946)

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[emariedraws]

This man is NEVER beating the dog allegations

[fizkid]

yatta does NOT play when it comes to her friends

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Once I was listening to a podcast and one of the hosts was like “the key to confidence isn’t never making mistakes and knowing everything, but making mistakes and being totally okay w the fact because everyone makes mistakes and it’s not a statement about your worth” and oh my god okay. My trauma bond w shame is dying a slow death.

[haliaiii]

Tatsuya’s turn (p5 x p2 au)

[potato-lord-but-not]

I do not have wings, love, I never will

[pangur-and-grim]

there’s a poetry contest that I kinda want to enter, but the requirement is a single 10-page poem. which is nuts. it would have to be some sort of rhyming short story….

[stars-obsession-pit]

Unknowing World-Ender

As Danny’s age and power grew, so too did his haunt. What was once just a single room ballooned into a city, a planet, then far beyond.

His own cosmic playground to rearrange however he wanted.

That unto itself wasn’t too unusual for a ghost. Though his scale was grander than most, plenty of ghosts created sizable haunts of their own too. Even the hollow simulacra of alien lifeforms he created to populate the space weren’t entirely unheard of in the Zone.

Perhaps because of that fact, no one paid close enough attention to notice when it became something more. Not just a Haunt, but a living universe.

Nor did Danny notice the shift either. Space still bent to his will same as before, and the simulacra were already complex enough that being truly alive didn’t look too different at a brief glance. Besides, his attention was usually focused on a far grander scale. Sure, he sometimes enjoyed sculpting out the little things, but his art usually consisted of shaping entire starscapes.

So he continued as before, reshaping his realm to fit wherever his whims took him.

Unintentionally causing an untold amount of chaos and terror amongst the now-sentient denizens of his universe as they watched an incomprehensibly powerful entity creating and destroying whole swaths of their reality.

[jiauro]

Heavy is no longer my least played class

[btsjk-biased]

Yoongi 🩶 Love Yourself: Tear (for @yooboobies)

[ video source cr. namuspromised ]

[blood-and-breath]

YAYYYYY MY SHIRT! all freehand with fabric paint