#3 will be free meta

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: 3 Will Be Free and the Power of Jojo Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I’ll cover 3 Will Be Free, a show that is actually NOT a BL, but BL-adjacent by way of its inclusionary queer content, as written and directed by GMMTV’s Jojo Tichakorn.]

Like I mentioned last week, this review of 3 Will Be Free is slightly out of chronological order with my thoughts on Dew the Movie. But no worries! I needed some time to gather my thoughts on 3 Will Be Free for so many GOOD reasons.

This is the only Jojo Tichakorn show on the OGMMTVC list, as almost all of the rest of the list (except for Dew, Love Sick, and the Kiss Me Again and Puppy Honey cuts) are BLs or BL-adjacent. But I was super happy to get Jojo on the list, because 3 Will Be Free, as so many of you know, was a groundbreaking experiment in decidedly queer content airing on GMMTV.

The dear friends @lurkingshan and @wen-kexing-apologist were my buddies during my 3WBF watch, and the guiding rule that I realized in watching this show was: this show wasn’t CENTERED on queerness, as so many BLs are. This show was INCLUSIONARY of queerness, in an INCREDIBLY real way. Like, in a way that reflects my own life, among my queer friends and chosen family, in my very liberal part of America. 

Really quickly, before I dive into the show, I want to take a moment to actually compare this perspective to what I saw in Dew the Movie, which I’m still taken and shaken by. What a different experience of a presentation of queer-focused content. @absolutebl Sensei, in a question I posed to them before watching Dew, remarked that Dew fell into one of a number of categories of a kind of queer content that would be allowed to be produced as a movie -- that queer content in a movie, arguably, NEEDS to have a tragic ending, say, or punch-down humor. 

One of the lenses in which I’ve been watching shows on the OGMMTVC watchlist has been to keep an eye out for BL tropes -- their births, their presence, their development. We’re still in 2019 with 3WBF, but we know that come 2021, when Bad Buddy comes out, that P’Aof Noppharnach will produce a show with a BL infrastructure, while turning many common BL tropes around on their heads (I’m always referring to @miscellar’s FABULOUS post on this). But, still, by and large, many BLs produced during that time have core elements of BL infrastructure -- I refer often to Love By Chance as being the first referential BL on my list that really concentrates these tropes holistically into an almost-entirely successful show.

So when I say that 3WBF was REFRESHING to watch, as a crime drama that INCLUDED queerness as a fabric of the life that the show was depicting -- I see how Jojo, in this instance, could not be bothered by BL tropes or a necessary checklist of any kind related to queer media, and instead created a different fabric of a fictional life that hewed far more to reality (except for all the mafia stuff, but whatever). While the plot of 3WBF was wild and slightly wacky, the layers of ACCEPTANCE and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT about how queerness is ACTUALLY PRESENT in almost all aspects of our daily lives was just -- it was INCREDIBLY refreshing to watch. And for a cipher like Jojo to present that to us, unabashed, that we as a global population HAVE queerness around us, in the beautiful people we know and love in our lives -- fuck yeah. This show did not shy away from that.

As always, there were a number of themes that I think the show held that I’ll try to get to:

1) How our societies can’t deal with complicated people, 2) How society doesn’t always accept behavioral change, and 3) How chosen family can change our lives for the better.

Besides the inclusionary-not-centering perspective of queerness in the show, I loved that Jojo actually centered very complicated people as his main characters in Shin, Neo, Miw, and Mae (Ter was a bit more linear, on the edge of getting complicated, but his tragic end still struck hard). 

Getting ahead of myself to point #2 -- as I wrote in my review of Theory of Love, society and the general population doesn’t always take kindly to big behavioral change among individuals. We like labels, we like judging people. We like keeping people in boxes to control them. I think about the ways in which, for example, families often can’t accept that children are growing up and becoming adults, changing into different people and personas. If you know someone very well, you want to box them in -- oftentimes for the purpose of trying to control their behavior. 

I posit that society also doesn’t accept complicated, multifaceted people for the same reason. Neo is an out, bisexual man, a prostitute, and an alleged criminal. Miw is a hostess, a sometime-prostitute, and also an alleged criminal. Mae is in the midst of her gender transition journey. Society has its claws out for people like that, ready to judge Neo and Miw and Mae for existing on the borderline of acceptability of culture. (And as I very often write about, most recently for Dew -- having these individual characteristics will very often go against the grain of Asian collectivist societies.) 

What I really appreciated about the structure of 3WBF is that Jojo initially created a world, vis à vis Thana, in which individualism could NOT exist. Thana needed TOTAL loyalty and complicity for him and his business to function on a minute-to-minute basis. Any aberration to that might cost him his life or the life of his son, Shin. Thana had his wife killed. He killed others at the drop of a pin. In the end, he was on the edge of killing his own son, and the people who provided unconditional love in his son’s life. 

We know that Jojo VERY often includes this kind of macro-commentary in his works, most recently in Dirty Laundry -- the macro commentary about the often-problematic forces that control society above the heads of those trying to survive, including politicians, police, and leaders in criminal activity, all categories of power that more often than not are speaking to each other.

Thana was taken down by the people on the outskirts of society, of “normal” life. His son, Shin, was the bridge between those two worlds. 

I think Neo was probably centered at the start of the show to be the main character, but to me, Shin (acted INSANELY OUTSTANDINGLY by Tay Tawan, MY GOD, TAY! WHAT A TOUR DE FORCE) was the ultimate center of this show. For me, the show held Shin’s process of growth so beautifully, it gives me the shivers.

Shin was one smart motherfucker, despite seeming melancholy and indecisive on his surface. In fact -- he held all of that as a character. He was INCREDIBLY complicated and multifaceted. 

He had the opportunity and the resources to make huge changes in his life, including money. He loved Neo -- and he loved Miw, and was maybe confused by that, but ultimately accepted it. He leveraged his strengths and opportunities to change to save his friends. He hated his father, but didn’t want his father dead. He wanted to pursue art, but landed in mafia work. 

He, more than ANYONE, toed, stepped, and played on the line of the complicated gray area of existence in order to survive -- to survive NOT JUST FOR HIMSELF, but his chosen family around him. He stepped into that gray area to find love. He found the courage to ASK and get clarity around love from the people he loved in Neo and Miw. 

And -- to me, MOST BRILLIANTLY: he actually took his dad’s advice. He never played the victim. He was so often close to being one -- especially in the forest -- but there was clearly a steely side of him that helped him keep his spine straight, and helped him to survive, vis à vis himself and the friends that ultimately became his family.

And this is where this show ultimately really guts me. Shin chose his chosen family over his blood family -- the blood family in his father that held Shin back from the kind of change that would help Shin ultimately survive in the world. Shin represented a transcendence, a breaking-free from the powers that hold our societies back from progressive change, a very CLEAR message from Jojo that individual change CAN BE good for all of us at a macro level. Acceptance will not derail society. Acceptance will ENHANCE society.

Shin gained that strength through his chosen family. Chosen family allows us to transcend who we once were, to be who we really are. Chosen family allows us as individuals TO change, while our blood family so very often needs us to NOT change, so that they can continue to behaviorally control us. 

That’s why Neo and Miw are so important to Shin. That’s why Phon and Ter are so important to Mae. That’s why seeing Ter’s transformation vis à vis Mae was so important. (God, between Wad in SOTUS and Mae in 3WBF, Gunsmile has not caught a break in these GMMTV shows!)

Shin keeping Neo and Miw in his life meant that while he had to stay in his life of the family business, that his chosen family would allow him to BE HIMSELF ... while Shin’s own father demanded the erasure of all of the qualities that made Shin, Shin. 

These are huge messages. These very well may be messages that a BL infrastructure couldn’t necessarily hold -- again, because a BL centers queerness and romance. 3WBF, leveraging queerness as inclusionary, allowed for a crime story to hold SO many of these pieces and commentaries, bringing them together as an uplifting and holistic story that those who are down and out are only there because others put them there. Those who are excluded from mainstream society are so very often the ones that push us forward into better progressive change. 

Jojo didn’t fuck around with this -- and, DAMN, neither did Tay Tawan. WOW. I mean, all of them -- Joss, Mild, Jennie, Gunsmile. Total A-game performances. But Tay blew me away. You’d think that that hot-ass dude would only play jock roles, and I totally had him as Pete from Dark Blue Kiss in my head the first couple of episodes. But, HELL no. Tay totally rose to the occasion. What a performance. (Let me PLEASE pray that he can rise to the occasion again in Cherry Magic. Don’t let my darling Kurosawa down, Tay!)

I am SO glad that @wen-kexing-apologist and @lurkingshan convinced me to put 3WBF on the OGMMTVC list (THANK YOU FRIENDS, MY GAWD!). As BL-adjacent -- the show spoke to an inclusionary queer perspective that I am HELLA impressed that GMMTV embraced. I know I’m up for a stumble with 2gether as my next actual GMMTV offering on the list. But I think 3WBF certainly allowed for the door to crack open on GMMTV’s ultimate apology tour starting in the 2020s, after 2gether airs.

[HELL YEAH. 3 Will Be Free was so excellent. And I am having a SURPRISINGLY great time getting through Until We Meet Again. I’m really not a fan of long series runs, but I’m giving UWMA a long leash, because, well, Fluke, Ohm (the other Ohm, now I have TWO Ohms, so many Ohms), Kao, and SOOOO much Thai food. And Earth Cooheart is a TOTAL wonder. Oh my god, I love him way more in UWMA than his role in LBC.

I might be a touch delayed in finishing UWMA because of the Independence Day holiday here in the States, but -- hopefully not, and I hope to have my UWMA review up next week. Cross ya fingas for me. Here’s the status of the list. I’m getting mentally prepared for 2gether, oh boy. As ever, if you have any feedback, I’ll take it!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (I’m watching this out of order just to get familiar with OffGun before Theory of Love -- will likely not review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs)  15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (watching) 17) 2gether (2020) 18) Still 2gether (2020) 19) I Told Sunset About You (2020) 20) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) 21) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 23) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS 24) Lovely Writer (2021) 25) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 26) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 27) Not Me (2021-2022) 28) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

[pandasmagorica]

Happy endings, sad endings

Sometimes endings are happy. Sometimes endings are sad. Sometime they are bittersweet. And sometimes they are open, ambiguous.

Some people are okay with sad or open endings. Others are not.

The main driver of this post is the impending ending of By My Favorite this coming Friday. I'm posting this on Tuesday, August 8, and the finale is Friday, August 11.

This post has partial spoilers for 3 Will Be Free (through the end of the series), 55:15 Never Too Late (ditto), Bad Buddy (ditto), Secret Crush on You (ditto), Be My Favorite (through the end of episode 11), and miscellaneous queer films and plays, as seen through the lens of someone who is watching Be My Favorite for the first time and has years of queer media watching behind him.

There is some current angst in the Be My Favorite discussion that it could have a sad ending, that is, that Kawi will die. We don't know for sure this will happen. It looks bad. It looks so bad that Pisaeng desperately tries the crystal globe and is rewarded with a trip to the past. The mystery uncle who seems to know everything there is to know about time travel says you can go back in time and change your actions, but you can't change fate. So, the series could still end with Kawi's death at a relatively young age, in his late 20s.

It could also be open-ended where we spend all of episode 12, the finale, in the past and we never find out what happens seven years later.

The point is, it's looking like we're not going to get an unambiguously happy ending.

And I'm okay with that.

I love happy endings. And I think we are getting enough of them that we can tolerate a sad ending now and then.

As I mention in my Tumblr intro post, I'm an older queer cis dude. When I was in college I saw the plays Boys in the Band and Fortune and Men's Eyes on stage. Both present sad pictures of gay male life. Even if nobody died (in Band, don't remember for Fortune), I can't really say that either one presented a happy ending.

When I was coming out in my late 20's, I saw various gay-themed films of the time (from what I can remember) Sebastiane (martyrdom), The Consequence (disappearance), The Children's Hour (suicide), This Special Friendship (suicide), The Music Lovers (suicide or murder), Death in Venice (death from disease), That Certain Summer (rejection by the son), Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (multiple murders), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (happy ending for the straight couple, death for the homosexual), Fox and His Friends (financial ruin), El diputado (don't remember, but I think it wasn't happy), Deathtrap (the gay characters supposedly kill each other), Taxi Zum Klo (gay teacher shows up drunk in class), Making Love (couple splits but one gets a new relationship), La Cage aux Folles (I think this one ends with the conservative in-laws accepting the gay couple parents), and Personal Best (one of a same-sex couple ends up in a straight relationship).

Gay characters were showing up in non-gay films as well, but didn't always end well. For example, in Francois Truffaut's The Last Metro (1980), there is a gay character who dies. It happens in the middle and is not the focus of the film, but that was common for the time. @absolutebl calls this "Kill the Gays".

There were happy endings for gay characters in film, more and more as time went on, but it wasn't until I moved to San Francisco and started attending the Frameline film festival that I started seeing happy endings regularly. Nowadays there are so many happy endings to gay films that I don't mind the occasional unhappy one.

My lesbian bestie says happy endings for lesbians are few and far between. Heterosexual Jill is a good one.

Okay, lets do some time travel back before I started watching gay and gay-adjacent content.

When studying queer film history casually, I saw Mädchen in Uniform (Germany, 1931) which had an attempted suicide which was averted. But things changed, at least in the US, with the implementation for the Motion Picture Production Code, also known as the Hayes Code, from 1934 to 1968. This required banning on-screen representation of homosexuality, and all extramarital sex had to be shown as unattractive and illicit. Homosexuality became coded, hidden. There was a gay-positive reference at the end of Some Like it Hot (1959), but that film was denied a seal of approval. However, since the code was technically voluntary, it got distributed anyway and was a hit. (Sadly, I didn't like it when I saw it as part of the same study series.)

Okay, so now we move to QL. Thai QL apparently started with the same trend of unhappy endings (Love of Siam and the gay part of Dew the Movie, for instance). But nowadays we get mostly happy endings, particularly on GMMTV.

Some argue whether Bad Buddy has a happy ending. Pat and Pran are together, but officially have to keep their relationship a secret, even though their parents actually know. I argue it is a qualified happy ending, as they are together and happy, if not fully open.

Secret Crush on You has happy endings for not only the gay couples, including femme characters, but also for the non-binary/trans character.

We are also getting some mixed endings in queer-adjacent series.

55:15 Never Too Late leaves a straight teacher dead and the gay character alone (but, I argue, more at peace with his current fate and the opportunity to move forward now that he knows he is loveable). The other straight characters have a chance at happiness but it remains to be seen if they will achieve it. Also, the gay character's 15 year old love interest is left alone, not knowing why the 15 year old he loved disappeared. Hopefully, he has a chance at happiness as well. I'd call it a slice of life open ending.

3 Will Be Free leaves our 3 lead characters safe. The gay character appears to no longer be part of the throuple, but this was the least of his worries during most of the series. The trans character has lost both of the men who she loved and who accepted her unconditionally, and has had experiences which will likely haunt her for the rest of her life, but has gotten closure and affirmed her identity. So I'd call the ending mixed.

So, let's get back to some possible not-so-happy endings for Be My Favorite (thanks to @twig-tea for some episode 12 speculation:

Pisaeng's trip to the past does not result in Kawi surviving. (Kawi may even say he's okay with this.)

Pisaeng breaks up with Kawi so as not to ever infect him.

Pisaeng waits until he is about to be sick then leaves Kawi temporarily so as not to infect him. (Least time away from Kawi but also least dramatic. And if it's fate that Kawi dies it may not help.)

Pisaeng and Kawi wear masks once Pisaeng realizes he's getting sick. (Okay, this one is even less dramatic but I can't believe in the age of COVID they didn't think of that, even if the series doesn't seem to acknowledge that 2020-2022 was treated by most of the world as an epidemic. Not sure whether Thailand is as mask-positive as Hong Kong although I have noticed some masks in various Behind the Scenes videos.) But it's too late and Kawi gets sick and dies anyway.

Let's face it. We have Schroedinger's ending. It's already been edited and in the can (well, on the hard drive). Whatever we will see on Friday has already been ordained: happy, sad, mixed, open, ambiguous.

But we've had enough happy endings for gay characters that if this one's sad, then bring it on. I'll be sad, but not mad as long as they set it up.

And it would be nice to see happy endings for trans and lesbian characters as well.

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[lenaellsi]

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

[hauntingofhouses]

Very interesting to me that a certain subset of the BES fandom's favourite iterations of Mizu and Akemi are seemingly rooted in the facades they have projected towards the world, and are not accurate representations of their true selves.

And I see this is especially the case with Mizu, where fanon likes to paint her as this dominant, hyper-masculine, smirking Cool GuyTM who's going to give you her strap. And this idea of Mizu is often based on the image of her wearing her glasses, and optionally, with her cloak and big, wide-brimmed kasa.

And what's interesting about this, to me, is that fanon is seemingly falling for her deliberate disguise. Because the glasses (with the optional combination of cloak and hat) represent Mizu's suppression of her true self. She is playing a role.

Take this scene of Mizu in the brothel in Episode 4 for example. Here, not only is Mizu wearing her glasses to symbolise the mask she is wearing, but she is purposely acting like some suave and cocky gentleman, intimidating, calm, in control. Her voice is even deeper than usual, like what we hear in her first scene while facing off with Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Episode 1.

This act that Mizu puts on is an embodiment of masculine showboating, which is highly effective against weak and insecure men like Hachi, but also against women like those who tried to seduce her at the Shindo House.

And that brings me to how Mizu's mask is actually a direct parallel to Akemi's mask in this very same scene.

Here, Akemi is also putting up an act, playing up her naivety and demure girlishness, using her high-pitched lilted voice, complimenting Mizu and trying to make small talk, all so she can seduce and lure Mizu in to drink the drugged cup of sake.

So what I find so interesting and funny about this scene, characters within it, and the subsequent fandom interpretations of both, is that everyone seems to literally be falling for the mask that Mizu and Akemi are putting up to conceal their identities, guard themselves from the world, and get what they want.

It's also a little frustrating because the fanon seems to twist what actually makes Mizu and Akemi's dynamic so interesting by flattening it completely. Because both here and throughout the story, Mizu and Akemi's entire relationship and treatment of each other is solely built off of masks, assumptions, and misconceptions.

Akemi believes Mizu is a selfish, cocky male samurai who destroyed her ex-fiance's career and life, and who abandoned her to let her get dragged away by her father's guards and forcibly married off to a man she didn't know. on the other hand, Mizu believes Akemi is bratty, naive princess who constantly needs saving and who can't make her own decisions.

These misconceptions are even evident in the framing of their first impressions of each other, both of which unfold in these slow-motion POV shots.

Mizu's first impression of Akemi is that of a beautiful, untouchable princess in a cage. Swirling string music in the background.

Akemi's first impression of Mizu is of a mysterious, stoic "demon" samurai who stole her fiance's scarf. Tense music and the sound of ocean waves in the background.

And then, going back to that scene of them together in Episode 4, both Mizu and Akemi continue to fool each other and hold these assumptions of each other, and they both feed into it, as both are purposely acting within the suppressive roles society binds them to in order to achieve their goals within the means they are allowed (Akemi playing the part of a subservient woman; Mizu playing the part of a dominant man).

But then, for once in both their lives, neither of their usual tactics work.

Akemi is trying to use flattery and seduction on Mizu, but Mizu sees right through it, knowing that Akemi is just trying to manipulate and harm her. Rather than give in to Akemi's tactics, Mizu plays with Akemi's emotions by alluding to Taigen's death, before pinning her down, and then when she starts crying, Mizu just rolls her eyes and tells her to shut up.

On the opposite end, when Mizu tries to use brute force and intimidation, Akemi also sees right through it, not falling for it, and instead says this:

"Under your mask, you're not the killer you pretend to be."

Nonetheless, despite the fact that they see a little bit through each other's masks, they both still hold their presumptions of each other until the very end of the season, with Akemi seeing Mizu as an obnoxious samurai swooping in to save the day, and Mizu seeing Akemi as a damsel in distress.

And what I find a bit irksome is that the fandom also resorts to flattening them to these tropes as well.

Because Mizu is not some cool, smooth-talking samurai with a big dick sword as Akemi (and the fandom) might believe. All of that is the facade she puts up and nothing more. In reality, Mizu is an angry, confused and lonely child, and a masterful artist, who is struggling against her own self-hatred. Master Eiji, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

And Akemi, on the other hand, is not some girly, sweet, vain and spoiled princess as Mizu might believe. Instead she has never cared for frivolous things like fashion, love or looks, instead favouring poetry and strategy games instead, and has always only cared about her own independence. Seki, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

But neither is she some authoritative dominatrix, though this is part of her new persona that she is trying to project to get what she wants. Because while Akemi is willful, outspoken, intelligent and authoritative, she can still be naive! She is still often unsure and needs to have her hand held through things, as she is still learning and growing into her full potential. Her new parental/guardian figure, Madame Kaji, knows this as well.

So with all that being said, now that we know that Mizu and Akemi are essentially wearing masks and putting up fronts throughout the show, what would a representation of Mizu's and Akemi's true selves actually look like? Easy. It's in their hair.

This shot on the left is the only time we see Mizu with her hair completely down. In this scene, she's being berated by Mama, and her guard is completely down, she has no weapon, and is no longer wearing any mask, as this is after she showed Mikio "all of herself" and tried to take off the mask of a subservient housewife. Thus, here, she is sad, vulnerable, and feeling small (emphasised further by the framing of the scene). This is a perfect encapsulation of what Mizu is on the inside, underneath all the layers of revenge-obsession and the walls she's put around herself.

In contrast, the only time we Akemi with her hair fully down, she is completely alone in the bath, and this scene takes place after being scorned by her father and left weeping at his feet. But despite all that, Akemi is headstrong, determined, taking the reigns of her life as she makes the choice to run away, but even that choice is reflective of her youthful naivety. She even gets scolded by Seki shortly after this in the next scene, because though she wants to be independent, she still hasn't completely learned to be. Not yet. Regardless, her decisiveness and moment of self-empowerment is emphasised by the framing of the scene, where her face takes up the majority of the shot, and she stares seriously into the middle distance.

To conclude, I wish popular fanon would stop mischaracterising these two, and flattening them into tropes and stereotypes (ie. masculine badass swordsman Mizu and feminine alluring queen but also girly swooning damsel Akemi), all of which just seems... reductive. It also irks me when Akemi is merely upheld as a love interest and romantic device for Mizu and nothing more, when she is literally Mizu's narrative foil (takes far more narrative precedence over romantic interest) and the deuteragonist of this show. She is her own person. That is literally the theme of her entire character and arc.

[fumifooms]

do you happen to have that page that talks about the beauty standards of each race?

Yeah sure. While scavenging pics for this I found this neat reddit compilation & chart & theory talk too. I had um, way more to say than I anticipated (I know you only wanted the one page. I have nothing to say for myself. Like most topics in Dunmeshi things snowball because they’re so interconnected. Mercy…) so, many races and observations are only mentioned near the bottom.

Beauty standards and race in Dungeon Meshi

Not pictured there’s also how elven society is harsh on visibly disabled people, and how the demon took away Mithrun’s silver eyes and ears to take away his pride. There’s also how Senshi might have fit in with the orcs more easily because of the dwarven wide body shape, and how they tend to have more body hair too I suppose. In the extra on orcs we see Senshi living with the orcs and he gets judged because of the hierarchy rather than his looks.

What is fashionable also differs from culture to culture, and there’s how tattoos only seem common with elves, though dwarves and others do also sometimes have some. They seem to not raise much brows, which makes sense since for many essentially they’re for professional (magical) purposes especially with elves. Gender roles also differ in type and importance, but generally they are similar to irl ones for the races we see. Elven society seems to be the least gendered, which would be an unsurprising logical outcome of having lesser sexual dimorphism aka they look more androgynous. Comparing fashions and gender roles and how they affect beauty standards would be a whole other compilation and conversation. Kui has great worldbuilding partially because she’s got such a good grasp on sociopolitics and geopolitics. History affects cultures and beauty standards greatly. Kui’s oneshot Distant Utopia was very eye opening on her way to worldbuild and the consideration she gives these things, I do really recommend reading it.

Out of the big 5, we know the least about gnomes, but their sheet does say both culture and region are similar to dwarves’ and they end up being confused together often, so we can imagine the beauty standards are similar to dwarves’ as well.

I wanted to touch on this in a post eventually, but how one daydream hour page said half-foots tended to be curvaceous like in the artwork below puzzled me for a long time, all the half-foot characters we see during canon are rather slender and lanky after all, Chil’s succubi also being more curvy than plump. Economics are for sure a factor in that I imagine, the half-foots characters we see are all implied to be some flavor of poor or malnourished, as are half-foots depicted as empoverished oppressed minorities in general. Even comparing the artwork with the half-foot sheet’s depicted average half-foot, the ones on the left seem bigger. Wouldn’t it make sense though, if unlike dwarves half-foots don’t have similar naturally wide bodies, yet due to idolizing dwarves they work towards having a similar body shape/type to emulate them?

It’s said half-foots tend to stick to pretty ethnically homogeneous regions (aka half-foots-only communities) unless they move to the big city with ambition to try and make it big (like Chilchuck and his wife & kids did), and that’s interesting imo because then that would mean that in a ton of half-foot communities, they rarely see or interact with dwarves whom they try to emulate. Of course, one thing about beauty standards is that when they get adopted, at one point it stops being "this is how dwarves look and so this is how half-foots should look" and just becomes "this is how half-foots should look", most people feel as though beauty standards aren’t learned but innate, so I figure the half-foots wouldn’t have any problem still seeking dwarvish traits when there are no dwarves around.

There’s also stuff you can glean here and there if you want to extrapolate more. Like how in the race swap artworks, Mickbell is only smiling in the dwarf portrait, and Rin’s elven portrait looks very close to her elven one- Rin who is stated to be beautiful in her profile blurb. Benichidori’s extra does teach us tallmen can definitely have harsh beauty standards, but also since the text portrays her as very dysmorphic that’s likely reflected in her thoughts to a much more intense degree than is common, not an accurate strict baseline to go off. Ah, Kabru’s blue eyes are also why he and his mother lived a rough life in Kabru’s hometown, but that seems to be regional. Good post here on the topic of Kabru’s blue eyes and ties to irl history. There’s a lot to be said about Kabru being a man that in many ways is close to elven beauty standards, and how that might have affected or been affected by his upbringing with elves + his persona as someone that can effortlessly charm most people. Marcille’s section here in this essay also goes into Marcille’s struggles to fit in with the ideal image of an elf.

Looking human

Also notable are beastkins and demihumans: Demihumans are all dehumanized which makes people treat them worse. So if you differ from the visual idea of "human" (an in-world subjective categorization just as much as demihuman is) most people do judge you negatively. Elves and dwarves get to fight about which type of human is considered the prettiest, but demihumans are below tallmen and half-foots, they are considered as simply below the beauty contest, incompatible with it.

Onis are perhaps the demihuman people we know of with the least cultural influence on the dunmeshi world, and with the least intensely different appearance than other demihumans—they seem to be technically categorized as human to people not from the eastern archipelago?— but even them are treated as lesser than human, treated as beasts to slain for reputation points or useful strength to have around and command. It’s said their "magnificient horns" and fangs are often shaven off when the oni lives in tallman towns, so you could easily make the argument that onis are denied the right to have their own beauty standards, having to conform to other people’s and going through mutilation to take away features they might otherwise have taken pride in. Inutade was bought by the Nakamotos from a dangerous sumo fighting ring that got one of Inutade’s tooth broken on her first and only fight, and kept as a low ranking servant ever since. Remember when I said different fashions existed in dunmeshi and how those could also affect beauty standards? Like the elves, if you look at the portraits pages which include a lot of characters that aren’t in the story you can see distinct cultures within the same races, for example one young elf is bald which is in sharp contrast with the usual elven long luscious hairstyles, and that’s especially true for onis I think. Maybe not only from different regions but different eras as well… They have a bit of population in the very north of the western continent, so I like to think some of the ogres live in very cold, maybe even subarctic or arctic conditions. The point I’m getting at here is that within a race, culture/ethnicity like with Kabru will also influence them it isn’t just tallmen as a whole, different communities will have differing beauty standards. The oni history blurb and third row first collumn portrait remind me of Mongolia (which historically was a lot of different nomadic communities with different cultural identities as well. Something something, the oni empire experienced a decline and then tallmen overpowered them, and now they’re governed and split apart by stronger social classes & slavers and the richness of culture was hurt for it especially if they have no real community left of their own), but obviously many of them are dressed and look rather japanese, makes sense considering living in/close to Wa, and first row second collumn portrait reminds me of ainus which again would be logical considering geographical placement, though I’m far from an expert. Interestingly, ainus are indigenous people both in Japan and Russia- Perhaps the northern western continent ogres are meant to be closer to Russia than Canada like I imagined? Ok tangent over.

The kobold sheet says they’re especially sought after as slaves because they’re "adorable", but locally in the western continent they’re repeatedly said to be seen more as ferocious and dangerous. The dehumanization is most apparent in the first comic below. The language barrier and conflicts no doubt worsen this by a lot, but I think it’d be hard to deny that their canine appearance makes the dehumanization worse. "They’re ferocious beasts, they’re demihumans, they can’t be communicated with". Most characters in Dungeon Meshi’s world are desensitized to slavery and most characters are prejudiced one way or another. Point being, kobolds are fully removed from human beauty standards, but no doubt for kobolds, other kobolds are more beautiful than humans are. They’re assumed to be an uncivilized bunch, but just like any other people they like to adorn themselves with nice clothes and jewelry and keep themselves clean and groomed; they too take care of their appearance and take pride in it.

And the orcs! This one we have the most contact with in canon, with not only there being foreigner characters from the ethnicity or hearsay of their homelands and culture but full on contact with a community. We get to see up close what they’re like and what they think, and of course in turn they’re our introduction to how demihumans are harshly looked down upon and seen as inferior, less human and thus less worth valuing and less dignified. It’s text that orcs are ugly to most humans and humans are ugly to most orcs. Since I judged they didn’t need accompanying explanation the pictures showing this are in the pictures dump at the top.

God forbid you sell vegetables to orcs my god- but then again they do basically mandate adventurers to kill any orcs they come across so yeah the world isn’t above that even a little bit.

So yes, my main point here is simply that orcs are yet another evidence of the physical ideal of "human" being an important beauty standard for human societies globally.

Izutsumi is our glimpse at how beastkins are treated in the world, and in Wa at least that’s ending up being caged and mistreated as part of a freak show. Izutsumi hates her appearance and wishes she could leave the feline part of herself behind to only be human. Interestingly, not that we have a lot of info on them so this is very much a take with a grain of salt situation, but there seems to be less stigma around artificial beastmen, those who can shapeshift at will. The main difference is of course appearance, that most of the time they simply look like average tattooed humans. Artificially creating humans is an illegal practice, and no doubt it’s not well regarded, but being able to hide that makes them less likely to be discriminated at any moment, or even just discriminated less intensely. Again, looking human is important, not only for belonging but for safety’s sake. Beauty standards rule the world with harsh hands.

Mermaids and fishmen

Ok we’re done now right? Right-! But wait… Wait…! Mermaids and fishmen are said to be demihumans too, special separate cases to the main three demihuman species however, which is also represented by how mermaids and fishmen both are in the Adventurer’s Bible chapter Monsters meanwhile ogres, kobolds and orcs are in the chapter World. They’re an interesting topic because they directly tackle this topic, not only in a meta way for the readers but also making characters themselves struggle to quantify their humanity with the goal of knowing wether they should be eaten or not, especially Chilchuck. Chilchuck’s "is it really just a matter of feelings?" mini arc.

The party asking themselves "Should we eat this?" is very common, and often they end up playing a little loose on morality, like eating the red dragon’s meat despite it having digested Falin. Not unsimilarly Marcille freaks out a little over the vegetables they harvested having been grown with fertilizer, aka largely human poo. Half of the motivation of "should we eat this perhaps sentient creature" is out of consideration and compassion, but more strongly and more often, the characters struggle with a sense of taboo at eating something too closely related to humans. Even, feel uncomfortable because of the deepseated impression that eating it would dirty them in some way. Cannibalism is an interesting and relevant topic in many ways, but what I want to mention is how there’s the more or less universal belief that committing cannibalism inherently taints you as a person and turns you more monstrous, morally but also literally depending on some myths such as w*ndigos and onis in some cases, like in Touge Oni. Marcille and Izutsumi both express a fear of eating monsters turning them monstrous. Maybe this is part of what Laios was hoping for, honestly. There are two fears here, if eating a demihuman monster constitutes as cannibalism or not, and so, will eating it taint you because it’s a human, or will eating it taint you because it’s a monster? You are what you eat, until it’s a little too literal. You morally are the means by which you get your food, and you physically are the result of your nutrition. Dungeon meshi manages to mix an exploration of humanity with the theme of food because our relationship to food is very deep and complex, psychological as much as physiological.

In the end, the characters sort of shrug and accept that they’ll never quite understand the world of mermaids and fishmen and how they operate, and what that means about them. Laios is the one always challenging these notions other characters take for granted, it’s not obvious to Laios why people are softer on mammals than other animals and plants, it’s not obvious to Laios why people would be afraid of eating a monster just because it’s a monster, it’s not obvious to Laios why some food is gross to Marcille but not fish testicles, it’s not obvious to Laios why you should immediately regard orcs and kobolds badly.

"Cows are probably closer to humans [aka closer to being human] than fishmen, though they’re clearly intelligent", dehumanization to lessen empathy towards them to be able to eat them. Meanwhile, mermaids seemingly have a less noticeable "civilization" or intelligence, they hunt in groups like fishmen, but they don’t use tools and such, they feel more primal and similarly instinct driven, and yet… Do they attract sympathy more? Mammals, humans, is it because of their nature or because of their appearance?

Both the nature and appearance of fish are ones people don’t typically sympathize with. "Fish don’t feel pain", "goldfish only have 5 seconds of memory", "it’s okay to keep fish in completely empty bowls too small for them until they die from it", so many lies and misconceptions exist that make people less considerate of them. The average lifespan of a goldfish is 10-15 years, the record is 43, but they’re not seen as lives that really matter, so a lot of goldfish die in a few weeks of bad aquarium conditions. There’s a lot of research on animals evolving to look cute and appealing to make some predators want to kill them less and parents want to care for them more, including humans. First good google research result gave me this credible short article on the topic. In Chilchuck’s weighing wether a fishman is far enough from being human or not to eat, "face is 100% fish" is his biggest argument for it being more acceptable. The face, the most important thing for empathy and recognition. The face, the decapitated fishman one that falls into his hands next chapter.

To quote @room-surprise: "Chilchuck can't explain why it's wrong to eat the merpeople, even though it's NOT complicated. But the problem is Chilchuck would have to accept and acknowledge that the merpeople might be people? And that's outside of the worldview he passively believes, so he can't just say that, because he doesn't think that's true. But that IS why he "feels" it's wrong. And it's all you'd need to say for Laios to understand! But it would require acknowledging that maybe the way they're treating and talking about the merpeople is wrong."

The idea of Chil not being able to grapple with how maybe some monsters are more humans than they seem, him who had been an advocate of half-foots rights, half-foots who get undermined and treated as inconsequential sacrifices… Grappling with how he could relate to the merpeople’s situation almost, and pulling away because it’s so existentially horrifying. I do not want to see myself into an hostile fish-faced warrior I can’t communicate with. In a way this also relates to Chilchuck being the only party member who doesn’t see Izutsumi as a cat in the relationship chart, the only one to treat her with full human dignity. He knows the struggle to be taken seriously, he knows being infantilized and he knows what it’s like to be treated as less than human.

Below, you will see Chilchuck draws the line of where they become not okay to eat as when "they already look like mermaids". Above, there’s speculation that the algae hair is partly to mimic "the mermaids’ beautiful female form". Is it because mermaids are their enemies and the ambiguity might give them extra seconds to attack or flee? Is it to trick adventurers instead? It’s striking to me that this is what works, with the adventurers. Sure the fishmen are intelligent, but explicitly here, what makes them no longer acceptable prey to Chilchuck is that they look close enough to a mermaid, close enough to human. Mermaids who of course themselves have this form to entice and seduce and charm the adventurers they prey on. Chilchuck considers the intelligence due to the tridents, but most of his internal debate centers around their appearance, and the image of a fishman skewered sickens him. The power of mimicry… Mimic being a beautiful human woman. Mimic being cute, babies being wired to make us feel protective and softened. Half-foots, sometimes pretending to be children for scams or help or avoiding trouble.

The mermaids are only concerned by their differences and not their similarities, and have no trouble treating the fishmen as food rather than peers. To an outside perspective like us, the audience, all these categorization of "more human" and "less human" between onis and orcs and elves and tallmen etc seem stupid and unfounded, but to the people living in Dungeon Meshi’s world, elves may as well be mermaids while onis are fishmen, not alike at all, unworthy of empathy and thus fine to eat.

Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi promotes unity. It’s about seeking to understand the unknown and the misunderstood, the dehumanized and the inhuman. It shows the good that comes from seeking to understand what you do not, even when that’s one another.

[bisclavret]

like many who have suffered at the hands of bbc merlin before me, i recently indulged in a thought experiment in which i outlined my own version of seasons 3-5 that stay thematically and tonally in line with the show (except they're less fucking stupid). but then i quickly realized that focusing on details is pointless: all you need is to solve the one Big Problem the show has, and the rest will follow. the problem in question? ✨morgana✨

i like the first two seasons. s1 achieves what it sets out to do and has fun while doing it, and s2, while flawed, sets up a ton of potential that the following seasons unfortunately squander, beginning with the insidious season 3. you can only distract me with cute knights and goblins and fart jokes for so long before i start seeing through you, evil, evil season of television.

my hypothesis is that if the writers had crafted s3 morgana into anything more sympathetic than a violent half-alive poltergeist that can never be reasoned with because she's suddenly terminally off her rocker, everything would've fallen into place. a sympathetic morgana would've made real, valid arguments against uther (and arthur) that wouldn't just be the ramblings of a woman possessed. her betrayal of arthur would have stemmed from her feeling increasingly morally superior to him because of his complacency in the face of their father's tyranny. under morgause's guidance she would stop believing that arthur is capable of change, and the whole point would be that she might actually be right. arthur would have to actively try and prove her wrong, instead of getting praised for doing the bare minimum because the bar is on the floor.

furthermore, morgana's prophetic dream about arthur and gwen becoming king and queen and her decision to prevent this however she can is a direct parallel to merlin learning about that same prophecy and making it happen by any means necessary. merlin's desires about his and arthur's futures are subtextually fueled by gay love and devotion, so why couldn't morgana's be? why couldn't she properly express her bitterness that arthur gets to be with gwen in a way she can't "took gwen away" from her, instead of suddenly declaring that gwen is nothing more than a servant, after two seasons of demonstrating again and again that she loves, values, and respects gwen more than anyone else in that godforsaken castle?

following this, an angry and emotionally volatile but still sensible morgana asking gwen to stay by her side during the coup of the castle in the s3 finale and gwen going behind her back to help arthur and the knights would've hurt like a bitch. double-sided betrayal! gwen having a real plot! the proper beginnings of a toxic yuri that would shape a generation!

then there's the utter hubris of having morgana shoot arrows at the same civilians she worried herself sick over for 2 seasons — even morgan, her medieval counterpart that was rooted in every sexist trope in existence, doesn't just go around killing senselessly but instead has (often petty!) personal vendettas against gwen, arthur, and the knights. morgana had every right to be sick of the pretensions around chivalry in camelot (she was always quick to mock it, even in s1), and to lash out at the knights and soldiers after years of feeling powerless in a castle full of armed men that blindly followed her oppressor. the show conveniently forgets that morgana was victimized as a woman as well as a sorcerer those first 2 seasons.

but like i said, this is not just about morgana. allowing her to remain a real and multifaceted character even as she betrays everyone in pursuit of her ambitions would've given the rest of the core four more interesting conflict to work with: merlin because he would have to experience real consequences to his actions, arthur because he would watch his sister go against his father (and his knights, and his birthright) and experience some actual internal dilemmas about it, and gwen because she would be forced to choose between morgana and arthur without the pretense that it's an obvious or easy choice for her to make.

even morgause and gaius would come off more interesting as mentors: neither one inherently evil or inherently good, both jaded by events that happened before our protagonists were even born, both heavily influencing morgana and merlin into fulfilling roles that they think are appropriate, but that morgana and merlin may not have chosen for themselves had they not been under their care.

you get the gist. if the show followed its own setup, morgana's mistakes wouldn't lie in cheap and senseless acts of violence but in alienating the people she loves because she is too hurt and jaded to trust them. meanwhile, everybody else would feel guilt over "failing" her and yet they would be too caught up in their own (sometimes flawed!) beliefs of right and wrong to truly see her point of view.

arthur would convince himself it was sorcery that corrupted her. merlin would know that isn't true but he wouldn't be able to argue without confessing everything, which is the defining conflict between him and morgana and it's cheapened when she's just an evil witch caricature and merlin is framed as inherently virtuous in contrast. gwen, too, would become a more active participant in her own life by choosing arthur over morgana and choosing to rule camelot with him instead of just waiting politely to see where things go.

and, of course, uther's downfall and death would be quick, final, and completely earned — when and why did the show even decide he of all people was the sympathetic villain, anyway?

lastly, and perhaps controversially, i think morgana should've learned merlin's true identity by season 4. her being the first of the main characters to find out makes perfect sense considering their shared history and their interconnected and mirrored arcs. even the show seems to agree, considering she does find out a little before arthur. but the narrative itself tried pointing flashing neon arrows towards this way earlier — there is a whole entire episode in s4 where merlin being emrys is repeatedly spelled out for morgana and she still isn't allowed to see it. that episode makes her look like the stupidest person to ever live, which is pretty funny im not gonna lie, but also another frustrating thing in the endless string of frustrating things that make up this show.

morgana learning that merlin has magic would've transformed the source of merlin's anxiety from a crippling fear of being outed someday to the crippling fear of knowing she could out him at any moment. this would make him want to beat her to the punch (perhaps he'd consider killing her for a minute and decide against it because she isn't a cartoonishly insane evil person in my version of events) and maybe he would even feel some tentative excitement at the idea of coming clean, now that it seems inevitable. after all, he always intended to tell arthur eventually! and i think gaius would have to admit outright that he does not want merlin to tell arthur he has magic because he, gaius, simply cannot risk such a gamble. it would be so interesting to see gaius and merlin clash and disagree once it becomes obvious that it's not merlin that isn't ready for the reveal, it's gaius. delicious!

with morgana's knowledge looming, things would inevitably spiral into a magic reveal by the end of season 4. i picture this season as an absolute mess of miscommunication between everyone at camelot, which is, y'know, canon. growing increasingly cunning and vengeful, morgana would use this tension to her advantage, destabilizing the court from the outside while she creates alliances with other sorcerers outside of camelot (instead of living alone in a hovel for no reason — morgana le fay i'm sorry i'm so sorry they gave you agravaine instead of your all-female entourage oh my god).

and here's where the events would change beyond recognition (aka here's where the meta becomes the fanfic i refuse to write). picture it with me: a militia of sorcerers infiltrates camelot and arthur and gwen have to set aside their differences (assuming gwen kissing lancelot and arthur overreacting happens, which it should) for the good of the kingdom as well as for love. picture high priestess morgana in her element, side by side with a bunch of misfit sorcerers that aren't so easily vilified, chopping down camelot's soldiers and knights and assuredly making their way to the newly-minted king.

then, just as it starts to seem that all hope is lost, in swoops merlin (the actual merlin, not his old fart disguise) on dragonback (kilgharrah hates morgana so much i know his sexist ass would stoop to anything to stop her)!!! imagine merlin showing off the extent of his powers in front of everyone and preventing the sorcerers from getting any further, declaring loud and clear that camelot is protected by him, by emrys. imagine that display of power alone being enough to send everyone home.

imagine the loyalties clearly drawn: merlin on arthur's side, morgana on the sorcerers'. imagine arthur, feeling confused and betrayed by everyone at this point, banishing merlin despite everything he's done for him in the angstiest, most emotionally dysregulated scene the show had ever put to screen. imagine merlin starting season 5 free at last but very lonesome, an embittered dragonlord like his father. imagine the absolute mess camelot would become without him, even with gwen — now queen guinevere — there to pick up the slack. imagine arthur actually earning merlin back, finally growing into his role as king as he does so. imagine the reunion.

all this and more could've been not just possible but inevitable if morgana was allowed to remain a complex character that is neither inherently good nor inherently evil: it was undeniably the biased and one-note treatment of morgana's downfall by the writers that set the precedent for literally everything else that happened after merlin chose to poison her. the show wouldn't have even had to jeopardize its tone or the monster-of-the-week vibe, all it would've had to do is admit that even the "good guys" are capable of mistakes and what makes them good is the ability to feel remorse and change for the better. (as opposed to uther, who was miles beyond redemption since way before the pilot and deserved to lose everything and die alone. OBVIOUSLY???)

in a world where morgana remains multifaceted and sympathetic, mordred would get a better arc as well, so if we really wanted to, we could still end on the same tragic note that the show ended on. with so much harm inflicted onto so many innocent people by the pendragons for so long (including mordred and the many druids and sorcerers that raised him), it could realistically end up being a little too late for anything more than one shining glimpse of king arthur and the sorcerer merlin's short-lived golden age before fate catches up to them. glimpsing that reality just to immediately lose it would've been far more satisfying and far more tragic than whatever the writers thought they were doing with all that pointless carrot-dangling.

and finally, an ending in line with morgana's new and improved arc. in this version, rather than bleeding out on the forest floor alone, she would channel the morgan le fay we know from the legends: sobered up by the reality of her brother dying, she would use her high priestess status (and perhaps also her pendragon status) to be granted passage over to avalon alongside arthur on the boat — a one-way ride — just to make sure he gets there safely. this is her penance for the harm she has caused, the same way arthur's penance is to die and leave the true ruler of camelot (gwen) behind to achieve everything he was too slow and indecisive to build while he still had time.

merlin's penance, then, would be to stay behind and watch them cross over without him, waiting and waiting and waiting until they come back or until he can finally join them. which is a bit fucking harsh if i'm honest, so i'd at least make it slightly more faithful to the legends by having him return as an old man and letting him take a long nap under a tree by the shore, his body slowly enveloped by vines like the cobwebbed fisher king in 3x08, never fully sure if he's dreaming or if there really are strange shapes fading in and out of the fog over the lake. still tragic, but nevertheless a little more open-ended and whimsical than [TRUCK NOISES] THE END!

[messiahzzz]

thank you sm for the ask!! 💕 i’m glad you enjoy my posts and it is not a strange request by any means!

note: this is merely my read on gale’s sexual preferences/kinks. i don’t want to police anyone on their headcanons or claim they are “incorrect”. since the game doesn’t provide too much detail, many things remain up to interpretation. (and lest we forget fanfiction has always encouraged the exploration of dynamics that may not be present in canon.)

gale is a character who isn’t interested in walking the straight and narrow route. he is all about new experiences, favoring non-traditional means, putting his own spin on things, and the thrill of seeking the forbidden. the sheer romance of the uncharted and the unknown. he is enthusiastic in almost every aspect and possesses an infectious zest for life. in regards to his sexual preferences, this translates into an eagerness to explore, witness new sensations, and reach new heights together. while approaching the topic of sexuality with a generally playful, adventurous attitude.

if you’re looking for harder kinks, however — i don’t believe gale is the character for you. and in case it needs to be said again: there is nothing wrong with being vanilla.

initially, i see gale as a switch, who gravitates more towards assuming a dominant role, due to his ever-present desire to give and to impress. i do think he enjoys giving up control, yet you still have to actively convince him to let himself go and be spoiled for once. his first focus will always be to fulfill his partner's needs and drown them in his all-encompassing love and adoration. i also believe that gale will grow more comfortable with being the center of attention, once their relationship has reached a point of total security (and he had ample opportunities to show in just how many ways he can wow them). gale is not a strict dom, nor a sub. in his ideal relationship roles would be discarded entirely, deeming them too restrictive in his expression of intimacy with a trusted partner. it’s all about variety and ridding oneself of the shackles of the worldly, after all. melting into one perfect whole, not knowing where he ends and his partner begins.

gale: we are all sensual vessels. illusory magic lets us sail farther, and feel more deeply.

gale: [..] i could use the weave to make us feel sensations beyond reckoning.

based on what we know about gale, these could be some of his kinks:

lots of praise (this is non-negotiable), sensation/temperature play (waxplay, electrostimulation/all the many perks magic has to offer), sensory deprivation, light restrictions and bondage, the occasional roleplay, katoptronophilia (self-explanatory), altered mental-states (hypnosis, psychedelics), orgasm control & denial, body worship, olfactophilia and given his propensity towards verbosity: narratophilia and some very inventive dirty talk. as for my own self-indulgent take: due to the recurring emphasis on hands during his romance, as well as his being the main tool in how he shapes and navigates the world: quirofilia.

nodecontext: flustered, standing in front of his romance partner in bondage gear. not necessarily uncomfortable with the bondage aspect, just trying to stay focused.

now, what are gale’s hard-limits?

gale, after the player received loviatar's blessing: your hide, your choice. not quite my cup of tea though.

while projecting your own kinks and fantasies onto fictional characters is fine and well, disregarding and ignoring the source material (and the character's stated boundaries) is another matter entirely. fanon!gale is rather ooc and very different from his canon portrayal, which is something that tends to irk me. although this remains a common fandom phenomenon.

personally, i don’t see gale as someone who enjoys pain of any kind, be it giving or receiving (with the exception of spanking and light choking, if a certain mood strikes. although it is kept mostly playful). contrary to what fandom may claim, having self-worth issues, being loquacious, emotionally expressive, and vulnerability-seeking (as well as being commonly perceived as arrogant and insufferable) doesn't automatically equal having repressed masochistic tendencies. he could be convinced to dip a toe into sadism, but only upon his partner’s insistence. although i doubt he himself would find enjoyment in that.

the same applies to degradation/humiliation. i doubt that a character who is still very much struggling with inherent self-worth issues and a general feeling of being defective/not worthy would derive sexual gratification from being degraded. yes, it can certainly be healing for some, but gale doesn’t strike me as someone who would find particular enjoyment in that. quite the contrary, actually. nor would he like to do the degrading for that matter (he would vehemently refuse. all he wants to do is sing your praises.) gale wouldn’t enjoy being leashed and/or collared in any way either. the prospect of being tied up or restricted is rather intriguing, cause it serves to center one’s vulnerability while also allowing for more intense sensations. anything that taps into the puppy play/slave territory tho? he would find it demeaning… and, quite frankly, silly.

gale is also not a voyeur, nor a cuck. the entire scene with the drow twins leans way too much into dub-con territory for my tastes. the only way you can get him to participate at all is by rolling a persuasion check with DC 25. in every other dialogue option, he immediately (and explicitly) declines. even if you do manage to pass the persuasion check, he is still very hesitant about participating.

gale: i might enjoy watching you tangled up with the drow, as long as i was five paces back.

he then immediately runs from the room, because sending a simulacrum in his place was the only way to somewhat remove himself from the situation while still being able to please tav. because of course he wants to please and clearly this is important to tav so he might just… have to discard his reservations and... just go through with it?!

gale: well i suppose it would do no good to back out now. let us begin this little anthropological study, if we must.

i am aware that fandom uses the fact that his “orb lit up in telltale excitement” as a justification that persuading him was the right choice, as well as confirmation that he was secretly into it and “just needed a little push" to explore his desires/get out of his comfort zone. that implication alone is very suspect and goes straight into the sort of logic abusers often use. you can be physically aroused by certain scenes, images, or sounds, even while being visibly uncomfortable with the presented scenario. it is a natural response that you can’t often control. which is what he is showing throughout the entire scene: discomfort. he was coerced into this situation, without any prior discussion or an opportunity to talk about his boundaries. furthermore, this is what he has to say if you approach him after the threesome:

gale: ahem. i hope you're not here to ask about our recent, erm, activities. i'd rather those were consigned to the footnotes of our romance, if it's all the same with you.

since he is strictly monogamous, any arrangement involving another person is also a no. he made this rather clear when tav sought him out after receiving halsin's proposal. him being monogamous isn't solely rooted in his trauma, it isn't something he has to “overcome” in order to heal, nor does it mean that their relationship is any less fulfilling. call him greedy, stubborn, or old-fashioned, but he cannot comfortably agree to that.

[harbingersecho]

[feelo-fick]

Headcanon: Chilchuck and his Bad Takes on Literature

i think chilchuck would be like my mom in the sense that he wouldnt like sad stories. dont get me wrong, cautionary tales? absolutely fine. they serve a purpose to him which is to tell people "dont be an idiot and do this or else something bad will happen"

generally sad or angsty stories though? no point to him, and in his perspective its really confusing how people just read things that make them sad. like whats the use of reading something if its just gonna make you sad. whats the lesson? its not even real so it doesnt help anyone.

whats the point in making yourself cry when you could just avoid that entirely by not reading it at all?

but the one of the biggest reasons why sad stories exist is to let you release all the built up grief in you. to send you something to let out all your emotions in a healthy way. catharsis. empathy.

even when i dont relate to the tragic experiences in some stories, several ones ive read have lead me to realize that im in a bad situation or that im following in the footsteps of the character suffering. its like a wake up call.

and making yourself cry isnt inherently a bad thing. if crying allows you to let go of building pressure and tension in you then thats good!

but chil wouldnt see that. of course he wouldnt, hes avoidant of most situations that would allow him to release emotion, and fearful of letting his mature (read: repressed) persona slip.

hes someone that runs away to quick comforts and distractions at the earliest sign of issue. hes already been in too many horrifying situations, dealing with another is a pain. and he knows denying everything and refusing to look at the situation doesnt help, but it definitely provides a quick and easy happiness in the comfort of ignorance.

because of this, reading something made to make one empathize with and confront these bad emotions is defeating the point of his cowering. if he faces his issues, even if only through the perspective of a story, he'd have to deal with acknowledging that things are bad and need fixing, and he'd feel terrible and guilty in the moment - which of course is the worst thing that could happen to a person (his thought, not mine).

which is why i find the concept of him being/becoming a tragedy himself at the same time as this headcanon soooo interesting. imagine the irony of him bashing on the protagonists of tragic stories for acting on emotion and impulse rather than logic, when he himself has fallen victim to irrational thinking while in grief.

cause... thats what people do when they grieve. they lash out, make bad decisions, ruin themselves, ruin others.

for a tragedy to be prevented, the protagonists would have to change fundamental parts of themselves, and act perfectly rational when under extreme stress. and chilchuck holds himself to these kinds of unrealistic standards because he unwittingly believes he can handle it all.

he cant, obviously. we see it for ourselves in his relationship with his wife. they were doomed from the beginning by chils already-established avoidance and lack of emotional vulnerabiltiy (and whatever else his wife had going on).

this is all just to say that if you told him about orpheus and eurydice, he'd probably be one of those idiots trying to point out the "plot hole" that he couldve "just not looked back" and "just trusted her"

i dont understand. whats the point in reading tragedies? the protagonist is stupid, anyways. why would you take bitter medicine? why subject yourself to that?

i think its just a bad story.

[rinbylin]

friendships as marital ties (and other notes on relational ties) in mlc

this is sort of a third installment in the series of meta on 'mlc as an exemplar of constructing queer narratives out of chinese ideological frameworks' (1. jianghu as queer space and 2. how it manifests in li xiangyi) - focusing on the nature of relationships in it. (which I've briefly mentioned in the first one and finally actually getting to it!!)

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I would like to first call attention to chinese ideological frameworks as a premise of queer reading in mlc. the goal of chinese philosophy is to explore the becoming of human, taking two broad paths of the (mainstream) secular vs. escaping the secular. (these two paths are not a strict dichotomy, and rather, are ever in flux and in conversation with each other.) as said by @markiafc too, chineseness is so much about the rigidity of structures, and in equal part, a desire to break out of them. thus, chinese ideological frameworks can very much offer a rich reading of queerness - that mlc, a story very deliberately structured based on chinese ideologies (more accurately, with good reasons for me to believe that it is as such), has managed to materialise.

if the conceptualisation of queerness is premised on a defiance against mainstream norms, then a reliable way to read queerness in chinese ideological frameworks can be to deconstruct it by the mainstream confucian frameworks.

in mlc, this is implicitly set up with its stage of wulin/martial jianghu. then it is further broken down by asking, hey wulin jianghu is still closely related to the hegemonic values and the mainstream structure of authority (historically, 侠 xia being politically involved says a lot about this), so what is the true meaning of jianghu? what does it then really take for jianghu to be a queer space offering comfort and freedom to those who have escaped to it - to be the space that allow the transcendence of rigid roles and labels? mlc took a step further to resist the proxy to mainstream values that wulin jianghu has become.

this is why there can be a very strong buddhism reading of mlc (suggested here, expounded in the A+++ meta by @markiafc here and here, and also what I've seen discussed by cnet as well), given that buddhism is one of the 'extra-secular' ideologies, alongside (philosophical) taoism. I've also touched on a taoist angle in this meta. both schools are articulated in different sets of languages, but ultimately convey a same ideal of what it means to be human and how to live well - that is, to resist the roles and labels defined by the norms.

so, back to confucian frameworks.

a lot can be discussed about mlc with it. but in the context of this meta about relationships in mlc, it's specifically drawing on how confucianism conceptualises social relationships with familial ties as a cornerstone, and how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self'.

as such, one of the things about mlc that has fascinated me is how deliberately it seems to ignore and reject the conventional familial ties (the kind by blood and marital ties). I've joked about how it is a miracle for me to love mlc as much as I do, as a prime dysfunctional family story enjoyer, despite none of its main characters struggling with any complicated feelings about their (biological) parents. but on closer examination, mlc is also making a comment on the model of familial-based relationships that dominates mainstream society - but through the absence of it.

with this, I want to talk about 1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties; and then 2) how it repurposes these ties in its own ways.

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the five relational ties in confucianism:

father and son 父子有亲 - (natural) affection between father and son

ruler and subject 君臣有义 - righteous relationship between ruler and subject

older and younger brothers 兄弟 (长幼有序) - this is actually about seniority within the family; the order between older vs younger family members

husband and wife 夫妇有别 - differentiation between husband and wife (demarcated by the 内外 spectrum of gendered inner-external spheres)

friends 朋友有信 - trust between friends

logically inferred, all these ties are hierarchical and familial-based except for the last one: friends. ruler-subject is sort of an extension of the natural familial ties, while friendship is the inverse space of 1-4 (ie. you fall back on 5 to define a social relationship outside of the familial sphere that cannot be qualified as 1-4). while all are premised on mutuality, it is only no. 5 that is defined by a sense of choice and equality.

on the surface, 1-4 don't quite exist in mlc in particularly meaningful ways to the narrative or are even outright overlooked, and friendship is the relational tie most valued by mlc. we can tell it's true just by looking at the most meaningful relationships in mlc of difanghua. but at the same time, it is more nuanced. we can take a closer look at how the story plays around with most of the ties as part of a broader queer narrative.

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1) how mlc rejects the conventional ties

mlc's rejection of mainstream relational ties can be best seen in fdb escaping from marriage. and it was not just any engagement with anybody but an engagement with the imperial family. he struggles with the prospect of being married to princess zhaoling, but generally, it's about the idea of complying to mainstream conventions and expectations that includes compulsory heterosexuality. all these point not only to a defiance against amatonormativity - the resistance of the traditional husband-wife tie, but also an irreverence for the ties of ruler-subject (the engagement being an imperial decree) and father-son (matters of marriage being sole decisions made by parents).

of course this is on top of how fdb's own biological father is a p-o-s, and the narrative gives fdb minimal struggles in this aspect, allowing him to sever this tie without looking back (I love it, yeap). along the same line is how lxy is an orphan, who came to gain important relationships that are built on natural compassion among people rather than innate, blood-based ties - even as llh. the sense of defiance from the narrative is especially stark to me considering that he could have a completely different familial-based life - as a son, brother, and ruler, if his biological family was still around. the narrative also deliberately treats his biological brother as a phantom, replaced with an older brother who he was bonded with neither by blood nor marital ties. on dfs's front, absolutely nothing is to be known about his biological family. his childhood history with the toxic patriarch of his life - who is not even his biological father - was afforded a clean break and closure.

we can keep going on, but that's pretty much the point.

ritualisation is one of the most important things of the confucianism school, especially to the honoring of these social relationships (and the officiating of social roles). the one ceremony/ritual we saw in mlc involving the main characters - or more accurately speaking, came closest to seeing - was the imminent wedding ceremony of dfs and jlq. even in that case, it was premised on non-mutuality with dfs being the unwilling, passive party. (fem-coded dfs? 25 marks.)

and that brings us to the next part.

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2) how mlc repurposes these ties

that particular wedding ceremony gets hijacked by dfs and lxy/llh, and gets turned into an important milestone in their relationship. they consummate - what is on text - their friendship after a long time being more enemies and rivals than friends. it is a clear establishment of the trust they have for each other. and here it is where I circle back to the subject of this post: friendships as marital ties.

in this article, as a part of a feminist, egalitarian reframing of confucianism, there is a proposal for spousal relationships to be reframed as a friendship tie. (this aligns with the interrelatedness of the five ties eg. the ruler-subject mirrors father-son dynamic, with the confucian belief that rulers have an obligation to their subjects alike parents to their own children.) by doing so, it removes the functional, gendered differentiation assigned to marital ties, and shifts it to something equal, and independent of gender. you exalt the value of trust between spouses, instead of basing marital relationships on gendered roles. as such, spouses become more like friends, and conversely, friends can also become more like spouses. (romance not a prerequisite. it has never been about romance anyway.)

given that mlc has repeatedly applied marital motifs to llh and dfs's characters in their joint narratives, this opens up a reading friendships as a marital tie. seeing marriage as a bridge for strangers to become family, marriage in mlc becomes a metaphor for the chosen commitment and mutual trust put in by strangers/friends (non-familial ties) into the becoming of family. the blurring of lines between marital ties and friendship encourages a genuine space of queer experience that goes beyond any pressure for strict labels - of sexuality, and relationships as romantic, sexual, etc etc.

(note: despite the borrowing of a feminist concept, I strongly hesitate to call mlc a feminist story. it's a whole discussion - or debate - on its own. nevertheless, it is definitely a gender-conscious story that lays foundation for a strong queer and egalitarian reading.)

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it is to be noted that it is intended - and also beneficial to take the confucian framework of relational ties beyond face value. the framework offers what it believed to be the most fundamental social relationship dynamics, and sees room for extension and matching to other kinds of relationships (all if not, most). a relationship such as teacher-student, which is outside of the five ties stated, can also mirror the affection of father-son ties, albeit not in a literal and identical way.

speaking of which. fdb and lxy/llh.

indeed they're known by others to be good friends. fdb thinks they're good friends too - insists on it, and puts his best efforts in keeping it that way. but does it really go both ways? if it does not, then can it really still be friendship? my humble take is that, ultimately - weighing in with llh's perspective - this is a relationship that is not so much based on trust, and rather, based on an innate affection that is only unique to family. (in this case, not blood/marital-based but one that was chosen and built aka lxy's relationship with sgd.) in other words, less of a friendship, more of a familial one.

it is a lot clearer considering their relationship from llh's point of view: some brat you never wanted in your life came barging in, and whether he was going to bring any positive effect to your life was secondary to the tranquility - which you have carved for yourself in the past decade - that is so integral to your personhood. no way. but the moment you hear that he's family? well, that changes the game completely. even before learning about fdb being sgd's son (then beginning to take initiative in showing greater acceptance), it is apparent in llh that there was an instinctive resonance with fdb as his shixiong's nephew. (eg. he remarked to his shifu's grave about how alike fdb is to himself.) this is unlike with dfs whom he had taken a much longer time to build trust with. you do not apply trust - aka the quality of friendships - to family. family is something deeper, more instinctive than that. if fdb was never family, I find it hard to imagine given llh's personality, that he would have let some brazen, bratty stranger intrude for that long. (boy invited himself to llh's home, sat himself down eating the owner's dinner and nosing in his cooking abilities!!! ily bb but that was uncalled for 😭)

of course there are many more layers in their relationship. there is a substantial degree of their history as (unwitting) teacher-disciple: fdb is still healthy and alive all thanks to the existence of lxy as a spiritual teacher role model in his life, regardless it being one-sided or not. there is also indeed some part of friendship in it, especially from fdb's point of view. he sees llh as a kindred spirit who he could enjoy a life of freedom with for life. but llh never reciprocates. he knew this was short-lived. and so ultimately, the hierarchical layer of their relationship overpowers the equal one, where llh's treatment of fdb as a nephew/小辈 younger family member and a disciple is the one that sealed the fate of their relationship.

if (blood-based) familial ties are irrelevant in jianghu, then the closest proxy to a father-son relationship in the martial world would be a teacher-disciple relationship. lxy and his shifu are a clear, indisputable example. for fdb and llh, their teacher-disciple tie is murkier and not consistently applied. they were also never ritualised as teacher-disciple, and thus are not teacher-disciple in any official capacity as far as confucian ideas are concerned. yet in crucial moments, it is invoked by llh as a card of authority over fdb to get out of sticky situations with fdb. and there was their final scene together: in a moment of sincerity, llh gives the approval to fdb as his disciple - then entrusting fdb with the secret manual of his techniques, up until his final letter in which fdb was recommended to dfs as a successor to his martial abilities.

in an imperial setting, this would have been the relationship of an emperor and his crown prince that straddles both ruler-subject and father-son ties aka a tag-team of disaster. the teacher has an obligation to nurture his disciple as a successor to himself, and love him like a son too. on the flipside, he holds the final power in their relationship - withholding knowledge and feelings from the younger one. they are only equals in a way a parent-child can be. they are only equals as much as the parent allows. and this is how fdb got left behind in the dust of llh's departure. he was the child treating his parent like a friend, supporting him emotionally and begging to be loved back the same way he loves his parent - but the parent had a lifetime way ahead of him and stayed out of his reach, physically and emotionally.

llh and fdb operate with the trapping of a friendship but have always been family in the core. llh had known that way before fdb did, just like everything else he had known and put out of fdb's reach. because. fdb did not have to know. fdb is different and will forge his own path. and that's a kind of love llh has for him that nobody understands (in fact not even fdb himself) - one that is on a different plane from friendships.

by repurposing the framework of relational ties, mlc showed that the essence of familial relationships aka its intimacy and closeness can be independent from biology and formalised rituals. and it is important to myself for stories to say that people can build close ties and deeply meaningful relationships even without being born or ritualised into any.

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then back to how these relational ties are inextricable from the conceptualisation of the 'self' in confucian worldview: the roles you play in these relationships are intended to define you. there is no 'self' independent from it. while the concept of a social, relational self is fully rooted in reality, being locked into social roles can be a painful way to live - a way that llh has experienced as lxy the sigu sect leader. so, in order for lxy/llh to realise a sense of self that exists outside the norms, it inevitably points to another way that requires a cut from these relationships. that is then the buddhist (or taoist) answer of looking past attachments to the world such as the confucian idea of relationships defining your being. only with a dissolution of a sense of 'self', can there be true liberation.

[teencopandthesourwolf]

THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN EVERY EPISODE OF TEEN WOLF EVER

part i (part ii HERE)

17 different heart attack-inducing storylines all overlapping with one another with some genuinely excellent concepts and lots of cool af lore that's executed so terribly it convinces you that whomever is in charge must surely be a hamster

werewolves and teenagers alike with some seriously debilitating mental conditions running around like they're contestants on the wheel of fortune

scott pining loudly over allison, pre or post allison's death, regardless of who he is dating at the time

beautiful beautiful derek "my whole family died and i'm being soso brave about it and trying to make myself a new one by collecting teen misfits and putting them in a plastic tupperware box but forgetting to poke holes in the lid bc i'm on the spectrum and trying to process and deal and grow as a person which is really tough when life keeps getting harder instead of easier and will somebody please PLEASE just give me a break" hale.

deaton being a smug little twat

STILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTILESSTI

greenberg being the star of the show

lydia slaying

everybody apart from stiles running around like headless chickens while stiles tries to tell everybody what they need to do but none of them ever listen to stiles so stiles has to do something drastic and dangerous then everybody is all like OMG STILES WHY DID YOU DO THAT THAT'S SO DRASTIC AND DANGEROUS WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU and stiles has to try his best not to eviscerate every single fucking one of them bc he is a good friend to scott

jeff davis doing his doggone constipated best to debunk sterek by writing dialogue/giving directions that hilariously just ardently confirm sterek even more with each epically gay scene

scott sending out thee biggest punch me i'm a motherfucker vibes

AUTISM

danny mahealani stealing the hearts and minds of young and old alike

dylan o'brien being extremely kind by trying his absolute best not to show up all the other actors with his scene-stealing, oscar-worthy performances every second he is on screen and failing miserably.

scott ignoring his phone

mama mcall being so real and a milf

derek's eyebrows being an actual main character

scott auditioning for a new cutting edge reality tv show show called: GIVE ME A NEW PERSONALITY BEFORE SOMEBODY ENDS MY LIFE FOR ME!

boyd being better than everybody else

57% of scenes being filmed in beacon hills high school

41% of scenes being filmed in beacon hills hospital

peter hale, cunt, rocking your world whether you like it or not

(part ii HERE)

[queerofthedagger]

I'm really curious about the Uther things you mentioned?

Ahh hey! Yeah I can talk on that a bit (for context, I think I said that I do find his character intriguing and that my opinion on him has evolved quite a bit, influenced by mostly disagreeing with what a lot of people tend to say?)

So the thing about Uther is that I feel people tend to either go "He's evil, everything he does at any given time is evil, I hate him and there is nothing more to it," or they go "Oh but he loved his children!!!" in a kind of, redeeming-quality-kind of sense. I'm somewhat hyperbolizing, of course, but I do think fandom tends to a very black and white view.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Uther. I hate Uther with a burning passion, and I love to hate him. He's terrible. But I do think the show actually did go to quite an effort to make him complex beyond a simple "tyrannical son of a bitch" (that he was) or "Oh okay but he loved Ygraine and his kids 🥺" (which he did!).

Of course he is terrible. He murdered hundreds if not thousands of people over the guilt he could not bear to live with, that was, in the first place, the consequence of his own actions. I do believe he didn't know that the price would be Ygraine's life; he was still willing to sacrifice someone's life. Which is very Uther. Yes, at the root of that lies grief, and at the root of grief lies love, but the thing (and also imo the crux of Uther's character) is that being capable of loving people doesn't somehow, magically (ha. sorry) make you less of a bad person.

Terrible people can love other people. In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find people no matter how atrocious their actions, who don't have people they love. And most people don't set out to "do something evil;" Uther, in all his atrocities, always had justifications to himself.

I think it says a lot that despite the brutal war he wrought, he was by and large not considered a bad king, per se, by his people and allies. We could dismiss all those instances where the show makes a point to reiterate this as fear of speaking up - and I'm not saying that didn't play a part - but I think that's making it too easy. There is a whole other essay on propaganda and how the war on magic worked, but I'll get to that another time. My main point is that, as uncomfortable as the thought may be considering just what horrors he wrought, he wasn't a frothing, mad bag full of cartoonish evil.

That doesn't mean that he "wasn't that bad, really." Which kind of brings me to the other side of things, the way people like to throw "Well, but he loved his kids," into the mix as a kind of. I don't know, counterpoint to the "tyrannical son of a bitch" side. And like, the thing is, he did. The thing is, that doesn't change a thing.

Yeah, Uther loved both Arthur and Morgana. We see enough proof of that through the seasons, whether it's in the Excalibur Episode where he fights in Arthur's stead at any cost, or in Le Morte d'Arthur where he openly weeps, or with Morgana in various instances to a degree where some people think he loved her more (and again, yet another essay on how his love for Arthur is tangled up so much in his guilt and the hatred that caused, but I digresss), not least in how her 'betrayal' broke him.

Ultimately, though, he also put Arthur in harm's way again and again. He certainly rarely ever told him he loved him, to the point where Arthur is shocked to hear it. He puts his children in chains and locks them away and drugs them and threatens them in all manners, he lies to them and hides the truth from them (Ygraine/Morgana's parentage in the first place) to the detriment of their well-being, and so on. His love is conditional. His love demands obedience and submission. We could argue until we're blue if that's really love in the first place, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter all that much.

People can love other people, and it can be entirely inconsequential, because frankly, most parents love/"love" their kids. That doesn't mean they're automatically good parents, or even good people. In Uther's case it really isn't a redeeming quality at all. It just makes him complex and interesting and multi-dimensional as the villain/antagonist. Because it makes us grapple with the really very unfortunate but inevitable fact that even terrible people are still people. They aren't some removed monster that no one can ever relate to. They love and they laugh and grieve, and they can still turn around and burn people in their frontyard on the daily without missing a beat. They can be willing to die for their children and threaten violence and exile in the next breath.

I think with Uther, at the end of the day, for me it's really both. His atrocities started out of love, and his love is steeped, inevitably, in the violence and twisted moral framework of his character; it's not an either/or thing at all, it depends on each other. And he is a goddamn son of a bitch, of course, even if every once in a bluemoon he still sheds honest tears for his unfortunate children.

[itslilacmoon]

now that I’ve got your attention, do you want to click some more buttons? I’m trying to collect data on TOH fandom/shipping culture, and it would really help me out if you completed my survey!

If you’ve ever wanted to share your experiences of what it’s like being in the TOH fandom, now’s your chance! It’s a bit long, but you’re helping me document important parts of fandom culture!

[hopeswriting]

okay, breaking my silence on this i guess, so have one of my author’s notes from one of my stories. sorry not sorry, peace and love on planet earth <3

Listen to me, LISTEN TO ME. I know in canon it seems like the 10th gen wants to become mafia, or that they're okay with it at the very least, and that they don't care that Tsuna very much doesn't want to become mafia until the very end, but it's because they look at a different choice from Tsuna. For Tsuna, his options are to either become mafia and Vongola, which'd mean dragging all his friends into it too, or somehow manage to make Vongola give up on him so none of them will have to become part of the mafia. And so of course he tries his very best and his hardest to somehow achieve the latter, however unrealistic it is and how little power he has to do that, if at all, as Vongola is the strongest mafia family in the world. But he has to try anyway so none of them will become mafia, but first and foremost so none of his friends he loves so much will become mafia against their wishes, especially when it'd only happen because they happen to love him back, the last legitimate Vongola Decimo candidate.

But for the 10th gen, the choice in front of them is to whether turn their backs on Tsuna so to be free from the mafia, or keep standing by his side even if it means they become mafia. Do you get what I mean? For them, it's always about Tsuna first and foremost before it's ever about Vongola and if becoming mafia is something they want. They look at Tsuna and the life he's being dragged to, very much caring that he doesn't want any of it and yet doesn't have the power to stop them from dragging him closer to that life, and ask themselves: "Do I love Tsuna enough to let myself be dragged to that life too, so I can help him see it through and find as much happiness as possible from it?". And of course, of course the answer is yes and comes to them as naturally as breathing.

And so they give in because they must, because they don't have (yet) the power to fight back against it and win. Because should they not be willing enough, they might decide they wouldn't mind making them part of their world even if it means breaking them to make it happen, and they wouldn't have (yet) the power to stop it from happening. To stop it from happening to Tsuna.

And so they willingly let them teach them how to be a mafioso so they'll be able to stand their own in the world they're forcing them to become a part of. They willingly let them teach them how to be a powerful mafioso so they'll be strong enough to protect each other from and survive in the world they're forcing them to become a part of. And then maybe to even still be happy in that world. (And then maybe to even break free from that world.)

They're all doing it for each other despite none of them wanting any of it. Because they care about loving each other and doing justice to that love more than being able to do the things they want. Do you get it? Please tell me you get it!!!!

add-on:

i’m not saying their friendship is perfect in every way. i agree it isn’t and it’d be boring if it was anyway, but also it’s very much by design. because khr is all about growth, about being a better person than you were yesterday and doing better by the people around you than you did yesterday. it’s about this group of kids who were strangers and had many more reasons to not mesh well together than to get along, who came together anyway and built a bond so strong between them, it survived through and was the strength that allowed them to see through all the mafia bullshit thrown at them no kids should ever have to go through.

i AM saying that despite the... cracks on their friendship, the places where it comes together more loosely and superficially, the places where it doesn’t come together at all, they’re still genuinely friends. the 10th gen genuinely loves tsuna and cares about him and does care about the things he wants and the things he doesn’t want. like, is there room in canon to interpret all i said above in a less wholesome way that’d make their friendship less strong and genuine and organic? absolutely. is there room for interpretation in canon to extrapolate and explore how their friendship might not actually survive the test of time because they want and need different things from it? absolutely. and i mean that, because i myself am absolutely not against going down those routes and thinking about them and exploring them and reading about them (tho i do have yet to write about it haha). but canonically, whenever they look at all that sets them apart and at all that could break them apart, they always choose to overcome those things to come together anyway.

i’m also saying that it’s a little unfair to look at their friendship at the beginning of the manga, and base your opinion of it solely on it. because of course the early arcs, let alone the first one, is where their friendship was at the weakest and the least equal. it’s where they were the most and most often just not very good friends to each other. but that includes tsuna too. like yes arguably he was the one getting the short end of the stick giving and not receiving much back, but there’s a post on here saying he was (or is, i don’t remember) a bad friend to them, and like. yeah, he kinda was. because it’s literally his first shot at friendship, and then he doesn’t even get to try it in normal circumstances, far from it. it’s their first shot at friendship for all of them in their own ways and in less than normal circumstances, so of course they were clumsy and tactless and hurtful with it at times. but they put in the effort to learn to know each other so they could do right by each other, and it’s something you can’t possibly miss if you read the manga in good faith.

i mean, gokudera says this as early as the kokuyo arc, and entirely unprompted too:

[ID copied from alt text: Panels from the manga Katekyo Hitman Reborn.

Bianchi says, “Let’s go, Tsuna.”

Tsuna hesitates, saying “Eh... but...”

"Please go ahead, Boss,” Gokudera says. “Get Mukuro!"

"Yes, I know, but still..." Tsuna says, still looking unsure.

Gokudera grins wide and reassuringly. "Once this is over, we'll all have some fun together."

Tsuna smiles, looking relieved and pleasantly surprised. "...Ri...right. We'll do that."

"'Course!" Gokudera says. /END ID]

he knows exactly what tsuna cares about and values the most: their peaceful and happy daily lives, and all of them being safe and having the freedom to enjoy life and each other’s company without worry. gokudera’s perfectly aware just why tsuna’s there and what he fights for: so they can go back to their peaceful and happy times safe and sound. so please don’t tell me gokudera actually doesn’t know tsuna and only cares about tenth/vongola decimo and the perfect version of tsuna in his mind he puts on a pedestal. (and i mean, don’t get me wrong because there is that too, but gokudera has always been able to see tsuna for who he truly is anyway, and it’s tsuna he’s always cared about first and foremost.)

now of course you still don’t have to agree with me by no means. you don’t have to think their friendship is all that deep or strong or equal or genuine and organic, if at all. it’s not that i don’t agree that both these takes are valid and based on canon, it’s not that i don’t see where these kinds of takes come from or that i don’t think there isn’t some truth in them, but if we’re talking strictly canon, if we’re trying to guess objectively and in good faith, independently of how we might feel about it, just what amano was getting at writing and portraying their dynamics the way she did, then you just have to agree that the intent was to show just how strong and resilient because of how loving and caring and trusting it is their bond is. i mean, it’s literally the heart of the story (that, plus tsuna’s and reborn’s bond). it’s those bonds that carry tsuna forwards, and so it’s the same bonds that carry the whole of the manga forwards. like i’m sorry, but you really just have to agree with me on this. (about how this is the take we’re most likely meant to take from the manga, that is, because again, whether it’s actually the way you, personally, receive it, or if you think amano managed to write it well and pull it off, etc, that’s of course for each of us to decide, and we’re not any less valid than each other no matter what our opinions are.)

so, yeah. idk how to finish this post lol. but i guess what i’m saying is that even tho i’m not gonna give examples here of the 10th gen caring about and loving tsuna and knowing who he is, and standing by his wants, wishes and needs, know that i very much could. so i guess this is also my “the 10th gen are genuine friends of tsuna who truly loves him and cares about him for simply being tsuna first and foremost, and their friendship is an equal one from both sides” propaganda post. which i actually already got to do once. and as long as we’re strictly talking canon, this is a hill i will die on.

[gingerpeachtea]

i love the small moment during sympathy for the duke where the duke puts satine's sheer robe back on her shoulders. you can kind of see the beginning of it in the last gif of this post by ashleyslorens.

satine, knowing exactly what the duke wants, decides to push her and the duke forward by taking her robe off her shoulders and posing in a way she knows he'll find enticing. she's the one to take that first step forward—which is crucial, considering she knows she's going to have to relinquish control to him in mere moments. satine being the one to initiate is her trying to set the pace they move at, instead of just letting the duke call the shots.

the duke sees and recognizes this, and so he puts his hands on her shoulders and then slips the robe back up her arms and on her body. he then establishes what he wants from her—everything—and thus establishes the full control he'll have over her.

we can also see him use the robe to strip her of her control in other moments throughout the number. about halfway through, the duke grabs satine's shoulders and tears the robe off of her rather suddenly. she plays along, and then follows his lead (a beckoning "come here" motion with his finger). he's telling her where to go; he's the one making the decisions. she still has the robe in hand, and does some flirty choreography with it. the duke then violently rips it from her hands, to satine's visible shock, which she then has to mask in order to keep him happy as 'the sparkling diamond'.

there is definitely more to be said about how the duke uses clothing as a means of controlling satine, but i just wanted to highlight this one instance, especially that particular moment with him putting the robe back on her that i found really interesting.