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absolutebl · 12 days ago

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MY BEST & WORST BLs of 2024

My Top 10 BLs of 2024 are (in order)

1 Cosmetic Playlover

Japan Gaga

I love this little show. It's a classic office BL about the older workaholic who loves his job and the younger upstart who unexpectedly loves his boss.

It’s a hyung romance where everybody is extremely earnest and sweet and pretty about everything. Except our seme, who is slightly unhinged and a little obsessed in all the ways one likes best from Japan. Utterly charming unexpected gem of a show. What fun!

Already in hard rewatch territory.

2 Love For Love's Sake

Korea iQIYI trigger suiside

KBL isekai about a man who must win a game by convincing a reserved teen outcast to fall in love with him. Of course, that teen represents himself and his own unhappiness. Like many queer narratives, this show is actually about self worth, trust, and found family, and it is VERY on the nose. But I don’t expect subtlety from my BL and I enjoyed it's truly lovely redemption arc and earnest performances. The narrative tension is tight, and the pacing is killer.

That said, I did find the flow a touch disjointed with overworked filming angles and poorer than average captions, but the consistency of tone, script, and immersion is spectacular, beyond the norm for BL (even KBL). You will drown in this show and like it that way. The leads have fantastic chemistry and it's ultimately highly rewatchable and utterly charming, which counts for a lot.

3 Unknown

Taiwan YouTube

Unknown is a wonderful BL with a pitch perfect portrayal of long term pining, age gap, and the stepbrothers trope. The acting and chemistry are ON POINT (especially from the leads) which made the resulting characters very believable.

When it dwells in intimate family drama, it's stunning. It's slightly less successful when it leaves the home and goes gritty. It's few flaws are the result of curtailed length. It could have used more breathing room to deal with side plots, characters, and companion character development. The editing was occasionally choppy and packed with flashbacks that broke the emotional tension. Still, those are mere quibbles for me. This is an excellent show based on one of my favorite old school BL tropes that I know I'm going to be recommending for a long time.

4 We Are

Thai iQIYI

I unabashedly loved show. It was slow to find its stride (I didn’t get into it until ep 6!) but I’m so glad I gave it a chance. It’s a soft ensemble piece with multiple couples and very little plot, but I didn’t care because it’s not trying to be anything more substantial.

Essentially, this was a series of vignettes covering one year of uni for a queer friendship group finding love, new friends, and laughter. It’s not being harsh with us or it’s characters the way some offerings of this ilk have been (side eyes Friend Zone and Only Friends) nor did it tumble into Gen Y chaos. In fact, this reminded me more than anything of a refined Love Sick - just with older characters and occurring within a genre that has matured over this last decade. It has that close queer friendship group meets earnest gentleness that made me adore Love Sick and Make It Right so much.

In other words, this was Thai BL at its finest, finding it roots again 10 years on, but also stretching upwards and showing us what it could do with that original seed. So? I adored it. Did it blow my mind? No. But it left me smiling and made me belly laugh quite a bit.

5 Cherry Magic (Thai remake)

Thai grey

A soft charming warm hug of a show about crushes and mind reading and self worth that really worked for me. With no-fuss execution from a consummate team and an OG lead pair (proving why they remain eternal and deserve to grow up).

Look, here’s the thing, Cherry Magic is a great Thai BL in its own right - not comparing it to any other iteration. But even when I do compare (and I've seen all the Cherries and read the manga) it stands strong.

I, personally, like the Thai BL slightly better than the Japanese live action yaoi, but I think that’s because I just really enjoy Thai BL's style and I LOVE TayNew (who may be my favorite OG branded pair still in operation). Also all the kissing was both present and better in this version. As it should be from Thailand.

Highly recommended.

6 Wandee Goodday

Thai YouTube

Such a FUN show. A charming quintessentially modern Thai BL about a doctor and a boxer who start as a one night stand and then fall in love. Great rep for everything from Muay Thai, to safe sex, to FUN sex, to ace, to bisexuality, to smiley kisses, to the first legal gay wedding in a Thai BL.

It’s a delight and I enjoyed (almost) every single moment of it. With out question it's best traits are active positive representations of green flag boys, communication, and grown-up relationships but the chemistry is ALSO on point. I personally can't (and don't) ask for much more than this from my BL.

Highly recommended as one of 2024's best pick-me-ups.

7 The Sign

Thai YouTube

This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, PNR, fated mates, police procedural, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and slasher. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it.

Was it a crazy unhinged mess +1 roll for damage? Yes. Yes it was.

Did it manage to hold all those tangled threads together? No it did not.

Was it also a charming, sexy, engaging, non-stop piece of entertainment? Sure thing.

I think this show is basically my KinnPorsche, and frankly I’ve been chasing that dragon naga since KP aired.

Is it perfect? No. But it was balls to the wall FUN.

Emphasis on balls.

8 Century of Love

Thai Gaga

This is a very pretty drama about a young man who fell in love with a nice girl 100 years ago, and when she died in his arms, he was cursed to live until he could meet her reborn self. Only this time around, she’s reborn into the body of a man. Or is she?

I love it when Thailand gets all up in its own historical business and reincarnation and shizz. I like this pair (it’s not DaouOffroad’s fault I didn’t enjoy their first series.) Daou’s wushu is snazzy and we got a unique meet cute. (Erm… Remeet cute? Meet cute 2.0?)

Ultimately, this is I Feel You Linger in the Air + First Love Again, rather than (as one might expect) Until We Meet Again or The Director Who Buys Me Dinner.

The leads turned in great performances, although Daou outclassed everybody else on that screen by making us really believe he's over 100 years old.

It’s a good story and a great BL and I can’t find any major faults with it beyond a certain level of camp that is sadly endemic to lakorns. I’m going to give it credit as the kind of BL that one could safely recommend to lovers of melodrama and historical romance, without having to qualify it as “good for a BL.”

It was, to put it succinctly, a VERY ENJOYABLE show.

9 Sugar Dog Life

Japan grey

This is a phenomenally charming and adorable little romance about a forlorn university kid and the police officer who adopts him. They are relentlessly kind to each other, in fact it’s an extremely kindly show over all (everyone in it is so nice to everyone else including us) so there’s very little tension. But what it lacks in drive, angst, and complexity it makes up for in earnest acts of service and simple affection.

These two are basically boyfriends from the get-go, it’s just one of them acts like it and doesn’t realize it and the other one realizes it and has to figure out how to make it a reality. It’s incredibly sweet and incredibly wholesome, nourishing but delicious.

Everybody who can, should watch this show. It will make you feel better about life.

10 The Rebound

Thai iQIYI

I am well aware that objectively this show was, erm, NOT good. But this was a sports romance Thai BL pulp with everything I could have asked for given this sub genre. More, actually, since MeenPing are both great basketball players and the team component really did form part of the connective tissue of the show (vital in a sports romance IMHO since these are band-of-brothers narratives).

Meen has his shirt off within the first two minutes which is all I needed but he's still pretty great as the sullen secret-keeper against Ping's cheerful survivor - childhood sweethearts torn asunder and now reunited. Then Frank sweeps in to give everyone a bad case of second lead syndrome.

I always try to judge BL for what it is AS BL, and what it’s trying to do within its own territory and purview. This did exactly what it claimed on the tin: gay boys play b-ball and fall in love. That was all I wanted from it. Sure there was random kidnapping and a light bought of mass murder, but what’s a BL in 2024 without a touch of the mafia? You do you little pulp, I’m disposed to be pleased.

These BLs all got 9/10s from me. Unlike in 2023, I did not hand out any 10/10 to any BLs in 2024.

The 13 BLs That I DNFed in 2024

(no particular order)

7 Days Before Valentine

Bad Guy My Boss

Bad to Bed

Beside You

Close Friend 3 Soju Bomb

Happy of the End

Kiseki Chapter 2

My Universe: Refund Love

Ossans Love – Season 2 (5 years later)

Playboyy

The Hidden Moon

The Whisperer

Time the series

You can consider these my "worst BLs of 2024." I am no longer a BL completest, too many aired in 2023 and it broke me. I now DNF all whenever I feel like it.

Codicil

I only carefully track/watch Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Other countries are not fully represented.

2024 - My Numbers

So my spreadsheet chronicled 109 BLs that finish airing in 2024 (down substantially from 138 last year). Japan has increased production slightly (length and consistency), Taiwan stayed steady, but Korea cut back - as did Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand.

73 = watched & reviewed (almost 30 less than 2023! I fell off the wagon in a big way)

3 = I'm still thinking about watching/finishing (4Minutes, Blue Canvas of Youthful Days, Spare Me Your Mercy)

20 = CNF (could not find)

13 = DNF (which accounts for how few very low scores I handed out, I just stopped watching). Speaking of which...

Ratings spread

(# of stars. & # of BLs given that rating)

0 (see DNFs instead)

1 - IT'S DEPRESSING they killed the gay, save yourself

1 - I DON'T KNOW WHAT I AM WATCHING AND NEITHER DOES IT

3 - FATALLY FLAWED but still basically BL, however… do we want to support this kind of behavior?

3 - WATCH IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO but don’t expect much, it’s a total hot mess

9 - WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED probably around the ending or in narrative structure/cohesion or censorship

24 - RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS i.e. isn’t quite BL, convoluted, not strictly HEA, too short/long, or chemistry issues

22 - RECOMMENDED some concerns around tropes (like dub con) or story structure but still satisfies as BL

10 - ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED probably a few pacing issues or one flaw

0 - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED faithful to tropes, happy ending, good chemistry, few flaws, high rewatch potential

Favorite 2024 call out?

The Sign's nod to UWMA

Most adorable meta moment of 2024?

Wandee Goodday

Most stunning execution of a traditional trope in 2024.

Began Beginning (the shoulder lean)

(source)

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easterndelights · 20 days ago

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2024 Tumblr Top 10✨

I had a lot of fun on the later half of 2024 and I couldn’t be inspired without these beautiful series/ film. I’ve noticed @avorbl did a post and it has piqued my interest to see what tumblr people likes the most (this feels like a year-end performance review with a boss but the boss is me).

Based on my blog’s Top 10 gifsets, we first start off with a heartbreaking hugging scene in Happy of the End. 2nd place goes to the endearing heart-to-heart talk in Can I Buy Your Love from a Vending Machine?. 3rd place goes to how to bait your old man with caramel popcorn in Mr. Mitsuya’s Planned Feeding. 4th place goes to another how to successfully bait your future boyfriend in Sugar Dog Life. Mommy’s dearest son in Happy of the End (yes it’s another sad piece) comes in 5th place. Blondie’s big boy love confession in Sugar Dog Life comes in 6th place. 7th place goes to the blossoming friendship of two closeted countryside teens in Smells Like Green Spirit. 8th place goes to the heart-wrenching backstory of a closeted queer mom in The Fragrance You Inherit. A small piece of wisdom from a fellow ace to another ace in Koisenu Futari comes in 9th place. Lastly, we end this post with a final hugging scene with the future (old married) couple of Smells Like Green Spirit.

1. Happy of the End (2024) | EP 8 - Sep 25 2024

2. Can I Buy Your Love from a Vending Machine? (2023) - Oct 27 2024

3. Mr. Mitsuya's Planning Feeding (2024) | EP 7 - Sep 7 2024

4. Sugar Dog Life (2024) | EP 9 - Oct 1 2024

5. Happy of the End (2024) | EP 4 - Sep 13 2024

6. Sugar Dog Life (2024) | EP 8 - Sep 23 2024

7. Smells Like Green Spirit (2024) | EP 2 - Oct 1 2024

8. The Fragrance You Inherit (2024) | EP 5 - Dec 13 2024

9. Koisenu Futari (2022) | EP 6 - Oct 23 2024

10. Smells Like Green Spirit (2024) | EP 5 - Oct 22 2024

Created by TumblrTop10

List generated on 22 Dec 2024

#east.thoughts #based on the analytics i'll continue with cinematic + storytelling gifsets #I think i'm slowly getting good at that #need to remind myself to take breaks and not picking up many ongoing series as gifmaking project

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forcebook · 3 months ago

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pokes you gently :)

as I am a bl fan whose ass is BROKE and therefore cannot buy subscriptions, what would you recommend I watch, and what platforms are they on?

(piracy is a-ok with me, [what who said that- on the piracy positive website??? no way] i just am not a huge fan of crunchy video quality if avoidable!)

hi! 🥰🥰🥰

some bls you can find on youtube. like on gmmtv channel you can find wandee goodday, enchanté, not me the series and many others. they used to have bad buddy and my school president available everywhere but those you can watch somewhere else now, if you haven’t already! and idolfactory channel has the sign which is a very good bl too!

you can always search other bls on youtube as well. just in case someone has uploaded them there!

as for those you really can’t find easy access, i recommend kisskh and dramacool. there’s nearly everything in both. but you didn’t hear it from me akdkskdk

my highlights of the year so far are love for love’s sake, century of love, knock knock boys, 4 minutes, monster next door, sugar dog life, jack and joker is currently airing and it’s really good!

last but not least, i have a mydramalist account where i keep track of all the dramas i watch, mostly bls. you can sort thorough by scores and even click on the dramas and read about them/reviews.

let me know if you want anything more specific! but hope this helps! 💕

#ashes-onthewind #mj got mail!

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ouchmaster6000 · 4 months ago

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About Me:

Age: Legal, but sometimes wish I was a shota in an Oneshota hentai.

Gender: Incubus Subby Boy

Sex: Rough and Pelvis-Shattering please.

Orientation: Femdom-sexual

Politics: Druella’s radical faction and the Monster Girl Supremacist Party

Religion: IA! IA! SHUB-NIGGURATH! BLACK GOAT OF THE WOODS WITH A THOUSAND YOUNG!!!

Favorite food: Pussy

Favorite color: Purple

DNI if:

You are a bot.

That's it.

As a general rule, I don't block people unless I suspect they are not actually a person. I think it's cowardly.

My Digimon Sideblog: @picodart

My Invader Zim Sideblog: @hideousspacebug

My Monster Girl Sideblog: @mamonoparadise

Anime / Manga I love:

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Soul Eater, Kill la Kill, Death Note, Panty & stocking with Garterbelt, Digimon Adventure, Digimon Tamers, Digimon Frontier, Digimon Savers, Digimon Ghost Game, Future Diary, Deadman Wonderland, Shiki, Familiar of Zero, Re: Zero, Overlord, Rising of the Shield Hero, Mushoku Tensei, Akame Ga Kill, Chained Soldier, Blood+, Madoka Magica, Rosario + Vampire, Monster Musume, Is this a Zombie?, Nyaruko-san, MM!, Little Witch Academia, Magical Witch Punie-chan, Queen’s Blade, Senran Kagura, Valkyrie Drive, Franken Fran, Tomie, Uzumaki, Junji Ito Manga, Promised Neverland, Parasyte, Sankarea, Princess Resurrection, Plus-sized Elf, 12 Beast, Creature Girls, Interspecies Reviewers, Elder Sister-like One, Love in Hell, Prison School, Domina no Do!, Don’t Toy with Me Miss Nagatoro, Freezing, Machimaho, World’s End Harem, Sin: Seven Mortal Sins, Qwaser of Stigmata, High school DxD, Heaven’s Lost Property, Date a Live, Zombie Land Saga, Gushing Over Magical Girls, Mitsudome, Yondemasu Yo! Azazel-san, Redo of Healer, Vandread, Monster Girl Doctor, Kandagawa Jet Girls, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Konosuba, Cautious Hero, Full Dive, Uncle from Another World, Akiba Maid War, Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan, Asobi Asobase, Darling in the FRANXX, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Manyu Hikenchou!, Dropkick on My Devil, Dorohedoro, Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun, Astarotte’s Toy, Kodomo no Jikan, Fire Force, FLCL, Space Dandy, Hoozuki no Reitetsu, Detroit Metal City, Higurashi: When They Cry, Elfen Lied, Hell Girl, Rozen Maiden, Magical Pokkan, My Life as Inukai-san’s Dog, Peter Grill & the Philosopher’s Time, Maken-Ki, Kanokon, Moetan, Uzamaid, Happy Sugar Life, Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle, Miss Caretaker of Sunohara-sou, Gleipnir, BNA, SSSS. Gridman, Chainsaw Man, Fairy Tail, Papillon Rose, Paradise of Innocence, Berserk, Monster Wrestling: Interspecies Combat Girls, Welcome to Succubus High, Boy Soprano, Mai-chan’s Daily Life, Koro Koro Soushi, Shiragasane

Cartoons I love:

Invader Zim, Avatar, Legend of Korra, Venture Bros, Metalocalypse, Rick & Morty, South Park, Futurama, the Simpsons, Harley Quinn, Teen Titans, Young Justice, Batman: the Animated Series, Batman Beyond, The Batman, Green Lantern, X-Men: Evolution, X-Men the Animated Series, Spectacular Spider-Man, Spider-Man: the Animated Series, Courage the Cowardly Dog, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Evil con Carne, Xiaolin Showdown, PowerPuff Girls, AAAHH!!! Real Monsters, Kablam!, Action League Now, Ed Edd n Eddy, Codename: Kids Next Door, Angry Beavers, Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, Gravity Falls, Ren & Stimpy, Jimmy Neutron, Beetlejuice

Live Action Shows I love:

Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, X-Files, The Lone Gunmen, Reaper, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Star Trek: the Next Generation, Dexter, Gotham, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Legion, The Gifted, Jessica Jones, Runaways

Movies (and movie series) I love:

Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeny Todd, Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Frankenweenie, Coraline, Paranorman, Alien, Hellraiser, Nightbreed, The Thing, In the Mouth of Madness, Prince of Darkness, They Live, The Fly, Videodrome, The Brood, Dagon, From Beyond, Re-Animator, Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness, Necronomicon, The Resurrected, The Void, The Mist, Event Horizon, Pandorum, Dark City, The Faculty, Trick r Treat, Cabin in the Woods, Return of the Living Dead, Army of Darkness, Marebito, Audition, Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl, Vampire Hunter D, 12 Monkeys, Brazil, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Pirates of the Caribbean, Men in Black, Galaxy Quest, Addams Family, Batman, Batman Returns, Dark Knight Trilogy, The Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Joker, X-Men, Deadpool, Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok

Comic Books I love:

Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, I Feel Sick, Filler Bunny, Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl, Serenity Rose, Nightmares & Fairy Tales, Courtney Crumrin, Vampire Cheerleaders, Princess Lucinda, Witch Girls Adventures, Cthulhu Tales, Fall of Cthulhu, Hack / Slash, Bomb Queen, X-Men, New Mutants, Excalibur, X-Statix, X-Force, Deadpool, She-Hulk, Spider-Man, Venom, Batman, Batgirl, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey, Secret Six, Suicide Squad, Teen Titans, Outsiders, Wonder Woman, Calvin & Hobbes, Pearls Before Swine, The Far Side

Books I love:

Monster Girl Encyclopedia, Cthulhu Mythos, Books by H.P. Lovecraft, The Hellbound Heart, Cabal, Mr. B. Gone, Books by Clive Barker, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, D&D Novels, Greyhawk Novels, Forgotten Realms Novels, War of the Spider Queen, Magic the Gathering Novels, Warhammer 40k novels, Horus Heresy: Primarchs, Goosebumps

Book series I wanna read someday soon:

Horus Heresy (main series), Legend of Drizzt (Have only read comic adaptation)

Tabletop Games I love:

Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer 40k, Magic the Gathering, Weiss Schwarz, Digimon, Pokemon

Video Games I love:

Senran Kagura, Digimon Cyber Sleuth, Digimon World 2, Pokemon, Disgaea, Skullgirls, Soul Calibur, Injustice, Marvel vs. Capcom, Darkstalkers, Blaz Blue, Guilty Gear, Baldur’s Gate 3, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Warhammer: Rogue Trader, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock 2, Nightmare Ned, Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland, Gal Gun, Femdom University, Breeders of the Nephelym, Monster Girl Island, Escalation, Dominatrix Simulator

Video Games I like the lore / setting / characters of, but still need to play / havent played much:

Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, Resident Evil, Nier Automata, Valkyrie Drive, Kandagawa Jet Girls, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Digimon Survive, the rest of the Digimon World Games, a bunch of other Warhammer games.

Favorite Bands / Musical Artists:

Dethklok, Galaktikon, Lordi, Disturbed, Slipknot, Sorrowseed, Sinergy, Blackthorn, Creature Feature, Rufus Rex, Nightwish, Power Wolf, Patron Saint of Plagues, Tridevil, Voltaire, Stephen Lynch, Weird Al Yankovic, Gygax, String Storm, Abominable Intelligence, AmaLee, Ali Project, Necronomidol, BabyMetal, Myth & Roid, Yousei Teikoku, TeddyLoid, Kevin Manthei, Danny Elfman, Yasuharu Takanashi

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ewebie · 10 days ago

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2024: An Author's Review

I've gotten in the habit (over the past 10+ years) of posting an author's review of what I've done on AO3. Since I started my Patreon, I've been posting it here and sharing across Tumblr and Twitter (cough I mean X? cough). I've since stopped posting on X/twitter and moved on to Bluesky (though I'm not as active there yet) and I've created a collection here on Patreon for all the reviews I've made over here. I think it's good to take stock, be honest about what was possible and look and what I want for the next year. So here it is:

2024... This year was... a lot. Decisions were made. And yes, they were, at times, Bold. Unfortunately, some of those decisions made it far more difficult to keep up with my writing plans. And in case anyone is wondering, 3 trans-atlantic moves within 2 years is... not really advisable.

Back in 2022, Hubs and I made a temporary (planned for one year) move across the Atlantic in 2022 and went back to Ireland in July 2023. The return to Ireland was rough for many reasons, but the decision to leave the country which I had called home for 17 years was not an easy one and solidified at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. I was working clinically for a high acuity, retrieval service the early part of 2024 up until our move in April (this time permanently back to the US). It was both easier and harder to move this time. And some of the necessary things relocating (as a long-time ex-Pat) were stupidly challenging (see: buying a car when you haven't shared a US address with your husband...). Additionally, we had a LOT of travel within the US once we arrived back. The first full month I spent in our new home without leaving the state was October. (and we all know what the holiday season can be like)

I did get to 221B Con! And I met a few fandom friends in person that I wouldn't have otherwise met. Also, I got a dog! And she is the literal sweetest.

So I'm a dog mom now, part-time worker, full time American. And while I was on a roll for a bit with the writing, relocating really knocked me off my game. So without further adieu...

Summary of writing in 2024:

I put a great deal of effort into expanding the Safety First/KKBB Universe in the Safety First (Alphabet Soup) Series.

M is for Menage and N is for Nemesis came out in January

O is for Oversight and P is for Portent came out in February

Q is for Quality Assurance was posted in March

R is for Reddit went up in April

(then there was a lull... because... life is hard)

S is for Sedition came out in July

T is for Temptation came out in August

I have been working on finishing out the alphabet, with U and V nearly ready to post and a plan for W, X, Y, and Z

In March, I managed a sweet little sickfic in the When You're Fast Asleep series with A Spoonful of Sugar.

I'm not sure I'd call 2024 a banner year for writing. But there was a lot of behind the scenes writing and life stuff going on. Overall, I published shy of 27k words (which is... way less than I'm used to, but I did write about 50k words. It's just not all published yet) with 8k hits and I now have 390 user subscriptions and 7100 bookmarks. I've spent the year only writing Mystrade -- though, I've been bouncing between soft and sweet AUs and Assassins AUs.

Plan for 2025: Keep myself sane. Try to relearn how to be an American? I have the last few chapters for Safety First in the works... there's something so very compelling about the murder husbands and they are gearing up to go out with a bang. I have 2 WIPs that are very nearly done and I just need to push through the last... 2k or so. So I hope to be putting those up in 2025. Be on the look out for The Marshmallow Experiment and Ambien Wife (though, those are both working titles). There’s a few bigger projects that I’ve back-burnered or have been plodding along with, including "the wedding date one" and "the Pretty Woman one" and some complex, multichapter things. Trello has been excellent at keeping my bunnies sorted and in some sort of order.

Working titles of a few:

The Devil You Know

Lesser Things

Used Books

Wrecking Ball

The Time Has Come

Attack the Cheese Block

Of Legwork and Dogs Bodies

Make Yourself

Bad Santa

I hope to keep adding to Safety First (even if I finish out the alphabet) and Badges and 'Brellas (I didn't manage any in B&B in 2024... I want to get back into some Mystrade Mondays for that). I'm not going to aim for monthly new works, but Paia is back with Mystrade Is... this May. I am also trying my hand at the new features here on Patreon. I've started some collections, and if you have any suggestions for organization, I'm happy to hear them!

Many thanks to everyone who has beta'd works for me through the year (this year was mostly Mousie -- because she is just as thrilled with Safety First as I am). Thank you to the Valley of Regret (aka the Asylum, nee Jail) - you're all gremlins and I-A-Door-You! Thank you to the MRC for being just... whatever it is you are. And the OGC - because intercontinental chat groups are their own, special nonsense!

I want to thank my patrons on here (thank you for thanking me for existing!). Everyone that has left kudos and comments and reblogs and likes. Anyone who has dropped me a message or a thought and has generally enjoyed or encouraged my writing this past year. And those of you who followed Hayloft posting and commented along the way -- amazingly supportive! ILY all!!

#ewebie's fic #on writing #Author's review #2024

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z-saint-box · 1 month ago

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Polly Pocket Season One Review, part two

[reviewing the first season as a whole]

"Tiny power!" - the phrase that Polly uses to shrink herself and her friends

"Small concept, big potential" - the central theme of this review

[this review covers the series that started in 2018, not the previous one; and here is the link to part one]

Small, yet brilliant, Polly Pocket is a clever girl with an equally clever show. She proves that being small, or becoming small has unique perks that larger masses do not have.

Because her show is a slice-of-life with comedic elements, I pretty much couldn't review any of the episodes without spoiling the humor or saying anything beyond it's funny or cute. Although, because there is no need to analyze it, this is more of a good thing. This review is far easier to write than any of the past shows I covered.

Combining mundane reality with a novel concept, I initially thought Polly Pocket episodes are only big enough for eleven-minute stories, but I am happy to be proven wrong. Instead, the premise of Polly being able to miniaturize herself is strong enough for half-hour adventures.

Her gimmick mixes modern life with a little bit of magic, and it is used as effectively as it can be. This may be the entire extent of her power, but anything else is unnecessary; and in fact, detrimental.

While Polly, Lila, and Shauni are stock characters, the show is competent enough that this is not a problem. Even then, each girl uses her character traits whenever needed. Lila, being a girl that is obsessed with fashion, uses a headscarf as a parachute in "Bumpy Ride," and Shauni, being a girl that is highly intelligent, builds a rocket in the episode "Short Cuts."

As for Polly herself, she might seem like a total Mary Su with her name in the title, and the fact she has an upper-class life in a highly idyllic town, she is still limited by who she is; and still grounded to reality. The very first scene of the series best demonstrates this, where she is not only too young to drive a car, but also too short. Additionally, because both of her parents have jobs, she cannot be unsupervised. Either she needs a babysitter, or Pierce to watch after her; and both people have animosity with her.

[which one is Polly?]

More importantly, she is not overpowered, unlike a certain Duncan girl. She has limitations associated with her power, and must work with, or against them to save the day. Despite the inherent disadvantages of being small or miniature, it is Polly's greatest strength.

She also finds trouble and causes trouble when using her locket; and it is the reason why each episode begins with a cold opening. Beyond this, Polly is so devoted to helping others that it takes a toll on her own health, as seen in the episode "Sugar Rush," and even assuming she is a perfect female protagonist, she genuinely believes in her objective of altruism and benevolence.

What I also love is the variety of antagonists at the show's disposal. This includes a nasty teacher (Miss Fuss), a bully skateboarder (Devin), a real-estate mogul (Mister Scheeman), and even a ghostbuster (Paranormal Patty). They stretch the gamut of uniqueness, from ordinary, to extraordinary. Even the most realistic, uninteresting antagonists are bursting with personality. This is why all of them are easy to remember, as well as the episodes they appear in.

As for the main villains of the series (or season one at least), Griselle and Gwen are the ultimate antithesis to Polly and her friends. Griselle is a maniacal old woman while Gwen is extremely unintelligent. I must also mention the wacky disguises that they wear, ranging from gorilla & gorilla tamer ("Club Flub"), politician and intern ("A Night to Remember"), and hot dog costumes ("Doggone Disaster"). Not only that, but I love when they maniacally burst out laughing.

While the character design is nowhere near the level of Lolirock, it is simple and appealing for what the show is. It does not need to be any more complex. And the CGI is so well-integrated with the general aesthetics that it doesn't look separate from the overall art style, unlike Tara Duncan.

The show is also a bit of science-fiction, but it's more fantasy in a modern setting. The locket is extraordinary, and paranormal. For that matter, the show can even be considered a magical girl show, albeit lightly. Shauni even accuses Polly of using magic, and not science in the episode "Short Cuts"

Unfortunately, the two-part season finale explains that there is a scientific explanation behind the locket, rather than a mystical one. The locket cannot be mystical and scientific at the same time, especially when there is nothing in real life that can shrink entire masses. Even assuming this is true in the show's universe, a chemical (I assume) element is not magical. While this is a minor problem that doesn't ruin the episode or series, it's still a glaring problem.

I have also heard criticisms that the other Polly Pocket girls are not present n the series, but there is no need for them. Polly, Lila, and Shauni make a good trio. That being said, Polly Pocket is a show you can watch no more than twice. For clarification, I went through season one four times, and by that time, I was already done watching it the third time.

Still, despite the novel concept, the execution is wonderful. Each episode has a basic premise, but they employ Polly's power to the fullest extent. This one gimmick makes everything grander by comparison. I wasn't even a fan of Polly before watching this show. Even with the episodes I dislike, there is at least an underlying meaning beneath them, Polly's genuine belief in good-will and charity.

Polly might be a doll just like Barbie, but her show is so extraordinary, she demonstrates just how powerful tiny power is.

Overall Grade: A

#polly #polly pocket #pollypocket #polly_pocket #полли #поллипокет #полли покет #полли_покет #lolirock #лолирок #barbie

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ligbi · 2 years ago

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Yet Another Comparison Of ‘90-’99 And ‘14-’23 Anime Girls

Used in-episode screenshots and semi-neutral expressions to keep some semblance of consistency for accurate comparisons, and only used tv anime so no golden boys or makoto shinkais

Feel free to comment on this post or add to it- I know I had a lot more children's anime in the 90s than in the 10ishs but there were also a lot less shows back then

List of series and thoughts under the cut

90-99

knights of ramune \ nadia

goldfish warning\ future gpx

dog of flanders\yyh

akazukin chacha\slam dunk

tenchi universe/ eva

escaflone/ those who hunt elves

kero kero chime/utena

akihabara/ devilman lady

tenshi ni narumon/gto

14-23

yuki yuna/garo

rakudai kini no cavalry/ nisekoi

kuma miko/ maisou gakuen

urara meirochou/tsugumomo

a place further than our universe/ happy sugar life

endro/carole and tuesday

bna/ interspecies reviewers

drugstore in another world/blue period

lyrocois recoil/birdy wing

revolution magical world yuri/ ice guy and cool colleague

I tried to keep it younger characters/older characters for the 90s and that was not an option for the recent anime series because

There are way too many damn anime nowadays.

I tried to just get a general assortment of different character designers for both but feel free to tell me what a bad job I did for the modern stuff. Pretty sure I don’t have any dupes for the 90s ladies

personally the issue with modern anime is less ‘uwu moe moe kyun isekai harem bullshit’ and more ‘heres a single cour cheaply made no ending adaptaion of a manga or light novel why don’t you go check those out’ big budget ads of which there are too many

i’d like to run the numbers to see if the percentage of original anime has gone down or if the original works are just being flooded out by the sea of overworked nothings that are being constantly rushed out the door

yes obviously not all original works are good (or finish well rip wep) and there are good adaptations but when people think anime once they're past shounen jump series 1-500 the biggest names are original works and sure you might end up with an fma or ouran but your bebops your evas your utenas are originals. or media mixes which are weird collabs we could get into but let’s not today

i won’t disagree that there’s too many anime nowadays targeting lolicons (yeah yeah any anime for them is too much but we’re talking about comparing eras not judging content here) but I /think/ 80s and 90s relegated that type of stuff to OVAs generally. Don’t have the data to back that up but between ovas nowadays being only just for porn and the lemony history of ovas since the 80s.... there were just More ovas back when as well

doing a loose count on mal of all ovas from 90-99 1050 to about 750 total for 14-23. given the tv ratio for 95-19 being around 1:6

yes yes these numbers are fast and loose and theres chinese animation in there and we can get finicky about What Is Anime but this was a conversation about what era of anime stylization is better

it’s the late 90s btw

but that’s a personal preference of course because art is subjective blah blah blah 90s character driven comedy fantasy/scifi ova are peak

PER SON A LLY

did I have more thoughts?

probably

i started this over two hours ago make less anime

Make less anime and put more effort into what you do make

less anime. more episodes. more pay. more breaks. take longer. more original stuff

stop remaking shittttttt. you already wasted time and money and effort on a mid anime adaptation of a manga. don’t do it againnnnnn

anyway watch kero kero chime

appended thoughts the next morning less on art style and more on volume

as of mid 2023 for completed series we are at halfway of all anime having been made after ~2011 this adds up to a reddit post I found with some very nice data https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/lvvexe/chart_of_number_of_anime_per_year_over_time/ 40 was a nice number of series a year about 10 a season starting and older ones continuing. 200+ is.

yes numbers are iffy with second seasons listed as different series like sailor moon r s supers stars and mha 2 3 4 5 6 ect so for accurate numbers a human touch would be needed there is semi-finite air time to work with- obviously some companies could make new tv and satellite stations just to house their garbage but i think there is a cap somewhere in sight if anyone did crunch the numbers more accurately, total episode count is necessary. one 80s robot show of 60-80 epis is equal to 4-6 modern single cour isekais

make less anime

#anime #90s anime #10s anime #20s anime #modern anime #moe anime #classic anime #long post #comparison #i have issues with those 90s vs modern anime posts. obviously #we all know what sailor moon and faye look like i don't want to hear any bitching watch more shows

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telomeke · 1 year ago

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ID text–

The first post by Tumblr user @‌reasonandempathy starts with a series of images comprising a Twitter thread posted by Sayed Tabatabai, MD @‌TheRealDoctorT at 5:01PM UTC 16 September 2020:

“Why do you want to be a doctor?” I answer without hesitation, “I want to help people.” “There are many ways to help people.” “I want to save lives.” “There are many ways to do that too. So I’ll ask you again, why do you want to be a doctor?” “Because I believe in it.” I think about that exchange now and then, some times more than others. Why do we do the things we do? What do we really believe in? My next clinic patient is one I’ve known for many years. He is visiting me today via Zoom. I always look forward to talking to him. As soon as the visit begins, I notice that his camera is angled off-center so I can’t get a clear look at his face. I ask if he can adjust it, but he says he’s having technical issues. No problem. I can adapt. It isn’t just the camera though. Something feels off today. Almost immediately I can tell that he sounds subdued. He isn’t cracking his usual jokes. I’m comfortable with silence, even in the heart of a busy clinic day. Silence is often where the healing happens. After asking how he’s doing, I let the silence between us grow. The question, when he asks it, is one I don’t expect. “Doc, which kills you faster? Blood pressure you don’t control, or blood sugar you don’t control?” The surprise on my face must register, because he explains further. “I just can’t afford all these medications anymore.” He continues. “The way I see it, doc, I only need to stick around 4 or 5 more years. That’s how long my pet dog has left, then I ain’t got no more family and it’s me all on my own. So I figure maybe take the diabetes ones and skip the blood pressure? Or every other day?” As I review his meds and start discussing our options with him, he adds one last remark. “And I’m real sorry doc. I know we go back a ways, but I can’t afford my co-pay. I’ll pay you later. Promise.” And just like that, I understand why his camera is angled. And just like that, I’m again struck by the cruel illusion of what I do. The system I’m part of. This patient did everything right; got insurance, paid his taxes. And he still has to barter years of his life. And he can’t bring himself to look me in the eyes as he does so. Our healthcare system is too often unethical, immoral, unsustainable. The insurance paradigm is focused on revenue generation. It strips the basic human dignity from patients, to the point where they can’t even make eye contact anymore. I know that I’m part of this system. He’s old enough to be my father. Some part of me imagines that he is my father. Tears threaten my vision, as a hot anger floods me. Now I wish I could angle my camera away. I ask him if I can write about him. Because people need to know. His response lingers with me. “Sure you can doc. But people already know. Lots of people deal with this. It ain’t that people don’t know. It’s just that nobody cares. Nobody gives enough of a damn to change anything. Nobody… cares.” The visit ends. My Zoom window closes. His window closes too. I feel it. There’s something insidious here. A casual cruelty we’re all complicit in. “I can’t go to rehab, insurance won’t cover it.” “Insurance won’t pay for that medication.” “I can’t afford any of this.” “I’m uninsured.” This isn’t right. None of this is right. Twenty years ago, I gave a medical school interview. I wore my best suit. I sat up straight. I said I believed in medicine. I meant it. Some part of me once burned brightly, but that fire is down to flickering embers. Our lives mean more than this. More than this.

This is followed by a screenshot of a tweet by Albert Lee @‌AlbertLee2020:

In America, you and your doctor can both agree that you need a surgery but you have to get permission from a third-party for-profit insurance company or it can't be paid for. It's called freedom.

Tumblr user @‌reasonandempathy's post was then reblogged by Tumblr user @‌nateconnolly, who added a link to the donor page of recommended charity RIP Medical Debt (a charity that buys medical debt and forgives it), as well as a screenshot rating its trustworthiness as a organization to be supported with donations:

Rating Information Great This charity's score is 100%, earning it a Four-Star rating. If this organization aligns with your passions and values, you can give with confidence. This overall score is calculated from multiple beacon scores, weighted as follows: 32% Accountability & Finance, 50% Impact & Results, 7% Leadership & Adaptability, 10% Culture & Community. Learn more about our criteria and methodology.

Our system is broken. It is cruel. It is dehumanizing, degrading, and it’s vile nature is so, so unnecessary.

We need universal healthcare today in America. We needed it 40 years ago. It’s cheaper, it’s simpler, it’s more efficient, it’s more effective and it is so, so, so much less cruel than what we have.

Additional sources/references:

Universal Healthcare Cost in America would be cheaper by trillions of dollars

The US has worse life expectancies than socialized healthcare countries

We have worse generalized healthcare results

We have the most expensive care

Our system is so cruel and unique that doctors from other countries literally can’t believe what happens here

I can’t tell you where or how to activate to help solve this. There are politicians, groups, and activists pushing for this in so many ways. I can tell you when, though.

Now.

#healthcare #healthcare costs #medical debt #rip medical debt #dr sayed tabatabai

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kammartinez · 1 year ago

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On August 3, 1917, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary for the first time in two years—a small notebook, roughly the size of the palm of her hand. It was a Friday, the start of the bank holiday, and she had traveled from London to Asheham, her rented house in rural Sussex, with her husband, Leonard. For the first time in days, it had stopped raining, and so she “walked out from Lewes.” There were “men mending the wall & roof” of the house, and Will, the gardener, had “dug up the bed in front, leaving only one dahlia.” Finally, “bees in attic chimney.”

It is a stilted beginning, and yet with each entry, her diary gains in confidence. Soon, Woolf establishes a pattern. First, she notes the weather, and her walk—to the post, or to fetch the milk, or up onto the Downs. There, she takes down the number of mushrooms she finds—“almost a record find,” or “enough for a dish”—and of the insects she has seen: “3 perfect peacock butterflies, 1 silver washed frit; besides innumerable blues feeding on dung.” She notices butterflies in particular: painted ladies, clouded yellows, fritillaries, blues. She is blasé in her records of nature’s more gruesome sights—“the spine & red legs of a bird, just devoured by a hawk,” or a “chicken in a parcel, found dead in the nettles, head wrung off.” There is human violence, too. From the tops of the Downs, she listens to the guns as they sound from France, and watches German prisoners at work in the fields, who use “a great brown jug for their tea.” Home again, and she reports any visitors, or whether she has done gardening or reading or sewing. Lastly, she makes a note about rationing, taking stock of the larder: “eggs 2/9 doz. From Mrs Attfield,” or “sausages here come in.”

Though Woolf, then thirty-five, shared the lease of Asheham with her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell (who went there for weekend parties), for her, the house had always been a place for convalescence. Following her marriage to Leonard in 1912, she entered a long tunnel of illness—a series of breakdowns during which she refused to eat, talked wildly, and attempted suicide. She spent long periods at a nursing home in Twickenham before being brought to Asheham with a nurse to recover. At the house, Leonard presided over a strict routine, in which Virginia was permitted to write letters—“only to the end of the page, Mrs Woolf,” as she reported to her friend Margaret Llewelyn Davies—and to take short walks “in a kind of nightgown.” She had been too ill to pay much attention to the publication of her first novel, The Voyage Out, in 1915, or to take notice of the war. “Its very like living at the bottom of the sea being here,” she wrote to a friend in early 1914, as Bloomsbury scattered. “One sometimes hears rumours of what is going on overhead.”

In the writing about Woolf’s life, the wartime summers at Asheham tend to be disregarded. They are quickly overtaken by her time in London, the emergence of the Hogarth Press, and the radical new direction she took in her work, when her first novels—awkward set-pieces of Edwardian realism—would give way to the experimentalism of Jacob’s Room and Mrs. Dalloway. And yet during these summers, Woolf was at a threshold in her life and work. Her small diary is the most detailed account we have of her days during the summers of 1917 and 1918, when she was walking, reading, recovering, looking. It is a bridge between two periods in her work and also between illness and health, writing and not writing, looking and feeling. Unpacking each entry, we can see the richness of her daily life, the quiet repetition of her activities and pleasures. There is no shortage of drama: a puncture to her bicycle, a biting dog, the question of whether there will be enough sugar for jam. She rarely uses the unruly “I,” although occasionally we glimpse her, planting a bulb or leaving her mackintosh in a hedge. Mostly she records things she can see or hear or touch. Having been ill, she is nurturing a convalescent quality of attention, using her diary’s economical form, its domestic subject matter, to tether herself to the world. “Happiness is,” she writes later, in 1925, “to have a little string onto which things will attach themselves.” At Asheham, she strings one paragraph after another; a way of watching the days accrue. And as she recovers, things attach themselves: bicycles, rubber boots, dahlias, eggs.

***

Between 1915 and her death in 1941, Woolf filled almost thirty notebooks with diary entries, beginning, at first, with a fairly self-conscious account of her daily life which developed, from Asheham onward, into an extraordinary, continuous record of form and feeling. Her diary was the place where she practiced writing—or would “do my scales,” as she described it in 1924—and in which her novels shaped themselves: the “escapade” of Orlando written at the height of her feelings for Vita Sackville-West (“I want to kick up my heels & be off”); the “playpoem” of The Waves, that “abstract mystical eyeless book,” which began life one summer’s evening in Sussex as “The Moths.” There are also the minutiae of her domestic life, including scenes from her marriage to Leonard (an argument in 1928, for instance, when she slapped his nose with sweet peas, and he bought her a blue jug) and from her relationship with her servant, Nellie Boxall, which was by turns antagonistic and dependent. Most of all, the diary is the place in which she thinks on her feet, playing and experimenting. Here she is in September 1928, attempting to describe rooks in flight, and asking,

“Whats the phrase for that?” & try to make more & more vivid the roughness of the air current & the tremor of the rooks wing <deep breasting it> slicing—as if the air were full of ridges & ripples & roughnesses; they rise & sink, up & down, as if the exercise <pleased them> rubbed & braced them like swimmers in rough water.

But the “old devil” of her illness was never far behind. If, in her diary, Woolf could compose herself, she could also unravel. There are jagged moments. She could be cruel—about her friends, or the sight of suburban women shopping, or Leonard’s Jewish mother. And she felt her failures acutely. In the small hours, she fretted over her childlessness, her rivalries, the wave of her depression threatening to crest.

Her diaries’ elasticity, their ability to fulfill all these uses, is, as Adam Phillips notes in his foreword to Granta’s new edition of the second volume, evidence of “Woolf’s extraordinary invention within this genre.” The Asheham diary was one of her earliest experiments in the form. She was reading Thoreau’s Walden and Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere journals, marvelling at those writers’ capacity for a language “scraped clean,” their daily lives, and their descriptions of the natural world, intensified for the reader as if “through a very powerful magnifying glass.” Yet the life span of her own rural diary was short. In October 1917, upon her return to London, Woolf began a second diary, written in the style of those which preceded her breakdowns. Her Asheham diary she left stowed away in a drawer. (When, the following summer, she reached for the notebook, writing in both concurrently, it was the only time she kept two diaries at once.) In her other diary, the ligatures loosened, and she began developing the supple, longhand style she would use for the rest of her life. Her concision was gone, though her Asheham diary had left its mark. In London, she continued to open each day with her “vegetable notes”—an account of her walk along the Thames, or a note about the weather. And she described everything she saw with the curiosity and precision of a naturalist’s eye.

***

In the long and often fraught history of the publication of Virginia Woolf’s diaries, no one has known what to do with such a sporadic notebook, seemingly out of sync with the much fuller diaries that came before and after it. Following Leonard’s selection of entries for A Writer’s Diary, which was published in 1953, work on the publication of her diaries in their entirety began in 1966, when the art historian Anne Olivier Bell was assisting her husband, Quentin Bell, in the writing of his aunt’s biography. As parcels of Woolf’s papers arrived at the couple’s home in Sussex, Olivier—the name by which she was always known—realized the scale of the project, which involved organizing, noting, and indexing 2,317 pages of Woolf’s private writing. She leaped at the chance, “largely,” she later reflected, “because it gave me an excuse to read Virginia’s diary, which I longed to do.” So began nearly twenty years of scholarship, culminating in their publication, in five volumes, by the Hogarth Press, between 1977 and 1984.

It was a laborious process. Working first from carbon copies—which needed to be pieced back together after Leonard had gone through them, with scissors, to make his selections —and later from photocopies (the manuscript diaries were moved in 1971 from the Westminster Bank in Lewes to the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library), Olivier set about constructing her “scaffolding”: she took six-by-four-inch index cards, one for each month of Woolf’s life, and recorded on them the dates in that month on which Woolf had written an entry, where she had been, and who she had seen. Olivier spent long hours in the basement of the London Library, consulting the Dictionary of National Biography for details of one of Virginia’s friends, or decaying editions of the Times for a notice about a particular concert at Wigmore Hall. And there were decisions to make. What to do with Woolf at her most unkind, or snobbish? Olivier devised some basic rules for inclusion: she pinned a piece of paper above her desk that read ACCURACY / RELEVANCE / CONCISION / INTEREST. She decided there was little point in upsetting those friends still living, and cut any particularly unflattering descriptions. And Woolf’s Asheham diary—“too different in character” from the other diaries, she noted, and “too laconic”—didn’t merit publishing in full. The second volume, from the summer of 1918, was omitted completely.

This summer, Granta has reissued Woolf’s diaries and billed them as “unexpurgated,” a promise that has caused no small stir among Woolf scholars, who had thought Olivier’s editions were complete. The new inclusions are, in fact, mostly minor: a handful of comments about Woolf’s friends, written toward the end of her life, including an unpleasant description of Igor Anrep’s mouth. Otherwise, Olivier’s volume divisions remain unchanged, her notes and indexes intact; it is as much a reproduction, and a celebration, of her scholarly masterpiece as of Woolf’s diaristic eye. The most significant addition is Asheham. For the first time, Woolf’s small diary—the last remaining autobiographical fragment to be published—appears in its entirety. And yet those readers turning to Granta’s edition for details of Woolf’s country life in 1918 must skip to the end of the first volume, and look for her diary beneath the heading “Appendix 3.”

***

Appendixes can be awkward, unwieldy things. They serve a scholarly function—to present information deemed unsuitable for the main body of a text, like an attachment, or an afterthought. And an appendix is an especially odd place for a diary, putting time out of sequence, disrupting the “current”—as Woolf liked to call it—of everyday life. The remaining paragraphs of the Asheham diary have been relegated behind the main text; they sit quietly, unobtrusively, documenting a life as minute and domestic as before. Returning to the house in 1918, Woolf records her days, the winter melting into spring—the last of the diary, and the war. Out on her walks, she sees “a few brown heath butterflies,” the air “swarming with little black beetles.” She spends afternoons on the terrace, the sun hot, “had to wear straw hat,” and in the evening, she and Leonard sit “eating our own broad beans—delicious.” There are more local intrigues: the coal from the cellar goes missing, a mysterious plague kills the farmer’s lambs. Day by day, she watches a caterpillar pupate. The news is better from France. Still, the German prisoners work in the fields. “When alone, I smile at the tall German.” But her entries are thinning. By September, there is “nothing to notice” on the Downs, or “nothing new.” Even the butterflies are less brilliant—a few tortoiseshells, some ragged blues. Finally, toward the back of the notebook, she lists the household linen to be washed.

Her attention had begun shifting elsewhere. In London, she was becoming intensely preoccupied with the Press, and with writing shorter things, impressions and color studies—the pieces that will make up her first book of stories, Monday or Tuesday, published in 1921. And yet, if one looks closely, one can see the diary in some of these stories; something like an underpainting.

Take, for instance, Katherine Mansfield’s visit to Asheham in August 1917. The diary’s summary of Katherine’s visit is brief: her train into Lewes was late, so Woolf bought a bulb for the flowerbed; later, the two writers walked on the terrace together, an airship maneuvering overhead. Yet from letters, we know that the manuscript for Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” was almost certainly brought out. In it, we can see the imprint of Asheham, its reversal of scales, its teeming insect life. In the story, which was published in 1919, human life takes place off center, in the murmur of conversation wafting above the flower bed, while the “vast green spaces” of the bed and the snail laboring over his crumbs of earth loom largest of all. The story, though set in Richmond, captures the atmosphere of Asheham. Its form, like the other stories in Monday or Tuesday, owes much to the episodic structure of her diary, in which impressions are hazy, words come and go, and attention is both microscopic and abstract. And its authorial presence mirrors the one we find in the notebook—a writer who is both there and not there, looking and noticing.

Toward the end of 1918, as Woolf’s convalescence comes to an end, so does her Asheham diary. Back in London, she muses on the project she has kept going for two years: “Asheham diary drains off my meticulous observations of flowers, clouds, beetles & the price of eggs,” she writes in her other, longer diary, “&, being alone, there is no other event to record.” It has served its purpose, paving a way back to writing after illness, of nursing her attention back to life. Though it was later forgotten, it always stood for one of her quietest and arguably most important periods, between her first attempts at writing and those fleeting experiments which determined the novels that came afterward. And it continued to be a storehouse for images to be drawn upon later—her nephews, Julian and Quentin Bell, carrying home antlers, like those in the attic nursery in To The Lighthouse; a grass snake on the path, like the one Giles Oliver crushes with his tennis shoe in Between the Acts; a continuous stream of butterflies and moths.

#history #virginia woolf #writing

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kamreadsandrecs · 2 years ago

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***

#virginia woolf #writing #history

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absolutebl · 9 days ago

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Best 24 of BL 2024 - Quirky Awards

ONLY shows that ENDED their runs in 2024 are up for awards.

SHOCK & AWE AWARDS

1. Biggest BL surprise of 2024:

Cherry Magic Thailand. TayNew's version was truly a lovely experience and very much its own take on the original, an adaptation rather than a remake. I'm so relieved and grateful that GMMTV managed to pull it off, and sad it wasn't more widely available.

2. The “that country did WHAT?” award:

Meet You At the Blossom from China. From start to finish it is exactly as it claimed to be, wuxia BL, including more than the expected amount of sexual claiming (dubious consent to the point of rape) and actual kisses, wife language, floaty sleeves, you name it. FROM CHINA!!!

3. Biggest casting whoa! where did you come from? award:

Up & Poom in My Stand-In. I mean, WHERE did you two come from and how did this happen? Holy smokes. My goodness are we grateful!

4. That studio did WHAT now? award:

Youku putting Unknown out wide and easily avaiable on YouTube (for most of us). It's just really rare for a Taiwanese BL to get any kind of distribution. And to do that with arguably the best TaBL of the year and not some sad little mew mew? Amazing.

5. I’m sad you were ignored award:

Sugar Dog Life - such a charming JBL, so hard to find. I'm so sad it didn't get distribution. It's charming, one of my favorites of the year, worth tracking down if you can.

6. 2024 BL That Actually Made Me Lose My Mind Award?

I gotta be honest, it was The Sign. I was such a chaotic mess of a show but never once was I bored. It was the only one that drove me into memes and captions and silliness.

I did go a bit feral for a while over Love for Loves Sake and Wandee Gooday not to mention The Only One (until it went tits-up).

NARRATIVE AWARDS

7. Best story 2024:

Cherry Magic (Thai remake). I know, but it worked just as well in another country, if not better. I always enjoy this kind of magical realism concept (after all Color Rush is one of my all time favorite BLs) and despite the increased length, the pacing was solid on this one... even from Thailand.

8. Best narrative structure 2024 award:

Love For Love's Sake. A KBL isekai about a man who must win a game by convincing a reserved teen outcast to fall in love with him. Of course, that teen represents himself and his own unhappiness. I drowned in this show and liked it that way.

9. Best 2024 dialogue (script) award:

We Are, it was just so much fun. And so FUNNY.

10. Favorite scene 2024:

Like anyone needed to ask. Unknown, of course.

11. The most rewatchable BL of 2024 award:

We Are

It's just all the couples are so cute and the core friendship group is so charming and endearing.

ACTORS & CHARACTERS AWARDS

12. Best performance of a queer actor in a leading role:

no award this year, yeah the whole damn industry should be thoroughly ashamed of itself

13. Best pining 2024:

The Time of Fever. That feeding him orange while lying on the floor scene ALONE.

14. Best wingman 2024 (The Namgoong Award)

Yai in The Sign.

15. Biggest OMG I LOVE you boys together, YAY!

SailubPon from Pit Babe & This Love Doesn't Have Longbeans, from the softness of one to the health code violations of the other. Sure their shows are bonkers, but man are these two good at bonkers (and bonking).

With a nod to BigPark from Monster Next Door.

16. Most unexpected return of a BL pair? award:

OffGun. There were rumors that Off was out at the beginning of 2023. And then they came back with 2 shows in 2024 (Cooking Crush and The Trainee)!

17. Well aren't you two just the prettiest? award:

I dithered a lot (Babe's damn waist and OMG The Sign's sex scenes hawt), but in the end it had to go to GreatInn. They were just so good at showing their characters having FUN together. There is a lot of beauty in enjoying sex and another person's company. It's so rare to see that portrayed in a BL (and it shouldn't be rare).

18. LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

I'm actually giving it to OffGun. Ya know, where others falter, these two just keep going. It's kinda amazing.

RANDOM PICKS

19. Favorite Linguistic Moment of 2024:

The general flirtatious banter from Last Twilight.

20. Biggest disappointment of 2024:

Addicted Heroin (Thai version). Some of the very best original material + one of my favorite Thai actors (who I've been waiting eons to see in a BL again) and THIS was the result? They could have fixed China's worst BL mistake, instead the made everything worse. I'm gonna be bitter for a really really long time.

I gotta sat The Only One comes a real close second tho. And I'm still mad about Last Twilight, too.

21. Best Wardrobe/Prop Use 2023

Meet You At The Blossom - I love a pretty boy pissing contest over who has the biggest sleeves. Twirl you beautiful bastards, TWIRL!

22. Best Queer Rep 2024

Again, not great this year. I loved the fun sex and play in Wandee, but there were precious few femme characters, and in general it felt like we took some steps back from queerness this year. So I'm gonna give it to Deep Night, because at least they gave us honest poly for the first time.

23. Best Meta Trope call out

Love for Love Sake - Korea taking to task the Dead Fish Kiss when they are often the worst offender was...... amusing.

But Deep Night having male sex workers having to act like they were in a BL for a couple chicks...... literally gay for pay depicting gay for pay and just, well, that's frankly a gut punch. There was some sarcastic clapping on my side of the screen.

24. Well aren't you getting all Live Action Yaoi retro with your bad self?

Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave gets my vintage af award. I flipping LOVED it. Would I recommend it? Only if you, yourself, are a bit vintage.

Final question: which of the 24 was the hardest for me to pick?

20 Biggest disappointment of 2024. Look I had some pretty high expectations of some returning pairs, some great ideas, and some intriguing remakes. 2024 was full of disappointments.

2022's Version of the Quirkies

2023's Version of the Quirkies

Remember I only pull from shows that were completely finished by the end of 2024.

(source)

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myupostsheadcanons · 2 years ago

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Books “Read” in 2022

I listen to audio books during work to fill up the time instead of listening to the radio or pod casts. Often a good reader can make a bland book sound better than it is.

I rate these books not totally on literary quality, but by how much I enjoyed experiencing them. Fun Garbage >>> Boring Navel gazing.

List from 2021

Previous entries: 2020. 2019, 2018, 2017

https://www.listchallenges.com/audio-books-myu-read-in-2022

My Top Books/Series This Year

Shadow of the Gods & The Hunger of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Trilogy, Books 1 & 2) - John Gwynne - Was your favorite part of “The First Law” Series everything that happened in The North? It is cold and grim. Gods once ruled this land, but all that remains now is their bones and their descendants, those tainted with their blood. But someone is going around taking tainted children from their parents, a mother goes on a bloody rampage to get her son back from these people.

Suttree - Cormac McCarthy - dark/stark modern fiction. McCarthy is a master at making bleak and grim stories that show the dirty underbelly of people and society. The main character, Suttree, lives his life on the fringes of the underprivileged, having been exiled/turned his back on his previous life of wealth, escaping one set of social pressures to be faced with the turmoils of another.

Pit Bull - Bronwen Dickey - a book about the history of the Bull Terrier breed of dogs, the laws put in place to regulate ownership, the abuse these dogs go through, and what can be done to salvage the reputation of these dogs. A dog book that made me cry because I’ve own pitty’s and they are perhaps the best dogs we’ve ever owned.

The Demon-Haunted World - Carl Sagan - I highly recommend this book as an object lesson in how to use critical thinking skills and how to debunk basic conspiracy theories. Using science and basic logic Sagan debunks several ‘supernatural’ occurrences commonly believed as true among the superstitious, conspiracy nutwads, and alien abduction theorists.

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie - Having one of the main characters be omnipresence and tell the story about the other protagonist by using gender-neutral language, by referring to them as “you” rather than he/she/them/they. Ann is solid when it comes to having complicated main characters that are on the LGBTQ spectrum and do it tactfully and not feel forced in. This is a stand alone book, and a fantasy. Good for someone that doesn’t want to read her Science Fiction work.

A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World - Gender Neutral Main Character. I know the author asks for reviews not to spoil it bc it is kind of a twist at the end, but I think the title itself turns the people that would find this a really good read “off” bc they aren’t looking for another “boy-focused adventure book”.... it isn’t. If you aren’t wanting a post-apocalyptic story as soul crushing to read like The Road or something deep but still appropriate for a tweenager to read.

Space Odyssey - Michael Benson - An in-depth documentary on the making of Kubrick’s iconic movie and Clark’s writing of the novelization. It doesn’t sugar coat that Kubrick was an ass, demanded perfection, spent hours on scenes, even broke laws on filming scenes that were ether cut or only a few seconds long. It does humanize him rather than paint him as a total demon. Clark also had many short comings. He was scammed out of money by his ex-wife, on the rights to the book/screenplay of 2001, having his finances tied up in a movie his boyfriend was making on the side, then had to fight against peddo allegations when he was older.

Other Favorite Books and Guilty Pleasures

Star Kingdom, Books 6, 7, 8, Asylum (Book 9) - Lindsay Buroker - The second half of my favorite series from last year. These books do not disappoint. I absolutely love the characters, how they interact off of one another, and the conclusion was so satisfying. Asylum should be considered a sequel more than a continuation, and Buroker has hinted at continuing on in the Star Kingdom universe soon.

The Emperor’s Edge (Books 1-3) - Lindsay Buroker - Ex-Cop and Former Royal Assassin team up to create a task-force to protect the young Emperor from within and outside threats. There is a “love triangle” but it isn’t insufferable, the way Buroker writes characters makes many of her romance subplots more digestible and no where near as sappy. The amount of sarcasm and snarky-witty dialogue in her writing is always a treat.

Roxy - Neil Shusterman - a good companion book to “Challenger Deep.” The framing device by giving the various drugs personas is well done, it makes a complicated subject easy to digest for 14-16 YA readers.

The Raybearer, Redemptor (The Raybearer, Books 1 & 2) - Jordan Ifueko - African Mythology Flavored Fantasy. Made for the Young Adult audience, so has the obligatory romance plot in the middle of it, but also has poly, lgbt, and ace relationships. The premise itself is set up around creating a “ruling council” of diverse characters, each bringing a unique magic skill/ability to the table, and the group having to learn to work together. “The younger generation fixing generational institutionalized violence, racism, and corruption.” with a bit of “Jesus and his 12 disciples, atoning for the sins of mankind.”

Too Many Curses - A. Lee Martinez - A satire/comedy fantasy about a kobolt hench that “inherits” the castle and all the responsibility of governing its cursed wacky inhabitants. It is a cute read, mild enough for a tween to read. A YA book that doesn't have a romance subplot in it.

The Sandman: Act 2 - Neil Gaiman - If you can’t wait for the show to make more episodes... the full-cast audio production is a good way to fill that void.

The Victorian City - Judith Flanders - One part biography on Charles Dickens, another part breaking down how daily life was during Victorian London. A good read for people wanting to write stories taking place during that time period or have a love for things like steampunk settings.

Slewfoot - Brom - those damn puritans. a woman wise in folk craft is sold into colonialism and has to struggle against the patriarchy of the church. God vs. Nature, both being portrayed as good and evil. It has a couple call-backs to Brom’s ‘Lost Gods’ but don’t have to read that book to understand what is going on.

Shards of Earth - Adrian Tchaikovsky - Earth is destroyed by Eldritch Space Horrors. The remainder of humanity has to deal with protecting their new home from the return of the Architects and survival among other alien races. Among the best-of-the-best of humanity defenders are the “Amazon Warrior Women” and genetically modified psychic pilots that can communicate with the ‘other side’. Rag-tag group of misfits suddenly find themselves front-and-center of the war for galactic survival.

Good Books, But Not Everybody’s Cup of Tea.

Provenance - Ann Lickie - Sequel to the “Ancillary Justice” books. It is more in tone with the second and third book than the first one. Lots of Politicking, but in a snarky kind of way.

N0S4A2 - Joe Hill - If you liked Steven King’s works, this takes place in the same universe as The Shining/IT/Pet Sematary (The SKEU... if you will). Same tone and quality as well.

Philip K. Dick’s Collected Works, Vol 2. - Has the short stories that inspired The Terminator and The Thing, as well as a few others I enjoyed. The one about the woman that believe the world revolved around her was neat and also played into Solipsism, the same philosophy that tied back into Jack Campbell’s “Pillars of Reality” series and how the magic system works there.

Flowers in the Attic - V. C. Andrews - if you are “ok” with ASOIAF’s Targaryans, you’ll be fine with this book. My mom said she read the rest of the books after I told her I read this one, I am not interested in the others bc the series becomes a Soap after this one. This book is closer to being a Gothic Horror (of the non supernatural type).

Hercule Poirot (The Complete Short Story Collection) - Agatha Christie - The cases aren’t really the important part, it is the character writing. Poirot will always win in the end.

The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman - Trickster Main Character. The book is read by the author, in brogue. It has more singing in it than “The Kingkiller Chronicles” and that book’s main character was a Bard. This main character isn’t ashamed of being a morally gray character and the story doesn’t exaggerate his exploits.

Vampire Hunter D - Hideyuki Kikuchi - The light novels that inspired the future punk vampire genre. If you had seen the movie from the 80s, this expands on a lot of it and explains how their world works better.

Ex-Purgatory, Ex-Isle (Ex-Heroes, Books 4 and 5) - Peter Clines - EP is more fallout from the previous book. It is kind of cruel what happened to “The Karen”... but then, there are more than a few politicians that should have karma happen to them. “It couldn’t of happened to a better person.”

Existentially Challenged (The DEDA Files, book 2) - Yahtzee Croshaw - A satirical commentary on social media, using children for fame, and bogus faith healing.

Sorrowland - Rivers Solomon - Handles issues of racism and lgbtq. Southern Supernatural Horror. It uses the ‘transforming into another being’ as an allegory for the main character not to understand what is going on with her body and feelings, and why they aren’t normal and are being demonized.

The Wizards of Sevendor (Spellmonger, anthology), Arcanist, Footwizard (The Spellmonger, Books 12 & 13) - Terry Mancour - This is when this epic fantasy series takes a hard turn and becomes a science fiction series. If you read the series this far, just keep on reading. I only like the books that have Minalian as the main protagonist. The books where he isn’t in them very much nor the main focus can be skipped, as events do get summarized in other books later.

Ariadne: A Novel - Jennifer Saint - I liked this one more than “Daughters of Sparta” and “10,000 Ships” but not as much of “Circe.” The first half is “ok” it picks up in the second half after being left on the island.

Priest of Bones - Peter McLean - dirty, gritty, and grimy (with a pinch of dark sarcasm). A thief/thug earned his priesthood on the battlefield, returns home to “clean house” and ends up climbing social ladders and getting more trouble than bargained for.

A Case of Possession (Charm of the Magpies, book 2) - K. J. Charles - Like the first book, it has a decent mystery/crime plot that moves the story along and characters that don’t overstay their welcome... have to like MLM smexy scenes.

Boundless (The Lost Fleet: Outlands, Book 1) - Jack Campbell - the first book of a new Lost Fleet Series. The fleet is unable to stay in system as politics fester, so go on a deep space mission to talk to aliens.

Out of House and Home (Fred the Vampire Accountant) - Drew Hayes - shit just got suuuuper serious as the rivalries pick up between the vampire houses. A friend and their home is targeted, the group has to find a new place to live while they recover and plan their move.

Comet - Carl Sagan - it is half a biography on Edmond Halley, the guy the comet is named after, and the other half science behind how we discovered what they were made of before we could shoot rockets at them.

The Magician’s Guild, The Novice, The High Lord (Black Magician Trilogy, Books 1, 2 & 3) - Trudy Canavan - If you had read the “Shades of Magic” books, this series has the same tone/quality (it addresses homophobia and that some societies do treat people different shades of acceptance). Street Urchin finds out she has magic, has to run from the law, but ends up accepted into the magic school... which the head mage is a rather shady. The “ship” in the third book is just as shady.

Tongue Eater (Mage Errant, Book 6) - John Bierce - Revenge at any cost is too high of a price. It is a compare and contrast between how the main antagonist is going about to carry out their plans of revenge and the apprentice group are coping with the betrayal and the deaths of friends and family.

Average Sauce

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon - This book is over hyped. It is an average book that gets recommended to progressive-readers just because it has some representation. The exciting part of the plot doesn’t pick up until the dragon attacks the city 1/3 of the way into the book.

Belgarath The Sorcerer - David & Leigh Eddings - Made during that time when “strong female character” = bitch. If you can ignore the “boys-club” champion, the world building is rather solid.

The Color of Dragons - R. A. Salvatore - By the Numbers Fantasy. It is a Stand Alone, so if you are after a “one shot“ that isn’t very long and isn’t trying to be challenging on any issues.

Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City (Unconventional Heroes, Book 4) - L. G. Estrella - The Elf is still annoying, there is some repetition in information, the novelty isn’t as shinny as it was at the start, but the actual plot is picking up more.

The King Must Die / The Bull From the Sea - Mary Renault - The Story of Theseus, grounded less in mythology and more in reality. IE: the Labyrinth is a bull fighting ring, there is no actual Minotaur.

The House of Sixty Fathers - Meindert DeJong - A children’s book from the 50s that I read during a power outage. It is from the POV of a Chinese child during WWII. Full of Pro-Ally propaganda of the era.

Andria Vernon and the Superhero Industrial Complex & Andrea Vernon and the Big Axe Acquisition (Andrea Vernon, Book 2 & 3) - Alexander C. Kane - the humor is hit-or-miss, some of the character’s powers are pretty neat. I kept yelling “GLARE!” at random.

The Dragon’s Blade Trilogy - Michael. R. Miller - There are a lot of good things in this series, but it just didn’t “stand out” from other series of its kind. It is one of those series that characters “randomly” die, and the protagonists are vilified by history.

Elric of Melnibone (Vol 1.) - Michael Moorcock - The opening by Neil Gaiman is tone deaf to the rest of the stories. The stories themselves are reminiscent of old adventure stories like Conan and John Carter, and if you like those series, this would fit in quite well.

Machine Learning (Short Story Compilation) - Hugh Howey - I don’t remember half of the stories from this short story anthology. I do remember a couple and I thought were really good. There is a Wool/Silo story. The rest are rather PKD like.

Daughters of Sparta: A Novel - Not the best reinterpretation of the character’s I’ve came across. It tries to go “dark” in some places, but doesn’t quite get there.

The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood - Interesting framing device, with the character telling her story from the after life to a modern person. It is part satire, part Greek Play.

The Science of Middle-Earth - Lehoucq, Mangin, Steyer - It’s educational. Not a whole lot else to say about it.

Casts and Outcasts, books 2 & 3 - Davis Ashura - Solid fantasy story, not a whole lot to make it stand out from the crowd. It has more of a South-East Asian flavor to it than a typical Westernized Fantasy story.

A Bad Deal for the Whole Galaxy, The Worst of All Possible Worlds (Salvagers, Books 2 & 3) - Alex White - It is Science Fiction with a Magic System. Read the first book last year, figured I would finish the rest of them. Group of misfits trying to save the galaxy. One of those average series that gets recommended more often because of people looking for books with main characters that are LGBTQ.

Tides of Fate (The Ronin Saga, Book 4) - Matthew Wolf - A series just interesting enough to pick up the next book each time one comes out. (Gather your new team member, go to magic city, fight the bad guys there, find clues to point to next city.)

Second Story Man, War of Posers, Skull and Thrones (Bad Guys, books 2, 3 & 4) - Eric Ugland - Eric Ugland - Lit-RPG Isekai series. The main character is morally gray and is trapped in the game world. It is very much “of the genera” but with more dark sarcasm.

Readable/Passable.

Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian Omnibus. - I don’t remember most of the stories. I actually found the blurbs before each story talking about the author more interesting.

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters - Ursula K. Le Guin - if you are a completionist, read this book. There is a couple stories from her Hanish and Earthsea series in here. The rest of the stories are on par with other contemporary authors at the time.

The Silmarillion - J. R. R. Tolkien - it is dense. there are few conversations. it would be difficult for anybody to adapt it into live action. it is like reading a bible and a guide book.

From Russia, With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service - (James Bond) - Ian Fleming - what I realized while listening to these books, it isn’t the plot nor the characters, it is how things are described that are really well written.

The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy - you’re fine if you just watch the movie.

Bottom of the Barrel.

Between Planets - Heinlein - It isn’t necessarily a “bad book”... it is very much full of Heinleinisms. “Libertarians in Space.” The Farting Alien is the best character.

#myu reads #books read in 2022 #audio books of 2022 #booklr #book review

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unpopularopinionbydemand · 3 years ago

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Meow Ears Up Review ✐∗ ˖࣪ ༻

Same review on MDL!!

Rating ~ 7 - Weird, yet I couldn't stop watching. Other than some random filler moments, and a wasted ending, this was a delightful watch.

Spotlight Aspect of MEU ~ ˖ ࣪ 𖥔 Actors' Chemistry ˖ ࣪ 𖥔

Recommend? Only for the ones that can handle the content of this show. Not explicit or sexual, just very odd and over-the-top sweet, plus extremely PG.

MEU Info ~ Company: Artop Media - Episodes: 8 - Duration: max 45 mins - Known actors? James as Meow (The Effect), Mark as Porsche (Love By chance, Bite Me) - Where did I watch? Dramacool.

Review:

Weirdly Entertaining, yet it Loses itself in the Middle (spoilers)

I'll start this off by saying this is NOT for everyone, and I mean that with everything in me. If you can get used to the fact that a grown man is acting like a cat, along with the most frustrating theme song ever known to man, then you might be able to watch this. Otherwise, you're wasting your time. And this is coming from someone who actually really enjoyed MEU. I've been in a pretty bad slump when it came to BLs. Things were starting to feel too repetitive and I needed a switch up. This was that switch-up. I can't explain why this show piqued my interest, or why every Tuesday I would genuinely be so excited to watch, but seriously, this series is nothing but buttercup-rainbow supreme. It's a catering worth of fluff, with some angst to wash down the spoonful of sugar you just swallowed. This is why I say this wasn't for everybody, because if a sweet tooth on crack isn't your forte then neither is this show.

Let's Dive in.

꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒦꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷꒷꒦꒷꒦꒷

Meow Ears Up is the first (as I know of) in the on-screen BL community to showcase a metamorphizing cat that has the ability to turn into a human. During a bad storm, Negative Nancy Dermdew brings in a stray cat from the streets only to realize that that cat was a cat-human. They have their own story, and so do the other side characters, Faiyen, Evan, Jin, and Manni. From the first episode, I knew that this wasn't going to be easy. Learning how I was going to be able to watch James act like a cat and not cringe was difficult. And sure, there's cringe, but after a while, I got used to it, and it just becomes a part of the watch experience.

At first, the only frustrating thing was the fact that Meow seemed to be the only one that didn't know anything about the human world. His brother, who managed to make it to college, is intelligent enough to survive through adult-like activities, and so can Manni (although, she's a mouse, or a hamster, or a bear or dog, or whatever she was). They do explain that he was scared of humans because they were mean to him as a cat, but I think a better explanation of his and Faiyen's upbringing could've answered more of those questions. I can't remember if they even had parents, which I think was explained, but again, I don't remember.

What was helping me survive through this series was Dermdem and Meow's relationship, which I found very appealing and cuter than cute. Dermdem helped Meow with everyday activities, while Meow simultaneously taught Dermdem how to show love to another, and teach that life didn't always have to be about work. And this was probably the best thing the show did, show development between the two of them without anything moving too fast, or seemingly too slow. And while I'm glad nothing extremely intimate went down between them (cause there is a part of Meow that still needs to progress before anything like that happens), it was a huge letdown that they don't end up together by the end. Maybe the creators left this open for a season 2, where we see a few years into the future when a much more mature Meow and Dermdem living together, but until it's announced, I feel like I was dillydallying in a bromance type series, and I try to avoid those at all cost.

I absolutely loved Faiyen, with all of me. I will miss his bright aura and darling smile. Bright (Faiyen) did a fantastic job at playing this character. He was sunshine times 10, and there was never a dull moment when watching him. I don't know how I feel about Evan, and I won't blame Bodo (Evan) for this since it was a part of his character, but god, did I hate this no-emotion syndrome he has. Bodo himself is a lovely-looking man, and the very few times he did smile, I caught myself doing the same. But for most of his story, he was just a talking robot, and it was upsetting. There was nothing there for me to actually appreciate the existence of his character, other than to make Faiyen happy. Their relationship was enduring in the beginning, but by the end, it fell flat. Evan did this weird lay-his-head-on-Faiyen's-head thing and it didn't feel natural at all. I think a hug or being close in proximity could've sufficed.

I originally started watching this series because the GL couple caught my eye, and since SCOY gave me nothing, I thought this series could at least bring something. And sure, they had a good amount of screen time, but none of it was to develop their relationship romantically. Jin's this stubborn woman and Manni is the complete opposite. There are some points that we see Jin soften up around her, but nothing's ever said to really make me think that they should go together. Other than a close-in-proximity trope, nothing happens between these two. If anything, they gave me best-friends vibes. I wanted so much more from then, really.

Some episodes were straight filler, but I didn't mind it because I sincerely liked pretty much every single character. But that time used to show random shit, or have Mark randomly appear for an episode, could've been used to further these three's relationships.

But overall, and like I've already said, I loved this series until the end. It could've been worst, like they could've all died or something, but leaving each couple open-ended sucked ass. I at least thought Faiyen and Evan would get an ending, but nope, none of them do. I think a second season would only work, for Dermdem and Meow's sake, if they do it years later, like 3 or 4 when Meow's had more time to learn about human characteristics and behaviors and act more appropriately to his age. I never really saw him as acting like a child until someone pointed it out, and yes, I can see it, however, I wouldn't go so far as to call Dermdem a "pedophile" or to say that them loving each other would be morally wrong. Meow is in full control of his feelings and emotions (who's also an adult), and in addition to that, Dermdem would just never do anything to Meow that he didn't have a full understanding of. There were PLENTY of times that Dermdem could've kissed Meow, and he doesn't. Also, these are just fictional characters, so I don't care enough to think that deeply about them. I just watch and have fun, exactly what this type of series is for; it's nothing to take seriously (and those wigs are great examples).

Ratings:

Story: 6.5 - Some bits were really enjoyable. Seeing Dermdem and Meow's domestic relationship was probably my favorite part, along with Faiyen and Evan. Manni and Jin were cute, but the whole work thing was kind of boring. Their individual backstories were fun, Evan's though a bit annoying. But for the most part, I enjoyed the story until it got kind of filler-y and had no good ending.

Acting: 8.5 - James and Bright were hands down the best. It was weird watching James act like a cat, but he does put on a really good performance. And Bright is just memorizing. I really hope to see him again. Po, Gap, and Kris were good too. I think Bodo could've been good, but he was given the blandest character to portray, so I hope I see him again with a more complex person to play.

Music: 2.0 - Fuck no. and I would give a 1 star, but I feel bad giving it anything lower. I don't know who came up with that theme song, or who even green-lighted it to go on air, but I hope they're in jail now. A MUCH better uplifting song could've worked 10 times better.

Rewatch value: 5 - As I said, I really enjoyed that I just got to sit back and really just watch this for what it is, and didn't feel the need to analyze anything. I would for sure have this one while doing homework or working.

Overall, I really liked this show (even though I complain more than I applaud). But I'll say again that it's NOT for everybody. Watch the first episode and see for yourself. I would definitely tell the few of you that like intimacy in a BL to go ahead and drop this because the most you get is a kiss on the cheek. I could recommend this to CHILDREN. That's how PG it is. But I don't mind PG, which is why I enjoyed it.

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thereaderstea · 3 years ago

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baking with bts week

This week, The Reader’s Tea bakes! (But shhh! 🤫 Don’t tell Nani!)

These stories throw us into the heat of the kitchen whether it’s the heat of a kitchen flame, a rivalry, or a slow burn romance. From friendly baking competitions, to critical food reviews, from playful kitchen antics, to accidentally setting something on fire, these stories deliver tooth-rotting fluff, chocolate-bitter rivalries, and everything but the kitchen sink.

Grab your fire extinguisher, and, well, if the kitchen burns down at least we can still enjoy some Tea.

Monday, the Day of the Moon

Thyme 4 Love by @krookedkoo | The Reader’s Tea ➵knj x reader | fluff, sol, f2l, neighbors to lovers | series | on-hiatus

It’s a new year and you have decided on one new major resolution: Becoming a Bomb A** Chef! There’s only one problem...you can hardly make more than a grilled cheese sandwich. Good thing you have your friend and neighbor, Namjoon to help you every step of the way. Sure, he’s a worse cook than you but, what’s more fun than learning together?

Tuesday, the Day of War

It isn’t hard to be a pâtisserie chef, but it’s not a piece of cake either. It seems like for you in particular, life keeps throwing in one wrench after another. It always finds ways to make your sweets bitter. The cherry on top is Jeon Jungkook — a rival with a sensitive sweet tooth who always finds ways to complain about you.

Wednesday, the Day of Knowledge

You're the hardest person to satisfy, but Yoongi doesn't bat a single lash when he rises to the challenge.

In which you, a food critic, wonder how the hell Kim Seokjin manages to stay in business considering how horrendous his food seems to be.

Thursday, the Day of Thunder and Lightning

your whole life, you’ve hoped to get a job at your idol’s restaurant. It finally comes, with the added bonus of the executive chef and your new best friend, Taehyung (who you definitely don’t have a crush on), but what if it’s all too good to be true? You and Taehyung try new things.

Friday, the Day of Love

After your grandfather's passing, you decide to take over his farm and plant the trendiest vegetable: kale. It's a struggle to be in the countryside when you've always been a city girl. But there's someone less than sympathetic — a grumpy farmer across the acres who's constantly trying to pick a fight with you.

You come from a long line of matchmakers. Your ancestors' ancestors were matchmakers and it's all because of a special, inborn gift. A gift that allows you to see each person's fated ones above their heads. But it's not so much a gift when one day, your boss walks in with YOU above him.

Saturday, the Day of Rest and Renewal

Taehyung’s men accidentally kidnap a baker’s daughter instead of the daughter of his rival.

Sunday, the Day of the Sun

Life is relatively peaceful and productive as a CEO of your own business. You’re thriving. But when Jeon Jungkook sets up shop right next to you — it’s the fucking showdown of the century. HOT DOGS VERSUS CORN DOGS.

#mlist #bts fluff #baker au #chef au #bts fanfic #fanfic rec #fanfic review #baking with bts week #august 2021 weeklong special #weeklong special

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redglassesgirl-maruma · 4 years ago

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Hello Everyone!

A day like today 20 years ago the first novel of our beloved series was published in November 2000. This is an incredible anniversary and that’s why we’ll celebrate the whole month with events!

I hope you can join this special occasion and contribute a little bit by sharing your posts and art here in tumblr.

This is not the first event run by this blog, if you want to see what we did in previous years you can visit my tags MA Event, MA Event 2017 and MA Event 2018.

The dynamic of the events is to have some deliver themes and inspiration divided in different sections. This event will run weekly, except for the last week of the month when we’ll have daily content shared to inspire you even more.

Please save the date around the last weekend of November for our Live Chat! I’ll post more information about the exact date and time along the next weekly posts.

Update: Live Chat Sunday 29 at 1am Buenos Aires timezone GTM-3 You can check online comparing with your time zone here. We’ll meet and chat, share opinions, and play some games or draw together!

20th Anniversary MA Event - First Week Activity Share your MAlove, share your MArt! From November 1 to November 8

This week we’ll draw fanarts, write fanfics or make any other kind of media to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. We have list of 365 prompts in case you need a little bit of extra inspiration, please check under the cut and try to mix anything you pick with a festive mood to make it really special ;D

Remember to tag your posts with #MAnniversary 2020 and #MA Event

Links to the weekly event’s posts:

Prompts:

01. Introduction

02. Love

03. Light

04. Dark

05. Seeking Solace

06. Break Away

07. Heaven

08. Innocence

09. Drive

10. Breathe Again

11. Memory

12. Insanity

13. Misfortune

14. Smile

15. Silence

16. Questioning

17. Blood

18. Rainbow

19. Gray

20. Fortitude

21. Vacation

22. Mother Nature

23. Cat

24. No Time

25. Trouble Lurking

26. Tears

27. Foreign

28. Sorrow

29. Happiness

30. Under the Rain

31. Flowers

32. Night

33. Expectations

34. Stars

35. Hold my Hand

36. Precious Treasure

37. Eyes

38. Abandoned

39. Dreams

40. Rated

41. Teamwork

42. Standing Still

43. Dying

44. Two Roads

45. Illusion

46. Family

47. Creation

48. Childhood

49. Stripes

50. Breaking the Rules

51. Fanart

52. Deep in Thought

53. Keeping a Secret

54. Tower

55. Waiting

56. Danger Ahead

57. Sacrifice

58. Kick in the Head

59. No Way Out

60. Rejection

61. Fairy Tale

62. Magic

63. Do Not Disturb

64. Multitasking

65. Horror

66. Traps

67. Playing the Melody

68. Hero

69. Annoyance

70. 67%

71. Obsession

72. Mischief Managed

73. I Can’t

74. Are You Challenging Me?

75. Mirror

76. Broken Pieces

77. Test

78. Drink

79. Starvation

80. Words

81. Pen and Paper

82. Can You Hear Me?

83. Heal

84. Out Cold

85. Spiral

86. Seeing Red

87. Food

88. Pain

89. Through the Fire

90. Triangle

91. Drowning

92. All That I Have

93. Give Up

94. Last Hope

95. Advertisement

96. In the Storm

97. Safety First

98. Puzzle

99. Solitude

100. Relaxation

101. Hello World

102. Fear

103. Anger

104. Regret

105. Happiness

106. Love

107. Family

108. Friendship

109. Home

110. Childhood

111. Adulthood

112. Birth

113. Death

114. Me

115. You

116. Thoughts

117. Emotion

118. Sun

119. Rain

120. Thunder

121. Noon

122. Midnight

123. Twilight

124. Rooms

125. Window to the Soul

126. Games

127. Halo

128. Serenity

129. Firefly

130. Phone

131. Movie

132. Television

133. Plants

134. Freedom

135. Forgetfulness

136. Remembrance

137. Memorial

138. War

139. Fight

140. Loss

141. Winning

142. Losing

143. Nature

144. Hurricane

145. Storms are brewing

146. Lightning

147. Colors

148. Bravo

149. Punishment

150. Picture

151. Another Wolfs

153. The Life You Dream Of

154. Dreams

155. Tears

157. Smiling

158. Laughing

159. Crying

160. Looking in the Mirror

161. Steam

162. Candy

163. Cats

164. Dogs

165. Glasses

166. Orbit

167. Satellite

168. Stars

169. Jade

170. Emerald

171. Gems

172. Dreaming Out Loud

173. Insomnia

174. Rabbits

175. Snake

176. Borders

177. The Year

178. This Time

179. Last Time

180. Forever and a Day

181. Sometimes

182. Always

183. Power

184. Weakness

185. Green

186. Purple

187. Blue

188. Sight

189. Blindness

190. Hurtful

191. Stages of grief

192. Arguments

193. Country

194. Frog

195. Forest

196. River

197. Flying

198. Mountains

199. Snow

200. Goodbye

201. Heart of Glass

202. My Life

203. Me In a Nutshell

204. Forever Yours

205. True Colors

206. My best friend’s girl

207. Impossible Love

208. Forgiveness

209. Fibers of Our Lives

210. Challenging Dream

211. Living My Dream

212. Forgetting Myself

213. Saving Grace

214. Lonely

215. Unbalanced

216. See-saw

217. Math

218. Match Making

219. Beyond Good and Evil

220. Second Sight

221. Double Take

223. Upon Review

224. Losing You

225. Baseball

226. Shouting

227. Farmland

228. Heartland

229. Brick Wall

230. Glass Houses

231. Eyes

231. Ring

233. Circle

234. Square

235. Boxes

236. Moving

237. Well Being

238. Insanity

239. Repetition

240. Learning

241. Class

242. Flowers

243. Special

244. Snowflakes

245. The Man They Call Jayne

246. Malicious

247. Pretty on the Outside

248. The Outside

249. Thankful

250. Neglect

251. Remorse

252. Embracement

253. Reflecting on My Life

254. Space

255. Constellation

256. Collection

257. Magic

258. Thrill

259. Attack

260. 20 Seconds to Mars

261. Unable

262. Foolish

263. Science

264. Sign of Life

265. Motto

266. Me

267. Balloon

268. Self Esteem

269. Narcissism

270. Ideology

271. Pageantry

272. Keeping Up With the Jones’s

273. Crack in Your Armor

274. Spilling Your Guts

275. Lean on Me

276. Crippling Emotion

277. Biggest Fear

278. Prejudices

279. Fresh

280. Corn

281. Sugar

282. Ice Cream

283. Accents

284. Speech

285. Writing

286. Doom

287. Shape

288. The Real You

289. My Name Is ____

290. Who are You on the Inside

291. Hidden Hatred

292. Hanging

293. Jacket

294. Jail

295. Stepping Up to the Plate

296. Star Player

297. My Hero

298. Castle

299. Losing Yourself

300. Finding Hope

301. Pirates

302. Fallen Angel

303. Drowning Lessons

304. Ghosts in the snow

305. Rawr.

306. Pidgeons… Birdy

307. Broken Hearts Parade

308. Paranoid

309. Vampires

310. Betrayal

311. Emmi&Rumura

312. The three friends

313. Horror

314. Mirror

315. Candlelight

316. Spider moneky

317. Devil

318. Flowers

319. Teddy Bear

320. Mist

321. Kingdom Hearts

322. Ferret

323. Vanilla

324. Thunder

325. Pinto Pony

326. M&Ms

327. Killer

328. Grass

329. Peace

330. Chibi

331. Mr. Klaw, polite Lion

332. Eternal

333. Star girl

334. Hats

335. Calvin & Hobbes

336. Misery (A cup full of something… unknown )

337. Hot chocolate

338. My Chemical Romance

339. Light in the darkness

340. Laughter

341. Nightmares

342. Necklace

343. Fire

344. Clorotaint and Treegirl

345. Swirls

346. Pokemon

347. Friends

348. Double Trouble

349. Do not cross

350. Unknowing

351. Chocolate

352. Time

353. A phone

354. Little kids on a playground

355. Darkness

356. A purple lady

357. Writer’s block

358. The dark corner in my room that I go to cry at (and a unicorn)

359. Sunglasses

360. The sun relaxing by an air conditioner

361. A girl fleeing from her nightmares

362. A girl staring at a blank canvas

363. A visual representation of poetry

364. Trolls

365. A hat

#kkm #kyou kara maou #kyo kara maoh #maruma #ma event #MAnniversary 2020

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